Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865

This volume, the first of a planned two-volume biography of Grant, covers Grant's life from birth to the end of the Civil War. It is meticulously researched and well balanced. Prof. Simpson doesn't shirk from examining charges of Grant's drinking and he doesn't hesitate to show where such charges cannot be sustained and where they can be sustained. He also doesn't hesitate to criticize Grant's performance on the battlefield where necessary. This is a necessary antidote to the biased, though beautifully written, biography of Grant by William S. McFeely. Unlike McFeely, Simpson displays an understanding of the military aspects of Grant's life and dispells the myths surrounding Grant--some of them, notably Grant's views toward blacks and slavery, perpetuated by McFeely. Anyone seeking to understand Ulysses S. Grant the man and the general will find this book to be essential. One can only hope the second volume is as good as this one.

A wonderful book, with brillant, sizzling prose! A must buy!

U.S. Grant is a difficult man for modern readers to understand. He was tenacious to the point of being dogged, a battler who saved some of the lives of his men by fighting and thereby losing others; a man of sensivitivy whose habits were the topic of great gossip and some truth. This book reads easily, as a smooth story of a difficult man. This author captures some of the battles in a very clear fashion, specifically the Battle of the Wilderness. One comes away with an understanding of the strategy, the reality, the messiness and the role Grant played for better and worse. By weaving the political realities with the battles, and leavening both with an understanding of how Grant's private life was impacted, this author comes closer to capturing what happened to this man than most military histories can ever do. But the book also sheds light on the military realities. This is a good book. And the nuanced approach will lend itself to the forthcoming second volume -- about Grant's later life and Presidency. That should be an eye opener.

The criticisms of this book are hard to fathom. Brooks Simpson's wonderful new biography of Ulysses S. Grant--one of the least-understood and most-maligned of the "Great Americans"--is full of Grant's humanity, his complexities, his enigmas, and his sensibilities. Far from white-washing Grant's drinking, Simpson points out that Grant was keenly aware that he was a classic alcoholic. That's not what was important; what was important is what Grant did about it, and how the public perceptions of him then, and largely now, have been wrong. And far from sketching a passionless, boring Grant, Simpson vividly portrays Grant's human side: his intense love for his wife and children; his struggles to measure up to the expectations of his father and his father-in-law; the hurt he felt over casualties; and the actual tears that came--which were seen and written about by many of his contemporaries--when a loss was just too much to take. I enjoyed this book immensely precisely because it painted Grant as a person with all the weaknesses and frailties that accompany all of us. And yet Grant became great. The best part of the book is Simpson's concluding essay on exactly why that was so. I have concluded that, while Grant is not often included in the pantheon of American heroes, I think he would have preferred it that way. This is biography at its best--stripped of both glorification and gratuitous criticism. I am anxiously awaiting the second volume.

Mr. Simpson has written a meticulously researched and readable biography of a fascinating man. I am baffled by some of the lest enthused reviews appearing here as I found this book to be the finest military biography I have ever read (and I have read most of those written about figures of the Civil War).I found I couldn't put this book down and I would recommend this book highly to anyone who wishes to actually feel as though you have talked about Grant with a lifelong friend of his.Buy this book if you are even marginally interested in this time in our country's history but especially if you think you can't learn any more about US Grant.