Grant: The Man who Won The Civil War by Robin Neillands, who is the author of several acclaimed works on the First World War including `The Death of Glory', `The Great War Generals on the Western Front', `Attrition: The Great War on the Western Front, 1916' and `The Old Contemptibles'.
Sam Grant made famous the expression `unconditional surrender', which is how most of his campaigns ended - for his opponents.
A hard-drinking soldier in a hard-drinking army, he led the Union armies to victory, first in the West and then in the East, eventually compelling the main Confederate army under Robert E. Lee to surrender at Appomattox in 1865.
Yet at the beginning of the Civil War no one, least of all the man himself, anticipated that Grant would lead the Union forces to victory.
Ulysses S. Grant was a failure as a pre-war soldier. His subsequent business career was even worse. His emergence as a successful general and eventual promotion to Commander-in-Chief is a stunning example of how a soldier's peacetime career sometimes gives no indication of how he will perform in a major war.
Robin Neillands investigates how and why Grant emerged from pre-war obscurity and whether his ultimate victory was won by brains or brawn.
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