In the wake of a scandal-ridden presidency and sick with cancer, Ulysses S. Grant took up the pen at the urging of his friend and editor Mark Twain, and set down his self-effacing Personal Memoirs. The result is one of the finest--and most closely studied--first-person accounts of warfare ever written.
As commander of federal forces in the west, and later of the entire Union army, Grant oversaw some of the bloodiest actions of the war, among them the battles and sieges of Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Richmond. In his recollections of these fights, Grant praises his officers and men, who, he writes, "knew what they were fighting for." Quick, as well, to praise the gallantry of the enemy, Grant insists that the Civil War was fought not over states' rights, but over slavery, pure and simple, and he reckons that, considering postwar political and economic progress, "It is probably well that we had the war when we did."
To this abridged version--which would have benefited greatly from the addition of explanatory notes and a more useful introduction--historian Thomas Fleming adds an essay on the role of West Pointers on both sides of the conflict. Students of military history will find that essay worthy, and Grant's memoirs essential. --Gregory McNamee
From Publishers Weekly
Considered the high watermark of Civil War literature, the autobiography of Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs, has now been abridged to focus exclusively on the war. The Civil War Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, put together by scholar Brian M. Thomsen, covers battles and campaigns from Shiloh to Richmond, and includes correspondence with Generals Sherman and Lee. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
A classic of American letters, Grant's Personal Memoirs exists in numerous editions from which libraries may select as suits their needs. But select they must, for Grant's memoirs are the most lucid, limpid, and readable to issue from a Civil War general and are in perennial demand. Expunging from the original memoir everything up to Grant's volunteering for service in 1861, this edition is not for purists. As a marketing idea, the excision of Grant's prewar reminiscences makes sense: most people are drawn to Grant's astonishing ascent from leather-store clerk to general of the Union army. Readers may have already listened to Jason Robards' voice-overs of many excerpts from this memoir in Ken Burn's The Civil War; this edition is plainly an opportunity for them to discover their context and the memoir's characterizing poignancy and precision. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"It is simply not possible to read Grant's memoirs without realizing that the author is a man of first-rate intelligence"--Gore Vidal, New York Times bestselling author of Burr and Lincoln
"The reader finds himself . . . on edge to know how the Civil War is coming out."--Edmund Wilson
Book Description
Highlights Include:
General William Tecumseh Sherman on his infamous march through Georgia
General George B. McClellan on the battle of Antietam and the legendary lost order that should have tipped him off to Lee's plans
General George Armstrong Custer's experience of going straight from studying at West Point to the battlefield
General (CSA) James Longstreet on serving under Robert E. Lee
General (CSA) G. Moxley Sorrel on serving under James Longstreet
Major (CSA) J.S.Mosby on the South's Guerilla campaign
General (CSA) Jubal Earley's memoir of the last year of the war.
About the Author
Ulysses S. Grant was the commander-in-chief of the Union forces during the climactic late years of the Civil War and later served as the 18th President of the United States. He died in 1885. His remains currently reside in Grant's Tomb in New York City.
Brian M. Thomsen is the editor of Shadows of Blue and Gray-the Civil War Writings of Ambrose Pierce, Alternate Gettysburgs, The American Fantasy Tradition, and The Man in the Arena: Selected Writings of Theodore Roosevelt. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
The Civil War Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant FROM THE PUBLISHER
"From the Western frontier to the battlefields of Vicksburg, Chattanooga, Franklin, Petersburg, and Richmond, Grant saw the war from the front lines and made the decisions that affected lives on a day-to-day basis. His writings provide a revealing look into the life of the commander in chief of the Union army as well as a seminal eyewitness account of the War between the States." "The Civil War Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant is a popular abridgment of his two-volume Personal Memoirs, which he arranged to have published to provide for his family after his death. (It was a huge bestseller and broke all records in American publishing at the time.) He died less than one week after completing its writing." This abridgment covers Grant's experiences in the Civil War, from the first shot at Sumter to Appomattox, giving the reader a front-line seat next to the greatest Union general of the war.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Considered the high watermark of Civil War literature, the autobiography of Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs, has now been abridged to focus exclusively on the war. The Civil War Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, put together by scholar Brian M. Thomsen, covers battles and campaigns from Shiloh to Richmond, and includes correspondence with Generals Sherman and Lee. ( Mar.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A classic of military history, abridged for readers with short attention spans. Coaxed out of the general and ex-president by none other than Mark Twain and published in 1885 as its author was dying of cancer, the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant is among the greatest first-person accounts of war ever written. Grant explains the Civil War as he understood it, insisting that the underlying cause was first and foremost slavery, with which "the great majority of the people of the North had no particular quarrel" until the Southern states insisted that their Northern neighbors apprehend and return runaways. Thomsen trims the memoirs to focus only on the Civil War, cutting a couple of hundred pages from the original. The editing is unobjectionable, but Thomsen includes no notes or other apparatus, and his glancing one-page introduction is useless. The well-written afterword by historian Thomas Fleming discusses only the role played by West Pointers on both sides of the conflict. Readers would do better to turn to the less expensive-and far better edited-Modern Library and Penguin editions of Personal Memoirs.
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