November 13, 2023
Historian Reeves (A Fire in the Wilderness) takes a fresh look at Ulysses S. Grant’s conflicted early relationship with slavery, secession, and alcohol in this less than laudatory study. Focused solely on Grant’s life in the West—particularly in St. Louis from 1854 to 1860—Reeves charts Grant’s tense relationships with his antislavery father, Jesse, and his slave-owning father-in-law, Colonel Dent, as well as his emotional dependence upon his wife, Julia. Having retired from the army after the Mexican American War, Grant took over Dent’s plantation property in Missouri. Reeves traces the arc of Grant’s thinking on slavery during this time, as it evolved from a tacit acceptance in the 1850s to his belief that its demise was necessary to win the war. Transitioning into a study of Grant’s early military campaigns against the Confederates in the West (where he credits Grant’s pugnacious, confident spirit for both victories and losses), Reeves continues to highlight Grant’s attitudes toward slavery, particularly regarding the enslaved woman Jule who traveled with his family to care for the children during the war and was a “familiar presence” in Union camps. Throughout, Reeves dredges up old shibboleths about Grant (including that he was a drunkard, a complete failure at business, a butcher general) and breathes new life into a few of them. Grant’s contradictions and complexities are on full display in this candid and unusually critical biography.
October 1, 2023
A fine account of the formative years of Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885). Historian Reeves, author of The Lost Indictment of Robert E. Lee, clearly displays his knowledge of the inner life of the Civil War general. Son of a prosperous Ohio tanner, Grant showed no interest in entering the family business. Getting an education appealed to him, so his father used his influence to get him into West Point, where the education was free. He was a middling student who distinguished himself in the Mexican War, married the daughter of a wealthy Missouri slave-owner in 1848, abruptly resigned his commission in 1854, and spent the following five years working on her father's farm. He returned north in 1860; a year later, he was quickly appointed a general as the only man in his community with military experience. He was a success because he knew how wars were won: resources and persistence. Lesser generals (such as Lee) believed that wars were won by battlefield victories. Readers surprised at the book's sudden end in 1864, when Grant was appointed commander of all Union armies, should reference the subtitle. Reeves maintains that he never intended to write a definitive biography; rather, he focuses on Grant's rise to the pinnacle of his profession, with an emphasis on his connection to slavery. Never a deep thinker, the young Grant had no objection to slavery, but his father-in-law owned 30 slaves, and Grant made use of them during his years on the farm. Like most northerners, he fought to preserve the Union, but as the war dragged on, he concluded that slavery had to be eliminated. By the time he became a national figure, he approved recruiting Black soldiers into the Union army--a sign of advanced thinking even then. A capable portrait of Grant's critical period, with more than the usual attention to his racial views.
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