http://faculty.css.edu/mkelsey/usgrant/alcohol.htmlFamous people frequently go down in history fixed in people's minds as one dimensional caricatures consisting of a handful of traits or qualities. Frozen in time and the public imagination, these stereotypes are nearly impossible to dislodge from our nation's collective consciousness. Robert E. Lee and his fine manners and gallant bearing; President Abraham Lincoln and his kindly, but homely appearance and his love of crude humor; William Tecumseh Sherman, the devil himself, who destroyed the South in his infamous March to the Sea; and Ulysses S. Grant, "butcher," cigar smoker and alcoholic. Like most myths, these are easy stories to tell and allow the teller to encapsulate a person's life in a few sentences. Little or no concern is given to the core and the essence of these people who, by their greatness, changed the course of American history. Grant, like the others named, was a real person with human strengths and weaknesses. He made an incalculable contribution to the fate of the American Union and deserves better than to be described and remembered in such a limited context as "a person who consumed too much alcohol."
The following material is presented so that readers may gain some insight as to what several first-hand accounts have revealed about Grant and the drinking issue. Hopefully these quotes will help to replace in your mind the old stereotypical Grant with the real Grant, a man who had his weaknesses, who struggled against them and for the most part overcame them. On the whole, Grant was a decent, honorable man who has been the victim of rumor mongers and writers who irresponsibly perpetuate the myth that all Grant did was drink. Remember: drunks do not win wars; alcoholics are not elected President of the United States. Had Grant truly been either a drunk or an alcoholic, he would have been replaced early in the war; General Halleck, his superior, certainly looked for excuses to depose him. But Lincoln hung on. "I can't spare this man, he fights." And, in the end, Lincoln was proved right.
Our advice to you, the reader of snippets about Grant's life; the reader of full length biographies; the viewer who sees Grant portrayed in the media as a drunk; the conversationalist who can never think of anything else to say about Grant except, "Grant drank a lot, didn't he?" : BE SKEPTICAL. Do not jump to quick and easy conclusions about U. S. Grant and alcohol. There are no easy answers. We know Grant occasionally drank alcohol. We know a little had a dramatic effect on him. We know he would have been mortified if it were reported to his beloved Julia that he was seen drunk by other men. Depending upon their prejudices, Grant biographers emphasize or downplay the alcohol dilemma. Remember: writers are clever folk. They know how to paint the picture they want the reader to absorb, the impression they wish to make. A single sentence, a turn of a phrase, a few carefully placed value-laden words in a biography can turn Grant from a teetotaler to an occasional drinker to an alcoholic.
Many of the drinking stories come from battlefield politics. Jealous Northern generals who could find no other way to discredit this brilliant man who was delivering battlefield victories to President Lincoln, spread malicious rumors about Grant being drunk on the job. There were stories, there were innuendos, there were suppositions. But, in truth, there are NO RELIABLE witnesses of any drunkenness on the part of Grant during the Civil War.