U. S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth
by Joan Waugh (University of North Carolina, ISBN 978-0-8078-3317-9).
Brilliant and original biography of U.S. Grant
Review by Lawrence I. Charters, February 7, 2010
Ulysses Grant is routinely seen today as a disastrous president and only a competent, at best, general. Yet in the 19th and early 20th century, U.S. Grant was third in line of greatness, following only Washington and Lincoln. Joan Waugh’s superb biography is not aimed so much at telling Grant’s story, though she does that, too. Instead, she explores how Grant went from being an international hero to a negative stereotype, mainly as the result of a concerted effort to redefine the Civil War in pro-Southern terms of “states rights” and downplay the role of slavery, civil rights, and the rights of free workers.
Waugh is working against some powerful modern myths. Gone With the Wind features happy slaves, debonair aristocrats, and gentle people of refinement thrown into the brutality of war by those evil Union scum. The book, the movie, and popular culture all latched on to the notion of an ideal world made brutal through the “war of Northern aggression.” One major target of this re-imagining of the Civil War was Ulysses Grant. The general that conquered the South had to be diminished and demonized, and Waugh shows, in splendid fashion, how this process unfolded. Robert E. Lee, who lost all battles fought outside of his native Virginia, was lionized as the perfect general; Grant, who won in every theater of the war, was cast as a drunken bumbler that was lucky to have numbers on his side.
Very readable yet scholarly, U.S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth is exactly what the title suggests: an examination of a major American figure in life, death and myth. Highly recommended.