Abby Eller on “Grant’s Memoirs: How and Why They Came to Be Written”

Ulysses Grant: One of America’s greatest generals, his strength was an iron will and nerves of steel that kept him clear-headed and determined under conditions of enormous stress. His great weakness was inability to realize that some people, no matter how friendly, should never be trusted. Grant’s strength and weakness would unexpectedly collide to produce what critics have acclaimed as a great military memoir and an American literary classic.

Abby Eller, a lifelong American history enthusiast and Civil War history buff, is an active member of the Peninsula Civil War Round Table and the South Bay Civil War Round Table. She volunteers at the San Mateo County History Museum secondhand bookshop, where she curates the military history section.