Mexico had interested Ulysses S. Grant since the young lieutenant fought there. Now, as president of the Mexican Southern Railroad, he emerged as a strong advocate of increased trade and investment. Appointed by President Chester A. Arthur to negotiate a commercial treaty, Grant spent most of January, 1883, at the capital, working with his friend and counterpart Matias Romero. For months, Grant promoted the resulting treaty, granting interviews, giving speeches, and toasting visiting Mexican statesman Porfirio Diaz. Success gave way to bitter failure when the Senate rejected the treaty, led...

Early in 1885 Americans learned that General Grant was writing his Memoirs in a desperate race for time against an incurable cancer. Not generally known was the General s precarious personal finances, made so by imprudent investments, and his gallant effort to provide for his family by his writing. For six months newspaper readers followed the dramatic contest, and the hearts of Americans were touched by the General s last battle.

Grant s last year was one of both personal and literary triumph in the midst of tragedy, as Thomas M. Pitkin shows in this memorable and inspiring...

John Y. Simon was a giant in the field of Civil War-era history whose groundbreaking work on Grant was at the forefront of his generation's reevaluation of Grant's wartime acumen and his controversial presidency, earning him a lifetime achievement award from the Lincoln Forum in 2004 and a Lincoln Prize in 2005. In The Union Forever: Lincoln, Grant, and the Civil War, editor Glenn W. LaFantasie brings together some of Simon's most significant work on two towering figures of their era. The essays in The Union Forever explore the relationship between the two leaders and their influence on each...