>> David Moskowitz:
Good afternoon. Welcome everybody. I'm David Moskowitz. I'm head of Government Relations and Public Policy
at Wells Fargo. And I'm very pleased to
be here with you today. We are pleased to serve for the
eight year as a charter sponsor of the Book Festival
and even prouder to watch the Book Festival grow
into the incredibly popular and impactful event
it has become. In fact, I wouldn't be
surprised-- [applause]. Thank you. I wouldn't be surprised
to see us move the needle on some bestseller list today. But it's even more important to keep the Book Festival a free
event that serves the community. The Library of Congress and the
Book Festival's real purpose here is literacy, which leads
to learning and opportunity which matches our goal of
helping our community succeed. Learning to love
books and learning to love learning are what the
Book Festival is all about. In this session, Ron Chernow
will discuss his biography of Ulysses S. Grant. If we're lucky, certain
other popular founding fathers [laughter]. One thing I learned
from the story of President Grant was
how people can evolve and through persistence
and hard work, acknowledge and overcome their
imperfections. It's an incredible story that
reminded me that a person of goodwill can really
learn from their mistakes and reach their potential. Hope you enjoy this session. Now it's my privilege to
introduce the deputy director of National and International
Outreach at the Library of Congress and our
session moderator, Colleen Shogan [applause]. >> Colleen Shogan:
[Applause] Thank you. Thank you. Welcome to the 18th Annual
National Book Festival. I'm pleased to be joined on
stage today by Ron Chernow. Ron is an award-winning
journalist, historian, and biographer. He's won the Pulitzer
Prize for Biography and the National Book
Award for Nonfiction. In 2015, he won the
National Humanities Medal. His book on Alexander
Hamilton was the inspiration for the award-winning
musical for which Ron worked as a historical consultant. The Library of Congress
is honored to have you join us today at
the National Book Festival. [ Applause ] That's-- It's worth noting that
our co-chair of the festival, Mr. David Rubenstein
was supposed to conduct this interview today,
but due to scheduling changes, because of Senator McCain's
funeral, he was unable to do so. But I have David's
questions here today. And I just happened
to be a big admirer of Ulysses S. Grant
and Ron's books. So I think we're going to have
a fantastic time here today at the Book Festival. Before we talk about Grant,
we need to ask a question about Alexander Hamilton
[laughter]. How could we not? >> Ron Chernow: Who's he? >> Colleen Shogan: Who's he? So when Lin-Manuel Miranda
first approached you, and said that he wanted to create a hip-hop musical
based upon your book, what was your reaction? And did you ever think it would
become a cultural phenomenon? >> Ron Chernow: Well, you
know, very often, Colleen, people say to me, "When you're
writing the Alexander Hamilton biography, did you have any
idea that it would be turned into a hip-hop musical?" And I always think to myself, I think the question
answers itself [laughter]. When I first met Lin-Manuel
Miranda, which was back in the fall of 2008,
Lin was still starting in his first musical,
"In the Heights". And he asked me on the spot
to be the historical advisor to this as yet nonexistent show. So I laughed and I
said to him, "You mean, you want me to tell you
when something is wrong?" And he said with great
fervor, he said, "Yes, I want the historians
to take this seriously," which was music to my years. And I was-- I was a
little bit skeptical but I was quite intrigued,
and I thought that nothing could
be more delightful than to watch the evolution
of a Broadway musical. I was a lifelong theatergoer. And the offer to be
on the other side of the foot lights was
absolutely irresistible. And of course, it turned out
to be a rocket ride far, far-- >> Colleen Shogan:
Right, absolutely. >> Ron Chernow: -- beyond anything that I
could have anticipated. >> Colleen Shogan: So
we move on to Grant, which you've certainly written
the definitive biography of Grant. And I have to start with
kind of a cute question, but it has a good story to it. Who's buried in Grant's tomb? >> Ron Chernow: Wow [laughter]. When I first started working
on the book which was in 2011, I found that approximately half
the people whom I told I was working on Grant shout back,
who's buried in Grant's tomb? So naturally, I got
very interested in the origin of this joke. Well, I traced it
back to Groucho Marx. You can trace everything back
to Groucho Marx [laughter]. And Groucho, some of you
are old enough to remember, had a quiz show in the 1950s
called "You Bet Your Life." And Groucho was dismayed
that so many of the contestants could
not answer a single one of the questions. So Groucho decided that he would
ask every contestant a question that every contestant
could answer. And that question was, who's
buried in Grant's tomb? To Groucho's astonishment, half the guests got
it wrong [laughter]. But such is the staying
power of the great comedian that the line has become
part of the popular culture. >> Colleen Shogan: Let's start
at the beginning with Grant. Where was he born? What were the conditions
of his upbringing? What was his family like? >> Ron Chernow: He was born
in Point Pleasant, Ohio. He grew up in the
series of small towns in Southwestern Ohio
near Cincinnati. And Point Pleasant was
right on the Ohio River. And the significance of that was
that it separated the free state of Ohio from the
slave-owning state of Kentucky. In fact, on winter evenings,
the Ohio would freeze over and refugee, fugitive slaves
would sprint to freedom. Very important I think in terms
of thinking about Grant later with Appomattox that he grew
up really straddling, you know, the world of both
North and South and understood both
of their cultures. He came from actually
fairly well-to-do family. His father was a rich tanner and
mayor of one those three towns. And his father was really
the bane of his life. His father was a very pushy
and domineering character. And then Grant went
to West Point because Grant wanted
go to West Point? No, he did not but his
father wanted him to go. And his father was kind of a
skinflint who saw West Point as a free form of
vocational education. >> Colleen Shogan: How
did he do at West Point? >> Ron Chernow: Actually
fairly well. I would say his performance
was lackluster. He was 21st in the class of 39 but there was already
considerable attrition before that. He became famous for two
things at the academy. One was he was probably the
best horsemen of his generation, if not century at the academy. He established a high-jumping
record on his horse named York. They set the bar at
more than five feet and Grant managed to clear it. It was a record that
was not equalled for many decades at the academy. He was also very
good at drawing. Now, this may seem
strange and insignificant, but cadets required drawing
because it was thought important for generals to be able to
draw maps during battles, and Grant was very
good at drawing. And during the Civil War,
he had an uncanny ability to visualize the battlefield. And it all comes from this
very visual sense that he had, and it was first reflected
in his capacity to draw. >> Colleen Shogan: After
West Point, he has a number of assignments, then
he eventually ends up as a quartermaster
in the Mexican War. Why is his service
as a quartermaster, why does that turned
out to be important? >> Ron Chernow: Extremely
important because being quartermaster
in Mexico gave Grant a nuts and bolts knowledge of
the logistics of an army. And kind of looking ahead
to the Civil War, you know, Grant would be in
charged of four or five different
armies stretched across 1300-mile front. And so Grant's mastery
of logistics, his mastery of the railroad and
the telegraph really enabled him to supervise these vast
armies, and it goes back to being quartermaster
at Mexico. And also very importantly
as quartermaster, Grant was not obligated
to actually fight. He could have stayed
behind the lines, but he may appoint volunteering
to fight in every single combat that his troops were involved. And that's kind of real
courage, that's real patriotism. >> Colleen Shogan: After Mexican
War, he marries Julia Dent. And what was she like and
what was her family like? >> Ron Chernow: OK. So, Grant comes from this
abolitionist family in Ohio. He marries into a
slave-owning family in Missouri. His father-in-law,
Colonel Frederick Dent. The colonel was purely
honorific, becomes bane of his life. It's very hard on Grant. Julia was very outgoing
and vivacious. And Julia always had a
vision of Grant's future that he sometimes
did not have himself. During the 1850s, he's trying
and failing to establish himself as a farmer in St. Louis and he
fails at a real estate venture. And during this vaguely
period in Grant's life, Julia has a dream one night. She dreams that her
husband is going to be president of
the United States. And when she tells
her friends and family about this dream,
everyone laughs. Nothing can say more
preposterous. This man is struggling just to support a wife
and four children. Julia knew. >> Colleen Shogan: You spent a
fair amount in the book talking about Grant's struggle
with alcohol. >> Ron Chernow: Mm-hmm. >> Colleen Shogan:
What did you conclude? Did he have a problem
with drinking? And what sort of
evidence did you use to draw those conclusions? >> Ron Chernow: Well,
historically, the debate about Grant
has always been, you know, was he a drunkard or not? And I always found just the
term drunkard is such a kind of loaded, moralistic term,
because it implies that a person who was dissipated and
irresponsible and who's kind of gleefully indulging
this vice. And I felt that I
tried to approach it through what I hope is a
more enlightened attitude. He was an alcoholic. I say that because he could
never have just one drink. I say that because
even one glass of alcohol changed
his personality. But this was something
that he struggled against his entire life. He was already a member
of the Temperance Lodge when he was in his 20s. The reason I think there's
been so much difficulty that previous writers had
with Grant's drinking is that he was a binge drinker. He was an episodic drinker,
so that he could go for two or three months without
touching a glass of alcohol. He would then have two or three
day benders that even people who are close to him but would
not actually see him during those sprees as they were cold. And so-- But it's a problem
that he struggles with, and by the time he
becomes president, he's largely conquered it. But it certainly is a problem that bedevils him
throughout the Civil War. >> Colleen Shogan:
Right, and that causes him to leave the military, precipitates an exit
from the military? >> Ron Chernow: Yes. In 1854, he was assigned
to a couple of very lonely bleak garrisons
in Oregon, Northern California where he could not afford to
bring his wife and children. He was lonely. He was depressed. He starts drinking. And then in 1854, he shows up
one day to pay table drunk, and is really drummed out
of the surface-- service. It was very significant because
the peacetime army was really very small. And so, there was a
very active rumor mills. So, all of the stories
of Grant's history of drinking will follow
him into the Civil War, and will very much kind of
color how people see him. I think that probably were it
not for that history and all of these stories about
Grant's drinking, Abraham Lincoln might well have
brought Grant east much sooner in the war to act
as general-in-chief. >> Colleen Shogan:
So Grant is civilian and you have a very
poignant description of him. He ends up on the streets of
St. Louis selling firewood to support his family. How does that happen? >> Ron Chernow: Yeah. OK, tried making it as a farmer. Julia has a wedding
gift from her father, received 60 acres
which Grant worked. He was very industrious but
he could not make a go of it. So he ends up taking firewood
10 miles into St. Louis and he actually walks
beside the wagon. People who saw him in
those days selling firewood on street corners in St. Louis
said that he was bearded, disheveled, unkempt looking. In fact, one of his old
army buddies ran into him on the street and
was really shocked by Grant's unkempt appearance. And he said to him,
"Grant, what are you doing?" Grant's response was
very poignant, he said, "I'm solving the
problem of poverty." He was so poor at that-- yeah,
he was so poor at that point that one Christmas, he
had to pawn his watch to buy a Christmas
presents for his family. This was Circa 1857. Civil War breaks out 1861. >> Colleen Shogan: Then
something happens, Fort Sumter. And you write in your book, Grant eventually joins the
volunteer infantry in Illinois and then gets a position
in the Union Army. And you write in your book
that a change overcomes Grant. What was that change? >> Ron Chernow: Well, you
know, the Civil War broke out, there was a desperate
shortage of officers. You have to remember
about a third of the army officers
were from the South. So many of them, most of them
defected to the confederacy. So there was a crying
need for trained people. Grant still had all of that war from West Point story
in his mind. He had fought with great
distinction in the Mexican War, had been assigned to four
different frontier garrisons before the Civil War. And so, his efficiency and his
military knowledge immediately come to the fore. And so, Grant's rise gives new
meaning to the term meteoric. Two months after the outbreak of
the Civil War, he's a colonel. Four months after, he's
a brigadier general. Twelve months after the outbreak of the Civil War,
he's a major general. And by the end of the Civil War,
this man who had been working as a clerk in his father's
leather goods store in Galena, Illinois back in 1860,
that man who had seem like a certifiable failure
in life was general-in-chief of the Union Army with
one million soldiers under his command far and
away the largest military establishment in the country
up until at that time. >> Colleen Shogan: Now, he
had some early victories that catches the eye of
Lincoln, is that right? >> Ron Chernow: Yeah,
absolutely. You know, very often, the
history of the Civil War, there's kind of a disproportionate
focus on Virginia. And if you look at Virginia, it seems like the confederacy
is winning battle after battle. If you look at what was
happening in the western theater of war, Grant was winning
one victory after another. And in early, 1862, he
has kind of twin battles against Twin Forts all the
way in the northwest corner of Tennessee, Forts
Henry and Donelson. They were significant
for the following reason. Fort Henry was on the Tennessee
River, Fort Cumberland on the-- sorry, Fort Donelson on
the Cumberland River. And those two rivers penetrated
deep into the confederacy, particularly Grant's victory
at Fort Donelson was the first of three times that he captured
an entire confederate army, it's more than 13,000 people. It also led to a new
nickname for Grant because the confederate general
inside the fort was Simon Buckner, who wanted to
send the message to Grant that he wanted commissioner's
appointed to negotiate a truce. And Grant wrote back, you know,
no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender
will be accepted. I proposed to move upon
your works immediately. That unconditional surrender
line, it became instead of US-Grant, it became
unconditional surrender Grant. It was really kind of the
first large scale of victory of the war for the north. >> Colleen Shogan: In late 1862, he issues general
order number 11-- >> Ron Chernow: Yeah. >> Colleen Shogan: -- which expels the Jews from his
military district in the South because he believes
that they are engaged in a illegal black-market
cotton ring. >> Ron Chernow: That's
right, yeah. >> Colleen Shogan: And was Grant
anti-semitic or did he regret that decision later on? >> Ron Chernow: No. I mean he regretted it almost
as soon as he issued it. As soon as Lincoln and secretary
of war Edwin Stanton saw it, they immediately overrode it. Grant said that he did
regret it almost instantly. It was an atrocious and
inexcusable thing to do. People know that piece
of the story, you know. What they don't know
is Grant spent the rest of his life atoning
for that action. As president, he appointed
more Jews to public office and all the other 19th
century presidents combined. He became the first
president to speak out on human rights
abuses abroad. And in both cases, it was
because of persecution of the Jews, one time in
Russia, one time in Poland. And most of remarkable of
all since he was sitting here in Washington, D.C., during the
last year of his second term, he was invited to the dedication of the synagogue called Adas
Israel, a very tiny synagogue. Grant went with his son
and with a US senator. It was a three-hour ceremony. Here is president of
the United States, this was a congregation
probably had 40 or 50 people. One hour into the
dedication of this synagogue, the elders of this synagogue
went over to Grant and said, "Mr. President, we're very
touched that you would come to this, you know,
humble function. You can leave now
in good conscience." Grant insisted on staying
the full three hours, reached into his pocket, gave
a donation to the synagogue. He was not-- It was kind of one of the pleasurable
things writing about him. He was not a prejudiced man. He was not a man, you know,
full of hatred, you know. You could read-- I don't know,
say William Tecumseh Sherman, his statements on, you know,
blacks or Native Americans kind of hair-raising,
ferocious things. You don't see that in
Grant's papers at all. So this was something that was
really very out of character for him and luckily he
apologized and atoned for it the rest of his life. >> Colleen Shogan: He has a
number of other successes. He has more manpower at
this time, more resources, and then he has the
victory at Vicksburg. Why is Vicksburg so impressive? And why it was really
a daring capture? >> Ron Chernow: Yeah, well,
it happened, you know, in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Memphis had fallen
to Union forces. And it meant that the one great
citadel, the one great bastion on the Mississippi River left to
the confederacy was Vicksburg. Vicksburg was located-- at
that time, there was a bend in the Mississippi there that
forced folks to slow down. There was seven miles of
very elaborate fortification. So it really seemed like
this impregnable fortress. Grant had really very daring
strategy to take Vicksburg. Under cover of night, he had
ironclads and transports come down the river despite heavy
shelling from the confederates. He also marched some troops down the western bank
of the Mississippi. They then crossed over
south of Vicksburg to the only high dry land
in that area, and then kind of Grant has this
lightning campaign. He wins five major victories
in a three-week period, surrounds Vicksburg, lay siege
to it and Vicksburg surrenders. It was the same time as
the victory at Gettysburg. And for a second time, Grant has
captured an entire confederate army of more than
30,000 soldiers. And so at that point, the
Union not only controlled the Mississippi but it bisected
the confederacy because a lot of the supplies, particularly
horses and livestock, came from west of
the Mississippi. So the confederate army
was suddenly cut off from this major source of supplies west
of the Mississippi. And that was Grant. >> Colleen Shogan: When did
President Lincoln bring Grant east to lead the Union army? >> Ron Chernow: Well, what
happens in February 1864, Congress passes a bill
reinstating the tittle of lieutenant general. The only one who had ever held
that was George Washington. Winfield Scott had kind of
brevet lieutenant general. And Grant becomes that
lieutenant general. It's a wonderful story
because in March 1864, he comes to Washington,
although Lincoln loved Grant, he'd never actually
set eyes on him before. Grant happened to
arrive at the same day that Lincoln was
having reception at the White House
in the Blue Room. And Grant goes in. Lincoln warmly embraces him. And there were such pandemonium
in the room because Grant was such a hero, that they urged
Grant to stand up on a sofa so that people could see him
because he was relatively short. He stands up on the sofa. He's perspiring profusely so
that people could see him. And Grant was always a
little socially awkward. And Grant later said that the
hottest campaign he ever fought was standing on that sofa
[laughter] in the White House. >> Colleen Shogan: So Grant was
impressive on a tactical level? >> Ron Chernow: Yeah. >> Colleen Shogan: On
an operational level. >> Ron Chernow: Yeah. >> Colleen Shogan: And
on a strategic level. >> Ron Chernow: Yeah. >> Colleen Shogan: How rare was that to find all three
qualities in a general? And how that he compare to
Robert E. Lee in that regard? >> Ron Chernow: Well, Sherman
had a very interesting comment where he was comparing
a Grant and Lee. He said that Grant's
strategy embraced a continent. Lee's strategy embraced
a state, Virginia. That is Grant in a way
had the harder task. Lee just had to inflict so
much pain on Union forces that the northern
public would weary and decide to give up the war. Grant actually had to capture and destroy Robert
E. Lee's army, and he really had
a strategic vision because the various Union
armies in different theaters of war had been operating
independently of each other. Grant coordinated their
movements so that they-- he turned them into a
single fighting force. And he saw that the way to
wear down the confederacy is by having Union forces
simultaneously attack different confederate army so
that they could not kind of switch reinforcements
from one to another. And he finally pins
Robert E. Lee down in Richmond in Petersburg. And there's another wonderful
comment from Sherman. Sherman said about
Grant, he said, "Robert E. Lee would
attack the front porch." He said, "Ulysses S. Grant would
attack the bedroom and kitchen." I'm not sure what he meant
about the bedroom, I don't what to go there [laughter]. But in terms of attacking
the kitchen, that again this goes back
to Grant, a quartermaster, what he did with
Lee in Richmond, Petersburg is he
began systematically to cut off every railway
line and every canal that was feeding
supplies to Lee's army. Finally starving it
out and forcing him to flee West Appomattox
Courthouse where Grant and Sherman overtake Lee's
army and forced its surrender. And that was then the
third confederate army that Grant captured. Robert E. Lee never
captured a single Union army. >> Colleen Shogan: How
does Grant conduct himself at Appomattox? >> Ron Chernow: Oh, it's the
most touching part of the story because he refuses to allow his
soldiers to gloat or celebrate. He is very generous. These confederate soldiers
literally are starving. He issues rations to feed them. He allows the confederate
officers to keep their horses
and firearms. And really I think the
most beautiful passage in Grant's memoirs are-- is
about the meeting at Appomattox because Grant said
that he was sad and depressed when he met Lee. And he writes, "I felt like
anything rather than rejoicing over the downfall of a foe, who
would fought with such valor and suffered such
hardship for a cause, although that cause was the
worst that any, you know, army could have fought for." And I think it's a
beautiful statement. Particularly, we've had
a prolonged discussion about the confederate monuments. And I think Grant in
a way shoves the way because on the one hand
in that passage, he play-- he pays homage to the bravery
of the confederate soldiers. And they were brave. They were quite extraordinary
in many, many battles. At the same time, the cause
for which they were fighting, the perpetuation of
slavery was, as Grant says, one of the worst causes
that people fight for. So I think that the humanity and
also the fairness and balance that he brought to that
subject I think is really one that should stay with us. >> Colleen Shogan: Grant does
not accept President Lincoln's invitation to attend
Ford's Theatre. Would history perhaps
unfolded differently if Grant had been there? >> Ron Chernow: Yeah,
it's quite a story. Because what happened in
late March 1864, Abraham and Mary Lincoln go
down to City Point, Virginia where Grant
has his headquarters. Mary Lincoln, who was
showing increasing signs of mental instability, Mary
Lincoln throws a jealous fit. She imagines that the young wife of General Edward O. C. Ord
is flirting with her husband. And she starts to berate young
Mrs. Ord, who can't figure out what's going on
and bursts into tears. And Julia Grant was there. Julia Grant intervenes to try
to protect young Mrs. Ord. And we all know what
happens when you try to intervene of the fight. Then Mary Lincoln turned on
Julia Grant and turned on her so angrily that the night
that the Lincoln's went to Ford Theatre, Lincoln
thought it was very important that the public see the
victorious president and the victorious
general at the same time. Julia Grant, you know, lay
down the law to her husband, she said, "I refused
to go to Ford's Theatre if Mary Lincoln is
going to be there." So they made their,
you know, excuses. They went off to Burlington, New
Jersey where they had a house. So one of the great
what ifs of history, if Ulysses S. Grant had been
in that box at Ford's Theatre with Lincoln, would he have
had a security detail there? With his military instincts,
he have sensed, you know, the assassin entering the box, or of course it's
entirely possibly that both would have killed
Grant as well as Lincoln. We'll never know. >> Colleen Shogan: How did Grant
manage to win the nomination, the Republican nomination
in 1868? Had he had showed an aptitude
for politics previously? >> Ron Chernow: No, not really. In fact, there was kind of a
great guessing game that went on in terms of what Grant's
party affiliation was. Came from, you know, Whig
family, whose only vote had been for James Buchanan
of-- for president. Really no one knew
exactly where he stood. He was in the right
place at the right time. You know, since Appomattox, he
had a certain symbolic standing in American life as
the victor of the war and also reconciliation
between North and South. And what happened in 1868,
there was a failed attempt. They did impeach President
John Henry Johnson. He's not convicted,
lost by a single vote which weakened the radical
Republicans in Congress. Grant kind of was in a position
to straddle both of the wings of the Republican Party,
still had this kind of immense prestige
from the war. And he did not campaign
openly for it. Grant had a funny kind of way
of not campaigning for things but sort of putting
him in a position where things just
happened to him. >> Colleen Shogan: In
his first term of office, the 15th Amendment is
enacted and ratified and there's a backlash in the
South, violence escalates. >> Ron Chernow: Yeah. >> Colleen Shogan: And
there's strengthening of the Ku Klux Klan. You spent a lot of
time in the book and you handled it very deftly. What did Grant do to combat
the Klan and was he successful? >> Ron Chernow: Yeah. The Klan starts in
Pulaski, Tennessee, 1866. It starts out as a social
club of confederate veterans. And they start, you know,
wearing their old uniforms and drilling and it
becomes a militaristic secret organization. And then of course they
started putting on, you know, robes and hoods at
night on horseback and terrorizing people. This was, you're
absolutely right, prompted by the 15th Amendment. Nothing terrified the white
south more than the black men and it was only black
men voting. And so, the terror was
right much directed against blacks voting
or registering to vote. There was no southern sheriff who would arrest the
member of the Klan. There was no southern jury that would convict the
member of the Klan. There was no southern white who
would testify against the Klan. So there'd been-- there were
hundreds, maybe thousands of murders of blacks
that went unprosecuted. Grant had a very crusading
attorney general named Amos Akerman from Georgia. Akerman brought 3000
indictments, and got more than a thousand convictions
against the Klan and crashed the Ku Klux Klan. I mean, it was his greatest
achievement as president. The Klan that we know is really
from the resurgence of the Klan from the 1910s and 1920s,
that Klan that has less to do with us, and they of course
borrowed a lot of the techniques and ideology of the
original Klan. >> Colleen Shogan:
Why were there so many corruption-related
scandals in Grant's two terms of office? Did he-- Was he complicit? Did he turned a blind eye, or was he just oblivious
to what was going on? >> Ron Chernow: Grant
was incredibly naive. I'll tell a story from his
childhood if it makes the point, unfortunately it
didn't get much better. But he-- when he was a boy, his
father wanted to buy a horse, so he told Ulysses
to go to this farmer and he gave Ulysses
his instructions. He said, "Offer $20
to the farmer. If he doesn't take it,
then offer him 22.50. And if he still doesn't,
you know, bite, offer 25." So Grant goes to the
farmer and he says, "My father said I should
offer you $20 for the horse but if you don't take it
[laughter], to offer you 22.50, and if you don't take
that to offer you $25." Well, I wish I could say there
was some learning curve in terms of Grant and money,
but there wasn't. And, you know, unscrupulous
people seemed to spot Grant a mile away. In fact, during his
second term in office, the so-called Whiskey
Ring scandal, the brewers were
evading this tax by paying off revenue agents. Among the people who
was very involved in it was Grant's
newly chief-of-staff, a man named Orville Babcock And when Babcock is
being investigated, Grant writes a letter to
Babcock's wife saying, "I have full faith in
your husband's integrity." He said "I've had the
most, you know, intimate and confidential relations with
your husband for 14 years." And he says, "I can't believe that he's not the trustworthy
person that I imagined." Guess what? He was, and since that he was
kind of like chief-of-staff, he had the desk right outside
Grant's office reviewed incoming and outgoing mail
and Grant fired him. Well, he assigned him, he
became inspector of lighthouses on the Florida coast [laughter]. >> Colleen Shogan: So
after he leaves office, Grant coast on a trip around
the world with his wife for two and a half years. >> Ron Chernow: Yeah. >> Colleen Shogan: How was
he received in this strip? >> Ron Chernow: It's kind of a post-presidency
unlike any other. During that, you know, almost
two and a half year period, he meets with virtually every
head of state in the world, Queen Victoria receives him
at Windsor Castle, Prince-- and Bismarck receives
him in Berlin, the pope at the Vatican Czar
Alexander II in St. Petersburg. And then he goes
to the Far East, and the crowds are
immense, like 250,000 people at that time would turn out. And even, you know, the Emperor of Japan would never
actually touched people. When he saw Grant, he stepped
forward and shook hands with Grant which was unheard of. And Grant actually pioneers a
certain post-presidential role that would be followed
by other presidents that he arbitrates a dispute
over postwar-- offshore islands, yeah, between Japan
and China, you know. So he comes back
with really this sort of great reputation
very much enhanced. He's become a statesman
on the world stage. It's amazing. >> Colleen Shogan: After trying
to get the nomination again in 1880, not winning it, he
decides to move to New York City and try his hand in
the investment world. How does that turned out? >> Ron Chernow: Well,
again money, disastrously, you
know [laughter]. Question answers itself. He formed a partnership with a
young man named Ferdinand Ward, who was 29 years
old who was lionized as the Young Napoleon
of Finance. They created a partnership
called Grant and Ward. It was the only time Grant
ever allowed his name to be used in business. And of course Grant's name
attracted a lot of money. Alas for those of you
who don't know the story, Ferdinand Ward was the
Bernie Madoff of today. It was a Ponzi scheme. He was using money
from new investors to pay outrageous rates of
interests to the old investors. And so poor Grant, with
this incurable naivety, Grant imagines that
he's a multimillionaire. And he wakes up one day
to find out that instead of being multimillionaire,
he's worth $80 and Julia is worth a $130. That not only had
Grant's fortune, well he lost his fortune, have
been wiped out but, you know, all of his children had
invested with Madoff. He had a lot of cousins,
he had a lot of friends. So the entire Grant family was
engulfed in this catastrophe. >> Colleen Shogan: In
1884, Grant falls ill. What was wrong with him and what
was the prescribed treatment? >> Ron Chernow: Right
now, this-- the illness really
coincides with the exposure of the problem with
Ferdinand Ward. Grant one day-- They had a house
in Long Branch, New Jersey. Julia serves him a plate of
delicious peaches and he bites into one of the peaches
and says, "Ouch, that peach stung me
for some reason." And it was the first time he
realized there was a problem with his throat. He finally, with some delay,
consulted his doctor in New York who found a cancerous mass
on his throat and tongue. It was incurable. And so, Grant realized that
this was a terminal illness and he was petrified that not-- if really when he died that
Julia wouldn't be left destitute because they'd lost
all their money. So he decided to do something that he swore he wouldn't
do, he wrote his memoirs. So during the last year of
his life in excruciating pain, and with his mind often
fogged by the opiates, he managed to write a memoir that is considered the greatest
military memoir probably in English language. >> Colleen Shogan:
He wrote 10,000 words in a day while he
had throat cancer. >> Ron Chernow: Yeah. And his publisher
was Mark Twain. And one wonderful
letter, you know, Mark Twain writes to somebody. he said, "Grant wrote
10,000 words today." He said, "It kills me these days to even write 5000
words in it in a day. He couldn't believe
Grant's productivity, and this memoir really
poured out of him. And many people imagined
that Twain wrote the memoirs. Twain wrote, the
style is flawless, no man can improve upon them. >> Colleen Shogan: Why is
Grant buried in New York City and what was his funeral like? >> Ron Chernow: Yeah,
because the last few years of their lives, Ulysses
and Julia Grant were living on East 66th Street
in Manhattan. His funeral, I was just
thinking about his funeral today because of the John
McCain memorial gathering at National Cathedral. When Grant was buried
in New York, and that he and Julia felt very
grateful to New York. And the city provided
this beautiful spot in the new Riverside Park. Grant's funeral spoke to the
public very much in the way that John McCain's memorial
services have been speaking to the public. That is, at Grant's
funeral, a million and a half people
flooded New York City. The funeral parade went
on through five hours. But Grant and his family
made a statement, so-- and it was of North-South
reconciliation. There were as among the
honorary pallbearers, there were great Union generals
William Tecumseh Sherman and Phil Sheridan, but there
also major confederate generals, Joseph Johnston and
Simon Buckner. Again, as part of this
reconciliation theme, the Stonewall Jackson Brigade
from Staunton, Virginia, came up and marched in the parade. Black regiments marched
in the parade because Grant had been very
instrumental during the Civil War in terms of recruiting
and training and equipping, you know, black soldiers. And so this was really
Grant's final statement from beyond the grave. And I think that, you know, Grant in many ways reminds me
what people have been saying about John McCain in terms of
his patriotism, his bravery, his dedication to
public service. The fact that he distinguished
himself both in civilian service and in the military service,
and kind of reminds us of what old-fashioned
patriotism should look like. >> Colleen Shogan: Last question
before we take some questions from the audience. As we reconsider Grant, as you
have in this magnificent book, what should we learn from
Grant in his leadership? >> Ron Chernow: Well I think that one reason people have
responded to the book, you know, all the other people that
I've written about were seemed to be instant successes in life. They were all sort
of built for success, that kind of great drive
and energy in focus. Grant didn't, and I think people
were responding to the book because the highs are as high as
any story in American history, but the lows are a
lot lower, you know. So, that this is a story of
a lot of light and shadow. It's a story about a man who suffered repeated
failures and setbacks. In fact, as I was coming in to
the room, someone said to me, "I love your Grant book
because it's the greatest story about a comeback." >> Colleen Shogan:
Comeback [laughs]. >> Ron Chernow: And they
were repeated comebacks in Grant's life, you know. Success was kind
of a greasy pole. >> Colleen Shogan: Right. >> Ron Chernow: And he keeps
slipping back down the pole and then he would have to
work his way back up again. >>: Colleen Shogan: Terrific. If there are any
questions for Ron, we'd be happy to take a few. >> Hello, very good
book, loved it. Just want to ask a quick
comment on Grant's relationship with George Armstrong
Custer and how you describe that relationship in the book. >> Ron Chernow: It was a very-- it was very troubled
relationship. And Grant was very,
very critical of Custer, really blamed Custer for the
massacre at Little Bighorn, and felt that he was really, you
know, not following orders and, you know, put himself and
his men in harm's way. Custer also had been
an outspoken critic of Grant as president. And that's certainly helped
to fuel the animosity. >> Colleen Shogan:
Yes, sweetheart [ Inaudible ] >> Yes, so I'm going
to read two questions by Becky [assumed spelling]. >> Ron Chernow: Sure. >> If Grant had gone
by his first name, would anything be
different [laughter]? Secondly, what is happening
with the adaptation? I know someone bought
the rights. >> Ron Chernow: Right, yeah. >> Colleen Shogan:
Good question. >> Ron Chernow: OK, first,
you know, Grant's name, he was born Hiram Ulysses Grant, which gave him the
unfortunate initials H-U-G or hug [laughter]. And he was mercilessly
teased by the other boys so he dropped the Hiram and
became just plain Ulysses. Then when local congressmen
nominated him for West Point, he bungled the name, he sent
it in as Ulysses S. Grant. I actually found one letter
where Ulysses is writing to Julia, who wanted to
know what the S stood for. His own wife didn't
know what it stood for. And he wrote back his funny
letter and he says, the S stands for absolutely nothing. In terms of-- yeah, the-- it's not going to be
hip-hop musical [laughter]. Shocks, but it will be a
future film and it's going to be directed by
Steven Spielberg which is very exciting. >> Colleen Shogan: Oh, perfect. [ Applause ] >> Ron Chernow: And
produced by Leonardo DiCaprio which is also exciting. And it looks like I'll again
be the historic old consultant. >> Colleen Shogan:
Yeah, that's great. >> Ron Chernow: Yeah. [ Applause ] >> So, you've written about
Washington and Hamilton and now Grant, are there
any lessons or a big lesson that you've learned
through studying this that you think is worth sharing? >> Ron Chernow: It's a
very, very good question. You know, one strange thing
when people have asked me about a common denominator
to these lives, the one thing and every person that I've
written about, they had to cope from an early age
with a difficult, even impossible parent. I know this sounds like a strange response
to your question. But, you know, there
was Washington with the very self-centered
mother. There was Hamilton with
the absentee father. Grant had this very domineering
and overbearing father. And I think that there
is something about coping with a very, very
difficult parent that I guess shapes
character and forces people to be self-reliant
at an early age. Kind of big frustration I found
with all of these books is that all the people I've
written about, because they had such difficult parents,
they never talked about it. And sometimes, I imagine it out
like if I could conjure them to life and ask them questions. I think I'd want to zero
in on the family dynamics. >>Grant was partnered
with a Ponzi schemer, did he play any part in catching
him, the Ferdinand Ward? >> Ron Chernow: I'm sorry. I'm not sure that I
understood the question, but-- >> Grant was partnered with a
Ponzi schemer Ferdinand Ward, did he play any part
in catching him? >> Ron Chernow: Well,
Ferdinand-- >> Colleen Shogan:
Catching, mm-hmm. >> Ron Chernow: Oh,
in catching him. >> Colleen Shogan: Did he
catch him, helped catch him? >> Ron Chernow: No, that he had. You know, what happened, Grant
was inexcusably complacent that Ferdinand Ward put all
of the securities of the firm in their safe which only
Ferdinand Ward had access. Grant should never
have allowed that. Ferdinand Ward would even
put letters, you know, signed by Grant in front of
Grant and Grant would sign them without reading the letter. Grant felt because
there were a lot of sophisticated Wall Street
people who were investing with Ward that he was
absolutely certain, you know, that Ward must be sound. He should have been suspicious
because some of the people who were getting like 15,
20% per month, you know. Boy, if that doesn't raise, you
know, warning flags right then, but I wish that I could tell
you that Grant had been part of exposing Ward, but was not. What happened was that the bank that was lending
Ward money went bust and then the whole
scheme blew up. >> Colleen Shogan: We have
time for one more question. >> Hi. Someone whose legacy
has been unjustly tarnished, what has it been like to
write this overdo exculpation of Grant? >> Ron Chernow: Yeah. It's been, you know, very, very nice because when I
published the book on Grant, I felt that, you know, he
was suffering from this image that he was just this
crude, brutal butcher and that was why he was
a successful general. And in fact, you know, there
were six Union generals who fought against
Robert E. Lee before Grant with the same advantage and
the manpower and material. They could not defeat
Lee, Grant could. I felt that Grant's
presidency had been portrayed as a failed presidency. And I think that in many ways, he was a very successful
presidency in terms of protecting the
African-American community in the South. To the extent of the book, you
know, how the revision is spent, I thought there would be more
resistance and yet people kind of accepted the portrait
of Grant more readily than I thought would happen. So I'm happy for that although
I was little surprised. >> Colleen Shogan: Please join
me in thanking Mr. Ron Chernow. [ Applause ]
