1. Grant and Thomas: A Classic Case of Micro-Management - Bad for Business; Deadly for Armies.
Grant and Thomas: December, 1864 by Stephen Z. Starr. Courtesy of the Cincinnati Civil War Round Table.
The Starr paper does a masterful job of explaining why Grant mistreated Thomas during the Nashville campaign. However Grant's persecution of Thomas goes farther back than Nashville. Some historians say it started in May of 1862 due to his resentment of having his Army of the Tennessee given to Thomas when Halleck kicked Grant 'upstairs' as his second in command and left him without an active job.
Sometime after he took command of the Western Theatre, I think (opinion alert) Grant made an assessment of his top subordinates to see which ones could challenge him for his job based on ability. He decided that Thomas was the one to worry about. He then proceeded to limit Thomas' opportunities as much as he could (he had no choice in giving Thomas command of the Army of the Cumberland after his heroic performance at Chickamauga as that army and Lincoln would accept no one else). I believe the true reason for limiting Thomas was that Grant was worried that one day Lincoln would realize that Thomas' ability to win battles with minimum casualties by orchestrating infantry, artillery and cavalry for maximum effect and his uncanny ability to improvise on the battlefield, as conditions changed, would make him a perfect candidate to replace Grant if Grant stumbled or if his straight-ahead style became too great a price for the nation to pay.
In reality, Thomas, a Virginian, had little chance of the top job due to the influence of the Ohio (plus, in the case of Grant, the Illinois) congressional delegations who were quite impressive in forwarding the careers of Grant, Sherman and Sheridan, et al but apparently Grant, who seemed somewhat in awe of Thomas, did not want to chance it.
Grant's promotion of his friend General Sherman over Thomas after Chattanooga did the trick of keeping Thomas 'buried' until very late in the war (Nashville). Grant rationalized his decision by stating in his memoirs that Sherman was more aggressive. Yet up to that point in the war, Sherman had done very little (if anything) to indicate he had much capacity for independent command while Thomas was a proven winner since early 1862 at Mill Springs. At this point, in any discussion of the abilities of the various Generals, someone will invariably say, 'yes, but Thomas was slow'. This is simply repeating a carefully concocted impression by both Grant and Sherman during the war and especially in their memoirs1 afterwards to justify, in the case of Grant, not promoting Thomas for merit, and in the case of Sherman, that Grant made a good choice in picking him over Thomas.
In reality, punctuality was one of Thomas' quirks. He hated to be late. For example, if he had a part in a coordinated battle plan, he was never late. He did always try to get his ducks in a row before committing his men to the shock of battle, but he always did so as fast as possible. His comprehensive battle planning was really the beginning of the modern Army.2
At Nashville, it was ironic that Grant chastised Thomas for taking so long to bring on battle (two weeks delay due to remount of cavalry and ice storm) while at the same time, Grant had been going nowhere fast against General Lee at Petersburg for nearly six months.
After Thomas' resounding victory at Nashville, Grant rewarded him by taking away his infantry (because he was 'too slow') to make sure he had no more opportunity to outshine Sherman or himself.
When Grant gave Sherman command of the Western theatre in early 1864, despite the fact that Thomas was senior to Sherman and despite the fact that it was Thomas' men not Sherman's that won the Battle of Chattanooga, General Thomas had good reason to resent the breech of army protocol but, to his everlasting credit, he quietly accepted a command under Sherman during the Atlanta campaign and exerted all his abilities to make the campaign and General Sherman successful. He never let personal issues detract him from his main goal of successfully ending the war.
Notes:
1. J. H. Sherratt: Some Corrections of Grant's Memoirs as Regards General George H. Thomas; in Commandery of the State of Illinois, MOLLUS, Military Essays and Recollections, vol. II, pg. 499-514, Chicago, IL 1894.
2. Pratt, Fletcher:
Old Pap, Infantry Journal 45 (Jan/Feb 1938): pp. 17-24 & (Mar/Apr 1938): pp. 146-156. Per.