Many old and new friends have asked: what does one do after writing a biography of Abraham Lincoln? I am pleased to announce I have signed a contract with Random House to write a comprehensive biography of Ulysses S. Grant. Grant is our greatest Civil War General and the only President to be elected to two terms (1868-1876) between Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson. But he was so much more — as I intend to show in a biography that will treat the full life of Grant — youth, West Point, Mexican War, soldier, farmer, Civil War General, President, world traveler, and, as he was dying from cancer, the author of the greatest presidential memoir ever written — it has never been out of print. And Julia. Julia, so undervalued by biographers, married young Ulysses and, so devoted to each other, formed one of the most remarkable marriages in American political history.
2011-2015 will mark the commemoration of the Civil War. In March, 1864, Grant was summoned to Washington to meet Abraham Lincoln for the first time. Finally, after many false starts, Lincoln had found his general and offered him command of all the Union forces. The biography is scheduled to be published in 2014 — 150 years after Grant took command.
I am traveling this week to Ohio, where Grant was born and lived the first seventeen years of his life, to participate in “Grant Days” (April 24) in Georgetown, Ohio. I am coming at the invitation of Lisa Corum Fox, my former student at Whitworth College and Princeton Seminary. Lisa, who is an expert on the Underground Railroad and the churches, will offer a presentation during Grant Days.
I will speak on Sunday, April 25, at the West Union Presbyterian Church, the church Lisa serves, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the founding of the congregation.
For a complete list of my upcoming speaking events please click (here).
