The best Ulysses S. Grant books 📚

I was fifteen the first time I went through U. S. Grant’s house in Galena, Illinois. I’ve been there two or three times since and what stands out most to me is the copies of his memoirs they have on display. One look at them, made me rush out and buy a first edition.

Papers and politicians relished telling stories about Grant’s drinking. Many people believed it, but Abraham Lincoln wasn’t fooled. He understood that Ulysses S. Grant was the indispensable man. When other generals stopped to rest on their laurels, Grant raced forward, ever-ready to fight another battle. Lincoln… show more.

The war’s greatest military historian takes on its greatest military figure in Bruce Catton’s spirited two-volume classic: Grant Moves South and Grant Takes Command. Written decades ago, these paired volumes remain the finest historical account of Grant’s triumphant Civil War career. In the opening volume, we meet the recently minted brigadier in September 1861 as he prepares to join his army at desolate Cairo, Illinois, having just recovered from a succession of crushing personal failures. In the concluding volume, we leave him at Petersburg Virginia in April 1865, after he demolishes R. E. Lee’s army in the climactic battle of… show more.

Horace Porter’s Campaigning With Grant is exactly that—a close-up, “you are there” account of Grant’s titanic campaign against Lee, as seen through the eyes of one of the General-in-Chief’s most trusted military aides. Captain (later General) Porter worshipped his commander and presents him here without disabling flaws. But in flowing prose, he gives us a richly-realized portrait of the general as he commands with authority in the field, and later in the day, meets informally with his young staff—his military family— around a blazing fire in front of his headquarters at City Point, Virginia, just outside besieged Petersburg. On several… show more.