LOT Old Heritage Auctions  /  2007 June Civil War Grand Format Auction #663  / 

72189

General Ulysses S. Grant's Original Manuscript

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:10,000.00 USD Estimated At:40,000.00 - 60,000.00 USD
General Ulysses S. Grant's Original Manuscript
<B>General Ulysses S. Grant's Original Manuscript </B></I> Ulysses S. Grant dictated his memoirs and wrote them out himself only late in life as he was dying of throat cancer. This is the original manuscript with several holographic corrections and additions made in Grant's own hand. At 246 pages, the memoir is written on the recto only and on lined paper. The memoir was bound in beautiful Morocco leather in the twentieth century and is prefaced by an engraved frontispiece portrait of Grant. This spectacular 12 ½” x 7 7/8” volume was once owned by William Randolph Hearst.<BR><BR>This section of Grant's memoirs concerns the taking of Vicksburg, the city President Abraham Lincoln saw as the key to the downfall of the Confederacy. A key supply point for the Confederate army, Grant devised a brilliant plan to maneuver his army into position to bombard the city and starve the residents into submission. In this manuscript Grant details the siege and makes notes in his own hand. At page 36 he amends as follows:<BR><BR><I>I now determined to move independently of Banks, and clear out the rebel force in rear of Vicksburg, and invest or capture the city.</B></I><BR><BR>In this historically important and singular example of Grant's personal memoir as he dictated it and wrote corrections and additions in his own hand, Grant's military genius can be read as he dictated it to his clerk. This memoir was intended to be published in Century Magazine but quickly became part of a larger work titled <I>Battles and Leaders of the Civil War.</B></I> The memoir was later used as chapter 33 through 38 in his <I>Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant.</B></I><BR><BR>This is the only known example of Grant's memoirs known to be in private hands, the manuscript of his Personal Memoirs being in the possession of the Library of Congress, making this a historically important archive of the chief tactician of the United States army in the Civil War.<BR><BR><b>Shipping:</b> Requires 3rd Party Shipping (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.heritageauctions.com/common/shipping.php">view shipping information</a>)
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