Comparing and Contrasting Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E....

No matter how much something can differ some characteristics are shared. As strange as it sounds it’s very true, both Grant and Lee are two different yet similar people. As these two fights for what they believe in, though their beliefs are different they share some qualities. Ulysses S. Grant wanted the nation to expand and look forward towards the future. Robert E. Lee thought that an old aristocratic way of life was the better choice and that it can survive and dominant in American life. Ulysses S. Grant was a man who grew up the hard way. He was the son of a tanner on the Western frontier. He was a man that looked mainly towards the future and could careless about the past. Grant view everything as one, he wanted to†¦show more content†¦Robert E. Lee was a man of family, culture and tradition. Lee was a man who believed in the old English ways in chivalry. The Southern states fought for the same ideals that Lee stood for. Lee believed that this way of life made men to be of a higher class. He was convinced that these old values can build a better nation. Catton express the Confederacy loyalty to these values by saying: â€Å"For four years, the southern states had fought a separate war to up held the ideals for which Lee; as if he himself was the Confederacy†¦ the best thing that the way of life for which the Confederacy stood could have ever had to offer† (410). Grant and Lee are completely different when it comes to their views on what the American life style should be. Grants goals and standard are high, as the author says here in this statement: â€Å"Grant was the modern man emerging; beyond him, ready to come on the stage, was the great age of steel and machinery, of crowded cities and a restless burgeoning vitality† (411). I think that these values of a much larger and brighter future is a better choice. Thinking ahead rather than staying with the old ways is by far the greatest selection for the nation. Though Lee was a man of great class and noble causes he was forced to surrender to Grant. I suppose that the statement â€Å"out with the old and in with the new† is a true one. It would seem that Catton would agree with me when he said: â€Å"Lee might have ridden down