Book Reviews - The Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia

PERSONAL MEMOIRS OF ULYSSES S. GRANT

Caleb Carr (Ed.)

Modern Library Edition, Ransom House,Inc., New York, NY, 1999, 736 pp.

Review by Jim Gallen 

I value autobiographies for historical subjects’ unique perspectives on the events of their lives.  The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant has often been described as one of the best of presidential memoirs.  As many years had passed since my last look at it, I decided it merited a re-read.  Written as the General was suffering from terminal throat cancer, it covers his life from youth through the Mexican War, peacetime and, most importantly, the Civil War.  Round Table members are well familiar with the Grant saga so I will concentrate on what makes this memoir one of the greatest-of-all-times. 

Grant utilizes several writing styles to tell his story.   He employs descriptive words to paint mental pictures: “we encountered a ferocious dog that frightened the horses and made them run.  The new animal kicked at every jump he made.  I got the horses stopped, however, before any damage was done, and without running into anything.”  Grant also provides matter of fact narrative:  At the end of the first day at Shiloh “General Lew Wallace, with 5,000 effective men, arrived after firing had ceased for the day and was placed on the right.”  In addition, he relates his opinions in persuasive language, as when speaking of the 1864 Democratic convention: “Treason was talked as boldly in Chicago at that convention as ever it had been in Charleston.  It was a question whether the government would then have had the power to make arrests and punish those who thus talked treason.  But this decisive victory (Petersburg) was the most effective campaign argument made in the canvass.” 

Part of a general’s job is to know the officers with and against whom he is fighting and to assess the performance of his subordinates. Grant does well in that regard. Pay attention to his analysis of both Union and Confederate officers:  “General Meade has more than met my most sanguine expectations.  He and Sherman are the finest offices for large commands I have come in contact with.”  Writing of General Albert Sydney Johnson, Grant states: “I do not question the personal courage of General Johnston, or his ability.  But he did not win the distinction predicted for him by many of his friends.  He did prove that as a general he was over-estimated.”  Grant also made it a point to commend the services of generals who later achieved distinction in political positions, such as Franklin Pierce and Rutherford B. Hayes. Those are just a few examples of Grant’s writing style.  

I also encourage Civil War Round Table members not to neglect his accounts of the Mexican War.  In the chapters covering that War, Grant’s writing is the most graphic when he is relating incidents in which he personally participated or observed, which is in contrast to his Civil War accounts of orders or events that were merely reported to him.  For example, he points out that Mexico is the ground on which he, and many other Civil War officers, first “saw the elephant,” sharpened their mettle and honed their martial skills.  

Anyone who compares Grant biographies to these memoirs will realize the degree to which historians rely on Grant’s own words.  For an understanding of the man, I highly recommend you "go to the source: the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant.

Personal Memoirs: Ulysses S. Grant (Modern Library War): Ulysses S. Grant, Caleb Carr (Ed.)

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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.