Grant

by Ron Chernow

During the war he had learned that it was better to let power seek him rather than to pursue it; a good general waited to be summoned by his superiors.

So far had the pendulum swung in Grant’s life that the insecure man of the pre–Civil War era now radiated a confidence that could verge on complacency. He wrongly assumed that the skills that had made him successful in one sphere of life would translate intact into another. He entered into no consultative process, engaged in no methodical vetting of people, and sent up no trial balloons to test candidates, making his decisions maddeningly opaque.