Narrator: He was dying. Throat cancer, a relentless fire, made every swallow an agony. His life savings, and his reputation, had been vaporized in a colossal Wall Street fraud, leaving him and his family destitute. Once the commander of a million men, the twice-elected president of the United States, he was now reduced to living on borrowed money, his body wracked with pain. Yet in an overstuffed leather armchair, his legs swaddled in blankets, Ulysses S. Grant embarked on his final campaign. He was in a desperate race against death, not to win a battle, but to write a book—a memoir that could secure his family’s future and reclaim his honor. This final, heroic act is the dramatic opening to Ron Chernow’s definitive biography, Grant, a work that dismantles the myths surrounding one of American history’s most consequential and misunderstood figures.

Narrator: Throughout his life, Ulysses S. Grant was a man of profound humility, deeply averse to boasting or capitalizing on his fame. While other Civil War generals rushed to publish their memoirs, Grant remained content in dignified silence, believing his wartime record spoke for itself. But in 1884, a perfect storm of disasters forced his hand. First, a fall on an icy street left him bedridden and hobbled on crutches. Then came a far more devastating blow. He discovered that his partnership in the firm Grant & Ward was a complete sham, a Ponzi scheme orchestrated by his young, charismatic partner, Ferdinand Ward. The firm’s collapse didn’t just wipe out Grant’s savings; it ruined friends and family who had invested on the strength of his name. Grant was humiliated. "I could be so long deceived by a man who I had such opportunity to know is humiliating," he confessed to a friend.

Suddenly facing poverty and disgrace, Grant agreed to write a series of articles for Century Magazine. His motivation was painfully clear: "I consented for the money it gave me," he admitted. But the situation grew even more dire. That same year, after biting into a peach and feeling a sharp, stinging pain, he was diagnosed with terminal throat cancer. Terrified of leaving his wife, Julia, destitute, Grant committed to writing his full memoirs. In a feat of incredible willpower, he toiled for hours each day, enduring excruciating pain that he managed with a solution of cocaine and water. When he could no longer write, he dictated. When his voice failed, he scribbled notes. He finished the manuscript just one week before his death, producing a two-volume masterpiece hailed by Mark Twain as flawless literature. The book was a massive commercial success, selling 300,000 copies and securing his family’s financial future, a final, poignant victory in a life defined by struggle and triumph.

Narrator: Before he was a celebrated general, Grant was a man intimately acquainted with failure. After resigning from the army in 1854, he struggled mightily in civilian life. He tried his hand at farming on a plot of land near St. Louis, a venture so challenging he named the log cabin he built with his own hands "Hardscrabble." The farm failed. He was reduced to selling firewood on the street corners of St. Louis, a humbling sight for those who had known him as a decorated army captain. An old army friend was shocked to see him huddled in a faded blue army coat, peddling wood to get by. When asked what he was doing, Grant simply replied, "I am solving the problem of poverty."

His fortunes didn't improve when he moved to Galena, Illinois, to work as a clerk in his father’s leather goods store. He was quiet, unassuming, and showed little outward sign of the commander he would become. It was the outbreak of the Civil War that provided the unlikely catalyst for his transformation. His West Point education and experience in the Mexican-American War, once seemingly distant memories, suddenly made him an invaluable asset. The quiet store clerk, a man who had failed at nearly every civilian pursuit, was about to become the architect of the Union’s victory.

Narrator: Grant’s leadership fundamentally changed the trajectory of the Civil War. Where previous Union commanders had been cautious, often retreating after a single battle, Grant introduced a new, relentless style of warfare. His philosophy was simple: find the enemy, attack him as often as possible, and grind him down. This was not about capturing cities; it was about destroying the enemy’s army. This approach was cemented in the public mind after his victory at Fort Donelson in 1862, where he famously responded to a request for terms with the line, "No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted." The phrase "Unconditional Surrender" Grant was born.

His strategic masterpiece was the Vicksburg Campaign. In a move that other generals considered reckless, Grant cut his army loose from its supply lines, marching his men deep into enemy territory and living off the land. This allowed him to move with speed and surprise, culminating in the capture of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863. This victory, which gave the Union control of the Mississippi River and split the Confederacy in two, was a turning point in the war. It was a testament to his strategic brilliance and his willingness to take calculated risks that his more conventional peers would never dare.

Narrator: Grant’s presidency is often overshadowed by accusations of corruption and cronyism, but Chernow argues this view misses his most significant and courageous achievement: his fight for the civil rights of African Americans. Grant was the single most important figure behind Reconstruction, using the power of the federal government to protect the rights enshrined in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments.

His most direct action came against the Ku Klux Klan, a terrorist organization that was waging a campaign of violence and intimidation against black citizens and white Republicans across the South. In response, Grant pushed for the creation of the Department of Justice and signed legislation empowering him to use federal troops to combat the Klan. He sent soldiers into the South, suspended habeas corpus in the most violent counties of South Carolina, and oversaw thousands of anti-Klan indictments. By 1872, his aggressive campaign had effectively dismantled the first iteration of the Klan. Frederick Douglass, the great abolitionist, recognized Grant’s vital role, stating that the liberty Lincoln declared with his pen, Grant made effectual with his sword.

Narrator: The final surrender of Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House in April 1865 is one of the most iconic moments in American history. The scene itself was one of stark contrasts: Lee, tall and impeccably dressed in a new uniform, and Grant, splattered with mud, wearing the simple uniform of a private with only the shoulder straps of a lieutenant general. As he sat down to draft the surrender terms, Grant reflected on their shared past in the Mexican-American War and felt a wave of sadness. "I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly," he later wrote.

This empathy shaped the terms he offered. They were not punitive, but generous. Confederate soldiers would be paroled and allowed to return home. Crucially, Grant allowed the men to keep their horses and mules, recognizing they would be needed for the spring planting. This act of compassion was aimed at beginning the process of national healing. When Union soldiers began to cheer at the news of the surrender, Grant immediately ordered them to stop, stating, "The war is over; the rebels are our countrymen again." It was a profound gesture of reconciliation, setting a tone of magnanimity that defined Grant’s character as a victor.

Narrator: Ron Chernow’s Grant reveals a man of profound contradictions. He was a brilliant and ruthless general who personally hated war, a quiet and sensitive man who led a nation through its most tumultuous period, and a leader who, despite his own struggles with alcohol and financial failure, possessed an unshakeable moral core. The book’s most powerful takeaway is its restoration of Grant as a complex, flawed, but ultimately heroic figure, particularly in his often-underestimated fight for racial justice.

Chernow challenges us to look beyond the simplistic caricatures that have long defined Grant as a mere butcher or a bumbling drunk. Instead, we are left with the image of a man who, through sheer persistence and an unwavering sense of duty, saved the Union and then fought to make its promise of liberty a reality for all its citizens. The true challenge the book leaves us with is to question which other historical figures we have allowed to be flattened by myth, and what complex truths we might find if we, like Chernow, dare to look closer.