Julia Boggs Dent Grant: The General's Wife

 

I hold similar frustrations with Ishbel Ross's The General's Wife: The Life of Ulysses S. Grant as I have with previous biographies chronicled in this blog - most notably, that while purporting to be about Julia Grant, it is written as the story of a woman told through the life of her husband, and I learned much more about General, then President, Grant than I did about Mrs. Grant.  

I don't want to dwell on that criticism too long, however, in an effort to accept the book within its larger context. First published in 1959, The General's Wife is written as a traditional biography, chronologically telling the story of its subject with little concern for the more rigorous analytical demands that social movements of the following decades would thrust upon future historians. The author also makes her source base clear in her acknowledgments at the front of the manuscript and points out that Mrs. Grant was "not as zealous a letter writer as General Grant" and that while the Grants' descendants allowed the author access to Mrs. Grant's then-unpublished memoirs, she was "not to draw from it in any way" other than to offer her a "fuller understanding of her character and personality." 

All that being said, the book is full of an astounding amount of detail. What follows are some thoughts, in no particular order, on just a handful that I remember finding interesting while reading: 

• The book spends more time on the Civil War than on any other period in the Grants' lives, including the presidency, so it didn't do much to alter my understanding of Grant as simply the General who led the Union Army to victory and then became President off that popularity. I did, however, find it interesting to learn that Grant never had any real affinity for life in the Army and was not one to seek attention. According to this account, his mother and his wife were the only people who saw his true potential to do great things. 
• The tensions and complications of a marriage between the Union-backing Grants and the Southern-sympathizing and slave-owning Dents were more dramatic than any previous presidential pairing. We don't get a lot on Julia's thoughts or feelings on the subject, and the book is far from a fully fleshed-out analysis of the situation, but the Grant family made its animosity toward the Dents' lifestyle very clear--they did not even attend the wedding because they "abhorred the thought that Ulysses was marrying into a slave-owning family" (pp. 45-46). Julia's father highly disapproved of his son-in-law's Union allegiance, though Julia, apparently, handled it gracefully (p. 117). 
• Yet I was also shocked to learn that General Grant had owned an enslaved person, whom he freed in March 1859, and had "up to that time ... not taken an emphatic stand" on the subject of slavery (p. 96). The General who was essentially leading the Union Amry in its fight to end slavery in the United States even lived with enslaved persons in his camp household during the Civil War when Julia and their children would travel to join him at the front, which they did regularly: 

When Julia joined him briefly in Jackson ... Black Julia, the tiny ginger-colored maid Julia had had from birth, ran away. Grant was relieved. He forbade any attempt to bring her back, and expressed the wish that he could get rid of Julia's two other slaves in the same way. He had often told Auntie Robinson that he 'wanted to give his wife's slaves their freedom as soon as he was able.' (134)

• Julia Grant may not have been as well-read as her husband, but she was more sophisticated than he and was generally well-liked. As First Lady, she handled her social responsibilities with aplomb and came to relish the power and glamour that came with the presidential position - so much so that she tried to convince her husband to seek a third term. 
• I enjoyed reading about the two years the Grants spent traveling the world after the presidency. It was a trip few people will ever experience, even today. Considering they spent much of their early marriage often struggling to find financial success, it must have been an affirming experience to experience so much in such lavish fashion. 
• Part of the reason Julia was not as prolific a correspondent was that she suffered from "a mild case of strabismus" (p. 37), crossed eyes, that caused her some difficulty. It even led her to self-consciously pose in profile in portraits, as seen on the cover of the book (above). I found it sweet, though, that when she contemplated having it surgically corrected, General Grant asked her not to. He wrote:

I don't want to have your eyes fooled with. They are right as they are. They look just as they did the very first time I ever saw them--the same eyes I looked into when I fell in love with you--the same eyes that looked up into mine and told me that my love was returned. I have felt and seen that expression in them through all the years since then, and I don't want it changed now. This operation might make you look better to other people; but to me you are prettier as you are--as you were when I first saw you. (p. 221)

• Overall, Julia and Ulysses had a marriage of true love built on mutual respect and support. I think the last few paragraphs of Ross's book provide a good summation of what a more interpretive manuscript could have been developed around, had it been intended to be such: 

    None could question the fact that Julia had lived a rich and purposeful life. In her own quiet way she had made herself one of the more portent women in American history. She was not conspicuous in her generation, since she was neither a beauty nor scholar, a siren nor a politician. Her prosaic exterior gave no clue to the bright flame that Julia harbored, to the humor and warmth that infused her generous nature. She was always content to take a back seat and let Ulysses hold the reins, but behind her impulsive manner, her contradictions and her lenient ways, was the optimistic spirit that served him best in moments of crisis and discouragement. 

     Much wisdom underlay her air of simplicity in the closing years of her life. No American woman of her generation had traveled farther or met more famous people than Julia Grant. She had seen much of war, the world and the ways of government. At the end she had countless friends and few enemies. Above all, she had shared with unerring instinct the mixed fortunes of General Grant. Her faith in him was like a charm throughout his life. His love for her was a shield against destruction. (pp. 334-335)

Finally, the Grants moved around a lot, and I was surprised to learn that they spent some time living in Detroit. I might have to spend some time looking into whether any Grant-related buildings or markers still exist in the area.