AROUND THE WORLD WITH GENERAL GRANT

By John Russell Young; Edited by Michael Fellman

John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland, 2002, 448 pp.

Review by Jim Gallen  

Around the World with General Grant is part pageant, part travelogue, part diplomacy and part reflection on an extraordinary life and career.  Author John Russell Young was a journalist who accompanied the General and Mrs. Grant on their almost three year, around-the-world tour after leaving the White House.  Editor Michael Fellman adds an introduction to each chapter of Young’s work, which was first published in 1879.

The trip was extensive in scope, magnificent in splendor, and representative in design for the later excursion of Theodore Roosevelt after he left the presidency.  Grant was treated like a head of state by monarchs, by diplomats, and by citizens.  Beginning with his departure from Philadelphia, the former President and his party visited England, Grant’s ancestral lands in Scotland, Paris, Italy, Malta, Egypt, the Holy Land, Holland, Germany, Scandinavia, Russia, Austria, Portugal, and Ireland. His party then set sail on an extended sea voyage to the East that carried them to India, Burma, Singapore, Siam, Cochin China (Indochina), Hong Kong, China, and Japan.  Returning to the United States via San Francisco, Grant then began a rail trip across the country.  During the course of his trip, Grant became the first U.S. president to visit Saigon and, according to the Young, the first person to shake hands with the Emperor of Japan, which was strictly forbidden.


Around the World with General Grant
also provides insights into the splendor of the Courts and the views of leaders through Young’s accounts of Grant’s exchanges with Queen Victoria, King Leopold of Belgium, King Alfonso XII of Spain, King Don Luis I of Portugal, Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria, Tsar Alexander II of Russian, Pope Leo XII, the King of Siam, and the Emperors of China and Japan.  

Young also breaks away from covering Grant’s activities to describe his own observations of the countries he visited.  He notes while traveling through Holland, “The canal boat is gayly painted, and in the stern is the typical Dutchman, with a big pipe in his mouth.  As we slacken speed on the road I catch a glimpse into the interior of the cabin of a boat, a trekschuyt.  It is neatness itself.  In the window of this floating house there is a whole ledge of blooming tulips.” p. 145

Such a journey in the 1870’s involved many days aboard ship traversing oceans, and Young took advantage of the time to document Grant’s stories and recollections.  Round Table members may be most interested in Grant’s reminiscences about the Civil War and its personalities.  A few examples may whet the appetite for more.  For example, Grant recalled that Stonewall Jackson “was always a brave and trustworthy officer, none more so in the army” but “If Jackson had attempted on Sheridan the tactics he attempted so successfully upon others, he would not only have been beaten but destroyed.  Sudden, daring raids, under a fine general like Jackson, might do against raw troops and inexperienced commanders, such as we had in the beginning of the war, but not against drilled troops and a commander like Sheridan.” p. 261 

Grant also asserted, “Sherman is not only a great soldier, but a great man.  He is one of the very great men in our country’s history.  . . . He is an orator with few superiors.  As a writer he is among the first.  As a general I know of no man I would put above him.  Above all, he has a fine character-so frank, so sincere, so outspoken, so genuine.  There is not a false line in Sherman’s character-nothing to regret.” p. 301 

About General Lee, Young reports that Grant claimed, “I never ranked Lee as high as some others of the army…I never had as much anxiety when he was in my front as when Joe Johnston was in front.” p. 384 

In addition, Grant’s critique about President Johnson’s refusal to authorize an invasion of Mexico at the end of the Civil War makes for intriguing “what ifs?” when he stated, “Maximillian’s life would have been saved,” Napoleon III may have fallen, and the Franco-Prussian War may have been averted. 

John Russell Young made the most of his opportunity to chronicle a trek unique in world history.  Although set after the War, his vignettes of meetings with the rich and powerful, his descriptions (accompanied by illustrations) of scenery and structures, and his reports of leisurely conversations with General Grant make this a read not to be missed.

 

Around the World with General Grant: Young, John Russell, Fellman, Michael: 9780801869501: Amazon.com: Books


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Jim Gallen is a St. Louis, Missouri attorney.  He is Chairman of the Military History Club of the Missouri Athletic Club, a member of the St. Louis Civil War Roundtable (https://civilwarstlmo.org/), and member of the Ulysses S. Grant Camp of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War.