American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant

 American Ulysses, you're bringing me down.

In fact, after waiting eons to read this book, I'm not going to finish it. Oh, Ronald C. White writes well enough, but he's never met a fact he didn't like and as a result American Ulysses is swollen until any sense of story is lost in the mists of a veritable dissertation. (One example, just one, from a description of weaponry in the Mexican War: "His special weapons this day were a pair of eighteen-pound cannon, heretofore used only for defense because their massive weight made it so difficult to haul them into battle. ...each cannon pulled by six yoked oxen across seven miles of open prairie...they employed canister, a tin can filled with up to twenty-seven lead balls stuffed in sawdust...they possessed a range of up to three hundred yards" (p. 73). By the time I've gotten to the range, I've nearly forgotten how we got there. Or why. And so it goes for many hundreds of pages.)

In addition to being a tome, bloated by excessive adjectives and extraneous facts, American Ulysses is a tad too worshipful for my taste. I'm not suggesting Grant wasn't admirable, but from White's descriptions - and I was deep into the Civil War before I gave up the ghost - it appears Grant can do no wrong. For example, White seems to completely dismiss the idea that Grant drank any more than any other soldier or officer in the Army. Maybe White's right, but given that none other than Sherman felt the need to comment upon his drinking - "Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other" - White's dismissal strikes me as disingenuous at best. (And if White included that telling little quote, he did so after I'd closed the book for the final time.)

I left off reading somewhere in the realm of Vicksburg, and therefore certainly before Grant's presidency. Admittedly, I was mildly curious as to what defenses White would presumably offer for the corruption and cronyism that are generally accepted to have been widespread during Grant's second term, in particular, though not curious enough to tackle the next 400 pages.

I did, however, read the epilogue, and I have to say, given White's hero worship of Grant, it's somewhat surprising that he concludes his work not with his own soaring assessment, but with the words of Theodore Roosevelt who "surveyed the landscape of American history and made his judgment: Mightiest among the mighty dead loom the three great figures of Washington, Lincoln, and Grant," (p. 659). I find this decision all the more intriguing in that White chooses to continue with Roosevelt's second rank, which includes Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and Andrew Jackson. The times they were a different then, but that anyone would rank Andrew Jackson so highly must call into question his overall judgment. (I've previously called into question TR's judgment, though, as I take the thoughts of America's greatest imperialist with more than just a grain of salt.)

Most surprising of all, White adds a concluding sentence or two following TR's thoughts that he has seized the opportunity to make Grant's story "accessible to the wider audience he deserves." Maybe he deserves it, maybe not, but the audience that will sit - and sift - through 650+ densely packed pages is not exactly wide. Or at least, I'm not an avid enough reader, non-fiction nerd, or history buff to appreciate it.