Lloyd Lewis (1) (1891–1949)

When I picked this up I didn’t realize it was pretty much a reprint of an early 1900’s book, which isn’t bad, but I wasn’t expecting the style and it threw me off a bit. It was interesting getting a more timely point of view rather than a book published recently but again, it wasn’t what I was expecting, which is not to say it was bad. The pacing was pretty slow at the beginning, picked up closer to the actually assassination and then slowed down a bit again at the end. Definitely show more interesting to hear the prevailing theories and myths of the times though. It’ll go on the shelf, but I’m not so sure I’ll pick it up again. show less

A well researched study of U S Grant’s life before the Civil War. This work is a rare look at Mr. Grant’s early life. While Grant is famous mostly for his military success during the Civil War and his memoirs he published just before he died. The nearly 40 years of his early life were relatively unknown until Mr. Lewis published this work. After Mr. Lewis’ unexpected death, Mr Catton completed the trilogy with 2 volumes during Grant’s military service in the War.

The author slowly desolves into hero worship. There a number of details in the book that were not well researched such his reference to John Bell Hood having lost an arm at Gettysburg. Hood lost the use of his arm not the physical arm. Obviously, when glaring errors like this are found then any reader would wonder about the rest of the work. My purpose for reading this was to get the perceptions of a generation that was much closer to the actual deeds. This it accomplished. I was rather show more shocked at the government's handling of our heroes after 25-30 years. Like the wholesale reduction of their pay by our congress. Even with these issues I would recommend it. show less

The more I read about him, the more I really like Sherman. In addition, this author "does" history really well.