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BOOK REVIEW
STRONG

mistreat the slave sons of the Grimke family-are all too familiar today. 

In addition to having a sympathetic understanding of the period and the historical characters she depicts, Mrs. Stevenson is particularly skillful in telling a story and evoking a mood. The result is a smooth-flowing narrative, shot through with conviction, hard to put down-and one most suitable for introducing our young people to some of the heroic forebears of today's freedom fighters.

[[italics]] Let us Have Peace [[italics]] is a biography of Ulysses S. Grant, written for young readers of high school age. Grant has been presented in history books as one of the least sympathetic figures of the Civil War period. He has been charged with political ineptitude, drunkenness, corruption, vulgarity, presenting a sorry picture beside the gallantry, polish, idealism, and courage in which the figure of General Lee has been clothed in most texts.

Howard Meyer's book goes a long way to correct this image. The charges are not so much denied, as explained in terms of a man whose forte was his genius as a military commander, and whose major blunders were his naivete in human relations and lack of sophistication in politics.

He traces Grant's life from his early years of poverty on the frontier, through his education at West Point, where he went, not from a desire for a military career, but simply to equip himself to become a teacher; for the military academy offered one of the ways in theat age in which a poor boy could obtain an education. Grant's military life was one of frustrations, for he never accepted war as a solution to political or human problems. He opposed the Mexican War, though he became a hero of it, and hated the military life so much that he was eventually discharged. He entered the Union Army after the secession of the Southern states as a volunteer, and only slowly was advance to supreme command as leader after leader failed to turn back the near-victorious Confederates.

The facts are familiar, but here they are refreshingly retold in the perspective of the economic and political currents of the times. Meyer makes clear the nature of the slave economy, the shameless post-war deals between Northern industry and Southern reaction to virtually restore the Negro to slavery, the international implications of the Civil War, as well as the lesser known fact that Grant, in his later years, was honored as a hero by working class movements throughout the world.

The author emphasizes the role of Negro soldiers in the Union

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