Have any of you Civil War buffs out there taken the time to read Grant's memoirs? Well worth the time it takes and wonderfully written besides-- Gertrude Stein disgreed with the Adamses & called it the best prose ever written in English. Besides-- the circumstances under which it was written are themselves incredible-- Grant had just been betrayed by a business associate and was close to penniless, and had just learned he had throat cancer and it was inoperable. He wrote those after he could no longer speak, racing against time to leave his family provided for. And he finished them.
And if this weren't enough, somebody named Ev Ehrlich recently wrote a book called Grant Speaks -- purporting to be the discarded first draft of Grant's memoirs-- and the more you know about the Civil War the more you'll laugh. (Gotta write Ehrlich and thank him. He deserves better than to have his book on remainder tables, which is where i found my copy)
Kim, I think I agree with you about Grant the civilian. But as a nation we're lucky we had him as a general.