Facing Death: Grant at Mount McGregor
I recently came across a nice television piece on what is now known as the Grant Cottage. It’s not the easiest place to visit: it is the most important Grant site that I have yet to visit (although my parents visited the cottage years ago).
The caretaker is more right than she knows about Grant reading (and commenting) on newspaper speculation about his dying. He did not care for criticism of his doctors, but otherwise he usually seemed amused by the various reports.
Grant’s Memoirs remain something of a masterpiece of American literature. Considering the circumstances under which they were composed, the volumes are even more of an achievement than one might suppose. They tell the story of the war from Grant’s perspective: one of the Memoirs’ achievements is that it is left to the discerning reader to understand that Grant is, indeed, making his case, countering critics, slighting certain people, and so on. The Memoirs has its share of errors and questionable interpretations, and, as one might suspect, those who don’t care for Grant make the most of what they can of those errors and impute the worst of motives to him.
But for me the real story is how Grant faced death by focusing on an important task, motivated by the desire to do what he could do for his family. That human drama is often overlooked, even in Grant biographies. Also overlooked until recently is how Grant, both in his writing and in the way he lived his last year, reached out to reconcile with old foes while refusing to concede the rightness of the Union cause or to abandon his belief that the sectional crisis was fundamentally due to slavery. David Blight and Joan Waugh have written about this, and you can be sure I’m doing so as well in the second volume of the biography.
I’ve had cause to reflect on people writing books while facing death. Earlier this month, New York Yankee ballplayer and announcer Bobby Murcer passed away after battling brain cancer for nineteen months. He hurried to place his recollections on paper, and while no one will hail the result, Yankee for Life, as an instant masterpiece, still one sees Murcer’s essential decency, sense of humor, and concern for others, much as Grant’s self-assuredness and cast of mind come through in his book. Murcer’s book isn’t a whisper-and-tell book, but neither does it shy away from personal disappointments (including stints with the Giants and Cubs) … rather, he rarely dwells on them, although he expresses regret at how Mickey Mantle treated himself. Something of the same tenor is evident in Grant’s book.
Like Grant, Murcer faced death bravely. Like Grant, he did not spend time feeling sorry about himself, and he thought of his family. Like Grant, he remained alive long enough to learn how much people loved him. I tip my cap to both men.
Harry wrote:
“…Grant is, indeed, making his case, countering critics, slighting certain people, and so on.”
So many times I’ve heard Grant’s memoirs described as “self effacing”, and on the surface, they seem to be. But when you pay attention, each such anecdote is typically followed by a “but I sure showed ‘em.” He was certainly making his case.
I read the memoir as two separate books, and when I consider the circumstances under which they were written – particularly Volume II – I think that’s understandable. But I find the second volume less, umm, meaty. Heavier on ORs, not as interesting, for lack of a better term. I may have been influenced by the edition I chose, which includes correspondence from the period about which Grant wrote (I didn’t notice much of an objection to the war in Mexico in his letters of the time, in contrast to his recollections) and notes written to his doctors as death approached.
The work is a wonderment.
Posted on 29-Jul-08 at 8:41 pm | Permalink
tobyj wrote:
I cam across this story some years ago, unfortunately it was uncited.
When Grant was on the way to Mount McGregor, at one point his private train (I think it was Cornelius Vanderbilt’s) was pulled into a siding. From inside the carriage Grant and his family could see into a signalman’s shanty. They could see that the signalman had only one hand.
Just after the signalman gave the train its clearance, he stepped out of the shanty and held up the stump at the end of his arm. He called out:
“I lost that hand at the Wilderness, General Grant, but I would give my other one to see you well again.”
That story just gets to me. But it does strike at the myth that Grant was unloved or disliked by his troops.
Posted on 30-Jul-08 at 5:29 am | Permalink
New York History wrote:
Grant’s Cottage has been closed for some time – it’s on the grounds of a prison. I believe they’ve made arrangements for visitors by appointment.
Posted on 30-Jul-08 at 9:34 am | Permalink
Jim Epperson wrote:
Harry, the second volume was written well into Grant’s illness, which is why it is so much more problematic than the first.
There’s a couple of interesting books on Grant’s last years. I like the one by Goldhurst, “Many are the hearts.”
Posted on 31-Jul-08 at 11:37 am | Permalink
Sue wrote:
I’m sure that if he had written his memoirs without the knowledge that he was on the brink of death they would have had a different flavor.
I’m not sure in what way but is seems to me to be a pretty good bet..
Posted on 02-Aug-08 at 7:25 am | Permalink
Harry wrote:
Jim,
Grant’s health and the attendant treatment of same were the understandable circumstances to which I alluded. The fact that his illness had advanced and he was being prescribed more medicine, particularly cocaine, probably contributed to the difference in quality between the two volumes.
Posted on 02-Aug-08 at 11:39 pm | Permalink