Critical Review of Ulysses S Grant: the Soldier and the Man

Joshua Desrosiers

Professor Paquette

American History from 1877

17 February 2012

General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and The Man

The book I selected to write a critical review essay about is Edward G. Longacre’s General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and The Man. It was published in Cambridge, MA by Da Capo Press, a subsidiary of the Perseus Books Group, in 2006. The author’s main goal in writing this biography of General Grant was to offer some insight into his mind and try to give evidence to support how he acted and why he did so. He sought to examine the effects Grant’s moral, ethical and religious views and to make the life and the decisions of General Grant more understandable to the general public.

The book is a historic account of General Ulysses S. Grant’s life, from birth up until the end of the Civil War and into his resignation from the army. It places heavy influence on his childhood, his parents, and his wife Julia Grant. It seeks to discuss and examine the influences these people of these, as well as his upbringing, had throughout his life and how they affected his actions and the decisions he made during the Civil War. The book is organized chronologically and has effective support and evidence for the arguments it makes by citing numerous interviews with officers who served alongside Grant, as well as Grant’s personal memoirs themselves.

In this book, notable Civil War historian Edward G. Longacre investigates Grant’s life and the various relationships he had with superior officers, his subordinates, and with his wife. In discussing these relationships, a primary focus is placed on one aspect of General Grant’s life: his “heavy” alcoholism, as well as its conjunction and confliction with his devout religious affiliations and beliefs within the Methodist Church. He asserts that many of the behaviors and rash decisions Grant made, he did so under the influence of alcohol, and that alcoholism plagued Grant’s life on and off of the battlefield.

The author writes this biography from a social historical perspective. He chooses to focus on the personal relationships that Grant had with his superior officers, his subordinates, his wife, his parents and with his siblings, to describe and examine Grant’s personality and the decisions he makes because of that personality. He also focuses on the influence of social life and social activities that Grant choses to engage in during his time in the military, namely penny-ante gambling, smoking cigars, and more infamously the consumption of alcohol. There seems to be no political or religious bias except when mentioning Grant’s own beliefs. There is no immediate conflict present, however the book expresses the claim that Grant drank alcohol frequently and Longacre goes to great lengths to support the claim that Grant was an avid alcoholic. This idea is expressed throughout the novel and makes it first appearance on the second page where the idea of his alcohol abuse is touched on lightly, “Even so, because the abuse of alcohol had much to do with the unhappy occasion, Longstreet may have hesitated…when passing the bottle to [Grant]” (pg. 2).

To support his claims of Grant’s alcoholism, Longacre uses many viable and different sources. He uses primary sources such as accounts from Ulysses Grant’s personal memoirs, transcripts of letters written to Julia Grant while Ulysses was in the army, as well as accounts, letters, memoirs, and interview transcripts with many officers and soldiers who fought alongside Grant. He also uses many unpublished materials that are found in college and university libraries, along with the personal collections of historians and historical societies. The evidence Longacre, as well as the research into the topic, makes this biography very well written.

General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and The Man is a well written and well researched biography. It is easy to read, despite being heavy material, and is organized well. It follows General Grant’s life chronologically, from birth and childhood, up through the end of his military career after the Civil War. The style and content make it a fairly easy read for most, however it would be recommended that anyone reading this novel have a genuine interest in the Civil War and General Grant; the book has very heavy material and can be difficult to get through due to the constant discussion of officers, battles, and specific details thereof.

Overall, this book is not very valuable and anyone who does not read this is not missing out. Although it is well written and has extensive research to support its claim that alcoholism plagued Grant throughout his life, it is more accurately a propaganda novel used as a means to condemn Grant as a rash alcoholic who acted more frequently under the influence than without it. As a biography this book fails to include a very large portion of General Grant’s life, his presidency. Longacre would have been better off by, instead, focusing on the influence Julia Dent Grant had throughout his military career, and discussing their personal relationship. I would not recommend this “pseudo-biography” to anyone and believe this to be a work of sensationalistic material that only seeks to discredit Ulysses S. Grant’s character.