History

Biography and Memoir

THE SOLDIER PRESIDENT

Ulysses S. Grant, the Civil War, and the Struggle for ReconstructionBy Harriet Jane Lockwood

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Ulysses S. Grant biography — Civil War general, Reconstruction president, and the untold civil rights story of America's most rehabilitated commander. In the spring of 1861, Grant was thirty-nine and going nowhere — a former Army officer clerking in his father's leather goods store in Galena, Illinois, supervised by younger brothers. Then Fort Sumter happened. Within four years he would win the Civil War. Within eight he would be president. And in his final months, dying of throat cancer, he would race against death to complete the military memoir Mark Twain called the finest in the English language. This is the full arc of Ulysses S. Grant — Civil War general, Reconstruction president, and the most consequential civil rights champion in American history before the mid-twentieth century. Harriet Jane Lockwood follows Grant across twenty-four chapters: from the Mexican War bayonet charge at Monterrey through the 47-day siege of Vicksburg to the McLean farmhouse at Appomattox, where Lee arrived in full dress uniform and Grant in muddy field clothes without his sword. Inside this Civil War and Reconstruction history: • The Vicksburg campaign — 200 miles, five battles in seventeen days, the garrison eating mules and rats before 29,000 men surrendered on July 4, 1863 (Chapter 5) • Appomattox's generous terms — why Grant paroled Lee's survivors rather than imprison them, and how Lincoln shaped those terms aboard the River Queen (Chapter 8) • The Fifteenth Amendment — Grant celebrating ratification as "the greatest civil change" since the nation's founding (Chapter 9) • Destroying the Ku Klux Klan — habeas corpus suspended in nine South Carolina counties, 500+ federal indictments, and the campaign historian Allen Trelease called the destruction of the first Klan as an organized force (Chapter 10) • Black Friday and the Whiskey Ring — Jay Gould's gold corner of 1869 and Treasury Secretary Bristow's undercover investigation (Chapters 13, 15) • Grant rehabilitated — the twenty-first-century reassessment, and the civil rights legacy deferred ninety years until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (Chapter 24) The man who fought the Klan, ratified the Fifteenth Amendment, and paroled 29,000 Confederate soldiers was neither the butcher his critics claimed nor the naive figurehead his scandals implied — but a president whose achievements were ultimately defeated by forces stronger than any single administration could overcome. For readers of Ron Chernow's GRANT and James McPherson's BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM.

Hero War & Battle Redemption Political Intrigue Conspiracy Crime Identity Journey Rebellion

Audiobook details

GenreHistory, Biography and Memoir

Length5 hrs 38 mins

Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices

FormateBook with Audio

Publish dateJun 1, 2026

LanguageEnglish

1Introduction

2Prologue: The Man from Galena

3PART ONE: THE MAKING OF A GENERAL (1822-1861)

4Chapter 1: West Point and the Mexican War — Grant's Military Education

5Chapter 2: The Difficult Years — Failure in Business and the Return to the Army

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6Chapter 3: Fort Donelson — Unconditional Surrender and the Name That Stuck

7Chapter 4: Shiloh — Victory at Terrible Cost

8PART TWO: THE PATH TO VICTORY (1862-1865)

9Chapter 5: Vicksburg — The Siege That Split the Confederacy

10Chapter 6: Commanding All the Union Armies — Lincoln's Choice, 1864

11Chapter 7: The Overland Campaign — Cold Harbor, Petersburg, and the War of Attrition

12Chapter 8: Appomattox — Lee Surrenders and Grant's Generous Terms

13PART THREE: THE PRESIDENCY — RECONSTRUCTION (1869-1876)

14Chapter 9: The Fifteenth Amendment — Grant and the Fight for Black Voting Rights

15Chapter 10: The Ku Klux Klan — Grant's Enforcement Acts and the Attack on White Supremacy

16Chapter 11: The Battle for the South — Republicans, Freedmen, and the Reconstruction Governments

17Chapter 12: The 1872 Election — Liberal Republicans, Reform, and Grant's Second Term

18PART FOUR: CORRUPTION AND CONTROVERSY

19Chapter 13: Black Friday — Jay Gould, James Fisk, and the Gold Corner of 1869

20Chapter 14: The Credit Mobilier Scandal — Congress, the Railroads, and the Corruption

21Chapter 15: The Whiskey Ring — Treasury Officials and the Grant Administration's Shame

22Chapter 16: Grant's Legacy of Corruption — What Was His Responsibility?

23PART FIVE: AFTER THE PRESIDENCY

24Chapter 17: The World Tour — Grant's Global Journey and International Fame

25Chapter 18: Financial Ruin — The Grant and Ward Failure and Bankruptcy

26Chapter 19: The Memoirs — Racing Against Cancer to Write the Greatest Military Autobiography

27Chapter 20: Death and Redemption — July 23, 1885, and the Nation's Mourning

28PART SIX: LEGACIES

29Chapter 21: Grant's Military Legacy — Strategies That Won the Civil War

30Chapter 22: Reconstruction Reassessed — Grant as Civil Rights President

31Chapter 23: The Grant Tomb — Memorialization and the Long Decline of His Reputation

32Chapter 24: Grant Rehabilitated — The Twenty-First-Century Reassessment

33Epilogue: Grant's Long Shadow

34Acknowledgments

35Selected Bibliography

36About the Author

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