Grant: The Making of a Legendary Military Leader

by James Lee McDonough

From the New York Times best-selling historian, a portrait of one of America’s most storied military leaders.

General of the Union army and later president of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant faced challenges as grave and demanding as any in the life of the nation: civil war, a thwarted Reconstruction, the sordid early years of the Gilded Age, and the battle for African American freedom. Focusing on his greatest military achievement in Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant offers fresh insight into a man whose life was marked by the extremes of achievement and tragedy, from the heights of Civil War success to the depths of public ire and extreme poverty. Alongside a granular depiction of the Union victory that reopened the Mississippi River, renowned Civil War historian James Lee McDonough restores the reputation of a man whose standing has been long diminished and provides a depiction of America during and after its bloody internecine conflict. Grant is a riveting portrait of one of our nation’s most legendary leaders, through the lens of one of the Civil War’s most decisive campaigns.

8 page illustrations, 7 maps

464 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication November 17, 2026

About the author

James Lee McDonough is professor of history at Auburn University.