The Silent Type: On Ulysses S. Grant
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But someone that I'd like to see reevaluated by historians is Grant's friend William Sherman. Here's a reluctant warrior, running a Louisiana military academy and accepting of slavery. But when asked to turn against his country he resigned. He then met with President Lincoln and considered him hopelessly naive about what was to come.
But when he did engage he excelled. Along the way he suffered a mental breakdown only to come back to command. When his friend Grant tasked him with conquering Atlanta and then marching North to attack Gen Lee's flank he became a legend.
[1] Went ahead and dug up the quotes in his memoirs to fact check myself on this. Here's one: "My idea then was to... obtain a permanent position as professor in some respectable college; but circumstances always did shape my course different from my plans." And then a bit later: "I left the Pacific coast very much attached to it, and with the full expectation of making it my future home."
And another thing I don't like about Sherman is he was a racist event by 19th century standards. Just about every white person in the 19th century (Lincoln & Grant included) was a racist by our modern sensibilities, but Sherman was very racist).