Welcome everybody. I am david moscowitz, i am head of Government Relations and Public Policy at wells fargo and im pleased to be here with you today. We are pleased to serve for the eighth year as a charter sponsor of the book festival and prouder to watch it grow to the incredibly popular, impactful event it has become. I wouldnt be surprised [applause] wouldnt be surprised to see us move on to some bestseller lists today. Its even more important to keep the book festival a free event for the community. The real purpose here is literacy which leads to learning an opportunity which matches our goal of helping our community succeed. Learning to love books and learning to Love Learning are what the book festival are all about. In this session, ron chernow will discuss his biography of ulysses grant. If we are 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 and knowledge and overcome their imperfections. Its an incredible story that reminded me a person of goodwill can learn from their mistakes and reach their potential. I hope you enjoy this session. Its my privilege to introduce the Deputy Director of National Outreach at the library of congress and our session moderator, colleen. [applause] thank you. Welcome to the 18th annual National Book festival. I am pleased to be joined on stage today ron churnow. In 2015, he won the National Humanities medal. His book on Alexander Hamilton was the inspiration for the awardwinning musical for which ron worked as a historical consultant. The library of congress is honor to have you join us today at the National Book festival. [applause] its worth noting that our cochair of the festival, David Rubenstein was supposed to conduct this interview today. Due to scheduling changes, because of senator mccains funeral, he was unable to do so. But i have davids questions here today and i just happen to be a big admirer of Ulysses S Grant and rons books so i think we will have a fantastic time at the book festival. Before we talk about grant, we need to ask a question about Alexander Hamilton. How could we not . When Manuel Miranda first approached you and said he wanted to create a hiphop musical based on your book, what was your reaction and did you think it would become a cultural phenomenon . People say when you are writing the Alexander Hamilton biography, did you have any idea it would be turned into a hiphop musical. I always think to myself the question answers itself. When i first met lin Manuel Miranda in the fall of 2008, he was costoring in costarring in his first musical, the height. It asked me to be this historical advisor to this yet nonexistent show. I said you mean you want me to tell you when something is wrong. He said yes, i want historians to take this seriously which was music to my ears. I was a little skeptical but i was quite intrigued. I thought nothing could be more delightful than to watch the evolution of a broadway musical. I was a lifelong theater goer and the offer to be on the other side of the lights was absolutely irresistible. It turned out to be a rocket ride far beyond anything i could have anticipated. So moving on to grant, you have a definitive biography of grant. I have to start with a cute question but has a good story. Whos buried in grants tomb . [laughter] when i first started working on the book in 2011, i found that approximately half of people when i told i was working on grant shot back, whos buried in grants tomb . So naturally i got interested in the arts and the joke origins. I traced it back to groucho marx. And some of you are old enough to remember he was dismayed that someone could not answer a single one of the questions. So he decided he would ask the contestant the question that every contestant could answer. That question was whos buried in grants tomb. To his astonishment, half of the guests got it wrong. Such is the staying power of a great comedian that the line has become a part of popular culture. Lets start at the beginning with grant. Where was born, what were the conditions of his upbringing and what was his family like . He grew up in a series of small towns and southwestern ohio, near cincinnati. Point placid was right on the ohio river. The significance of that was it separated the free state of ohio from the slave owning state of kentucky. On winter evenings, the ohio would freeze over an refugee fugitive slaves would spring to freedom. Important terms of thinking of grant later. He cryptically straddling the world of both north and south and understood both of their cultures. He came from a fairly welltodo family. His father was mayor of one of those three towns. His father was really the bane of his life. He was very pushy and domineering character. And then grant went to west point. He didnt want to but his father wanted him to go. His father saw west point as a free form of vocational education. How did he do at west point . Fairly well. I would say his performance was lackluster. He was 21st in the class of 39. There was already considerable attrition before that. He became famous for two things at the academy. One was he was probably the best sportsmen of his generation, if not century at the academy. He established a high jumping record. They set the bar at more than five feet and grant managed to clear it. He was also very good at drawing. This may seem strange and insignificant but, it was important for generals to be able to draw maps during battles. Grant was very good at drawing. During the civil war, he had an uncanny ability to visualize the battlefield. And it comes from this visual sense he had that was first reflected in his capacity to do so. After west point, he eventually ends up as a quartermaster in the mexican war. Why is his service as a quartermaster, why does that turn out to be extremely important because being quartermaster in mexico gave grant a nuts and bolts knowledge of the logistics of an army. Looking ahead to the civil war, grant would be in charge of 45 different armies stressed the costs 1300 mile front. His mastery of logistics and the railroad and the telegraph enabled him to supervise these vast armies. It goes back to being quartermaster in mexico and his family alike . Grant comes from this abolitionist family. He marries into a slaveowning family. The kernel becomes the vein of his life and was very hard on grant. Julia was very outgoing and vivacious. Julia always had a vision of grant future that he sometimes did not have himself. During the 1850s, hes trying and failing to establish himself as a farmer in st. Louis. Hes failed at a real estate venture. During this time, julia has a dream. She dreams that her husband was going to be president of the United States. When she tells her friends and family about this dream, everyone laughs. Nothing seemed more preposterous. This man is struggling to support a wife and four children. Julia knew. You spent a fair amount in the book talking about grants struggle with alcohol. What did you conclude . Did he have a problem with drinking and what evidence did you use to draw those conclusions . The debate has always been was he a drunkard or not . The term drunkard was a loaded with moralistic terms because it implies a person who is dissipated and irresponsible and is gleefully indulging this vice. 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 is something he struggled against his entire life. He was a member of the temperance when he was in his 20s. The reason i think they were so much difficult with previous writers and his drinking. He could go days without having a drink but he would then go on these benders. Its a problem he struggles with. By the time he becomes president , hes largely conquered it but its certainly a problem that bedeviled him throughout the civil war. That causes him to leave the military. It precipitates his exit from the military. He was assigned to only, bleak garrisons in oregon and in california where he could not afford to bring his wife and children. He was lonely, he was depressed. He starts drinking. In 1854, he shows up at a table drunk and is drummed out of the service. So there was an active rumor mill. All of these stories of his drinking will follow him into the civil war and will very much color how people see him. I think were it not for that history, all of these stories about grants drinking. Abraham lincoln may have sooner in the war to act as general. You have a poignant description of him. He ends up on the streets of st. Louis selling fireworks to support his family. How does that happen . Try making it as a farmer. Julias wedding gift was to receive 60 acres which grant worked. He was very industrious but he couldnt make a go of it. He taking firewood, 10 miles into st. Louis and he walks beside the wagons. People who saw him in those days selling firewood said, he was bearded. Disheveled. Unkept looking. One of his Old Army Buddies ran into him on the street and was really shocked by his unkept appearance. He said to him grant, what are you doing . His response was, im solving the problem of poverty. One christmas he had to pawn his wants to buy christmas presents for his family. This was circa 1857. The civil war breaks out in 1861. Then something happens, fort sumter. ,,. Grant still had all that west point stored in his mind, moving forth with great distinction in the mexican war. He had been assigned, two different garrisons before the civil war, and so his efficiency, and his military knowledge immediately come to the forefront. Were grants rise, gives new meaning to the term meteoric. We two months after the civil war, he is a colonel and four months after he is brigadier general, and then 12 months after the outbreak he is major general, and then by the end of the civil war, this man who would be working as a clerk in his fathers Leather Goods store, in illinois back in 1860. So that man who seemed like a certifiable failure in, life is the general chief of the union army with 1 million soldiers under his command. Foreign away the Largest Military solution in the country up until that time. Now he had some early victories that catches the eye of lincoln is that correct. Yes absolutely agree very often, in the history of the civil war theres a disproportionate focus on virginia. It seems like the confederacy is winning battle after battle. Grant was winning one victory after another. In early 1862, he has twin battles against twin forts. In the northwest corner of tennessee. For henry and donelson. They were significant for the following reason, fort henry was on the Tennessee River and fort donelson on the cumberland river. Those two rivers penetrated deep into the confederacy. Particularly grants victory at fort donelson. Was one of three times he captured an entire Confederate Army. It also led to a new nickname for grant because the confederate general inside the fort was Simon Buckner who wanted to send a message to grant. He wanted commissioners appointed to negotiate a truce and grant wrote back, no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender will be accepted. I propose to move upon immediately. He became Unconditional Surrender grant. It was the first largescale victory of the war for the north. In late 1862, he issues order number 11 which expels the jews from his military district in the south because he believes they are engaged in an illegal black market cotton ring. Was grant antisemetic or did he regret that decision later on . He regretted it almost is as he issued it. As lincoln sought to immediately override. It was an inexcusable thing to do. People know that piece of the story. What they dont know is grant spent the rest of his life atoning for that action. As president , he appointed more jews than all of the other president s combined. He became the first president to speak on on human rights abuses. In both cases was because of persecution of the jews but one time in russia and one time in poland. Then most remarkable of all things were sitting in washington d. C. , during the last year of his second term, he was invited to the dedication of a synagogue. A very tiny synagogue. Grant went with his son and was a u. S. Senator. It was a threehour ceremony. Heres the president of the United States with a congregation of 3040 people. One hour into the dedication of the synagogue, the elders went over to grant and said mr. President , we are very touched you would come to this humble function. You can leave now in good conscience. Grant insisted on staying the full three hours. Reached into his pocket and gave a donation to the synagogue. It was one of the pleasurable Things Writing about him. He was not a prejudiced man. Not a man full of hatred. You can read statements on blacks and im you know this is really out of character for grant, and right away he apologized in tone for it to the rest of his life. He has a number of other successes, and then he has the victory at vicksburg, so why is vicksburg so in oppressive . And it was really a daring capture. We well it happened rug new orleans, baton rouge and memphis had fallen to union forces. It meant that the one great citadel, the great bastion on the river was vicksburg. It was located at that time, there was a bend in the mississippi that forced folks to slow down. There were seven miles of very elaborate fortification. It seemed like this in pregnable fortress. He had a very daring strategy to take vicksburg. Under cover of night, he had ironclad transports come down the river, despite heavy selling from the confederates. He also marched troops down the bank of the mississippi. They then crossed over vicksburg to the only dry land in that area. And then grant has this lightning campaign. He wins five major victories in a threeweek period. Surrounds vicksburg, lays siege and vicksburg surrenders at the same time as the victory of gettysburg. And for a second time, grant has captured an entire Confederate Army more than 30,000 soldiers. At that point, the union not only controlled the mississippi but it bisected the confederacy. A lot of these supplies, particularly horses and livestock came from the mississippi. So the Confederate Army was suddenly cut off from this major source of supplies. And that was grant. When did president lincoln bring grant east to lead the union army . In february 1864, thomas Congress Passes a bill reinstating the title of lieutenant general. The only one who ever held that was george washington. And grant becomes that lieutenant general. Its a wonderful story because in march 1864, he comes to washington. Although lincoln loved grant, he never actually set eyes on him before. He happened to arrive the same day that lincoln was having a reception at the white house in the blue room. Grant goes in. Lincoln warmly embraces him. There was such pandemonium in the room because grant was such a hero. That they urged grant to stand up on the sofa so people could see him because he was relatively short. He stands up on the sofa, he is perspiring profusely. So that people could see him. He was always a little bit socially awkward. Grant later said the hottest campaign he ever fought was standing on that sofa in the white house. [laughter] so grant was impressive on a tactical level, operational level and on a strategic level. How rare was that to find all three qualities in a general and how did he compare to robert ely in that regard . Robert e. Lee. He had an interesting comment when he was comparing grant and lee. They said his strategy embraced the constant, lee strategy [indiscernible]. Lee 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 Lees army. He really had a Strategic Vision because the various union armies and different theaters of war had been operating independently of each other. Grant coordinated their movements so that he turned them into a single fighting force. He saw the way to wear down the confederacy was by having union forces simultaneously attack different confederate armies to that they could not switch reinforcements from one to another. He finally pins robert e. Lee down in richmond. He said, Ulysses S Grant would have attacked the bedroom and the kitchen. Im not sure what he meant but in terms of attacking the kitchen. That goes back to grant the quartermaster. But what he did with lee if he began systematically to cut off every railway line and every canal feeding supplies to lees army. Finally starting it out and forcing them to flee. And forces surrender. That was then the third Confederate Army that grant captured. Robert e. Lee never captured a single union army. Its the most touching part of the story because he refuses to allow his soldiers to gloat or celebrate. He is very generous. The confederate soldiers are starving. He issues rations to feed them. Really i think the most beautiful passage and grants memoir is because grant instead, he was sad and depressed when he met lee. He writes, i felt like anything rather than rejoicing over the downfall of a person who fought with such valor and suffered such hardship for a cause. So the humanity and fairness and balance he brought that i think it will stay with us. Grant does not accept president lincolns invitation to attend for theater. What different would have happened had he been there. That happened late march, 1864 we can go down to city point virginia, where grant has his headquarters and murray lincoln, who is showing increasing signs of mental instability, mary lincoln throws a jealous fit, and she imagines that the young wife of general is flirting with her husband. And she starts to berate, and cant figure out what is going on and bursts into tears. Julia grant was there, and julia grant intervened to try to protect the young wife. And