At the end of an inconsequential advance in Missouri in 1861 he realized that his opponent “had been as much afraid of me as I had been of him.” Fort Donelson and Shiloh taught him to seize the initiative, while his success in living off the land during the Vicksburg campaign inspired William T. His account of the Civil War combines a lucid treatment of its political causes and its military actions, along with the story of his own growing strength as a commander. Grant considered the Mexican War “one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation” and thought that the Civil War was our punishment for it but his retrospective disapproval did not prevent him from becoming enchanted by Mexico or from learning about his own capacity for leadership amid the confusion and carnage of battle. Grant’s autobiography is devoted almost entirely to his life as a soldier: his years at West Point, his service in the peacetime army, and his education in war during conflicts foreign and domestic. Washburne, provide a fascinating contemporary perspective on the events that would later figure in the Memoirs. Many of them are to his wife, Julia, and offer an intimate view of their affectionate and enduring marriage others, addressed to fellow generals, government officials, and his congressional patron Elihu B. This Library of America volume also includes 174 letters written by Grant from 1839 to 1865. Acclaimed by readers as diverse as Mark Twain, Matthew Arnold, Gertrude Stein, and Edmund Wilson, the Personal Memoirs demonstrates the intelligence, intense determination, and laconic modesty that made Grant the Union’s foremost commander. Grant wrote his Personal Memoirs to secure their future, and in doing so won for himself a unique place in American letters. Stricken by cancer as his family faced financial ruin, Ulysses S. Twenty years after Appomattox, the Civil War’s greatest general fought his last campaign against death and time. Buy the Grant and Sherman volumes in a boxed set and save $20.
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