Reviews for Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant: Vol. II

The average rating for Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant: Vol. II based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-01-21 00:00:00 Laura Kennemer This book was daunting. I will read it again someday, maybe this summer, but I will have to allow much time to be able to concentrate and absorb all the details. Next time, I will have the maps in front of me so I can follow the battles as he is describing them. I have much more respect for U.S. Grant than I ever had before. His telling is honest, tactful and fair.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-09-18 00:00:00 Fyekrah Foul I really enjoyed this book, 1) it's really fantastic memoir, from someone from a pretty unique position in history 2) written under highly tragic circumstances 3) who was also a clear influence on a whole lot of subsequent writers (looking at you Hemingway). Some of the things I highlighted from here and volume 1. In the case of the war between the States it would have been the exact truth if the South had said,'"We do not want to live with you Northern people any longer; we know our institution of slavery is obnoxious to you, and, as you are growing numerically stronger than we, it may at some time in the future be endangered. So long as you permitted us to control the government, and with the aid of a few friends at the North to enact laws constituting your section a guard against the escape of our property, we were willing to live with you. You have been submissive to our rule heretofore; but it looks now as if you did not intend to continue so, and we will remain in the Union no longer." Instead of this the seceding States cried lustily,'"Let us alone; you have no constitutional power to interfere with us." There was no time during the rebellion when I did not think, and often say, that the South was more to be benefited by its defeat than the North. The latter had the people, the institutions, and the territory to make a great and prosperous nation. The former was burdened with an institution abhorrent to all civilized people not brought up under it, and one which degraded labor, kept it in ignorance, and enervated the governing class. While at Milledgeville the soldiers met at the State House, organized a legislature, and proceeded to business precisely as if they were the legislative body belonging to the State of Georgia. The debates were exciting, and were upon the subject of the situation the South was in at that time, particularly the State of Georgia. They went so far as to repeal, after a spirited and acrimonious debate, the ordinance of secession. As time passes, people, even of the South, will begin to wonder how it was possible that their ancestors ever fought for or justified institutions which acknowledged the right of property in man. For me, it was an edifying read, thinking about both how much has changed, and how little.