Grant

At one time, Ulysses S. Grant was the most famous man in America. He was perceived as the man who won the Civil War, was then a two-term president, and finished his life in a heroic race to complete his memoirs before dying of throat cancer. But his reputation has taken a bashing over the years. I read, about 35 years ago, another biography about Grant by William S. McFeely that made Grant out to be something of a failure who lucked into things. I remember feeling that Grant was a man who, except for four years of his life, was incompetent.

Ron Chernow has sought to burnish Grant's reputation with his affectionate, yet objective, biography also called simply Grant. It's a doorstop--it took me four months to finish, so a time commitment is involved--but it's lucid, never dull, and by the end felt I like the knew the man inside out.

"Dismissed as a philistine, a boor, a drunk, and an incompetent, Grant has been subjected to pernicious stereotypes that grossly impede our understanding of the man," Chernow writes. He does not shy away from Grant's miserable years after he got out of the Army, when he was a failure as a businessman. But he does give Grant credit for being a military genius: "However brilliant [Robert E.] Lee was as a tactician, Grant surpassed him in grand strategy, crafting the plan that defeated the Confederacy."

Chernow cites Grant's almost child-like belief in the good of other people as his major flaw. The scandals of his presidency, which has diminished his standing with many a historian, can be traced to his not stopping others from rapacious activity under his nose. "The mystery of Grant’s presidency is how this upright man tolerated some of the arrant rascals collected around him. Again and again he was stunned by scandals because he could not imagine subordinates guilty of such sleazy behavior...It is sadly ironic that Grant’s presidency became synonymous with corruption, since he himself was impeccably honest." Indeed, after Grant's retirement from public life, he was taken for everything he had by a Ponzi scheme. "Instead of being worth $1 million, Grant was suddenly worth $80."

Grant is a cradle-to-grave biography. He was born in Ohio, attended West Point, where he exhibited his great horse-riding skills, and fought in the Mexican War, distinguishing himself. He won the hand of Julia Dent, the daughter of a St. Louis man who never agreed with Grant's side of the Civil War. When he was posted to California, without his wife, his drinking took hold of him and he was pushed out. He was a failure as a businessman in Galena, Illinois. Such a man was hardly someone one would expect to attain greatness. But then came the Civil War.

A biography of Grant is pretty much a Civil War book. Chernow traces every movement, every battle, with Grant's successes in the West, and then the ambiguity of Shiloh, and finally his victory at Vicksburg, which some thought one the greatest bits of military strategy since Napoleon. After Vicksburg, with Union control of the Mississippi River secured, he went to Virginia to take on Lee. Many historians, most of them Lost Cause types, claim Lee was the better general, and Grant simply had more men and materiel. But Chernow doesn't buy it. While Lee attacked the front porch, William Sherman said, Grant attacked the kitchen. Grant was also called a butcher, which pained him very much, but he believed in never stopping going forward. President Lincoln, who grew very fond of him, said "I can't spare this man, he fights," after the recalcitrance of George McClellan. Another anecdote has Lincoln responding to Grant's supposed drinking: "Find out what he drinks and send a case to my other generals."

The war finally won, Grant narrowly missed attending Ford's Theater the night Lincoln was assassinated. It was because Julia couldn't bear to be in the company of Lincoln's wife, Mary. Grant, made lieutenant general (the first since George Washington) had to deal with a bumptious and racist President Andrew Johnson. By 1868, by acclimation, Grant was nominated for president, and won two terms.

Grant's longest lasting legacy of his presidency, aside from corruption, was his vigorous belief in reconstruction. He was genuinely interested in helping the former slaves become citizens. He was behind an aggressive stamping out of the Ku Klux Klan, very respectful of Native Americans (though Custer's last stand happened during his presidency), and after a clumsy mistake early in his military career, became a good friend of Jewish Americans. But he had enemies, even those in his own party, like Charles Sumner. Grant was a very even-keeled man, but Sumner made him crazy.

After his presidency he took a two year trip around the world, and when he returned, in 1879, thought he might have a go at a third term, but he was betrayed by many he thought were his friends. So he went to live in New York City, and soon had difficulty swallowing. After smoking as many as ten cigars a day, he had come down with tongue and throat cancer. Being swindled, he knew he had to make money for his wife, so he desperately wrote his memoirs, which were edited and published by Mark Twain. "The Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, widely viewed as a masterpiece, is probably the foremost military memoir in the English language, written in a clear, supple style that transcends the torment of its composition."

Grant died a week after finishing it. His wife was tasked with searching for the burial place of a man who never put down roots, and he was interred in a large mausoleum in uptown New York that became a popular tourist attraction (familiarly called "Grant's Tomb"). I went there once--it's not a great part of town today, and there was nobody there but me and my friend, but it's very beautiful--grand but simple.

Grant has slipped in popularity, probably because of the scandals of his presidency but also because we don't know what it was like to live through those times. Grant was seen, rightly so, as a savior of the nation. In Chernow's view, he was a good, decent, honest man, who was never interested in personal gain, but only what was good for the country. I got a little choked up reading about how Confederates grieved for him as much as Yankees, because Grant was so magnanimous at the surrender at Appomattox. Confederate general James Longstreet became a good friend, as did guerrilla John Singleton Moseby.

Incidentally, Chernow also wrote the biography of Alexander Hamilton that inspired Lin-Manuel Miranda to write the musical Hamilton. Is he contemplating a musical about Grant? I can't wait to see a singing Abraham Lincoln.