Word: war
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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During the War he was chief of the air service finance division...
Beyond that, he distinguished himself at West Point by slovenliness of person, mediocrity of scholarship, hatred of firearms, and a certain girlish squeamishness of profanity and rough jokes. His femininity was emphasized by a callow appearance-indeed, during leisure hours of the Mexican War, Grant took the part, in amateur theatricals, of Desdemona, no less...
...more than considerable, for he drank himself out of the army, thereby blundering upon the road to fame. If he had stayed in the army, which he detested and disapproved but hadn't the initiative to quit, he would have had a conventional small command in the Civil War. As it happened, he was drifting from farmer pillar to salesclerk post, miserably deficient in supporting his family, scorned by relatives and Illinois townsfolk, when the war started. Grant decided he must repay the government for his free, if meager, education at West Point. For months his desultory applications...
...war gloriously won, in spite of tactical errors at Shiloh, brutal human waste at Cold Harbor, Grant was unfortunately awarded the presidency. He knew nothing about politics or human character, neither of these imponderables being tangible matter of action. His chosen advisers were crooked or incompetent (the minister to England, a poker expert, taught the game to British peers, started a fad), his policies pathetic; but grimly he stuck to both. Scandals rivaling Teapot Dome culminated in the gold corner by Gould and Fisk, shrewd rascals who dazzled Grant with their powerful wealth, involved the honest dupe in fiasco...
...Author. When Woodward was a small boy in South Carolina he read a book which proved the South had won the Civil War. Such was his surprise when he later learned otherwise that his curiosity, permanently caught, culminated in his study of Grant. In between time, however, he was advertizing man, banker, author of Bread and Circuses, George Washington, and admitted originator of the word "debunk." Patriots, private as well as professional, cavilled at his .debunking of George Washington, will carp at the same treatment of Grant. Of Washington, Author Woodward replied he had made no effort to "show...