Personal Memoirs

by Ulysses S. Grant

Overview

Mark Twain had known many of the great men of the Civil War and the Gilded Age, and esteemed none more highly than Ulysses S. Grant, who was modest, sensitive, generous, honest, and superlatively intelligent. Grant's courage, both moral and physical, was a matter of record. His genius as a general assured his immortality. In 1881, Twain urged Grant to write his memoirs.

No one is interested in me, Grant replied. Out of the army, out of office, and out of favor--that was his life now. He reminded Twain that the Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, written by his wartime assistant, Adam Badeau, had sold poorly. And John Russell Young's book, Around the World with General Grant, published in 1879, had been a complete flop.

Broke and sick--he began suffering agonizingly painful throat cancer in 1884-- Grant agreed to write four articles for the Century Magazine on some of his Civil War battles, and Century offered to publish his memoirs if only he'd write them. Twain was on a lecture tour when he heard that Grant might be willing to write a book and hurried back to New York to tell Grant that he could arrange for publication of the book by a small firm that he controlled. Grant accepted his offer because Twain had been the first person to suggest he write his memoirs.  

The inflexible will and powerful mind that helped make Grant a great general were stronger than the torturing pain, the sleepless nights, the terrors of death. Yet there was no sense of this heroic struggle in the narrative he produced with stubby pencils or by dictating to a secretary. The book was like the man himself--often humorous, frequently charming, always lucid, sometimes poignant, generous to his enemies, loyal to his friends. Twain was astonished when he discovered that Grant had produced a considerably longer book than he had contracted to write, but Grant had always tried to give more than was expected of him. He did so even now.

Grant finished his book in July 1885. The Memoirs were a triumph. The narrative has the directness and limpidity of the purest English prose as it was first crafted by William Tyndell and then spread throughout the English-speaking world in the King James version of the Bible.

Grant had reached deep into himself and into the world history of the Anglo-American people to grasp the core of its culture, the English language. He trusted in that narrative style that achieves its effects by never straining for effect, assembled it into vivid pictures sufficiently understated to allow an intelligent reader's imagination room to expand, and shaped a literary architecture with a born artist's eye.

His recollections were inevitably partial and selective. As with all memoirs, Grant's was at its best as a revelation of the way he remembered the events of his tumultuous life and the feelings they evoked in him as death drew near. Its truth was less in the details of what he recalled as in the story he had to tell, of justice triumphant over a great evil.

On July 23, 1885, several days after correcting the galley proofs of his book, Grant died in a summer cottage on the slopes of Mount McGregor, New York, surrounded by friends and family. The memoirs, published a few months later, have never been out of print.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780679641490
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/01/2000
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	736
File size:	9 MB

About the Author

Ulysses Simpson Grant, the commander-in-chief of Union forces during the final years of the Civil War and subsequently the eighteenth president of the United States, was born on April 27, 1822, in a two-room cabin in the remote settlement of Point Pleasant, Ohio. His family, he proudly declared, had been American 'for generations, in all its branches, direct and collateral.' When he was eighteen months old the Grants moved to the nearby village of Georgetown, where his father established a tannery. A taciturn, solitary child who loved horses, Grant received a rudimentary education at local subscription schools. He also attended the Maysville Seminary in Maysville, Kentucky, and the Presbyterian Academy in Ripley, Ohio. In 1839 his father arranged for him to enter the United States Military Academy at West Point. 'If I could have escaped West Point without bringing myself into disgrace at home, I would have done so,' Grant later confessed. But he excelled in mathematics and engineering, graduating with an overall academic standing that placed him in the middle of the class of 1843.

Commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the 4th Infantry Regiment, Grant reported to Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, then the largest army base west of the Mississippi. He fought under General Zachary Taylor in the Mexican War of 1846, serving with many officers he would later command or fight against during the Civil War. Upon returning home in 1848 he married Julie Dent, the sister of a West Point classmate. Grant spent the next six years assigned to routine garrison duty in a succession of dreary military posts and began drinking heavily. He resigned from the army in 1854 with the rank of captain and went back to Missouri to seek employment. He failed miserably at several different occupations and finally ended up working as a clerk in his father's leather-goods store in Galena, Illinois.

With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Grant re-entered the service as a colonel in the Illinois volunteer regiment and was soon appointed brigadier general. After leading expeditions that seized Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, the first major Union victories in the war, he commanded forces at the battle of Shiloh and later broke Confederate control of the Mississippi by capturing Vicksburg. President Lincoln promoted him to lieutenant general and named him commander of the Union army following the success of the pivotal Chattanooga campaign. The appointment seemed to support Grant's own assertion that 'it is men who wait to be selected, and not those who seek, from whom we may always expect the most efficient service.' In spite of heavy losses in the bloody Wilderness campaign aimed at immobilizing General Robert E. Lee near the Confederate capital at Richmond while General William Tecumseh Sherman led the western Union army southward through Georgia, Grant eventually crushed the enemy and accepted Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.

In 1868 the Republican Party nominated the popular war hero as their presidential candidate, and Grant was elected with a narrow victory in the popular vote. Lacking an overall vision for the country, he proved ineffective as president while his cabinet of cronies and political contributors was both incompetent and corrupt. As Grant later confessed: 'I did not want the Presidency, and I have never quite forgiven myself for resigning the command of the army to accept it.' He won re-election in 1872 despite a series of financial scandals that forever tarnished his administration. A contemporary, the skeptical patrician Henry Adams, delivered a stinging indictment of Grant and Gilded Age politics that has become justly famous: 'The progress of evolution from President Washington to President Grant, was alone evidence enough to upset Darwin.'

Upon leaving the White House in 1877, Grant embarked on a two-year journey around the world. After a failed bid for a third term as president, Grant settled in New York City, where he became associated with an investment firm only to be swindled by his partner and left financially ruined. In 1884 he began to write reminiscences of his military campaigns for the Century Magazine. Though suffering from cancer of the throat, Grant signed a contract with Mark Twain to publish his memoirs and devoted the last months of his life to writing an account of the war in which he had played so large a part. Ulysses S. Grant died in Mount McGregor, New York, a summer resort in the Adirondacks, on July 23, 1885, less than one week after finishing work on the final proofs of Personal Memoirs. Issued posthumously, the book sold three hundred thousand copies, earning Grant's widow roughly $450,000 in royalties.

'No other American president has told his story as powerfully as Ulysses Grant did in his Personal Memoirs,' judged biographer William S. McFeely. 'The book is one of the most unflinching studies of war in our literature.' Gertrude Stein admired it extravagantly, noting: 'I cannot think of Ulysses Simpson Grant without tears.' In Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War, Edmund Wilson wrote: 'This record of Grant's campaigns may well rank, as Mark Twain believed, as the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar. It is also, in its way&--like Herndon's Lincoln or like Walden or Leaves of Grass--a unique expression of the national character. . . . The capacity for inspiring confidence, the impression Grant gave of reserves of force, comes through in the Personal Memoirs without pose or premeditation. . . . What distinguished Grant's story from the records of campaigns that are usually produced by generals is that somehow, despite its sobriety, it communicates the spirit of the battles themselves and makes it possible to understand how Grant won them. . . . He has also, without conscious art, conveyed the suspense which was felt by himself and his army and by all who believed in the Union cause. The reader finds himself involved--he is actually on edge to know how the Civil War is coming out.' And Gore Vidal concluded: 'It is simply not possible to read Grant's memoirs without realizing that the author is a man of first-rate intelligence.'

Read an Excerpt

My family is American, and has been for generations, in all its branches, direct and collateral.

Mathew Grant, the founder of the branch in America, of which I am a descendant, reached Dorchester, Massachusetts, in May, 1630. In 1635 he moved to what is now Windsor, Connecticut, and was the surveyor for that colony for more than forty years. He was also, for many years of the time, town clerk. He was a married man when he arrived at Dorchester, but his children were all born in this country. His eldest son, Samuel, took lands on the east side of the Connecticut River, opposite Windsor, which have been held and occupied by descendants of his to this day.

I am of the eighth generation from Mathew Grant, and seventh from Samuel. Mathew Grant's first wife died a few years after their settlement in Windsor, and he soon after married the widow Rockwell, who, with her first husband, had been fellow-passengers with him and his first wife, on the ship Mary and John, from Dorchester, England, in 1630. Mrs. Rockwell had several children by her first marriage, and others by her second. By intermarriage, two or three generations later, I am descended from both the wives of Mathew Grant.

In the fifth descending generation my great grandfather, Noah Grant, and his younger brother, Solomon, held commissions in the English army, in 1756, in the war against the French and Indians. Both were killed that year.

My grandfather, also named Noah, was then but nine years old. At the breaking out of the war of the Revolution, after the battles of Concord and Lexington, he went with a Connecticut company to join the Continental army, and was present at the battle of Bunker Hill. He served until the fall of Yorktown, or through the entire Revolutionary war. He must, however, have been on furlough part of the time--as I believe most of the soldiers of that period were--for he married in Connecticut during the war, had two children, and was a widower at the close. Soon after this he emigrated to Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, and settled near the town of Greensburg in that county. He took with him the younger of his two children, Peter Grant. The elder, Solomon, remained with his relatives in Connecticut until old enough to do for himself, when he emigrated to the British West Indies.

Not long after his settlement in Pennsylvania, my grandfather, Captain Noah Grant, married a Miss Kelly, and in 1799 he emigrated again, this time to Ohio, and settled where the town of Deerfield now stands. He had now five children, including Peter, a son by his first marriage. My father, Jesse R. Grant, was the second child--oldest son, by the second marriage.

Peter Grant went early to Maysville, Kentucky, where he was very prosperous, married, had a family of nine children, and was drowned at the mouth of the Kanawha River, Virginia, in 1825, being at the time one of the wealthy men of the West.

My grandmother Grant died in 1805, leaving seven children. This broke up the family. Captain Noah Grant was not thrifty in the way of 'laying up stores on earth,' and, after the death of his second wife, he went, with the two youngest children, to live with his son Peter, in Maysville. The rest of the family found homes in the neighborhood of Deerfield, my father in the family of Judge Tod, the father of the late Governor Tod, of Ohio. His industry and independence of character were such, that I imagine his labor compensated fully for the expense of his maintenance.

Table of Contents

Introduction by James M. McPherson
Suggestions for Further Reading
Maps and Illustrations
Preface
1. Ancestry—Birth—Boyhood
2. West Point—Graduation
3. Army Life—Causes of the Mexican War—Camp Salubrity
4. Corpus Christi—Mexican Smuggling—Spanish Rule in Mexico—Supplying Transportation
5. Trip to Austin—Promotion to Full Second Lieutenant—Army of Occupation
6. Advance of the Army—Crossing the Colorado—The Rio Grande
7. The Mexican War—The Battle of Palo Alto—The Battle of Resaca de la Palma—Army of Invasion—General Taylor—Movement on Camargo
8. Advance on Monterey—The Black Fort—The Battle of Monterey—Surrender of the City
9. Political Intrigue—Buena Vista—Movement against Vera Cruz—Siege and Capture of Vera Cruz
10. March to Jalapa—Battle of Cerro Gordo—Perote—Puebla—Scott and Taylor
11. Advance on the City of Mexico—Battle of Contreras—Assault at Churubusco—Negotiations for Peace—Battle of Molino del Rey—Storming of Chapultepec—San Cosme—Evacuation of the City—Halls of the Montezumas
12. Promotion to First Lieutenant—Capture of the City of Mexico—The Army—Mexican Soldiers—Peace Negotiations
13. Treaty of Peace—Mexican Bull Fights—Regimental Quartermaster—Trip to Popcatapetl—Trip to the Caves of Mexico
14. Return of the Army—Marriage—Ordered to the Pacific Coast—Crossing the Isthmus—Arrival at San Francisco
15. San Francisco—Early California Experiences—Life on the Pacific Coast—Promoted Captain—Flush Times in California
16. Resignation—Private Life—Life at Galena—The Coming Crisis
17. Outbreak of the Rebellion—Presiding at a Union Meeting—Mustering Officer of State Troops—Lyon at Camp Jackson—Services Tendered to the Government
18. Appointed Colonel of the 21st Illinois—Personnel of the Regiment—General Logan—March to Missouri—Movement against Harris at Florida, MO—General Pope in Command—Stationed at Mexico, MO
19. Commissioned Brigadier-General—Command at Ironton, MO—Jefferson City—Cape Girardeau—General Prentiss—Seizure of Paducah—Headquarters at Cairo
20. General Fremont in Command—Movement against Belmont—Battle of Belmont—A Narrow Escape—After the Battle
21. General Halleck in Command—Commanding the District of Cairo—Movement on Fort Henry—Capture of Fort Henry
22. Investment of Fort Donelson—The Naval Operations—Attack of the Enemy—Assaulting the Works—Surrender of the Fort
23. Promoted Major-General of Volunteers—Unoccupied Territory—Advance upon Nashville—Situation of the Troops—Confederate Retreat—Relieved of the Command—Restored to the Command—General Smith
24. The Army at Pittsburg Landing—Injured by a Fall—The Confederate Attack at Shiloh—The First Day's Fight at Shiloh—General Sherman—Condition of the Army—Close of the First Day's Fight—The Second Day's Fight—Retreat and Defeat of the Confederates
25. Struck by a Bullet—Precipitate Retreat of the Confederates—Intrenchments at Shiloh—General Buell—General Johnston—Remarks on Shiloh
26. Halleck Assumes Command in the Field—The Advance upon Corinth—Occupation of Corinth—The Army Separated
27. Headquarters Moved to Memphis—On the Road to Memphis—Escaping Jackson—Complaints and Requests—Halleck Appointed Commander-in-Chief—Return to Corinth—Movements of Bragg—Surrender of Clarksville—The Advance Upon Chattanooga—Sheridan Colonel of a Michigan Regiment
28. Advance of Van Dorn and Price—Price Enters Iuka—Battle of Iuka
30. The Campaign against Vicksburg—Employing the Freedmen—Occupation of Holly Springs—Sherman Ordered to Memphis—Sherman's Movements down the Mississippi—Van Dorn Captures Holly Springs—Collecting Forage and Food
31. Headquarters Moved to Holly Springs—General McClernand in Command—Assuming Command at Young's Point—Operations above Vicksburg—Fortifications about Vicksburg—The Canal—Lake Providence—Operations at Yazoo Pass
32. The Bayous West of the Mississippi—Criticisms of the Northern Press—Running the Batteries—Loss of the Indianola—Disposition of the Troops
33. Attack on Grand Gulf—Operations below Vicksburg
34. Capture of Port Gibson—Grierson's Raid—Occupation of Grand Gulf—Movement up the Big Black—Battle of Raymond
35. Movement against Jackson—Fall of Jackson—Intercepting the Enemy—Battle of Champion's Hill
36. Battle of Black River Bridge—Crossing the Big Black—Investment of Vicksburg—Assaulting the Works
37. Siege of Vicksburg
38. Johnston's Movements—Fortifications at Haines' Bluff—Explosion of the Mine—Explosion of the Second Mine—Preparing for the Assault—The Flag of Truce—Meeting with Pemberton—Negotiations for Surrender—Accepting the Terms—Surrender of Vicksburg
39. Retrospect of the Campaign—Sherman's Movements—Proposed Movement upon Mobile—A Painful Accident—Ordered to Report at Cairo
40. First Meeting with Secretary Stanton—General Rosecrans—Commanding Military Division of Mississippi—Andrew Johnson's Address—Arrival at Chattanooga
41. Assuming the Command at Chattanooga—Opening a Line of Supplies—Battle of Wauhatchie—On the Picket Line
42. Condition of the Army—Rebuilding the Railroad—General Burnside's Situation—Orders for Battle—Plans for the Attack—Hooker's Position—Sherman's Movements
43. Preparations for Battle—Thomas Carries the First Line of the Enemy—Sherman Carries Missionary Ridge—Battle of Lookout Mountain—General Hooker's Fight
44. Battle of Chattanooga—A Gallant Charge—Complete Rout of the Enemy—Pursuit of the Confederates—General Bragg—Remarks on Chattanooga
45. The Relief of Knoxville—Headquarters Moved to Nashville—Visiting Knoxville—Cipher Dispatches—Withholding Orders
46. Operations in Mississippi—Longstreet in East Tennessee—Commissioned Lieutenant-General—Commanding the Armies of the United States—First Interview with President Lincoln
47. The Military Situation—Plans for the Campaign—Sheridan Assigned to Command of the Cavalry—Flank Movements—Forrest at Fort Pillow—General Banks's Expedition—Colonel Mosby—An Incident of the Wilderness Campaign
48. Commencement of the Grand Campaign—General Butler's Position—Sheridan's First Raid
49. Sherman's Campaign in Georgia—Siege of Atlanta—Death of General McPherson—Attempt to Capture Andersonville—Capture of Atlanta
50. Grand Movement of the Army of the Potomac—Crossing the Rapidan—Entering the Wilderness—Battle of the Wilderness
51. After the Battle—Telegraph and Signal Service—Movement by the Left Flank
52. Battle of Spottsylvania—Hancock's Position—Assault of Warren's and Wright's Crops—Upton Promoted on the Field—Good News from Butler and Sheridan
53. Hancock's Assault—Losses of the Confederates—Promotions Recommended—Discomfiture of the Enemy—Ewell's Attack—Reducing the Artillery
54. Movement by the Left Flank—Battle of North Anna—An Incident of the March—Moving on Richmond—South of the Pamunkey—Position of the National Army
55. Advance on Cold Harbor—An Anecdote of the War—Battle of Cold Harbor—Correspondence with Lee—Retrospective
56. Left Flank Movement across the Chickahominy and James—General Lee—Visit to Butler—The Movement on Petersburg—The Investment of Petersburg
57. Raid on the Virginia Central Railroad—Raid on the Weldon Railroad—Early's Movement upon Washington—Mining the Works before Petersburg—Explosion of the Mine before Petersburg—Campaign in the Shenandoah Valley—Capture of the Weldon Railroad
58. Sheridan's Advance—Visit to Sheridan—Sheridan's Victory in the Shenandoah—Sheridan's Ride to Winchester—Close of the Campaign for the Winter
59. The Campaign in Georgia—Sherman's March to the Sea—War Anecdotes—The March on Savannah—Investment of Savannah—Capture of Savannah
60. The Battle of Franklin—The Battle of Nashville
61. Expedition against Fort Fisher—Attack on the Fort—Failure of the Expedition—Second Expedition against the Fort—Capture of Fort Fisher
62. Sherman's March North—Sheridan Ordered to Lynchburg—Canby Ordered to Move against Mobile—Movements of Schofield and Thomas—Capture of Columbia, South Carolina—Sherman in the Carolinas
63. Arrival of the Peace Commissioners—Lincoln and the Peace Commissioners—An Anecdote of Lincoln—The Winter before Petersburg—Sheridan Destroys the Railroad—Gordon Carries the Picket Line—Parke Recaptures the Line—The Battle of White Oak Road
64. Interview with Sheridan—Grand Movement of the Army of the Potomac—Sheridan's Advance on Five Forks—Battle of Five Forks—Parke and Wright Storm the Enemy's Line—Battles before Petersburg
65. The Capture of Petersburg—Meeting President Lincoln in Petersburg—The Capture of Richmond—Pursuing the Enemy—Visit to Sheridan and Meade
66. Battle of Sailor's Creek—Engagement at Farmville—Correspondence with General Lee—Sheridan Intercepts the Enemy
67. Negotiations at Appomattox—Interview with Lee at McLean's House—The Terms of Surrender—Lee's Surrender—Interview with Lee after the Surrender
68. Morale of the Two Armies—Relative Conditions of the North and South—President Lincoln Visits Richmond—Arrival at Washington—President Lincoln's Assassination—President Johnson's Policy
69. Sherman and Johnston—Johnston's Surrender to Sherman—Capture of Mobile—Wilson's Expedition—Capture of Jefferson Davis—General Thomas's Qualities—Estimate of General Canby
70. The End of the War—The March to Washington—One of Lincoln's Anecdotes—Grand Review at Washington—Characteristics of Lincoln and Stanton—Estimate of the Different Corps Commanders
Conclusion
Explanatory Notes
Index

Editorial Reviews

**** Reprint of the 1885-86 edition (cited in BCL3) with a selection of Matthew Brady photos. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

"The best [memoirs] of any general's since Caesar."   —Mark Twain

"A unique expression of the national character....[Grant] has conveyed the suspense which was felt by himself and his army and by all who believed in the Union cause. The reader finds himself...on edge toknow how the Civil War is coming out."   —Edmund Wilson

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