The next Great TV Documentary after The Lance Dance : GRANT

Memorial Day Weekend - 3 part series - History Channel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhzBYakZZW0

Wow, actual history on the history channel? Looks good.

Vicksburg > Gettysburg

Vicksburg is an interesting site to walk around.

Is it? I need to see that place. Gettysburg is really cool.

Yeah.. I thought so. My wife always has my kids do the Junior Ranger badge at these things (Adults can too) so it gives some guidance.

Drunk and Tommy! Long time no see. Good to see both of you.

Man that’s one thing I’d like to do before I di - visit civil war sites.

Series starts tonight.

Yeah,I can't wait to go back. Antietam was cool as well.
This is is ex produced by Leo

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When I am stuck and need to figure something out I always remember the Immortal words of Socrates when he said:"I just drank what?"

That was Fantastic!

The battle of Shiloh was explained brilliantly.

The actor who plays Grant did a good job. I at first thought he was too diminutive in stature and may not have the screen presence to carry such a huge historical figure like US Grant but he does a good job so far.

One of the best civil war doc's I've ever seen. After this series is over I really hope whoever produced this (Leo Decaprio??) does a similar doc on the Eastern Front. I always never got the full picture of how the Union army got beaten so badly early in the war by johnny reb even though they had the advantage of men and resources.

Can't wait for Episodes 2 and 3 the next 2 nights!

Part 2 was pretty good tonight. Battle of Vicksburg and Wilderness covered well. Last part tomorrow.

Didn't get a chance to watch it. Was it good? Where did it take off from? His history from the beginning or only his history in the Civil war?

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An Ode to the Texas man who shot an Antifa terrorist:

Oh, he might have went on livin'
But he made one fatal slip
When he tried to match the Ranger
With the big iron on his hip

Also missed it and hope it will be shown On Demand.

HY, read the book about Grant by Chernow. In my top 25 of any book ever.

From his childhood on. Maybe the first hour was pre civil war. Last hour will probably be post civil war judging on how they are covering things.

My kid is a big Grant fan and between visiting Vicksburg, time in Galena at the homestead and my son’s “lectures” I haven’t learned a ton from the show. The chaos of the Wilderness was interesting but not entirely new. Just glad to see The History Channel actually do some history.

Chernow is in the doc.

It's the first civil war doc in a long time that's been good. I learned a lot of things about the battles and Grant himself that I did not know earlier. My impression of him has always been a bit of a drunk who had a pretty corrupt administration as president. But I like how they showed the tactics in war he used and the relationships he developed with future confederate generals when he was at West Point.

Each night was 2 hours long and it's been exceptional.

Only nitpick is again the casting. Guy who plays Grant is too small but does ok. The guy who they got to play Lincoln? OMG. Lincoln was 6'4, not 5'9'. But no big deal.

And ya that's right, a history channel doc that actually talks about history!! You all should try to watch it if you get a chance and are a fan of history and the civil war.

Can't wait for the final 2 hours tonight. I wonder if they'll get into his presidency.

They will, can tell in previews.

Grant was 5 foot 8. Maybe he is a little slighter than grant but it’s not egregious.

But they needed a more significant height difference between grant and Lincoln, that’s for sure.

That's a cool kid.

I thought the little piece in the last half hour was interesting about the concerted effort in the last century by southern biased academia to reframe the narrative that the incentive for the war for the south was state's rights rather than slavery. I didn't know that was a thing but we certainly see its effects today.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Often times I feel like a movie or a show dragged on at the end, perhaps could have been wound up better or faster. I felt the opposite about this one. I could have watched another 3 episodes. I really felt like they rushed through his presidency at the end after spending so much time before the civil war. I am not very strong when it comes to history, so I found it tremendously informative. I did not realize, for example, that so many of the generals from both sides attended West Point.

Not a big fan of re-enactment in general, but these were done well (lots and lots of guys getting it between the eyes). I'm currently reading "In the Garden of the Beast" by Erik Larson, and it's mostly historical (although it is fiction) and I assume that Larsen used a huge trove of diaries, letters, memos etc.. to weave together his story. I don't know how much they relied on Chernow's book. I think that's my next read. Anyway, I hope History Channel recognizes the desire on the part of the viewers for them to produce shows on, you know, history, which might lead to greater viewership.

Great book. I really, really enjoyed that one.

Only a matter of time before History Channel is canceled due to its racist and prejudice content.

Sharrahs books are good,He only did one (Killer Angels) his kid did a bunch more. The Revolutionary War trilogy is excellent really shows how many of the Founding Fathers did not get alone well.
Believe it or not but Newt Gingrich did a trilogy on the civil war as well that is decent. If you want some real decent Military history look into Rick Atkinsons books he did one on the Civil war and a really good WW2 trilogy on the American Army in Europe.

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When I am stuck and need to figure something out I always remember the Immortal words of Socrates when he said:"I just drank what?"

any of you ever read the Memoirs of Grant they highlighted at the end? They made it seem like compelling writing but I had never heard of it

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

No,too long. If I was going to to a paper or project .

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When I am stuck and need to figure something out I always remember the Immortal words of Socrates when he said:"I just drank what?"

Read a little!! It is very compelling writing. I'll never read the entire thing, but it is fun to run through. I only read some sections from the Civil War.

Read that book by Chernow, good dolphin. It was amazing. Long-ass book, and the first half is better than the second, but good stuff.

I had not heard that before either but it could be true. The South has been glorified more in books and culture after the civil war than the North. Bobby Lee gets a free pass to this day.

Grants Presidency got rushed real fast and maybe that was on purpose. They wanted to keep it positive I guess and just skimmed thru all the corruption during his 8 years.

Grant's memoirs are all free and public to read. Link here with several formats :

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4367

Interesting part of the memoirs, if what they said up in Galena was true, was that Twain pushed the idea for a while on Grant but Grant didn’t have much interest until the Ponzi scheme happened. Twain publishing the book was something I had forgotten as well.

Still have this recorded and yet to watch. When I lived out in WV I lived 15 minutes from Antietam and an hour from Gettysburg. Went to both multiple times. Antietam just gave me the chills and is a gorgeous piece of property. Gettysburg is so expansive you could spend days there if you were really into it.

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

Well I paid for it in a paperback format and read it a few years ago. Pretty good read; he wrote it because he was broke and facing some medical bills if I recall correctly. I think in his time he would have been considered a "cool" president like Obama.

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"All crowds boycotting football games shouldn't care who sings or takes a knee because they aren't watching." - Nas