US Grant

I obviously can't speak for all modern historians (whether "liberal" or not, whatever that means), but the book I read didn't dismiss the scandals of the Grant administration, it instead didn't focus exclusively on them and included other previously overlooked aspects of his administration. And on his judge of character, it claimed that he often put too much trust in people, even in his own friends and his family, on many occasions, which also seems true. I went into the book expecting to read about one of the worst presidencies in history and came out thinking that, though he doesn't deserve to be in the top 10, he probably doesn't deserve to be in the bottom 10, either. And perhaps Grant merely appeared so much better to me because I had previously read books on Tyler, Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan and Andrew Johnson.

And yes, the rankings of presidents obviously have a political slant depending on who conducts them, like so much else in politics up to the present day. But the major parties have changed so much from the time of the Civil War to the Kennedy administration that judging them purely by party would be pretty myopic. Neither Lincoln nor Grant really fit perfectly into the more recent Republican party platform. In some ways they do, in some ways they don't. One could say the same for many Democrats. Whether the Schlesinger ratings did bias based on party, I don't know. They probably did, like anyone else probably would. They are ultimately really only guidelines, very subjective and arguable in many cases. I don't put a lot of stock in such ratings, but I do find it curious to see where particular presidents rank among multiple polls.

 

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Not really, the Civil War didn't end until April 1865.

 

I think this was the 1st time a presidential memoir was worth $$$. After that it was pretty standard (or eventually became such).

Just like me.

Or Phil Silvers.