Grant

by Ron Chernow

One reporter captured vividly the flustered Grant standing amid the hubbub: “He blushed like a girl. The handshaking brought streams of perspiration down his forehead and over his face.”

The war years hadn’t improved Grant’s social graces, but his gaucheness only heightened his appeal. “It indicated an absence of conceit, a lack of pretense,” said an aide, “and a modesty almost unexampled in a man of his achievements.”