GRANT

On the forging of Ulysses S. Grant as an indispensable leader in the Civil War.

Grant was a somewhat reluctant soldier who confessed, as a West Point cadet, that “a military life had no charms for me.” Yet, he was a quick study in battle as a young lieutenant in the Mexican-American War and not shy of criticizing poor decisions on the part of superiors. An abolitionist, unlike so many other Union officers and soldiers, he was quick to take up arms when the Civil War broke out. Historian McDonough opens with a critical campaign early in the war, when Grant coordinated joint army and naval assaults on a chain of riverside Confederate strongholds in Tennessee; his victory, McDonough argues, was “the first turning point of the Civil War.” Grant distinguished himself from many another Union commander for his willingness to attack, and he had little tolerance for subordinates who did not share his recognition of “the value of the offensive.” (One who did, General Charles Smith, memorably urged his troops, “You volunteered to be killed for your country and now you can be.”) It was at Fort Donelson that Grant first issued his trademark demand for “unconditional surrender.” Much of McDonough’s narrative is given over to Grant’s Vicksburg campaign, which saw a great deal of trial and error as he attempted to find a way to bombard the city from Union gunboats without their being sunk by Confederate artillery. That narrative is overgrown with briar patches of detail that threaten to lose the nonspecialist reader, but McDonough offers valuable insights on such matters as Grant’s recruitment of formerly enslaved men as soldiers despite “opposition emanating from both high-­ranking officers and [white] men in the ranks.” McDonough also gets overheated here and there, as when he plaintively argues that Vicksburg, and not Gettysburg, was the truly decisive victory that signaled the beginning of the end for the Confederacy.

Solid if overgrown addition to Civil War literature.