Booknotes: Fred Grant at Vicksburg

New Arrival:

• Fred Grant at Vicksburg: A Boy’s Memoir at His Father’s Side During the American Civil War edited and annotated by Albert A. Nofi (Savas Beatie, 2025).

While firsthand Civil War accounts written by officers, common soldiers, and reporters at the fighting front and civilians and politicians on the home front fill our bookshelves, much much rarer is the published journal or memoir written from a child's perspective. This is one of those.

Frederick Dent Grant, 12-years-old at the time, joined his father for the most momentous period of the Vicksburg Campaign. According to Albert Nofi, editor of Fred Grant at Vicksburg: A Boy’s Memoir at His Father’s Side During the American Civil War, adult Fred was frequently invited to offer his own account of his time with Grant's army (over a dozen versions of his published speeches and interviews survive), but his longest and most significant contribution was an 18,000-word memoir account serialized in the National Tribune in Jan-Feb 1887. That version forms the basis of this book.

From the description: "On March 29, 1863, 12-year-old Frederick Grant, the eldest son of Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, arrived at his father’s headquarters at Young’s Point, Louisiana. Grant’s Army of the Tennessee was preparing to move against Vicksburg, Mississippi, and young Fred had no intention of missing out on the adventure. His incredible journey would consume more than three months and would not end until shortly after the surrender of the Confederate bastion on the Fourth of July."

Young Grant frequently took advantage of the free reign given to the son of the big guy in charge. Grant himself later claimed that the boy never gave any cause for anxiety, but one imagines that his staff and headquarters guard might not, at times, have appreciated the distraction. More from the description: "For nearly 100 days, young Fred roamed freely within the army, often not seeing his father for days while living amongst the troops, sharing their rations, and seeing war firsthand. At times hungry, cold, and alone, he was also often under fire, slept where he could, was nearly captured, and was lightly wounded in the battle of the Big Black River Bridge. The pre-teen twice watched as Union ships ran the Vicksburg batteries, acquired souvenirs, met some of the most notable Americans of the time, and nearly died from dysentery—all the while witnessing and participating in some of the most decisive events of the Civil War."

Nofi's book is centered on the extended account referred to above, but it is also enhanced by the other existing versions of his experiences, "which often add additional details or explanations omitted in the longer National Tribune telling." In small bits, Vicksburg Campaign books frequently draw from Fred's remembrances, and it is nice to finally get the entire picture, newly footnoted. But there's a lot more. Section II of the book explores more about the Grant family and includes a timeline of Fred's wartime comings and goings. Also, a pair of appendices offer detailed information about persons and places referenced in the memoir, and a few more supplements round out the volume.