Personal Memoirs of U.S.Grant [Paperback]

Among the autobiographies of great military figures, Ulysses S. Grant's is certainly one of the finest, and it is arguably the most notable literary achievement of any American president: a lucid, compelling, and brutally honest chronicle of triumph and failure. From his frontier boyhood to his heroics in battle to the grinding poverty from which the Civil War ironically rescued him, these memoirs are a mesmerizing, deeply moving account of a brilliant man, told with great courage as he reflects on the fortunes that shaped his life and his character. Written under excruciating circumstances (as Grant was dying of throat cancer), encouraged and edited from its very inception by Mark Twain, it is a triumph of the art of autobiography. The books in the Modern Library War series have been chosen by series editor Caleb Carr according to the significance of their subject matter, their contribution to the field of military history, and their literary merit. Since 1917 The Modern Library prides itself as The modern Library of the world s Best Books . Featuring introductions by leading writers, stunning translations, scholarly endnotes and reading group guides. Production values emphasize superior quality and readability. Competitive prices, coupled with exciting cover design make these an ideal gift to be cherished by the avid reader. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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.' --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.