friday before the weekend
it's going to be hot
General William T. Sherman, an acute if opinionated observer, once wrote of his friend and commander, Ulysses S. Grant, that“he is a mystery, and I believe he is a mystery to himself”. Grant’s enigmatic personality has always presented challenges to biographers. So, too, has the full and variegated nature of his career. The most successful general of the American Civil War, Grant also served as commanding general during the tumultuous first Reconstruction years, and was then elected in 1868 to the presidency for two consecutive terms - the only president to do so in the last half of the nineteenth century. Brooks Simpson has wisely decided not to try and compress all this into one volume, but to produce two, devoting the second to his post-Civil War career.<QA1>
