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Ulysses S. Grant Lover, Fighter, Writer

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Ulysses S. Grant Lover, Fighter, Writer Ulysses S. Grant Lover, fighter, writer EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Listen to Presidential at http://wapo.st/presidential This transcript was run through an automated transcription service and then lightly edited for clarity. There may be typos or small discrepancies from the podcast audio. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: Hi, everyone. This week for the Ulysses S. Grant episode, we're going to shake things up a bit, and we're going to do the bulk of the episode as a book discussion of Grant's memoirs. I'm in the studio today with two great Washington Post colleagues. You can both just introduce yourselves. CARLOS LOZADA: Hi, this is Carlos Lozada. I'm the nonfiction book critic here at The Post. DAVID MARANISS: Hello, I'm David Maraniss. I'm an associate editor at The Post, and I've written biographies of two presidents -- Clinton and Obama. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: Carlos also just recently won the National Book Critics Circle Award. DAVID MARANISS: Which was well-deserved. CARLOS LOZADA: And David has won a Pulitzer, which more people have heard of. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: Wonderful people to have discussing Grant's memoirs here today. So, Carlos, this was actually your idea. Why did you think we should read this book for the Grant episode? CARLOS LOZADA: Well, when you talk to presidential historians and biographers, this is supposed to be the gold standard, right? Everyone says this is the best presidential memoir. And I figured this would be a good excuse to go back and actually read it, which I'd never done before. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: So, David, Carlos -- you both ended up reading the memoirs for this discussion. What was the most interesting question or theme, David, that you were struck by while reading it that you think we should talk about? DAVID MARANISS: Well, the first, most obvious thing is actually what's not in the book. It's not a book about his presidency at all, really. I mean, it just barely glanced at it. Presidential podcast wapo.st/presidential 1 So, it's a wonderfully written book, but it's a study of sort of the evolution of a leader and how he moved from someone who had no ambitions to one who was one of the great leaders of American history. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: What about you, Carlos? What struck you? CARLOS LOZADA: What struck me is how it really captured the dilemma of the country in that, you know, this was a war -- the Civil War -- that was brother-against-brother, a country against itself. And Grant fought and commanded against a lot of people that he knew very well. He had gone to West Point with a lot of the men who became Southern officers and generals and he'd fought alongside them in the Mexican-American War. So, that was fascinating. The other thing that I thought was unexpected for me is just: Grant is funny. I did not expect that there would be so much humor enmeshed here in between the various battles and troop movements. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: Great. Well, we're going to dive into the discussion in a bit, but the story of how Grant came to write the book is actually a pretty incredible story as well. So, we're going to spend a little time on that first to set the stage. I'm Lillian Cunningham with The Washington Post, and -- you can do the honors this week, David. DAVID MARANISS: For starting the -- LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: For just saying this is the 18th episode of “Presidential.” DAVID MARANISS: Oh, sorry! LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: No problem. DAVID MARANISS: This is the 18th episode of “Presidential.” PRESIDENTIAL THEME MUSIC LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: Ulysses S. Grant was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio in 1822. He's, of course, best known for being appointed by Abraham Lincoln to serve as commanding general of the U.S. Army and for then leading the Union to victory in the Civil War. He became the most famous man in America because of that. And, as a consequence, he was elected president, and he served for two terms -- from 1869 until 1877. In an early version of the preface that Grant wrote to his memoirs, he apologized to readers that his autobiography only goes through the Civil War. He wrote these memoirs on his deathbed, and he decided that he just didn't have enough time to write about things in his life that happened after the war -- like being president for eight years. Well, similarly, I am going to apologize right now to all of you listeners that the focus for this episode is also not going to be too much on his time in the White House, itself. But hopefully, by the end of this, you will at least sort of indirectly have a richer understanding of President Grant by Presidential podcast wapo.st/presidential 2 understanding these other aspects of his life. Now, Michelle Krowl at the Library of Congress is going to flesh out our portrait of Grant. They have all the original manuscripts for his memoirs there. So, I said to Michelle, 'You know, we all know that Grant was a fighter, but how about you walk us through Grant as a writer -- Grant as the writer of these memoirs.’ And she said, 'Yeah, I can do that. But I also have all the love letters that Grant wrote. So, how about we discuss how he is a lover and a fighter and a writer?' And how could I say no to that? So, here is our dive into understanding the many other sides of Ulysses S. Grant. What would it be like to go on a blind date with Ulysses S. Grant? MICHELLE KROWL: With Ulysses S. Grant, if he was asking you out as a young man, you wouldn't probably think he was a good prospect. I personally think he's pretty handsome, but as a first impression, he didn't think much of dressing up. He tended to be pretty rumpled. And that actually does play into his leadership during the Civil War because he's, you know, approachable. He's not ‘Fuss and Feathers’ like Winfield Scott's nickname was. Other than the bars of stars on his shoulder straps, you wouldn't know that he was a general. And as a young man, you wouldn't think he had very great prospects, either. He came from a family that was comfortable, was well- off enough -- his father was a tanner. But Grant never wanted to go into that profession if he could help it. He had gone to West Point, but if you had looked at him up until his pre-war career, for example, it was just a series of failures. He had done okay at West Point, but not spectacularly. He then went into the military -- or continued to be in the military and had done well in the Mexican War. He had a couple of fairly heroic exploits. But then he's eventually posted to the West Coast, and he tries to make a little bit extra money. So, he has the scheme to bring ice down from the Northwest somewhere, and the ice melts. Then he's going to try to do some farming on the side, so he's planting potatoes and he's really industrious -- and then there's a flood and all the potatoes wash away. So, on the eve of the Civil War, he's had to go work for his father in the tannery. And so, when you look at Grant's early life, even though he's very industrious -- he's trying hard at all of these various exploits -- it just seems like failure after failure after failure. The one thing he is really good with from the very beginning is horses. He's very loyal, and that's something that is both an admirable characteristic of him but it also gets him into trouble. Because sometimes he will put his loyalty in the wrong person or the wrong people. And even though he is personally very honest, he doesn't always recognise the dishonesty around him. And so that gets him into a lot of trouble, both as president and after his presidency. There's of course the question of his drinking, which, I'm sure, you know people are always asking about Grant and his drinking. Some people will say he's a borderline alcoholic. Other people will say that he was actually just a lightweight. But it seems to have marred his career when he was in the West. And throughout the rest of his career, there's always the rumour of -- is he drinking? Is he drinking? Was he drunk? Presidential podcast wapo.st/presidential 3 Often it may have been when his wife was not around. Usually when Julia was around, then no -- because he was a very devoted family man to his own nuclear family. I think he had a difficult relationship with his father and his mother, but with his own family he's just absolutely adoring. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: Grant met his wife Julia because she was the sister of his West Point friend, Frederick Dent. Grant first met Julia when he was paying a visit to Frederick's family home in St. Louis, and he just fell absolutely madly in love with her. MICHELLE KROWL: Something that people really don't realize about Grant -- because his historical reputation is that cigar-smoking, steely-eyed determined general -- they don't realize how completely adoring he was of his wife, and how he wrote her love letters when they were courting.
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