The following commentary did kind of remind me a sports radio show with the gung-ho fan calling in to support his team before the big game: there’s going to be a match up problem for the South if Bragg is supposed to contain Grant.
OK, I’ll play Monday morning quarterback – President Davis got General Bragg off the field in time for the upcoming spring campaign.
From The New-York Times March 11 1864:
BRAGG AND GRANT.
BRAXTON BRAGG has just been appointed to the highest military office under JEFF. DAVIS, and ULYSSES GRANT, by his appointment as Lieutenant-General, assumes the highest rank of any officer in the army of the Union. The respective careers and fortunes of no two military men could be more opposite in character than those of these two ranking officers of the opposing armies. BRAGG’s name is synonymous with disaster — GRANT’s with victory. The Richmond Examiner says that BRAGG’s “career has been a long, unvaried and complete failure,” — the very reverse of which statement would be nearly the truth concerning GRANT, BRAGG’s first undertaking of any importance resulted in his failure at Pensacola; GRANT’s first large action was his triumph at Donelson. BRAGG’s last battle was at Chattanooga, where his whole army was routed by GRANT. Against GRANT’s Vicksburgh we have BRAGG’s Murfreesboro; against GRANT’s Champion Hills we have BRAGG’s Perryville. GRANT flanked the rebels at Bowling Green and Columbus, and BRAGG got flanked at Tullahoma and Shelbyville. GRANT began operations at Cairo, and the sweep of his successive victories, as he marched onward, extended a thousand miles. BRAGG once had his army upon the Ohio, and his successive retreats from there covered several hundred miles. So we might go on, contrasting in still other respects the history of the two Generals who are now the ranking officers in the two armies.
I thought of a team assuming the game was won at halftime when I saw the following image in the February 6, 1864 issue of Harper’s Weekly (at Son of the South):
THANKS TO GRANT
The U.S. Congress had given Grant thanks and a gold medal. I don’t think General Grant let that stuff go to his head too much.
