The story of Grant’s aasociation with Twain and the latter’s influence on getting Grant’s war time memoires written is discussed in great and entertaining detail in Ron Chernows’s biography of Grant, which is one of the most entertaining biographies I have ever read: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B06W2J89PV/ref=tmm_kin_swatch...
I too found that biography to be very entertaining and informative. It was interesting how Grant spent the last several months of his life writing for most hours of almost every day. He dove into it, and apparently gave Twain's publishing firm a pretty good product that they could easily work with.
Grant was a very skilled man throughout his life in regard to arithmetic, equestrianism, and military arts among other things. However, he truly found a new skill and passion in writing while literally on his deathbed.
i think that the concensus is that grant did it to ensure support for his wife after his death, which to me shows that he was very good man (and his actions in the civil war, and after, back this up).
i've read about half of his book, which can be quite funny in places. but relies (naturally) on some detailed appreciation of the geography of the battlefields, and geography has ever been my least favourite area of knowledge, so i had to give it up.
Twain writes about it himself in his (insanely long) autobiography. Grant was nearly broke when Twain - who was a great admirer of his - pushed him to write it and set him up with a publisher. After the publisher tried to screw Grant with a horrible contract, Twain published it himself.
One of Grant's failings was trusting too easily. He was broke because he was taken in by a con artist, then developed throat cancer before he could get his feet back under him, and spent his dying months writing out the manuscript by hand because he couldn't do tate to a secretary any more.
Wikipedia has an interesting paragraph on the circumstances whereby his autobiography will not enter into the Public Domain as scheduled, but later, due to some "gaming the system".
My favorite anecdote from that book is Grant wanted to teach mathematics at West Point under Albert Church before he went off to the Mexican-American War.
A less stated (but well understood) component of this story is that Clemens grew up believing in his southern slave culture, fought (if joining up is fighting) in defence of the southern side, but converted later in life, not the least because he married into an abolitionist family.
A quote I like: "Samuel Clemens later observed, "Civilization began when slavery was abolished."
Many in the south remained unreconstructed racists and opposed to Grant. Clemens didn't.
I suppose it depends on your definition of civilisation. I agree that emotionally the quote conveys a laudable sentiment but technically, it would probably be more correct to state the opposite i.e. that civilisation began with slavery. As the beginnings of civilisation are usually correlated with the the beginnings of agriculture and agriculture, arguably, created the demand for workers which allowed slavers to flourish.
As the post mentions, it was Twain('s company) who ultimately ended up publishing Grant's memoirs at the end of his life. The post doesn't mention but it wasn't just a random relationship, they were good friends. (Sidenote: Ron Chernow's Grant is a great read. Grant is an underrated president.)
It's always interesting to read about historic figures intersecting.
I'm curious how Grant's presidency is considered underrated. I admire him for taking unpopular stances around voting rights and civil rights (and particularly, he genuinely seemed to care about Native Americans in some real capacity) but his presidency was completely mired by corruption around him, so much so that there's entire wikipedia page devoted to it[0].
While I'm not going to claim nearly any president was without scandal (really almost none, sans maybe - maybe - George Washington), evidence suggests he was a really ineffective president all things considered, particularly in controlling his cabinet members and managing economic affairs
I think it's underrated since people generally rate it so poorly to begin with. His time in office is considered to be almost a waste since there was so much corruption by those who gained his trust and got into positions of power. Really, Sect of State Hamilton Fish was just about Grant's only good judge of character when building his administration.
Even though surrounded by corruption, he achieved important success by using his platform as by far America's most famous living person to push the country forward significantly on unpopular civil rights issues. To this end he developed as a public speaker and self-publicist while in office (as a poor judge of character he couldn't really rely on those around him).
This article's word choice using terms like "larping" and "cosplaying" to talk about Mark Twain on a history site seems like a less than ideal writing style; it made me stop reading and facepalm for a moment.
It’s less the formality and more the hypermodern idioms that feel out of place (what’s the opposite of anachronistic?) in talking about a historical subject. Like, yes Mark Twain had the rizz and the Confedussies took the L but that’s probably not how I’d discuss it.
Twain’s escape West is an entertaining memoir! He did a little bit of everything and accumulated some great (if a bit tall) tales. I remember it has the story of his first stand up comedy act, including a description of some people he paid to sit in the front row and laugh at everything. Getting scammed, getting lost, a gold prospector who worked with a cat, and a great story about a goat… “Roughing It” has it all.
Roughing It is my favorite Twain work but it needs to be read cautiously with respect to its veracity. Twain had a tendency to both embellish and out-right make up the events detailed in the book. That said, its a very enjoyable book and it gives a good look at the style of the author-to-be.
I'm glad Wikipedia has it marked semi-autobiographical because when I first read it awhile ago I didn't realize that. I caught on after I read his quote "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story" some time around the time I read that book. I feel "Life On The Mississippi" is probably his most true book for two reasons: 1) Becoming a steam boat pilot was a deeply formative experience 2) He lost his younger brother Henry Clemens to a steam boat boiler explosion and he wanted to honor his memory.
What a loss it would have been had Clemens been killed in his short time in the army. There are few figures more important to American literature than he.
Considering that the GOP is rehabilitating the Confederacy these days Twain's ties to the Lost Cause might be the only thing that keeps his writings from being removed from school libraries.
Think of the loss of those that did die and what their contributions could have been to realize that this may seem clever but actually isn't. If Sam Clemens had died it would have been a loss, pure and simple. That people that die in wars end up not contributing to society may well mean that the next Einstein or Hawking was lost to humanity.
The biggest contributor was death in childhood. Twain had made it past that. His conditional life expectancy as an adult was much higher than life expectancy
"In the Middle Ages when the feudal lords . . .concluded to enlarge their domains, to increase their power, their prestige and their wealth they declared war upon one another. But they themselves did not go to war any more than the modern feudal lords, the barons of Wall Street, go to war."
Feudal lords most definitely went to war, died in those wars, their who families were exterminated in those wars. This was the case everywhere in the world, from England to Japan.
In the end you can protest all you want but when dudes with guns show up, they care not about it. They will take your stuff, they will rape your wife and daughters, they will murder your sons and you. That is the history of humans from WAY before any feudal lords.
Emperor Napoleon III personally led the French army, but when he (and 100K men) were captured in the Battle of Sedan in 1870 it practically won Prussia the war.
> In the end you can protest all you want but when dudes with guns show up, they care not about it. They will take your stuff, they will rape your wife and daughters, they will murder your sons and you.
Readit News
Grant was a very skilled man throughout his life in regard to arithmetic, equestrianism, and military arts among other things. However, he truly found a new skill and passion in writing while literally on his deathbed.
i've read about half of his book, which can be quite funny in places. but relies (naturally) on some detailed appreciation of the geography of the battlefields, and geography has ever been my least favourite area of knowledge, so i had to give it up.
A quote I like: "Samuel Clemens later observed, "Civilization began when slavery was abolished."
Many in the south remained unreconstructed racists and opposed to Grant. Clemens didn't.
It's always interesting to read about historic figures intersecting.
While I'm not going to claim nearly any president was without scandal (really almost none, sans maybe - maybe - George Washington), evidence suggests he was a really ineffective president all things considered, particularly in controlling his cabinet members and managing economic affairs
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_administration_scandals
Even though surrounded by corruption, he achieved important success by using his platform as by far America's most famous living person to push the country forward significantly on unpopular civil rights issues. To this end he developed as a public speaker and self-publicist while in office (as a poor judge of character he couldn't really rely on those around him).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roughing_It
Past sins become permanent tattoos far too easily these days.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1040079/life-expectancy-...
As a left-libertarian, I would like to recommend two great speeches regarding war:
Eugene Debbs: https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/eugene-v-debs-speech...
Smedley Butler: http://kether.com/words/butler-smedley--war-is-a-racket-1.pd...
"In the Middle Ages when the feudal lords . . .concluded to enlarge their domains, to increase their power, their prestige and their wealth they declared war upon one another. But they themselves did not go to war any more than the modern feudal lords, the barons of Wall Street, go to war."
Feudal lords most definitely went to war, died in those wars, their who families were exterminated in those wars. This was the case everywhere in the world, from England to Japan.
In the end you can protest all you want but when dudes with guns show up, they care not about it. They will take your stuff, they will rape your wife and daughters, they will murder your sons and you. That is the history of humans from WAY before any feudal lords.
Emperor Napoleon III personally led the French army, but when he (and 100K men) were captured in the Battle of Sedan in 1870 it practically won Prussia the war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sedan
> after news hit Paris of Emperor Napoleon's III capture, his wife said "why didn't he kill himself?"
Do you mean the police?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRVod4PwQHs