Klan War

Ulysses S. Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction

By: Fergus M. Bordewich

Narrated by: Landon Woodson

Length: 16 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A stunning history of the first national anti-terrorist campaign waged on American soil—when Ulysses S. Grant wielded the power of the federal government to dismantle the KKK

The Ku Klux Klan, which celebrated historian Fergus Bordewich defines as “the first organized terrorist movement in American history,” rose from the ashes of the Civil War. At its peak in the early 1870s, the Klan boasted many tens of thousands of members, no small number of them landowners, lawmen, doctors, journalists, and churchmen, as well as future governors and congressmen. And their mission was to obliterate the muscular democratic power of newly emancipated Black Americans and their white allies, often by the most horrifying means imaginable.

To repel the virulent tidal wave of violence, President Ulysses S. Grant waged a two-term battle against both armed Southern enemies of Reconstruction and Northern politicians seduced by visions of postwar conciliation, testing the limits of the federal government in determining the extent of states’ rights. In this book, Bordewich transports us to the front lines, in the hamlets of the former Confederate States and in the marble corridors of Congress, reviving an unsung generation of grassroots Black leaders and key figures such as crusading Missouri senator Carl Schurz, who sacrificed the rights of Black Americans in the name of political “reform,” and the ruthless former slave trader and Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Klan War is a bold and bracing record of America’s past that reveals the bloody, Reconstruction-era roots of present-day battles to protect the ballot box and stamp out resurgent white supremacist ideologies.

©2023 Fergus M. Bordewich (P)2023 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Best Books of 2023"—The New Yorker

"Editor's Choice, 2023"—Booklist

"A vivid and sobering account of Grant’s efforts to crush the Klan in the South [that] gestures toward the fractured political landscape of the present day . . . Bordewich focuses on Grant’s antiterror policies, conveying the panoply of factors that led to their initial success and, later, to their tragic demise, [and] includes some heart-rending testimony from freedmen who were too terrified to go to the ballot box."—Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times

"[A] compelling chronicle [detailing] the astonishing brutality of the Klan . . . Bordewich is especially good on the origins of the Klan . . . [He] presents a convincing case that, left to their own devices, Southern whites were not about to confer real freedom on the freedmen. He is equally persuasive that by the end of Grant’s second term, Northerners were unwilling to commit the guns to police the South, much less the butter to rebuild it."—Roger Lowenstein, The Wall Street Journal

"This essential history details Ulysses S. Grant’s fight to dismantle the Ku Klux Klan during the course of his Presidency . . . Though his efforts were later gutted by a series of disastrous Supreme Court decisions, Grant’s victory, Bordewich argues, serves as a potent reminder that 'forceful political action can prevail over violent extremism.'"—The New Yorker

a great but depressing book

This well-written & deeply researched (for a popular history) book provides a superb slap-in-the-face to politicians & wannabe white supremacists bent of whitewashing American history, so that contemporary white children aren't made to feel guilty or uncomfortable about the actions of some of their ancestors. The fight against black former slaves (& freedmen) & against both Southern & Northern (in the South) advocates of equality was a pure, unadulterated horror show. The narrative of which was submerged in the subsequent 100 years by the Lost Cause myth & by Northern indifference. I found the book very enlightening but sometimes a hard read as atrocity after atrocity was related by the author. But still worthy of reading. The author also shows, as other books have, that in some ways Reconstruction in the south was doomed from its birth, despite the best efforts of lots of whites & blacks, north & south. And that while the Grant Administration in general & President Grant in particular tried hard to sustain some kind of positive effort, the Union occupation of the South was too light, scattered & isolated to do much good defending black rights & fighting off local white elites, the Klan & other copycats. So that the 1876 election compromise doesn't come as a surprise. Despite what I said above, this book is not meant to be a political document for our times, for the likes of DeSantis & his ilk. This book will stand on its own long after that reactionary wave is past (I hope).

Good, not great

As a history scholar that studied it and political science, and focused on the civil war and reconstruction, there are a lot of pertinent details missing. It is still a worthwhile read/listen.

Grant was the man

Ulysse S Grant was the man who saved the Union as the victorious general of the Civil War. Less well know is his battle to make Reconstruction work as president. Grant’s reputation as both general and president are on the ascendant among modern historians. History doesn’t change but the way we see it changes as we shift in what we see as morally right.

Well written.

Extraordinarily well researched and organized. Rasy to read or listen to. And like Congress at War, this book opens up a part of history that is generally disguised or ignored.

Hard to listen to-but a must read

People need to know the facts about our nation’s missed opportunity to get equal rights established. We are still working on it. Hard to believe 620,000 Americans died and then the loss of their lives was muted by the failure of Reconstruction.

Detail

Bordewich tells about an area of history that is often overlooked. While he discusses Grant and his role during Reconstruction , he also discusses numerous others that were involved in Reconstruction, the Klan, and more. He provides hundreds of accounts and stories of Klan atrocities that many fail to cover. Bordewich does a phenomenal job bringing to life a dark time in our nation’s history.