Today, Ulyssis S. Grant is most often remembered for commanding the Union Army that secured the surrender of General Robert E. Lee’s Confederate troops at Appomattox – in effect ending the Civil War. But Grant was much more of course. He was elected president of the United States twice, although historians don’t rank him very highly, was one of the nation’s biggest celebrities in the late 19th Century and an early protector of Civil Rights. He also was swindled out of all his money.

His wife Julia came from a Missouri family that owned slaves. She was the love of Grant’s life.

Author Jon Clinch's new historical fiction novel called The General and Julia tells the story of Grant's last days and the significant moments in his life.

Appearing on The Spark Thursday, Clinch talked of the book's inspiration,"We think of him (Grant) as this silhouette on horseback and on a battlefield. We think of him as that glum looking grumpy character on the $50 bill. We think of him as a guy smoking a cigar or a or a drunk, which it turns out he wasn't. But we think of him in all these ways. But what I took away finally from learning as much as I did early on about him was the tragedy of the last year or so of his life. That period where he had lost everything, he had lost his fortune, such as it was. He lost his money. He lost his standing in many ways. He lost his health. And what he had left was his memory and his ability to write under the worst of circumstances his wonderful memoirs with the idea that by selling them, even after he was gone, his family might be able to pull themselves back together and pull themselves back from the brink of disaster. I thought that was that was the most heroic thing I saw him do."

Clinch was asked what he wants readers to take away from the story,"I want us to remember the kindness and the family love that he left behind more than anything else. They were a family, husband and wife, four children, three grandchildren. They were the real deal. He was not the small set of big things that we think of him as being. He was a big set of small things that every human being is. And I wanted to think about that."

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