MY INTEREST IN ULYSSES S. GRANT • My friendship with Ulysses S. Grant originated because my favorite book genre for years was biography, but I realized in 2018 that I had not read the actual memoirs of a U.S. President. So I researched the memoirs written by presidents, and discovered that there was a nearly unanimous opinion of historians and literary critics alike that down through the ages, there was one and only one that stood out at the very top: the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant. So I decided to read it. I felt immediately transported into his early life, and then I felt I was right there with him on the battlefields of the Civil War. His memoirs were so lucid, and surprisingly humorous. I was disappointed when it stopped so abruptly at the end of the Civil War. I yearned for more about the rest of his life. I thought surely his time as U.S. President must have had a fascinating story or two. Mostly, though, I wanted to get to know him better.

So I found a biography which encompassed his entire life, written by Ronald C. White, entitled American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant. The book gave me a broader perspective of Grant’s character and his life after the Civil War — the immediate aftermath of Lincoln’s assassination, his strained relationship with Lincoln’s successor, reconstruction, his eight years as U.S. President, his two-year international trip as America’s informal ambassador, and lastly, the writing of his memoirs and his friendship with Mark Twain. I grew to love Grant’s extraordinary character — evidenced by his love of country, honesty, humility, personal virtue, and moral courage. In the end, I have come to agree with the nearly unanimous view of his generation — that the three greatest Americans were Washington, Lincoln, and Grant.