To the Editor:

Now that I've reached "that certain age", I find life is too short to read much in the way of fiction. That's why this Summer has found me devouring historical non-fiction material. My most recent "good reads" have included the 1950 book "Captain Sam Grant" by Lloyd Lewis, which follows the life of Ulysses S. Grant from birth, up through his West Point years and his time with the Army during the Mexican War, to civilian life in the 1850s, and concluding with the first few months of the American Civil War. I've followed that up with Ron Chernow's 2017 biography "Grant", which tells the entire full-life story of our 18th president, the man whose face adorns the Fifty dollar bill.

Grant's "impoverished unkown-to-famous American" life-story is no less compelling than that of our nation's beloved 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, and parallels that of Lincoln's in several ways. It becomes clear, upon learning more about each man, that they were the right men, in the right places, at the right time, to guide America through a terrible and tragic period.

One thing that stood out in my reading about Ulysses Grant is how much the American "press" of his time, now known as "the media", attempts to influence our nation's direction, for good or bad. Just like today, news organizations of the 19th century tended to have a bias such as pro-slavery, or pro-Union. And, in the 1850s American leaders failed to seize the chance to head off a regional conflict that devolved into four years of bloody civil war, fought over states' rights and slavery.

By 1860, and Lincoln's election, we were a divided nation, North and South. Today, I feel we are divided again, with media giants pushing Americans further apart based on our moral standards: conservative versus liberals, right versus left, good versus evil.

As South Carolina's U.S Senator and GOP presidential candidate Tim Scott said in a recent AMAC interview "Our nation, our shared values, and our people are strong- but our leadership is weak." He added, "We've worked for 250 years to create a more level playing field, a more perfect union, and life in America has never been more fair and free."

Reader, please take time to learn your American history, and maybe, God willing, We, The People, can head off another civil war on this continent.

David H. Ellis
Hammond