This comprehensive volume contains all known documents, both military and private, written by and to Grant during the first six months of the Civil War. Of unusual interest are his letters to his wife, father, and sister which provide the best insight into his complex character. Thirty of the letters to Julia have never before been published.

The letters trace Grant's early career as a Civil War officer to his promotion to brigadier general. His assignments to command at Ironton and Jefferson City, Missouri, and Cairo, Illinois, are fully covered. At Cairo, Grant's area of...

Grant's career in the closing months of 1861 has been obscured by the success which came to him on the battlefield early in the following year, beginning with the victory at Fort Donelson in February 1862. Hence, Volume 3 of this definitive edition will be especially valuable to historians of the presidency as well as the Civil War for the clear, com-prehensive insight it provides into Grant's attitudes and motives on the eve of his military victories.

The fourteen-week period covered by this volume has been exhaustively researched, and includes a great store of...

Grant's trials and tribulations as a general after his victory at Fort Donelson is the scope of this 88-day period.

The end of the Confederate power in western Kentucky and Ten-nessee began with the Union's capture of Fort Henry on February 6. After the victory at Fort Donelson on February 16, Union occupation of the region was only a matter of time. Tried and tested in the victory at Fort Henry, Grant seemed to be on his own as a general. Yet, his direct links with Halleck broken, and with unsatisfactory communications with Gen-eral George W. Cullum, Halleck's Chief of...

Covering the period of Shiloh to the prelude to Vicksburg, Volume 5 of this distinguished series converges on the many dramatic changes taking place in Grant's military career.

The bloody two-day battle of Shiloh, the dominating event covered in this volume, shocked both North and South, caused public opinion to run against Grant, placed his career at a low point, and tested his will to remain in service. The period, therefore, is significant for the portrait emerging of Grant meeting a variety of problems ranging from grand strategy to mundane detail. The volume is particu-larly rich...

In the period covered by Volume 6 of this distinguished series, Grant again drove deep into the Confederacy, dis-playing an instinct for the offensive lacking in other chief commanders. But by the end of the year Confederate suc-cesses had forced Grant to abandon all ground he had won.

It was, nevertheless, an important period in Grant's career. Command of the Army of the Tennessee brought Grant, a former slaveholder, into the heart of the Cotton Kingdom and to issuing the notorious General Order No. 11, expelling the Jews from his department. Increasingly...

Volume 7 documents Grant's winter of discontent. In late December, his Mississippi Central campaign, an overland drive toward Vicksburg, was fatally dis-rupted by Confederate cavalry raids. Forced to withdraw northward, Grant could not apply pressure on the enemy when Major General William T. Sher-man attacked Vicksburg directly. Sher-man suffered a disastrous repulse at Chickasaw Bayou, and Grant pulled back to Memphis and, during the win-ter, continued to cope with the myriad administrative problems of his de-partment.

Balancing the North's need for cotton against the need to...

Following the 1862-63 winter of dis-content, Grant suddenly launched a brilliant campaign against Vicksburg which ultimately bisected the Confeder-acy. A long campaign, which had begun in November 1862, with an advance from Tennessee down the Mississippi Central Railroad and a premature assault on Vicksburg in December by troops under Sherman, and which had been fol-lowed by long months of false starts and apparent inactivity in the bayou country north of the city and across the Mis-sissippi River in Louisiana, suddenly reached a quick and dramatic conclu-sion, as the events in this...

On June 2, 1864, Ulysses S. Grant post-poned until the following morning an assault on Confederate lines near Cold Harbor planned for that afternoon be-cause of delays in positioning troops. In the meantime, Confederate forces strengthened their lines, and the assault became a slaughter that haunted Grant for the rest of his life.

Thus began a summer of frustration for the general-in-chief of the U.S. Army. By failing to press their advantage, Major General William F. "Baldy" Smith and Major General Ambrose E. Burnside in a six-week period fumbled two genuine opportunities to defeat...

This volume provides a panoramic view of the Civil War unavailable elsewhere.

Grant continued the siege of General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Vir-ginia at Petersburg, but as summer ended, his armies had dramatic success elsewhere. On September 2, Major Gen-eral William T. Sherman occupied At-lanta; September 19, Major General Philip H. Sheridan defeated Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early at the battle of Winchester; and on October 19 Sheridan again defeated Early at the battle of Cedar Creek.

President Abraham Lincoln's re--election spelled doom for the Con-federacy....