This is the best current biography of Ulysses S. Grant of which I am aware. The book makes me realize more than ever that we owe our country to Lincoln, Sherman, & Grant. Maybe to Grant more than anybody else. Without these 3 men, perhaps Grant most of all, the Confederacy would have succeeded and the United States as we know it today would not exist.
Jean Edward Smith is one of the foremost historical biographers of our time. A few years ago I read his biography of FDR and I see that he has a forthcoming work on Eisenhower.
It's good to see that in recent years there has been a scholarly reevaluation of Grant's presidency. For decades he had been viewed as a bad President. The scandals that occurred during his administration are still there, but how much blame can be ascribed to Grant? He was loyal to a fault to his friends, and that's the worst thing that can be said about him.
Grant was apparently a failure in life except that he was a brilliant soldier. He had a genius for leading men into battle. He has to be considered to be one of the great military leaders of all time. No doubt the North would have lost the war were it not for Ulysses S. Grant.
One big thing I learned in this biography is how progressive Grant was. He fought for Reconstruction and by the end of his administrations, he alone was fighting for the rights of the freedmen in the South. He wanted peace with Native Americans rather than war. If Grant were alive today, he'd be a Democrat.
I also learned that he might have been the Republican presidential nominee in 1880 were it not for the ham-handed mistakes of his backer Roscoe Conkling. What difference would this have made in American history? I do not know.
Grant lived his last days in unending pain from throat and mouth cancer. He finished his acclaimed memoirs literally the day before he died. Having lost all of him money when his investments failed thru fraud, he was forced to finish him memoiors in order to financially take care of his family.
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