Grant and Sherman: Civil War Memoirs

For the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, The Library of America re-issues the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman in a handsome, newly designed case. An ailing Grant wrote his Personal Memoirs to secure his family's future. In doing so, the Civil War's greatest general won himself a unique place in American letters. John Keegan has called it "perhaps the most revelatory autobiography of high command to exist in any language." The Library of America's edition of Grant's Memoirs includes 175 of his letters to Lincoln, Sherman, and his wife, Julia, among others. Hailed as a prophet of modern war and condemned as a harbinger of modern barbarism, William T. Sherman is the most controversial general of the Civil War. "War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it," he wrote in fury to the Confederate mayor of Atlanta, and his memoir is filled with dozens of such wartime exchanges and a fascinating account of the famous march through Georgia and the Carolinas.

LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.“Anyone who wishes to know how and why the North won the Civil War can do no better than to read these volumes.” —James McPherson, author of Battle Cry of FreedomUlysses S. Grant (1822-1885) was commanding general of the United States Army in the Civil War and the 18th president of the United States.

William Tecumseh Sherman (1820–1891) was a general in the Union Army during the Civil War. When Ulysses S. Grant was elelcted president in 1869, Sherman succeeded him as Commanding General of the U.S. Army, serving from 1869 until 1883.