Drunk, failure, fighter, saviour, activist, naif, writer: it's all here
Review of Grant by Ron Chernow
Grant had one of the quintessential American lives. He started out with advantages, took a serious fall while struggling with alcoholism, then re-found himself and operated to highest capacity. To be sure, he made many mistakes and due to the corruption of his administration, his record is tainted. But there's no denying he was a great military strategist, a pioneer on race relations, and a world-class intellect. Chernow, in this absolutely masterful life and times, covers it all with his usual thoroughness and style.
Grant came from a dysfunctional family. His father was a venal, narrow-minded businessman, specializing in leather and self promotion. His mother was distant and cold, more concerned with her religion than her relationships. As the eldest son, Grant bore a great responsibility and was sent to get a military education at West Point, where he met and befriended many of the men he would fight in the Civil War. Marrying for love, his in-laws were no better. But in Julia he made a good choice as life partner.
Though his career began well in the Mexican wars, a reassignment to a California backwater revealed a destructive pattern: he grew bored and went on drinking binges. This is a major theme in his life. In Chernow's view, Grant couldn't handle alcohol and when absent his support systems (principally his wife but also key aides), he could go on benders for days when idle in isolated locales. Once this got noticed, he was fired and it would dog him for the rest of his life – as an accusation and as a worry during decisive crises. While I believe Chernow is correct in his interpretation, and he makes the case that Grant overcame this problem, the tone is often protective if never quite defensive. He addresses other problematic issues in a similar attitude. Unemployment initiated a terrible slide in Grant's life. He tried and failed at a number of alternative careers, including business, real estate, farming, and finally as a clerk in his father's shop. He was famously reduced to selling wood on the street to make ends meet and was regarded in the local community as a loser and drunk.
Then the war broke out and the Union, in desperate need of experienced officers, offered another chance. To put it mildly, Grant completely remade himself. Stepping up at a public meeting and expounding on what needed to be done, he was lucky: a congressman, Elihu Washburne, heard him and immediately became a staunch political patron. In spite of his many enemies, this set Grant on an incredible trajectory.
Gaining valuable experience as a quartermaster and remembering everything he had learned, he emerged as a formidable fighter and grew into a master strategist. Lincoln soon noticed and stuck by him. He and William Tecumseh Sherman fought in the west, where they provided some of the most resounding victories for the Union, for example the siege of Vicksburg, whereas Union generals in the east fumbled repeatedly or were too timid. Once Grant was appointed general in chief, he worked with Sherman in a pincer motion, converging on Lee in VA in an exhausting war of attrition.
The war offered clarity and focus to Grant, who concentrated on it with what can be called genius, immersed in detail but also conceiving a grand, yet flexible, design. Chernow argues convincingly that while Lee may have been the tactical master of the battlefield, he lacked Grant's strategic vision. Furthermore, Grant was cool under pressure, rarely expressing emotion, and capable of adapting his plans as the need arose. Meanwhile, he found a number of subordinates who were loyal, gifted, and honest, including Sherman and Philip Sheridan.
Grant became the conquering hero of the war, which thrust him into contention to become president. First, he came to fight Andrew Johnson as the South appeared to be given a free hand to return its traditional elite to power. Second, he developed a deep understanding of the plight of freedmen and Amerindians, which led him to attempt to protect them from the depredations of whites. As a result, he was viewed as the best chance of the reformist republican party to stay in power and implement reconstruction.
Unfortunately, without the clarity of war, many of Grant's virtues – a complete lack of guile, naive honesty, and little understanding of the murkiness of political goals – became liabilities. The assistants he got were happy to indulge in corrupt practices, which continually shocked Grant and undermined his political position. Chernow is at pains to prove that Grant never took part in these imbroglios, but openly acknowledges his failures and blind spots. For example, as was normal at the time, Grant freely accepted gifts from businessmen as compensation for his sacrifices and in thanks for his military service. He also palled around with many of the titans of the Gilded Age, including Jay Gould, which led to many scandals. Throughout, Chernow argues that Grant was hindered by the patronage system and the autonomy of Senators, who acted as feudal barons on behalf of the elites of their states.
According to Chernow, two of Grant's presidential legacies deserve special attention. First, he pursued racial justice, in particular smashing the first incarnation of the Ku Klux Klan. To do so, he empowered the Dept. of Justice – the first federal institution that could pursue justice free of the control of local or state authorities – to investigate and prosecute the KKK. Though many similar organizations sprung up, this had a lasting, if imperfect, impact: if the South remained a place of domestic terrorism against freedmen, it could have been much worse, according to Chernow. Grant also sought to protect Amerindians from genocidal slaughter, though here too his legacy is mixed and contradictory. Second, he sought to professionalize the civil service, an immense task that would partially dismantle the patronage system and diminish power in the Senate. Again, he only partially succeeded.
Once out of power, he traveled the world and broadened his mind. After being swindled and financially ruined (he had lent his name to a Ponzi scheme), he accepted Twain's offer to write his memoires to provide for his family as he entered his final illness. Now it may be talking shop, but Chernow was impressed by Grant's ability to write. In about a year, Grant wrote about 330,000 words, sometimes as many as 10,000 per day, with little need for editing. This is quite an amazing output.
Chernow has rehabilitated Grant with this bio. It is revisionist. While I do think he sometimes cuts too much slack for Grant, I definitely see his virtues more clearly now. This is one of those rare books that can be read as an intimate dialogue with a great mind.
Very interesting!
Review from 2018. I bought this book after reading your review.