Reading corner: "Grant", by Ron Chernow

I'm at the point in the book where it describes events just after Grant's successful Vicksburg campaign. If the book has a negative, it's that it doesn't include any maps of any of the campaigns he managed, including nothing showing his Vicksburg strategy. But I suppose there are good sources for that information, and the book is already quite hefty (>1,000 pg).

Grant was an interesting character. A shrewdly efficient and successful military commander. But he seems to have let down his defenses when dealing with people outside of a military campaign. Thus, as is well known, he was routinely cheated and taken unfair advantage of by some of his human connections. He was too trusting of people. His low key and self-effacing demeanor helped make him very popular with his troops. But it may also have attracted con men who saw in him an easy mark.

I love books that take forever. I usually keep 4 or 5 going at any time which helps to lengthen my time with the great ones.

When you finish Grant, try

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historia_verdadera_de_la_conquista_de_la_Nueva_Espa%C3%B1a

The True History of the Conquest of New Spain) is a first-person narrative written in 1576 by military adventurer, conquistador, and colonist settler Bernal Díaz del Castillo (1492–1581), who served in three Mexican expeditions; those of Francisco Hernández de Córdoba (1517) to the Yucatán peninsula; the expedition of Juan de Grijalva (1518), and the expedition of Hernán Cortés (1519) in the Valley of Mexico; the history relates his participation in the fall of Emperor Moctezuma II, and the subsequent defeat of the Aztec Empire.


It's not the most literary if histories, but Bernal didn't have Twain to turn to for advice.

American history is much more personal and useful. I recommend Madison. I wish I could recommend the first book I read about him, but sadly it was lost in the fire.

Cortez and his merry men were fucking insane. I've read a lot of American frontier history, this is something wholly different.
The writing style is lacking, but it's a 1st hand account of a couple hundred Spaniards with a few horses walking across Mexico into Gibson's Apocalypto.

I believe that it's mostly politics, corruption from now on, but then most of my Grant knowledge comes from a biography that I read in the 5th grade.
If Twain liked him, he must have been well worth knowing.

Got to the point where the war is over, Lincoln assassinated, Johnson acted like a total dickhead, Grant won the election, and his military background didn't fully prepare him for political office.

Example: he didn't want to compromise his cabinet appointments so he didn't run his selections by anybody in DC with knowledge of the issues. One consequence is that he appointed one cabinet member (Treasury) who had a personal finance conflict that could not be resolved and he had to withdraw even after Congress voted to approve the appointment. Stuff like that. I understand there were more mistakes stemming from Grant's lack of political experience. As we saw with Eisenhower, military experience is not necessarily enough preparation for high public office.

Grant was also somewhat overly impressed with characters that had succeeded in the business world, which is attributed to his own business failures before he became a successful war general.