Veteran journalist and author
Joseph C. Goulden offers a good review in the Washington Times of Ron Chernow’s Grant.
At hand is a masterpiece of
biography, the best of the genre that I have encountered in almost seven
decades of reading. Ron Chernow’s book should vault Ulysses S. Grant into a
deserved but long-denied position in the front rank of great American presidents.
Grant’s legacy long suffered
for two reasons: his reputation of being a heavy driver, only partially
deserved, and multiple scandals that marred his two-term presidency, although
he was not personally involved any of the affairs. Mr. Chernow’s detailed book
examines both issues in a detail I have not seen in earlier biographies, and he
essentially acquits Grant.
The “drunk” label was
plastered on Grant with good cause. During the Mexican war, the West Point
graduate earned a record for gallantry. Then he was assigned to a remote base
in California, far from his wife. A business deal soured, costing him what
meager money he possessed. A binge followed, and he was dismissed from the
Army.
...To insure a future for his
wife, Grant spent his last years writing a memoir of his Civil War experiences.
And here is the most moving section of Mr. Chernow’s masterful work. Grant
wrote as he was dying of painful cancer of the tongue. Barely able to speak
beyond a whisper or hold a pen, he produced a work that Mr. Chernow calls “the
foremost military memoir in the English language.” The two-volume work quickly
sold 300,00 copies and left his widow a fortune of $450,000. The memoir
continues to sell.
In brief: the deserved
resurrection of a decent man whose military acumen preserved the Union.
You can read the rest of the
review via the below link:
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