I checked out the Annotated Memoirs of Ulysses Grant, edited by Elizabeth Samet, and it is wonderful. Not just for Grant's incisive views on the Civil War (and the Mexican War), but Samet's far-ranging footnotes, which go merrily up garden paths from Genghis Khan to Halliburton. Grant had a very nuanced view of the loyalties of Southerners and how they were torn between affection for their individual states and the no, just kidding, he thought they were god-damned traitors and had no time for their shit EDIT- sorry, didn't see what a dead thread this was, mon mal