Historical Horizons – Varney Lecture Review

by Alivia Martinez
April 17, 2025

The GCC History Club hosts a lecture series called Historical Horizons. I attended this month’s lecture with Dr. Frank Varney, and I found it to be very interesting. The lecture was about Varney’s books on Ulysses S. Grant, and his interpretation on how Grant may have not been as heroic as he seemed.

Varney began the lecture by talking about his first book, General Grant and the Rewriting of History. This book mainly chronicles General William Rosecrans’ mistreatment during his time in military service with General Grant. This mistreatment was mostly in the form of not giving Rosecrans the credit he was due for neither battles he won, nor the clever military strategies he devised. Almost all of the credit that was due to Rosecrans was deflected to General Grant instead. Varney revealed that Grant seemed to have a bit of a spotty reputation in reality; such as being an alcoholic, easily angered, and fabricating old documents to make himself look better.

Varney then discussed an interesting discovery he and his wife made while conducting research for the book. This discovery came in the form of a letter. It suggested that Grant may have been involved in a cotton smuggling scheme, and that Rosecrans could have known about it. This is therefore a likely reason why Grant could have resented Rosecrans.

For the remainder of the lecture (aside from Q+A, of course), Varney talked about his second book, General Grant and the Verdict of History. This book talks mainly about Grant, and his battles following Rosecrans’ departure from his position. The two main battles discussed were Lookout Mountain and The Crater. Lookout Mountain was a battle that Grant headed and lost, and deflected the blame of the loss to others. The Crater was a loss and a big catastrophe. With help planning from a few others, Grant launched a campaign where soldiers were to dig tunnels as a technique to stealthily move and attack. Grant again deflected blame for the loss, but this time to General Kemble Warren. The effects of this led to a legal battle that took 28 years to take place due to Grant changing positions between General, Secretary of War, and then President for two terms. When the trial finally began, it took 18 months to close. In the process of the legal battle and the wait leading up to it, Warren’s reputation took a big hit, causing problems that led to the popular opinion of him being tarnished. Eventually, Grant, along with Warren’s commander, General Philip Sheridan, testified and won the case against Warren. As a result General Warren was relieved of his position.

The campaign surrounding The Crater piqued my interest, so I did some research to find out more details as to why the attack was such a catastrophe. With help planning from a few others, Grant launched a campaign where soldiers were to dig tunnels underneath the enemy’s trenches. These tunnels were then used to stealthily attack by planting explosives and blowing up the Confederate trenches from below ground. The explosions succeeded and created a big hole (The Crater), and eager Union soldiers jumped in without command, prepared to attack. Unfortunately, the depth of the hole was too deep and the soldiers could not get out. This made the soldiers’ position vulnerable for immediate counterattack, and most were shot and killed.

Overall, I found the lecture to be very enjoyable and informative. Varney summarized his books well, and gave context where needed. It was an interesting perspective on General Grant and his contemporaries, and I hope to do some more research on the subjects myself. I look forward to expanding my horizons at next month’s lecture.

****************************************************