Ulysses S. Grant

by Louis Arthur Coolidge, John Torrey Morse Jr.

We are prone to depreciate the men of the present, to underestimate the importance of recent events, and to look to the distant past for our heroes and our transcendent issues. This is natural but unfortunate. The world is infinitely larger now than at the time of Columbus, and the forces with which a statesman of our day has to deal are far more powerful and complex than those of Washington's day. The men who precipitated the American Revolution were the leaders of perhaps a million people. They were shrewd and farseeing, and they transformed their minority of radicals into a majority of moderates, and they laid the foundations of a new nation in the world. The social conscience is only in our day recovering from the debaucheries, which followed the Civil War. And the conflict of interests, true and imaginary, the contending forces in the national life, lawful or unlawful, made the task of statesmen difficult indeed. The times were chaotic beyond comparison. Into this sea of troubles President Grant was thrust. A friend of the South, he yet did not know how to stay the hand of rapacity and bitter race hatred; an enemy of corruption, he could not keep the skirts of his own household clean. General Grant, the hero of Appomattox, will ever be a figure of commanding interest; President Grant was in a more difficult situation, and his life at this period compels attention if not approval. Mr. Coolidge's biography sets before us clearly the issues and complexities of the presidential term of 1869-77. Perhaps its chief interest and value lie in its illuminating chapters on a troubled epoch.

596 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1972