U. S. Grant has always been a punching bag for historians over the years who have generally accepted the Southern narrative on his life (drunk, corrupt and incompetent) with a grudging regard for his generalship. This book is a much needed reappraisal of his capable leadership and decency especially with regard to his leadership putting up a strong fight against the Klan and other hate groups in the South during Reconstruction for many years until the North loses it's will and things slide back toward the evil past. ( )

Although the title of this book is somewhat misleading, as Ulysses S. Grant is something of a minor character, there is a lot of information about the early KKK, and anyone interested in American History will find this book a worthwhile read. Grant was a strong proponent of civil rights, but he’s not really the focus of the book. Bordewich does justice to Grant, detailing legislation he championed in support of civil rights, as well as the judges and cabinet members he appointed who helped make his vision a reality.

And it was a reality. Sort of. For a little while. The reader learns about many of the new elected officials, many newly emancipated, in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, and the ways their activism pushed forward the civil rights agenda.

Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, there’s a backlash, and it is this that forms the bulk of this book. Alongside the stories of brave people who fought for equal rights are the stories of people who believed in both segregation and subjugation, and the violence they perpetrated in pursuit of their goals. There are numerous descriptions of lynchings, assaults, brutality, and cruelty as the KKK became more organized.

Readers will learn the many ways in which the KKK of the 1860s and 1870s was different from what we now think of the Klan, and may be surprised to find out the Klan was essentially dormant from the late 19th century until the early 1920s, at which point it was increasing immigration that provided the impetus for the resurrection of the Klan into what we know today.

Readalikes: The Wars of Reconstruction: The Brief, Violent History of America’s Most Progressive Era by Douglas R. Egerton
The Ordeal of the Reunion: A New History of Reconstruction by Mark Wahlgren Summers
Ecstatic Nation: Confidence, Crisis, and Compromise, 1848-1877 by Brenda Wineapple ( )