Ulysses S. Grant, 1861-1864: His Rise from Obscurity to Military Greatness
By William Farina

Endnotes, bibliography, index; softcover, 316 pp., 2007. McFarland & Company Inc., Publishers, Box 611, Jefferson, NC 28640; $39.95 plus shipping..

Reviewer: Paul Hughes
Paul Hughes is a writer in Southern California. He and his son are writing a biography of Boston Corbett.

Review:

 Studying the Civil War means relishing minutiae; we don’t paint miniatures for nothing.

 Seeking to fulfill that desire, some books read like dissertations — indeed, after writing a meticulous account of left-handed stretcher-bearers from towns of fewer than 1,000 residents who fought only on the second day of Manassas, the researcher-writers have earned Ph.Ds. The readers of such focused works are worthy of an “A” at least.

We welcome these books because their authors do yeoman’s work and we can indulge tics others might think odd. We also make room for more general efforts because popularizing issues for the masses or bringing new analyses to the “settled” questions is also valuable. We want more people at the party and we love a good fight even if the concepts are generally known.

This book slips between these two approaches, the precise and the general, becoming first indispensable and then unbeatable, like the General, U.S. Grant himself.

It’s careful and crafted, covering specifically Grant’s rise to leadership, and each chapter is one month in that rise. It shows organization and detail to satisfy the hardiest, most exacting specialists, with 25 pages of endnotes.

The book is a month-by-month account of anything important to telling how an obscure leather goods store clerk in Galena, Ill., (his job when the war began) became in three years minus a month, lieutenant general commanding the Union Army.

Yet it’s also about easily one of the top five figures in the war, a name an average reader might recognize. Farina’s chapters are thus a gentle, accessible read, with engaging style and a welcome wit.

Many chapters begin with a quotation — sometimes by Grant, but more often a literary figure of the day: Walt Whitman, for instance, or Mark Twain. If there isn’t a quote to help tell the story, the author doesn’t offer one. The focus is a tale told well, and the occasional familiar name further offers the non-aficionado an anchor for continuing to read.

Think order without slavish obeisance to form, and a book completing its specific task.

On the other hand, there are neither maps nor illustrations and few photographs: one of Julia Grant in the White House; one of Grant as a brigadier, with his staff; one of Grant himself in 1864; and two of the author’s family, including his grandfather, born the same year Grant died (1885).

These last photos underscore again the book’s deep research coupled with accessibility: Farina wrote the book as a true amateur — one who loves the subject, the material and the work. Doing so became for him an exercise in family history and genealogy, as many of his ancestors fought for the Confederacy.

Eschewing maps and illustrations might be surprising, considering the book covers 75 percent of General Grant’s Civil War career, and thus many battles. However, this is because, as Farina himself says, he isn’t going to retrace ground covered by other excellent biographies.

Rather, he says, “Particularly interesting to us are events taking place between the battles — the politicking, rumors, blustering, backbiting, intrigue, psychological warfare, etc., but above all the incredible twists of fate that punctuated these events.” (emphasis added)

In other words, you don’t have to read between the lines of the book, but it was written between the lines — of battle.

The book in my view is high quality despite, or perhaps because of, what others might see as omissions. The author does detail major battles, which allows him to focus and to speak freely and strongly about his subjects.. Because he doesn’t have to retrace old routes, Farina can blaze his own trail. And because he’s done the research, his words have authority.

To take but one example, from Chapter 33 (“December 1863: ‘The Question Astonishes Me’”): on a single page,

Farina references Grant’s “unbelievable” Chattanooga campaign and John Bell Hood’s 1864 “insane” invasion of eastern Tennessee, while calling “absolutely right” the rebel “who referred to Missionary Ridge as the death knoll of the Confederacy,” and 1863 “the year that the bottom fell out of the tub.”

These may or may not be controversial statements; the point is Farina makes them with the strength of a confident writer and the power of a thorough researcher, backed by nearly 1,400 endnotes for the introduction, 36 chapters and an afterword. The book is well-built, though paperback, and resisted my determined efforts to force it flat.