From Successor to Predecessor: General Grant Writes President Johnson

Following the death of Abraham Lincoln, the question of Reconstruction in post-Civil War America was in flux. New President Andrew Johnson, a former slaveholder from Tennessee, was on surface a very stark contrast from the Illinois lawyer. While he initially appeared to a Republican Congress, Radicals even, as a potentially compatible partner, Johnson progressively began to fulfill his surface appearance as Southern sympathizer throughout his time in office. However his administration may be viewed historically after the fact, it appears that Johnson's understanding of how to approach Reconstruction was blossoming at first. Because of this, he decided to inquire about alternative views.

During the first year of his tenure, the President was under the influence of a series of informants that traveled through the South and observed its conditions, offering advice for Reconstruction policy. Among these informants were Radicals Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase and former major general Carl Schurz, along with those he found general agreement with like longtime friend Harvey Watterson and New York Times writer Benjamin Truman. While each of these men represented a certain strict political bias, their letters certainly demonstrating such, Johnson had another correspondent that was slightly more moderate: his successor to the presidency and Civil War hero, Ulysses S. Grant. 

For a long time, outside of his excursions at war, Grant was something of an apolitical figure. Following the war, with intense deliberations of how to execute the reconstruction of the South, Grant kept his image and political views absent from the public sphere. However, at the request of his superior, Grant journeyed through the defeated South and reported his examination of the torn region. 

Though a candidate of the Republican Party, Grant was no Radical. He was a man completely dedicated to the Union and its preservation, adhering to traditional American political values such as self-government. While he was concerned with the prosperity of freedmen, Grant was also concerned with the prosperity of white Southerners, who he believed were key to a functioning restored United States. In his letter to Johnson, these truths are readily apparent. 

Grant was very optimistic at the prospects of a peaceful reunion of these culturally distant regions, noting that he was "satisfied that the mass of thinking men of the south accept present situation of affairs in good faith," while also showing his military bias, declaring that "the highest tribunal -- arms" had settled the debate over secession. Grant still understands that the process of Reconstruction, and the restoration of a peaceful Union, was not entirely over. He concedes that the majority of the Southern population are not prepared to "yield ready obedience" to the traditional government, and that military occupation was still required. Displaying a more moderate view of the post-war South, Grant concludes that both whites and blacks need occupation for safety. He does, however, believe that black regiments should be withdrawn from the region, for purposes of curtailing needless controversy and disorder. "It is not the thinking man who would use violence toward any class of troops sent among them... but the ignorant... might," writes Grant, continuing his trend of separating certain segments of Southern society between those who are prepared for the post-war reality and those who are not. 

Grant also shows a fairly traditional view of economics, and how economics relates with the newly free black population. In his lengthy advice against the occupation of black troops in the South, Grant declares that their presence "demoralizes labor" because they offered a safe haven for disgruntled former slaves that were unwilling to work for whites again. He also discusses how black troops have no regard for white property, believing that they are the true proprietors of the land they once worked. Grant acknowledges this as a wrong, displaying his ambivalence toward the redistribution of wealth in the South to freedmen.

After discussing the benefits of the Freedmen's Bureau in finding employment for blacks, Grant notes that he is "sorry to say that the freedman's mind does not seem to be disabused of the idea that a freedman has the right to live without care or provision for the future." This was certainly pleasing to Johnson, who had recently put an end to any hope for a such a measure. Grant seems to think of slavery as a part of the past, and he seems very content with that proposition, however he does seem to consider the less apparent consequences of that institution. The general longs for a return to a somewhat traditional status of labor in the South, and hopes that blacks will accept their employment under whites like whites have accepted the freedom of blacks. 

Throughout the letter, it becomes very clear that Grant's philosophy toward Reconstruction is that it must be a process of reconciliation. "Southern whites are anxious for a return to self-government," writes Grant, yet he believes that "commingling" is quite impractical considering the circumstances. Here, Grant demonstrates a willingness to appease Southern white culture, in hopes that it will stimulate a lost patriotism. This seems to be indicative of his later campaign platform of "let us have peace." Grant is highly motivated to put the war in the past, moving forward without too much regard for lingering tensions which create a chaotic political atmosphere. It would be that Grant's beliefs would come to fruition with Reconstruction ending abruptly without significant change in Southern culture, and that lack of change being very real with the prominent subjugation of blacks in the region up until the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s.

Grant, Ulysses S. "Letter to Andrew Johnson" in Advice After Appomattox: Letters to Andrew Johnson, 1865-1866, ed. Brooks D. Simpson, Leroy P. Graf, John Muldowny (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987), 212.