I haven't read most of the previous posts, nor do I intend to, but I thought it was pretty good. Prior to this, who even knew Grant existed prior to Vicksburg?
Dunno if this is a rhetorical question or not, but the guys who had been at Fort Donelson found out who he was in February of '62 when the shabbily-dressed, nondescript General Grant captured at a stroke one-third of the Confederate forces then available in Tennessee. Of course N. B. Forrest got away and most of the Confederates might have too were it not for the ineptitude of General Pillow on the Confederate side.
Always a lot of fortune involved in these things, IIRC Shiloh could have put a sudden end to Grant's career were it not for the fortuitous proximity of Union reinforcements.
Grant was fortunate too in that he served under an Abraham Lincoln, who recognized his ability early on, in the South he might never have gotten anywhere.
