The Best Biographies of Ulysses S. Grant
Updated 2026-10-21
From the Galena leather store to Appomattox, the White House and the race to finish his memoirs: which Grant biography to start with, and what to read next
The best single biography of Ulysses S. Grant for most readers is Ron Chernow's Grant (2017): it covers the whole life in one volume, from the failed pre-war years through the Civil War, both presidential terms and the bankruptcy and cancer that framed his final book, and it gives the presidency and Reconstruction the serious attention that older lives skipped. If 1,100 pages is too much, Ronald C. White's American Ulysses (2016) and H. W. Brands's The Man Who Saved the Union (2012) cover the same ground at a quicker pace and reach broadly the same verdict.
That verdict is itself the story of Grant scholarship. For most of the twentieth century Grant was remembered as a plodding 'butcher' of a general who won by numbers, and as one of the worst presidents, a passive man surrounded by crooks. Since the 1990s historians have rebuilt that picture almost completely: his campaigns from Fort Donelson to Vicksburg are now studied as some of the most skilful of the war, and his presidency is read as the high-water mark of federal protection for freed people in the South, including his administration's prosecution of the Ku Klux Klan. The list below includes the books that made that case, the older biography that set the low bar it argues against, and a book on how the reputation rose, fell and rose again.
Grant also left one of the finest primary sources any American leader has written: his Personal Memoirs, finished days before his death in 1885. Every title below is checked against Open Library for edition, year and ISBN, and where a book's argument is contested, the note says so. For the war itself beyond Grant, see our guide The 10 Best Civil War Books, and for his commander-in-chief, The Best Biographies of Abraham Lincoln.
The books
1. Grant — Ron Chernow (2018)
Grant was a far more capable general and president than his reputation allowed, a man who overcame early failure and a drinking problem to save the Union and then defend the rights of freed people.
The fullest modern one-volume life, first published in 2017 and a number-one New York Times bestseller. Chernow, the author of the Alexander Hamilton biography behind the musical, follows Grant from his Ohio boyhood and his humiliating pre-war years in Missouri and Galena through the Civil War, two presidential terms, the 1884 Wall Street swindle that bankrupted him, and the memoirs he wrote while dying. His most distinctive thread is Grant's lifelong struggle with alcohol, which he treats as a recurring battle Grant largely won rather than as a scandal. He is especially good on the presidency's civil-rights record against the Klan. The weaknesses are length (the paperback runs to 1,104 pages) and an occasional tendency to excuse Grant's misjudgments of the men around him.
Pick this if: The start-here pick for anyone who wants one complete, readable life of Grant. (Level: Beginner)
2. Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant — Ulysses S. Grant; introduction and notes by James M. McPherson (1999)
Not an argument but a source: Grant's own account of his life to 1865, written against the clock to save his family from ruin.
The primary source, and the book many historians call the best memoir by any American general. Grant wrote it in 1884-85 while dying of throat cancer and nearly bankrupt, to provide for his family; Mark Twain's firm published it, and Grant finished the manuscript days before his death. The prose is plain, clear and often dry-humoured, and the account of the Mexican War (which he calls one of the most unjust wars ever waged by a stronger nation against a weaker) is as revealing as the Civil War chapters. Read it critically: it ends in 1865, says nothing about the presidency, and settles scores quietly with fellow generals. This Penguin Classics edition has notes by James McPherson; readers who want heavy annotation should look at Elizabeth D. Samet's Annotated Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant (Liveright, 2018), a much larger and more expensive volume.
Pick this if: Everyone, ideally after one modern biography, so you know where Grant is being selective. (Level: Intermediate)
3. American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant — Ronald C. White (2017)
Grant's quiet personal qualities (humility, curiosity, steadiness under pressure) were the source of his success, and his reputation deserves a full reassessment.
White, a Lincoln biographer, spent seven years in the Grant papers and produced a character-centred life that won the William Henry Seward Award for Excellence in Civil War Biography. His Grant is curious, reflective and generous, unusually skilled at handling difficult subordinates, and his wife Julia Dent Grant gets more space here than in most biographies. White also pays close attention to Grant's Methodist background and his writing. Publishers Weekly's main criticism, which other reviewers shared, is that the presidency gets thinner treatment than the war years. At 864 pages it is shorter than Chernow but still a big book.
Pick this if: Readers who want a warm, character-focused life and are most interested in Grant the man and the soldier. (Level: Beginner)
4. The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses Grant in War and Peace — H. W. Brands (2013)
Grant saved the Union twice: on the battlefield, and again as a president who guided the country through its most dangerous postwar decade.
The fastest-moving of the big modern biographies, by a two-time Pulitzer finalist who writes narrative history for general readers. Brands's argument is in the title: Grant saved the Union twice, first by winning the war and then, as president, by holding the reunited country together through Reconstruction, the fight with the Klan, the panic of 1873 and the disputed election of 1876. He gives the presidency more balanced space than White does, and also covers Grant's peace policy toward Native Americans. The trade-off for speed is less depth on military detail and fewer pauses for analysis; specialists find it more a strong narrative than a new interpretation.
Pick this if: Readers who want the whole life told briskly, with real weight on the White House years. (Level: Beginner)
5. Grant — Jean Edward Smith (2001)
Grant was a great general and an underrated president whose reputation was wrecked by his enemies, not by his record.
The book that started the modern rehabilitation for general readers. Smith, a biographer of John Marshall, FDR and Eisenhower, wrote a single-volume life that took both of Grant's careers seriously sixteen years before Chernow, arguing that his generalship rested on a grasp of the whole war that few contemporaries shared and that his presidency was more successful than its scandals suggest. It is shorter and more focused on decisions than Chernow, and still one of the clearest accounts of the 1864-65 campaigns. Later research, especially on the presidency, has added detail Smith did not have, and some reviewers found him too quick to excuse Grant's appointments.
Pick this if: Readers who want a solid, mid-length biography focused on Grant's decisions in war and office. (Level: Intermediate)
6. Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph over Adversity, 1822-1865 — Brooks D. Simpson (2014)
Grant's rise from failure to command was the product of hard-earned judgment and resilience, and the myths about him (the drunk, the butcher) do not survive close reading of the evidence.
The most rigorous scholarly study of Grant up to the end of the war, first published in 2000 as the first of a planned two volumes, by a historian who has spent his career on Grant (he also edited Grant's wartime papers and wrote Let Us Have Peace, on Grant's politics). Simpson is careful with evidence on the questions that matter most for Grant's reputation, including the drinking stories, the Shiloh surprise, and the casualties of the Overland Campaign, and he is neither a cheerleader nor a debunker. It stops in 1865, so it says nothing about the presidency; Calhoun's book below is the natural companion for the later years.
Pick this if: Readers who want the careful, evidence-first account of Grant's life and generalship to Appomattox. (Level: Advanced)
7. Grant Moves South, 1861-1863 — Bruce Catton (1990)
Grant learned to command by doing it, and the Vicksburg campaign showed a strategic boldness no other Union general matched.
The classic narrative of Grant's western campaigns, published in 1960 by the most widely read Civil War historian of his era. Catton took over the project from Lloyd Lewis, whose Captain Sam Grant (1950) covered the early life, and carried Grant from his Illinois regiment through Fort Donelson, Shiloh and the long, improvised campaign that ended with the surrender of Vicksburg in July 1863. Catton writes vividly and was already arguing, long before it was fashionable, that Grant was the war's outstanding commander. It is a 1960 book: the battle detail has been refined by later work, and it has little on enslaved people or the politics of emancipation.
Pick this if: Readers who want Grant's rise as a general told as a gripping story, campaign by campaign. (Level: Intermediate)
8. Grant Takes Command, 1863-1865 — Bruce Catton (1990)
Grant won the war by treating it as one coordinated campaign across every theater, applying pressure everywhere at once until the Confederacy broke.
The sequel, first published in 1969, covering Chattanooga, Grant's promotion to lieutenant general and command of all Union armies, the Overland Campaign against Lee, the siege of Petersburg and Appomattox. Catton is strongest on how Grant ran a continental war as a single strategy, coordinating Sherman, Sheridan and Meade, and on his working relationship with Lincoln. He tends to take Grant's side in disputes with other generals, and the hard question of the 1864 casualties (Cold Harbor above all) is handled more gently than modern readers may like. Read the two Catton volumes together for the war; they are the best pure military narrative of Grant's career.
Pick this if: Readers focused on Grant as general-in-chief and his duel with Lee. (Level: Intermediate)
9. The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant — Charles W. Calhoun (2023)
Grant's presidency, scandals included, was a serious and often effective administration that deserves to be judged on its whole record.
The most complete modern history of Grant's two terms (1869-1877), published in 2017 in the University Press of Kansas's American Presidency series and now in paperback. Calhoun, a specialist on Gilded Age politics, covers Reconstruction enforcement, the Treaty of Washington and the Alabama claims settlement with Britain, the failed bid to annex Santo Domingo, the panic of 1873, the Whiskey Ring and other scandals, and the Liberal Republican revolt against Grant. His overall judgment is that Grant was a more capable and principled president than his reputation suggests. Reviewers have noted that it is a history of the administration more than a biography, and some (for example Patrick Young at The Reconstruction Era) felt foreign policy crowds out the domestic fight over Reconstruction.
Pick this if: Readers who want the presidency in full detail, and the natural sequel to Simpson or Catton. (Level: Advanced)
10. Grant: A Biography — William S. McFeely (2002)
Grant was an ordinary man of limited talents who found himself only in war and was out of his depth as president.
The book every modern Grant biographer is arguing against. Published in 1981, it won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Biography, and for two decades it was the standard life. McFeely is a strong writer and takes Grant's inner life seriously, but his Grant is an ordinary man with no special gifts who found a purpose in war and then drifted through a presidency that failed Black Southerners. Later historians, Brooks Simpson in particular, challenged its handling of evidence on the war and the presidency, and most of the books above were written partly in response. Read it to understand the older consensus, not as your only Grant book.
Pick this if: Readers who have read a modern biography and want to see the case the rehabilitation was answering. (Level: Intermediate)
11. U.S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth — Joan Waugh (2013)
Grant's fall and rise in public memory was driven less by new facts about him than by how Americans chose to remember the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Not a biography but the best book on how Grant's reputation was made, lost and rebuilt. Waugh, a historian at UCLA, shows that at his death in 1885 most Americans placed Grant alongside Washington and Lincoln; his funeral drew huge crowds, and Grant's Tomb was for years one of New York's most visited monuments. She then traces how the Lost Cause view of the war and later historians' hostility to Reconstruction pushed him down, so that his generalship was dismissed and his presidency ranked near the bottom. It won the Jefferson Davis Award and the William Henry Seward Award. It is short and academic in tone, and assumes you already know the basic story of his life.
Pick this if: Readers who want to understand why the Grant of today's biographies is so different from the Grant they learned about in school. (Level: Advanced)
How Grant's reputation was rebuilt
When Grant died in July 1885, he was arguably the most admired man in the United States, and his funeral in New York was one of the largest public events of the century. Within a few decades that standing collapsed. Joan Waugh's book traces two forces behind the fall. The Lost Cause tradition, which cast Lee as the war's great general, needed Grant to be a blunt instrument who won only by numbers and casualties. And from the early 1900s the dominant school of Reconstruction history, associated with William A. Dunning, treated Reconstruction as a corrupt mistake, which made Grant's use of federal power to protect Black voters look like a failure rather than an achievement. Add the very real scandals of his administration, and Grant settled near the bottom of presidential rankings for most of the twentieth century.
The rebuilding came in stages. Bruce Catton's books (1960 and 1969) restored Grant the general for a wide audience. William McFeely's Pulitzer-winning Grant (1981) was more sympathetic to Reconstruction but kept a low view of Grant himself, and it provoked a generation of rebuttal, led by Brooks Simpson. By the 2000s, Jean Edward Smith's Grant (2001) and then the trio of Brands (2012), White (2016) and Chernow (2017) had made the revised view the mainstream one: a gifted strategist, and a president who did more than any other in the nineteenth century to enforce Black citizenship, including breaking the first Ku Klux Klan. Grant's position in historians' presidential surveys has risen accordingly, although the scandals and the slow retreat from Reconstruction in his second term remain real parts of the record that none of these books deny.
The live debates now are narrower. Historians still argue over how much blame Grant bears for the corruption of men he appointed and defended, whether his peace policy toward Native Americans was a reform or a failure, how to weigh the casualties of the 1864 Overland Campaign, and how serious his drinking really was (Chernow gives it more weight than most). On those questions, read Calhoun and Simpson for the most careful evidence.
How to read this list in order
Start with one complete life: Chernow if you want the fullest account, White if you care most about Grant's character, or Brands if you want the quickest read. Then read the Personal Memoirs, which will mean more once you know what Grant leaves out. If the war is what holds you, go next to the two Catton volumes for the campaigns, and Simpson for the scholarly view of Grant's military career. If the presidency interests you more, go straight to Calhoun. Finish with McFeely and Waugh together: McFeely shows you the Grant historians believed in for most of the last century, and Waugh explains how that picture was built and why it changed. For the wider war Grant fought, our guide The 10 Best Civil War Books is the next step.
At a glance
| Book | Year | Difficulty | Core focus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grant — Chernow | 2017 (this ed. 2018) | Beginner | The fullest one-volume life: war, presidency, drink, memoirs |
| Personal Memoirs — Grant | 1885-86 (this ed. 1999) | Intermediate | Primary source: Grant's own account to 1865 |
| American Ulysses — White | 2016 (this ed. 2017) | Beginner | Character-centred life; strongest on the man and the soldier |
| The Man Who Saved the Union — Brands | 2012 (this ed. 2013) | Beginner | Brisk narrative of war and presidency |
| Grant — Smith | 2001 | Intermediate | The first modern rehabilitation for general readers |
| Triumph over Adversity — Simpson | 2000 (this ed. 2014) | Advanced | Scholarly study of Grant to 1865 |
| Grant Moves South — Catton | 1960 (this ed. 1990) | Intermediate | Western campaigns through Vicksburg |
| Grant Takes Command — Catton | 1969 (this ed. 1990) | Intermediate | General-in-chief: Chattanooga to Appomattox |
| The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant — Calhoun | 2017 (this ed. 2023) | Advanced | Full history of the two terms, 1869-1877 |
| Grant: A Biography — McFeely | 1981 (this ed. 2002) | Intermediate | The Pulitzer-winning older consensus: an ordinary man |
| U.S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth — Waugh | 2009 (this ed. 2013) | Advanced | How Grant's reputation rose, fell and recovered |
Frequently asked questions
What is the best biography of Ulysses S. Grant?
Ron Chernow's Grant (2017) is the most complete and most recommended single-volume biography, covering his early failures, the Civil War, both presidential terms and his final years. Ronald C. White's American Ulysses (2016) and H. W. Brands's The Man Who Saved the Union (2012) are shorter alternatives that reach a similar, largely favorable verdict.
Is Chernow's Grant better than American Ulysses?
They are close. Chernow's Grant is longer and gives more space to the presidency, Reconstruction and Grant's struggle with alcohol. White's American Ulysses is more focused on Grant's character, his marriage to Julia Dent Grant and his military years, and reviewers noted it covers the presidency more lightly. If you only want one book that covers everything, choose Chernow; if you want a warmer, more personal portrait, choose White.
Are Grant's Personal Memoirs worth reading?
Yes. Grant's Personal Memoirs are widely regarded as one of the best memoirs by any American military leader, written in clear, plain prose while he was dying of cancer in 1884-85. They end in 1865, so they do not cover his presidency. The Penguin Classics edition with James McPherson's notes is the affordable choice; Elizabeth D. Samet's Annotated Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant (2018) is the heavily annotated version.
Was Ulysses S. Grant a good president?
Historians now rate him much higher than they did for most of the twentieth century. His administration enforced civil rights in the South and prosecuted the Ku Klux Klan, and settled the Alabama claims with Britain through the Treaty of Washington, but it was also damaged by scandals such as the Whiskey Ring. Charles W. Calhoun's The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant is the fullest study; Joan Waugh's U.S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth explains why his presidential reputation fell so low and then recovered.
What is the best book on Grant as a general?
For narrative, Bruce Catton's two volumes, Grant Moves South (1960) and Grant Takes Command (1969), remain the classic account of his campaigns from Fort Donelson to Appomattox. For a more rigorous modern study, read Brooks D. Simpson's Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph over Adversity, 1822-1865. Grant's own Personal Memoirs are the essential primary source.
Was Grant really an alcoholic?
It is still debated. Ron Chernow's Grant argues that Grant struggled with alcohol throughout his adult life but mostly kept it under control, especially during campaigns, and that stories of him drunk on the battlefield were largely invented by enemies. Brooks Simpson's Triumph over Adversity is more cautious and weighs each story against the evidence. Most historians agree the drinking never affected his conduct of the war in the way his critics claimed.
Explore related events on the timeline
Related guides
- The 10 Best Civil War Books
- The Best Biographies of Abraham Lincoln
- The Best Books on the History of the United States
Sources consulted
- Chernow, Grant (Penguin Books paperback, Penguin Random House)
- Grant, Personal Memoirs, ed. James M. McPherson (Penguin Classics)
- White, American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant (Random House)
- Brands, The Man Who Saved the Union (Anchor, Penguin Random House)
- McFeely, Grant: A Biography (W. W. Norton)
- Waugh, U.S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth (UNC Press, via Project MUSE)
- Patrick Young, review of Calhoun, The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant (The Reconstruction Era)
- Publishers Weekly review of Simpson, Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity
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