I've never shown anybody a draft of anything.
Grant was something rare in that or any war. He could learn from experience.
I took five years on the first volume, five years on the second volume, and ten years on the third volume.
The Civil War defined us as what we are and it opened us to being what we became, good and bad things... It was the crossroads of our being, and it was a hell of a crossroads.
If you want to study writing, read Dickens
When you grow up in a totally segregated society, where everybody around you believes that segregation is proper, you have a hard time. You can't believe how much it's a part of your thinking.