Posted on 05/18/2018 9:39:06 AM PDT by Magnatron
Those who whole-heartedly get into making it should tell you something about the subject.
Yeah, short squat Marty Sheen. Not quite fit for Lee.
Unfortunately, Daniel Day Lewis is retired. I'd like to see him in this role (he'd need some weight and makeup) or Sherman (his build probably would work better).
Man, Lewis as Sherman would be killer!
If DiCaprio’s involved I ain’t interested.
Ugh, Gods and Generals. What a snooze. They achieved the remarkable feat of making the Battle of Fredericksburg look boring. And it had not one but two scenes of people sitting in a parlor watching someone play the piano. Maybe there were three, since I couldn’t make it through the whole movie.
I thought at the time that they should have instead made a tight, two hour biopic of Stonewall Jackson, rather than that sprawling mess. A missed opportunity.
Grant has huge failures as a general. His success was founded on one thing: The North could afford to lose more men than the South. He also had a habit of claiming his victories and blaming his losses on others.
I've been debating whether to commit the time to this but you convinced me. I just burned an Audible credit.
DiCaprio playing Grant is going to completely ruin this picture.
You’re right, Duvall was too old, but he did a decent job.
Too many old-time generals are depicted as senior. Most often, it’s not so. Much worse with the Rev where poor George is often depicted by old guys that were his age at his death! This includes reenactments as well as TV programs.
Grant understood "the terrible arithmetic". Which is why he ultimately prevailed.
I’ve never heard Grant accused of being the greatest general!
Patton is good. And Washington was better.
At least Washington finally got his due excellent respect in the TV movie from the ‘80s. Barry Bostwick nailed it and IS GW. Just as Scott IS Patton. Wow, just great casting.
I remember watching it at the time and I agree, it was excellent. I wonder if it's available to stream.
Grant had one battle loss - Cold Harbor. And he took full responsibility. He followed this up within days by stealing a march on Lee, crossing the James river, and essentially ending the war for all intents and purposes for it became a siege at that point. His tactics were always what they needed to be. For the overland campaign he relied on brute force. But, the Vicksburg camping was easily the most brilliant tactical campaign of the war.
When he was eight years old, his father sent him to buy a horse:
"...And yet the boy's love of horses could also lead to embarrassment. He was only eight years old when he set his heart on buying a colt owned by Robert Ralston, a farmer who lived just west of town. Jesse, needing to expand his stable, entrusted his son to make the purchase, but only after instructing him in the fine art of negotiating, for he did not want to pay Ralston's asking price of twenty-five dollars. Accounts differ in the details of what happened next, but all agree that when Ralston asked the boy what his father would pay, Ulysses blurted out, "Papa says I may offer you twenty dollars for the colt, but if you won't take that, I am to offer twenty-two and a half, and if you won't take that, to give you twenty-five." As he later dryly remarked, "It would not require a Connecticut man to guess the price finally agreed upon." This tale soon made the rounds of Georgetown. Fathers and sons alike guffawed and laughed at the business acumen of "my Ulysses"; for once Jesse was forced to listen. Ulysses Grant later recalled that the story "caused me great heart-burning . . . and it was a long time before I heard the last of it..."
Grant was quite a horseman (General Longstreet thought he was the most capable rider at West Point) and it was said he had more stamina than far younger men who rode with him.
In his memoirs, he talked about his lifelong disinclination to use profanity:
"I am not aware of ever having used a profane expletive in life; but I would have the charity to excuse those who may have done so, if they were in charge of a train of Mexican pack mules."
I got the distinct flavor of just how he felt about Mexican pack mules that he was probably forced to use in the Mexican-American War!
“... greatest American general ever...”
They’ve already done “Patton”....
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
DITTO!
+++++++++++++++
Jared Harris, played Grant extremely well in Spielberg’s Lincoln. Fairly good physical resemblance, too.
If the film is about Grant during the war then Sherman will play a prominent part.
"I think Ulysses S. Grant is vastly underrated as a man and as a general. I know people think this and that about his drinking habits, which I think have been exaggerated way out of line. The fact is, he never demanded more men or material from the war department, he took over an army that had a long history of retreating and losing. That army had no confidence in their fighting ability and Grant came in as a real outsider. He had so many disadvantages going into the 1864 campaign, now 100 years ago. But he met every test and rose to the occasion unlike I’ve ever seen in American history. He was a very tough yet very fair man and a great soldier. He’s not been given his due. Grant devised a strategy to end the war. He alone had the determination, foresight, and wisdom to do it. It was lucky that President Lincoln didn’t interfere or attempt to control Grant’s strategic line of thinking. Lincoln wisely left the war to Grant, at least in the concluding moves after he came east. Grant is very undervalued today, which is a shame, because he was one of the greatest American generals, if not the greatest." - Dwight Eisenhower, July 1964.
Grant and Lee commanded armies for about the same period of time - Grant from January 1862 to the end of the war and Lee from May 1862 to the end. Lee suffered more men killed and wounded in whole numbers while he commanded the Army of Northern Virginia that Grant did in all his commands.
He also had a habit of claiming his victories and blaming his losses on others.
Examples please?
Grant was quite a horseman (General Longstreet thought he was the most capable rider at West Point) and it was said he had more stamina than far younger men who rode with him.
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There’s a great account of his wild ride past Mexican soldiers who were firing at him while he was running an essential dispatch—he rode clinging to his horse’s side that was opposite to the side the fire was coming from.
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