Grant's Victory

How Ulysses S. Grant Won the Civil War

By: Bruce L. Brager

Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright

Length: 6 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

Two of the great themes of the Civil War are how Lincoln found his war-winning general in Ulysses Grant and how Grant finally defeated Lee. Grant's Victory intertwines these two threads in a grand narrative that shows how Grant made the difference in the war.

At Eastern theater battlefields from Bull Run to Gettysburg, Union commanders - whom Lincoln replaced after virtually every major battle - had struggled to best Lee, either suffering embarrassing defeat or failing to follow up success. Meanwhile, in the West, Grant had been refining his art of war at places like Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga, and in early 1864, Lincoln made him general in chief. Arriving in the East almost deus ex machina, and immediately recognizing what his predecessors never could, Grant pressed Lee in nearly continuous battle for the next 11 months - a series of battles and sieges that ended at Appomattox.

©2020 Bruce L. Brager (P)2020 Tantor

Misleading Title and Description

This book is a decent summary of the Eastern campaign of the Civil War. It covers several major battles in some detail, It goes into command decisions, the difficulties faced by both sides, and examines some of the crucial moments that led to a Northern Victory.

What it does not do is talk much about Grant. In fact, Grant is barely mentioned in the first half of the book. Even after Grant comes on the scene, he's mainly referenced simply as the overall commander. As such, he plays no more a major role in the second half of the book than he did in the first.

This is NOT the story of how Ulysses S. Grant Won the Civil War.

This is NOT a book about Ulysses S. Grant.

Both the Title and Sub-Title are misleading. The promises made in the book's description are not fulfilled.

The sad thing is that this is a decently written book. If the title and description better matched the contents, I would have given it more stars.

Excellent Description of the War'sEastern Theater

Excellent description of the Federal general's and the war and battles in the Eastern Theater of the U.S. Civil War. I highly recommend it for the detail and insight into the generals and the battles in such a brief book. It does a decent job describing the Confederate generals in that theater as well. However, the book is misnamed. Although it DOES give the reasons for Grant's success, the book is primarily about all the main generals that led the Army of the Potomac, its battles, and how they succeeded and how they failed. This then leads to why U.S. Grant was different, which was a relatively small percentage of the book. I found the book well worth my time, but it is not a book ON Grant, per se.