![]() ![]() He was surprised by a Confederate attack at the Battle of Shiloh although he emerged victorious, the severe casualties prompted a public outcry. After struggling through the succeeding years as a real estate agent, a laborer, and a county engineer, Grant decided to join the Northern effort in the Civil War.Īppointed brigadier general of volunteers in 1861 by President Abraham Lincoln, Grant claimed the first major Union victories of the war in 1862, capturing Forts Henry and Donelson in Tennessee. After the Mexican-American War concluded in 1848, Grant remained in the Army, but abruptly resigned in 1854. In 1846, three years after graduating, Grant served as a lieutenant in the Mexican–American War under Winfield Scott and future president Zachary Taylor. The son of an Appalachian Ohio tanner, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at age 17. Ulysses Simpson Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant 1822-1885) was general-in-chief of the Union Army from 1864 to 1869 during the American Civil War and the 18th President of the United States from 1869 to 1877. “The world has never seen so bloody or so protracted a battle as the one being fought,” he wrote from Spotsylvania in 1864, “and I hope never will again.” Grant initially hoped for an early conclusion to the fighting, but then came to accept that the war would have no easy end. Often written in haste, sometimes within the sound of gunfire, his wartime letters vividly capture the immediacy and uncertainty of the conflict. They record Grant's first experience under fire in Mexico (“There is no great sport in having bullets flying about one in every direction but I find they have less horror when among them than when in anticipation”), the aching homesickness that led him to resign from the peacetime army, and his rapid rise to high command during the Civil War. Presented with an introduction by acclaimed biographer Ron Chernow, My Dearest Julia collects more than eighty of these letters, beginning with their engagement in 1844 and ending with the Union victory in 1865. Grant is justly celebrated as the author of one of the finest military autobiographies ever written, yet many readers of his Personal Memoirs are unaware that during his army years Grant wrote hundreds of intimate and revealing letters to his wife, Julia Dent Grant. Grant’s intimate reflections on the War in Mexico and the Civil War “ his remarkable evolution from an insecure young soldier to a capable, self-confident general” (Ron Chernow). Grant to his wife, Julia, perfect for American history buffs. The Civil War’s greatest general as you’ve never seen him A revealing collection of letters written by Ulysses S. ![]()
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