Susan in NC’s Reviews > Grant > Status Update

“..Grant admitted to being homesick and Julia had wearied of this vagabond life. Still, the indefatigable Grant had a lengthy list of places he wanted to see.There was also the bizarre circumstance that he possessed no true American home, making him feel like a stateless, latter-day Flying Dutchman…For this reason, he decided to extend the trip until the following year.”

“The trip would flower into a royal procession continually lengthened until it spanned two years and four months. Grant’s extraordinary reception by potentates, prime ministers, and moguls would testify to what a giant figure he had become in the world’s imagination... The quintessence of the American spirit, he would walk through other lands in his matter-of-fact style, a plainspoken, democratic figure.”

“ Like many veteran politicians, Grant could no longer picture his life apart from its constant reflection in the national press. The prospect of returning to public life was never entirely distant from his mind and, perhaps far more than he cared to admit, he had come to crave the limelight.”

“ Now that Grant was out of office, the cloud that had lowered over him lifted, and the public was reminded of the inestimable service he had performed in winning the war and reuniting the country after Appomattox.”

“…Grant had been seized by a historical whirlwind that had carried him through the war and his presidency and now deposited him uneasily in the terra incognita of retirement. To fill the void that yawned open in his life, he decided to indulge a long-standing fantasy and visit Europe. A few years earlier, Jules Verne had published Around the World in Eighty Days, lending new glamour to extended foreign travel.”

“During his presidential years, Grant had accumulated heavy expenses while entertaining guests, saved little, and was now beset by financial worry. His salvation came from the money admirers had given him after the war, a windfall he had luckily invested in a mining venture that yielded a tidy $25,000 profit. He planned to disburse this bonanza in foreign travel for two years, or until the money ran out.”

“Once Reconstruction collapsed, it left southern blacks for eighty years at the mercy of Jim Crow segregation, lynchings, poll taxes, literacy tests, and other tactics designed to segregate them from whites and deny them the vote…Grant deserves an honored place in American history, second only to Lincoln, for what he did for the freed slaves.”

“Americans today know little about the terrorism that engulfed the South during Grant’s presidency. It has been suppressed by a strange national amnesia. The Klan’s ruthless reign is a dark, buried chapter in American history...Despite Grant’s best efforts at Appomattox, the breach of the Civil War never healed but became deeply embedded in American political culture.”

“ Thanks to the diplomatic skills of Hamilton Fish, Grant had racked up a remarkably good record in foreign affairs. During his presidency, there was no war, no military swagger, no saber rattling, and he stayed true to his motto: Let us have peace.”

“ Grant’s maladroit response to scandal reflected the lack of sophistication in a man who had been a stranger to politics before the war. He could recognize evil in his enemies, but not in those who posed as his friends. Many Americans understood this, and, through the many vicissitudes of his administration, retained respect and affection for Grant.”