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[Abridged] Presidential Histories - 18.C.) Grant, Lincoln, and Reconstruction, an interview with Ron White
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18.C.) Grant, Lincoln, and Reconstruction, an interview with Ron White

[Abridged] Presidential Histories

07/19/21

32m

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President Lincoln and General Grant formed one of the most successful president-general partnerships in American history, winning the Civil War and defeating the Confederacy. But before that partnership could turn to the challenge of reconstruction, Lincoln was assassinated, leaving the nation in the incapable hands of Andrew Johnson. Four years later, Grant was elected to pick up where Lincoln and left off and finish Lincoln's mission of healing the divided nation, and he'd lean on everything he'd learned from his late friend to attempt it.
Join me as I interview to Ron White, a New York Times best-selling author of presidential biographies, including his recently published Lincoln in Private, and American Ulysses: A life of Ulysses S. Grant, on the impactful friendship between Lincoln and Grant, and Grant's efforts honor Lincoln's legacy by rebuilding a better nation through reconstruction.

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Previous Episode

Ulysses S. Grant's reputation has been through a lot. While he was still alive, he was very nearly our first three-term president; after he died, the Myth of the Lost Cause repainted him as a drunk and corrupt butcher; in the past 30 years, he's started to become a Civil Rights Icon as historians gave him a long overdue second look. Join me as I interview to Joan Waugh, UCLA professor of 19th-century America who specializes in the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Gilded Age, and the author of U.S. Grant, American Hero, American Myth on why Grant's reputation has changed so much, and what's still misunderstood about our 18th president.

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Next Episode

How do you lead a nation when half the country thinks you were fraudulently elected? I'm not talking about 2021, I'm talking about 1877, when Rutherford B Hayes emerged the winner of an election that was so vigorously contested, he wasn't even officially declared the winner until two days before inauguration day. But what did Hayes win? A nation that didn't fully accept him, and a party so rife with corruption that the longest daggers were in his fellow Republicans' pockets.
Follow along as Hayes fights in the Civil War, becomes governor of Ohio, wins the craziest election in American history, and then faces down corrupt bosses within his own party and a violent crescendo of labor unrest triggered by the rampant inequalities of the industrial revolution.
Bibliography
1. Rutherford B. Hayes – Hans. L. Trefousse
2. Rutherford B. Hayes: Warrior & President - Ari Hoogenboom
3. Grant – Jean Edward Smith
4. T.R. the last Romantic – H.R. Brands
5. The Unexpected President: The Life and Times of Chester A. Arthur – Scott S. Greenberger
6. Destiny of the Republic – Candice Miller

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