The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
- Jan 22, 2018
- 2 min read
★★★★★
On a recent visit home, I noticed my father had a newer hardbound edition of Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant on a bookrack in the living room. It was nearly as big as a dictionary, and nearly as heavy, too. With nothing much else to do I hauled it into my lap and casually thumbed through it. When he walked into the room I held it aloft with what must have been a look of surprise on my face. He said nothing more than that it was a must-read, which was as sufficient an endorsement as any. Of course, I didn’t take the same advice when he recommended Tuesdays with Morrie, so don’t go thinking I’ll read just anything.
My reading copy, a 1995 paperback edition (quickly replaced with the Konecky hardcover edition), was procured from my small town’s library, and appeared to be one-third the size of my father’s. I considered passing on it, but decided that I would trust the cover’s claim that the edition was, in fact, “Complete and Unabridged,” and “Includes Appendix and All Original Maps and Illustrations.” After spending the past ten days with it, it can no doubt but be complete, all space-saving measures having been taken in producing it: small type, even smaller quoted type, even smaller still footnote type, a minimum of margin on all sides, maps so small as to be largely illegible (this being the biggest disappointment), and without page breaks at the chapters.
Grant’s memoirs are both tedious and exhilarating. It’s easy after hundreds of pages (with hundreds yet still to go) in which military campaign after military campaign is, depending on your point of view, richly or exhaustingly detailed, to wonder aloud what, exactly, is personal about The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant.
Over the course of 462 pages, not including the Appendix, Grant devotes but 23 of them to his life beyond the battlefield, and nothing, aside from his Conclusion, to anything beyond the end of the Civil War. And yet, Grant, the man, comes through distinctly. His thoughts and opinions—about the war, slavery, Lincoln, other men of consequence—especially after his promotion to lieutenant general (a position previously held only by George Washington), are as thoughtfully considered and carefully measured as they are insightful.
As pure action, the book is a scorcher, especially after the Union victory at Vicksburg. That might sound surprising—we know how the Civil War ends after all—but the clarity and directness of the prose, combined with the aforementioned surplus of military detail, paints each scene so vividly it’s as if we’re again on each battlefield, front-row spectators to one of the costliest, bloodiest, deadliest, and rancorous wars ever fought. Considering his position and the charge he was given, of course Ulysses S. Grant took, as he called it, “the great War of the Rebellion” personally. Give Grant’s memoirs a chance, and, more likely as not, you will, too.
Comments