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U.S. Grant History Chat, Episode 11: Avery Lentz
Transcript
- All ready.
- All right. Hello everybody. This is Nick Sacco Park Ranger at Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site in St. Louis, Missouri. And you were watching episode 11 of the U.S. Grant History Chat. And you saw him on the History Channels documentary on Ulysses S. Grant. And now he's with us for the chat, my distinct pleasure to speak with Avery Lentz today. How are you doing Avery?
- I'm great, Nick. Thank you for having me.
- Thank you for being with us. And it was just really cool to have you on for the interview series. And a lot of viewers of this interview will be familiar with your participation in the Grant Documentary. So why don't we start off with that? And we'd just love to hear a little bit about that experience and what was it like being interviewed and seeing yourself on national TV?
- Well, originally it was a very surreal experience because whenever you're in that kind of position where, Oh, wow! I'm actually being approached by real producers, like a real network on major television. That's like a pretty big deal. The whole thing started very strangely enough. I still don't know who put my name in the bucket to be considered as a possible commentator for the special, obvious the Summer of 2018, I was still working at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park at the time as a Seasonal Guide. And I remember I was at the wilderness in July, the Wilderness Battlefield, and I gave a walking tour, Almost pronounced to me at the time to Caroline Janney, who I knew of her. I knew of her work, excuse me, but I didn't know what she looked like. I never really seen her in her face. So it wasn't until after the tour that she introduced herself. "Hi, I'm Caroline Janney." I was like, Oh my gosh! That was kind of a huge thing for me. But she had said it was one of the best tours she'd ever been on us. So that was very flattering to hear from a very renowned Author and Historian like yourself. And so I could only imagine that since she was also involved with the project a month later, I get an email from Radical Media who produced this documentary and they asked if I wanted to help share Grant's story. And so a little bit about me, I've been in a civil war about since the eighth grade, I took a field trip to Gettysburg. It was one of the only kids that was actually interested in what we were doing, what we were talking about. So from there I've been a Civil War Buff, but one character that emerged in my mind as probably the standout guy in the war, besides obviously guys like Abraham Lincoln and even Frederick Douglass was Ulysses S. Grant. And it was interesting because Grant is the Victor of the American civil war. He's the man who defeated Robert E. Lee and also is one of the only generals in the entire war who has three major surrenders under his belt. And I'm like, why are we not talking about this guy more? How is he not more popular among the history channels and the field and whatnot. And of course, as I dug deeper, you start seeing other Grants, so Butcher Grants, so drunk and all of these very negative connotations that surrounded him. And that just was like, "No, that there's gotta be something there." So I just kept digging over time. And when I got to Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania, he became my focus. Within that park we have the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Courthouse Battlefields, which is of course, part of the Overland campaign of 1864. It's going to be that campaign that Grant gets that moniker though Butcher. And so one of my projects at the park, one of my scenes on my tours was to try to take that out of the equation to show people that he's not a butcher. There is a lot more intricate details that go into these campaigns, that go into these battles and for a guy like Grant, who jackal that, it speaks to his abilities and his excellence as a commander pretty much. So I was always determined to take the people who really love Robert E. Lee and try to build that same kind of passion for a guy like Ulysses S. Grant. And I really feel that the documentary did that, always tried to have that same attitude going forward. And so when they asked me to be a part of that, when asked me to help tell his story from that perspective of the Overland campaign, I couldn't pass that up at all. So I jumped at it. I didn't know what else I could do except say, yeah, I'm not gonna turn that down, so yeah.
- Sure. Well, yeah, to your point, I'm not a military expert, but just because you have more men in the field, doesn't guarantee that you're gonna have a given battle. When you look at the American revolution or the Vietnam war, for example, give superior U.S resources and men, and well, let me take that back. The British and the American revolution and the U.S.
- Got you
- Just 'cause they had superior resources, doesn't mean they're gonna win. So you gotta be something more to it, to that. And Caroline Janney, I'll second that she's a great Historian. She's got a book called "Remembering the civil war" it's in my library too. And she's an excellent Historian. So glad you mentioned her. So we see a lot of generals during the war. They had plans, grand strategies, talked a big game, but what's gonna distinguish Grant from these other generals, what are some insights and key takeaways that we can gain from Grant other than strategies, but his character that really puts them above the rest?
- Honestly, I think he nailed it. I think it's his character that puts him above the rest in terms of his perseverance. He's a general that takes a lot of hits, as many do during the civil war on both sides. I mean, it's just part of military jargon in general is the fog of war. You have to expect the unexpected. You have to deal with that. And that little detail could destroy your whole campaign. For example, Ambrose Burnside at Fredericksburg, Virginia, it's the rain that delay his campaign and give a Confederates time to get there first dig in. And the rest is history, but with Grants, when he's confronted with an obstacle, at every turn, it seems he will find ways creatively to overcome that obstacle and he'll learn from it. He remembers it. I think what's the most important quality that Grant has as a Commander is his ability to not only overcome those obstacles, learn from his mistakes, but it almost seems like he was ahead of the curve. He sees the bigger picture. He sees that this war is not gonna be won by single individual battles. It has he along with William T. Sherman and a lot of other generals said at the end of the war, there's gonna be a long conflict. It's not going to be short. It's not gonna be this traditional of Holy on it. One battle wins the whole war kind of conflict. I mean, he went into this thinking, yeah, this is a hard and determined enemy we're facing in our country man, and they're not gonna give up without a fight. They surely will fight for the last man if we allow them to. So we need to find a way to bring this war to a close as quickly as possible, but also make it a definitive war, to make it a definitive conclusion. And so with Grants during the Overland campaign, a lot of times on my programs at the park, I would compare that campaign to say the drive from Normandy in world war II, to the victory in Europe day, to the surrender of Germany and Eisenhower when he was planning that campaign through France to the Siegfried Line, he studied Grant, he was studying the Overland campaign, tactically and strategically, and saying, okay, what works for Grant? And how can I apply it successfully on the European Theater of world war II. And as we all know, the allies were ultimately successful and that's speaks a lot to Grant credit that he's inspiring commanders in wars yet to come. Because up until that point, Grant is one of the first generals to have command of all armies coordinating at once. He is the first in George Washington to have their anchor Lieutenant general. So he does have this ability to command multiple facets and say, okay, you're gonna target this strategic location. You're gonna target the strategic location and ultimately Grant at the side. It's the armies themselves, the Confederate armies themselves. That's gonna be our target. So he's fighting pretty much for a war of annihilation. I know that has been thrown out a lot war of attrition, but not just, I have more men, so I'm gonna throw and grind away, no. It is a sense trying to outwit and surround and destroy your enemy and try to find a way to trap them. And Grant does to Robert E. Lee that no other commander had done. And that is pretty simply frazzle him on many times over the Overland campaign. I know the popular history makes it seem like Robert E. Lee had Grant pegged at every turn. Hence why he's getting to every battlefield first sentence, why he's not giving him a clear-cut victory. But if you look at Lee and his private correspondence, and some of the accounts of his officers, Robert Lee is in a very tough spot in 1864 and '65. And he knew it right after the battle of the wilderness that he was facing a commander he had never faced before. And someone who had a drive that he had never seen before on these Eastern Theater commanders in Virginia and whatnot. So definitely Grant brings his skills and his experiences that he learned out West, that he learned in the Mexican war. And he applies them in Eastern Theater, the civil war, and ultimately it helps him become successful against Robert Lee.
- Absolutely. And I love that you brought up in trapping because the key thing here too, is as long as he can keep Lee bottled up in Virginia, you enable Sherman to do his march to the scene and make his way up. And he's got nowhere to go. So it's a long prolonged thing. It's not just one grand battle and it's teamwork with other generals and coordinating campaigns with Baltimore Army. So I think that's awesome. That's great. So let's move to Grant's presidency, the documentary, me personally, I would've liked a little more of a treatment on Grant's presidency, and you're really kinda on throughout the entirety, both before the war and the presidential years, but I'd love to hear a little bit more on your perspective and outlook on some of the unique and the general themes of Grant's presidency and the reconstruction era.
- Absolutely. I'm gonna agree with you that there, when I was viewing the whole documentary, it was my first time viewing. It's not like I had a pre-screening before anyone else. It was real time for me, like it was for you and everyone else. So I was a little disappointed that we just kinda brushed through his presidency very quickly. I think playing devil's advocate it's a whole another story. This documentary definitely seemed more aimed at his civil war experience, his civil war story, which to be fair, that's something that needed to be retold in a revised historical narrative. And I think they did that at sectionally well. But yes, I would have liked a little bit more on his presidency, but the parts that they did nail down, which I was very proud to see was his stance on the enfranchisement of recently emancipated, black Americans and the reconstruction era. He did feel very passionately about that. And a lot of people would tell you that before that document and before any of these real, amazing scholarship that have come out in the last 20 years, they'd tell you Grant doesn't care about black enfranchisement. He doesn't care about black people. That is absolutely false. I mean, it shows in actions before the war. It shows in his actions during the war. And it absolutely shows in his actions as president, not only does he label the KU Klux Klan as a domestic terrorist threat, which no president has done really that well since, I mean, we'll leave it at that. But Grant sees the Klan as a threat to the rights and the freedoms and the lives of black Americans, and he's out there to better their lives, their chances. It seems that after Johnson's presidency, Grant starts to get things moving progressively again, he said we do have those military districts in the South. We're going to make sure that black folk have the rights to vote. We're gonna make sure that they are holding public office. We're gonna make sure that they get the same privileges and rights that everyone else does, as long as we have them, as long as we have military forces down there to ensure that that happens. We can see that. And so I'm really glad that they hit that on the head as well. Plus, I mean, he solves the gold crisis during his presidency. His foreign policy is exceptional because a lot of people don't realize we were not in the best relationship with Great Britain after the war, because of their interference in our civil war. And so without us getting into another war or conflict with Great Britain again, Grant exceptionally, smooth surface by sending Hamilton Fish over there to make sure everything's smoothed over. And we're not gonna have any of these problems. And so his handling of foreign policies, his handling of the financial structures, at least in his first term as president, and his handling of social issues like black enfranchisement in the South and across the United States, it's very important. And I'm glad that they at least in the documentary was saying like people always remember his presidency for the scandals and everything, that really doesn't come until his second term as president and even still, it was a small part of his overall performance. Overall, his performance as president is pretty darn good. I think on ultimate downside to it is the fact that at the end of his second term, that's where you're gonna have radical behave. And you're gonna have kinda the end of reconstruction beckoning, where people are just tired of the army being sent to the South, just for the purposes of enfranchising blacks. And then you have the rise of the liberal Republicans, which led by former Union Generals who now are politicians. It's just a very messy time politically and socially on the second term of Grant's presidency. So like I've said, even just mentioning that, that's a whole another documentary they could probably do it if they so chose. And I think one thing I would have liked them at least to mention is Chief Red Cloud's visit to the White House. I mean, Grant was the first to invite a Native American chief to the White House to discuss foreign policy, at least they mentioned DLI Parker, they coming ahead of the Bureau of Indian affairs. And that is very important because I think one huge knock against Grant, is his handling of the Western Plains Wars and the whole Indian policy as a whole. So to kinda shed more light on that and show that he's not as discriminatory as everyone wants you to think he is against Native Americans. I think being president, when you have zero real experience in politics, you've just been climbing the ladder of command, basically. I mean, he's the general, he became secretary of war, he became president. I mean, in terms of commander in chief, in terms of rank and chain of command, he did it from his low down to a private, to as high up as the president, but he did not have that political prowess that so many others had at the time. And Poly Spy majors will know exactly what I'm talking about, but like for Grant to go into his presidency without that experience and have a very successful first term and a second term that was mad in scandal because of who he hires, but he still learns from those mistakes. And I think ultimately it's just a credence to his character once again, as president.
- Yeah. And to your point, you can do documentaries on various subtopics within too cause yeah. Grant's relationship with Native Americans and his Indian policy, it's very complex and perhaps not as successful as other efforts and just handling of Western affairs and military accomplished, but we can as for another time, for sure.
- Yeah.
- I was thinking about it though recently. And you think about the 19th century as a whole, and you can correct me if I'm wrong Avery, but I'm pretty sure that no other presidential candidate received as many votes from African-Americans is Grant did.
- No, not at all. A Grant has a huge boost in black votes because of his stance during the war. And of course of his carrying on Lincoln's message and not most importantly, Frederick Douglass himself endorsed Grant for presidency. That's a big deal. Frederick Douglass has been very critical up into that point of many political leaders, including Abraham Lincoln, very much so Abraham Lincoln. So for Frederick Douglas to endorse Grant and say this man is someone we can trust and put our faith in. That's a big deal and that's gonna get him those votes. So I think that speaks to Grant's character and it definitely should dissuade any notion that people have that Grant was a secret racist and all that. Now Fredrick Douglass doesn't endorse racist.
- And I think you can also see too, just the enforcement mechanisms in place to ensure that African-American men have the ability to go to the polls, the elections of 1868, 1872, that Grant won, those are some of the fairest elections in the 19th century. So these are all great points that you're bringing up because it highlights that a core constituency for Grant is the black road presidential years. And then finally this has been a wonderful interview and Avery I'd just love to hear about what you're doing now with history. I think our viewers would love to kinda follow your progress and your next project. So tell us a little bit about that.
- All right. Yeah. So I'm not currently employed with the National Park Service anymore, taking a little bit of a hiatus for a few years, trying some other things. And I still have my history foot in the door. I have to do something with my two degrees. So in January, 2019, last year I started a podcast, and this is the big craze right now. Everyone's doing a podcast. Everyone on their mother has a podcast, but mine I wanted to do something a little differently. So I took something I was very passionate about which is military history, especially pertaining to the American civil war. And I didn't just want it to be a dry vomiting of military and minutia and whatnot. I wanted to bring in the social political ramifications. We talk about these actions, but not in great detail. We don't go into every single grid and whatnot. We definitely are going to approach a conflict or a battle, in history and try to relate it to the bigger narrative and say, why should you care about what's going on. For example, we have today, the 70th anniversary of a United Nations forces landing at Inchon South Korea during the Korean war. So why should anyone care about that? Well, that frees up a lot of the United Nations forces that were fighting elsewhere on the Peninsula. It's heralded as a military turning point, North Korean forces are going to withdrawal and the Korean war is about to enter a new chapter with the Chinese intervention that still in coming. So that's something that we hint in those episodes, and we don't really try to go into grave detail. I know we've had a few people with feedback, come back and say, "Hey, you know, it would be nice if you guys went in deeper detail" and then there's other people who come in and say a little lighter. So it's trying to find that middle ground, but it's called Battles and Banter. 'Cause I have my friends on and we like to banter about history. We like to banter about military history and we are just trying to be humorous. I know I've become infamous for my dad jokes on the show, a lot to the point where people in the reviews were like, "Please God, no more dad jokes."
- No more dad jokes.
- So it's just something that's a lot of fun. And it also helps me network and meet other podcasters. I have plenty of other friends now we all have podcasts and we have kind of our unofficial little network of shows within this region. And so we've been trying to take this show and make it something that's more digestible to non military history aficionados, to more of the general public. I will just say we do have explicit language and we do have alcoholic content while we record. So it's NSFW, but it's nice for drives and for just your personal listening. And it's a way that people can try to approach history differently. So I was really inspired by drunk history doing this, 'cause a lot of people I know who watch that show, aren't history buffs, but they love it. So it's like, that's perfect. That's the people I want to reach with this. I want to reach a wider audience. So we're still growing and you can find us on iTunes, Spotify, Google playlist, any other major listening platform. And also we have social media, we're on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. I will do basically on anniversaries of battles. I'll make little info blurbs about different battles and whatnot. So today not only is the anniversary of Inchon South Korea, but it's also the 76th anniversary of the battle Peleliu, the landings that Peleliu Island, which if you've seen the Pacific HBO specific, then you are very familiar with that battle. They spent three episodes on it. It was a very bloody fight in the Pacific Theater of World War II. And so I make little info blurbs about that as well. So if you'd like to give us a listen, give us a subscription. We'd really appreciate it. If you like what you hear, you can leave us a five star review, five stars are encouraged. It helps with our view ships. So that once again is Battles and Banter podcast and is on iTunes, Spotify and Google playlist.
- Fantastic. All right, well thank you, Avery Lentz, the Battles and Banter podcast featured on the Grant documentary on the history channel. Thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you.
- Well thank you for having me, Nick. This was a pleasure.
Description
You saw him on HISTORY's recent documentary on Ulysses S. Grant, now he's on the U.S. Grant History Chat! Historian and Interpreter Avery Lentz joined Ranger Nick to discuss Grant's generalship and presidency, and to tell us about his latest history project.
Duration
23 minutes, 1 second
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