As Ron Chernow points out in his introduction to My Dearest Julia: The Wartime Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Wife, the 85 letters from Ulysses S. Grant to Julia before and after their marriage, though “spare in style, they candidly portray Grant’s emotional state, showing his remarkable evolution from an insecure young soldier to a capable, self-confident general.”
The letters to Julia are more interesting to learn about Grant’s emotions than they are about historical events, of which Grant shares some news, but much less than he talks about how much he misses Julia and laments how slow her letters are to arrive and how few of them she seems to write, at least early in their relationship. For example, during his deployment in the Mexican-American War, Grant writes from Corpus Christi, Texas, in February 1846:
I have just been delighted by a long and interesting letter from my Dear Julia and although I wrote to you but two or three days ago I answer this with my usual punctuality. You say you write me letter for letter well I am satisfied that my love is returned and you know how anxious one is to hear often from the one they love and it may appear to me that you do not write as often as you really do.
In the early letters, Grant seems unsure how formal or informal to address Julia. He alternately signs his letters “Ulysses S Grant,” “Most Truly and Devotedly Your Lover, ULYSSES,” “USG,” “U,” and once, from Point Isabel, Texas in 1846, “Your most devoted U.S. Grant, 4th Inf.y.”
Later, the tone of Grant’s letters is more confident, offering Julia detailed instructions on when and where to travel to meet him during various campaigns for example, but these letters still sound just as loving. Most letters during the war are signed with her nickname for him, “Ulys,” though he signs one letter especially full of financial business “US Grant.”
Due to opposition from Julia’s father and the intervention of war with Mexico, the couple’s engagement was lengthened to nearly five years, which the letters show that Ulysses found painful to endure.
While most of Grant’s most famous quotes come from his Personal Memoirs, a few of his greatest hits can be found in the letters, especially, Grant writes from Mexico of one of his first experiences in battle in 1846: “There is no great sport in having bullets flying about one in every direction but I find they have less horror when among them than when in anticipation.”
The final letter in the volume, written just before Grant’s death from throat cancer in 1885, is especially poignant.