So you think today’s national politics is a mess?

Sure, I’ll give you that the Republicans and Democrats are having a bit of a problem getting along. Both sides seem to be at war with their own party members. The current occupant of the White House seems to be at odds with himself. 

The Russians are doing something. No one is really sure what they are up to, except it is probably bad. That is why a special counsel and his hotshot legal team are lurking behind closed doors. No one seems to know what they are up to, but they seem to be scaring the dickens out of everyone within view of the Washington Monument.  

As usual, everyone hates the press.

Worse times ever? Right?

Wrong, my friend. Not even close.

Let's go back, say, 150 years or so as the United States was on the brink of civil war over the question of slavery, which brings me to the point of this mini-essay. 

A young man from Ohio, not far from Cincinnati, was “trying to solve a poverty problem” by selling firewood from a hand truck on the streets of St. Louis. Despite his West Point education and stellar performance in the Mexican War, he had been kicked out of the Army after losing a few battles with Demon Rum. As the nation stumbled towards war, this young man was working as a clerk in his family store, when anti-union forces in Charleston, South Carolina fired on Fort Sumpter and the Civil War began.

The store clerk hooked up with a group of local volunteers where his military experience earned him the rank of captain. Within three years, he would be a three-star general commanding the massive Union Armies. As you may have guessed, his name was Ulysses S. Grant.

Today, there is a new biography of him at the top of the New York Times list of best sellers. It was written by Ron Chernow, a distinguished author who won the Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Alexander Hamilton.

Santa Claus brought a copy of “Grant” to our house and I can’t put it down.

But, don’t take my word for it. Last week Damariscotta’s Lincoln Theater presented a filmed conversation on “Grant” where the author was interviewed by none other than retired U.S. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus.

Civil War buffs know the story of how Grant came to lead the Union Army to victory. Petraeus, a student of military history and a huge Grant fan, explained how he fought the battles that won the war.

The two men explained that over the years, despite whipping Robert E. Lee and winning the war, his reputation was trashed by the fans of the Confederacy. They blamed him (and Lincoln) for overturning the racial balance of the south. Northern political enemies turned against him too. After Lee surrendered and Lincoln was assassinated, the book explains how Grant navigated the turbulent political waters that saw President Andrew Johnson impeached, but not convicted after he tried to restore the rule of the southern aristocracy. 

After Grant was elected president, he was faced with what Chernow calls the largest movement of domestic terrorism in our history. The empowerment of freed slaves threatened the white power structure giving rise to widespread murder by the robed night riders of the Ku Klux Klan.

To combat the terrorism, Grant presided over the creation of the Justice Department. Paired with military authorities they stopped that second rebellion.
Along the way, Chernow mentions how blacks outnumbered whites in South Carolina and Mississippi and the widespread fears in other states over what the freed slaves would do if they were in power. There still seems to be a bit of this in our nation today.

In the end, Grant, pummeled by his political opponents and political scandals, left office and toured the world only to come back home to find that he had left his life savings with a Bernie Madoff type character. He woke up one morning thinking he had a million bucks in the bank and found out it had shrunk to just $80.

Suddenly, he was again faced “with a poverty problem.”

Although dying from throat cancer, Grant was hired by Mark Twain to write a two-volume memoir. Working in longhand, it was completed just before he died.

Twain sold some 300,000 copies of the memoir through subscriptions peddled by former Union soldiers. Grant’s dying efforts earned his widow a check for $450,000, a sum equal to about $10 million today, said Chernow.

Chernow’s “Grant” is a heavy read, but it is full of convincing details that redeem the reputation of the Civil War hero/president, bringing him back to the front row of America’s best leaders.

Stay tuned, Petraeus said, a movie is in the works.