May 4, 2013. Jackson, Mississippi. U.S.Grant.

The book is  "U.S.Grant: American Hero, American Myth", by Joan Waugh.   If you are at all interested in the Civil War this is a book you will want to read.   The bulk of the book I read this winter in Mexico but I left the last few chapters for later when we were in Mississippi, where the Civil War is often on your mind.  Jackson was burned three times so you find very few old homes here.   In Natchez, the town was spared because it was a hot bed of Union sympathizers.  Also the General in charge stated that the town "was too pretty to burn".

It has been a puzzle to me as to why General Lee has more notoriety now that General Grant.   When General Grant died in 1985, he was on a par with Washington and Lincoln, but no more.   The last section of the book deals with the Grant Tomb and Monument, and the reason why it was built in New York in a remote park.    With much encouragement from the New York politicians, the family decided to place it in New York, which in retrospect was a serious error of judgement.    Now the Tomb is in a bad neighborhood with graffiti painted all over.  No one tours the monument now so people have forgotten about poor General Grant.  The Monument should have been built in either Washington, DC, or Illinois, where he grew up, then everyone would learn about him..  But the book is worth reading, even though I read in two different times.