Book Review: Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant

I’m finishing up the Modern Library (War) series edition of Grant’s book and am glad I finally got to it.  With assistance from Mark Twain, Grant completed this 1885 volume less than a month before his death, ensuring an income for his widow and leaving an important record of aspects of the “War of the Rebellion” still unknown to many.

The Modern Library edition suffers from a problem I’ve experienced with most military history (Thucydides, John Keegan, you name it) in that the maps are poorly rendered, with many town names and labeling of fronts difficult or impossible to read.  Brigade or battalion action directions, opponent distinctions and other details are confusing or nonexistent.  But the hardback is well done in all other aspects.

Payoffs abound in Grant’s content.  Where knowledge of the Civil War for many ends perhaps with Gettysburg (certainly important), Grant’s story soon turns on the Battle of Vicksburg, MS, which he won at about the same time that George G. Meade prevailed at Gettysburg.  While Meade’s defense of Washington is clearly key to a Union victory, Abraham Lincoln noted at the time that to take Vicksburg would disrupt rebel supply lines like no other strategy.  Lincoln had spent considerable time up and down the Mississippi River as a young man and knew of the massive logistical traffic only possible on that river and its tributaries.  Grant’s perspective on operations in this region was totally new to me.

Grant, though, doesn’t simply report events journalistically.  He includes evaluations of his own, all of which were revelations my readings and classes in American History had missed.  He stated his view that the single cause of the war was slavery (I think it’s a little more complicated but understand the power of that theory, particularly in an argument from someone of that era).  He also noted the mistake that Jefferson Davis (rebel president) made in replacing Joseph E. Johnston with another General officer, since Johnston’s strategy of orderly retreat had been effective against Union forces.  While Davis arguably was correct in that there was political value in aggressive victory compared to a constant retreat, Grant knew that the rebel forces were not strong enough for sustained attack.  They could, however, fight Johnston’s delaying actions in order to wear down support in the north, ideally so that the Union anti-war faction could defeat the Republicans in 1864, perhaps going for an armistice that would leave the Confederacy in place.  This rationale had not been clear to me until reading Grant.  

While cautioning the reader that this book is not a complete history of the national conflict, it is an effective retelling of one General’s experience from the inside — and almost entirely from the part of Grant’s career prior to the part generally known (Appomattox)!  Important events from the Mexican War to the Civil War’s end are noted that inform as to why Grant acted as he did.  He also settles a few scores in gentlemanly fashion, as with his telling of how to handle a problem common to the experience of many Generals: interfering politicians.  When he discovered that Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton had literally changed troop disposition orders and falsely appended Grant’s name to the documents (possible to someone of Stanton’s office since he personally handled military communications when routed through Washington), Grant extended his system of battlefield runners to directly communicate with the command posts of other Generals.  One does what one has to do.  

If one has a taste for military history, this book shouldn’t be missed.

/sb