They Loom Over American Consciousness: Grant and Lee

Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts By Bruce Catton



An Analysis:

Bruce Catton evaluates two important historical figures, Olysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee in “Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts.” To evaluate these two most important generals of the Civil War, Catton contrasts their origins, their manner, and what they came to represent. He spends most of the part of the essay in talking about differences and in a few paragraphs, he discusses about their commonalities. Before comparing and contrasting, he brings information about their backgrounds.
Background information
Grant and Lee brought the Civil War to its end. They did so at a time when the armies and the government were in the process of lengthening the war. So, he calls them “strong men” which is also a part of his evaluation. This is the background information that he presents in the first three paragraphs.
Oppositions between them
Catton devotes himself talking about Lee whom he contrasts with Grant later. He begins talking about Lee from the point of his origin. According to him, Lee had aristocratic family background from Virginia. Family, culture and tradition were in his background, who belonged to a knighthood family. He grew up in a society where people thought that equality is inevitable but only in words not in action. So his society was a hypocritical one. Being an aristocratic society, it always resisted change, and he belonged to that society. Therefore he also did not like to see any change. Lee believed in hierarchical society where aristocrats feel themselves responsible toward the particular community. It is because they remain on the top. Lee was in support of this kind of society where its norms and values are everything for each individual. They think so because the society’s norms and values give their identity so they become ready to sacrifice to save those things. This was the nature of southern part of American society where Lee belonged.
Now, he proceeds to talk about Grant. He says, “Grant the son of a tanner on the Western frontier, was every thing Lee was not.” This very statement tells a lot about the technique of the writer and nature of Grant. He contrasts Grant to Lee from many respects. According to him, Grant was brought up in a tanner family not in aristocratic one. He came up with struggle and his family belonged to “self-reliant who cared hardly anything for the past but had a sharp eye for the future.” Lee belonged to the South but Grant to the Western Frontier. His society believed in democracy where elected people rule not the few like in aristocratic one. In democratic nation, prosperity of individual is linked with the nation’s prosperity, Grant belonged to this sort of society.
Catton summarizes the contrasts that lay between Lee and Grant in paragraph 12. He writes, “So Grant and Lee were in completely contrast, representating two diametrically opposed elements in American life. Grant was the modern man emerging, beyond him, ready to come on the stage, was the great age of steel and machinery, of crowded cities and a restless burgeoning vitality. Lee might have ridden down from the old age of chivalry, lances in hand, silken banner fluttering over his head. Each man was the perfect champion of his cause, drawing both his strengths and his weaknesses from the people he led.”


Similarities between them (comparison)
Then, in the further part of the essay, Catton compares (so about similarities) between them. According to him, both of them were marvelous fighters. Their fighting qualities were also very much a like. Both of them had the ability to think faster and move faster than the enemy. And they encountered at Appomattox that was one of them great moments of American history. They signed on the paper in 9th April whereas the war was ended officially in 26th May. Both of them are remembered for these reasons in American history.
Organization of this essay

Catton spends first three paragraphs talking about background information of Lee and Grant “case in relation to the Civil War.” Then he devotes three paragraphs to Grant. Then he talks about both of them in the further paragraph. In rest of the paragraphs be devotes talking both of them together.