Imagining that a set of memoirs might provide this, Grant approached The Century Magazine, which offered Grant a book contract with a 10 percent royalty, but Grant's friend Mark Twain, one of the few who understood how precarious Grant's financial condition actually was, made him an offer for his memoirs that paid an unheard-of 70 percent royalty.[613] To provide for his family, Grant worked intensely on his memoirs at his home in New York City. His former staff member Adam Badeau assisted him with much of the research, while his son Frederick located documents and did much of the fact-checking.[614] Because of the summer heat and humidity, his doctors recommended that he move upstate to a cottage at the top of Mount McGregor, offered by a family friend.[615]
On July 18 1885, Grant finished his memoir; he lived for only five more days.[616] Grant's memoirs treat his early life and time in the Mexican–American War briefly and include the events of his life up to the end of the Civil War.[617] The Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant was a critical and commercial success. 