Civil War history is hardly pleasurable, except to fanatics. Reconstruction is more important to our interpretation of the modern era. But for those of us who have a passing knowledge of mid-19th Century America, there is a book that we should not overlook.
I am now two-thirds of the way through the Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant. First, it is a free book on Nook. I suspect it is also free on Kindle. It is really easy reading in that Grant does not go into minute detail. But he does a good job of reporting his own mind-set, as well as several others around him.
He was marching through what is now Texas during the prelude to the Mexican War when he came across an acquaintance living out there in the middle of nowhere with his slave woman. After only a sentence or two, the modern reader--if he know African-American culture--can envision a whole major story there.
Then, when fighting the Civil war, which he refers to as "the late rebellion," he mentions "Negroes" only sparingly. But it is not hard to see what a difference they made to his war effort.
Better than many 20th Century historians, Grant had a good understanding of the white working people of the South and how they did not agree with the Aristocrats, yet they could be easily manipulated--just like today.
History is a joke, played on the dead, Voltaire said, but for someone who stumbles upon the Memoirs of U.S. Grant, a lot of the wrong information can be put into perspective.
Any retired people out there: this is one of those books you should read before you die.
Grant's enemies tried to make much of the fact that he knew horseflesh, but he didn't know people that well. To be sure, Grant tells enough about horses to make a modern person feel that he understands more than a little about trading of horses.
In a terribly cold rainy night, after the first day of the battle of Shiloh, Grant was trying to sleep under a tree. A nearby house was designated as a hospital where surgeons were doing the best they could. Grant went in to escape the rain. But after a little while he went back outside, preferring the rain to what distress he was hearing inside. It is all very understated, but for those who know Civil War medicine, we know why he made his choice.