I finished the biography of Grant yesterday. I have read several of Ron Chernow biographies and one of the things he is good at is transforming historical figures into real people. Like his biography of Hamilton, with Grant he takes a historical figure whose place in history has been written mostly by his distractors and retells his story.  My biggest criticism of the book is when the author starts to pontificate about what he has told you and more irritating how to think about it. Fortunately he only does this at the end of sections so it is not too much of a distraction.

  I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to any one who is interested in mid 19th century U.S. History from the period just before and including the Mexican War, the Civil War (especially the Western campaign) and Reconstruction.