Disposition To Be Rich by Geoffrey Ward

The subtitle of the book, which is a bit of a run on sentence, is like the executive summary for the book: How a Small-Town Pastor's Son Ruined an American President, Brought on a Wall Street Crash, and Made Himself the Best-Hated Man in the United States.  I can’t speak to the ‘best-hated man’ part, but the rest of it is not an exaggeration. 
The book is about the life of Ferdinand Ward, and it was written by his great grandson, so there was excellent access to family records, as well as to people who knew the man himself.  The book contains the usual stuff of biographies—an examination of the background and family that might have adversely influenced a man who grew up to be a successful con man and a sociopath to the end.
Whether or not Ferd had the makings of a man who wrecked havoc before the Civil War, the events of the war did nothing to improve his character.  In 1863, the young Ferdinand Ward was alone with his mother in their parsonage in Geneseo, N.Y., his minister father and older brother both off to war and his older sister visiting relatives out of town. Diphtheria swept through the village, killing friends and neighbors, and each mail delivery carried the risk of disaster.  Ferd was exposed to the quixotic nature of death, and that life contains no guarantees.  And his mother didn’t help any.   She had a religious zealot's dour view of the secular world and of the wages of sin. Hers was not a reassuring presence during those fearful days, and under her tutelage, young Ferd absorbed a lesson that would mark the sweep of his adult life: "No one should expect virtue, no matter how conspicuous, ever to be rewarded in this world."

That, combined with a narcissism that was truly impressive, became the calling card of his life.  He deserved what he could beg, borrow, and steal from people.  He married well, parlayed his wife’s money and standing into an investment firm, an associated bank, and the influence of Ulysses S. Grant, the ex-President and Civil War hero.  After the whole scam goes down the tubes, the Grant families lose everything.  Ulysses lives in a house that he no longer owns, and occupies through the kindness of the new owner.  His sons both lose their homes.  Ferd, showing no remorse, starts to go after what money is left of his wife’s estate, which she has wisely tied up in the hands of others.  It is in some ways the tale of the classic con man.  But in others, it is a reminder that we want to belief what is too good to be true, and that the greed of man is infinite.  Our most recent brush with disaster was at the hands of men like Ferd, men who took everything they could get and had absolutely no regard for others.  These sorts of men are alive and well.

As Shakespeare so aptly put it, hell is empty, all the devils’ are here.