The General and the Journalists: Ulysses S. Grant, Horace Greeley, and Charles Dana

Rating:
Summary: Stretched too thin
Review: The inherent problem with this book is that it's stretched too thin and tries to cover to many personalities. Charles Dana and Greeley are ancillary players in the civil war drama; there's enough material on Grant and journalists to warrant a study of him alone. In addition, Charles Dana deliberately muddied the historical waters by having others ghostwrite his memoirs and constantly changing this stories or giving conflicting testimony about various events.

Maihofer writes well and certainly displays a prejudice in General Grant's favor. There are few factual errors and the pace is lively. However, the book would have been improved had he restricted the narrative to U.S. Grant and eliminated Dana and Greeley. Ultimately this makes for a somewhat disjointed book and one is sorely temped to skip over the chapters with the two minor supporting players.