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Ulysses S. Grant, the hardscrabble man who regularly smoked twenty cigars a day, had developed terminal throat cancer. Thus began Grant’s final battle—a race against his own failing health to complete his Personal Memoirs in an attempt to secure his family’s financial security. But the project evolved into something far more: an effort to secure the very meaning of the Civil War itself and how it would be remembered.

Chris Mackowski, Ph.D., is the co-founder of Emerging Civil War. He has authored more than a dozen books and has penned articles for Civil War Times, America’s Civil War, Hallowed Ground, and Blue & Gray. Chris is a writing professor at St. Bonaventure University in Allegany, NY, and historian-in residence at Stevenson Ridge, a historic property on the Spotsylvania battlefield. Read Emerging Civil War’s blog at www.emergingcivilwar.com.