Grant a national figure and propelled him into the White House. Historians and biographers have long found him to be an elusive and controversial subject. For decades, basic documents necessary to understand this complex figure--Grant's correspondence, military and government papers, and other important materials--remained scattered in libraries, archives, and private collections. Grant Associatio
n has been assembling copies of these documents in one library and in a published edition that presents authentic texts to the general public as well as to specialists. In 1962, the Civil War Centennial Commissions of Illinois, New York, and Ohio, under the leadership of some of the nation’s leading historians, established the Ulysses S. Grant Association and appointed John Y. Simon as editor. The Grant project began at the Ohio Historical Society, then moved to Southern Illinois University Carbondale in 1964. Since 1962, under Professor Simon’s leadership, the Grant Association has collected copies of every known Grant document and it continues that effort, making possible evaluations of his life and career based on documentary evidence. With support from Southern Illinois University, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the Grant Association has published thirty volumes of The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant that cover Grant's career through 1884. Volume 31, to be published in 2009, carries Grant’s life to the completion of his memoirs and his tragic death from cancer in 1885. In July, 2008, John Y. Simon, our beloved long-time executive director and managing editor, died, and we relocated the papers from Southern Illinois University. These two events have produced the greatest changes our organization has experienced since our founding. Fortunately, our new executive director and managing editor, John F. Marszalek, is a nationally respected historian and the author of the acclaimed biography of Grant’s friend, William T. Sherman. Our new home, the Mitchell Memorial Library, Mississippi State University is providing us with outstanding support. We mourn the loss of our leader and our friend, but we look forward with great anticipation to a future of continued achievement at Mississippi State. The Grant Association plans a supplementary volume to publish important letters not available for inclusion in the original chronological volumes. We will also publish the first scholarly edition of the Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant. The Memoirs will be prepared with previously unused original manuscripts. All the published volumes will be digitized, and a cumulative index of all the volumes will be prepared. A reliable documentary record of Grant's writings and those of his contemporaries provides a better understanding of both the man and his times. Members of the Ulysses S. Grant Association sustain an important historical enterprise.
