Joan Waugh: How the "Lost Cause" Poisoned Our History Books

Joan Waugh is a professor in the UCLA History Department. Her newest book is entitled U. S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth (University of North Carolina Press, 2009).

Ulysses S. Grant, the commanding general of the Union Army and the 18th president of the United States, would have been 189 years old last week -- not long after the "official" opening of the Civil War Sesquicentennial, which will run through 2015.

Grant -- like George Washington and Dwight D. Eisenhower -- was both a professional warrior of a defining war and a twice-elected president. And like Washington and Eisenhower he dominated his era, which in his case encompassed both the Civil War and its aftermath, called Reconstruction, from 1862 (when he rocketed to fame with his defeat of Confederate forces at Fort Donelson) to 1876.

At the end of the war, Gen. Grant stood with Republicans in making sure that Union victory was secured on northern terms, restoring the rights and privileges of citizenship to white southerners, but also protecting the rights and establishing the citizenship of the freed people. While president, Grant believed that he was carrying out Abraham Lincoln’s plan of a prosperous reunited country, in the end going further than Lincoln envisioned to ensure black civil rights.

After leaving the presidency, Grant made a triumphal tour of the world from 1877 to 1879, hailed by millions across Europe, India, China and Japan as a military hero and leader of an emerging democratic global power. Retiring to New York City, the ex-president lost his entire savings in a financial scandal and was reduced to poverty. To earn money, he agreed to write about his wartime experiences for Century magazine’s spectacularly successful "Battle and Leaders”" series. Grant's contributions proved so popular that he decided to write his military memoirs, just as he was diagnosed with throat cancer.

While dying of the cancer in 1884 and 1885, Grant completed the writing of his autobiography, which brought renewed reverence from many citizens. The two-volume "Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant" sold 300,000 copies and became a perennial bestseller. Grant's volumes delivered a beautifully rendered narrative of the Civil War written from the viewpoint of the man, after Lincoln, most closely identified with bringing about Northern victory. Although imbued with the spirit of reconciliation between the sections, Grant's account made clear that it was the Northern cause -- union and emancipation -- that would forever remain the morally superior one. The "Personal Memoirs" volumes are considered one of the greatest autobiographies of the English language, earning classic status as both literature and history....