By H.W. Brands
Doubleday, 2012. 718 pgs. Biography
Brands biography of Ulysses Grant illuminates the many phases of this man who quite literally saved the Union through his Civil War victories. Not a political figure until after the war, and not particularly successful in private life, Grant was loved by his troops and was resolute through the tremendous stresses and strains of the Civil War. I read "Team of Rivals: the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln" just before reading this book and enjoyed learning more about Grant whose victories and antislavery policies helped bring the Civil War to an end. I was interested to learn that Grant and other military leaders from the North and South knew each other from their West Point training and from time spent in the Mexican War. This knowledge gave them insight into each others' battle strategies. The book is lengthy and I had to speed read some of the details about specific battles, but overall the book was very interesting. SH
No comments:
Post a Comment