Bold and daring leadership in the face of great challenging and stressful times, both as General Grant, and later as President Grant during Reconstruction... Grant and others in his time got things done! Thank you so much to Jean Smith for an incite-full and educating biography =) ( )

Excellent! ( )

Sadly, this is another book that sat on my shelf a little too long, and with Ron Chernow’s massive new biography just being published – a book I hope to read in the near future – I thought I’d better get busy reading Jean Edward Smith’s bio of the man who won the Civil War and then went on to be President. And having read it, I must confess to some shame at having too long passed by a great book that gives us an in depth look at Ulysses S. Grant, one that goes against some of the harsher judgments of historians. At a little more than 600 pages, Smith’s book is shorter than Chernow’s thick volume, but there is still plenty of depth and detail to satisfy the most fervent history buff. I especially liked the pace of book; Smith moves briskly through Grant’s early years in Ohio and Illinois, West Point and the Mexican War (which he thought was waged most unjustly) and arrives at the opening stages of the Civil War by Chapter Four on page 99.

Despite this fast pace early on, the author takes the time to give us a portrait of a man who went to West Point to get an education, served ably under fire in Mexico, and then floundered in the peace time army to the point where a drinking problem forced him to resign and return to civilian life, where he would fail in business and be reduced to working in a general store under his younger brothers. Just before the outbreak of the Civil War, Grant was selling fire wood on the streets of Galena, Illinois, in order to provide for his family; less than three years later, Grant was accepting the surrender of the Confederate commander at Vicksburg, the turning point of the war, one of the greatest reversals of personal fortune in American history. That Grant was humbled, even humiliated, in the years between the Mexican and Civil wars, there is no doubt, yet to his great credit, it did not make him bitter or arrogant in the later years when he was at the height of military and political power. Was Grant an alcoholic, as his enemies alleged during his lifetime, and many have implied in the years since? Smith gives plenty of evidence that the man had a problem with alcohol in his early years in the army, but that it was mainly acerbated by the separation, due to deployments, from his wife, Julia, and their children.

No period of American history has been better documented than years between 1961 and 1865, where the Civil War has been told and retold and revised from every conceivable viewpoint; what Smith does is concentrate on Grant as he rose from a Colonel in a company of Illinois volunteers to General in command of all Union armies in the field. If nothing succeeds like success, than Grant won by winning, more to the point, winning where others would have quit and retreated, like after the first day at Shiloh in 1862, where the Union army was routed from the field after a surprise attack by the Confederates at dawn; Grant held his ground, gathered reinforcements over night and counterattacked on the second day. In May of 1864, in Virginia at The Wilderness, Robert E. Lee’s army would pound the Union forces for three days, nearly rolling up the line and inflicting heavy casualties, yet when the carnage was done, Grant would flank Lee’s army and continue his relentless push toward Richmond, a campaign he that would not end until Appomattox. From Mill Springs to Forts Henry and Donaldson to Shiloh, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, The Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg, Grant was cool under pressure, clear in his objectives, possessing an uncanny ability to get the most out of the forces at his command; he threw away the old Napoleonic War era playbook, and singlehandedly, forged the rules of modern warfare, where the destruction of the enemy’s capacity to wage war became the main goal. He would do all this, and still retain the confidence and affection of the men he ordered into battle, while earning the respect of his Confederate foes, to whom he gave generous terms and an outstretched hand on the day they surrendered.

After the assassination of Lincoln, Grant was the most universally popular figure in the nation, a position he somehow managed to retain as General of the Army through the turbulent politics of the early Reconstruction. That was not an easy feat as the irreconcilable goals of bringing the Confederates back into the Union while insuring and protecting the full rights of citizenship of the newly freed slaves brought on a clash between Lincoln’s politically inept successor, Andrew Johnson (who was Grant’s Commander in Chief) and the Republicans in Congress (who made the policy the Army would have to implement); the former wanted to restore the South to the Union (sans slavery) as if the war had never occurred, while the latter insisted on a military occupation of the Confederate states and vigorous protection by the federal government of the newly enfranchised freedman. It is not a high point in American history, and many of the prominent figures involved - Johnson, Charles Sumner, Edwin Stanton – did little to cover themselves in glory, but Grant remained true to the Constitution and the law as he saw, and straight forward in his dealings with all involved, while maneuvering his way through much political conniving. In 1868, he was the unanimous choice of the Republican Party and was elected President in a landslide, the first of two terms.

Smith does not give us a strictly linear account of Grant’s Presidency, instead giving us individual chapters devoted to how he handled foreign affairs, Reconstruction policy, the Indian Wars, and the Gilded Age. In the process, the author makes a good case that Grant was a much better President than he is given credit: patching up relations with Great Britain and settling grievances that had festered since the Civil War, establishing a harmonious relationship with the Mother country that has lasted to the present day; adapting a humane policy toward the Plains Indians as westward expansion increasingly brought them into conflict with white settlers, repeatedly resisting calls for an all out military solution advocated by Generals William Sherman and Philip Sheridan, both close friends of Grant; repeatedly using federal troops against the Klu Klux Klan and other white terrorist groups in the South, doing this even as support for Black American equality was rapidly diminishing in the Republican North. His order to the Treasury Department sell off part of its gold reserves on Black Friday (when speculators Jay Gould and Jim Fiske tried to corner the private gold market) helped stave off a devastating economic collapse, and was the first time the government in Washington had directly intervened to protect American citizens in an economic crisis. Quite a list of accomplishments, but it would be the squalid scandals and corruption of many of Grants appointees that would get the headlines, and sadly, would be what was most remembered from his administration. Grant’s own honesty was always above reproach, but in civilian life, he was not the best judge of character, and was far too trusting of men anxious to be his friend.

It was a trusting nature that would serve him poorly after the Presidency, when a part ownership in a Wall Street investment firm failed due to a dishonest partner would leave Grant penniless. He would restore financial security to his family by writing his memoirs of the Civil War years, written as Grant was dying of throat cancer. He finished the book only days before death. It was a bestseller; surprisingly, Grant was a natural born literary talent, his book is considered the benchmark against which all other Presidential memoirs are judged; it has never gone out of print. If I have one complaint, it is that Smith hurries through these last years, which are essential to understanding who Ulysses Grant was.

After reading this book, I think Grant, with the possible exception of George Washington, was the finest leader of men America ever produced, in warfare he had tenacity and drive that was simply unstoppable, put a Vicksburg or a Richmond in front of him, and it was as good as taken. He seemed devoid of vanity, and imbued with a humility and personal modesty that must have been a product of the hard times in his life, proving that the best leaders are people who have stumbled and fallen once or twice, and have had to get back up on their feet before success came their way.

Recently there have been calls by some in NYC, where Grant’s tomb is located, to remove his name from public monuments, part of an ongoing national jihad to punish the leaders of the past for being people of their times. Ulysses S. Grant deserves better from the nation he helped save in its worst crisis, read Jean Edward Smith’s fine biography and learn the story of a truly great American. ( )

I do not know much about Grant. Well not in the great depth that author, Jean Edward Smith provided in this book. At over seven hundred pages, there is a ton of information. A good portion of the book starts out in very detail about the Civil War and the role and type of leader that Grant grew up to become. This played a strong part later in his life when he would become President.

As I stated, there is lots of information in this book. A history buff will enjoy this thoughtful book. If you didn't get enough information, you can find more facts in the footnotes throughout the book. These are gold nuggets to me. I enjoy reading these as they are packed full of interesting information. I am a fast reader but this book did take me a while to get through it due to all of the facts. After reading this book, I do have a better respect for Grant. I plan to check out other books written by this author. ( )

Best biography I have read recently

It is a shame that history chose to downplay Grants importance during and after the civil war.

If you wish to learn the real General and President read Smith's biography. I now want to track down Grants memoirs. He wanted not only to do right by African Americans but the Native Americans as well. He also wanted to follow Lincoln's request that we show no malice to our Southern brethren by ending Johnson's animosity of the south. He had his generals end the Klu Klux Klan during his time he helped to get the country on a stable footing.

His biggest mistake was being to trusting of his closest confidants.

History buffs will enjoy this biography. ( )