Chris Mackowski recently released a book on the last eighteen months of Ulysses S. Grant’s life.
Mackowski, a professor of journalism and mass communication, released his book, “Grant’s Last Battle: The Story Behind the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant,” earlier this month. The book is part of a larger collection of Civil War stories from the Emerging Civil War series, a collection of books on various Civil War topics by a host of different authors.
Mackowski said he spent three years researching the book, spending time pouring over the hundreds of papers Grant wrote during the last year and a half of his life. Mackowski specifically focused on the memoir Grant wrote during the last several months of his life.
In the years leading up to Grant’s death, Grant was the victim of the Ponzi scheme at the hands of his business partner, Ferdinand Ward, according to Mackowski. He was left destitute, and had to find ways to make money to support his family. Grant decided to write and publish his memoirs in an effort to help his family regain their financial footing.
“Into the scene sweeps Mark Twain,” said Mackowski.
Twain, a friend of Grant’s, offered to publish the memoirs in August 1884. In October of that year, Grant was diagnosed with terminal throat cancer, said Mackowski.
“Suddenly, the clock is ticking,” said Mackowski. “He’s got this book he wants to write, that’s the only way he’s got to earn money and he’s got a deadline. The ultimate deadline.”
According to Mackowski, Grant finished his memoir on July 20, 1885. By July 23, 1885, he was dead.
The memoirs became one of the best selling non-fiction books in American history and ended up taking Grant’s family out of debt, according Mackowski.
“He doesn’t see the fruits of his labor. He doesn’t understand its long-term impact on people’s remembrances of the war. He doesn’t see the long-term impact on saving his family. He just knows he’s done the best he can do,” said Mackowski.
Mackowski said he enjoyed going through Grant’s papers because it gave him a glimpse into what Grant was feeling and struggling with as it happened.
Mackowski said he wrote his book both as a non-fiction account of the last several months of Grant’s life, and also as a personal memoir on Mackowski’s own experience dealing with Grant’s papers.
“I talk about my own experience discovering the story, and thinking about the story. There’s an element to [my book] that’s part memoir, in the same way that Grant’s book is a memoir,” said Mackowski, “I hope that’s a way to help people consider the story, and think about it in different ways, as I was thinking about it.”
Mackowski has written several works on the Civil War.
“As a writer, I’m fascinated by it; as a human being, I’m fascinated by it; as a Civil War historian, I’m fascinated by it,” said Mackowski.
Mackowski will deliver a speech on Grant’s final days at Grant’s former home, Mount McGregor, in Wilton, New York., on Oct. 11.
