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President Ulysses S Grant

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Grant's role in rebuilding America in the decade after the Civil War and his impact on African-Americans and Native Americans.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the impact of Grant's presidency on Americans in the years after the Civil War in which he, with Lincoln, had led the Union Army to victory. His predecessor, Andrew Johnson, was prepared to let the Southern States decide for themselves which rights to allow freed slaves; Grant supported equal rights, and he used troops and Enforcement Acts to defeat the Ku klux Klan which was violently suppressing African Americans. In later years Grant was remembered mainly for the corruption scandals under his terms of office, and for his failure to support or protect Native Americans, but in more recent decades his support for reconstruction has prompted a reassessement.

With

Erik Mathisen
Lecturer in US History at the University of Kent

Susan-Mary Grant
Professor of American History at Newcastle University

and

Robert Cook
Professor of American History at the University of Sussex

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Available now

55 minutes

Last on

Thu 30 May 2019 21:30
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4

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LINKS AND FURTHER READING

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READING LIST:

Charles W. Calhoun, The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant (University Press of Kansas, 2017)

Ron Chernow, Grant (Head of Zeus, 2018)

J. F. C. Fuller, Grant and Lee: A Study in Personality and Generalship (Indiana University Press, 1957)

J. F. C. Fuller, The Generalship of Ulysses S. Grant (first published 1929; Da Capo Press, 1956)

Ulysses S. Grant (ed. James M. McPherson), Personal Memoirs (Penguin, 1999)

William S. McFeely, Grant: A Biography (W.W. Norton, 1982)

Geoffrey Perret, Ulysses S. Grant: Soldier & President (Random House, 1997)

Brooks D. Simpson, Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (University of North Carolina Press, 1997)

Brooks D. Simpson, The Reconstruction Presidents (University Press of Kansas, 1998)

Joan Waugh, U.S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth (University of North Carolina Press, 2009)

Ronald C. White, American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant (Times Books, 2017)

Broadcasts

  • Thu 30 May 2019 09:00
    Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4
  • Thu 30 May 2019 21:30
    Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4

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