[So much is wrong with Chernow’s biography. This expanded review adds further examples of his mistakes and partisanship.] There is no doubt that Ron Chernow tells a beautiful story in his recent biography of Ulysses S. Grant. He is especially compelling in discussing the fight for Black civil rights during Reconstruction. But throughout, the author takes a highly partisan view of his subject in controversy after controversy when the evidence […]
First, I’ll stipulate that Ulysses S. Grant had many good qualities as a person, a general, and even as a president. The History Channel’s recent three-part miniseries on Grant, however, contained a surprising number of egregious mistakes and strained arguments, especially given the prominent “talking heads” involved. Even though the long list of executive producers starred Grant biographer Ron Chernow, little comprehension of the American Civil War was shown. It […]
Shortly after General Ulysses S. Grant captured Fort Donelson in mid-February 1862, his superior, Henry Halleck, ordered Grant’s main force on an expedition up the Tennessee River under a subordinate, General Charles Smith. Grant was to remain downriver at Fort Henry. He was certainly not, however, “virtually in arrest and without a command,” as claimed in his Personal Memoirs. Such noted biographers as Ron Chernow, Dr. Brooks Simpson, and Bruce […]
A forthcoming book posits that the “Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth” involves the existence or non-existence of Black Confederate soldiers. Yet, the Amazon description admits that it “largely originated in the 1970s.” Many myths concerning that conflict have persisted well beyond fifty years. I would nominate a far older and much more egregious example of distorted history. General Ulysses S. Grant has acquired a sterling reputation as an officer and […]
While Lloyd Lewis composed his book, Sherman: Fighting Prophet—which advanced a romantic, one-sided, and severely erroneous view of William T. Sherman—Otto Eisenschiml was arguing for a more scientific investigation of the American Civil War and its participants. Although he still fell into the trap by believing much of Grant’s Memoirs, Eisenschiml’s method and many of his conclusions help us reach a more correct account of that conflict. I just read […]
Although the standard version of Ulysses S. Grant’s war-time history portrays him to be a military genius and a reliable chronicler of the American Civil War, his biographers have exaggerated, distorted, or omitted certain, salient facts. One of the most stark examples of this practice is from the Chattanooga campaign, which featured many of the most famous Union generals: Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, George H. Thomas, Joseph Hooker, […]
An article in the current (online) New Yorker, “Why the leadership industry rules,” Joshua Rothman discusses the concept of a leader. He refers, at one point, to the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, in which Grant tells a story of himself as a recently commissioned colonel in the Union’s volunteer army. Approaching the presumed location of an enemy camp, Grant related how, “‘My heart kept getting higher and higher, […]
Although Grant tried to argue that he wanted Lew Wallace merely to march to Pittsburg Landing and had ordered him there, the evidence contradicts him. Even John Rawlins used a different destination while defending Grant and assailing Wallace.The Third Division’s destination was assuredly William Sherman’s right flank. Lew Wallace and four of his subordinates identified the orders’ stated objective as the right of the army, denoting Sherman’s right. Algernon Baxter, […]
The valiant stand in the Hornets’ Nest position at Shiloh by Union generals William H.L. Wallace and Benjamin M. Prentiss helped to save the rest of the Union army from ignominious defeat on April 6, 1862. Instead of honoring their achievement, General Ulysses S. Grant offered two implausible assertions in his Personal Memoirs. First, he unjustly cast blame on one of his subordinates for the surrender: “In one of the […]
Michael B. Ballard’s review of Chris Mackowski’s Grant’s Last Battle: The Story Behind the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant (November 2015 Civil War News Book Review), exemplifies the mind-set that my book, Grant Under Fire, so comprehensively opposes. Grant “did not rewrite history,” Dr. Ballard maintains, “he wrote it as he understood and lived it.” The reviewer does refer to “the accuracy, or lack thereof, of the memoirs,” yet […]
On the CivilWarTalk website, several individuals attempted to refute the fact that Grant (admitted in his own, unsubmitted report) had received Frémont’s authorization before setting out to occupy Paducah, Ky. One person, going by the moniker “DanSBHawk” wrote: “Seems like you could put the matter to rest by showing this one telegraph of Grant acknowledging receipt of Fremonts[sic] orders on the 5th. Here it is. In his unsubmitted report, Grant […]