Ulysses S Grant Astrology

U.S. Grant was born in the mid-west frontier of the USA in the early 19^th Century. He was a quiet boy—solid and square featured. When he was a baby, his father, Jesse, fired a pistol next to his head. There was no response from the infant.

The ambition of his father for him, plus his own fate, got him an appointment to the US Military Academy, West Point. Grant was not sure he wanted to attend, but his father at that time could not afford to send him to college.

At West Point he excelled in two areas. His horsemanship was the best his instructors had ever seen; he could tame and calm the wild ones; he could break-in any horse for riding; and he could simply ride better than his trainers, officers, and fellow cadets. He won all the horsemanship contests. His second achievement was his excellence in mathematics. Math came to him so naturally that he rarely had to study. When it came to tests he solved every problem and every exercise. His math professors recommended that he teach at West Point.

Aside from those achievements, he was ranked at graduation somewhere in the middle of his class. (A few years earlier, Robert E. Lee graduated 2^nd in his class).

As a cadet, and as a new officer, Grant never pushed himself forward or sought renown or fame. When the Mexican War (April 25, 1846 – February 3, 1848) began, he was appointed a quartermaster or supply officer. His reputation was as a good organizer who could get things done. And food and ammunition and materiel did arrive on time at the various depots in Northern and Southern Mexico that he was assigned to. Even then, he demonstrated a genius for organization.

But in the actual fighting, he always rode to the front, often risking his life, doing what was needed. Senior officers noted his bravery under fire. Commendations were placed in his file. He emerged from the war a hero.

The Man

Grant was a quiet man all his life. He never promoted himself. He never whined about his superiors. He never complained about his position in life.

He was plain looking. He was solid as granite. There were no shining locks of hair; his eyes did not stare out at the world with marked intensity; he was neither tall, nor graceful, nor aristocratic (though he was descended from a very old American family). Even in childhood he was stubborn, and when he set out to do something, he finished it. He was deeply intuitive, had a lightening quick mind, and often moved quickly on things. This quality worked far better in war than when he tried to use it in business, as in selling himself, or in marketing.

Grant could hardly sell firewood. His psychology depended on achieving things that others would recognize the value of, and then hoping that they would reward him for those achievements. In the entrepreneurial world this personality type does not function so well, where self-promotion and self-marketing are requirements.

But he was a born soldier. There was one activity that Grant could perform better than any other in America. That was war. Whether reorganizing a regiment of volunteers into a regular army in a few weeks, leading a reconnaissance in force into enemy territory and getting back out to safety, or slugging it out on the battlefield against competent enemy generals and yet making that opposing army retreat, or using a ruse to move an army past a heavily defended fortress, or being able to evaluate the psychology of his opposing generals, Grant was able to do this better than anyone alive on the planet.

He could win battles. And he won and won and won, which no other general ever did in the American Civil War, at least not like Grant.

According to his father, Grant was born at 6:00 a.m. in Point Pleasant, Ohio.

Sun, Jupiter and Saturn in Taurus. His Sun at 7° is framed by Jupiter at 9° and by Saturn at 1°. These three planets alone impart that groundedness that knows what it knows and never gives up.

Uranus at 7° Capricorn conjunct Neptune at 5° Capricorn. This synod is exactly trine his Sun and it is in a close trine to his natal Jupiter. Capricorn an Earth sign has to do with the application of will to get things done. In Grant’s case it was his genius for war. He possessed a great analytic ability in almost telepathically accessing what his opposing generals would do.

Eris sextile Mercury. This aspect describes his mathematical ability. He had the gift of analyzing massive amounts of data and making right conclusions that allowed him to solve seemingly impossible problems. At the end of his life, as he was dying of throat cancer, he employed this gift to write his brilliant Memoirs. This book, as written, is a first draft. It was described by Mark Twain as the equivalent of Caesar’s Commentaries.

Mars exactly biquintile Pluto. Mars at 23° Leo, located in the Aries decanate, and conjunct the South Node of his natal Moon, suggests two traits. First, he always moved his armies forward at the fastest speed they could go. Second, Mars conjunct the South Node implies past life experience in war. Wherever he assumed command, whether it was over a regiment, a corps or an entire army, his control was total and naturally accepted by the soldiers.

US Grant and Plutonian War: Mexican War Years

On September 23, 1846, in Monterrey, Mexico, the U.S. Army, outnumbered two-to-one, had nevertheless bloodily carved its way into the center of the city, where the attack bogged down, as ammunition was low. If the enemy discovered this, the Yankees could be routed.

It was a dangerous, tricky situation. The light colonel in charge of the brigade called for a volunteer to ride to the division commander for more ammunition. The route lay down a street that was guarded at each intersection by a detachment of Mexican soldiers. Whoever went would have to pass through gauntlets of musket fire.

Grant volunteered, and rode his horse (a grey mare named Nellie) Indian-style, his body draped on the animal’s sheltered side. Thundering swiftly through each intersection, both he and his horse arrived safely at division headquarters. After delivering his message and the ammunition, he rode back in the same style.

He was known at West Point as one of the best horsemen in the army. In combat situations, he could always be found where the action was most violent, amid deadly whirring miniballs and peppering canister.

The adept, swift horsemanship, the courage under fire, the drive to be in the thick of battle—all these qualities are shown in that exact Mars biquintile Pluto, and in the Jupiter/Sun natal conjunction trine his natal Uranus/Neptune synodic conjunction. War was the business of his life. Let us examine how the Plutonian influence first raised him up, then over a period of years stripped him of all dignity, then exalted him again.

Grant returned from Mexico a hero. All those West Point officers, including Robert E. Lee, William T. Sherman, and Stonewall Jackson returned from that war, celebrated and feted all over America.

Hardscrabble Years

When Grant returned from Mexico, he married Julia Dent, the daughter of a plantation owner. She came from the plantation aristocracy that owned slaves, and her father had amassed some wealth. His father-in-law made him some business offers, if he would resign his commission, but he refused them and continued service with the army. He was assigned to Fort Humbolt in Northern California, located north of San Francisco.

The peacetime army, however, in the mid-nineteenth century was not a good place to serve. The duty was arduous and boring, and there were few compensations for the officer on station. Many officers resigned their commissions and went on to successful careers in the private sector. Sherman served as president of a bank in San Francisco, and was later appointed headmaster of a private boy’s school in Louisiana. George McClellan, who later became one of Lincoln’s commanders, designed a saddle which is still in use, and was president of a railroad.

Grant really didn’t know what he could do. He had applied for a position teaching mathematics at West Point, but his request was turned down. At Fort Humbolt he got involved in a scheme to collect animal pelts and ship them to San Francisco for sale. Somehow it didn’t work out like he expected, and he ended up losing money. He tried another business and it too failed, pushing him deeper into debt. All this time he was separated from his wife, Julia, with whom he had a life-long love affair. In addition, Grant loathed his commanding officer—a peacetime office-politician, a martinet. So Grant began drinking. His drinking would grow into alcoholism. His alcoholism would turn into a lifelong fight for sobriety. After a serious binge, which had followed many warnings from his commanding officer about his drinking problem, he resigned his commission.

Traveling through San Francisco, he borrowed some money from an officer with whom he had served in Mexico, and booked passage on a ship that was headed back to the East Coast. From there he returned to the Midwest, to Ohio. He spent a number of years working on his father-in-law’s plantation. He toiled in fields all day. It was dirty, hard work. He built his own house on that plantation and called it, to the dismay of his father-in-law, Hardscrabble. For about seven years he was financially destitute, and neither his own father nor his wife’s father would help him out very much. During these years, many of his contemporaries, his fellow officers, had become famous and rich.

The nineteenth century had a popular story about Grant during this period:

Three army officers are riding down Main Street in St. Louis. These officers, who had all served in the Mexican War together, were companions and friends. They trotted their horses past a seedy looking man wearing course, worn-out clothes. He had cut firewood in the forest and hauled it to a street corner to sell. One of the riders, more observant than the others, glanced down at the face. Recognition!

“My God,” he nudged his two companions, “There’s Grant.” Indeed it was Grant. But this was America where people possessed a certain kind of egalitarian freedom and self-reliance (described aptly by Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America). So they all stopped and talked with Grant.

Pluto and Karmic Decisions

Ulysses S Grant astrology chart shows a special connection with Pluto. When Pluto entered the sign of Taurus, and conjoined his natal Saturn, Grant experienced extreme financial reverses. This was the time he returned to farming, and for years he struggled to survive financially. When Pluto moved up to his Sun, the conjunction becoming exact in 1857, he quietly performed a courageous act.

He owned a slave, a gift from his father-in-law, made by the father to his beloved daughter rather than to Grant. This slave, whose name was William Jones, was Grant and Julia’s sole possession, the only wealth they had. Grant and the slave worked together for years every day from dawn to dusk in the fields —plowing, sowing and harvesting, digging holes for fence posts, pulling out stumps, doing all the hard work that farming involved in the nineteenth century.

On March 29, 1859, when Pluto transited his Taurus Sun at 6° Taurus 50′, Grant rode into town and signed the manumission papers, freeing his slave. On the surface of things this act left him penniless. He was following an inner feeling that said that true respect of the human being who worked alongside you every day means that he should be given freedom from a degrading bondage and should be requited for his labor.

Often, when Pluto transits the Sun, one faces a karmic decision. It may involve economics and wealth, or power and the courage to apply it, or the issue of bondage, or a total change of life purpose into something new.

Under this transit (Pluto over the Sun), the choice is still up to the individual free will. The appropriate karma that follows is often an indication of that choice. These decisions may be private affairs. Sometimes we see them in history, sometimes we don’t.

Returning to the story of Grant, let us move on to 1861, when Pluto began to conjunct his natal Jupiter.

US Grant and Plutonian War: The American Civil War

The Civil War lasted a few weeks longer than four years (Confederate General Kirby Smith’s army surrendered in Texas on May 26, 1865, formally ending the war). During the war, Pluto sat right atop Grant’s Jupiter (Pluto moves slowly through astrological Taurus). One of the best images we historians have of that period is Grant riding his horse Cincinnatus, one of the swiftest horses of both armies, across numerous battlefields, followed by a long chain of officers on horseback, his staff, who could never quite keep up with him.

SOME OF HIS BATTLES

Belmont November 7, 1861

After being appointed General of Volunteers Aug 5, 1861, Grant moved his army to Paducah, KY and entered the city without a fight. Then, leaving an occupation force there, he took his army back to Cairo, Ill.

In early November, 1861, he loaded 3000 troops, plus horses and artillery onto transport vessels, and sailed down the Mississippi River to a place called Belmont, Missouri. He generaled an army with no experience, and staffed by amateur officers. He landed his men at Belmont. They promptly attacked the Confederate camp and drove the enemy in a disorderly rout out into the forest.

It was victory! His troops were delirious.

Then their advance stopped, and the newly formed army, finding the camp full of shiny bright things like gold watches and pens and new boots, began looting. The army dissolved into a looting mob. Grant rode everywhere yelling at them to resume their advance. No one listened.

The Confederates by this time had a chance to regroup and reorganize. They surrounded the camp and began firing at Grant’s soldiers. Joy turned to terror: “We are trapped,” they screamed.

“Listen to me,” yelled Grant. “We are not trapped. We just have to cut ourselves out. Let me show you how to do it,” he advised. The men calmed. He organized the troops for a cutout, and meanwhile ordered the camp burned to the ground. He led his troops back to the transports, and they sailed away. The number of killed and wounded was light.

In this battle, a kind of reconnaissance, he blooded his troops. He familiarized them with combat; he was teaching them to maintain discipline under conditions of extreme stress. And they were developing a brotherhood. The Army of Tennessee was created. It would become one of the greatest armies in history

Fort Henry Feb. 5-6 1862

Fort Henry was another of Grant’s river wars, this one was fought on the Tennessee River. The battle consisted of ironclad gunboats sailing up and firing on the fortress. Grant’s navy fought these battles quite well: the ironclads destroyed the fort and after two hours of shelling, it surrendered before Grant’s land force arrived. When Grant rode up, he saw the Union flag flying over the fort. It is true that Fort Henry was poorly situated, and that it was manned by only a few soldiers.. Yet Grant’s achievement rested on moving swiftly and applying overwhelming force. This victory built confidence in his soldiers. They were well fed, well uniformed, and now they were winning battle after battle. They knew they were well led. There is nothing like brilliant leadership to develop a loyal hard-fighting army.

Fort Donelson Feb. 11 – 16, 1862

Grant was never satisfied to sit back and rest. His Mars in Leo in the Aries decanate was always focused on moving forward. The battle at Fort Donaldson was located on the Cumberland River, which led to Nashville, the capitol of Tennessee. So within less than a week of taking Fort Henry, he moved on Fort Donelson.

On Feb 14, 1862, four ironclad ships and two other warships begin firing on the fort. In response, the fort, much better supplied and armed than Fort Henry, replied with withering fire. While the Union navy gunboats wreak mayhem on the fort, in turn, the fort’s cannon begin tearing his ships apart. Apparently the flag officer in charge had maneuvered too close to the cannon lining the walls of the fort. The ships had to pull back. Two of the ships had to return to Cairo, Ill. for repairs. Grant ordered the others to continue firing on the fort long range.

Feb.15. The Confederate generals within the fort noted that Grant was still in control of the river and that his army, unlike the armies in the east, was not retreating, and it was constantly being supplied with new troops. They decided to break out through the Union lines and retreat to Nashville. They attacked early in the morning, and they almost broke through. Grant was not on the battle field. He was conferring with his naval commanders by the river, and due to the wind, he did not hear the sounds of battle.

Returning to his army he was met by a white-faced adjutant with the news that his army was being pushed back and is about to break. He galloped to where the fighting was fiercest and steadied the retreating Union soldiers. He stoped the Confederate advance. Then he moved part of his army to a flank of the Confederate advance, where they seem the weakest, and attacked. In that area of battle the Confederate army collapsed, and then the entire Confederate army gave up and retreated back into Fort Donelson. That night the two top Confederate generals escape down river on a swift boat.

On Feb. 16, the new Confederate commanding general asks for “terms”. This request represented the old way of war; it was akin to notions of the plantation aristocracy’s idea of chivalry. Grant was having none of it. He replied:

No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted.

And a threat:

I propose to move immediately on your works.

Fort Donelson surrendered. It was the first major victory won by the Union: An army of 15,000 was defeated and captured.

Some Astrology

During the battle Mars was trine his natal mars. The Sabian symbol for Grant’s 24° Leo Mars:

An interior focalization of energy and consciousness at the expense of outward activity and care.

Many times Grant’s focus was so intense that he was, as one historian of the time put it, “in a state of complete neglect of bodily appearance and cleanliness”. His natal Mars was exactly quintile Pluto. It constituted total focus (Mars) on the managing of a war (Pluto). When he was surprised by the attack that morning by the enemy, he immediately knew how to counter it. In fact, Grant was often surprised by the enemy, and the unexpected came upon him many times. The unexpected in war was for him just another means of fighting, moving forward. Surprise for Grant was probably never a surprise at all. It was merely a sudden change that he could flow with easily, changing his tactics to meet the new, something you would expect with Uranus in an exact trine to his natal Sun.

On that day Pluto by transit was conjunct his natal Jupiter, making him immune to flying projectiles giving him protection in war. And, this was the battle that made him famous all over America, and it got him promoted to Major General three weeks later (March 6, 1862).

Shiloh, April 6-7, 1862

In many ways Shiloh was the testing battle for Grant, as Gettysburg was the testing battle for Lee. In both battles the opposing generals were first rate, and both battles lasted more than one day, and both were slug fests.

After taking Fort Donelson, he moved his army on transport boats down the Tennessee River deep into Confederate territory. He landed this army at a steamboat landing called Pittsburg Landing. The army was marched up a steep bluff into meadowlands, where Grant made camp. The army was 33,000 strong, half of it made up of recruits who had never fired a rifle in anger, and it would be attacked the next morning.

Grant’s strategy was to move his army towards Corinth, Mississippi, located 20 miles away. This small city was an important railroad and telegraph junction. Taking it would cripple the Confederacy all over its western territories.

At 6:00 a.m. on April 6^th, a Confederate army of 40,000 soldiers, already blooded and experienced in combat, attacked the Union camp. It was generaled by A.S. Johnston, reputed to be the best general in the Confederate army. The Union army fled at first. Yet officered by competent warriors, like Sherman and McPherson, both specially chosen by Grant, what had begun as a rout turned into a managed retreat. And at the last bluff before the river that retreat formed into a solid line.

Grant had arrived on the battlefield around 9:00 in the morning, and he was lucky. The victorious Confederates, moving into the empty and well-supplied Union camp stopped and looted. And their officers could not make them go forward. This gave Grant the time to move all over the battle field and harden resistance. Even so, the power of the Confederate army was immense. Grant’s army was slowly pushed back, at great cost to both sides, until it reached that bluff. If pushed further over the bluff, the Union army would be destroyed.

Yet on that bluff, and on that line, stood Sherman. The general was covered in dirt and dust, had a wound in his hand and shoulder, and he commanded a line of heavy cannon. Many of his artillerymen were new to war. He steadied and calmed them. If one was killed by fire, he found an immediate replacement. If a cannon had to be loaded, and the loader was killed, Sherman would load the cannon himself. He held that row of cannon all day long until the sun set. His line never broke.

Meanwhile, wherever the fighting was thickest, there was Grant, solving emergency after emergency, plugging gaps in the line, encouraging the troops. It was as if he knew where the firing was most dangerous, and that some psychic sense directed him there.

By mid-day he had steadied the lines and they were not retreating, and it turned into a deadly slugfest, and thousands of soldiers on both sides were dying.

A scout rode up to Grant with a message, and after delivering his message, a cannon ball flew by and took off the man’s head. Grant looked away refusing to lose his focus on the battle.

Around 2:00 p.m. a Minnie ball struck General Johnston in the leg near his right knee, severing an artery. While continuing to direct the battle, it is probable that he was in a heightened state of battle consciousness, and that he was not even aware that he was dangerously wounded. Later, an aide noticed that his right foot was dripping blood. They cut off his boot, and out gushed a torrent of blood. He grew faint and began falling off of his horse, and his staff rushed to catch him. He had already bled out too much, and lay dying under a giant live oak tree. Though they tried to cover it up, the word spread through the Confederate army that their general was dead, and the will to fight seemed to go out of the army. That night, in the rain, Union gunboats continually pounded the Confederate camps.

The next day, Grant, reinforced with two new armies, attacked at sunrise. He retook all the territory lost on the first day. In the early afternoon, the new commanding general of the Confederate army, General Beauregard, facing now a fresh army larger than his, gave it up and called a retreat, moving back to Corinth, Mississippi.

In this one battle, out of 100,000 participating soldiers, 23,000 died outright, and many more were left wounded and disabled. More deaths occurred at Shiloh than in the entire eight and a half years of the American Revolution.

The Astrology of Shiloh

_{Sun 15°Aries 56′ Moon 29°Gemini16 Mars1°Aquarius12 Jupiter19° Virgo40 Saturn17° Virgo19 Uranus 13° Gemini 13 Neptune1°Aries52 Pluto 9°Taurus22}

This was one of the toughest single battles Grant fought. The first transit that jumps out is the Mars transit. Mars is exactly sextile his natal Pluto, and it is exactly square his natal Saturn. He would be everywhere on the field of battle the first day (Mars); and it would be a hard, hard battle (Saturn). The second transit of course is the transit of Pluto two degrees away from his natal Jupiter. Like General Johnston, he was in the thick of fire all day long, yet not a single projectile touched him. I guess you could throw in the void of course Moon, when the battle began. It all turned out different from what anyone expected. The lines wavered much of the first day. A great general died, and he was the highest ranking general on both sides to die in battle in the Civil War.

That transiting Pluto would move up to sit on Grants natal Jupiter for many battles in the war. (Note: Grant’s chart shows transits for Shiloh)

Vicksburg Campaign Jan. 10 – July 4, 1863

Taking Vicksburg, a fortified city located on the steep banks of a turning in the Mississippi River, was Grant’s next major objective. Vicksburg bristled with cannon and artillery. It blocked the Union from using the river from Vicksburg to New Orleans. Taking it could determine the outcome of the war.

This battle was fought on water. Grant had to face heavy rains and flooding, plus navigating swamps and bayous. And he had to transport his armies down and up rivers.

First, he attempted attacking Vicksburg from the north, advancing through swamps and minor rivers. It did not work. These water-jungles were too thick, too dense, and even for his well-trained engineers. He would have to transport his army down the Mississippi River.

He and his naval officers analyzed the problem, and they came up with a plan. First, stealth. The transport of his armies would be initiated well after dark. All lights on the transports were doused; animals including dogs and birds were not allowed aboard. They could be noisy, and sound travels quickly and far over water. The Yazoo River fed into the Mississippi; it was surrounded by jungle and hard to reach by land. It was here that the transports lay in wait for complete darkness. The night was complete a little after 10:00 p.m., and the transports quietly sailed from the Yazoo into the Mississippi.

Ulysses S Grant astrology In Vicksburg the officers of the Confederate Army were attending a fancy dress ball. They were caught by surprise. The flotilla consisted of transports and ships covered with iron plate. These were called ironclads. In addition, the ships boilers and decks were packed with bales of cotton and hay, sand bags, sacks of grain, and even logs. This soft shield greatly lessened the impact of fire from the fortress guns. Also, the flotilla hugged the eastern shore towards Vicksburg. Many of the guns were not able to point down that far, and they overshot their targets.

525 projectiles were fired that night; 68 found a target. The hit rate was 12.9%, pitiful. Most landed in the soft cotton or hay or bags of sand or seeds, or maybe broke some logs. Grant’s flotilla sailed right on past to the southern Mississippi.

Then on April 22, 1863, six more steamers and twelve barges, filled with supplies needed for war made the same trip. This was the first victory of the Vicksburg Campaign. This ruse of war probably derived from the ability his Sun trine Neptune conferred, and the river wars that he fought so well was the Jupiter/Sun/Saturn that sat in his natal 12^th House.

Grant now had his army south of Vicksburg and close to the city of Grand Gulf, Mississippi. His army was now “on dry ground and on the same side as the enemy”. His army was smaller than the Confederate armies, if they combined into one army. His strategy was now to keep the Confederate armies apart and defeat them piecemeal. He sent his most trusted general, Sherman, north to attack the Confederate army located above Vicksburg. It responded to Sherman, fought some minor battles, but never united with the armies south.

Then Grant attacked and won a battle at Grand Gulf. This action was followed by moving his army inward towards Jackson, Mississippi, rather than attacking Vicksburg directly north. The Confederates were taken by surprise.

Each battle of the Vicksburg Campaign had different needs, and Grant applied a different strategy to each, whether fought on land or water.

On May 9^th, he took Jackson, Miss., his third Confederate capitol city.

The commanding general at Vicksburg, Pemberton, finally moved his army out of Vicksburg and attacked Grant’s flank. It was not enough. Grant was ready for such an attack, even expected it. Pemberton was defeated and driven back into the well-fortified city.

On May 22, Grant attempted a frontal assault on Vicksburg, but was repulsed with a huge loss of life. Going up directly against the defenses of Vicksburg was not going to work. Then, he laid down a siege. Entrenchments with thousands of soldiers grew up around Vicksburg. They were 15 miles long; they were well designed and impenetrable. His land artillery bombarded Vicksburg constantly. His gunboats and mortar barges pounded it from the river.

After one and a half months of this siege, the Confederate Army and the population of Vicksburg was starving to death. On July 4^th, 1863, Pemberton surrendered to Grant. Grant had captured another army.

In this six month campaign he showed a gift for waging war that no other general in America possessed. He threw his smaller army between two larger armies and defeated them separately. His armies moved faster than any other army was capable of. He practiced dazzling deceptions on enemy generals. He was as at home on water as he was on land (water Houses holding the Sun and Saturn and Jupiter in earth signs). And he showed that he was capable of managing a large number of operations simultaneously in a single campaign.

The Chattanooga Campaign

US Grant and Plutonian War — Chattanooga

Following the battle of Chickamauga, located in the very top part of Georgia, which forced them to retreat into Chattanooga,The Union army was mostly surrounded. The river was closed to shipping. No railroads could provide supplies. And the one connection it did have was a rugged rocky mountain road mostly inaccessible to wagons and a hard traverse for horses and pack mules. Very quickly the Union army placed its soldiers on half-rations. Food was scarce. There was no forage for horses, and they died by the thousands. It was determined that the Union had enough ammunition for one day of fighting.

By this time Grant was walking on crutches and had traveled to Louisville, Ky. with Secretary of War Stanton. Grant had just met Stanton, just arrived from Washington DC, and they had had numerous discussions about the direction of the war, and how to fix the deteriorating situation in East Tennessee. Late one night, around 11:00 pm, he received an urgent summons from Stanton. The Secretary had just received a letter from Chattanooga warning that commanding general Rosecrans was planning to surrender his Union army to General Bragg.

The war had been going so well, and now this disaster threatened to make things much worse. There was a single telegraph wire available to connect with the besieged army in Chattanooga. The general and the Secretary of War made two decisions that night. First, Rosecrans was immediately relieved of command, which devolved to General Thomas, who had fought so well at Chickamauga, slowing the Confederate advance, allowing the Union army to retreat back into Chattanooga. General Thomas, when he assumed command, replied: “We will fight until we starve to death!”

Second. Grant would immediately go to Chattanooga and take command of the overall effort.

So here was a defeated, dispirited, starving Union army, and winter was coming. But so was General Grant. He left for Chattanooga that night.

The first leg of his journey was by train which got him all the way to the end of the railroad tracks, the terminus located at Stevenson, Alabama, south of Chattanooga on the Tennessee River. From there, he would have to travel along a sixty-mile trail by horse. It was rocky, ravine filled, muddy and wet, as it rained most of the journey, and as he had to pass the smell of dead pack animals killed by Confederate raiders, it was thoroughly miserable. His leg was not completely healed, so his crutch was tied to his saddle.

He and his party arrived in Chattanooga on the 24^th of October, 1863. They were soaking wet, tired, and hungry. But they were there.

Within a few hours, Grant’s arrival was known to every soldier in the camp. Somehow, just knowing he was there stabilized and calmed the army.They knew that Grant would make things work out. In every battle in which a dangerous crisis occurred, Grant had turned things around. He had saved the panicking troops at Belmont; at Fort Donelson he turned around an attack with a counter attack and ended up capturing an entire enemy army; at Shiloh, he turned a Union retreat into one of the most decisive winning battles of the war; in the Vicksburg campaign it was the same, and because he had more time in this action, he was able to employ ruses, false intelligence, and maneuvers that kept the enemy wondering what he would do next.

Saving deteriorating situations in the high stress of war was one of his greatest gifts. He was a savior general.

In the morning , when he looked out over the encampment, he could see the army was starving.

His first goal, the one to which he applied the full intensity of his mind, was to resupply the army. Supply traveling over that treacherous sixty mile road was a trickle. He knew he had to build a new supply route, and it had to be done quickly. His first objective was to take Brown’s Ferry. Removing the enemy from that position on the Tennessee River would open the river to shipping. Three days later, he appointed a General Hazen to command of a regiment that would do this. It loaded up in the middle of the night onto a small flotilla of pontoon boats and rafts. Concealed under the dark of the moon and a river fog, it landed a little above Brown’s Ferry between 4 and 5 am, and in a few minutes of furious fighting, took it, and then repelled the enemy’s attempts to retake it. The Tennessee River was now free. Grant further ordered an army, newly arrived from the West commanded by General Hooker, to occupy the area adjacent to the Tennessee River all the way to Stevenson, Alabama. This army would guard the new road being quickly constructed to carry supplies into Chattanooga. It was called the Cracker Road, named for the type of food being sent to the troops. Thus supply of food and ammunition and warm coats and everything else for the winter found its way to the army.

Now that the army was supplied, he set about rebuilding its spirit. The soldiers ragged and tattered uniforms were replaced with new ones. Those without shoes now had shoes. In a month, the now well-fed and rested soldiers regained self-confidence. They knew they were led by a winner of battles. The psychology of defeat dissolved; a new élan took its place. It took Grant a month to revive this army.

All during this period the commander of the Confederate army that surrounded Grant, General Bragg, was getting into furious fights with his own generals, and this discord lasted right up to the Battle of Missionary Ridge.

After a month, Grant was ready to resume the fight and move against the enemy. He now had added two armies, just arrived from the West, commanded by General Sherman and General Hooker.

Lookout Mountain, Nov. 24, 1863

The top of Lookout Mountain, some 1400 feet high, had provided the Confederate army with a perfect platform to aim down its powerful cannon at the Tennessee River, thus denying shipping to the Union forces. Other artillery on the mountain was aimed down at the troops in the city of Chattanooga. The mountain needed to be taken. Grant gave the task to the newly arrived army commanded by General Hooker. This army had been defending the new shipping route, the Cracker Road, and it was stationed closest to Lookout Mountain.

In a heavy rain, on November 24, 1863, Hookers army overran the Confederate entrenchments located on the Western slope of the mountain. Then it proceeded up the mountain, captured the battery at the northern top of the mountain, and then it forced the Confederates to retreat down its Eastern slope, where they would rejoin the army located on Missionary Ridge.

That night in late November, the weather was clear and cold, and both armies viewed a lunar eclipse. They gazed on a blood red Moon and wondered what it meant.

Missionary Ridge November 25, 1863

Sun 2° Sagittarius 15’ Moon 27°Taurus 52 Mercury 28°Scorpio 21 Venus 16°Libra 18 Mars 14°Scorpio 47 Jupiter 13°Scorpio 4 Saturn 14°Libra 45 Uranus 23°Gemini 53 Neptune 3°Aries 25 Pluto 10°Taurus 58

Grant’s armies faced an army entrenched above the valley on a 400 foot high hill. Normally an army does not attack uphill. The defenders have too much advantage. From walls built of stone they can fire down into the attackers; they can roll down boulders. The defender of the hill has the advantage of concentrated fire. Pickett’s Charge, at Gettysburg, moved up a hill straight into the blasts of pre-sighted Union cannon and rifle fire from behind stone barriers. Most of General Pickett’s army died, and Lee lost that battle.

Grant was aware of these considerations.

Facing Missionary Ridge to the east, he placed his most trusted general, Sherman, on his left flank, where he was to attack the enemy, and engage it in heavy battle. Sherman carried out these orders, but with heavy casualties on both sides. Still, it drew away support from the center.

In the center of the battle he placed General Thomas and himself.

On his right he placed General Hooker, who he felt was the least trustworthy of his generals. Hooker had been defeated in the battle of Chancellorsville, and he had the reputation of being out of control, and often of not following orders.

Grant ordered General Thomas to attack and take the manned entrenchments closest to Chattanooga, located at the base of Missionary Ridge.

Grand and Thomas were both standing on Orchard Knob, a hill that gave them a view of the entire battle field. (Orchard Knob is now a military battlefield filled with monuments commemorating the Union armies and regiments that fought at Missionary Ridge, and today it is mostly neglected).

Then, a miraculous event occurred. After the soldiers took the first line of entrenchments, they kept on going up the hill. Grant turned to Thomas, and asked, “Did you order them to go up?”

“No I did not,” replied the general.

Soon a regimental flag was seen planted at the top of Missionary Ridge.

Grant had a choice here, and actually it was the type of life and death decision he often made in war. The safe course would have been to order his army back. Grant risked all, and ordered the whole army on all sides forward. It swarmed up the hill, and soon regimental flags of the Union were appearing all along the ridge. The army took Missionary Ridge and drove the Confederates 20 miles south. In a complete reversal, the Chattanooga Campaign was won.

The Astrology of the Battle of Missionary Ridge

This battle occurred exactly on the day of America’s third Saturn Return. On November 25, 1863, Saturn was exactly conjunct the Declaration Saturn located at 14° Libra. This was the most decisive battle won by the North against the South. Never again would the South win a battle like Chickamauga, Chancellorsville, or Bull Run against the North. It confirmed that the Union would remain and grow stronger, and that the slave plantation aristocracy would eventually in a little over a year be destroyed.

The quickness of the battle could be found in the Jupiter/Mars at 13° and 14° Scorpio, trine the natal Declaration Sun located at 13° Cancer.

On that day Pluto was conjunct Grant’s natal Jupiter.

Plutonian Light

I hope this gives you a taste of what Grant was like, and the reason that for the last twenty years of his life, as general of the armies, as president, as great author, he remained the First Man of America.

I close this section with a quote from Emerson’s essay, Compensation, which discusses the kinds of Plutonian change that people and nations must often endure in order to experience Plutonian light:

The changes which break up at short intervals the prosperity of men, are advertisements of a nature whose law is growth. Evermore it is the order of nature to grow, and every soul is by this intrinsic necessity quitting its whole system of things, its friends and home and laws, and faith, as the shellfish crawls out of its beautiful but stony case, because it no longer admits of its growth, and slowly forms a new house. And yet the compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, loss of wealth, a loss of friends seems at the moment unpaid loss, and unpayable. But the sure years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts.

The death of a dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing but privation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or genius; for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of life, terminates an epoch of infancy or of youth which was waiting to be closed, breaks up a wonted occupation, or a household, or style of living, and allows the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character. It permits or constrains the formation of new acquaintances, and the reception of new influences that prove of the first importance to the next years; and the man or woman who would have remained a sunny garden flower, with no room for its roots and too much sunshine for its head, by the falling of the walls and the neglect of the gardener, is made the banyan of the forest, yielding shade and fruit to wide neighborhoods of men.