On the Trail of Grant and Lee is an examination of the lives of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. Frederick Hill wrote this book in order to give both men an equal place in history. He hoped that the joint biography would help to heel the gulf between the North and the South. Hill says Both were Americans, and widely as they differed in opinions, tastes and sympathies, each exhibited qualities of mind and character which should appeal to all their fellow countrymen and make them proud of the land that gave them birth. Neither man, in his life, posed before the public as a hero, and the writer has made no attempt to place either of them on a pedestal. Theirs is a very human story, requiring neither color nor concealment, but illustrating a high development of those traits that make for manhood and national greatness.