GRANT

[Zonie]

I see the history channel is going to show a 3 part movie called "GRANT" starting on May 25.
Hopefully they do a good job of it but I won't be a bit surprised when some of you report, "In one place, they showed Grant wearing a coat with the wrong number of buttons on it."

(Just funnin with you. )

Who knows? I might even watch it, at least for the first night. The other two episodes will depend on how well they do the first one.

 

[ppg1949]

I think on Wednesday they will show all three episodes in a row. I want to see how they portray Grant. Everything I’ve read about him states that he worn a plain coat with trimmings of his rank. It would be nice if he is accurately portrayed.

 

[nkbj]

Whenever President Grant comes up I always think of what Sherman said about him.

 

[Tom A Hawk]

Makes me wish I still had cable as I would like to see this. Perhaps it will migrate to youtube. Shortly before his death from throat cancer Grant completed and sold his memoirs thereby saving his family from poverty. Not a great businessman, but quite a man never the less.

 

[TNGhost]

This is all I needed to know about the series:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/leonardo-dicaprio-big-middle-finger-084052124.html
Produced by another rabid Hollywood leftist with an agenda, DeCaprio. Rewriting history to achieve his modern goals for his version of a utopic society. Glorifying Grant and vilifying the South.

No thanks, I won't be watching.

 

[Daryl Crawford]

I'll be watching it. Hope they do justice to the biography it is based off.

 

[Zonie]

This is all I needed to know about the series:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/leonardo-dicaprio-big-middle-finger-084052124.html
Produced by another rabid Hollywood leftist with an agenda, DeCaprio. Rewriting history to achieve his modern goals for his version of a utopic society. Glorifying Grant and vilifying the South.

No thanks, I won't be watching.

Reading the link you provided does indicate the series is a biased presentation. Quoting from the link,

In this regard, Grant is an active attempt to rehabilitate the historical record, positing Confederate adversary Robert E. Lee as a symbol of the intolerant, aristocratic, treasonous old guard, and Grant as an emblem of a more open, just, unified modern America. Grant’s disgust for the Confederacy and the rancidness it stood for is on full display throughout this series, which pointedly contends that—good ol’ boy revisionism be damned—it was slavery, not simply the more euphemistic “states’ rights,” which drove the South to secede and take up arms against the Union. At the same time, Grant’s compassion and levelheadedness also remains front and center, epitomized by the lenient terms of surrender he ultimately offered to the defeated Lee, which helped him secure support throughout the South in the years following the end of the war.

Even so, as long as people keep this in mind, the series might be worth watching, if only to look for costume errors. LOL

 

[ppg1949]

I saw a few small things out of place but on the whole it seems accurate.

 

[nhmoose]

Recording on the Directv thingy

 

[Zonie]

In the very small part of the show that I did watch they were talking about a very early happening right at the start of the war in 1861.
Hanging in a window of a Southern house was a Confederate Battle flag. The stars and bars flag.

From what little I know about the WBTS that battle flag wouldn't have been used that early in the war. I think at that time, the Confederates were using a flag that was mainly white?

Am I right or wrong about this?

 

[azmntman]

Yes Zonie you are.

 

[ppg1949]

Your right Zonie but how many viewers would have recognized any of the national flags of the CSA. Another small thing, was they had Grant always smoking or chewing on a cigar. He was primarily a pipe smoker until the victory at Fort Donnelson. They noted that because of a drawing in a paper that showed him with a cigar, he received 5k cigars as gifts. Grant himself said “I started smoking cigars because I didn’t want them to go to waste”. But it seems to be “generally” accurate.

 

[nessmuk]

I watched all but the last 20 minutes of the first part. Too many comercials in the last hour for me. I will tape it tonight and then skip the comercials later when I watch it.

 

[ppg1949]

Did anyone notice the commentator Gregory Hospordor’s bow tie? It is the Starry Crossed flag minus the stars. Blood red background with dark blue strips trimmed in white.

 

[Zonie]

For some reason they showed the first episode again tonight and I learned the town I saw the flag in was Paducah, Ky on Sept 6th, 1861 and yes, the movie was showing the crossed stars and bars battle flag.

A bit of digging shows that at that on Sept 6th, 1861 the Confederates were using a three stripe flag with a blue canton (corner like the current US flag). The stripes were red, white, red and the blue canton had 7 stars.

As for those like TNGhost who are intentionally missing the series, it is your loss.
From what I've seen, the series is dealing with some of Grants early life and mainly the battles and battle plans of both sides of the conflict.
They are doing a good job of it too if you ignore small things like a guy sticking his head over a giant cotton bale and being shot thru the chest.

Anyway, you are missing a good show. At least so far.

 

[Smokey Plainsman]

I just hope Leo is doing better after getting bit by that bear!

 

[FiremanBrad]

In the very small part of the show that I did watch they were talking about a very early happening right at the start of the war in 1861.
Hanging in a window of a Southern house was a Confederate Battle flag. The stars and bars flag.

From what little I know about the WBTS that battle flag wouldn't have been used that early in the war. I think at that time, the Confederates were using a flag that was mainly white?

Am I right or wrong about this?

Yes, it would have been the First National Confederate Flag.

 

[FiremanBrad]

They listed an early battle that actually happened in Missouri, as a Kentucky battle.
Yea, great research!!!! There’s better Fiction on tv, no thanks!

 

[sussexmuzllodr]

I put little faith in what comes out of Hollywoood as to Historical corrrectnes.
They have poisoned the well of Truth for years.
SM

 

[rickpa]

Thanks for bringing this up. I started reading Grant's memoirs about 2 weeks ago. As someone mentioned his memoirs were published while he was suffering from throat cancer. The publisher was Samuel Clemens, best known as Mark Twain. Twain lost money on this venture but Grant's family was financially secure because of it. I had previously read Twain's autobiography that he wouldn't let be published until he had been dead 100 years. That was 2010 although parts of it had been published previously. Its rather strange reading about the opinions of both authors concerning people who have been dead for a century. Grant makes several comments about commanders he served under before coming east and assuming overall command of the National Army, as he refers to it.