The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
In the last days of his life, explains William S. McFeely, Ulysses S. Grant, Civil War General and twice President of the United States, sat on the porch of his home at Mount McGregor writing the story of his life.
Presidents of the United States have not always been excessively modest. It is surprising, therefore, how few of them have written their own stories. Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower are two twentieth-century presidents who wrote memoirs and, much earlier, both John Adams and John Quincy Adams wrote autobiographically, but the Adamses left it to others to make books of their work. Abraham Lincoln's speeches have literary as well as political significance, but his assassination precluded any writing about his own place in the drama of the Civil War.
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