U. S. Grant: The Civil War Years: Grant Moves South and Grant Takes Command

Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Bruce Catton's two-volume biography of Union commander Ulysses S. Grant during the Civil War. Grant Moves South follows Grant's early wartime command of the Twenty-First Illinois Volunteer Infantry. Despite lacking military political experience and facing peer skepticism, Grant achieved successive victories at Belmont, Fort Henry, and Fort Donelson. He navigated near-disaster and prevailed at Shiloh, then secured a decisive victory at Vicksburg that severed the Confederacy's control of the Mississippi River. Grant Takes Command begins in summer 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln promoted Grant to head the Army of the Potomac. Grant's strategic thinking and determination produced the Confederacy's defeat in the Overland Campaign in Virginia and the Siege of Petersburg. In spring 1865, Grant forced Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House, concluding the conflict. Lincoln's assassination followed days later, but Grant's battlefield victories preserved the principles of unity and freedom the president championed. Drawn from military communiqués, eyewitness accounts, and Grant's own writings, this biography presents an in-depth portrait of Grant's strategic brilliance and role in the Confederacy's downfall.