They met in person only four times, yet these two men-Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee-determined the outcome of America's most divisive war and cast larger-than-life shadows over their reunited nation. They came from vastly different backgrounds: Lee from a distinguished family of waning fortunes; Grant, a young man on the make in a new America. Differing circumstances colored their outlooks on life: Lee, the melancholy realist; Grant, the incurable...

"An authoritative biography of the second-highest-ranking and most controversial Confederate general, who rejoined the Union after the Civil War, advising other Confederate soldiers to put that war behind them. After joining an interracial government in New Orleans, Longstreet fought against white supremacists when they attacked these postwar elected officials, for which he was vilified and attacked by other Southerners, and blamed for the South's...