Summary of Grant and Lee

Bruce Catton's, "Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts (1956) compares two vastly different American Generals, who shared one unyielding quality. Robert E. Lee, was of the old age of chivalry. An aristocrat, stuck in the ideals of the privileged upperclassmen, who had no desire for change. He believed there should be an inequality within America's social structure. Lee, vied for the old aristocratic concept to rule in American culture.

The other General, Ulysses S. Grant, had aspirations for America that were the polar opposite of Lee's. General Grant was a man who came up the hard way in the rugged Western frontier. He was not born into privilege but. instead had to earn his privileges. He fought hard for the country's growth and expansion, and felt it was important to uphold a democratic society. Grant looked toward the future and paid no mind to the past.

Though their virtues greatly differed, Lee and Grant, did share a passion for their causes. They were both strong, powerful leaders, who fought hard for their beliefs. And they had armies who had great respect for their leader. Eventually, when the fighting came to an end in 1856, the aristocrat, and the frontiersman gathered at the Appotomax Court House in Virginia, and came to a peaceful agreement to end the Civil War.