Of course General and President Grant was great: he defeated the slavers, and served two terms as President. He defended Reconstruction, the 13th 14th, and 15th Amendments. The Union army fought the Klan and other southern white militias that terrorized African Americans - who held elected political office in high numbers. The "Compromise of 1877" was the sellout of Reconstruction and the post-war amendments. Nearly a century of shameless oppression followed. those are the lessons I took from Ronald C. White's 2016 biography American Ulysses.
Josh Marshall is reading Grant's memoirs - something I haven't done, but which is universally lauded. - gwc
Thoughts on the Greatness of Ulysses S. Grant – Talking Points Memo
by Josh Marshall
With a new biography of Ulysses S. Grant out by the man who helped put Alexander Hamilton back in the center of 21st American popular culture, I’m late to the game to sing Grant’s praises. I have not read Chernow’s book. But I have been rereading Grant’s memoirs. I began writing this post at the end of last year when the valorization of Confederate military leaders was more at the center of our public debate. But these are issues of long standing, going on two centuries. They remain as present and consequential as they’ve ever been and Grant is at the center of that.
Until relatively recently Grant, at least as President, had a poor historical reputation. His strengths as a military leader were also overshadowed in the popular imagination by Confederate generals like Robert E. Lee and others. But in both cases, much of Grant’s dim reputation was directly tied to the way national unity was built in the late 19th century on the abandonment of the country’s newly freed African-American citizens and what we might call the Union theory of the war itself. I have always found it notable that the official records of what we call the Civil War, published by the US government are entitled The Official Records of the War of the Rebellion.
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