A generation of white southerners cast General Grant as a dullard and a butcher, victorious only because of overwhelming material advantage. His drinking – notorious in his lifetime – dominates his legacy, while his achievements as a soldier and as a politician have been dismissed. Since then, however, as Ron Chernow argues in his new biography, Grant has suffered in public memory. At the end of his life, bankrupt after a bad investment and dying in agony of throat cancer, he recaptured people’s imagination, finishing the manuscript of his memoirs just before his death. His administration was mired in financial scandal, but out of office Grant restored his reputation, travelling the world as an unofficial ambassador. Following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Grant became the face of the Republican party, and was twice elected president, serving from 1869 to 1877. Revered in the north for his victories against the Confederacy in the American civil war, he was respected in the south for his generosity towards disbanded rebels, whom he permitted to return home in peace after their commanders’ surrender.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |