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That's better H-E-L-P.com. In July 1885, in full knowledge he was dying of throat cancer.

Ulysses S Grant made his final stand, sitting on a porch on a rural mountaintop in

upstate New York, finalizing his memoirs, reflecting on a life like no other.

He wrote of military exploits in the Mexican-American War and detailed battle strategies

against forces in the Confederate South.

Grant had been victorious as a Civil War general,

but as President, he struggled to make the victory count

and heal the fractured spirit of his nation.

As he worked doggedly through these last days of his life,

editing his manuscript,

Lost Cause mythology was well on its way to reframing the nature and purpose of the war,

portraying Grant as a brute, a butcher of men in a relentless campaign of Union conquest.

It was for this, and for his family's health and good fortunes that Grant now

soldiered on with pencil and paper. I would not have the anniversaries of

our victories celebrated, he wrote, nor those of our defeats made fast days and spent in humiliation and prayer.

But I would like to see truthful history written. Such history will do full credit to the courage,

...