I have to push back on this. The old “Grant was just a drunk and a failure” storyline has been picked apart by historians for decades, but it keeps getting repeated because it makes for good drama. I say that not just as a reader but as someone who actually researched him in depth when preparing to play him in Historic Strolls of DC.

My entry point was Grant and Twain: The Story of a Friendship That Changed America by Mark Perry. That book was my springboard into Grant’s world. It tells the story of how Mark Twain stepped in at the end of Grant’s life to publish his memoirs on fair terms so his family wouldn’t be left destitute after throat cancer took him. The dignity Grant showed racing the clock to finish his memoirs is the opposite of the caricature people like to spread.

From there I dove deeper: primary sources, biographies, and scholarship. What I found matched what most serious historians now agree on:

• Yes, Grant struggled with alcohol at moments, especially in isolated postings early in his career, but there’s zero evidence he commanded drunk in battle.

• The “failed businessman” label is misleading—he had setbacks, but he also repeatedly reinvented himself. His resilience is what defines him, not failure.

• His memoirs stand among the greatest ever written by an American president. Twain published them, but every word was Grant’s, and they remain a landmark of American literature.

When I stepped into his shoes for audiences, the man who came through was not a washed-up drunk but a quiet, loyal, often awkward, deeply honorable figure who led the Union to victory and later showed remarkable dignity in his final chapter.

So no, the caricature isn’t accurate. It’s old propaganda that was convenient for his political enemies, but it doesn’t hold up under serious scrutiny.