Some years ago, this writer was working in Lagos, Nigeria, for several months, and I found myself searching for something interesting and different to read in the long evenings, especially those where the light came from candles or a generator. Rummaging through the American Consulate library, I came across Ulysses S Grant’s memoirs of his military life beginning with his early days as a young officer and on through to his final victory against the Confederacy in April 1865.
Grant had written his memoir at a furious pace, knowing his death from cancer was just months away, and, in fact, finishing it just a few days before he died. Mark Twain published the memoir in two volumes. By virtue of an audacious direct door-to-door sales campaign across the country, Twain revived the then-desperate financial circumstances of Grant’s estate through a massive wave of sales, providing a substantial inheritance for his widow and children, even if Grant himself did not benefit from it.