When Ulysses S Grant arrived at the encampment of the Army of the Potomac north of the Rapidan River in Virginia in May of 1864, he was eyed by the veteran soldiers now under his command with a degree of curiosity.  One officer, seeing the new supreme commander of all Union forces for the first time, commented that he was “stumpy, unmilitary, slouchy.”  Indeed, he was a short man, not stately in demeanor, and he tended to be a bit frumpy in his attire.  But the men who had faced defeat, retreat and failure time and again under more flamboyant generals noticed what many others had already noticed about Grant.  Said one soldier, “We all felt that at last that the boss had arrived.”

Read the entire article in the May 15th issue of the Express.