The Civil War Won, General Ulysses S. Grant Praises Union Troops for Saving the Union

He is confident that “the men will do me the justice to believe that all my sympathies are with them.”

Ulysses S. Grant, through his intelligence, determination, iron will, and patriotism, was the military man most responsible for leading the United States through the greatest time of crisis and chaos in the nation’s history. As general of the Army during the Civil War, he commanded hundreds of thousands of soldiers, leading the Union Army to victory over the Confederacy. Moreover, all recognized that his strategy had compelled Lee and the Confederacy to fight the kind of war they could not win. Later, as president, he guided the nation through Reconstruction, helping to bind the wounds between North and South while empowering newly freed African Americans.

After Lee’s surrender, as the troops began to come home, municipalities all over the North sought to give them all the kind of reception appropriate to victors. Grant was invited to some of these, so many that he could not attend them all.

Autograph letter signed, two pages, on Head Quarters Armies of the United States letterhead, Washington D.C., June 6,1865, to C.T. Jones, H.W. Gray, T.A. Barlow, A.M. Fox and S. G. King, a committee who had invited Grant to a celebratory reception for returning volunteer troops in Philadelphia. Grant had to decline the invitation because he was due to attend the Great Northwest Fair in Chicago on the same date. In his letter to the committee, Grant summed up his deep feelings for his men, and the debt the nation owed the Union troops who had saved the Union.

“Your invitation for me to be in Philadelphia on Saturday night at the reception to be given by the citizens to the returning is received. Having already engaged to be present at the Great Northwest Fair now being held in Chicago, Ill., on the same day, it will be impossible for me to attend.

“The achievements of our volunteers for the last four years entitles them to the lasting gratitude of all loyal people and I therefore rejoice at the enthusiastic reception which they are everywhere receiving. It is not likely that I shall be present at any of these receptions but I know the men will do me the justice to believe that all my sympathies are with them.”

We don’t ever recall seeing another Grant letter articulating his feelings about the soldiers he commanded, nor about the debt of gratitude Americans owed them for the victory.