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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Simply amazing - a must for Civil War enthusiasts,
By
This review is from: Grant and Sherman: Civil War Memoirs Boxed Set (Library of America) (Hardcover)
Not only was U.S. Grant a superb general, but the man could write as well. He was known for being simple and direct, and this trait comes througgh in his writing style. Grant keeps his narrative moving along at a brisk pace, sticking to the facts as he knew them to be. One also gets a sense of the politics of Army life back in the 1860s, and one can learn more about the nature of the times in the careful wording Grant uses in some parts of his story so as to avoid offfending his fellow veterans of lesser stature. These added dimensions bring his chronicle of the Civil War to life in a way no modern author ever could. This book is a "must" for any armchair historian of the U.S. Civil War.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An extroardinary must-read classic of the Civil War,
By
This review is from: Grant and Sherman: Civil War Memoirs Boxed Set (Library of America) (Hardcover)
If you're only going to read five books on the Civil War - which is like saying, only eat one french fry - make this one of them. Grant's autobiography, written under excruciating conditions of financial pressure and failing health in the late 1880's, is one of the most unforgettable reads available about the American Civil War.Terse, simple, and almost painfully modest, Grant takes us through his life - the schooling at West Point (he was too retiring to point out they'd got his middle name wrong at registration, and was mistakenly given the name Ulysses SIMPSON Grant which he used for the rest of his life). The bravery and initiative of the Mexican War. The long, lonely postings in the early '50's to California, a continent away from his wife and beloved young children. The depression, leaving the Army, trying to make it in civilian life, failing at almost everything he tried. Then the war begins in 1861 when Lincoln calls for volunteers. It's typical of Grant that he goes to a little midwest recruiting post and modestly says he might take command of something very small - a company, perhaps? This, for a West Point graduate. From then on the book ceases being merely very interesting and starts becoming a can't-put-down. The simple and good-hearted soul of the man just shines through his words, and he doesn't get caught up badly in the mid-century Victorian fustery of so much Civil War writing. He tells you what happened and what he thought about it; I remember about Lee at Appomatox, he said that he felt like anything in world after Lee's surrender except gloating over so brave an army as Lee's who had fought so nobly for a cause - even though he also thought it was one of the worst causes for which men had ever fought. His prose just flows through the extraordinary events he helped channel - Shiloh, Vicksburg, The Battle of the Wilderness, the surrender, and all points in between. It's an irreplaceable and wonderful resource and you end up falling big-time for Ulysses S. Grant. Don't miss it.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Still One of the Best Histories of the Civil War,
This review is from: Grant and Sherman: Civil War Memoirs Boxed Set (Library of America) (Hardcover)
I first read U.S. Grant's memoirs when I was a college student during the Vietnam War. It helped me a great deal to appreciate how horrific war was and still is and that it should only be suffered when the cause is truly worthwhile. It was in the American Civil War and World War II. It was not in the Vietnam War. It was not our finest hour.But this book also got me hooked on the history of the American Civil War. It is in my judgment, after more than fifty years and reading perhaps a thousand volumes about this watershed event in our nation's history, the single best written and brutally honest work on that event. Especially so in that it was written first-hand by one of the principal characters in that national and human tragedy. For those of you really interested in becoming a student of the American Civil War, I recommend it highly, after you read the American Heritage History of the Civil War and before you read Lee's Lieutenants by Douglas Southhall Freeman and the four book series by Bruce Catton. If by that time you're not hooked and become a Civil War junkie, you never will be.
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