[Bubba Ho-Tep]

He is still the only man to get through West Point without a demerit.

U.S Grant, on the other hand, accumulated numerous demerits and finished in the bottom third of his class. And within six weeks of launching his Overland Campaign, he had Lee under siege in Petersburg, after which Lee was simply delaying the inevitable.

[Moonman62]

U.S Grant, on the other hand, accumulated numerous demerits and finished in the bottom third of his class. And within six weeks of launching his Overland Campaign, he had Lee under siege in Petersburg, after which Lee was simply delaying the inevitable.

...

Not just Grant, but a lot of top officers didn’t do that well at West Point.

And to be fair, Grant had a lot more resources than Lee at that point of the war.

OTOH, at the start of the war, Grant was a practical nobody working as a clerk in his father’s store.

[central_va]

The fact is the constitution did not apply to any such contingency as the one existing from 1861 to 1865. Its framers never dreamed of such a contingency occurring. If they had foreseen it, the probabilities are they would have sanctioned the right of a State or States to withdraw rather than that there should be war between brothers.

U. S. Grant