Who's Watching "Grant"?

diane

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I thought it was on Oak Island or the Superstition Mountains or on a Pacific Island once held by the Japanese or in an Austrian lake or was buried by a lost Dutchman in Arizona. I never cease to be amazed at how many Aztecs, conquistadors, pirates, Nazis, Confederates, Japanese generals and eccentric miners buried their fortunes instead of spending them. These are the themes of most recent History Channel programs.
Yes, indeedy, the gold was merely a pretense for mayhem and havoc! Don't forget the Shasta gold in the Castle Crags. We raided the pay train headed to Ft Keno but who needs gold when there's all those cozy wool coats to peel off the dead soldiers? Wherever they hid it, only the Lemurians know now. It was a raid that pretty much planned itself - the SP loop at Dunsmuir is a real hairpin and the train has to slow way, way down to make it and sometimes it doesn't...falls off into the river.
 

Nitti

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Yes, indeedy, the gold was merely a pretense for mayhem and havoc! Don't forget the Shasta gold in the Castle Crags. We raided the pay train headed to Ft Keno but who needs gold when there's all those cozy wool coats to peel off the dead soldiers? Wherever they hid it, only the Lemurians know now. It was a raid that pretty much planned itself - the SP loop at Dunsmuir is a real hairpin and the train has to slow way, way down to make it and sometimes it doesn't...falls off into the river.
We are the Klingons when we need them
 

jgoodguy

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I thought it was on Oak Island or the Superstition Mountains or on a Pacific Island once held by the Japanese or in an Austrian lake or was buried by a lost Dutchman in Arizona. I never cease to be amazed at how many Aztecs, conquistadors, pirates, Nazis, Confederates, Japanese generals and eccentric miners buried their fortunes instead of spending them. These are the themes of most recent History Channel programs.
That idea has sold lots of metal detectors too, long before the History Channel.

 

Jim Klag

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I have to say that I enjoyed the series commercials and all. There were a few minor historical slips and there should have been another whole episode about his presidency, but I think the quality of the production was good. I would have filled out the 3rd episode with more detail about the Overland campaign and then add a fourth all about the presidency and later life.
 

diane

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Thanks for the review. I didn't get to watch it...or anything else! :eek: You're right about not enough attention being paid to Grant's post-war life. (Lee has the same problem!) Funerals are another thing that aren't paid attention to enough - they had great meaning and were full of important symbols in those days - Grant's funeral was one of the most nationally significant in our history.
 

Joshism

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I would have thought Episode 1 would cover mostly his antebellum life and ends with Grant joining the Union Army. Or maybe an early battle - "lick 'em tomorrow" at Shiloh could be a dramatic cliffhanger, with the counterattack in the opening of the second episode.

Then Episode 2 ends with Appomattox - Grant Triumphant. That leaves Episode 3 to focus on the presidency.

From what I hear the miniseries was about 75% about the war period.
 

Joshism

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You're right about not enough attention being paid to Grant's post-war life. (Lee has the same problem!)
Lee's postwar life only lasted 5 years and was mostly spent in one place serving as a university president. His response to defeat is important, but his postwar life is trivial compared to Grant's or even Sherman's.
 

diane

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Lee's postwar life only lasted 5 years and was mostly spent in one place serving as a university president. His response to defeat is important, but his postwar life is trivial compared to Grant's or even Sherman's.
Yes, that's why it's so amazing that so many placed revered status on Lee (who, imho, was a war casualty) and kicked Grant to the curb - but not the generation that lived through his impressive life. Winning the war - Grant was just getting started. The friends who won the war did go on to lead exceptionally vital lives afterward - but history has decided their highest contribution was the war. Dismissing the national effects of their post-war lives is leaving out a big chunk of influential American history.
 

diane

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Adding just a bit to the above...

Lee, I believe, was killed by the war as sure as if a bullet got him and was immediately deified. If those two things hadn't happened, his legacy would have been very different. He changed a large portion of our educational system - he had had a very good but very limited education that suited him for being either an engineer or a soldier, nothing else. He thought it was nice to know ancient Greek but if you were just going to be using it to cuss out your mules, seemed wasteful to learn it! He put a good deal of flexibility into the curriculum and was establishing separate schools for medicine, language, mathematics and other specialties with crossovers so that students would leave with a degree that meant their future was not set in stone with either/or. Lee himself wanted to be a doctor but ended up being a soldier. He was a darn good one but it was not what he would have chosen had he had a choice.
 

rittmeister

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I haven't been able to see it at all - one of the trade-offs in living in the boonies is maybe you have power, maybe not. My luck is I've always got it when the trash is on but never when the good stuff comes up! :rolleyes:
welcome to the 21st century us
 

rittmeister

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I thought it was on Oak Island or the Superstition Mountains or on a Pacific Island once held by the Japanese or in an Austrian lake or was buried by a lost Dutchman in Arizona. I never cease to be amazed at how many Aztecs, conquistadors, pirates, Nazis, Confederates, Japanese generals and eccentric miners buried their fortunes instead of spending them. These are the themes of most recent History Channel programs.
nonsense - there's no space in austrian lakes

... you know, all the nazi gold, dozens of huckebein fighters, the bernstein zimmer and at least four haunebu IIIs
 
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