Bankrupt and Dying from Cancer, Ulysses S. Grant Waged His Greatest Battle

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Speaker 1: This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories, and we tell stories about everything here in the show, including your story. Send them to Ouramerican Stories dot com. Up next. Christopher Klein is the author of four books, and he’s a frequent contributor to the History Channel, National Geographic and American Heritage. You’ve heard Chris tell the story of how Johnny Carson Save Twister. He’s back with another one. Aided by Mark Twain, Ulysses S Grant, former president and Civil War hero, race to complete a literary masterpiece that saved his wife from destitution. Here’s Christopher Kleine with a story.00:01:01
Speaker 2: Shortly before noon, on May sixth, eighteen eighty four, ulysses As Grant entered the office of his Wall Street brokerage firm a wealthy man. Hours later, he exited a pauper thanks to a pyramid scheme operated by his unscrupulous partner, fernand Ward. Grant’s investment firm had instantly collapsed, wiping out his life savings. Grant had all of eighty dollars left to his name his wife, Julia, she had another one hundred and thirty dollars. Kind heartest strangers responded by mailing Grant checks. Desperate to pay his bills, the former president cashed them. Still smarting from bankruptcy’s bitter sting, Grant that summer suffered from an excruciating sting in his throat as well. When he finally visited a doctor in October, Grant learned he had incurable throat and tongue cancer, likely a product of his longtime cigar smoking habit. Grant had been no stranger to financial misfortune, failing as a farmer and a rent collector. Prior to the Civil War. He lived in a log cabin that he dubbed Hardscrabble and sold firewood on the streets of Saint Louis to make ends meet. However, now that he was confronting the terrifying prospect of leaving Julia pennyless widow, the grizzly general who fought to save the Union undertook one final mission to save his family from impoverishment. Divested of his property and possessions, Grant still retained something of great value his recollections of past glory. Although he appeared taciturn and reserved, Grant was a convivial storyteller who entertained friends such as Mark Twain with yarns of war and politics. For years, Twain had suggested it Grant pen his memoirs. Now destitute, the former president finally agreed to cash in on his celebrity. In need of financial rescue himself after a series of failed investments, the debt ridden Twain in’t Grant to a contract with his newly launched publishing house and gave him a one thousand dollars check to cover living expenses. Engaged in a furious race against time as a cancer attacked his body, Grant dug into his writing with military efficiency, turning out as many as ten thousand words in a single day. He poured through tall stacks of orderers and maps that helped him to recreate his most famous battles with minute fidelity. Grant astounded to Twain with not just the quantity but the quality of his prose. Grant penned his manuscript until his hand grew too feeble in the spring of eighteen eighty five, forcing him to employ a stenographer. Even speaking, however, became laborious as his condition deteriorated. Following the advice of doctors who vouched for the salubrious power of pure mountain air. Grant the camped at the onset of summer from his Manhattan brownstone to an Adirondack resort in a cottage on the slopes of Mount McGregor, Grant launched his final campaign to complete his tone. With excruciating pain accompanying every swallow, Grant was unable to eat solid food, his body withered by the day. The voice that once commanded armies could barely muster or whisper. While Grant’s doctors gave him morphine only sparingly in order to keep his mind clear for writing, they swabbed his throat with cocaine to provide topical pain relief, and used hypodermic needles to inject him with brandy during the worst of his coughing fits. Through it all, Grant persisted in honing his manuscript, editing, adding new pages, pouring over proofs in his first volume. As he sat on the cottage porch on even the steamiest of days, swallowed in blankets, a wool hat and a scarf covering his neck tumor, which was, now, according to a New York Sun, as big as a man’s two fists put together. When his voice finally abandoned him. Grant scribbled his thoughts and pencil on small slips of paper. When Twain visited Grant at the cottage, he brought the good news that he had already pre sold one hundred thousand copies of the autobiography, a relief Grant knew he had succeeded in giving Julia and his children financial security. With his mission accomplished, Grant finally laid down his pen on July sixteenth, after crafting a herculean three hundred and sixty six thousand words in less than a year. Seven days later, Grant’s pulse flickered and ultimately gave out. Employing an army of door to door salesmen, Twain sold more than three hundred thousand copies of the personal memoirs of Ulysses s. Grant. The two Volant box set even outsold Twain’s latest work, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and resulted in Julia Grant receiving four hundred and fifty thousand dollars in royalties equivalent to twelve million dollars today. Grant’s memoir approved not just a commercial success, but a literary one as well. Although he admitted discussion of his presidency or sensitive personal matters such as his drinking. Many scholars considered Grant’s autobiography the finest memoir ever penned by an American president, and perhaps the foremost military memoir in the English language.

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Speaker 1: And a great job by Greg Learn a special thanks to Christopher Klein. And he’s the author of four books and a frequent contributor to the History Channel, National Geographic and American Heritage. And what a story. Indeed, Grant’s last battle was against the clock, and it was for his family, and he held out, and as always the warrior fought to the end. My goodness, anyone who knows anything about Grant as a warrior knows that well, now they know another side of his warrior spirit. Three hundred thousand plus words in less than a year, and all to save his family. And he doesn’t just pen any memoir. Read the book, pick it up, go to Amazon and order it, and just start reading it aloud to your family. It is indeed classic American literature. And it of course took a voice like Mark Twain’s to discover. Both men, by the way, routinely in financial ruined throughout their lives, the story of Mark Twain and Ulysses s. Grant’s race against the clock to save the great Civil War heroes family from destitution. Here on our American Stories. Folks. If you love the stories we tell about this great country, and especially the stories of America’s rich past, know that all of our stories about American history, from war to innovation, culture and faith, are brought to us by the great folks at Hillsdale College, a place where students study all the things that are beautiful in life and all the things that are good in life. And if you can’t get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with their free and terrific online courses. Go to Hillsdale dot edu to learn more.