In 1862, a prominent Republican visited President Lincoln and called General Ulysses S. Grant an incompetent drunk who created unnecessary political problems. Lincoln, frustrated with all his generals but this one, famously replied: "I can't spare this man; he fights." Indeed, Lincoln had gone through a series of unheroic generals before settling on Grant to lead the Union's Army of the Potomac. Grant's success at marshaling the industrial might of the North eventually pounded the South into submission. This memoir, finished as its author was dying of throat cancer in 1885, is widely admired for its clear and straightforward prose. The volume was an enormously popular hit upon publication (by Mark Twain, no less), and today Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant ranks among the finest pieces of military autobiography ever written.


From Book News, Inc.
<:;st> Reprint of the 1885-86 edition (cited in BCL3) with a selection of Matthew Brady photos. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.


Review
"The best [memoirs] of any general's since Caesar."   --Mark Twain

"A unique expression of the national character....[Grant] has conveyed the suspense which was felt by himself and his army and by all who believed in the Union cause. The reader finds himself...on edge toknow how the Civil War is coming out."   --Edmund Wilson


Book Description
Known as the "savior of the Union" during the Civil War, General Grant went on to serve as the 18th president of the United States from 1869-1877. This second volume of his memoirs was completed just days prior to his death from throat cancer in 1885.


Download Description
Among the autobiographies of great military figures, Ulysses S. Grant's is certainly one of the finest, and it is arguably the most notable literary achievement of any American president: a lucid, compelling, and brutally honest chronicle of triumph and failure. From his frontier boyhood to his heroics in battle to the grinding poverty from which the Civil War ironically "rescued" him, these memoirs are a mesmerizing, deeply moving account of a brilliant man, told with great courage as he reflects on the fortunes that shaped his life and his character. Written under excruciating circumstances (as Grant was dying of throat cancer), encouraged and edited from its very inception by Mark Twain, it is a triumph of the art of autobiography.


From the Publisher
This reprint set has wide margins and large print for easy on the eyes reading. It is available in both Hardcover(ISBN 1582180288) and Tradepaper (ISBN 1582180059) sets.