Book Review: Grant, by Ron Chernow
POTUS #18: Lincoln's General
Penguin Press, 2017, 1074 pages
Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Chernow returns with a sweeping and dramatic portrait of one of our most compelling generals and presidents, Ulysses S. Grant.
Ulysses S. Grant's life has typically been misunderstood. All too often he is caricatured as a chronic loser and an inept businessman, or as the triumphant but brutal Union general of the Civil War. But these stereotypes don't come close to capturing him, as Chernow shows in his masterful biography, the first to provide a complete understanding of the general and president whose fortunes rose and fell with dizzying speed and frequency.
Before the Civil War, Grant was flailing. His business ventures had ended dismally, and despite distinguished service in the Mexican War he ended up resigning from the army in disgrace amid recurring accusations of drunkenness. But in war, Grant began to realize his remarkable potential, soaring through the ranks of the Union army, prevailing at the battle of Shiloh and in the Vicksburg campaign, and ultimately defeating the legendary Confederate general Robert E. Lee. Along the way, Grant endeared himself to President Lincoln and became his most trusted general and the strategic genius of the war effort. Grant’s military fame translated into a two-term presidency, but one plagued by corruption scandals involving his closest staff members.
More important, he sought freedom and justice for black Americans, working to crush the Ku Klux Klan and earning the admiration of Frederick Douglass, who called him “the vigilant, firm, impartial, and wise protector of my race”. After his presidency, he was again brought low by a dashing young swindler on Wall Street, only to resuscitate his image by working with Mark Twain to publish his memoirs, which are recognized as a masterpiece of the genre.
With lucidity, breadth, and meticulousness, Chernow finds the threads that bind these disparate stories together, shedding new light on the man whom Walt Whitman described as “nothing heroic...and yet the greatest hero".” Chernow’s probing portrait of Grant's lifelong struggle with alcoholism transforms our understanding of the man at the deepest level. This is America's greatest biographer, bringing movingly to life one of our finest but most underappreciated presidents. The definitive biography, Grant is a grand synthesis of painstaking research and literary brilliance that makes sense of all sides of Grant's life, explaining how this simple Midwesterner could at once be so ordinary and so extraordinary.
Ron Chernow's biographies of George Washington and Alexander Hamilton were excellent, so when I reached POTUS #18, Ulysses S. Grant, Chernow's biography was the one I naturally picked up. I wasn't disappointed; he covers the Union-general-turned-President in just the right amount of detail, from his early life to his post-White House career, with a big chunk of the book spent on his campaigns during the Civil War. The only slight criticism is that as is often the case with biographers, Chernow's fondness for his subject is obvious, so when Grant's deficiencies come up (and he had quite a few), Chernow always offers an explanation most sympathetic to Grant.
Hiram Goes to West Point
U.S. Grant was actually born Hiram Ulysses Grant. He came from Ohio, from middle class abolitionist parents. At age 17, his father got him a nomination to attend West Point. According to Chernow, Grant had never been planning to attended West Point, but he went along with his father's wishes. Grant had never liked his first name and didn't go by "Hiram," and the congressman who nominated him wrote his name incorrectly as "Ulysses S. Grant." The West Point admissions officer refused to change it, so his name remained, officially, Ulysses S. Grant forever after.
One of the frequent stories told about Grant is that he graduated "near the bottom of his class" at West Point. Here Chernow takes up the defense of Grant's reputation; he actually graduated 21st out of 39. Chernow calls this "in the middle of the pack," which is basically true if a somewhat favorable way of saying "in the bottom half," and Chernow then goes on to point out that this was after West Point had already weeded out a large percentage of those who first entered, which is also true but just seems to be protesting too much that Grant was totally not just a mediocre graduate.
Grant had a classmate, Fred Dent, who liked him a lot and wanted to set him up with his sister. Ulysses and Julia Dent did hit it off, and became engaged, though they didn't get married until after Grant returned from the Mexican-American War. Julia was the daughter of a Missouri slaveholder. Grant's abolitionist parents did not like the Dents, and Julia's parents did not approve of Ulysses, whom they thought wasn't good enough for her. This echoed the troubles Abraham Lincoln had with his slave-owning in-laws. Unlike Mary Todd Lincoln, though, Julia was a kind and supportive wife, and though she wasn't always happy about the hardships of being an officer's wife, she didn't pout and pine for slaves and luxurious living like Lincoln's wife did.
Drinking Problems
The alcoholism that would plague Grant throughout his life first became evident during his time in the army. He served with distinction in the Mexican-American War, but after the war, it became evident that he had a drinking problem. Eventually he ran into a commanding officer that wasn't willing to overlook it. The exact details of his resignation from the army remain a little vague; Grant claimed he resigned because he promised he would if he couldn't get his drinking under control, but others would later claim that he was essentially told to resign or be court-martialed.
His long-suffering wife Julia and his father's attorney, John Rawlins, who would become his lifelong friend, did what they could to keep alcohol out of Grant's hands, even as he was in command of the Union Army, but not always successfully.
He returned to Ohio, entered into a number of failed business ventures, had to accept humiliating financial assistance from his father-in-law, and seemed destined to become a washed-up nobody.
"I Need This Man. He fights!"
When the Secessionist Movement broke into a civil war, Grant was stirred by patriotism to rejoin the army, though he did try to hold out for a higher rank than he was initially offered.
The path from a volunteer Colonel to Lieutenant-General in command of the Union Army would have seemed, in the beginning, as unlikely as Grant eventually becoming President. Chernow covers the entire Civil War, and every battle Grant fought, in detail. Essentially, Grant moved up the ranks by winning battles at a time when the Union desperately needed officers who could win battles. Lincoln kept promoting him, even after word reached him that Grant had a drinking problem, because he had been plagued by ineffective, foot-dragging generals, while Grant got shit done.
This is not to say Grant always won; he didn't. But over time he won more often than he lost. Another historical controversy to this day is Grant vs. Lee. There are critics who say Grant was a mediocre general who won only because the Union had to win, eventually, with its vast superiority in material and manpower. Chernow, of course, argues against this and describes Grant's strategic acumen in detail, depicting him as a decisive and bold leader who wasn't afraid to put himself in harm's way (there were several instances of soldiers having to yell at the general to get back behind lines as he exposed himself to fire to get a better view) when not a few other Union generals seemed to be passive at best, cowardly at worst.
Robert E. Lee, for his part, was also a very capable general, but Grant considered him overrated, and at one point yelled at his generals, who were constantly worried about what Lee would do next, to stop worrying about what Lee would do and to start thinking about what they were going to do to stop him. Southerners revered Robert E. Lee after the war, and to this day, but during the war he was sometimes considered too slow and unresponsive and Southern newspapers called him "Granny Lee" for his failure to go after the Yankees.
When Grant finally defeated Lee, he received his former West Point classmate cordially and hospitably, and was gracious in victory, demanding unconditional surrender but allowing the Confederacy's officers to keep their weapons and horses. Lee was less gracious; he spurned Grant's attempts at chit-chat, and stayed coldly polite in their interactions. After the war, Grant continued to keep his promise to protect Lee and his officers from being tried for treason, despite a strong vengeful sentiment among Northerners in favor of doing so.
A Swing Around the Bottle
The Lincolns invited the Grants to accompany them to that fateful night at Ford's Theater; Grant declined, citing an earlier engagement. Supposedly, they wanted to go to their home in New Jersey, but this was probably an excuse: Julia Grant couldn't stand Mary Lincoln, who had been very rude to her. (In fact, Mrs. Lincoln was rude to pretty much everyone, but especially the wives of anyone she perceived to be a rival to her husband).
Grant was summoned back to Washington after Lincoln was shot. He continued to serve as commander of the Army in the Andrew Johnson administration, and initially he got along well with Johnson. This didn't last. Johnson was an irascible man who reversed himself on reconstruction; Grant wanted to protect the rights of freed black citizens who were now being terrorized throughout the South, while Johnson clearly prioritized restoring the Southern states to full statehood as quickly as possible, and preserving the privileges of the white aristocracy. (Johnson, born a poor "white trash" Southerner, both despised and envied the aristocratic plantation class.)
When Johnson staged his disastrous "Swing Around the Circle" tour of the country to build support for his administration, he dragged Grant and Admiral David Farragut and General George Armstrong Custer with him. Grant was bored, disgusted with the entire thing, considered Johnson's speeches to be disastrous, and ended up bailing on the tour early. He also reportedly starting drinking heavily again during this farce.
When Andrew Johnson was impeached by Congress, he became increasingly isolated, and turned his ire on Grant, among others, whom he correctly perceived to be more popular than him.
An Honest President in a Corrupt Administration
Grant was now in favor with the so-called "Radical Republicans" who wanted to preserve black suffrage and continue prosecuting a vigorous Reconstruction policy. He easily won the Republican nomination (with running mate Schuyler Colfax, an abolitionist former Whig Congressman from Indiana), and running against Democrat Horatio Seymour, won both the popular and electoral college vote in a landslide.
Grant's administration is generally regarded as one of the worst in US history. It was rife with corruption and cronyism. Chernow does an admirable job of defending Grant's honor, arguing (mostly convincingly) that he had always been a bit naive and overly trusting, and that he was probably unaware of most of the unsavory activities of people in his administration. (The fact that Grant was repeatedly fleeced by con-men throughout his life, including after he left office, makes this more believable.) Most of the scandals involved people in his administration probably operating without his knowledge, but the famous Whiskey Ring scandal (involving tax evasion by whiskey distillers on a grand scale, with huge kickbacks to federal revenue agents) touched Grant personally, as he had a financial interest in some of the whiskey production, and people who knew him used their association with him for clout and claimed he was completely on board. (Grant denied this; at worst he was probably willfully ignorant.)
Grant wasn't completely without successes: he did vigorously combat the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and tried to protect the rights of black citizens, even ordering troops to mobilize in the unreconstructed South. His opposition to the Klan helped him win reelection in 1872. He instituted civil service reform, and (with more mixed results), put the US on the gold standard and vetoed an inflation bill.
Although he considered running for a third term, the failure of Reconstruction and a series of investigations by Congress for corruption dissuaded him. He supported his Republican successor, Rutherford B. Hayes.
The First Presidential World Tour
After leaving Washington, Ulysses and Julia Grant traveled around the world. They took a tour of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and were received by Queen Victoria, Tsar Alexander II, Pope Leo XIII, Otto Von Bismarck, and Emperor Meiji of Japan. As an unofficial representative of the United States, with the tacit support of President Hayes and the State Department, this was the first case of "Presidential diplomacy" by an ex-President. The Grants were well-received everywhere (though some state leaders had unflattering things to say about the doughty Julia), and he returned to America, landing in San Francisco to cheering crowds.
Would-be Third Termer
Enormously popular after his world tour, Grant's name was being bandied about as a potential nominee for the Republican ticket in 1880. He would have become the first President to serve non-consecutive terms. He was in the lead at the Republican Convention and won a plurality of votes in the first ballot, but not enough to secure the nomination. In those days, conventions often voted over and over and over again, and it took 36 ballots before dark horse candidate James Garfield finally won the nomination. Grant didn't like Garfield, but publicly supported him, and he was devastated when Garfield was assassinated by a crazed office-seeker; a man who had, in fact, repeatedly accosted Grant also in preceding months.
Fleeced and Dying
Ex-Presidents also didn't usually get lucrative speaking, consulting, and publishing deals. Not only was there no pension for ex-presidents at that time, but upon becoming President Grant had had to resign his commission in the Army and thus lost his military pension. Despite Ulysses S. Grant being a hero of the Civil War and an ex-President, the Grants were now poor. Wealthy supporters literally gave him and his wife a house on Manhattan's Upper East Side, but Grant still struggled to earn a living. This was when he and his son fell in with a con-man named Ferdinand Ward, who set up what would later be called a Ponzi scheme. Not just the Grants, but many of their friends, were taken in by Ward, on the strength of Grant's word. Ward even talked Grant into talking the wealthy William Vanderbilt into throwing more money into the venture. Everyone lost their entire investment; Grant signed over his house to Vanderbilt, who accepted it but with the proviso that he would only take possession of it after both Grants passed away.
Grant was approached to write a memoir, something he had initially refused to do, thinking he had nothing interesting to say (!). But in 1884, he was diagnosed with throat cancer; likely the result of his lifelong cigar habit. Now he was dying and almost penniless and afraid of leaving Julia unsupported. (Congress, upon learning of Grant's condition and their financial situation, would eventually vote to restore his pension and Julia's widow's benefits.)
The famous author Mark Twain, a friend of the Grants, offered him a very generous publishing contract (Grant, as usual, was about to be fleeced by another publisher). He wrote his memoirs even as he was dying, and finished them just before he died on July 23, 1885. Mark Twain praised his clear, honest prose style and to this day they are considered one of the best military memoirs ever written. The one thing Grant didn't write about (though Twain thought he should) was his struggles with alcohol. The Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant became a best-seller. Julia was able to live out her life in comfort thanks to the royalties.
The entire country mourned, and his funeral became a massive state affair, with ceremonies and parades and flags lowered around the country. He was beloved in both the North and the South, where he was remembered fondly for having been an honorable foe who had been gracious and generous to the defeated Confederacy.
I would rank Grant as one of the best presidential biographies I've read (though not quite as good as Chernow's biography of Washington). Chernow does seem to go out of his way to defend Grant's reputation, but other historians generally consider him to have been a great general and a mediocre but not terrible president.
Also by Ron Chernow: My reviews of Washington: A Life, Alexander Hamilton and The House of Morgan.
My complete list of book reviews.
Penguin Press, 2017, 1074 pages
Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Chernow returns with a sweeping and dramatic portrait of one of our most compelling generals and presidents, Ulysses S. Grant.
Ulysses S. Grant's life has typically been misunderstood. All too often he is caricatured as a chronic loser and an inept businessman, or as the triumphant but brutal Union general of the Civil War. But these stereotypes don't come close to capturing him, as Chernow shows in his masterful biography, the first to provide a complete understanding of the general and president whose fortunes rose and fell with dizzying speed and frequency.
Before the Civil War, Grant was flailing. His business ventures had ended dismally, and despite distinguished service in the Mexican War he ended up resigning from the army in disgrace amid recurring accusations of drunkenness. But in war, Grant began to realize his remarkable potential, soaring through the ranks of the Union army, prevailing at the battle of Shiloh and in the Vicksburg campaign, and ultimately defeating the legendary Confederate general Robert E. Lee. Along the way, Grant endeared himself to President Lincoln and became his most trusted general and the strategic genius of the war effort. Grant’s military fame translated into a two-term presidency, but one plagued by corruption scandals involving his closest staff members.
More important, he sought freedom and justice for black Americans, working to crush the Ku Klux Klan and earning the admiration of Frederick Douglass, who called him “the vigilant, firm, impartial, and wise protector of my race”. After his presidency, he was again brought low by a dashing young swindler on Wall Street, only to resuscitate his image by working with Mark Twain to publish his memoirs, which are recognized as a masterpiece of the genre.
With lucidity, breadth, and meticulousness, Chernow finds the threads that bind these disparate stories together, shedding new light on the man whom Walt Whitman described as “nothing heroic...and yet the greatest hero".” Chernow’s probing portrait of Grant's lifelong struggle with alcoholism transforms our understanding of the man at the deepest level. This is America's greatest biographer, bringing movingly to life one of our finest but most underappreciated presidents. The definitive biography, Grant is a grand synthesis of painstaking research and literary brilliance that makes sense of all sides of Grant's life, explaining how this simple Midwesterner could at once be so ordinary and so extraordinary.
Ron Chernow's biographies of George Washington and Alexander Hamilton were excellent, so when I reached POTUS #18, Ulysses S. Grant, Chernow's biography was the one I naturally picked up. I wasn't disappointed; he covers the Union-general-turned-President in just the right amount of detail, from his early life to his post-White House career, with a big chunk of the book spent on his campaigns during the Civil War. The only slight criticism is that as is often the case with biographers, Chernow's fondness for his subject is obvious, so when Grant's deficiencies come up (and he had quite a few), Chernow always offers an explanation most sympathetic to Grant.
Hiram Goes to West Point
U.S. Grant was actually born Hiram Ulysses Grant. He came from Ohio, from middle class abolitionist parents. At age 17, his father got him a nomination to attend West Point. According to Chernow, Grant had never been planning to attended West Point, but he went along with his father's wishes. Grant had never liked his first name and didn't go by "Hiram," and the congressman who nominated him wrote his name incorrectly as "Ulysses S. Grant." The West Point admissions officer refused to change it, so his name remained, officially, Ulysses S. Grant forever after.
One of the frequent stories told about Grant is that he graduated "near the bottom of his class" at West Point. Here Chernow takes up the defense of Grant's reputation; he actually graduated 21st out of 39. Chernow calls this "in the middle of the pack," which is basically true if a somewhat favorable way of saying "in the bottom half," and Chernow then goes on to point out that this was after West Point had already weeded out a large percentage of those who first entered, which is also true but just seems to be protesting too much that Grant was totally not just a mediocre graduate.
Grant had a classmate, Fred Dent, who liked him a lot and wanted to set him up with his sister. Ulysses and Julia Dent did hit it off, and became engaged, though they didn't get married until after Grant returned from the Mexican-American War. Julia was the daughter of a Missouri slaveholder. Grant's abolitionist parents did not like the Dents, and Julia's parents did not approve of Ulysses, whom they thought wasn't good enough for her. This echoed the troubles Abraham Lincoln had with his slave-owning in-laws. Unlike Mary Todd Lincoln, though, Julia was a kind and supportive wife, and though she wasn't always happy about the hardships of being an officer's wife, she didn't pout and pine for slaves and luxurious living like Lincoln's wife did.
Drinking Problems
The alcoholism that would plague Grant throughout his life first became evident during his time in the army. He served with distinction in the Mexican-American War, but after the war, it became evident that he had a drinking problem. Eventually he ran into a commanding officer that wasn't willing to overlook it. The exact details of his resignation from the army remain a little vague; Grant claimed he resigned because he promised he would if he couldn't get his drinking under control, but others would later claim that he was essentially told to resign or be court-martialed.
His long-suffering wife Julia and his father's attorney, John Rawlins, who would become his lifelong friend, did what they could to keep alcohol out of Grant's hands, even as he was in command of the Union Army, but not always successfully.
He returned to Ohio, entered into a number of failed business ventures, had to accept humiliating financial assistance from his father-in-law, and seemed destined to become a washed-up nobody.
"I Need This Man. He fights!"
When the Secessionist Movement broke into a civil war, Grant was stirred by patriotism to rejoin the army, though he did try to hold out for a higher rank than he was initially offered.
The path from a volunteer Colonel to Lieutenant-General in command of the Union Army would have seemed, in the beginning, as unlikely as Grant eventually becoming President. Chernow covers the entire Civil War, and every battle Grant fought, in detail. Essentially, Grant moved up the ranks by winning battles at a time when the Union desperately needed officers who could win battles. Lincoln kept promoting him, even after word reached him that Grant had a drinking problem, because he had been plagued by ineffective, foot-dragging generals, while Grant got shit done.
This is not to say Grant always won; he didn't. But over time he won more often than he lost. Another historical controversy to this day is Grant vs. Lee. There are critics who say Grant was a mediocre general who won only because the Union had to win, eventually, with its vast superiority in material and manpower. Chernow, of course, argues against this and describes Grant's strategic acumen in detail, depicting him as a decisive and bold leader who wasn't afraid to put himself in harm's way (there were several instances of soldiers having to yell at the general to get back behind lines as he exposed himself to fire to get a better view) when not a few other Union generals seemed to be passive at best, cowardly at worst.
Robert E. Lee, for his part, was also a very capable general, but Grant considered him overrated, and at one point yelled at his generals, who were constantly worried about what Lee would do next, to stop worrying about what Lee would do and to start thinking about what they were going to do to stop him. Southerners revered Robert E. Lee after the war, and to this day, but during the war he was sometimes considered too slow and unresponsive and Southern newspapers called him "Granny Lee" for his failure to go after the Yankees.
When Grant finally defeated Lee, he received his former West Point classmate cordially and hospitably, and was gracious in victory, demanding unconditional surrender but allowing the Confederacy's officers to keep their weapons and horses. Lee was less gracious; he spurned Grant's attempts at chit-chat, and stayed coldly polite in their interactions. After the war, Grant continued to keep his promise to protect Lee and his officers from being tried for treason, despite a strong vengeful sentiment among Northerners in favor of doing so.
A Swing Around the Bottle
The Lincolns invited the Grants to accompany them to that fateful night at Ford's Theater; Grant declined, citing an earlier engagement. Supposedly, they wanted to go to their home in New Jersey, but this was probably an excuse: Julia Grant couldn't stand Mary Lincoln, who had been very rude to her. (In fact, Mrs. Lincoln was rude to pretty much everyone, but especially the wives of anyone she perceived to be a rival to her husband).
Grant was summoned back to Washington after Lincoln was shot. He continued to serve as commander of the Army in the Andrew Johnson administration, and initially he got along well with Johnson. This didn't last. Johnson was an irascible man who reversed himself on reconstruction; Grant wanted to protect the rights of freed black citizens who were now being terrorized throughout the South, while Johnson clearly prioritized restoring the Southern states to full statehood as quickly as possible, and preserving the privileges of the white aristocracy. (Johnson, born a poor "white trash" Southerner, both despised and envied the aristocratic plantation class.)
When Johnson staged his disastrous "Swing Around the Circle" tour of the country to build support for his administration, he dragged Grant and Admiral David Farragut and General George Armstrong Custer with him. Grant was bored, disgusted with the entire thing, considered Johnson's speeches to be disastrous, and ended up bailing on the tour early. He also reportedly starting drinking heavily again during this farce.
When Andrew Johnson was impeached by Congress, he became increasingly isolated, and turned his ire on Grant, among others, whom he correctly perceived to be more popular than him.
An Honest President in a Corrupt Administration
Grant was now in favor with the so-called "Radical Republicans" who wanted to preserve black suffrage and continue prosecuting a vigorous Reconstruction policy. He easily won the Republican nomination (with running mate Schuyler Colfax, an abolitionist former Whig Congressman from Indiana), and running against Democrat Horatio Seymour, won both the popular and electoral college vote in a landslide.
Grant's administration is generally regarded as one of the worst in US history. It was rife with corruption and cronyism. Chernow does an admirable job of defending Grant's honor, arguing (mostly convincingly) that he had always been a bit naive and overly trusting, and that he was probably unaware of most of the unsavory activities of people in his administration. (The fact that Grant was repeatedly fleeced by con-men throughout his life, including after he left office, makes this more believable.) Most of the scandals involved people in his administration probably operating without his knowledge, but the famous Whiskey Ring scandal (involving tax evasion by whiskey distillers on a grand scale, with huge kickbacks to federal revenue agents) touched Grant personally, as he had a financial interest in some of the whiskey production, and people who knew him used their association with him for clout and claimed he was completely on board. (Grant denied this; at worst he was probably willfully ignorant.)
Grant wasn't completely without successes: he did vigorously combat the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and tried to protect the rights of black citizens, even ordering troops to mobilize in the unreconstructed South. His opposition to the Klan helped him win reelection in 1872. He instituted civil service reform, and (with more mixed results), put the US on the gold standard and vetoed an inflation bill.
Although he considered running for a third term, the failure of Reconstruction and a series of investigations by Congress for corruption dissuaded him. He supported his Republican successor, Rutherford B. Hayes.
The First Presidential World Tour
After leaving Washington, Ulysses and Julia Grant traveled around the world. They took a tour of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and were received by Queen Victoria, Tsar Alexander II, Pope Leo XIII, Otto Von Bismarck, and Emperor Meiji of Japan. As an unofficial representative of the United States, with the tacit support of President Hayes and the State Department, this was the first case of "Presidential diplomacy" by an ex-President. The Grants were well-received everywhere (though some state leaders had unflattering things to say about the doughty Julia), and he returned to America, landing in San Francisco to cheering crowds.
Would-be Third Termer
Enormously popular after his world tour, Grant's name was being bandied about as a potential nominee for the Republican ticket in 1880. He would have become the first President to serve non-consecutive terms. He was in the lead at the Republican Convention and won a plurality of votes in the first ballot, but not enough to secure the nomination. In those days, conventions often voted over and over and over again, and it took 36 ballots before dark horse candidate James Garfield finally won the nomination. Grant didn't like Garfield, but publicly supported him, and he was devastated when Garfield was assassinated by a crazed office-seeker; a man who had, in fact, repeatedly accosted Grant also in preceding months.
Fleeced and Dying
Ex-Presidents also didn't usually get lucrative speaking, consulting, and publishing deals. Not only was there no pension for ex-presidents at that time, but upon becoming President Grant had had to resign his commission in the Army and thus lost his military pension. Despite Ulysses S. Grant being a hero of the Civil War and an ex-President, the Grants were now poor. Wealthy supporters literally gave him and his wife a house on Manhattan's Upper East Side, but Grant still struggled to earn a living. This was when he and his son fell in with a con-man named Ferdinand Ward, who set up what would later be called a Ponzi scheme. Not just the Grants, but many of their friends, were taken in by Ward, on the strength of Grant's word. Ward even talked Grant into talking the wealthy William Vanderbilt into throwing more money into the venture. Everyone lost their entire investment; Grant signed over his house to Vanderbilt, who accepted it but with the proviso that he would only take possession of it after both Grants passed away.
Grant was approached to write a memoir, something he had initially refused to do, thinking he had nothing interesting to say (!). But in 1884, he was diagnosed with throat cancer; likely the result of his lifelong cigar habit. Now he was dying and almost penniless and afraid of leaving Julia unsupported. (Congress, upon learning of Grant's condition and their financial situation, would eventually vote to restore his pension and Julia's widow's benefits.)
The famous author Mark Twain, a friend of the Grants, offered him a very generous publishing contract (Grant, as usual, was about to be fleeced by another publisher). He wrote his memoirs even as he was dying, and finished them just before he died on July 23, 1885. Mark Twain praised his clear, honest prose style and to this day they are considered one of the best military memoirs ever written. The one thing Grant didn't write about (though Twain thought he should) was his struggles with alcohol. The Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant became a best-seller. Julia was able to live out her life in comfort thanks to the royalties.
The entire country mourned, and his funeral became a massive state affair, with ceremonies and parades and flags lowered around the country. He was beloved in both the North and the South, where he was remembered fondly for having been an honorable foe who had been gracious and generous to the defeated Confederacy.
I would rank Grant as one of the best presidential biographies I've read (though not quite as good as Chernow's biography of Washington). Chernow does seem to go out of his way to defend Grant's reputation, but other historians generally consider him to have been a great general and a mediocre but not terrible president.
Also by Ron Chernow: My reviews of Washington: A Life, Alexander Hamilton and The House of Morgan.
My complete list of book reviews.