This essay reviews Geoffrey Perret's biography of Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885). The book's historical significance lies in its explanations of Grant's role in the major events in which he was a significant participant, as the architect and leader of decisive Union victories in the West, the leadership he provided to the hitherto relatively ineffective Army of the Potomac as it defeated Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia during the final year of the Civil War, Grant's ambiguous position during the presidency of Andrew Johnson and his own somewhat lackluster presidency (1868-1876).
The book is organized chronologically, beginning with Grant's humble origins on the Middle Western frontier, his education at West Point, his early development as a young army officer, his marriage to Julia Dent, his experiences in the Mexican War, his premature resignation from the Army in 1854, his failures in civilian life on the eve of the Civil War, his campaigns and meteoric rise to national prominence during the war, his subsequent service as Chief of Staff in Washington, his experiences in national politics and as president, and his travels and various tragedies which marked the last phase of his life before he succumbed to esophageal cancer at the age of 63. As Perret admits in his acknowledgements, he relies almost entirely on sources, both primary and secondary, first used by other historians and biographers.
The central theme of the book is that the interplay between Grant's unique blend of character traits, personality and temperament and the circumstances in which he found himself go a long way toward explaining the seeming central contradiction of Grant's life and career --namely, how a man who enjoyed such a remarkable string of successes in his early 40s, could have been a failure at so many things earlier in his life and have accomplished so little after the Civil War.
Grant's Mental Makeup and Leadersh...