Joan Waugh

I'm not going into a full review of this book basically because the three parts - his life, his reputation, and his effect on history was IMO, though well-written, lacking in enough details to make a full review worthwhile.

What this book did document was the successful way that Grant directed the entire Union forces after taking charge in 1864. It seems that so many believe that Grant was an unfeeling man because of the vast numbers of soldiers that were killed in the battles nearing the end of the war, but his own words show how he felt the necessity of being victorious. "we all felt, even those who did not object to slavery, that it was a stain on the Union that men should be bought and sold like cattle...We were fighting an enemy with whom we could not make peace. We had to destroy him. No convention, no treaty was possible--- only destruction."

This book did show the difficulties that Grant went through to complete his memoirs. He had been diagnosed with threat cancer and his last years were filled with tremendous pain and discomfort. Completing the books which told his viewpoint of the war became, after his death, a massive bestseller which provided financially for his wife, Julia, and his family.

This book did not give sufficient details of the presidency of Ulysses Grant, however, it did justify the stature in which he was held in the hearts of his countrymen.… (meer)

I finished reading U. S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth by Joan Waugh, and I am glad I did read the whole thing. April 27 will be the 188th anniversary of the birth of Ulysses S. Grant in a small town in Ohio. For many years after this death in 1885, April 27 was celebrated as Grant Day by many across the country and around the world signifying the high esteem in which he was held for many years following his service in the Civil War and as a two-term President of the United States. Many saw Washington, Lincoln and Grant as "Father, Savior, Defender." During the twentieth-century, this assessment changed dramatically for many reasons. This book is a serious effort to set the record straight - laying our the history as it occurred, the good and the not-so-good - and how "history" has been recorded differently during subsequent periods of our national existence.

Among other things, this book is a Main Selection of the History Book Club, and a Selection of the Military Book Club and the Book-of-the-Month Club. I have been waiting for a new "unbiased" book on Grant for some time. I have found it in Waugh's book. The first third of the book is a nice summary of his life, including the war and his presidency. The last two thirds is a thorough analysis, based on review of primary source materials, of how Grant has been treated by history, historians and the media since that time. The controversy surrounding the building of Grant's Tomb/Memorial in New York City is used as platform to examine the events of the latter years of the nineteenth century as they considered the events surrounding the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the roles of white southerners, former slaves and veterans of both the Union and Confederate armies as they approached old age.

I give this book a strong positive recommendation for anyone willing to read objectively about the last 150 years of our U. S. history as we approach the Civil War Sesquicentennial next year!

This review was first posted on my blog: http://drbillsbookbazaar.blogspot.com/… (meer)