Volume 46, Number 2 · February 4, 1999
The Unheroic Hero
By James M. McPherson
Ulysses S. Grant's Personal Memoirs are 'perhaps the most revelatory autobiography of high command to exist in any language,' according to the astute British military historian and analyst John Keegan. 'If there is a single contemporary document which explains 'why the North won the Civil War,' that abiding conundrum of American historical inquiry, it is the Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant.' This is strong praise, especially coming from a non-American. And America's greatest novelist as well as its foremost literary critic anticipated this encomium. Edmund Wilson in 1962 reaffirmed Mark Twain's 1885 judgment that the Personal Memoirs were 'the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar.'[1]
Feature, 5294 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |