Completed just days before his death and hailed by Mark Twain as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," this is the now-legendary autobiography of ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT, 18th president of the United States and the Union general who led the North to victory in the Civil War. Though Grant opens with tales of his boyhood, his education at West Point, and his early military career in the Mexican-American war of the 1840s, it is Grant's intimate observations on the conduct of the Civil War, which make up the bulk of the work, that have made this required reading for history students, military strategists, and Civil War buffs alike. Grant wrote his "Personal Memoirs" to secure his family's future. In doing so, the Civil War's greatest general won himself a unique place in American letters. His character, sense of purpose, and simple compassion are evident throughout this deeply moving account, as well as in the letters to his wife, Julia, included here.