Ulysses Grant lived during the most difficult age of the United States – the decades prior to and after the Civil War. He is remembered as the General who defeated Lee and a postwar President with a questionable legacy. Ron Chernow’s new biography of the eighteenth President of the United States tells the story of a remarkable man.
Getting to know the man behind the legend was enjoyable. Grant was a somewhat devout Methodist who loved cigars and struggled with alcoholism, which he eventually overcame. He regularly attended church, even the annual Methodist camp meetings. He was a hen-pecked husband who loved his wife and a doting father who spoiled his children. He was a failure as a civilian, a victor as General, and a Radical Republican president during Reconstruction. By the time of his death in 1885 he was hailed as the greatest American since George Washington.
Grant’s extended family and friends encapsulated the contentions that defined the USA during his life. He married Julia Dent, the daughter of a Missouri Democrat, who owned a plantation and many slaves. His father-in-law remained an unreconstructed Confederate all of his life. Grant’s best man at the wedding was James Longstreet, who would become renowned as one of Robert E. Lee’s lieutenant generals.
The story of General Grant is well known. I found the story of President Grant remarkable. As General, Grant embraced the political policies of Abraham Lincoln. As President, it fell to Grant to administer those policies. Grant ascended to the presidency after the assassination of Lincoln and the disastrous presidency of Andrew Johnson. It would fall to Grant to enforce the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the United States Constitution. These amendments freed the slaves, granted citizenship to the slaves, and gave them the right to vote.
During Reconstruction thousands of black men were elected to various political offices from sheriff to US Senator throughout the South. This led to a second rebellion in the Confederate south. The Ku Klux Klan and “rifle clubs” were the new Confederate armies that terrorized and murdered with impunity white Republicans and thousands of black Freedman across the South. Their goal was voter suppression and white domination. The Grant administration was unrelenting in prosecuting the KKK and other white supremacy groups. Even as many northern Republicans grew weary of Reconstruction, Grant remained committed to protecting the interests of the Freedmen.
In the 1876 presidential election, Democrat Samuel J. Tilden won the popular vote against Republican Rutherford B. Hayes. Hayes eventually won the electoral college and the presidency. It has been suggested that the Republicans stole the election. Actually, it was the Democrats who tried to steal the election. White terror against black Republicans succeeded in suppressing the vote. In some southern regions with a Republican majority not one Republican vote was recorded. The real tragedy of the 1876 election was that the Republicans agreed to end Reconstruction, leaving blacks to the merciless domain of southern Democrats. To his credit, Ulysses Grant never compromised on black rights.
Chernow’s Grant is a must read for those who want to understand the USA’s long difficult march towards a more perfect union in which all persons are created equal. The story of Reconstruction, Confederate resurgence and terrorism, and subsequent oppression of black Americans reminds us that all history must be remembered, but all history should not be celebrated. Ulysses S. Grant should be long remembered and celebrated.
