Brooks D. Simpson, author of "US--Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865," why did you stop right after the Civil War?

When did you first start studying U.S. Grant?

Give us the short course. Where was he born?

Who'd he marry?

How many children did they have?

And what was she like?

And what were U.S. Grant's parents like?

And some of the most frank correspondence we have from Ulysses Grant is towards his father, essentially telling his father to, `Butt out. Stay away....

I--I did several things. I went to the major archives: the Library of Congress, National Archives, Chicago Historical Society, Ohio Historical Society....

Yes. The--the National Park Service now has both the main house that was there, and Grant's cabin is set up there. Of course, it's--it's somewhat distorting...

Hard Scrabble is near White Haven. Hard Scrabble got moved around several times, and it's now on the--it's in St. Louis. It's on the Busch estate, and...

Yeah, the Anheuser-Busch estate right next to the White Haven site, run by the National Park Service.

Well, White Haven was the home of Colonel Dent, as he liked to call himself, a colonel by custom in this case, and it was a plantation. It was a--Colonel...

Go over it again. Born in Point Pleasant, lived in Georgetown, Ohio...

...near Cincinnati. Where did he go then?

How'd he get there?

The request came to Hamer just as he was cleaning out his desk at the end of a session of Congress. He rushed through the papers, didn't know the boy's...

Did you have to have academic credentials then to get into West Point?

How many in his class again?

How many of those have we heard of?

What happened to Longstreet?

But they were on opposite sides during the war.

After West Point, he moves directly to where?

What's going on in the country then? Who's president?

Who's leading the military then for Polk?

Zachary Taylor becomes president how much after that point?

And what year are we talking about again, the Mexican War?

So it's right there.

What was the party in which Grant belonged to at that point?

But you say somewhere in the book that he was a Democrat--or voted Democrat--Democratic at some point.

Again, back in the--in the Mexican War--Mexican-American War, what role did he play?

He was supposed to stay behind, and he protested against that rear assignment as not giving him the sort of service he--he--he wanted to have. Nevertheless,...

There's evidence of drinking as early as the Mexican-American War; that there were some letters home from other people in Ohio, who were visiting, who...

Well, apparently, what the--one of the things about Grant was that it didn't usually take very long to see that he was drinking. He didn't need too...

There doesn't seem to be any sort of truly harebrained thing that Grant did under the influence. That--there are all these stories that, while under...

The most famous story of Grant drinking during the Civil War, during the Vicksburg campaign in June 1863--a lot of people like to discuss that as if...

Oh, it's still in the hundreds, and we've had a series of biographies in the last 30 or 40 years; two full-scale biographies and more focused studies,...

No. I mean, I was aware of the people who'd gone before me, and I was aware of the degree to which they had become either advocates or detractors of...

Oh, I--I guess it would be positive, on--on the whole. I mean, I think he's an extremely able commander, who was able to master the challenges that...

Well, Grant was a pipe smoker, and if you go to the Smithsonian, in fact, you'll find in th--General Grant's pipe, and that strikes people as somewhat...

We have a story that--that during the Battle of the Wilderness, he went through two dozen cigars in the course of one day. And people see Grant during...

He got out in 1848. The war ends in 1848 with a formal treaty. They--American forces occupy Mexico City in 1847, and so he's out. And he comes back...

He married in 1848.

She is with him in most of these places, although she goes back, for example, for the birth of their first son, Fred, in 1850. She goes back to St....

Four kids.

He was a very indulgent father. I think that one thing you learn about parents is that parents' greatest model for ill or for good are their own parents,...

Fred's the tallest one in the middle, wearing a--a military uniform. Fred's born in 1850 named, again, after the Dent side. Ulysses Jr. born in 1852....

W--after Grant resigns from the Army in 1854, he goes back to St. Louis and works on h--farming. That doesn't work out.

He decided to give up the service, and the reason he decided to give up the service--he was very depressed at being apart from his family; that he missed...

By the time he resigns from the Army, he was a captain. And so in 1854, he does resign, and there are stories that drinking has something to do with...

No. No.

They saw him as a very courageous, young officer; that he had done things under fire in the Mexican-American War that were pretty astonishing: took...

He goes to Galena in 1860, and what has happened again is he has failed as a farmer. He goes into St. Louis. He fails in various business concerns....

Well, Jesse was an ambitious businessman and began expanding that leather business all over the place and--and gets a--an interest in a general store...

He--he took a steamer.

How would they--well, you'd really have to look carefully in the northwest corner of the state. There are a lot of antique stores there. Main street...

Mm-hmm.

Well, Grant is known at the time as a Mexican War veteran, a West Point graduate, and Galena's going to raise a company and--and parts of a regiment....

He got it because there was a regiment, the 21st Illinois, who Grant had--members of whom Grant had sworn in, and they had a colonel, Colonel Simon...

That's right.

Elihu B. Washburne, a Republican, an early supporter of Lincoln, a--a fellow who was interested in Grant and a--certainly instrumental in Grant's early...

That's right.

It--well, he was seen as someone who could actually do something. I mean, he had professional training, and that--and it was clear that this unruly...

That's right; that he was not seen to be--Grant was not singled out as being an important figure.

It's 1860--1861.

And so he's in his first term, and we've just had the fire in Ft. Sumter, and everyone gravitates to the state capital at Springfield to go ahead and--and...

He's looking to become a colonel, and they use him in all sorts of other capacities because of his administrative experience during the Mexican-American...

Let's stop there just for a second. George McClellan went to West Point with him?

But quickly jumped to--what is his top job in the US military?

But--but...

But jumping way ahead, I mean, General Grant--or at the time, whatever, civilian Grant...

...wants a job through McClellan.

But the point I want to make is that he goes--he goes to try to talk to General McClellan. McClellan becomes head of the Army of the Potomac...

...and then runs against Abraham Lincoln...

...in 19--in 1864.

And loses.

What--in history, by the way, where--where do people put George McClellan as a general?

But--but could you say that Ulysses S. Grant was kind of begging George McClellan for a job?

And ends up being president of the United States and McClellan doesn't.

Just a three- or four...

Go back to the restaurant and Governor Yates of Illinois.

He--he--he sees him in the restaurant, you say, he--he doesn't pay any attention to him, the governor doesn't, so he walks out and waits out in the--outside...

And--and if Governor Yates hadn't stopped him out there--or he hadn't stopped Governor Yates, he wouldn't be where he is today?

How did that happen? What was that meeting like?

And then you go back to Congressman Washburne.

He's his congressman from Galena.

But he--later on in his life, in--in his pu--professional life, he--once again, jumping ahead--and people are going to have to read the book to get...

And how does he find that out?

At Blair House.

I mean, again, you relate it to today, it's like being in the Gulf War and somebody was promoting--pick your general, General McCaffrey, to be a four-star...

Washburne, the congressman, was--was he able to pass the bill in the House?

And what about the Senate? What'd they do?

In 1864, what's the status of everything then and where is U.S. Grant?

Do you think he's a lot different than what he looks like in this picture?

Really what I was asking, though, is he looks passive.

Did--did you find that he had one slave?

Another character I want to ask you about is John Rawlins. Where is he in this photograph?

Off on the left-hand...

He's also in this photograph here. Where--off to the right?

What about the--the drinking thing?

I counted 10 books on the list in the front by the Brooks D. Simpson. Is that accurate? This will be the 11th?

Which one of those other books sold the most?

Where is your home originally?

And where did you go to college?

And where did you get your first job out of your graduate school?

What do you teach now?

Go back to, though, your--your time with the Andrew Johnson Papers in Knoxville. There's a moment in here where U.S. Grant goes out of his way to meet...

And it's not fair and we only have, you know--I don't know--10, 11 minutes left or something like that, but I want you to go briefly over some battles...

Shiloh's named after what?

In Tennessee.

Vicksburg.

But it's a campaign of improvisation from the beginning. When he crossed the--the Mississippi, he first thought he was going to go somewhere else. He...

At Vicksburg, Confederate forces are led by John C. Pemberton, who ends up in command of the Vicksburg garrison that surrenders to Grant on July 4th,...

That's right. And, in fact, Grant and he had encountered each other during the Mexican War.

As friends.

Well, one--one--one story was--where the--the friendship was--was--was vivid and--and--and important was the--Simon Buckner, who was the commander of...

In 18...

That's right. The actual surrender itself takes place--Grant and Pemberton are meeting on July 3rd at just the point where Pickett's Charge is taking...

General Meade is in command of the Army of the Potomac. He's just been put in that position at--in late June, and he withstands, fairly ably, Robert...

Grant knew--Meade knew that when Grant came East in 1864 that everyone was going to start writing about Grant all the time, and that--Meade did not...

Mm-hmm.

He was wounded.

He just got off on his own at--at a place called Big Black River Bridge. And he had been riding around the battlefields for--for weeks, and all of a...

He was there because, among other things, Julia thought it would be a wise idea for Grant's oldest son to be with him on the battlefields and--and--and...

Nothing serious. I mean, but he--he--he was certainly taken aback by what had happened to him. And if you go today to Vicksburg and go to the Illinois...

Chattanooga happens in--in November 1863. Grant is given theater command in October 1863, and ordered to supervise the relief of a besieged Union army...

Mm-hmm.

Yes, you could and that often became sort of problematic for Grant in that Grant had some subordinate commanders, notably a fellow named John McClernand...

He was a Democrat. But Lincoln valued a Democrat who was loyal to the war effort, and McClernand fit the bill. And--and McClernand sent letters critical...

They're both from Illinois.

That's right.

Well, Lincoln's loyalty at the beginning was much more towards Elihu Washburne than anything towards Grant. But it certainly--Lincoln's connections...

He sets up camp there in June 1864, after the Overland campaign or the Wilderness campaign, as it's various caused--called, his confrontation with Robert...

She came to visit him first in 1861 when he still had headquarters in--in Illinois. Came down in the fall of 1862 and spent time with him when he was...

Mm-hmm.

The couple comes only once, and that's in March 1865 and that's actually at Julia's suggestion. She supposedly saw an--an--an image of the president...

This is in late March...

...1865. That's right.

A--April--he--he's shot on April 14th, 1865, and dies on April 15th.

Well, it seems to have been pretty rough--that Mary Todd Lincoln was known to--to voice her dissatisfaction about certain things and also could be terribly...

They were invited to go to Ford Theater the next day, and neither Grant wants to go out in public with Mrs. Lincoln around, and so they devise an answer,...

This is the first of a two-volume study.

If only I knew.

No. I've learned not to predict those sorts of things.

His birth and takes him all the way through middle of 1865.

I'd say it's, first of all, the--the--the strained relationship that Grant had with Lincoln and how the two men managed to work things out. I also found...

Thank you.