From the Western frontier to the battlefields of Vicksburg, Chattanooga, Franklin, Petersburg, and Richmond, Grant saw the war from the front lines and made the decisions that affected lives on a day-to-day basis. His writings provide a revealing look into the life of the commander in chief of the Union army as well as the seminal eyewitness account of the War between the States. The Civil War Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant is a popular abridgment of his two-volume Personal Memoirs, which he arranged to have published to provide for his family after his death. (It was a huge bestseller and broke all records in American publishing at the time.) He died less than one week after completing its writing. This abridgment covers Grant's experiences in the Civil War, from the first shot at Sumter to Appomattox, giving the reader a front-line seat next to the greatest Union general of the war. Highlights Include: - General William Tecumseh Sherman on his infamous march through Georgia- General George B. McClellan on the battle of Antietam and the legendary lost order that should have tipped him off to Lee's plans - General George Armstrong Custer's experience of going straight from studying at West Point to the battlefield - General (CSA) James Longstreet on serving under Robert E. Lee - General (CSA) G. Moxley Sorrel on serving under James Longstreet - Major (CSA) J.S.Mosby on the South's Guerilla campaign - General (CSA) Jubal Earley's memoir of the last year of the war. “It is simply not possible to read Grant's memoirs without realizing that the author is a man of first-rate intelligence.” ―Gore Vidal, New York Times bestselling author of Burr and Lincoln “The reader finds himself . . . on edge to know how the Civil War is coming out.” ―Edmund Wilson Ulysses S. Grant was the commander-in-chief of the Union forces during the climactic late years of the Civil War and later served as the 18th President of the United States. He died in 1885. His remains currently reside in Grant's Tomb in New York City. Brian M. Thomsen is the editor of Shadows of Blue and Gray-the Civil War Writings of Ambrose Pierce , Alternate Gettysburgs , The American Fantasy Tradition , and The Man in the Arena: Selected Writings of Theodore Roosevelt . He lives in Brooklyn, New York. Thomas Fleming is the author of more than 40 books of fiction and history. He was born in Jersey City, N.J., the son of a powerful local politician, who gave him a lifelong interest in politics and history. He is the only writer in the seventy year history of the Book of the Month Club to win main selections in both fiction and nonfiction. His 1981 novel, The Officers' Wives , won international acclaim, selling more than 2,000,000 copies. Liberty! The American Revolution was listed as one of the eight best books of 1997 by the History Book Club. Fleming has made the Revolution his special field. Three of his books have won best-book-of-the-year citations from the American Revolution Round Table of New York. He has also demonstrated a sweeping grasp of the entire course of American history in West Point: The Men and Times of the U.S. Military Academy, The New Dealers' War and other books. Fleming is a senior scholar on the board of the National Center for the American Revolution. He is also a fellow of the Society of American Historians. He often appears as a commentator on PBS, the History Channel and A&E. He lives in New York. The Civil War Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant By Grant, Ulysses S. Forge Books Copyright © 2004 Grant, Ulysses S. All right reserved. ISBN: 9780765302434 Chapter I   THE COMING CRISIS.     In the case of the war between the States it would have been the exact truth if the South had said,—“We do not want to live with you Northern people any longer; we know our institution of slavery is obnoxious to you, and, as you are growing numerically stronger than we, it may at some time in the future be endangered. So long as you permitted us to control the government, and with the aid of a few friends at the North to enact laws constituting your section a guard against the escape of our property, we were willing to live with you. You have been submissive to our rule heretofore; but it looks now as if you did not intend to continue so, and we will remain in the Union no longer.” Instead of this the seceding States cried lustily,—“Let us alone; you have no constitutional power to interfere with us.” Newspapers and people at the North reiterated the cry. Individuals might ignore the constitution; but the Nation itself must not only obey it, but must enforce the strictest construction of that instrument; the construction put upon it by the Southerners themselves. The fact is the constitution did not apply to any such contingency as the one existing from 1861 to 1865. Its framers never dreamed of such a contingency occurring. If they had foreseen it, the probabilities are they would have sanctioned the right of