The History Book Club discussion

Late in the administration of Andrew Johnson, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant quarreled with the President and aligned himself with the Radical Republicans. He was, as the symbol of Union victory during the Civil War, their logical candidate for President in 1868.

When he was elected, the American people hoped for an end to turmoil. Grant provided neither vigor nor reform. Looking to Congress for direction, he seemed bewildered. One visitor to the White House noted "a puzzled pathos, as of a man with a problem before him of which he does not understand the terms."

Born in 1822, Grant was the son of an Ohio tanner. He went to West Point rather against his will and graduated in the middle of his class. In the Mexican War he fought under Gen. Zachary Taylor.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Grant was working in his father's leather store in Galena, Illinois. He was appointed by the Governor to command an unruly volunteer regiment. Grant whipped it into shape and by September 1861 he had risen to the rank of brigadier general of volunteers.

He sought to win control of the Mississippi Valley. In February 1862 he took Fort Henry and attacked Fort Donelson. When the Confederate commander asked for terms, Grant replied, "No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted." The Confederates surrendered, and President Lincoln promoted Grant to major general of volunteers.

At Shiloh in April, Grant fought one of the bloodiest battles in the West and came out less well. President Lincoln fended off demands for his removal by saying, "I can't spare this man--he fights."

For his next major objective, Grant maneuvered and fought skillfully to win Vicksburg, the key city on the Mississippi, and thus cut the Confederacy in two. Then he broke the Confederate hold on Chattanooga.

Lincoln appointed him General-in-Chief in March 1864. Grant directed Sherman to drive through the South while he himself, with the Army of the Potomac, pinned down Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.

Finally, on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House, Lee surrendered. Grant wrote out magnanimous terms of surrender that would prevent treason trials.

As President, Grant presided over the Government much as he had run the Army. Indeed he brought part of his Army staff to the White House.

Although a man of scrupulous honesty, Grant as President accepted handsome presents from admirers. Worse, he allowed himself to be seen with two speculators, Jay Gould and James Fisk. When Grant realized their scheme to corner the market in gold, he authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to sell enough gold to wreck their plans, but the speculation had already wrought havoc with business.

During his campaign for re-election in 1872, Grant was attacked by Liberal Republican reformers. He called them "narrow-headed men," their eyes so close together that "they can look out of the same gimlet hole without winking." The General's friends in the Republican Party came to be known proudly as "the Old Guard."

Grant allowed Radical Reconstruction to run its course in the South, bolstering it at times with military force.

After retiring from the Presidency, Grant became a partner in a financial firm, which went bankrupt. About that time he learned that he had cancer of the throat. He started writing his recollections to pay off his debts and provide for his family, racing against death to produce a memoir that ultimately earned nearly $450,000. Soon after completing the last page, in 1885, he died.

Source: The White House Biography

http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presi...

Folks, it looks like Ulysses S. Grant may be the next presidential selection after Theodore Roosevelt for the October - Presidential Series Selection.

However, we need to put together a list of potential books about Grant which we will ultimately vote on.

Please add your recommendations and favorites here. They can be works by Grant or about him; they can focus on any aspect or event in his life including his presidency. The books can be pro or con; but most of the time we would prefer a book which has some balance and has been well researched.

So please add suggestions here. We would like to get at least twenty recommendations maximum for a voting poll. Of course, we will ultimately do this for Polk and for Clinton, so please add suggested books to their threads as well and/or any of the presidential threads.

Here is a recommendation that has received some positive reviews:

Brooks D. Simpson

Here is the goodreads write-up:

Washington, Lincoln, Grant--these were once the triumvirate of American nationalism. But, like his tomb on the Hudson, Grant's reputation has fallen into disrepair.

The image many Americans hold of him is a caricature: someone "uniquely stupid," an insensitive butcher as a general, an incompetent mediocrity as president, and a drunk. Several efforts to counter this stereotype have often gone too far in the other direction, resulting in an equally distorted laudatory portrait of near-perfection.

In reading the original sources, Brooks D. Simpson became convinced that Grant was neither a bumbling idiot who was the darling of fortune nor a flawless general who could do no wrong.

Rather, he was a tangle of opposing qualities--a relentless warrior but a generous victor, a commander who drew upon uncommon common sense in drafting campaign plans and in winning battles, a soldier so sensitive to suffering that he could not stand to see the bloody hides at his father's tannery, a man who made mistakes and sometimes learned from them.

Even as he waged war, he realized the broader political implications of the struggle; he came to believe that the preservation of the Union depended upon the destruction of slavery. Equally compelling is Grant's personal story--one of a man who struggled against great odds, bad luck, and personal humiliation, who sought joy and love in the arms of his wife and his children, and who was determined to overcome adversity and prevail over his detractors.

"None of our public men have a story so strange as this," Owen Wister once observed; agreeing, William T. Sherman remarked that Grant remained a mystery even to himself.

In the first of two volumes, Brooks Simpson brings Grant's story to life in an account that is readable, balanced, compelling, and definitive.

Here is another book about Grant:

Jean Edward Smith

Here is the goodreads write-up:

Hiram Ulysses Grant--mistakenly enrolled in the United States Military Academy as Ulysses Simpson Grant, and so known ever since--was a failure in many of the things to which he turned his hand.

An indifferent, somewhat undisciplined cadet who showed talent for mathematics and painting, he served with unexpected distinction in the U.S. war against Mexico, then repeatedly went broke as a real-estate speculator, freighter, and farmer.

His reputation was restored in the Civil War, in which he fulfilled a homespun philosophy of battle: "Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can and as often as you can, and keep moving on."

Given to dark moods and the solace of the bottle (although far less so than his political foes made him out to be), Grant was ferocious in war, but chivalrous in peace, and offered generous terms to the defeated armies of Robert E. Lee. His enemies on the battlefield of politics showed him little honor, and they had a point: Grant's presidency was marked by a legion of corrupt lieutenants and hangers-on who built their fortunes on the back of a suffering people, and for whose actions Grant's reputation long has suffered.

Recent history has been kinder to Grant than were the chroniclers of his day, not only for his undoubted abilities as a military leader, but also for his conduct as a president who sought to rebuild a shattered nation.

Jean Edward Smith, the author of fine biographies of John Marshall and Lucius D. Clay, offers compelling reasons to accept this program of revision, while acknowledging the shortcomings of Grant's administration. Surely and thoughtfully written, this sprawling but swiftly moving book stands as a true hallmark in the literature that is devoted to Grant. --Gregory McNamee

Here is what Scott Kelly had to say:

Following in the same vein as Simpson and Scaturro, Jean Edward Smith (biographer of Cassius Clay and John Marshall) wrote the best, most accessible full biography of Ulysses S. Grant to date. While presenting nothing new on Grant's military career, Smith gives an admirable and very necessary positive evaluation of Grant's presidency. Nowhere near the hagiography of Perrot's work, it's quite balanced and eye-opening, especially for anyone who believes that Grant was a racist, a butcher and a drunk, and too stupid to be president. Smith makes the case that Grant was the original civil rights president, that Grant prevented the genocide of the Plains Indians, and that the "scandals" are way overblown.

Here is a two volume memoir written by Ulysses S. Grant himself.

Volume One:

Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson), 1822-1885 Grant

and

Volume Two

Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson), 1822-1885 Grant

Here is the goodreads write-up:

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Here is the write-up by Scott Kelly:

The general who defeated the Confederacy tells how he did it. His friend and publisher Mark Twain called them the greatest military memoirs since Caesar's. Thomas Nast, the famed political cartoonist, declared: "He wrote as he talked, simple, unadorned, manly. He was the most complete and masculine person I ever knew, and his book is the most complete book I have ever read." Grant wrote his magnificent Memoirs while in a race against terminal throat cancer. He did not write much of his presidency or anything else past 1865 (other than a conclusion) so unfortunately he was unable to defend here what honestly was a positive, progressive and decent administration. (See Jean Edward Smith's book above.) Grant's Memoirs have never gone out of print as far as I know—they're that good.

This is an account of the life of Ulysses S. Grant which turned out to be a trilogy. The first book which started it all was by author Lloyd Lewis. Bruce Catton finished the last two books of the trilogy.

Lloyd Lewis

Synopsis on goodreads: (not much here)

Originally published in 1950, this is an account of Ulysses S.Grant's youth and young manhood.

A better account by Scott Kelly:

For Grant's military career, you can still find no better treatment than this trilogy begun by Lloyd Lewis (it was his last work) and completed by Bruce Catton, the mid-20th century's dean of the Civil War. The volumes are beautifully written and deal rather harshly with the persistent rumors/complaints that Grant was a butcher and a drunkard. The trilogy is a little less balanced than Brooks Simpson's single volume, but it remains the best third-party retelling of Grant's life to 1865.

Book Two in the trilogy was written by Bruce Catton:

Bruce Catton

The goodreads write-up:

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Bruce Catton here introduces General Ulysses S. Grant as he undertakes his first Civil War command, and follows him as he leads his troops through a series of battles - Belmont, Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Corinth, Chickasaw Bayou, Edwards Station, and finally Vicksburg - that bring control of the Mississippi River, the lifeline of the South, to the Union. In the course of this dramatic narrative, Grant is revealed as a man of greatness unrecognized by previous biographers.

Book Three in the trilogy was also written by Bruce Catton:

Bruce Catton

Here is the goodreads write-up:

A classic work of military history, follows the enigmatic commander in chief of the Union forces through the last year and a half of the Civil War. It is both a revelatory portrait of Ulysses S. Grant and the dramatic story of how the war was won.

This is an account which was written during the Civil War by Horace Porter who was an aide to Grant:

Horace Porter

Here is Scott Kelly's write-up:

Porter became an aide to Grant in 1863 and remained at Grant's side for the next 10 years. At the end of the century, he published what is rightfully considered the best eyewitness account of General Grant in action during the second half of the war. Few Civil War collections are without this book, and it's re-released every decade or so.

Here is the goodreads write-up:

In 1863 Horace Porter, then a captain, met Ulysses S. Grant as Grant commenced the campaign that would break the Confederate siege at Chattanooga.

After a brief stint in Washington, Porter rejoined Grant, who was now in command of all Union forces, and served with him as a staff aide until the end of the war.

Porter was at Appomattox as a brevet brigadier general, and this work, written from notes taken in the field, is his eyewitness account of the great struggle between Lee and Grant that led to the defeat of the Confederacy.

As a close-up observer of Grant in the field, Porter was also able to draw a finely detailed, fully realized portrait of this American military hero—his daily acts, his personal traits and habits, and the motives that inspired him in important crises—rendered in the language that Grant used at the time.

Porter intended to bring readers into such intimate contact with the Union commander that they could know him as well as those who served by his side. He acquits himself admirably in this undertaking, giving us a moving human document and a remarkable perspective on a crucial chapter of American history.

For a one volume treatment:

William S. McFeely

From Amazon:
A moving and convincing portrait....profound understanding of the man as well as his period and his country. -- C. Vann Woodward, New York Review of Books

Clearsightedness, along with McFeely's unfailing intelligence and his existential sympathy...informs his entire biography. -- Justin Kaplan, The New Republic

Combines scholarly exactness with evocative passages....Biography at its best. -- Marcus Cunliffe, New York Times Book Review

Product Description
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize. The seminal biography of one of America's towering, enigmatic figures. From his boyhood in Ohio to the battlefields of the Civil War and his presidency during the crucial years of Reconstruction, this Pulitzer Prize-winning biography traces the entire arc of Grant's life (1822-1885).

A book on Grant's image:



A review from Dennis Showalter:

U.S. Grant is primarily understood as a victorious soldier, and secondarily as a flawed president. Waugh, professor of history at UCLA, takes a different perspective. The Civil War remains America’s defining event. It left a heritage of courage and idealism, but also a legacy of destruction, recrimination and racism. Grant was essential to both. His generalship was decisive to the war’s outcome; his presidency structured the nature of Reconstruction.

Waugh presents Grant as a hero in the American mold: not an icon, but a person who struggled with flaws yet achieved greatness. A man of war, he simultaneously kept faith in a future beyond the battlefield: a future of national reconciliation and black emancipation. Her question is why Grant’s reputation stood so high in his own time and immediately afterward, but has since been so eclipsed, both generally and relative to counterparts like Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee.

The first half of this well-researched, clearly written book explains how and why Grant became the hero of the Union during the Civil War and the embodiment of the nation in the succeeding decade. As soldier-statesman and two-term president he sought to define, defend and preserve victory over an enduringly embittered South, and simultaneously establish and defend meaningful freedom for former slaves. The work’s second half covers Grant’s agonizing, widely-publicized death from cancer and the simultaneous completion of his memoirs. Still one of the greatest examples of the genre, it was taken up by North and South alike. Grant, the honorable soldier in the field and the generous victor of Appomattox, epitomized the magnanimity that made genuine reunification possible.

That in turn made his commemoration a major case study in the way historical memory is shaped and reshaped. The elaborate tomb that was a place of pilgrimage at the end of the 19th century fell into neglect in the 20th. So too did Grant’s legacy become distorted by the “gunpowder and magnolias” romanticism surrounding and obscuring the Confederate legacy. Lee emerged as the sophisticated master of the battlefield, with Grant relegated to the role of an unimaginative butcher. The Union and Confederate causes came increasingly to be regarded as morally equivalent because of the mutually fervent commitment they engendered.

As Lost Cause romanticism went out of academic and cultural fashion beginning in the 1960s, Grant’s reputation as a general has reemerged brighter than ever. Now it is his political heritage that suffers because of the incomplete nature of Reconstruction. There his failure was relative. Grant’s political acumen may not have matched his military gifts, but a Julius Caesar or a Klemens Metternich would have been little more likely to square the Reconstruction circle. Perhaps the next step in evaluating Grant’s mythic and historical legacies will be an understanding of just how unusual was even the limited reintegration of Northerners, Southerners and freed slaves in the context of a near-total civil war.

Thank you for the adds Bryan. I hope everyone will recommend books on Grant and the other presidents especially Grant, Polk and Clinton.

Geoffrey Perret

From Amazon.com review:
Ulysses S. Grant worked with Red Cloud, chief of the Lakota Sioux, to create an arguably more humane Indian policy--"no president could have done more," argues Geoffrey Perret, whose reassessment of Grant as a politician is his biography's finest achievement. Not that he scants his subject's military genius; the relentless, aggressive campaigns that won the Civil War are skillfully outlined and analyzed. Grant emerges in this nuanced portrait as a quintessential American: he is depicted as a restless rover perpetually in search of "movement, drama, adventure." Firmly situated in his time, he nonetheless seems a strikingly modern man.

I know this military historian:

J.F.C. Fuller

Product information:
An analysis of one of America's greatest soldiers which refutes the notion that Grant relied only on brute force to achieve his victories, demonstrating instead the mastery of mobility, surprise, judgement, and strategic co-ordination that made Grant the premier Civil War general.

Do you...I wonder if he would join us possibly for a week or even a night or two to discuss Grant during that discussion time period. We could set up a thread for the group to post questions to and he could answer them. Would be fun.

Sorry, Bentley, I "mis-typed." I know his books, not him personally. I wish though!

Gee I wish I knew him personally...I already was mapping out all of my questions about his (Grant's) tactics. Too bad...I am disappointed.

Tonight folks on PBS:

American Experience: U.S. Grant: Warrior

He rose from obscurity to become the greatest hero of the Civil War. See how “Unconditional Surrender” Grant used his hard-nosed fighting-style to propel Union soldiers to victory. Frederick Douglass: Pathway from Slavery to Freedom follows at 10:30pm.

Monday, January 10 at 9pm

Bentley wrote: "Tonight folks on PBS:

American Experience: U.S. Grant: Warrior

He rose from obscurity to become the greatest hero of the Civil War. See how “Unconditional Surrender” Grant used his hard-nosed fig..."

Thanks for the heads-up. I might have to tape it.

I just saw it frankly and thought you and others who have read the recent selection might be interested.

This looks interesting:

Ulysses S. Grant: A Victor, Not a Butcher: The Military Genius of the Man Who Won the Civil War

Edward H. Bonekemper III

Synopsis
Ulysses S. Grant is often accused of being a cold-hearted butcher of his troops. In Ulysses S. Grant: A Victor, Not a Butcher, historian Edward H. Bonekemper III proves that Grant's casualty rates actually compared favorably with those of other Civil War generals. His perseverance, decisiveness, moral courage, and political acumen place him among the greatest generals of the Civil War - indeed, of all military history. Bonekemper proves that it was no historical accident that Grant accepted the surrender of three entire Confederate armies and won the Civil War. Bonekemper ably silences Grant's critics and restores Grant to the heroic reputation he so richly deserves.

The tragic end to President Grant's life.

Grant's Final Victory


by Charles Bracelen Flood

Synopsis

Shortly after losing all of his wealth in a terible 1884 swindle, Ulysses S.Grant learned he had terminal throat and mouth cancer. Destitute and dying, Grant began to write his memoirs to save his family from financial ruin. This masterful narrative brings to life the dramatic last year of his life.

Awesome, Jill, thanks for the recommendation; the fact the memoirs were a financial success makes it bitter-sweet.

I just finished reading this new biography on Grant which covers his military career as well as his two terms as President. No new insights as such but well written and a very engaging account:


by H.W. Brands

Thanks A.R.

My pleasure Bryan, this book has got me interested in reading Grant's own book, as it sounds like he was a pretty decent writer as well.

by Ulysses S. Grant

He was.

Hi Christopher, I'm pretty sure you will enjoy both books. I'm also keen on getting a copy of this older book (1929) on Grant as a General:

by J.F.C. Fuller

Excellent, A.R. Fuller is one of the great military historians, as you know :-).

J.F.C. Fuller

I read that Ron Chernow's next book will be a biography on Grant.

Ron Chernow

Bryan wrote: "I read that Ron Chernow's next book will be a biography on Grant.

Ron Chernow"

That should be interesting!

Bryan wrote: "I read that Ron Chernow's next book will be a biography on Grant.

Ron Chernow"

I'll look forward to that. I thought his biography of
was especially good in covering both his military and his post military career. I'd be hopeful he'd do the same with Grant's Civil War experience and his Presidency. Of the above books I've only read the by Jean Edward Smith but thought it was excellent and wouldn't mind reading it again for a discussion. I'm presently listening to by H.W. Brands and think it well done, but agree with the comment above that it doesn't give any new insights, while I thought the Jean Smith book did so, mostly in his treatment of Grant's Presidency. However, all of the books and / trilogies / sets of books listed so far sound highly interesting to me.

Good to hear about Brands' book. I haven't read it yet, but everyone has said the same thing, Steven.

Chernow's book should be first-rate.

H.W. Brands

I agree Bryan. I just realized I'm getting so "dingy" in my old age. We read and discussed Smith's Grant book in this very same group, which is why I remember reading it..."smacks head" ...
At any rate, I too am looking forward to Chernow's book. Regarding Jean Edward Smith - I read a little of his Eisenhower biography and thought it quite good. Intend to go back to it at some point...

Good to hear. I have the Ike book, too.

Julia Grant: C-SPAN's First Ladies: Influence & Image:

http://firstladies.c-span.org/FirstLa...

A General Who Will Fight: The Leadership of Ulysses S. Grant

by Harry Laver (no photo)

Synopsis

Prior to his service in the Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant exhibited few characteristics indicating that he would be an extraordinary leader. His performance as a cadet was mediocre, and he finished in the bottom half of his class at West Point. However, during his early service in the Civil War, most notably at the battles of Shiloh and Vicksburg, Grant proved that he possessed an uncommon drive. When it was most crucial, Grant demonstrated his integrity, determination, and tactical skill by taking control of the Union troops and leading his forces to victory.

A General Who Will Fight is a detailed study of leadership that explores Grant's rise from undisciplined cadet to commanding general of the United States Army. Some experts have attributed Grant's success to superior manpower and technology, to the help he received from other Union armies, or even to a ruthless willingness to sacrifice his own men. Harry S. Laver, however, refutes these arguments and reveals that the only viable explanation for Grant's success lies in his leadership skill, professional competence, and unshakable resolve. Much more than a book on military strat-egy, this innovative volume examines the decision-making process that enabled Grant both to excel as an unquestioned commander and to win.

Unconditional Surrender: U.S. Grant and the Civil War

by Albert Marrin (no photo)

Synopsis:

When the small, stoop-shouldered man in a rumpled uniform and scuffed boots, accompanied by a thirteen-year-old boy, asked for a room at Willard's Hotel in Washington, D.C., he was offered a small room on the top floor. But when the clerk saw the man's signature, suddenly a suite was found for him. The man was Ulysses S. Grant, and President Lincoln recently had appointed him commander in chief of the Union forces. Noted historian Albert Marrin tells how this reluctant soldier became the leader who was able to bring final victory to the Union after years of bloody, wrenching civil war. Along the way he describes how soldiers lived in army camps: their food, their recreation, their thoughts, taken from diaries and letters home, and brings to the reader the experience of war: the fear, the deadly mistakes, the early medical services to the wounded, and always the heroism. Dr. Marrin re-creates the battles of Grant's campaigns and puts them in historical perspective. He makes it clear to his readers why both Abraham Lincoln and the ordinary Yankee soldier were willing to trust the outcome of the war and the future of the country to this unlikely hero.

The Armies of U.S. Grant

by James R. Arnold (no photo)

Synopsis:

Follow the development of Ulysses S. Grant, from an underachiever who dropped out of West Point to the supreme commander of the Union armies in the Civil War, and witness the evolution of his Army of the Tennessee from an inept volunteer militia into an aggressive, veteran, mobile-striking force. Based on diaries, letters, and first-hand accounts, this masterful study offers new perspectives on one of the most remarkable military lives of the nineteenth century.

The Rise Of U.s. Grant

by Arthur L. Conger (no photo)

Synopsis:

When Fort Sumter fell in 1861, Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) was an obscure clerk in Galena, Illinois, without influential friends and lacking a reputation for success. Yet within three years this man rose to command the Union armies, and just over a year later secured the defeat of the Confederacy. How can this emergence be explained? What were the characteristics of such a man and by what means did he acquire his knowledge? Did he earn his honors or did he owe them to chance and luck?The Rise of U. S. Grant focuses on the widely ignored first two years of his career in the West. Colonel Conger eschewed the general's justly acclaimed but inaccurate memoirs, relying instead on contemporaneous messages, dispatches, and reports undimmed by time and undistorted by later reflection. From the raid on Belmont through Grant's capture of Forts Henry and Donelson to his near defeat at Shiloh and the triumphant siege of Vicksburg, this book is a brilliant, penetrating exploration that goes a long way toward explaining the phenomenon of Grant, while letting the readers experience with gripping immediacy how he mastered the crises that confronted him.

Whip the Rebellion: Ulysses S. Grant's Rise to Command

by George Walsh (no photo)

Synopsis:

How the unprepossessing Ulysses S. Grant, whose military genius ultimately preserved the Union, came to the forefront in the Civil War is a story as surprising as it is compelling. Forced to resign his commission in the peacetime army for drinking, and thereafter reduced to eking out a living for himself and his family with hardscrabble jobs, at the outbreak of hostilities he suddenly found himself a colonel, and then a general, of volunteers. Grant made the most of unexpected commands. what he knew best, it turned out, was how to wage war, relentlessly and with irresistible force.

Early in 1862, with the conflict a year old and both sides in the West relunctant to fight, Grant seized the iniative and took Forts Henry and Donelson, capturing an entire rebel army. Later, in Mississippi, he conducted the ardous campaign against Vicksbug, cutting the confederacy in half and capturing a second army. All the time Grant was forced to cope with jealous superiors, like General Henry Halleck, while finding staunch allies in General William Sherman and Admiral David Dixon Porter, and dealing with disloyalty, like that of General John McClernard, who actually came close to replacing him.But for his many victories Grant was named commander in the West, and sent to relieve the seige of Chattanooga, which earned him his promotion to general-in-chief.

"Whip the Rebellion" was Grant's watchword every day of the war. This dramatic narrative---peopled with the heroics of hundreds of officers and enlisted men, crammed with first-hand accounts of battles, tactics, and civilian hardships---offers fresh insights into both the public and personal lives of Grant and his immediate circle.

Thank you Jerome

Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero

by Michael Korda (no photo)

Synopsis:

One of the first two volumes in Harper's Eminent Lives series, Korda brings his acclaimed storytelling talents to the life of Ulysses S. Grant – a man who managed to end the Civil War on a note of grace, serve two terms as president, write one of the most successful military memoirs in American literature, and is today remembered as a brilliant general but a failed president.

Ulysses S. Grant was the first officer since George Washington to become a four–star general in the United States Army, and the only president between Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson to serve eight consecutive years in the White House. In this succinct and vivid biography, Michael Korda considers Grant's character and reconciles the conflicting evaluations of his leadership abilities.

Grant's life played out as a true Horatio Alger story. Despite his humble background as the son of a tanner in Ohio, his lack of early success in the army, and assorted failed business ventures, his unwavering determination propelled him through the ranks of military leadership and into the presidency. But while the general's tenacity and steadfastness contributed to his success on the battlefield, it both aided and crippled his effectiveness in the White House.

Assessing Grant both within the context of his time and in contrast to more recent American leaders, Korda casts a benevolent eye on Grant's presidency while at the same time conceding his weaknesses. He suggests that though the general's second term ended in financial and political scandals, the fact remains that for eight years Grant exerted a calming influence on a country that had only just emerged from a horrendous civil war. Ulysses S. Grant is an even–handed and stirring portrait of a man who guided America through a pivotal juncture in its history.

Little unknown fact:

Did you know the U.S. Grant library is in Mississippi?

---------------

Mississippi State now officially serves as host to a presidential library--one of only five universities in the nation to share such a distinction.

Ulysses S. Grant Association President Frank J. Williams formally announced the decision of the organization's board of directors to designate the Ulysses S. Grant Collection at MSU's Mitchell Memorial Library as the Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library.

The announcement came during the association's annual meeting taking place on campus Friday-Sunday [May 18-20] as part of the organization's 50th anniversary observance.

MSU President Mark E. Keenum recently received a letter from Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero of the National Archives congratulating the university on the presidential library designation. The National Archives has responsibility for 13 presidential libraries across the nation, including libraries affiliated with the universities of Michigan (Gerald R. Ford) and Texas (Lyndon Johnson), as well as Texas A & M (George H.W. Bush) and Southern Methodist (George W. Bush) universities.

"We are extremely grateful to the Ulysses S. Grant Association for entrusting Mississippi State University with the long-term responsibility for managing and showcasing this treasure trove of vital American history," said Keenum. "Our university feels a deep bond with this organization and a shared vision for what a marvelous resource this collection is and what it can and will become."
Ribbon-cutting at the new U. S. Grant Presidential Library display

Highlights of the USGA's 50th anniversary meeting included the dedication and ribbon cutting for the new Ulysses S. Grant Exhibit Area on the first floor of Mitchell Memorial Library and presentation of the USGA's prestigious John Y. Simon Award.

The Simon Award honors the late scholar and longtime USGA executive director by recognizing significant achievement in advancing "historical knowledge about General-President Ulysses S. Grant."

Since 2008, Mitchell Memorial Library has been the repository of correspondence, photographs, books, memorabilia, and other documents related to the military career and presidency of America's 18th president.

For the third time in the past four years, the library welcomed association members and directors, including Williams, a former Rhode Island Supreme Court chief justice. While on campus, he and other members attended dinners, special presentations, business meetings, and historical tours in Starkville and Columbus.

Three primary public events associated with the meeting also were scheduled, including a 2 p.m. Friday [the 18th] lecture at the Starkville Public Library by Williams, also a renowned scholar on Grant and President Abraham Lincoln. "Judging Lincoln as a Judge" was his topic.

The second public event was a 1:15 p.m. Saturday [the 19th] panel discussion at the Starkville Community Theatre on Grierson's Raid. Panelists included MSU Archivist Michael B. Ballard, Starkville Police Chief David Lindley, and MSU history professor emeriti John Marszalek and Bill Parrish. As a hobby, Lindley long has been active in Civil War reenactments.

The final public event took place Saturday [the 19th] with a program in Columbus led by Jean Edward Smith, Marshall University's John Marshall Professor of Political Science. Titled "Ike and Grant: Grant's Influence on Eisenhower," it began at 7:45 p.m. at the downtown Columbus Visitor's Center.

The Grant Presidential Collection consists of some 15,000 linear feet of correspondence, research notes, artifacts, photographs, scrapbooks, and memorabilia and includes information on Grant's childhood from his birth in 1822, his later military career, Civil War triumphs, tenure as commanding general after the war, presidency, and his post-White House years until his death in 1885. There are also 4,000 published monographs on various aspects of Grant's life and times.

Grant is more renowned for a military career in which he rose through the officer ranks to ultimately lead all Union forces during the 1861-65 conflict. He was architect of the 1863 Vicksburg campaign, among others, that effectively split the Confederacy and is considered a key battle in the war.

Through a 2008 agreement with the Ulysses S. Grant Association, the MSU Libraries became the official host of the Grant papers. Marszalek, a nationally recognized Civil War scholar and MSU Giles Distinguished Professor Emeritus, was named its executive director and managing editor.

Marszalek continued a 46-year-old project begun by the late John Y. Simon, another nationally renowned scholar who died in 2008.

Marszalek said MSU now becomes one of only a few U.S. institutions to house a collection of presidential papers.

"Mississippi State is now the premier source of materials for research about a seminal figure in the nation's history," he noted. "This is a remarkable accomplishment for our institution."

The Grant Collection joined those of former U.S Sen. John C. Stennis and U.S. Rep. Sonny Montgomery, along with a number of other more contemporary political figures, in the library's Congressional and Political Research Center.

"We are very grateful for the support of MSU President Mark Keenum, who embraced the historical importance of the collection and works tirelessly to provide the resources necessary to showcase this collection at the university," said Frances N. Coleman, dean of libraries.

"These papers have a significant place in our nation's history and it is a profound honor for our library to have responsibility for them," Coleman added.

More:
http://www.usgrantlibrary.org/

Grant and Twain: The Story of an American Friendship

by Mark Perry (no photo)

Synopsis:

In the spring of 1884 Ulysses S. Grant heeded the advice of Mark Twain and finally agreed to write his memoirs. Little did Grant or Twain realize that this seemingly straightforward decision would profoundly alter not only both their lives but the course of American literature. Over the next fifteen months, as the two men became close friends and intimate collaborators, Grant raced against the spread of cancer to compose a triumphant account of his life and times—while Twain struggled to complete and publish his greatest novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.In this deeply moving and meticulously researched book, veteran writer Mark Perry reconstructs the heady months when Grant and Twain inspired and cajoled each other to create two quintessentially American masterpieces.

In a bold and colorful narrative, Perry recounts the early careers of these two giants, traces their quest for fame and elusive fortunes, and then follows the series of events that brought them together as friends. The reason Grant let Twain talk him into writing his memoirs was simple: He was bankrupt and needed the money. Twain promised Grant princely returns in exchange for the right to edit and publish the book—and though the writer’s own finances were tottering, he kept his word to the general and his family.

Mortally ill and battling debts, magazine editors, and a constant crush of reporters, Grant fought bravely to get the story of his life and his Civil War victories down on paper. Twain, meanwhile, staked all his hopes, both financial and literary, on the tale of a ragged boy and a runaway slave that he had been unable to finish for decades. As Perry delves into the story of the men’s deepening friendship and mutual influence, he arrives at the startling discovery of the true model for the character of Huckleberry Finn.

With a cast of fascinating characters, including General William T. Sherman, William Dean Howells, William Henry Vanderbilt, and Abraham Lincoln, Perry’s narrative takes in the whole sweep of a glittering, unscrupulous age. A story of friendship and history, inspiration and desperation, genius and ruin, Grant and Twain captures a pivotal moment in the lives of two towering Americans and the age they epitomized.

The Captain Departs: Ulysses S. Grant's Last Campaign

by Thomas M. Pitkin (no photo)

Synopsis:

Early in 1885 Americans learned that General Grant was writing his Memoirs in a desperate race for time against an incurable cancer. Not generally known was the General’s precarious personal fi­nances, made so by imprudent invest­ments, and his gallant effort to provide for his family by his writing. For six months newspaper readers followed the dramatic contest, and the hearts of Americans were touched by the General’s last battle.

Grant’s last year was one of both per­sonal and literary triumph in the midst of tragedy, as Thomas M. Pitkin shows in this memorable and inspiring book. The Memoirs was completed; its remarkable literary quality made it a triumph. Ultimately more than 300,000 sets of the two-volume work were sold. And Grant accepted the inevitable with quiet courage, and faded away in a manner sadly familiar to many American families.

Though told without maudlin touches, the story of Grant’s last year will leave few readers emotionally uninvolved, for it is an account of pain and suffering as well as mighty deeds, and truly deserves to be considered the General’s final victory.

Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868

by Brooks D. Simpson (no photo)

Synopsis:

Historians have traditionally drawn distinctions between Ulysses S. Grant's military and political careers. In Let Us Have Peace, Brooks Simpson questions such distinctions and offers a new understanding of this often enigmatic leader. He argues that during the 1860s Grant was both soldier and politician, for military and civil policy were inevitably intertwined during the Civil War and Reconstruction era. According to Simpson, Grant instinctively understood that war was 'politics by other means.' Moreover, he realized that civil wars presented special challenges: reconciliation, not conquest, was the Union's ultimate goal. And in peace, Grant sought to secure what had been won in war, stepping in to assume a more active role in policymaking when the intransigence of white Southerners and the obstructionist behavior of President Andrew Johnson threatened to spoil the fruits of Northern victory.

U.S. Grant: The Making of a General, 1861-1863

by Michael B. Ballard (no photo)

Synopsis:

What made Ulysses S. Grant tick? Perhaps the greatest general of the Civil War, Grant won impressive victories and established a brilliant military career. His single-minded approach to command was coupled with the ability to adapt to the kind of military campaign the moment required. In this exciting new book, Michael B. Ballard provides a crisp account of Grant's strategic and tactical concepts in the period from the outset of the Civil War to the battle of Chattanooga—a period in which U. S. Grant rose from a semi-disgraceful obscurity to the position of overall commander of all Union armies. The author carefully sifts through diaries and letters of Grant and his inner circle to try to get inside Grant's mind and reveal why those early years of the war were formative in producing the Civil War's greatest general.

Thanks Bryan for the add.

General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man

by Edward G. Longacre (no photo)

Synopsis:

In this new biography of General Ulysses S. Grant, acclaimed Civil War historian, Edward G. Longacre, examines Grant’s early life and his military career for insights into his great battlefield successes as well as his personal misfortunes. Longacre concentrates on Grant’s boyhood and early married life; his moral, ethical, and religious views; his troubled military career; his strained relationships with wartime superiors; and, especially, his weakness for alcohol, which exerted a major influence on both his military and civilian careers. Longacre, to a degree that no other historian has done before, investigates Grant’s alcoholism in light of his devout religious affiliations, and the role these sometimes conflicting forces had on his military career and conduct. Longacre’s conclusions present a new and surprising perspective on the ever-fascinating life of General Grant.

The General And The Journalists: Ulysses S. Grant, Horace Greeley, And Charles Dana

by Harry J. Maihafer (no photo)

Synopsis:

A true story of soldier/president Ulysses S. Grant and editorial giants Horace Greeley and Charles Dana. It vividly depicts these three remarkable lives, emphasising how they became interwoven, influenced each other, and in turn affected the course of American history.

When General Grant Expelled the Jews

by Jonathan D. Sarna

Synopsis:

A riveting account of General Ulysses S. Grant’s decision, in the middle of the Civil War, to order the expulsion of all Jews from the territory under his command, and the reverberations of that decision on Grant’s political career, on the nascent American Jewish community, and on the American political process.

On December 17, 1862, just weeks before Abraham Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation, General Grant issued what remains the most notorious anti-Jewish order by a government official in American history. His attempt to eliminate black marketeers by targeting for expulsion all Jews “as a class” unleashed a firestorm of controversy that made newspaper headlines and terrified and enraged the approximately 150,000 Jews then living in the United States, who feared the importation of European antisemitism onto American soil.

Although the order was quickly rescinded by a horrified Abraham Lincoln, the scandal came back to haunt Grant when he ran for president in 1868. Never before had Jews become an issue in a presidential contest, and never before had they been confronted so publicly with the question of how to balance their “American” and “Jewish” interests. Award-winning historian Jonathan D. Sarna gives us the first complete account of this little-known episode—including Grant’s subsequent apology, his groundbreaking appointment of Jews to prominent positions in his administration, and his unprecedented visit to the land of Israel. Sarna sheds new light on one of our most enigmatic presidents, on the Jews of his day, and on the ongoing debate between group loyalty and national loyalty that continues to roil American political and social discourse.