"Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant — Volume 1" by Ulysses S. Grant is an autobiography written in 1884-1885. Racing against terminal throat cancer and financial ruin from a Ponzi scheme, the dying president chronicles his military career through the Mexican-American War and Civil War. Mark Twain, recognizing his friend's exploitation by publishers, intervened to secure better terms and orchestrated an unprecedented marketing campaign using Union veterans as door-to-door salesmen. The result became one of the nineteenth century's bestselling books. (This is an automatically generated summary.)