that is followed by british prime minister theresa may taking questions from members of the house of commons. later, john kerry talks about his tenure at the state department and ongoing challenges in the middle east. ♪ >> this week on q&a, ronald white. he discusses his book "american ulysses: a life of ulysses s. grant" >> ronald c white, author of "american ulysses: a life of ulysses s. grant" what is the story you open your prologue with?

>> the war started in 1861. did i reading your book that that day was the first time that grant met lincoln? this was the first time he met lincoln. grant was out in the west, so he had never met grant before. they met that evening. ate would have been where in the history? >> he brought grant east

preparing for what he expected to be the great spring campaign which would start in may, where grant would march into virginia, remembering that four times before, federal armies had marched into virginia and retreated. how did you put that story together? ronald: this is a story that is remembered by son fred. it says who grant is, the lack of pomposity, the self-effacing's that is part of who he is. he often wore a private's uniform. the only designation would be the stars on his shoulder. it is such a contrast to today's leaders. it says so much about who is this man and why america didn't simply admire him, but they loved him. brian: when did you decide after three books on abraham lincoln to do the grant book?

ronald: towards the end of a lincoln book. my editor said it is time to do another presidential biography. we considered several persons. we knew the commemoration of the civil war was coming. i had to confess to myself. after about a year and a half working on this, even though grant was obviously an important figure, i never really knew the man. i only knew what he did. i didn't know what he was. part of my purpose is not simply what a person did, but who they are. what is their character? brian: he was born -- i wrote it down -- in 1822. ronald: that is correct. point pleasant, ohio. brian: why were his parents there? ronald: they had migrated west. i argue that although grant is often lifted up as this individual hero, he saw himself

as part of a family story. he looked back through the prism of eight generations of grants who had come in the 16 30's and gradually migrated west. intoather had come west ohio as a boy and settled in georgetown. brian: if he were in the studio with us, what would he look like? ronald: 5'7", put on weight later on, but mostly was 135 pounds. not a man you would particularly take notice of. i do love the cover of the book. photograph1864 they have colorized. you are almost looking through his eyes and into his soul. when he walked into the white house am a nobody knew who he was. i tell the story of a tall abraham lincoln looking over the crowd and saying, general grant,

what a pleasure to meet you. they were in many ways a marriage of opposites. grant was not a good public speaker. we know that lincoln was a tremendous public speaker. brian: after ohio, where else did he live? ronald: he grew up in georgetown ,nd lived there until he was 17 which is 55 miles east of cincinnati. his father told him that he wanted him to go to west point. it says something about the relationship of parents to children. he said to his father, if you think i should, i will. point as asaw west free education and one of the only two or three engineering schools. many went into much more lucrative jobs. he went to west point at age 17, 5'1" tall. he barely made the cut.

he graduated in 1843. he was then posted to jefferson barracks, the largest posting. it was in st. louis. this is where people who were heading west were. roommate'set his sister, julia dent, and they formed a marvelous marriage. brian: after that, what year did he get married? ronald: he didn't get married right away because her father protested. he didn't want her marrying some vagabond soldier. he would rather a businessperson. grant participated in the war with mexico and did well. he was a young man. he was assigned the duties of quartermaster. he wanted to be in the fight. he then came back and married julia in 1848. brian: what was it that drew

them together? ronald: he was taken by not her beauty -- she was afflicted by what people call -- it was kind of a cross eyed situation. but she was a woman of spirit. he was drawn to her. she was much more vocal than he was. they both loved horses and would ride together at whitehaven. they found this incredible match. interesting story, if i may. a person approached me about four years ago, a friend of mine , and said, let's talk about doing a miniseries. what can you tell me that is most remarkable about grant? i said, let me tell you about julia. he looked at me and shook his head and said, that will never do. that will never do for television. a wonderful marriage. brian: how did that make you feel? ronald: he said, there's got to

be internal tension. there is internal tension. his family was strongly anti-slavery republican. her family was strongly proslavery. her father owned 30 slaves. his family refused to come to the wedding. slavesher gave her four which he called servants. i think these people didn't understand the dynamic of the situation they were marrying into. they had four children. brian: what happened to those children? ronald: they all were quite successful. the boys were. nelly met a young englishman who unfortunately wasn't a good apple. after trying to make the marriage work, she divorced him. she had been living in england. she lived with her family and then with her mother. brian: what about the boys? did they fight? ronald: the youngest became

quite a remarkable person. served as a cabinet officer. became a west point graduate. the second one became quite successful. the younger ones moved to san diego and established the u.s. grant hotel. brian: where else did u.s. grant live besides st. louis and ohio? ronald: i think it is so toortant in doing biography visit the places where a person lives. after the war with mexico in both michigan and new york. in 1852, he was sent to the pacific coast. he couldn't take julia because she was pregnant. he was posted first at oregon, then at fort humboldt, northern california. terribly, he fell into despair and probably drinking and was threatened with

court-martial. the day he received a letter appointing him to be captain, he wrote a letter back to the secretary of war, jefferson davis, and offered his resignation, and returned to julia. the next seven years were very difficult for him. not always his fault. circumstances, farming, the weather, it didn't go well. brian: where did they move next? ronald: they moved to far northwest illinois. he was -- his father said, i'll give you a place in the family leather business. you will serve underneath your younger brother. but when he arrived without fully understanding that he was the only west point graduate in the town, he arrived in the spring of 1860. to westho did he go

point with that thought -- that fought eventually on the confederate side? ronald: the three men who stood up with him at his wedding all fought on the confederate side. the most famous was james long street. james long street was his dear friend. william sherman was three years i had of grant at west point. the grant arrived, congressman who nominated him got it all next up. when he registered, he said, we don't have any ulysses. he said, that is my name. he said, unless you are ulysses simpson grant, you won't be registering. so he became u.s. grant. the boys teased him and called him uncle sam. he was known s sam grant at west point. brian: what happened during the civil war when he had these

close friends on the other side? ronald: he respected them. long street told lee, i don't think you understand who you are going to be up against when you fight grant. he finally practiced what lincoln put forward. at the end of the war, he practice what both he and lincoln wanted to be. these men i had all fought on the same side in the war with mexico. brian: want to show you some video. we have covered a lot of grant. this is just a brief excerpt from what we found in our archive. [video clip] brian: many books written on grant. >> grant personify the egalitarian values of a

modernizing democratic society. no grant and there is no victory in the civil war for the union. >> i do contend that grant saved the union. >> his stature and reputation towered above all others, with his name forever linked with lincoln and the sacred union cause. >> in his lifetime and for decades after, he was regarded as the greatest american hero of the 19th century. brian: anything you disagree with? ronald: no. i think those are quick soundbites, but they have a basic characterization, but there's much more to tell. brian: why did you think you could write a book after all these other books had been written? himself says, the reason i don't read biographies is, they do not tell the story of the boy who becomes the man. publishers today are marketing books that they call biographies.

uclaar friend joan at would say her book is not a biography. it is a wonderful book on how we understand grant in memory. i decided to spend more time on the young grant. i spent a week at west point, trying to understand how this man could finish 21st out of 39 at west point, and therefore sometimes viewed as an intellectual lightweight, and he said, i spent all my time reading novels. also i'm the first person that has had the privilege of looking at all 33 volumes of the grant papers. the last volume will not be published until 2017. i don't think we've had the complete story. brian: why were you able to read the 33 volumes? ronald: partly chronology. they've been in the works since 1962 and will not be finished

until 2017. i also believe this. phenomenonodern sometimes unbelieving we can now write about historical figures by sitting in our office and doing it online. i believe we have to go to these places where grant lived, the battlefields where he fought. even the grant papers, which were at southern illinois university, that is quite a story. there's so much more at mississippi state university then is in those volumes. i made many trips to the grant papers to try to understand. brian: we had some video of a man who was very helpful to us when we were covering the lincoln-douglas debates. john simon at southern illinois university. you tipped your hat to him in your book. did you know him?

ronald: i never had the privilege of knowing him, but i think i meet him every single day. this is one of the finest editorial jobs of an american leader. his annotations in the grant papers are literally a grant biography themselves. he really did understand grant. brian: let's take a look at john a few years ago. [video clip] >> i attended a meeting of the civil war centennial commission in columbus, when newman and other friends asked if i would like to edit the papers of ulysses s. grant. it seemed like a good idea at the time. [laughter] know that the directors had borrowed money from a bank to fund the enterprise. it was the springfield marine bank. no other bank would have been so foolish. [laughter] >> bus casually began the

commitment, lasting the remainder of my adult life. i had little idea of the extent ,f grant's correspondence especially since the entry in the authority dictionary of american biography, that grant wrote as little as possible, leaving no considerable collection of his manuscripts. man, heaving known the was very funny and some of the things he was saying there was his kind of humor. what is your reaction? ronald: i've never seen that tape before. but in the 1920's and 1930's, there was a series produced, and william, who was a distinguished professor in wisconsin, wrote a biography of grant in 1935. that is what he said. there was no collection of grant papers anywhere.

grant was not a good writer. beforee that obviously the collection of the grant papers. he has no understanding whatsoever. why did grant fall? butegan to fall earlier, even in the first third of the 20th century, no one had any idea of grant. i apologized because i read novels. grant didn't just write his memoirs at the end of his life. he had a literary imagination that i think we overlooked. brian: he tells the story of how tremendously popular he was in the 19th century. he would also say the triad would be abraham lincoln, george washington, and grant. what do you think would happen if you took a survey of the american people today? ronald: i make that assertion because in 1900, theodore roosevelt said, of the mighty

dead loom three great american figures. george washington, abraham lincoln, and ulysses s. grant. roosevelt went on to say, a second rank, benjamin franklin, thomas jefferson, alexander hamilton, and andrew jackson. this is the way he understood it. first because of what we call the lost cause, the idea first propagated by confederate generals, that the better side lost. were the better side, the christian side, the chivalrous side, all these values. and they only lost because they were overwhelmed by greater numerical number of troops and greater industrial might, and that butcher, grant, who was willing to sacrifice his men. our best civil war historians have shown us that the

casualties under grant worth less than the casualties under lee. this comes forward. a gentleman reminded me last evening that by the time we get , the institution of jim crow laws, the story i want to tell, that grant defended the rights of african-americans, that wasn't a story anybody wanted to hear. when we get to the civil rights era of the 1960's, the whole abolitionist story is recast in a positive way. grant doesn't seem to be part of that story. he deserves to be. grant fell all the way down to 32 or something like that. i think in recent years he's begun to rise. i think he deserves a much higher ranking in terms of american leaders. brian: how much time did he spend in the military? ronald: he was there from graduation, 43, to 54.

he reentered in 61. he continued to be general in chief. even while he was running for president in 1868, he was both general in chief and candidate of the republican party. he retired from the military when he became president. between,at did he do to continue to be in the public spotlight, between lincoln's 1868, andion, and during the andy johnson years? ronald: he was general in chief and he was very deferential to civilian leadership. he tried to work with andy johnson. he discovered he could not. andy johnson discovered that grant was probably going to be the candidate of the republican party to replace him in 1868. grant, who was not political --

in 1864, people reached out to him to say, wouldn't you be our candidate? he said, that is not my goal. i'm supporting lincoln. he did become more conversant with congress. for a time, when johnson replaced stanton as secretary of war, he was in johnson's covenant. he continued an active life. brian: what was the up close and personal relationship between andrew johnson president and u.s. grant in those years? ronald: more and more fraught with difficulty. johnson tried to figure out a way to displace grant but he also understood the popularity of grant. he tried to order him to mexico. he said, you have a love affair with mexico. i want you to be my special

envoy. no, i won't do that. grand was very reticent to criticize a political leader, but he broke with johnson. they literally stopped speaking. he just couldn't speak anymore. he would attend a cabinet particular give his part and then excuse himself. brian: what were the big differences? ronald: the fact that the congress, led by republicans, were putting in place the 14th amendment, the 15th amendment, all these reconstruction ask. johnson did not recognize this and wanted to receipt all the te -- thed federa former confederate states, and grant saw this as a way of destroying everything that had been fought for. brian: why did andrew johnson want to do that?

did he have his eyes on a second term? ronald: he probably did, but although he was the only southern senator who stayed within the union, the truth came out that he really wasn't this kind of union person. he was a southerner. he led from that point of view. he felt the south had been unfairly maligned and he wanted to bring them back into the story. cismhis underlying ra that was part of his policies. he was not for the friedmans bureau. he was not for voting rights for african-americans. the friedmans bureau was established as an attempt to men become fulle citizens. grant began receiving reports of the way african-americans were being treated. what i discovered very

surprisingly, all the soldiers who enlisted in the civil war at the beginning of 1861, their terms were running out. african-americans were enlisting at the end of the civil war. when the army was downsized, 36% of the union army was african-american. these african-american soldiers, 90% of whom were from the south, they were patrolling the streets of nashville in new orleans and atlanta. the conflict was inevitable. brian: they often talk in history about the drinking of andrew johnson and u.s. grant. how much impact did drinking have on either one of them? ronald: i'm not so much an expert on johnson. i know the story that when abraham lincoln was inaugurated a second time, andrew johnson came up from nashville and sort of studied himself. he had a glass of whiskey.

as he got walking to the capital, he had a second glass of whiskey. then he had a third glass of whiskey. in those days, the vice president also gave an inaugural address. when he stumbled through his speech, people said, don't let andy johnson speak out on the portico. i think the story of grant is much more complicated. tricking was a part of his life. it was a part of military life. you had people who swore that he did a lot of drinking. probably he drank when he was away from julia, when he was falling into depression. i don't think he was a drunkard. i think the drinking sort of disappeared when he became president. but drinking was an issue he had to deal with. brian: back to the grant papers. how much of those did you read? ronald: i think i read every page. brian: did you read it from

print? ronald: from the print. i have to have them in my hand. i have to underline, highlight. the most remarkable part for me in those papers, and i had the privilege of looking at this at the library of congress, more every one, she saved of his letters. in those letters, we discover a grant who was able to discuss his feelings in a personal relationship with her in a way that he almost never did in public. i found through those letters an insight into this ulysses s. grant that you don't find in the speeches to the public.

brian: what motivated him during those years? ronald: this sense of self - abasement. he was not after some position. he was almost surprised at his own ability. in the public letters, he always give credit to his troops. he did not take credit for himself. he had a great love for julia but also his family and what surprised me again was given his west point record, he was really for the education of his children. he really wanted to move to princeton. he could not find the right house there. he wanted his children to study german. he wanted his children to study french. he really was pursuant of their education. the three boys all when two fine schools. sometimes nelly was put down as someone who wasn't as educated. she was also tutored though. julia was quite educated for her time. brian: where did he reside in the world? ronald: we reside near pasadena

in california. i have an office at the marvelous library. we have a third greatest lincoln collection. a wonderful civil war collection. my teacher and friend jim mcpherson has spent four years of his life at the huntington library. you may not think southern california would have all of these resources but mr. huntington, along with j.p. morgan was one of two great collectors in the early 20th century. they were five great lincoln collectors. and in 1915, huntington bought one. the second five. that is where the huntington's were such a marvelous place to do what i am doing. brian: how did you end up at the hudson library? ronald: in my own family journey

and intellectual journey, one day in 1993, i put on the largest lincoln exhibit ever put on. i was not a lincoln scholar. i sat in the back row. nobody invited me. i was teaching at ucla. i had a choice of offering a seminar. i will bring my students 35 minutes to the huntington. find someone, it not to me, to give them a lecture on lincoln. we all started reading lincoln together. i came across the second one. i said my goodness. i know something about the gettysburg address but this is a document i don't know about. i tried to find a book about it. there were none. so, i thought i will write the book. [chuckling] ucla? a phd? one of the words i see a lot is theological. explain that. ronald: i am also a graduate of the princeton theological seminary. my belief in writing biography is that there is a presence of

an absence and the stories. in the stories, there is an absence of the faith story. that is so important. it certainly was for lincoln. his second inaugural address, he mentions god 14 times, quotes the bible 13 times. he uses a lot of religious language. he said there is something for a more profound going on there than that. here in washington, the new york avenue presbyterian church, the pastor became his spiritual mentor. he preached the sermon at the death of of willie. and abraham lincoln asked for a copy of that sermon. there have been no mention of a faith story. moved, a young 27-year-old pastor arrived at the same time.

he would become 30 years later the founder of the famous chautauqua that we know in new york state. he spoke for him at galena. they corresponded. so we have got a methodist story here. methodist.nts were julius parents were methodist. the first national church in washington was not the national cathedral. they methodists were the largest protestant subsector. they dedicated in four days before grant was inaugurated as president. grant was a trustee. so that was the story that has , not been told. -- i'm a presbyterian minister, yes. i have been a pastor.

brian: when i was at southern illinois university a couple of years ago, i was up in what was a very unromantic looking area. i ask him why we don't have to -- we don't have this on record. but i asked him, is there anything about the u.s. grant that we did not like? he walked over to the papers and i don't remember which volume and he opened it up and he said there. it was his anti-semitism. i want you to put it in context. i have some video of a gentleman and jonathan tsonga talking about this. i will get you to put this in context. clip] >> this was the most terrible at -- anti-semite act. it was the only time that jews had been expelled from class anywhere in the united states. [end video clip]

brian: can you explain? ronald: yes, he has this wonderful book where it was called grant expelled the jews. what was taking place was that he was very excited and angry about the fact that washington was allowing trading to take place in the very same area that union forces were trying to shut down the confederacy. , grantis trading believed was really aiding the confederacy because it was bringing in supplies. he believed the jews were the leading traders. so he offered what juliet later called and of noxious order. jews expelled from his lines. but witness order came forward and abraham lincoln saw this order, it was immediately

rescinded. there are another two stories behind this. there is another story, grant was also very upset that his father was now in the employee of a firm in cincinnati and had come south to participate in this kind of trading. he was very angry with his father for doing this also. what he said in the rest of his book, the fact that grant learned from this. he became incredibly retentive of what he did. he tells the story that needs to be heard. grant, more than any other person appointed jewish people to significant places in his administration. he attended the installation of the first jewish synagogue in washington. he reached out and jews became very appreciative of grant's efforts on their behalf as president of the united states. what he did was terrible. he learned from it. it changed his future dealings with jews.

brian: you know, your book is over 100 pages. your notes are a hundred pages of notes. it covers everything. this is the page 426. i won a jew to embellish this. grants personal finances changed. his chief of staff at chattanooga spearheaded an effort to raise money for the celebrated general in chief. he said he was asked everywhere how much general grandpas pay was. his standard reply was, not enough to support the position he holds at all. butterfield bestowed a check for $105,000 for grant. ronald: this was after the civil war. this was during reconstruction. brian: why would he take money like this in a position from the

outsiders? ronald: this was not unusual. they did this for sherman. i think grant should have been far more aware that there is no free lunch. went to begin to take money from these people. we know this issue today is beholden to. he received a home in philadelphia. he received a home in washington, and a helmet in -- a home in galena. this is part of what he did. he hankered after something that had never been a part of his life before. some money to support himself. has a staff you could never imagine. he became cozy with business leaders. brian: another story, i am jumping around. on page 483. he and julia returned to the white house after a summer's absence. juliet inspected the summer work the carpenters, craftsmen, and painters.

you lease issa asked after about the new paintings in stalled throughout the house. what is the story there? ronald: the story there is part of the gold panic. there is an effort to corner the market on wall street. has married a person who is sort of a part of this effort and so, without him fully realizing it, they are trying to draw him into this web. they are trying to learn from him what is going to be the government's policy toward money. suddenly, these things show up and grant is immediately suspicious, boxes them all up and sends them back. brian: where do they come from? ronald: they came from perpetrators were trying to ingratiate themselves to grant. brian: why were they going all up on the white house walls?

ronald: the staff put them all up on the assumption that they were ordered. brian: chapter 31 starts off this way. mark twain used the parity of the presbyterian westminster cataclysm to attack the worship of money as a corrupting influence. ronald: yes, mark twain wrote this book the giving age. the giving it is associated with speculation and money and the scandals of his second administration. it is often a part of the story. we know that when people come to washington, sometimes power can corrupt. and, grant brought people into his administration who had been loyal, able people in the civil war and could not quite believe or understand how power began to corrupt them. and so when other people begin to make charges against them, often grant would be defending them when they should not have been defended. they became part of this gilded age in this rush to earn money. brian: but if he was taking

money from outsiders at the time, wouldn't he have been damaged in some way as far as what money can corrupt? ronald: he was never implicated in any of the scandals. you are drawing a connection there. he probably should not have taken that money. nobody ever accused him. what they accused him about was not being awake and aware. not being a student -- not being -- astute enough to know this was happening around him. he did not recognize when it took place. brian: what happened between mark twain when it was all over? ronald: what happened was rutherford b. hayes came to a net. he set off what would be a private tour. love traveling to new places.

travel was education to him. to his great surprise, he was treated as an american hero. he thought it would only be in england, scotland and europe. money was provided through a good investment from his son and then he spent 28 months traveling the entire world. he came back, did a variety of business ventures. you lease the use -- junior, he went into a business venture on wall street. ulysses senior put all this money into this law firm. everything collapsed. theylked home to julia and had $330 between them. at that point, the century magazine had approached him to write his memoirs.

dwight eisenhower, there was one written. grant did not like memoirs because they were lifting oneself up. now he needed money. he agreed to write his memoirs. century magazine wanted him to write them and offered him $10,000. he was about to sign the dotted line on this. mark twain rushed over to his home. he was very approving and appreciative of grant. in his own typical language, he said $10,000, that is what you pay a comanche indian to write his memoir. i will write your memoir. he persuaded grant, it was very difficult. it was difficult to step away from the contract but grant was a loyal person. said, i will sell 300,000 copies of your memoirs. almost at that moment, he was diagnosed with throat cancer. what i call the final campaign was his race against death. as he raised his memoirs to earn money for julia. there was no presidential pension. he completes the memoirs. three days before he dies. it is an amazing story. twain publishes them. he offers 70% of the proceeds.

not the standard 10% royalties. the memoirs, never out-of-print would earn $450,000 for julia of 19th century money. and they are the classic american memoir. brian: why is it that so many people praise that as the best memoir ever of a public official? ronald: i often say lincoln disappeared after the gettysburg -- into his gettysburg address. there is no egocentrism in his memoir. there is a wonderful power of lighting. grant pushes this right into the story. maybe he would win. he misses the idea of writing.

he eschews adjectives. he got many personal reminiscences from grant. these became part of the memoir. grant gave his own thumbnail sketches of why abraham lincoln, in his own words, is the greatest figure of this era. it is memorable to read this. it is very clear spare english language. sturdy one-syllable words. grant rights in the same way. he likes the saxon language. from the time he started writing until the end, how long did it take him? ronald: the word was out that he was dead. mark twain wrote in his journal, he said the whole nation waster here whether he is alive or dead. -- weights to hear whether grant is alive or dead. is to die, in every

community across this nation there will be bells ringing every 30 seconds. 63 bells. that was the stature of grant that was felt through the entire country. he soldiered on. he went to mount mcgregor. he tried to get away from the heat and humidity of new york. he was going to finish this memoir. it is an amazing story. the doctors believe that he only lived as long as he did because knew he had to complete the memoirs. brian: you say in the book that there is a new number, 750,000. is that dead? ronald: yes, that is dead. what happened was a demographer analyzed the census data during that time. 1860 and 18 70. he discovered these young men who were no longer alive in 1870. the figure is more like 750,000

and seven of the traditional 620,000. calculated the casualties correctly. brian: what was the breakdown for the north and south? much moree south is difficult to calibrate because the records are not nearly as clear. i would probably misstate it so i don't want to make the calculation. brian: you know the number of soldiers. ronald: almost twice as many as in the north and south. about 180,000 african-americans. brian: why did he succeed in the civil war? ronald: if you think about it, no one had ever led an army of more than 14,000. you might have graduated first

in your quest at west point but that did not mean you could manage an army of 150 or 250,000 men. grant had the ability to keep fighting. what lincoln called pertinacity. what lee did was he shifted his interior lines. when he had a force attacking him, he would move over to fight that force. then the fighting would cease and desist after two or three days. people would rest and refit and re-do the battle. there was no resting and refitting for grant. he kept the forces going. also, he discovered that the forces cannot discover the coordination. he had five different armies. he said these armies must attack in a coordinated way. if we attack here, there is no coordination. that gives the troops the ability to withstand our attacks. so his masterful ability to fight in a coordinated way.

he gave his chief generals the ability to manage their own theaters of operation. he trusted them and gave them forward.dence to move he was not a micro manager. relationship, with george. grant said, i am not moving you. i'm placing my confidence in you. brian: wedding in your life did you become a writer? school i was a high journalist. i never had the time to write full-time. so i never could see myself having this possibility. brian: the theological degree, when did that start for you? ronald: pretty early. i always weighed the difference between being a teacher and a

pastor. i grew up in california, born in minneapolis and moved to california at age four. brian: were there any other ministers in your family? years, have you changed your mind at all about religion? ronald: i want to be the kind of person who is grateful for my past, what i've experienced. i'm not necessarily there. not necessarily in the past. doors you canns never imagine when you're young. in one sense i have a basic, central belief in term of the christian faith. and yet the world around us has changed rapidly and we need to be willing and able to change with it and to see new possibilities, new challenges. the whole component of social justice i think was not part of my reality as a youngster but i

think the whole civil rights era, the martin luther king story challenged me to think about this in fresh ways. so i spent a lot of time writing about what is called the social gospel. after that, social christianity can confront the issue of race. historically, in the decades before it. that is behind this book. grantd ulysses s. confront the issue of racial injustice. brian: what mark would you give him? ronald: i would give him an a. you know, one day there were african-american leaders and the white house. he said i look forward to the day when you can ride on a railroad car. you can eat in a restaurant. you can do so along with every other person regardless of race. that day must come. it took 90 years for that day to

come. grant was the last american president to hold these kinds of views. we think of barack obama as the first president elected with a nonwhite majority. ulysses s. grant was the first person elected with a nonwhite majority. he only won the popular vote in 1868 because 400,000 african-americans voted for him. by 1890, a few thousand were still in the south. this is the story of ulysses s. grant that needs to be told. a person who stood up against voter suppression of his day, that was the goal of the ku klux press -- to suppress the vote. he wanted to stop that and give african-americans the right to vote. brian: please tell people where you went.

how many places did you go to study? ronald: probably 20 or 25 places. i am indebted to many national park historians. there are libraries. there are a lot of different documents in different places. they don't always align with geography. these papers are in dallas, texas. i don't think he had ever written a day in dallas texas. they were offered to southern methodist university and they said, we will take them. brian: how many of the 33 volumes are digitized? ronald: all of them are digitized. the 33rd volume will be published by harvard university press. brian: why? well, this is to be a special volume. i don't fully know the

conversation. the hope is that this will become a very first-class one. i have seen it but not in the final stages. my wonderful executive editor at ulysses s. grant mississippi state was helpful. brian: you talked about his remarkable horsemanship. you talked of the many conversations he had with the wranglers where he rode. what is that about? ] aughter ronald: i didn't realize that our physical education classes were horseback riding. by the famous horse whisperer. wyoming, andden in near south of tucson. i asked these people about grant and horseback riding.

because that is not our culture. when people of the 19 century understood grant as a horse whisperer, one who gentle horses, one who could gentle horses is a gentle person. i wanted to lift up his story as a horseman because is that a lot about his character. brian: of the places you went, grant followers and don't travel much, give them one place to go? ronald: i would say the expert. vicksburg. the topography is great. there were no trees at that time. they had this fire zone. this was the most complicated battle. it took the longest to win.

it was very important because of the freedom of access. i would say with lots of difficulties, this was a masterstroke. you asked about lincoln and grant. lincoln had not met grant yet. he wrote grant a letter after he won the battle of gettysburg. he said, i said that when you decide to do this, i could not agree last. anti-and mrs. letter by saying, general grant, i was wrong and you are right. brian: the book is called "american ulysses: a life of ulysses s. grant" our guest has been ronald c. white. based at the huntington library in pasadena. thank you very much. ronald: thank you brian. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.

visit ncicap.org] ♪ announcer: for free transcripts, or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q&a.org. q&a is also available as a podcast. ♪ announcer: if you liked this q&a program, here's some others you might and joy. hunter james robertson on his book after he came back from the war. there is also walter star who writes about the relationship between abraham lincoln and secretary of state william seward. also, john quincy adams, american