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Albert Keyser portrays Gen. Grant
Down to the Last Detail, This Living Historian is like the Second Coming of Ulysses S. Grant.

story and photos by Casey Broadwater

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After I walk up the driveway, noticing not one, but two American flags draped from a pole in the front yard — one is a replica from the 1860s, I later learn — Theresa Keyser spies me through her living room window and greets me at the front door. “Come in, come in,” she says, “Albert’s here in the living room.” My eyes adjust and take in the details of the cozy, grandmotherly home. There are teddy bears and family photos, but there’s also a man in full Civil War officer’s regalia sitting on the couch. He’s a dead ringer for President and erstwhile General Ulysses S. Grant, and as if to underscore this fact, there’s a portrait of Gen. Grant hanging on an adjacent wall. The resemblance is uncanny — the grey-specked beard, the slightly bulbous nose, the avuncular, Santa Claus eyes that crinkle in the corners. It’s this portrait, in fact, that led to Albert Keyser deciding to portray Gen. Grant in schools and at living history events.

“In the late 1980s,” Albert says, “people started telling me that, with a hat like the one I have on now, I look a lot like General Grant. I just laughed it off because I had never thought about portraying him, even though he was one of my favorite generals. I wasn’t sure about it until her girlfriend” — here he motions to his wife — “came here to the house, saw that print up there of U.S. Grant, and told my wife that that was a nice picture of me!”

What started as a coincidence soon became an obsession, with Albert pouring over historical texts, like Gen. Grant’s own Total Warfare, in an effort to learn everything there is to know about the great Union general. Soon, he was appearing as Ulysses S. Grant at around 40 events per year, fully prepared to answer any feasible question about the general’s military actions, political views and personal beliefs. Albert’s quest for authenticity even extends to mundane details. “I like my meat medium rare,” he says, “but not Grant, who preferred well done. I like my coffee or hot tea with a little bit of cream and sugar, but not Grant, who had his black. If people see there’s cream in my coffee and they happen to know how Grant happened to eat or drink, then hey, that’s not authentic.”

Albert wasn’t always so concerned with painstaking historical recreations, however. As a teenager he participated in the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, and his reenactment unit — The Grand Armies of the Reunion — were less than historically accurate, a fact Albert looks back on fondly. “My first experience was really something,” he says, smiling. “First of all, there were no wool uniforms. It was very inauthentic. We wore blue jeans and these railroad coats. We took the buttons off, tried to sew military buttons on them, and made sure they were died navy blue. And then the bills of our caps were plastic, and they didn’t have plastic in those days!”

Only a few years later, Albert would face real combat as a member of the Air Force’s Strategic Air Command during the war in Vietnam. It’s an experience that he still finds difficult to discuss. “I’m going to tell you something as a combat vet,” he says. “There’s no glory in any war, none whatsoever. When you’re out there fighting, all you’re thinking about is making sure you don’t cause the man to your left or right to get killed.” Albert attributes his own survival, and the course that his life has taken, to providence. When I ask him for his favorite quote by Gen. Grant, he doesn’t have to think twice. “Man proposes, but God disposes,” he says. “That describes Grant’s life, and it describes my life. I always thought about doing certain things, but God led me in another direction.”