General Ulysses S. Grant; The Soldier and the Man

Boston: Da Capo Press, 2006. First Da Capo Press Edition [stated]. Presumed first printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Paul Dangel (Maps). xiii, [1], 338 pages. Illustrations. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Gift inscription, not from author, on fep. Edward Longacre (born December 22, 1946) is an American historian and writer. He specializes in American Civil War historiography. He is famous for his numerous biographies of Civil War generals. He has received multiple awards including the Moncado Prize in 1981, the Fletcher Pratt Award in 1986, the Douglas Southall Freeman History Award in 2004, and the Dr. James I. Robertson Jr. Literary Prize for in 2015. In this new biography of General Ulysses S. Grant, acclaimed Civil War historian, Edward G. Longacre, examines Grant's early life and his military career for insights into his great battlefield successes as well as his personal misfortunes. Longacre concentrates on Grant's boyhood and early married life; his moral, ethical, and religious views; his troubled military career; his strained relationships with wartime superiors; and, especially, his weakness for alcohol, which exerted a major influence on both his military and civilian careers. Longacre, to a degree that no other historian has done before, investigates Grant's alcoholism in light of his devout religious affiliations, and the role these sometimes conflicting forces had on his military career and conduct. Longacre's conclusions present a new and surprising perspective on the ever-fascinating life of General Grant. Despite his reputation for rash decisions, brutal tactics, and intemperate behavior, Ulysses S. Grant was the only Union general who could win the war for Lincoln. Grant's aggressive strategies, swift movements and uncompromising battlefield attacks were praised in the North, feared in the South, and reviled by many of his own associates and staff. General Grant is, perhaps, one of the most controversial, enigmatic, and misunderstood generals in our nation's history. In this new biography of Grant, acclaimed Civil War historian, Edward G. Longacre, examines Grant's early life, military training at West Point, and his later military career for insights into his great battlefield successes and his personal misfortune. Longacre, to a degree that no other historian has done before, investigates Grant's drinking as well as his devout religious affiliation with temperance movements, and the role these conflicting forces had on his military career and conduct. Longacre's conclusions may surprise readers, but no one will doubt the research and scholarship behind them. As he has done in all his previous military biographies, Longacre challenges readers and scholars alike with a new perspective on the ever-fascinating life of General Grant. Derived from a Publishers Weekly article: In his well-written account, Longacre, a prolific author of Civil War histories, illuminates not only Grant's military career but also the infrequently covered terrain of his childhood and adolescence. Admirably, Longacre resists the temptation to retroactively classify events from Grant's youth as harbingers of his greatness. In fact, it's surprising and satisfying to see just how improbable Grant's success was. While at West Point, he attained a mediocre record and held pessimistic views on his prospects as an officer. His pre-Civil War years were marred by drinking binges that Longacre convincingly argues led to Grant's unceremonious resignation from the military, and an itinerant existence that had him working as a farmer, in a real-estate office, and finally at his father's tannery. It is not an act of negligence on Longacre's part that Grant unpredictably subverts the expectations these events intimate in the reader; he similarly outstripped the expectations of his soldiers, who initially ribbed him for his modest build. Longacre writes an informative account of Grant's numerous battlefield successes, his occasional lapses into drunkenness, and run-ins with his peers, ending with the last days of the war. Longacre remains even handed throughout and maintains a lively pace.