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On his deathbed in July 1885, Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant wrote: "I would like to see truthful history written."
That's what author Gordon C. Rhea has set out to do with the fourth installment in a collection of books detailing the Civil War's 1864 Overland Campaign through Virginia--a series of battles in which Grant successfully faced the revered and brilliant Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
The Union general would likely be pleased with Rhea's effort. In the South Carolina author's exhaustive research for the fourth volume, "Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26-June 3, 1864," Rhea, 57, came across facts that debunked long-held myths that Grant was a butcher who callously sent his men into battle to be slaughtered.
Slogging through battle reports at the National Archives and Library of Congress in Washington, Rhea discovered that the number of Union dead during the Cold Harbor campaign had been wildly inflated.
"The myth that Grant would mindlessly throw men into battle wasn't true," Rhea said.
For many years it was believed that Grant lost upwards of 15,000 men in the first seven to 15 minutes of fighting during one attack at Cold Harbor. An account of Cold Harbor written after the war by Confederate Gen. Evander Law described Union bodies heaped atop one another. "This wasn't war, it was murder," Law claimed.
Soon after, Grant, who was raised in the Midwest, began to be referred to by the media as "Butcher Grant."
Rhea said Grant's losses at Cold Harbor were exaggerated, and the criticism of the general undeserved.
"If you really examine what units were engaged and what the casualty returns show, by my account about 3,500 men were killed or wounded in about an hour," Rhea said.
Lee lost far more men during some of his assaults at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, Rhea points out.
Because much of Civil War history was written by Southern authors shortly after the war, the skewed numbers and various other myths took on lives of their own. Grant's lackluster presidency from 1869 through 1877 didn't help improve his reputation much, either.
Back then, writers also didn't have access to the same resources that Rhea did. Using casualty reports, diaries and letters, Rhea has developed not only a view of Grant's prowess, but also a sense of the waging of the war itself.
"I always try to record the event as accurately as I can by going back to original sources," he said.
Rhea holds a master's degree in history from Harvard and is a full-time attorney in Charleston, S.C. He also worked as an assistant U.S. attorney in Washington and lived in Northern Virginia.
Rhea became interested in the Civil War from hearing stories told by his father, a Tennessee native who spent hours listening to veterans of the war.
"My wife always says my best friends have been dead for a hundred years," he joked.
Rhea receives high praise from other noted historians.
"Nobody has ever known more about the 1864 campaign than Gordon Rhea," said John Hennessy, interim superintendent at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. "And that includes, in terms of its details, many of the people who participated in it. If Gordon says or offers an opinion on it, it's certainly one we all ought to listen to."
Another long-held belief Rhea's book turns on its ear is that the Confederate defeat at the Battle of Gettysburg was the war's turning point. Rhea believes the war did not shift until President Lincoln, in an effort to hasten the war's end to ensure re-election, moved Grant from the western theater to Virginia. Lincoln was well aware of Grant's strategic successes in the battles at Shiloh, Tenn., and Vicksburg, Miss.
"Lincoln badly needed Grant in the East and had pinned his hopes on him," Rhea said.
Victories earned Grant praise, but casualties drew criticism.
But not from Lincoln, who loved Grant's tenacity. When some aides complained about the loss of life and Grant's fondness for drink, Lincoln suggested that a case of whatever Grant imbibed be sent to each of the Union generals.
"I cannot spare this man," Lincoln said. "He fights."
Not bad for a man who, according to accounts, as a boy was nicknamed "Useless" by schoolmates, who mistook his shyness for stupidity.
Grant's philosophy of war was drastically different from his predecessors'. Instead of retreating after not winning a battle, as Union Gen. Joseph Hooker did at Chancellorsville, Grant stayed, fixated on winning the campaign, Rhea said.
So despite being stymied at both the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House, Grant pressed south unrelentingly toward the Confederate capital of Richmond.
"He had a very modern concept of waging war," Rhea said. "He was like the Energizer Bunny. He just kept going."
That strategy proved successful for the Union Army in the end.
When Lee beat him to the North Anna River, Grant swung east, crossed the Pamunkey River and plowed on. When cut off by Lee again only seven miles from Richmond, Grant crossed the James and headed to Petersburg.
When Lee held Petersburg, Grant settled in for a siege that lasted almost 10 months. He had the Confederates pinned against their capital--the position Lee had said earlier in the war was the worst possible for his army.
With Lee locked in place, and Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman rampaging through Georgia, Grant was in control. Grant would not let Lee's forces slip away, and the Confederate general surrendered in April 1865 at the little village crossroads of Appomattox Courthouse.
But Grant's stubbornness didn't end there. When President Andrew Johnson moved to prosecute Lee after the war, Grant threatened to resign his commission in the Army. One Confederate soldier recalling the event said, "I have always felt General Grant should be entitled to the gratitude of all Confederate soldiers for this act."
After nearly 20 years of research, Rhea considers both Lee and Grant superior generals.
"That's what makes this so exciting," he said. "You have two generals who are both aggressive, love to take risks and are military equals. I always felt that when Grant and Lee faced off each day, they must have felt like they were looking into a mirror."