Replies

“Mrs. Grant owned no slaves. Her father owned them and she had use of them.”

The Wikipedia entry about Mrs. Grant reads: “According to Julia, “Eliza, Dan, Jule, and John belonged to me up to the time of President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.”"

But Mrs. Grant's claims of ownership are disputed by “some historians” who figure that in light of post-post-modern sensibilities it would be better if she didn't own slaves for the sake of her, and General Grant's, reputations.

Otherwise, down come their monuments.

The Wikipedia entry about Mrs. Grant reads: “According to Julia, “Eliza, Dan, Jule, and John belonged to me up to the time of President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.”"

Ah yes, how can you argue with Wikipedia?

Quotes attributed to Mrs. Grant about slaves usually come from "The Personal Memoirs of Julia Grant". That book wasn't published until the mid-1970's and is based on notes and diaries she had compiled for her autobiography. There are a number of in accuracies in it. Most biographies of Grant that I'm aware of, including Ron Chernow's biography published last year, agree that the slaves Mrs. Grant had use of actually belonged to her father. And there are a number of facts that support this. The first is, of course, had the slaves been the property of Julia Grant then they would have become the property of her husband upon marriage. If Grant freed the one slave he owned why would he not free the others? More importantly, as Chernow relates, Frederick Dent strongly disliked his son-in-law. He did not consider him a suitable match for his daughter and distrusted his abolitionist family. There is no way he would have placed four of his slaves in a position where they could have been emancipated on a whim.

For "some historians" read "virtually all historians". As for reputation, Grant's reputation as the most successful general of the war is secure.

I will give you some credit for not repeating the standard anti-Grant lie that he owned slaves until December 1865 or that he justified it by saying, "Good help is hard to find."