The Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, Part 2

March 4, 1861 - March 26, 1864

By: Ulysses S. Grant

Narrated by: Peter Johnson

Covering the pivotal years 1861-1864, General Ulysses S. Grant leads us in his own words from Fort Sumter to his appointment as commander of all the armies of the North. Grant remembers his experiences with the key players of the day, takes us onto the battlefields, and recounts the twists and turns of fate. Grant was a failed peacetime soldier, failed farmer, failed woodcutter, failed bill collector, and 38-year-old clerk in a harness store in the spring of 1861. By 1864, he was directing all the Union forces.Public Domain (P)2010 Recorded Books, Inc.

Critic reviews

"No American president has told his story as powerfully as Ulysses S. Grant." (William S. McFeely, historian)

Worth your time

Interesting read for the Civil War buff. The descriptions of battles gets dry at times. You do get a clear sense of how Grant's mind worked and why he did things the way he did. It made me re-evaluate my opinions of some of the Union generals, especially George Thomas, whom Grant characterizes as a procrastinator.

Must read for Civil War buffs

What made the experience of listening to The Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, Part 2 the most enjoyable?

Yes, who better to write a book about the Civil War than Grant. I Recommend all three volumes of his book.

Very little has changed since the end of the Civil War. It has just become a cold war between the states. It is now a cold war.

The details of the battles are difficult to follow without a map. His insights into the social class system of the South and how the common man, who was called "white trash" is penetrating and pertains to this day. He was a modest man, with a brilliant mind. The book is worth reading just to gather his deep insights into the formation and structure of our nation. He could have said the same things about our country to day. Lets see if we can live together. Different races, religions, ethnicities etc. I do not think he would have thought we could, but he would have given it a hell of a try.
We have a new elite today and are in the midst of another form of a civil war

Grant's Memoirs

What an extraordinary document!
Must listening. Well narrated. Insight into the thinking of one of the greatest military minds in history.

Yankee doodle

Any additional comments?

As a student of the Civil War this was a great read to really get into the mind of Ulysses S. Grant. It is a shame the Grant did not write anymore books in his life, because I felt that he possessed a great writing style. The book follows the chronology of the battles that Grant was directly involved in. I also enjoyed his comments about politics and how he fit in to those politics as the war progressed. This book would make a great miniseries, to take the script with an actor playing Grant, possibly sitting in a tent or farmhouse, a riverboat outside Vicksburg, and then for maps to be shown of the battles he was engaged in and constructed. If you are going to listen to this book, you will certainly need some maps of the battles, or at least maps of the South to understand the relationships of Vicksburg to Jackson Mississippi as opposed to Richmond and Petersburg, VA. etc. As a young boy in the late 1950's I can remember traveling to Florida and passing through Vicksburg Mississippi, I still have visions of the Vicksburg Battlefield Park; this book helped me to put those visions with a face and a personality to understand the greatness of General U.S. Grant.