Former president Ulysses S. Grant fell on hard times in his dying days - his family’s fortunes decimated by Ponzi scheme investments - and the general’s last hope was that these memoirs might provide a small inheritance for his surviving wife and children.
More than that, Grant’s memoirs remain among the most unique and insightful histories of 19th-century U.S. military campaigns, drawing on the author’s experiences in the Civil War and Mexican-American War. Fluid performer Peter Johnson captures the honest forthrightness and concise clarity that define Grant’s work in stark contrast to other Victorian military histories. Listeners are treated to Grant’s account of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, and his surprising indictment of American motives in the country’s war against Mexico.
