Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, V1 [Paperback]

Ulysses S. Grant (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2006

This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1885 edition by Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, London.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

10 1.5-hour cassettes --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Ulysses Simpson Grant was the eighteenth President of the United States. He was an American general and gained international fame as the leading Union General. It was due to his efforts that the Unionists gained their early victories. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: IndyPublish.com (January 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1421934663
• ISBN-13: 978-1421934662
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,264,391 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A masterpiece of American literature, March 4, 2004

By 

Candace Scott (Lake Arrowhead, CA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, V1 (Hardcover)

General Grant wrote this book while dying of throat cancer. He had been swindled by a dishonest Wall Street Broker and his trophies and possessions were stripped from him to satisfy the demands of his debtors. Bankrupt, suffering from a terminal illness and never passing a moment without acute pain, he produced this magnificent monument to his greatness. Those who denigrate Grant as a drunkard, butcher, bumbling President need to read this book in order to correct these errant assumptions. It is impossible to read this book and not realize that Grant was an inordinately intelligent man and one hell of a writer.

Grant's Memoirs are a deserved classic in American literature and considered the greatest military Memoirs ever penned, exceeding Caesar's Commentaries. Grant wrote as he lived: with clear, concise statements, unembellished with trivialities or frivolities. The only "criticism" the reader might have is that Grant bent over backwards not to wound the feelings of people in the book. He takes swipes at Joe Hooker and Jeff Davis, but what he left unsaid would have been far more interesting. A compelling and logical reason why Grant was so spare in his comments was because he was involved in a race with death. He didn't know how long he could live and therefore, "cut to the chase."

Grant's assessments of Lincoln, Sherman, Sheridan and other military leaders are brilliant and engrossing. His style, like the man himself, was inimitable and couldn't be copied. In everyday life, Grant was a very funny man, who liked to listen to jokes and tell them himself. His sense of the absurd was acute. It's no accident that he loved Mark Twain and the two hitched together very well. Twain and Grant shared a similar sense of humor, and Grant's witicisms in the Memoirs are frequent, unexpected and welcome. There are portions where you will literally laugh out loud.

Though Grant's Memoirs were written 113 years ago, they remain fresh, vibrant and an intensely good read. I have read them in! their entirity 30 times in my life and I never weary of the style and language that Grant employed. He was a military genius to be sure, but he was also a writer of supreme gifts, and these gifts shine through on every page of this testament to his greatness. All Americans should read this book and realize what we owe to Grant: he preserved the union with his decisive brilliance. In his honor, we should be eternally grateful.

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing Memoir, May 12, 2010

By 

L. Lawson (San Jose, California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant - Volume 1 (Kindle Edition)

President Grant wrote this memoir near the end of his life and it was a huge success, selling enough copies to help his family financially after he was gone. He does an excellent job of describing his improbably rise to success in the Union Army during the Civil War.

For those of us who know nothing about warfare, his description of the campaigns will be real eye-openers. In this age of instant communications, we don't often think about the logistical problems of coordinating an attack. If you arrange an attack at a particular time of day, you can't rely on accurate watches. For one assault, his written instructions were for another general to attack an army from the other side when they heard his army open fire. Distance, a trick of the wind, and fog can all prevent the other army from hearing the fighting.

He also goes into detail about the huge logistical efforts involved in his campaigns. He spends considerable time addressing the belief that the South had better generals.

Read it and decide for yourself.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An American Classic, June 27, 2010

By 

random observer "random observer" (Monroe County FL) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant - Volume 1 (Kindle Edition)

I concur with the first reviewer: this book made a civilian like myself understand a bit more of the complexity of any military campaign. In the subsequent sections (speaking of the free Kindle version) Grant also gives his opinion on a variety of subjects of national importance, though there is next to nothing of his time in the White House.

This transcription is quite good; here and there there are a few errors but they are not so frequent as to destroy the flow of the narrative.