The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant: The Complete Annotated Edition

by Ulysses S. Grant, John F. Marszalek (Editor), Afric Simon (With), Los Invencibles de Marin Rubalcava (With), Frank J. Williams (Preface by)

Overview

President Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) was one of the most esteemed individuals of the nineteenth century. His two-volume memoirs, sold door-to-door by former Union soldiers, have never gone out of print and were once as ubiquitous in American households as the Bible. Mark Twain, Gertrude Stein, Matthew Arnold, Henry James, and Edmund Wilson hailed these works as great literature, and Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both credit Grant with influencing their own writing. Yet a judiciously annotated clarifying edition of these memoirs has never been produced until now.

The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant is the first comprehensively annotated edition of Grant’s memoirs, fully representing the great military leader’s thoughts on his life and times through the end of the Civil War and his invaluable perspective on battlefield decision making. An introduction contextualizes Grant’s life and significance, and lucid editorial commentary allows the president’s voice and narrative to shine through. With annotations compiled by the editors of the Ulysses S. Grant Association’s Presidential Library, this definitive edition enriches our understanding of the antebellum era, the Mexican War, and the Civil War. Grant provides insight into how rigorously these events tested America’s democratic institutions and the cohesion of its social order.

The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant preserves and extends a work of profound political, historical, and literary significance and serves as the gateway for modern readers of all backgrounds to an American classic.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674976290
Publisher:	Harvard
Publication date:	10/16/2017
Pages:	816
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

John F. Marszalek is W. L. Giles Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus, and Executive Director and Managing Editor of the Ulysses S. Grant Association’s U. S. Grant Presidential Library, at Mississippi State University.

Editorial Reviews

Ron Chernow’s Grant has been a national bestseller, deservedly so, but we think that the new edition of The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, edited and annotated [by] John F. Marszalek[,] should share that spotlight. Possibly the best presidential memoir written, annotations by Marszalek with David Nolen and Louis Gallo illuminate and contextualize the memoir for the modern reader.

Literary Hub - Sebastien Desjours

The Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant provides leadership lessons that can be obtained nowhere else…Ulysses Grant in his Memoirs gives us a unique glimpse of someone who found that the habit of reflection could serve as a force multiplier for leadership.

Foreign Policy - Thomas E. Ricks

Grant’s style is direct and plain, but it has a kind of quiet music to it, the indescribable quality of an authentic voice. There is a level of intimacy that no amount of confessional writing could guarantee. Grant’s assessment of the Civil War and the decisions that went into its waging is mostly brisk and engaging, but what really compelled me through the book were the psychological insights on nearly every page—both of the prominent men whom Grant encountered and of the masses of people whose desires and fears he recognized, sympathized with, and often exploited. Grant’s ability to be empathetic and ruthless in the span of a few sentences—coolly calculating the costs of losing lives against the benefits of pushing on; testing what Southerners could bear and what would make them break—is consistently on display. Whatever Grant hides in his memoir is less than what he reveals. He was a man who could cringe at the cruelty of a bullfight but was willing to send men into certain slaughter to gain a riverbank, a man who understood both dignity and disgrace.

New Yorker - Louisa Thomas

A brilliant new annotated version.

Open Letters Monthly - Steve Donoghue

A richly annotated new edition…What gives this peculiarly reticent book its power? Above all, authenticity. If Grant’s voice is never confessional, it almost never rings false…Grant’s style is strikingly modern in its economy…Grant proves an exemplary military narrator…The ghost that truly haunts the book is not Grant’s, but that of atrocity—true atrocities of torture and murder.

New York Times - T. J. Stiles

If Mark Twain called Grant’s Memoirs ‘a great, unique and unapproachable literary masterpiece,’ The Complete Annotated Edition is its ‘unique’ companion. Renowned Civil War historian John Marszalek and his team of editors are owed our gratitude. Their annotated edition will increase appreciation among both longtime admirers and a new generation discovering why Grant is winning his deserved place among American leaders.

Ronald C. White

As the first fully annotated edition of Ulysses S. Grant’s Personal Memoirs, this fine volume leaps straight onto the roster of essential reading for anyone even vaguely interested in Grant and the Civil War. The book is deeply researched, but it introduces its scholarship with a light touch that never interferes with the reader’s enjoyment of Grant’s fluent narrative. John F. Marszalek and the folks at the Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library are building a formidable array of books illuminating many aspects of the general’s life.

Ron Chernow

10/01/2017
Renowned Civil War historian and editor of the Ulysses S. Grant papers Marszalek collaborates with Louie P. Gallo (Ulysses S. Grant Assn.) and David S. Nolen (Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Lib.) to edit the most copious annotated edition of Grant's (1822-85) indispensable memoirs to date. The result is a valuable publishing history on the 18th president's writings, along with useful annotations on people, places, and events that set his written works in historical context. Historians have regarded Grant's memoirs as a classic in military writing and a revealing example of the public memoir genre; they provide essential insight into the general's approaches to war, experiences leading armies to victory, and justifications for thoughts and actions during the Mexican-American War and the U.S. Civil War. The memoirs also reveal his trenchant observations on the nature of courage, the call to public service, and the character of Americans. VERDICT It's been said that if you're going to pick up one memoir of the Civil War, Grant's is the one to read. Similarly, if you're going to purchase one of the several annotated editions of his memoirs, this is the collection to own, read, and reread.—Randall M. Miller, St. Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia

Library Journal