Based on extensive research, including material either not seen or not used by other writers, this biography explains for the first time how Grant's military genius ultimately triumphed as he created a new approach to battle.

As president, Grant was widely misunderstood and underrated. That was mainly because he was, as Perret shows, the first modern president - the first man to preside over a rich, industrialized America that had put slavery behind it and was struggling to provide racial justice for all.

Grant's story - from a frontier boyhood to West Point; from heroic feats in the Mexican War to grinding poverty in St. Louis; from his return to the army to eventual election to the presidency; from his two-year journey around the world to his final battle to finish his Personal Memoirs - is one of the most adventurous and moving in American history.