eBook coming soon!
About the book
On March 29, 1863, 12-year-old Frederick Grant, the eldest son of Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, arrived at his father’s headquarters at Young’s Point, Louisiana. Grant’s Army of the Tennessee was preparing to move against Vicksburg, Mississippi, and young Fred had no intention of missing out on the adventure. His incredible journey would consume more than three months and would not end until shortly after the surrender of the Confederate bastion on the Fourth of July. Posterity is the beneficiary of the younger Grant’s brief memoir on the subject, which Albert A. Nofi has edited and annotated as Fred Grant at Vicksburg: A Boy’s Memoir at his Father’s Side during the American Civil War.
For nearly 100 days, young Fred roamed freely within the army, often not seeing his father for days while living amongst the troops, sharing their rations, and seeing war firsthand. At times hungry, cold, and alone, he was also often under fire, slept where he could, was nearly captured, and was lightly wounded in the Battle of the Big Black River Bridge. The pre-teen twice watched as Union ships ran the Vicksburg batteries, acquired souvenirs, met some of the most notable Americans of the time, and nearly died from dysentery—all the while witnessing and participating in some of the most decisive events of the Civil War.
Years after the war, Fred began recounting his adventures at veteran reunions or during interviews with journalists. In 1887, he contributed a long account of his dramatic experiences to The National Tribune, the nation’s principal newspaper for Union vets. This book is based primarily on that main account. Editor and annotator Nofi supplemented Grant’s memoir with material from more than a dozen other versions of his adventures, which often add additional details or explanations omitted in the longer National Tribune telling.
Fred Grant at Vicksburg is one of the greatest yet least-known adventure stories of the age. This entertaining and enlightening new study adds another facet to our understanding of Vicksburg, the Civil War, and the unique relationship of father and son.
Albert A. Nofi has a doctorate in military history from the City University of New York. A former teacher and administrator in experimental programs in the New York City high schools, he is the author or editor of more than 40 books on military history, numerous articles, and a number of war games. His The Gettysburg Campaign was cited in The New York Times as the best introductory book on the battle, and his To Train the Fleet for War: The U.S. Navy Fleet Problems, 1923-1940, received the 2011 John Lyman Book Award in Navy History by the North American Society of Oceanic History and an Honorable Mention for the Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt Prize in Naval History from the New York Council of the Navy League of the United States. Al is a founding member and director of the New York Military Affairs Symposium, a former Associate Fellow of the U.S. Civil War Center at Louisiana State University, deputy editor of North & South, and a regular contributor to StrategyPage.com. A sometimes sea cook, he lives in Brooklyn.
