“To tell the truth about” Ulysses S. Grant, John Russell Young observed in 1901, “sounds like unreasoning adulation” (593). Historian Charles W. Calhoun concludes his assessment of the Grant presidency with this carefully chosen quotation from Young, who had come to know the former president during his famous world tour between 1877 and 1879. If Young's observation held true in 1901, the trend only intensified for the remainder of the century. Even as historians reassessed Grant's life at various points, his presidency was usually an afterthought. Witness: as single-termers such as Rutherford Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, and William Howard Taft long ago got their scholarly treatment in the University Press of Kansas's American Presidency Series, only now is the much-needed volume on the Grant years available. Scholars of political history will believe it is worth the wait. A volume informed by extensive original research, The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant is likely to be the last word on Grant's presidency for generations.

As those who are familiar with Grant scholarship long have known, the military components of Grant's meteoric career have long overshadowed the political. With the exception of William Hesseltine's 1935 Ulysses S. Grant: Politician, few professional historians have devoted monograph-length studies to Grant's presidency. Biographies of the enigmatic hero abound, but most downplay the presidency. Mired in corruption, plagued with scandal, and unable to solve the largest issues of his day, the Grant years embody the nadir of nineteenth-century politics in many historical surveys. Charles Calhoun's challenge, therefore, is not only to take the Grant presidency seriously, but to do so with fresh eyes. Careful not to fall into mere flattery, Calhoun acknowledges that Grant had far too many setbacks to be considered a “great” president. These setbacks were not all of Grant's making, however. The first of Calhoun's two major themes illustrate context: Grant was “an embattled president operating under severe fire from the beginning of his administration to the end” (5). Many of these critics were professional politicians who looked down on Grant for his humble origins and his career as a solider.

Calhoun's second major theme addresses “substantive accomplishments … despite the incessant conflict.” Here, Calhoun seems to hedge his bets, asserting that these accomplishments included initiatives and achievements, some of which “fell short of their goals” (6). Agreeing with revisionist historians who have credited Grant's doggedness in trying to protect African American right in the South, Calhoun also identifies monetary policy, civil service reform, an attempt to rethink relations with American Indians, as well as the successful resolution of the Alabama claims against Great Britain as areas of Grant's success. Calhoun concedes that on some of these matters, Grant did not fully meet his objectives, which is charitable to the president.

Far from a helpless dupe who let crooked cronies dictate policy, Grant proved to be a careful study of issues, if not of men. Unfortunately, his loyalty to friends and family came back to haunt the president. Whether it was his secretary Orville Babcock, who would be ensnared in the Whiskey Ring scandal at the end of his second term; or brother-in-law Abel Corbin, who attempted to use his personal relationship to help robber barons Jay Gould and James Fisk corner the gold market, too often Grant was undermined by those who should have helped. Yet on closer inspection, some of Grants initiatives, such as civil service reform, clearly were not successes, as both parties embraced the mantle of reform during the 1876 election. Calhoun aptly cites Gilded Age historian Mark W. Summers regarding the corruption issue and acknowledges that “Grant's administration exhibited enough delinquency to provide his enemies a convenient brush with which to tar his presidential reputation in perpetuity” (593).

One of the most useful components of Calhoun's study is its examination of Grant's attempt to fashion a more modern presidential apparatus. Here Grant borrowed heavily from his war experiences and hoped that in so doing he could create stability and authority in the executive branch. Given the lack of strong peacetime presidential leadership in the years since the presidency of Andrew Jackson, this was quite a challenge. Like Jackson, Grant faced critics who were certain that Grant was attempting to undermine democratic traditions. In fact, Calhoun illustrates, Charles Sumner was charging Grant with unbridled personal ambition, which he sometimes labeled “Grantism,” or others labeled “Caesarism,” while Grant was still in his first term. That Grant so willingly seemed to encourage his candidacy for a third term in 1876 and especially in 1880 was more grist for the pundits’ mills. Calhoun asserts these charges are misleading; in his rendering, Grant remained a faithful public servant who warmed up to political life when he recognized his strengths as a leader and the paucity of suitable alternatives available. In sum, Grant grew to appreciate his own talents and pointed to the need for more assertive executive action that most scholars would later attribute to Theodore Roosevelt.

Calhoun's use of primary materials, particularly the Ulysses S. Grant Papers, but also a myriad of collections at the Library of Congress, is impressive. At times, this can lead the historian to trod through every wrinkle of every personality and every dispute, a doggedness that Grant no doubt would have admired. The scope of the work may be its chief liability: in his quest to leave no angle unexplored, Calhoun has written a tome that is nearly double the length of the similar volume devoted to Franklin D. Roosevelt. And, in spite of his tireless devotion to primary sources, at times the author is less willing to engage in secondary literature that is topical in nature and might help with context and clarity. These critiques do not subtract from a herculean effort by Charles Calhoun to save the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant from caricature and invective. Calhoun's book reminds us that American presidents were not always egomaniacs, but that devotion to principle and to country were hallmarks that citizens could expect from the Oval Office.