Source

• Born: 27 April 1822
• Birthplace: Point Pleasant, Ohio
• Died: 23 July 1885 (Throat cancer)
• Best Known As: President of the United States, 1869-1877

Name at birth: Hiram Ulysses Grant

Soon after birth, Grant's name was changed to Ulysses Hiram Grant; when he arrived at West Point military academy in 1839, he found that he had been registered as Ulysses Simpson Grant, and he never bothered to change it. A sloppy cadet but a great horseman, Grant went on to serve in the Mexican War. A failure as a farmer and a businessman, Grant soared to fame during the Civil War as President Abraham Lincoln's choice as commander of the Union Armies (from 1864). After the war, Grant was easily elected to two terms as President, but his administration was tainted by corruption among his Cabinet members. He was succeeded by Rutherford B. Hayes.

Grant died impoverished, but his wife Julia was saved from bankruptcy when his memoirs were published... Grant succeeded Andrew Johnson... Grant was the 18th president.

Grant, Gen Ulysses S (1822-85), commander of Union armies at the end of the American civil war and president 1869-77. Blessed with neither good political connections nor personal charisma, he is a classic example of a man redeemed from obscurity by the demands of an exceptional time.

He fought in most major engagements of the Mexican war. Although awarded two brevet promotions for earlier performances, he was embittered not to receive a third for having smuggled a dismantled howitzer up a bell tower behind enemy defences in Mexico City. Post-war he was sent to inhospitable outposts on both coasts, where his ‘binge’ alcoholism first manifested itself. He resigned the day he received his regular captain's commission in order to make money, something he signally failed to do. At the outbreak of the civil war, refused a command by all normal channels, he only just managed to get on the escalator by election as colonel of a troublesome Illinois militia regiment. Such was the need for senior officers in the rapidly expanding army that he was promoted to brigadier general a few months later.

His moment came when his superior Halleck grudgingly ordered him to take half-finished Fort Henry on the Tennessee river. In what was to become a familiar theme, failure by subordinates to act with dispatch led to the escape of the garrison. Unaware that he was now outnumbered, Grant stretched his orders and pushed on to Fort Donelson, where Confederate commander Pillow virtually delivered the place to him by returning to the fort to collect equipment after having successfully breached the siege lines. He and his second in command then abandoned their army, leaving Grant's friend Buckner to surrender to him. After ten months of unbroken Union defeats, the fall of Fort Donelson was greeted with wild enthusiasm in Washington, and Grant was promoted to major general by a grateful Lincoln. This did not improve relations with his mediocre theatre commander, who was determined to clip his wings.

After Shiloh, Halleck made him his nominal second in command and excluded him from the chain of command. Sherman won Grant's undying gratitude by persuading him not to resign and Lincoln resisted strong pressure to dismiss him, saying ‘I can't spare this man, he fights.’ When Halleck at last was called to Washington as general in chief, he broke up the western army rather than leave it in Grant's hands. The Vicksburg campaign justified Lincoln's faith in him, and after he turned Union fortunes around even further at Chattanooga, Congress revived the rank of lieutenant general for him, previously held only by Washington.

When summoned to Washington to become overall commander, Grant did not remain in the capital but took to the field to seek a decision against Lee. He did not take the opportunity to clean house, even retaining Halleck as his COS in Washington. This decision put Grant in limbo, neither directly commanding the Army of the Potomac, which continued under Meade, nor properly placed to end the proliferation of independent commands under inept political generals like Sigel and Butler. A major criticism of Grant's generalship is that the suffering armies of the latter only achieved relief after further needless defeats. But he was the first of Lincoln's generals in chief to fully share his broad strategic vision that the North's human and industrial superiority would prevail if remorselessly applied, and who had the necessary ruthlessness to make it so.

By continuing to advance and to outflank him despite setbacks, Grant denied Lee any tactical freedom, but he committed serious errors nonetheless, in particular the bloodbath at Cold Harbor. The war might also have ended months earlier were it not for ‘unconditional surrender’, Lincoln's policy but Grant's phrase. Only by chance was he not in the box at Ford's Theatre when Booth came to assassinate them both. Post-war, his resentment at being used as a cat's-paw by President Johnson in his struggle with ‘radical reconstructionists’ led to his identification with the latter, and thus to selection as the successful Republican candidate in the presidential election of 1868.

Grant's tenure is indelibly stained by the financial scandals that wracked his second term and by the failure of belatedly humane policies towards the South and the Indians in the Plains Indians wars. A poor judge of character, this weakness was compounded by his characteristic unwillingness to discard subordinates before they caused disaster. Overall, he was as unfortunate in his public life as he was in private affairs. Bankrupt and dying, he wrote among the best memoirs ever penned by a general, but his own bitter judgement was that he would not choose to live his life again. He is buried in an elaborate tomb in New York, a place he never liked.

Bibliography

• Perret, Geoffrey, Ulysses S. Grant (New York, 1997)

— Hugh Bicheno

(1822–1885), Civil War general and eighteenth president of the United States

Born at Point Pleasant, Ohio, on 27 April 1822, and named Hiram Ulysses, young Ulysses (as his father called him) grew up in nearby Georgetown, across the street from his father's tannery, and acquired an intense aversion to the stench of death. He attended local schools, did farm chores, and demonstrated unusual skill with horses. Appointed to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, he was mistakenly registered as Ulysses S., which he eventually accepted, though insisting that his middle initial stood for nothing.

Graduating in 1843, he was assigned to Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis County. In the Mexican War, 1846–48, Grant displayed commendable gallantry under Zachary Taylor, but chafed at assignments as quartermaster and commissary in the army of Winfield Scott until the final approach to Mexico City provided opportunity to earn brevet (temporary) promotion to captain. Grant encountered different styles of command and management, maintained an aversion to military protocol, and believed that the war represented aggression against Mexico.

In 1848, Grant married Julia Dent, daughter of a Missouri slaveholder, and in 1850 they had a son. Grant was soon separated from his family when the army assigned him to the Pacific Coast. Paid too little to reunite the family in California, he was miserably unhappy; nonetheless, tales of his heavy drinking then and later are unsupported. He resigned in 1854 to begin farming on his father‐in‐law's estate in St. Louis County. When his farm failed in the Panic of 1857, he could not find employment in St. Louis. By 1860, necessity forced him to his father's leather goods store in Galena, Illinois.

When the Civil War began, Grant, impelled by a sense of patriotic obligation, reluctantly left his wife and four children. He served Governor Richard Yates of Illinois temporarily as aide and mustering officer but failed to find an appropriate command in the frenzied pursuit of officerships for units of U.S. Volunteers. Yates eventually gave him a regiment, and Grant quickly established discipline and marched the 21st Illinois to Missouri. Before he engaged the enemy, he acquired promotion to brigadier general chiefly because an Illinois congressman had no superior candidate in his home district. Chance placed Grant in command at Cairo, Illinois, just as the Confederates occupied Columbus and Hickman on the Mississippi River in previously neutral Kentucky. Grant then boldly occupied Paducah and Smithland at the mouths of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. On 7 November 1861, he led 3,000 troops from Cairo to Belmont, Missouri. Initially successful in overrunning a Confederate camp, Grant was unprepared for the counterattack that drove his men back to their transports in disarray. Because Grant had displayed aggressiveness and suffered no greater casualties than he had inflicted, this indecisive encounter provided experience without damaging his prospects.

In January 1862, Grant wrung permission from his conservative superior, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, to attack Fort Henry on the Tennessee River. Union gunboats compelled the fort's surrender (6 February) before the arrival of all Grant's forces, and much of the garrison fled to Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. Grant followed, sending gunboats to the Cumberland and troops overland. Rather than await expected reinforcements, Grant then besieged the 21,000 Confederates with his own army of 15,000. On 14 February, the gunboats attacked unsuccessfully. The next day, while Grant visited the wounded naval commander on shipboard, a surprise Confederate attack rolled up the Union right and opened the road for escape. As the Confederate commander dawdled, Grant returned and launched a counterattack that removed all options save “unconditional surrender”—Grant's phrase that matched his initials and provided a popular nickname. Grant captured about 15,000 men and compelled the Confederates to fall back from Kentucky and much of middle Tennessee. The first major Union victory of the war won Grant promotion to major general.

Advancing up the Tennessee River to attack Corinth, Mississippi, Grant assembled troops at Pittsburgh Landing, Tennessee, where Confederates unexpectedly attacked at Shiloh Church (6 April) in the Battle of Shiloh. Pushed to the edge of destruction on the riverbank after a frightful encounter, Grant used reinforcements for a second day of fighting that recaptured the field. Grant's resilience and indomitability won acclaim, but heavy casualties and rumors raised questions that temporarily cost him his command. Not until Halleck left for Washington as general in chief did Grant resume leadership.

His campaign in the siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi, began in late 1862 with setbacks. Confederate cavalry captured Grant's supply base at Holly Springs and William Tecumsch Sherman's premature assault on Vicksburg failed. After a winter of frustration, Grant's supporting fleet ran past the batteries and landed troops south of Vicksburg. Grant then unexpectedly struck at Jackson, Mississippi, before turning toward Vicksburg. His lightning moves prevented the cooperation of two Confederate armies in Mississippi and led to eventual surrender of the besieged citadel of Vicksburg in July 1863. Grant's military masterpiece virtually opened the river and bisected the Confederacy. A smashing victory against Gen. Braxton Bragg at Chattanooga in November 1863 firmly established his reputation as the Union's finest commander.

Promoted to lieutenant general and given command of all Union forces in March 1864, Grant left Halleck in Washington as chief of staff while he accompanied the Army of the Potomac in Virginia. He planned a coordinated campaign with two western armies converging on Atlanta and three eastern armies aimed at Richmond. In spring 1864, Grant faced Robert E. Lee in a bloody series of encounters, including at the Battle of the Wilderness (5–6 May), fighting at Spotsylvania (7–19 May), North Anna (23–26 May), and Cold Harbor (1–3 June) in the Wilderness to Petersburg Campaign. Shocking Union casualties accompanied Grant's approach to Richmond, but a brilliant crossing of the James River then brought his armies to thinly defended Petersburg, Virginia, where subordinates immediately bungled a dazzling opportunity to end the war. Grant settled uncomfortably into siege. Four of five armies had failed to achieve their missions; only Sherman's victory in the Battle of Atlanta (2 September) redeemed his strategy.

Grant maintained pressure on Lee as Sherman's march to the sea again divided the Confederacy. In late March 1865, Grant launched another lightning campaign that drove Lee from Richmond and to surrender at Appomattox Courthouse (9 April). President Andrew Johnson tried to harness Grant's popularity in an effort to restore Southern statehood at the expense of the freed slaves. Grant's refusal to abandon his soldiers or his black veterans frustrated Johnson's attempt to replace Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton with Grant and drove him to support the Republican Party. Grant's reputation as a wartime commander carried him on to two terms as president (1869–77). Contrast between expectation and fulfillment in the political arena dimmed Grant's fame, which revived shortly after his death with posthumous publication of his Memoirs—a splendid military autobiography written with fairness, candor, and surprising humor.

Grant's popular reputation as an impassive “butcher” whose victories depended on luck and larger armies arose amid strivings for sectional reconciliation. Military analysis by the English soldier‐scholar J. F. C. Fuller and later by American military historians T. Harry Williams and Bruce Catton promoted reappraisal. Lincoln's understanding that Grant deplored politics but valued freedom in military matters formed the cornerstone of their effective partnership. Sherman, who also deferred to Grant's military mastery, became his ideal lieutenant. Grant's resilience, unpredictability, and strategic grasp continue to challenge scholars, as does Grant's meteoric rise from provincial clerk to military eminence. “The laws of successful war in one generation would insure defeat in another,” he wrote, but arguments that his innovations foreshadowed modern total warfare lack historical perspective.

[See also Civil War: Military and Diplomatic Course; Commander in Chief, President as; Reconstruction.]

Bibliography

• U.S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, 2 vols., 1885–86.
• Horace Porter, Campaigning with Grant, 1897.
• J. F. C. Fuller, Grant and Lee: A Study in Personality and Generalship, 1933.
• T. Harry Williams, Lincoln and His Generals, 1952.
• Bruce Catton, Grant Moves South, 1960.
• John Y. Simon, ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, 20 vols. to date, 1967–.
• Bruce Catton, Grant Takes Command, 1969.
• William S. McFeely, Grant: A Biography, 1981.
• Brooks D. Simpson, Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861–1868, 1991.
• John Y. Simon, Grant, Lincoln, and Unconditional Surrender, in Gabor S. Boritt, ed., Lincoln's Generals, 1994

Grant, Ulysses Simpson (1822-85) Union army general and 18th president of the United States (1869-77), born in Point Pleasant, Ohio. Grant first exhibited the coolness under fire and successful control of men for which he later became famous during the Mexican War (1846-48), when he twice rode into action, even though his role as regimental quartermaster did not require him to do so. Grant resigned from the army in 1854 but returned with the outbreak of the Civil War. Under his leadership, the Union experienced its first significant victories-at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson (both 1862)—after which Grant had the attention of President Abraham Lincoln, who ignored charges of drunkenness and excessive casualties. (Though Grant had recurrent bouts of heavy drinking throughout his adult life, with intermittent periods of abstinence, there is scant, if any, reliable evidence of drunkenness during the war.) His reputation as a brilliant leader was cemented with the capture of Vicksburg (1863), which split the Confederacy and gave the Union control of the Mississippi River. Later victories included Missionary Ridge (1863), after which Lincoln promoted him to lieutenant general, naming him general in chief of all Union armies. As such he devised a plan for coordinating the offensives of the various armies, which had been acting independently. This ultimately led to the Union victory. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House (1865). Grant was promoted to four-star general by President Andrew Johnson (1866) and twice elected president of the United States (1868, 1872) on the Republican ticket. Though Grant's administrations were marked by scandal and corruption, they did achieve gains in civil service reform, civil rights, and monetary policy. Nevertheless, historians generally rank him among the worst presidents. Grant's memoirs, which he completed just days before his death, are considered by many to be among the finest military memoirs ever written. They were published by Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain).

Though always called Ulysses, Grant was baptized Hiram Ulysses. When registering at West Point, he transposed the two given names to avoid having the initials H.U.G. But the congressman who had obtained his appointment had misstated his name as Ulysses Simpson, and, since the academy refused to correct it, so it remained. Classmates called him Sam, because the new initials, U.S., were seen to stand for Uncle Sam. Later in his career they came to stand for “Unconditional Surrender.”

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

Ulysses Simpson Grant (1822-1885), having led the Northern armies to victory in the Civil War, was elected eighteenth president of the United States.

As a general in the Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant possessed the right qualities for prosecuting offensive warfare against the brilliant tactics of his Southern adversary Robert E. Lee. Bold and indefatigable, Grant believed in destroying enemy armies rather than merely occupying enemy territory. His strategic genius and tenacity overcame the Confederates' advantage of fighting a defensive war on their own territory. However, Grant lacked the political experience and subtlety to cope with the nation's postwar problems, and his presidency was marred by scandals and an economic depression.

Ulysses S. Grant was born on April 27, 1822, in a cabin at Point Pleasant, Ohio. He attended district schools and worked at his father's tannery and farm. In 1839 Grant's father secured an appointment to West Point for his unenthusiastic son. Grant excelled as a horseman but was an indifferent student. When he graduated in 1843, he accepted an infantry commission. Although not in sympathy with American objectives in the war with Mexico in 1846, he fought courageously under Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, emerging from the conflict as a captain.

In subsequent years Capt. "Sam" Grant served at a variety of bleak army posts. Lonely for his wife and son (he had married Julia Dent in 1848), the taciturn, unhappy captain began drinking. Warned by his commanding officer, Grant resigned from the Army in July 1854. He borrowed money for transportation to St. Louis, Mo., where he joined his family and tried a series of occupations without much success: farmer, realtor, candidate for county engineer, and customshouse clerk. He was working as a store clerk at the beginning of the Civil War in 1861.

Rise to Fame

This was a war Grant did believe in, and he offered his services. The governor of Illinois appointed him colonel of the 21st Illinois Volunteers in June 1861. Grant took his regiment to Missouri, where, to his surprise, he was promoted to brigadier general.

Grant persuaded his superiors to authorize an attack on Ft. Henry on the Tennessee River and Ft. Donelson on the Cumberland in order to gain Union control of these two important rivers. Preceded by gunboats, Grant's 17,000 troops marched out of Cairo, Ill., on Feb. 2, 1862. After Ft. Henry surrendered, the soldiers took Ft. Donelson. Here Confederate general Simon B. Buckner, one of Grant's West Point classmates (and the man who, much earlier, had loaned the impecunious captain the money to rejoin his family), requested an armistice. Grant's reply became famous: "No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works." Buckner surrendered. One of the first important Northern victories of the war, the capture of Ft. Donelson won Grant promotion to major general.

Grant next concentrated 38,000 men at Pittsburgh Landing (Shiloh) on the Tennessee River, preparing for an offensive. He unwisely neglected to prepare for a possible Confederate counteroffensive. At dawn on April 6, 1862, the Confederate attack surprised the sleeping Union soldiers. Grant did his best to prevent a rout, and at the end of the day Union lines still held, but the Confederates were in command of most of the field. The next day the Union Army counterattacked with 25,000 fresh troops, who had arrived during the night, and drove the Southerners into full retreat. The North had triumphed in one of the bloodiest battles of the war, but Grant was criticized for his carelessness. Urged to replace Grant, President Abraham Lincoln refused, saying, "I can't spare this man - he fights."

Grant set out to recoup his reputation and secure Union control of the Mississippi River by taking the rebel stronghold at Vicksburg, Miss. Several attempts were frustrated; in the North criticism of Grant was growing and there were reports that he had begun drinking heavily. But in April 1863 Grant embarked on a bold scheme to take Vicksburg. While he marched his 20,000 men past the fortress on the opposite (west) bank, an ironclad fleet sailed by the batteries. The flotilla rendezvoused with Grant below the fort and transported the troops across the river. In one of the most brilliant gambles of the war, Grant cut himself off from his base in the midst of enemy territory with numerically inferior forces. The gamble paid off. Grant drove one Confederate Army from the city of Jackson, then turned and defeated a second force at Champion's Hill, forcing the rebels to withdraw to Vicksburg on May 20. Union troops laid siege to Vicksburg, and on July 4 the garrison surrendered. Ten days later the last Confederate outpost on the Mississippi fell. Thus, the Confederacy was cut in two. Coming at the same time as the Northern victory at Gettysburg, this was the turning point of the war.

Grant was given command of the Western Department, and in the fall of 1863 he took command of the Union Army pinned down at Chattanooga after its defeat in the Battle of Chickamauga. In a series of battles on November 23, 24, and 25, the rejuvenated Northern troops dislodged the besieging Confederates, the most spirited infantry charge of the war climaxing the encounter. It was a great victory; Congress created the rank of lieutenant general for Grant, who was placed in command of all the armies of the Union.

Architect of Victory

Grant was at the summit of his career. A reticent man, unimpressive in physical appearance, he gave few clues to the reasons for his success. He rarely communicated his thinking; he was the epitome of the strong, silent type. But Grant had deep resources of character, a quietly forceful personality that won the respect and confidence of subordinates, and a decisiveness and bulldog tenacity that served him well in planning and carrying out military operations.

In the spring of 1864 the Union armies launched a coordinated offensive designed to bring the war to an end. However, Lee brilliantly staved off Grant's stronger Army of the Potomac in a series of battles in Virginia. Union forces suffered fearful losses, especially at Cold Harbor, while war weariness and criticism of Grant as a "butcher" mounted in the North.

Lee moved into entrenchments at Petersburg, Va., and Grant settled down there for a long siege. Meanwhile, Gen. William T. Sherman captured Atlanta and began his march through Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina, cutting what remained of the Confederacy into pieces. In the spring of 1865 Lee fell back to Appomattox, where on April 9 he met Grant in the courthouse to receive the generous terms of surrender.

Postwar Political Career

After Lincoln's death Grant was the North's foremost war hero. Both sides in the Reconstruction controversy, between President Andrew Johnson and congressional Republicans, jockeyed for his support. A tour of the South in 1865 convinced Grant that the "mass of thinking men" there accepted defeat and were willing to return to the Union without rancor. But the increasing defiance of former Confederates in 1866, their persecution of those who were freed (200,000 African Americans had fought for the Union, and Grant believed they had contributed heavily to Northern victory), and harassment of Unionist officials and occupation troops gradually pushed Grant toward support of the punitive Reconstruction policy of the Republicans. He accepted the Republican presidential nomination in 1868, won the election, and took office on March 4, 1869.

Grant was, to put it mildly, an undistinguished president. His personal loyalty to subordinates, especially old army comrades, prevented him from taking action against associates implicated in dishonest dealings. Government departments were riddled with corruption, and Grant did little to correct this. Turmoil and violence in the South created the necessity for constant Federal intervention, which inevitably alienated large segments of opinion, North and South. In 1872 a sizable number of Republicans bolted the party, formed the Liberal Republican party, and combined with the Democrats to nominate Horace Greeley for the presidency on a platform of civil service reform and home rule in the South. Grant won reelection, but as more scandals came to light during his second term and his Southern policy proved increasingly unpopular, his reputation plunged. The economic panic of 1873 ushered in a major depression; in 1874 the Democrats won control of the House of Representatives for the first time in 16 years.

Yet Grant's two terms were not devoid of positive achievements. In foreign policy the steady hand of Secretary of State Hamilton Fish kept the United States out of a potential war with Spain. The greenback dollar moved toward stabilization, and the war debt was funded on a sound basis. Still, on balance, Grant's presidency was an unhappy aftermath to his military success. Nevertheless, in 1877 he was still a hero, and on a trip abroad after his presidency he was feted in European capitals.

In 1880 Grant again allowed himself to be a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination but fell barely short of success in the convention. Retiring to private life, he made ill-advised investments that led to bankruptcy in 1884. While slowly dying of cancer of the throat, he set to work on his military memoirs to provide an income for his wife and relatives after his death. Through months of terrible pain his courage and determination sustained him as he wrote in longhand the story of his army career. The reticent, uncommunicative general revealed a genius for this kind of writing, and his two-volume Personal Memoirs is one of the great classics of military literature. The memoirs earned $450,000 for his heirs, but the hero of Appomattox died on July 23, 1885, at Mount McGregor before he knew of his literary triumph.

Further Reading

The Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant (2 vols., 1885-1886; rep. 1962) is a starting point for a view of Grant's generalship. Important primary sources are the accounts by Grant's military aide, Adam Badeau, Military History of Ulysses S. Grant: From April, 1861 to April, 1865 (3 vols., 1868-1881) and Grant in Peace: From Appomattox to Mount McGregor (1887). The best one-volume study of Grant's military leadership is J. F. C. Fuller, The Generalship of Ulysses S. Grant (1958). Lloyd Lewis, Captain Sam Grant (1950), carries Grant's career to the outbreak of the Civil War. Bruce Catton's Grant Moves South (1960) and Grant Takes Command (1969) provide the best account of Grant's military career. Still the fullest study of Grant's presidency is William B. Hesseltine, Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (1935).

For more information on Ulysses S. Grant, visit Britannica.com.

• Born: Apr. 27, 1822, Point Pleasant, Ohio
• Political party: Republican
• Education: U.S. Military Academy, B.S., 1843
• Military service: U.S. Army: lieutenant, 1843; regimental quartermaster, 1846–48; 1st lieutenant, 1848; brevet captain, 1848; captain, 1853–54; 1st Illinois Volunteers: colonel, 1861; Galena Illinois Company: brigadier general, 1861; major general, 1862–63; lieutenant general and commander of all Union armies, 1864–65; general of the armies of the United States, 1866
• Previous civilian government service: interim U.S. secretary of war, 1867–68
• Elected President, 1868; served, 1869–77
• Died: July 23, 1885, Mount McGregor, N.Y.

Ulysses S. Grant was an excellent general but a mediocre politician. He won the Civil War, but his Presidency was a failure because Grant surrounded himself with corrupt men who embroiled his administration in one scandal after another.

Grant was born on a farm and studied at local schools until obtaining an appointment to West Point, where he graduated 23rd in a class of 39. He fought under Zachary Taylor in the Mexican-American War, winning citations for bravery in several battles. In 1854 he resigned as captain of infantry and went back to farming, this time in Missouri. In 1860 he was a clerk at a leather goods store run by his father and brothers. When the Civil War broke out, he organized a local militia, then became colonel of an Illinois militia regiment, rising to the rank of major general.

Grant achieved great success in the Western campaigns, forcing Confederate forces to retreat from Forts Henry and Donelson on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. He then won the Battle of Shiloh, and by July 4, 1863, the garrison at Vicksburg, Mississippi, surrendered. Grant was promoted to major general after this victory and became lieutenant general when he won a victory at Chattanooga. Lincoln later made him commander of all the Union armies. In May 1864 he began the final campaign of attrition against General Robert E. Lee in Virginia, and a year later, on April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House. In 1866 Grant was named general of the armies, a rank that had been achieved by no one other than George Washington. He demobilized his armies, then became embroiled in civilian politics.

In the words of Woodrow Wilson, President Ulysses Simpson Grant “combined great gifts with great mediocrity.” At first it seemed as if Grant were an astute politician at the end of the Civil War: he supported a strong military presence in the South to protect the rights of newly freed blacks, endearing himself to the radical Republicans in Congress. When President Andrew Johnson tried to replace Secretary of War Edwin Stanton in order to wrest Reconstruction policy from Congress, Grant accepted an appointment as interim secretary of war. But when Congress restored Stanton to the position, Grant turned his office back over to Stanton. Grant's refusal to support Johnson's actions gained him the unanimous first-ballot Republican nomination for President in 1868, and he won a narrow popular vote victory over Democrat Horatio Seymour in the election.

But Grant was not politically astute. His first mistake was in naming several cronies from his home state to his cabinet. Several cabinet secretaries and other high-level officials became implicated in financial scandals. Resignations included those of his secretary of the Treasury (for irregularities in revenue collection), his secretary of war (for corruption in purchasing contracts), and his attorney general and secretary of the interior (for the Credit Mobilier railroad scandal).

Grant knew nothing of high finance, and he was taken advantage of by his brother-in-law, who worked with financiers Jay Gould and Jim Fisk in a scheme to corner the market in gold. They convinced Grant not to sell any government gold on financial markets, no matter how high the price went, so that their own gold would become more valuable. Grant eventually realized that his relative was using him and ordered the sale of $4 million in Treasury gold. This action caused a crash in the price of gold and financial ruin for many investors, though Gould and Fisk made a great deal of money.

Grant managed to defuse criticism of the corruption in his administration by establishing the Civil Service Commission in 1871. He was renominated in 1872, again by a unanimous first ballot at the convention, and he defeated Democrat Horace Greeley by a landslide.

Grant had a tougher time in his second term. A financial panic that began in 1873 helped Democrats gain control of the House of Representatives in 1874. However, Congress cut taxes and repealed an income tax law, which proved to be popular actions.

In foreign affairs, Grant's attempts to annex the Caribbean island of Santo Domingo were defeated by the Senate. The President's policy of remaining strictly neutral in the conflict between Cuban nationalists and the Spanish occupiers was upheld by Congress, when it voted down a resolution recognizing the revolutionary government proclaimed by the Cuban belligerents.

He tried for a third term in 1880 but lost the Republican nomination to James Garfield.

Grant spent his retirement writing popular articles about his military exploits. Mark Twain published Grant's best-selling memoirs just weeks after the ex-President's death on July 23, 1885.

See also Garfield, James A.; Johnson, Andrew

Sources

• William McFeely, Grant: A Biography (New York: Norton, 1981)

(1822-1885), Civil War general and eighteenth president of the United States. Born in Point Pleasant, Ohio, Grant was a plain, unassuming product of the Midwest. His life was one of pathetically ordinary failure in everything save the waging or writing of war. The son of a tanner, he had no taste for his father's trade. He graduated from West Point in 1843 and compiled a solid record of service in the Mexican War, but his army career collapsed in the peacetime boredom of a long isolated tour of duty in northern California and Oregon. A drinking problem hastened his resignation from the army in 1854. Next he tried farming and real estate ventures without success. When the Civil War broke out in the spring of 1861, he was working as a clerk for his father in Galena, Illinois.

Grant found his calling in the Civil War. The conflict energized him and restored his confidence. First commissioned as a colonel of the Twenty-first Illinois Volunteer Infantry, he was promoted in August 1861 to brigadier general of volunteers. He commanded the land forces that captured Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River in February 1862. This was his first important battle and the first major Union victory of the war. Confederate armies counterattacked at the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862. Aided by timely reinforcements, a surprised and initially outgeneraled Grant was able to hold his position and force a Confederate retreat into Mississippi.

Grant's most stunning victory in the West came out of the Vicksburg campaign in the spring of 1863. In a brilliant display of strategic audacity, he outflanked the Confederate defenders of Vicksburg by using the Union navy to run his army downriver from the city. He then defeated surprised and scattered Confederate armies and successfully besieged Vicksburg from the east. The city, the last major Confederate position on the Mississippi River, surrendered on July 4, 1863. Having been given the top Union command in the West in October, Grant lifted the Confederate siege of Chattanooga the next month and routed Braxton Bragg's Confederate Army of Tennessee. The way was now open for the Union campaign against Atlanta.

Congress revived the rank of lieutenant general specifically for Grant, and President Abraham Lincoln appointed him supreme commander of the Union armies in March 1864. In a series of bloody, grinding encounters Grant finally wore down Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia between May 1864 and April 1865. Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.

Grant's postwar career was decidedly anticlimactic. To be sure, he was elected as a Republican to two terms as president (1869-1877), but his administrations were marred by indecisive leadership, an inconsistent policy on southern Reconstruction, and massive corruption. Coupled with a severe economic depression that began in 1873, administration scandals cost Grant much of his popularity. Nonetheless, his presidency did have some solid accomplishments. The Treaty of Washington in 1872 resolved a major dispute with Great Britain over damages inflicted on American shipping by Confederate raiders built in British shipyards during the Civil War. The Enforcement Acts of 1870-1871 broke the power of the Ku Klux Klan in the Reconstruction South, and the Civil Rights Act of 1875 marked an unprecedented attempt to extend federal protection of black civil rights to areas of public accommodations.

After returning to the United States from a world tour in the late 1870s, Grant went bankrupt as a result of foolish investments in the fraudulent banking firm of Grant & Ward. Though once again a failure in civilian life, Grant did much to redeem his place in history by writing his Personal Memoirs. Finished just before his death from throat cancer in 1885, his memoirs stand as one of the clearest and most powerful military narratives ever written.

Bibliography:

Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, 2 vols., reprint ed. (1982); William S. McFeely, Grant: A Biography (1981).

Author:

William L. Barney

See also Civil War; Elections: 1868 , 1872. For events during Grant's administration, see Alabama Claims; Civil Service Reform; Corruption; Crédit Mobilier of America; Legal Tender Cases; Reconstruction; Slaughterhouse Cases; Tweed Ring.

1822–85, commander in chief of the Union army in the Civil War and 18th President (1869–77) of the United States, b. Point Pleasant, Ohio. He was originally named Hiram Ulysses Grant.

Military Career

Grant spent his youth in Georgetown, Ohio, was graduated from West Point in 1843, and served creditably in the Mexican War. He was forced to resign from the army in 1854 because of excessive drinking. Grant failed in attempts at farming and business, and was working as a clerk in the family leather store in Galena, Ill., when the Civil War broke out. He was commissioned colonel of the 21st Illinois Volunteers, and in Aug., 1861, became a brigadier general of volunteers.

Grant assumed command of the district of Cairo, Ill., in Sept. and fought his first battle, an indecisive affair at Belmont, Mo., on Nov. 9. In Feb., 1862, aided by Union gunboats, he captured Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland. This was the first major Union victory, and Lincoln at once made Grant a major general of volunteers. In April at Shiloh (see Shiloh, battle of), however, only the arrival of the army of Gen. Don Carlos Buell may have saved him from defeat.

The Vicksburg campaign (1862–63) was one of Grant's greatest successes. After repeated failures to get at the town, he advanced in cooperation with a fleet and finally took Vicksburg by siege. The victory of Braxton Bragg, the Confederate general, at Chickamauga (see Chattanooga campaign), led to Grant's accession to the supreme command in the West, Oct., 1863. At Chattanooga in November his forces thoroughly defeated Bragg. The President, in Mar., 1864, made Grant commander in chief with the rank of lieutenant general, a grade especially revived by Congress for him.

Grant himself directed George G. Meade's Army of the Potomac against Gen. Robert E. Lee in the Wilderness campaign. His policy of attrition against Lee's forces was effective, though it resulted in slaughter at Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor. Failing to carry Petersburg by assault in June, 1864, Grant had that city under partial siege until Apr., 1865. Philip H. Sheridan's victory at Five Forks made Petersburg and Richmond no longer tenable. Lee retreated, but was cut off at Appomattox Courthouse (see under Appomattox, where he surrendered, receiving generous terms from Grant, on Apr. 9, 1865.

Grant went about the distasteful business of war realistically and grimly. He was a skilled tactician and at times a brilliant strategist (as at Vicksburg, regarded by many as one of the great battles of history). His courage as a commander of forces and his powers of organization and administration made him the outstanding Northern general. Grant also was notably wise in supporting good commanders, especially Sheridan, William T. Sherman, and George H. Thomas. Made a full general in 1866, he was the first U.S. citizen to hold that rank.

Presidency

Grant at first seemed to favor the Reconstruction policy of President Andrew Johnson. In Apr., 1867, Johnson appointed him interim Secretary of War, replacing Edwin Stanton. Johnson expected him to hold the office against Stanton and thus bring about a test of the constitutionality of the Tenure of Office Act, but Grant turned the office back to Stanton when the Senate refused to sanction Stanton's removal. It was apparent then that the general had thrown his lot in with the radical Republicans. The inevitable choice of the Republicans for President, Grant was victorious over the Democratic candidate, Horatio Seymour, in 1868.

Characterized chiefly by bitter partisan politics and shameless corruption, his administrations remain notorious. The punitive Reconstruction program was pushed with new vigor, and legislation favorable to commercial and industrial interests was passed (see greenback). The President associated with disreputable politicians and financiers; James Fisk and Jay Gould deceived him when they tried to corner the gold market in 1869 (see Black Friday). In foreign affairs, however, much was accomplished by the able Secretary of State, Hamilton Fish.

The party unanimously renominated Grant in 1872, and he was reelected easily over Horace Greeley, the candidate of the Liberal Republican party and the Democrats. Toward the end of his second term his Secretary of War, William W. Belknap, and his private secretary, Orville E. Babcock, were implicated in graft scandals. Through the loyalty of the deceived Grant, both escaped punishment.

Later Years

The two years following his retirement from the White House were spent in making a triumphal tour of the world. In 1880 the Republican “Old Guard,” led by Roscoe Conkling, tried to secure another nomination for Grant but failed. He took up residence in New York City, where he invested money in a fraudulent private banking business. It collapsed in 1884, leaving him bankrupt.

Dying of cancer of the throat, he set about writing his Personal Memoirs (2 vol., 1885–86) in order to provide for his family. He died a few days after the manuscript was completed. These memoirs are ranked among the great narratives of military history. The remains of the general and his wife lie in New York City in Grant's Tomb.

Bibliography

See, in addition to his memoirs, his papers ed. by J. Y. Simon (5 vol., 1967–73); biographies by U. S. Grant 3d (1969), W. McFeely (1981), G. Perret (1997), B. D. Simpson (2000), J. E. Smith (2001), J. Bunting 3d (2004), and M. Korda (2004); J. F. C. Fuller, The Generalship of U. S. Grant (1929, repr. 1968); W. B. Hesseltine, Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (1935, repr. 1957); B. Catton, U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954), Grant Moves South (1960), and Grant Takes Command (1969); A. Nevins, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (2 vol., rev. ed. 1957); J. H. Marshall-Cornwall, Grant as Military Commander (1970); F. J. Scaturro, President Grant Reconsidered (1998); G. Perret, Ulysses S. Grant: Soldier and President (1998).

(1822-1885)

1885

Personal Memoirs. Written to pay off debts acquired from failed investments and to secure his family's finances, former general and U.S. president Grant completes his memoirs just days before his death. After learning that Grant was intending to write a memoir, Mark Twain had convinced him to allow his firm, Webster and Company, to publish the book. Sold by subscription, the bestseller earns $450,000 for Grant's estate and more than $150,000 for Webster and Company.

A general and political leader of the nineteenth century. Grant became commanding general of the Union army during the Civil War. He accepted the unconditional surrender of the commanding general of the main Confederate army, Robert E. Lee, at Appomattox Court House. A Republican, he later became president.

Ulysses Simpson Grant, originally known as Hiram Ulysses Grant, was a U.S. general, the commander of the Union army during the last part of the Civil War, and the president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. During his presidency Grant's reputation was tarnished by political corruption and scandal in his administration. Though he was never personally involved with any scandal, his failure to choose trustworthy advisers hurt his presidency.

Grant was born April 27, 1822, in Point Pleasant, Ohio. Raised in nearby Georgetown, he was educated at local and boarding schools. In 1839 he accepted an appointment to the Army's military academy at West Point, though he did not intend to become a soldier. The appointment allowed him to obtain the education he could not afford otherwise. He graduated in 1843 and began his military career with a tour of duty during the Mexican War of 1846-48, in which he distinguished himself in battle. After the war he was assigned to Fort Humboldt, California. During his time in California, Grant became lonely, and it has been alleged he had a drinking problem. He resigned his commission in 1854 and made several unsuccessful attempts at alternative careers, including farming and real estate. In 1860 he moved to Galena, Illinois, where he worked in his father's leather goods store.

With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Grant returned to the military as a colonel in the Illinois Volunteers. He soon was promoted to brigadier general. Grant's first major victory came in February 1862, when his troops captured Forts Henry and Donelson, Tennessee, forcing General Simon B. Buckner, of the Confederacy, to accept unconditional surrender. As a result Grant was promoted to major general.

Grant fought in the Battles of Shiloh and Corinth before forcing the surrender of Vicksburg, Mississippi, on July 4, 1862. In 1863 his forces triumphed over those of General Braxton Bragg, of the Confederacy, at Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Grant's leadership was welcomed by President Abraham Lincoln, who had endured a succession of commanders of the Union army who refused to wage an aggressive war. In March 1864 Lincoln promoted Grant to lieutenant general and gave him command over the entire Union army. In that year Grant scored another major military triumph. He commanded the Army of the Potomac against the forces of General Robert E. Lee, of the Confederacy, in the Wilderness Campaign, a series of violent battles that took place in Virginia. Battles at Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, and Richmond produced heavy Union casualties, but Lee's smaller army was devastated. On April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Courthouse, Lee surrendered his forces, signaling an end to the Civil War.

After the war Grant enforced the Reconstruction laws of Congress in the Southern military divisions. President Andrew Johnson appointed him secretary of war in 1867, but Grant soon had a falling out with the president. Grant aligned himself with the Republican party and became its presidential candidate in 1868. He defeated Democrat Horatio Seymour, former governor of New York, by a small popular vote margin. At age forty-six, he was the youngest man yet elected president. He was reelected in 1872, easily defeating Horace Greeley.

Though Grant's intentions were good, it soon became clear that his political and administrative skills did not match his military acumen. Despite his interest in civil service reform, he followed his predecessors in using political patronage to fill positions in his administration. Many of his appointees were willing to use their office for personal profit.

Grant's reputation was first tarnished in 1869 when financiers Jay Gould and James Fisk attempted to corner the gold market and drive up the price. Their plan depended on keeping the federal government's gold supply off the market. They used political influence within the Grant administration to further their scheme. When Grant found out about it, he ordered $4 million of government gold sold on the market. On September 24, 1869, known as Black Friday, the price of gold plummeted, which caused a financial panic.

During Grant's second term, more scandal erupted. Vice President Schuyler Colfax was accused of taking bribes in the Cr|Aaedit Mobilier scandal, which involved a diversion of profits from the Union Pacific Railroad. And Grant's private secretary, Orville E. Babcock, was one of 238 persons indicted in the Whiskey Ring conspiracy, which sought to defraud the federal government of liquor taxes. Babcock was acquitted after Grant testified on his behalf. Finally, Grant accepted the resignation of Secretary of War William W. Belknap shortly before Belknap was impeached on charges of accepting a bribe.

In domestic policy Grant attempted to resolve the tensions between North and South. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders, and he tried to enforce federal civil rights legislation that was intended to protect the newly freed slaves. In foreign policy he settled long-standing difficulties with Great Britain, in the 1871 Treaty of Washington.

After leaving office in 1877, Grant spent his time traveling and writing. He made a world tour in 1878 and 1879. In 1880 he unsuccessfully sought the Republican party's nomination for president. In 1881 he bought a home in New York City and became involved in the investment firm of Grant and Ward, in which his son, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr., was a partner. He invested his personal fortune with the firm and encouraged others to invest as well. In 1884 the firm collapsed. Partner Ferdinand Ward had swindled all the funds from the investors. Grant was forced to file for bankruptcy.

Needing money, Grant contracted with his friend Mark Twain to write his memoirs. Despite the debilitations of throat cancer, Grant was able to complete his Personal Memoirs shortly before his death on July 23, 1885, in Mount McGregor, New York. His memoir was well received and is now recognized as a classic military autobiography. Grant and his wife, Julia Dent Grant, are buried in Grant's Tomb, in New York City, which was proclaimed a national memorial in 1959.

Quotes:

"The friend in my adversity I shall always cherish most. I can better trust those who helped to relieve the gloom of my dark hours than those who are so ready to enjoy with me the sunshine of my prosperity."

"I know of no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their strict execution."

"I know only two tunes. One them is Yankee Doodle and the other isn't."

"Everyone has his superstitions. One of mine has always been when I started to go anywhere, accomplished."

"Labor disgraces no man, but occasionally men disgrace labor."