Throughout his life, Robert E. Lee aspired to remarkably high standards of duty, honor, self-denial, and self-control; his personal qualities were thought by many of his contemporaries to be worthy of emulation. Lee was particularly revered in the South. Writers defending the "Lost Cause" of the Confederacy described him as a military genius, who was defeated only because he faced impossible odds, and as the embodiment of what was best about the Old South. John Esten Cooke wrote of Lee, "The soldier was great, but the man himself was greater." Scores of adulatory biographies were soon in print. By the end of the 1800s, Lee was widely accepted as an American hero. Former Union officer Charles Francis Adams could eulogize his onetime opponent as "one of our sacred men" whom we "consecrate" and "wish to resemble." Sculptors and painters depicted a noble figure, and Douglas Southall Freeman wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography. Dwight Eisenhower commented that “taken all together, [Lee] was noble as a leader and as a man, and unsullied as I read the pages of our history." Winston Churchill ranked Lee as "one of the noblest Americans who ever lived."

What was worst about the Old South, however—the institution of slavery—would undermine Lee's standing in American memory. Lee has become a lightning rod for attacks against both the society of the antebellum South and the oppressive circumstances faced by many African Americans in the years since the end of the Civil War. Today, many Americans question how any man can be considered great if he joined a cause that attempted to break apart the nation and perpetuate slavery. •

Ulysses S. Grant's place in American memory would seem to be secure. From humble beginnings, he rose to save the Union. General William Tecumseh Sherman said, "Grant is the greatest soldier of our time if not all time." He was a talented and highly determined individual who had become first in the hearts of his countrymen, many of whom were quick to see the parallel between Grant’s achievements and those of George Washington. As president, Grant advanced the rights of African Americans and Native Americans, and in international affairs he steered the nation from the brink of wars with two European powers, Spain and England. Grant fought bravely against his last terrifying foe, throat cancer, and when he died more than a million people watched his cortege pass through the streets of Manhattan. Painters, sculptors, and biographers celebrated his accomplishments. While we now think of Abraham Lincoln as the greatest American of his moment, many of their contemporaries would have seen Grant as his equal. As Theodore Roosevelt put it, "as we look back with keener wisdom into the nation's past, mightiest among the mighty dead loom the three great figures of Washington, Lincoln, and Grant."

However, as Lee's national stature rose, Grant's declined. His virtues faded from public memory, but what were perceived to be his personal, military, and political flaws were often remembered. The slaughter on the western front during World War I restored memories of Grant's huge losses. Lapses in judgment by appointees of President Warren Harding in the 1920s recalled the scandals of the Grant administrations. By the late 1900s, Grant's importance had dimmed to the point where his magnificent tomb was largely neglected. Until recently, Grant was often viewed as a man of little spirit and less imagination, remembered more for the accusations of alcoholism than for his heroism. •