Must-Reads of 2017: Yes, "Grant" Is Great

(Bloomberg View) -- A recurring theme for biographer and financial historian Ron Chernow is how money defines the times and the people he brings to life.

In "The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance," he chronicled the Anglo-American pursuit of power from Victorian London to Ronald Reagan's Wall Street.

His next book, "The Warburgs: The Twentieth-Century Odyssey of a Remarkable Jewish Family," is the history of Hamburg money-changers rising to become global aristocrats who financed the Kaiser's army before their dynasty was eviscerated in the Holocaust.

"The Death of the Banker: The Decline and Fall of the Great Financial Dynasties and the Triumph of the Small Investor" showed how the world managed by so many Morgans and Warburgs is now lost.

Then came "Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller Sr.," a biography of America's greatest capitalist and first billionaire; "Alexander Hamilton," a monumental portrait of the immigrant Founding Father, who inspired the national debt and the Broadway show, and "Washington: A Life," which proved Hamilton's indispensability to the indispensable general and first president. 

In all of these epic-like works, Chernow explores the integrity, morality, courage, compassion and vanity of his subjects through the lens of financial history.

Now comes "Grant," his biography of the 18th president of the United States. Chernow says it is his favorite of the books he has written, a personal declaration justified by 959 pages of momentous narrative showing how the "impecunious" Grant, who had been "drummed out of the regular army in disgrace" and at age 38 was "bearing a heavy load of blighted hopes," became the first modern -- and arguably most successful -- American general.

His Civil War battle plans included engaging every part of the economy -- from railroads to explosives to local civilians -- and are still studied at West Point. Among presidents, he was the greatest proponent of freedoms for African Americans between Abraham Lincoln and Lyndon Johnson. 

Because money "was a black art that Grant never learned to master," haunting him throughout his presidency, Grant was considered a failure in pursuit of the very thing that defines American success. In part because of his disastrous finances, generations of historians included him among the losers who occupied the White House.

Chernow will have none of it. While Grant was repeatedly swindled and exploited, especially during his presidency, he never was corrupt. And when he was bankrupt and facing certain death from throat cancer, he rescued his family with the record-breaking sale of 300,000 copies of the "Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant," which was not only a business breakthrough, but also a literary masterpiece.

Mark Twain, Walt Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson put Grant in the pantheon of greatest Americans before the profession of historians relegated him to mediocrity during the century of African American oppression that followed. Only recently have historians recognized Grant's efforts during Reconstruction to foil the Ku Klux Klan and weave the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments into the fabric of American life.

His embrace of emancipation began before he was president, when the general was running the army like a business. Chernow describes how Grant went about that business after the Union's decisive victory at Vicksburg in 1863:

Once Vicksburg fell, he set about arming black soldiers with captured weapons and assigned them to reinforce the city's earthworks, collect and capture Confederate property, and police the city. Far from questioning their ability, Grant extolled them, telling Halleck that "negro troops are easier to preserve discipline among them than our White troops and I doubt not will prove equally good for garrison duty. All that have been tried have fought bravely." 

Lincoln considered Grant a soulmate after Vicksburg because they agreed on the goals and tactics for winning the war and forging a new nation. Chernow writes:

On August 9, Lincoln told Grant that black recruitment was "a resource which if vigorously applied now, will soon close the contest--It works doubly, weakening the enemy & strengthening us.'' With the Mississippi open to commerce, Lincoln hoped one hundred thousand black soldiers could be assembled along its shores. In reply, Grant brought his views in exact conformity with national policy and presidential direction. "I have given the subject of arming the negro my hearty support," he assured the president. "This, with the emancipation of the negro, is the heaviest blow yet given to the Confederacy." Lincoln was so pleased with this statement that he quoted it in a letter read aloud at a mass rally in Illinois in September, deepening the political bond between the two men.

Chernow concludes that no one did as much to perpetuate Lincoln's sensibility -- his charity and commitment to justice -- after his death than Grant. In giving Grant his due, "Grant" is not just an absorbing reappraisal of the 18th U.S. president. It is essential to understanding our polarized, race-conscious nation today. 

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Matthew A. Winkler is a Bloomberg View columnist. He is the editor-in-chief emeritus of Bloomberg News.

To contact the author of this story: Matthew Winkler at mwinkler@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Katy Roberts at kroberts29@bloomberg.net.

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