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Lee Grant: Abraham Lincoln
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Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican..
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Throughout the rest of the war, Grant was in constant communication with Lincoln, either by personal conference or by telegraph. He was the first of Lincoln's generals in chief to have the president's full confidence. Lincoln had great respect for Grant's military knowledge, leadership, and strength of will, and he gave him wide authority for planning the conduct of the war.
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Faced with this opposition, Grant used dialogue and negotiation to get his essential point across where his predecessors had failed. Earlier eastern commanders such as McClellan, Pope, and Hooker were inflexible to a fault; as professional soldiers, they took a dim view of Lincoln, who in all fairness to them often meddled in military policy. But the strategic conferences they held with Lincoln usually ended in dissatisfaction for one or both parties.
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As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
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Grant's relationship with his three subordinate generals were a case in point. Nathanial P. Banks in Louisiana and Franz Sigel and Benjamin Butler in Virginia were so-called political generals. They had gained their positions of authority early in the war, when the difficulty of raising a mass citizen army meant that Abraham Lincoln often had to rely on men with political clout but little military ability, because of their influence with large portions of the citizenry of their states. Like it or not, you probably have to work with senior executives who owe their positions to political clout, and there is nothing you can do about it. Just as Grant did... you can use even these subordinates to get where you need to go.
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