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The University of North Carolina Press
384 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 69 illus., 3 maps, notes, bibl., index
Civil War America
American Hero, American Myth
At the time of his death, Ulysses S. Grant was the most famous person in America, considered by most citizens to be equal in stature to George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Yet today his monuments are rarely visited, his military reputation is overshadowed by that of Robert E. Lee, and his presidency is permanently mired at the bottom of historical rankings.
In an insightful blend of biography and cultural history, Joan Waugh traces Grant's shifting national and international reputation, illuminating the role of memory in our understanding of American history. She captures a sense of what led nineteenth-century Americans to overlook Grant's obvious faults and hold him up as a critically important symbol of national reconciliation and unity. Waugh further shows that Grant's reputation and place in public memory closely parallel the rise and fall of the northern version of the Civil War story--in which the United States was the clear, morally superior victor and Grant was the symbol of that victory. After the failure of Reconstruction, the dominant Union myths about the war gave way to a southern version that emphasized a more sentimental remembrance of the honor and courage of both sides and ennobled the "Lost Cause." By the 1920s, Grant's reputation had plummeted.
Most Americans today are unaware of how revered Grant was in his lifetime. Joan Waugh uncovers the reasons behind the rise and fall of his renown, underscoring as well the fluctuating memory of the Civil War itself.
"An engaging study of the making of Ulysses S. Grant's reputation. . . . Waugh convincingly interprets Grant as 'symboliz[ing] both the hopes and the lost dreams' of the Civil War."
--Publishers Weekly
"Waugh finds an interesting range of answers to a simple question: Who was Grant?"-The Associated Press
"Brilliant and unsettling. . . . Part biography, part military history, part social chronicle charting the rise and fall of Grant's reputation, U.S. Grant is a sobering reminder of the vicissitudes of fame. . . . Waugh's well-researched and vibrantly written book . . . restores luster to a lost American hero."
--The Chicago Tribune
"A well researched and scholarly work that Civil War enthusiasts will enjoy."
--Library Journal
"Joan Waugh's eagerly awaited and important book on Grant is original and provocative. She writes with an astute perspective on how each contextual stop along the way in her history of Grant's memory is really all about the politics of that particular moment. This book will make a lasting mark in Civil War history."
--David W. Blight, Yale University, author of Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory
"William T. Sherman once remarked that Ulysses S. Grant was a mystery, even to himself. Many Americans, then and now, seem equally confounded by this seemingly silent man. In this marvelous, multifaceted study of Grant's life, death, and reputation, Joan Waugh enriches our understanding and furthers our reassessment of this oft-misunderstood national icon."
--Brooks D. Simpson, author of Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868
Cloth: $30.00
© 2009 The University of North Carolina Press
116 South Boundary Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27514-3808
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