On April 9, 1865, General  Ulysses S Grant closed out the Confederacy. General Ulysses Grant is the best writer among the Civil War Generals; his book, PERSONAL MEMOIRS OF ULYSSES S. GRANT is a masterpiece. He won a brutal campaign of attrition to end the American Civil War with a Union victory. The first battle of the campaign of attrition was the Battle of the Wilderness, in  the dense thickets known as the Wilderness of Spotsylvania .  Grant hurled the Union Army of the Potomac into tangled woods, against Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia,  to bloody results. The Army of the Potomac lost 17% of its troop strength in one battle. So many Union soldiers were casualties that, for the first time in American history, rumors had it that the Federal Government fudged the casualty lists downward, to assuage the public dismay. Grant was a drunk; he qualified his drunkenness by stating that he never drank when his wife was near or when he was on active duty. Hence, General Gran