Grant’s Tome
We need a break from Trump. So I’m reading and blogging about other, greater leaders. Monday, it was Nelson Mandela. Today it’s Ulysses Grant, always rated one of the worst Presidents. Until Trump.
Ron Chernow’s thousand-page biography hasn’t done for Grant what Chernow did for Alexander Hamilton. Maybe Grant needs a Broadway musical.
Before I bogged down at Page 712, Chernow taught me three things about Grant – and one thing about Raleigh’s own Andrew Johnson.
First lesson: President Grant stood up for freed slaves against the Ku Klux Klan and Southern extremists who wanted to Make the South Great Again. Meaning, Make Blacks Slaves Again.
Second lesson: Before the Civil War, Grant was a miserable failure. And often drunk. He had left the Army under a cloud (drink), failed in business and was forced to rely on his Southern-sympathizing, slave-owning in-laws. Four years later, he had risen to command a million-man Army and Navy that fought across thousands of miles, different fronts, land and water and conquered a powerful, determined enemy. A pretty good bounceback.
Third lesson: Grant was a rarity among politicians and generals – a great writer. His memoirs are candid, compelling and well-written, in a clear, spare style. He was a great General in part because he was a great writer: able to communicate orders clearly and concisely and – thanks to the telegraph – to large forces spread over great distances.
What made him a great writer? What makes anyone a great writer? Here’s good advice from an essay by Josh Marshall, “Thoughts on the Greatness of Ulysses S. Grant”:
“The essence of all good writing is clarity. Style seems like a separate attribute of good writing. But it’s not. Style is really just a byproduct of clarity and concision. It is the personality or other uniqueness of the writer coming through on the page because they write clearly.
“So how does one write clearly? The writing is the easier part of it. Once you know precisely what you mean to say, writing it is usually straightforward if not always easy. At least 90% of poor writing stems from the writer not knowing exactly what it is they mean to say.”
Grant knew what he wanted to say – in combat and in “Personal Memoirs,” which he labored to finish days before he died so he could save his family from penury.
Then there’s Andrew Johnson. Chernow doesn’t treat him so well.
The story we’ve always been told in these parts is that Johnson was a poor boy, a tailor’s son who worked his way up to become military Governor of Tennessee, stood up to the Southern slaveowners and was Lincoln’s VP choice on a National Union ticket in 1864. A fellow we could be proud of, even if he got drunk on Inauguration Day and then got impeached.
Not so fast. It turns out that Johnson became the old slavers’ best friend after Lincoln died. He did all he could – over Grant’s opposition – to succor the Southern plantation class and suffer the freed slaves. Plus, he was mean, obstreperous and, yes, often drunk.
It’s enough to make you look afresh at Grant, Johnson and what America went through in another time of bitter division – racial, social and geographic. And see what leaders can do to us and for us, for better or for worse.
Grant’s Tome
We need a break from Trump. So I’m reading and blogging about other, greater leaders. Monday, it was Nelson Mandela. Today it’s Ulysses Grant, always rated one of the worst Presidents. Until Trump.
Ron Chernow’s thousand-page biography hasn’t done for Grant what Chernow did for Alexander Hamilton. Maybe Grant needs a Broadway musical.
Before I bogged down at Page 712, Chernow taught me three things about Grant – and one thing about Raleigh’s own Andrew Johnson.
First lesson: President Grant stood up for freed slaves against the Ku Klux Klan and Southern extremists who wanted to Make the South Great Again. Meaning, Make Blacks Slaves Again.
Second lesson: Before the Civil War, Grant was a miserable failure. And often drunk. He had left the Army under a cloud (drink), failed in business and was forced to rely on his Southern-sympathizing, slave-owning in-laws. Four years later, he had risen to command a million-man Army and Navy that fought across thousands of miles, different fronts, land and water and conquered a powerful, determined enemy. A pretty good bounceback.
Third lesson: Grant was a rarity among politicians and generals – a great writer. His memoirs are candid, compelling and well-written, in a clear, spare style. He was a great General in part because he was a great writer: able to communicate orders clearly and concisely and – thanks to the telegraph – to large forces spread over great distances.
What made him a great writer? What makes anyone a great writer? Here’s good advice from an essay by Josh Marshall, “Thoughts on the Greatness of Ulysses S. Grant”:
“The essence of all good writing is clarity. Style seems like a separate attribute of good writing. But it’s not. Style is really just a byproduct of clarity and concision. It is the personality or other uniqueness of the writer coming through on the page because they write clearly.
“So how does one write clearly? The writing is the easier part of it. Once you know precisely what you mean to say, writing it is usually straightforward if not always easy. At least 90% of poor writing stems from the writer not knowing exactly what it is they mean to say.”
Grant knew what he wanted to say – in combat and in “Personal Memoirs,” which he labored to finish days before he died so he could save his family from penury.
Then there’s Andrew Johnson. Chernow doesn’t treat him so well.
The story we’ve always been told in these parts is that Johnson was a poor boy, a tailor’s son who worked his way up to become military Governor of Tennessee, stood up to the Southern slaveowners and was Lincoln’s VP choice on a National Union ticket in 1864. A fellow we could be proud of, even if he got drunk on Inauguration Day and then got impeached.
Not so fast. It turns out that Johnson became the old slavers’ best friend after Lincoln died. He did all he could – over Grant’s opposition – to succor the Southern plantation class and suffer the freed slaves. Plus, he was mean, obstreperous and, yes, often drunk.
It’s enough to make you look afresh at Grant, Johnson and what America went through in another time of bitter division – racial, social and geographic. And see what leaders can do to us and for us, for better or for worse.