Grant: Memoirs and Selected Letters, Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Selected Letters 1839-1865

Grant: Memoirs and Selected Letters, Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Selected Letters 1839-1865 by

Ulysses S. Grant, edited by Mary Drake McFeely and William S. McFeely, 1199 pages.

By the second chapter of Grant's memoir, he has already headed off to West Point, so the account covers his early life in brief, and then his military career from his time at the military academy through the war with Mexico and then through the end of the Civil War, Grant has his favorites among his contemporaries, and their are those he is less fond of; his judgement of others seems imbued with a sense of fairness throughout and he makes a strong case for the Union point of view as he argues against the pro-Confederate bias among the historians of his time.

Chernow's recent biography of Grant adds interesting detail that is lacking here, though the letters found at the end of the book are illuminating. The story of how Mark Twain came to publish this work is missing here, but is found in the audio version of the memoirs. Important historically, and a great read.