Ulysses Simpson Grant

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). □

Grant, Ulysses S. (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.

John Y. Simon

Grant, Ulysses S. 1822-1885

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Born as Hiram Ulysses Grant on April 27, 1822, at Point Pleasant, Ohio, the son of Jesse Root and Hannah Simpson Grant, Grant grew up in nearby Georgetown. In 1839 he entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, graduating in the middle of his class in 1843; it was at this time that he became Ulysses S. Grant, a result of a West Point clerical error. During the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), he saw action in several battles, despite the fact that he served as quartermaster and commissary officer for his regiment. Marrying Julia Dent in 1848, he found peacetime military service frustrating professionally and personally, and resigned his commission as captain in 1854. Over the next seven years, Grant struggled to provide for his family, which eventually included four children. A combination of bad luck, uncertain health, and the impact of the economic panic of 1857 left him impoverished before he took a position at his father’s general store in Galena, Illinois, in 1860. With the outbreak of the Civil War (1861–1865) the following year, he offered his services, eventually securing a colonel’s commission; before long he found himself a brigadier general, courtesy of the influence of his hometown congressman.

In 1861 Grant led U.S. forces southward into Kentucky and Missouri, securing Paducah in September. The following year, forces under his command, aided by a gunboat flotilla, captured Fort Henry (February 6, 1862) and Fort Donelson (February 16, 1862), along with some twelve thousand Confederate soldiers. Two months later, he fended off a Confederate attack at Shiloh, Tennessee (April 6–7, 1862), although the high losses he suffered and his lack of preparedness brought him under heavy criticism.

Late in the fall of 1862, after fending off several Confederate efforts to retake western Tennessee, Grant began planning to capture Vicksburg, Mississippi, the major remaining Confederate stronghold along the Mississippi River. After several abortive efforts, he took the city on July 4, 1863, following a campaign of marching and fighting that kept superior enemy forces off balance. The victory secured his hold on an important command: In November he scored another triumph at Chattanooga, Tennessee, a victory that paved the way for President Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) to elevate him to overall command of the armies of the United States in 1864. In less than fourteen months from assuming command, Grant devised the grand strategy and coordinated the campaigns that led to the collapse of the Confederacy. He took charge of the forces opposing the Confederacy’s leading general, Robert E. Lee (1807–1870), and in some six weeks of bloody campaigning forced Lee back to defend the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia. Holding Lee in check while other Union armies triumphed (as did Lincoln in his reelection bid), Grant pushed Lee out of Richmond at the beginning of April, tracked him down, and forced him to surrender what remained of his army on April 9, 1865.

Immediately after the war, Grant urged reconciliation between North and South, but he quickly came to oppose white supremacist violence and to support recognizing black civil and eventually political rights. His popularity as a war hero made him an ideal presidential candidate for the Republican Party in 1868: His triumph came in the first election in which black Americans voted in large numbers, enough to secure Grant’s majority in the popular vote. Having run for the presidency in the belief that only he could stave off a Democratic resurgence and preserve the fruits of military victory, Grant unsuccessfully attempted to balance sectional reconciliation with federal protection of black equality before the law.

During Grant’s first term, the former Confederate states completed their return to civil government, while the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment appeared to safeguard black voting. His efforts to subdue terrorist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan enjoyed initial success, although eventually a combination of white supremacist persistence, eroding public support, adverse court decisions, and inadequate institutional foundations led to the recapture of the former Confederate states by the Democratic Party. Although Grant oversaw the establishment of a stable deflationary monetary policy and a peaceful settlement of outstanding issues with Great Britain, his efforts to build a political base through patronage to help him pass his agenda, especially the attempted annexation of the Dominican Republic, only spurred greater opposition within his own party. Eventually, these opponents formed the short-lived Liberal Republican movement, which unsuccessfully tried to thwart Grant’s bid for reelection in 1872.

The onset of economic depression and the revelation of corruption within the administration marred Grant’s second term, as did the collapse of his peace policy toward Native Americans. Leaving office in 1877 after playing a critical role in resolving the disputed election of 1876, Grant took a trip around the world, returning to fail in a bid for the 1880 Republican presidential nomination. Moving to Wall Street, Grant tried his hand at business once more, only to be impoverished when he became the victim of a swindler. Soon thereafter, he learned he had throat cancer. In order to provide for his family, Grant commenced writing his autobiography, completing the manuscript, widely praised as a masterpiece, only days before his death at Mount MacGregor, New York, on July 23, 1885. He was buried in New York City; in 1897 his remains were reinterred in a massive tomb overlooking the Hudson River.

As a general, Grant displayed a doggedness and aggressiveness that sometimes overshadowed his ability to plan and conduct major campaigns and coordinate his forces, skills not evident in his predecessors in high command. Critics claim that he was a blundering bloody butcher, but the indictment does not stand up under examination. He also displayed a shrewd willingness to cooperate with his civil superiors and came to embrace both emancipation and the waging of hard war as keys to victory. As such, he has been cited as a model for military leadership and business management, something of an irony given his failures in business. Assessments of his presidency as a flat failure have given way to a more balanced view that takes into account the difficult problems Grant faced and gives him due credit for his successes and for exhibiting some political skill.

SEE ALSO Ku Klux Klan; Lee, Robert E.; Lincoln, Abraham; Mexican-American War; Native Americans; Presidency, The; Reconstruction Era (U.S.); Republican Party; Slavery; Terrorism; U.S. Civil War

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bunting, Josiah, III. 2004. Ulysses S. Grant. New York: Times Books.

Simon, John Y., et al., eds. 1967–2005. The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.

Simpson, Brooks D. 2000. Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Brooks D. Simpson

GRANT, ULYSSES SIMPSON

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 Crédit 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 longstanding 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.

"The war is over—the rebels are our countrymen again."
—Ulysses S. Grant

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.

further readings

Smith, Jean Edward. 2001. Grant. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Perret, Geoffrey, 1997. Ulysses S. Grant: Soldier & President. New York: Random House.

Scaturro, Frank J. 1999. President Grant Reconsidered. Lanham, Md.: Univ. Press of America.

Ulysses Simpson Grant 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); C. B. Flood, Grant and Sherman (2006); J. Waugh, U. S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth (2009).

Grant, Ulysses S. (1822–1885), Civil War general and eighteenth president of the United States.Grant was born at Point Pleasant, Ohio, the son of a tanner, Jesse Root Grant, and Hannah Simpson Grant. In 1839, he received a congressional appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Disliking military education, Grant was a mediocre student, but mathematical aptitude secured his graduation in 1843. Appointed brevet second lieutenant and assigned to Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis, Missouri, he met Julia Dent, whom he married in 1848. Military events interrupted Grant's planned return to West Point to teach mathematics. Mexican War service under Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott brought him promotion to brevet captain. Assigned to the Pacific Coast in 1852, Grant served in 1854 at isolated and dreary Fort Humboldt, California, under an oppressive commanding officer. Lacking funds to bring his wife and two sons to join him, he resigned from the army. Rumors that heavy drinking was involved dogged Grant thereafter.

Intent on farming, he settled on land in St. Louis County owned by his father‐in‐law. Grant's farm failed during the 1857 depression and, unable to find employment in St. Louis, he moved to Galena, Illinois, to work in his father's leather‐goods store.

When the Civil War erupted in April 1861, Grant accompanied volunteers to Springfield, Illinois, and assisted Governor Richard Yates in mustering troops. In June, Yates appointed Grant to command an Illinois regiment. Colonel Grant marched to Missouri, then was appointed brigadier general.

Stationed at Cairo, Illinois, in September 1861, Grant countered Confederate violations of Kentucky neutrality by occupying vital Paducah. In his first battle, at Belmont, Missouri (7 November 1861), he displayed characteristic aggressiveness. The Confederates’ unconditional surrender of Fort Donelson, Tennessee, in February 1862, the war's first major Union victory, cracked the Confederate western defense line and yielded some fifteen thousand prisoners. Surprised at Shiloh on the Tennessee River (6 April 1862), Grant responded to a disastrous battle with a counterattack the next day that redeemed Union fortunes. Surviving a winter of frustration, Grant launched lightning thrusts against Vicksburg, a Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi; this campaign was considered his military masterpiece. Under siege, Vicksburg surrendered on 4 July 1863, and Grant rose to supreme command in the West. Another major victory, at Chattanooga, Tennessee (23–25November 1863), brought a summons from President Abraham Lincoln in March 1864 to assume overall command. Grant's spring campaign of attrition against Robert E. Lee cost horrendous casualties before Grant besieged the Confederates south of Richmond. On 9 April 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, Virginia.

Grant continued to command the U.S. Army during Reconstruction, eventually breaking with President Andrew Johnson and becoming a reluctant Republican party presidential nominee in 1868. He was elected with a narrow popular majority over Democrat Horatio Seymour, the governor of New York. A nonmilitary general, Grant intended to govern as a nonpolitical president. In his first term, he protected freedmen's civil rights, stabilized the currency, reformed Indian policy, and negotiated with Great Britain to settle Civil War grievances. Congress refused to annex Santo Domingo, Grant's pet project. Embarrassment arose in 1869 when his relatives became entangled in gold speculation that led to a financial crisis known as Black Friday. A further scandal implicated Vice President Schuyler Colfax in a scheme to defraud investors in the Union Pacific Railroad.

Nonetheless, Grant won a second term in 1872 with a decisive victory over Horace Greeley (1811–1872), editor of the New York Tribune and the candidate of the Democrats united with reform‐minded Liberal Republicans. The country then slid into depression, Republicans continued to retreat from Reconstruction, and more government scandals burgeoned, including a scheme involving Grant's private secretary. Although Grant's personal reputation for integrity survived, his judgment was questioned.

Out of office, Grant embarked upon a lengthy world tour. The leaders of a Republican faction known as Stalwarts fought fruitlessly for his nomination in 1880. Settled in New York City, Grant was enticed into a fraudulent investment firm dominated by the swindler Ferdinand Ward. Bankrupt, suffering from inoperable throat cancer, and determined to leave his family financially secure, Grant heroically completed his highly regarded Personal Memoirs before his death.
See also Depressions, Economic; Gilded Age; Military Service Academies; Shiloh, Battle of; Vicksburg, Siege of.

Bibliography

Bruce Catton , Grant Moves South, 1960.
John Y. Simon, ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, 22 vols., 1967–.
Bruce Catton , Grant Takes Command, 1970.
William S. McFeely , Grant, 1981.
Geoffrey Perret , Ulysses S. Grant, 1997.
Brooks D. Simpson , Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822–1865, 2000.

John Y. Simon

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.”

Grant, Ulysses S[impson] (1822–85), 18th President of the U.S. (1869–77), was reared on an Ohio farm, attended West Point, served in the Mexican War, and then retired to enter business. Early in the Civil War he was made a major general, following a successful campaign in western Kentucky. In July 1863, by a joint land and river campaign, he captured Vicksburg and Port Hudson, splitting the Confederacy in two, and after his successful Tennessee campaigns Lincoln made him commander in chief of the Union forces. Grant himself led the Army of the Potomac against Lee in the Wilderness campaign, the siege of Petersburg, and the subsequent strategy that led to Lee's surrender at Appomattox. His personal popularity, and his stand with the radical Republicans against President Johnson, caused his presidential nomination, and after his election he authorized punitive Reconstruction policies in the South, keeping alive sectional hatred. His cabinet appointments were misguided, and he was duped by disreputable financiers and politicians, so that serious scandals involved some of the highest in his administration. Nevertheless he was reelected. Upon retirement, Grant invested his funds in a private banking house in which his son Buck was a partner. The other partner, Ferdinand Ward, absconded with the firm's assets in 1884, causing Grant to seek financial recovery by writing his Personal Memoirs (2 vols., 1885–86), cited by Edmund Wilson as the best autobiography written by an American and without question ranking high among the world's historical military accounts—direct in style and unassuming in manner. Biographies of Grant include those by Hamlin Garland and W.E. Woodward. Matthew Arnold wrote a critical appraisal in his Civilization in the United States; studies of his military career include works by Bruce Catton.

Grant, Ulysses Simpson (1822–85) US Civil War general and 18th US president (1869–77). He served in the Mexican War (1846–48) and the Civil War. He masterminded the Vicksburg Campaign (1862–63). In 1864, Abraham Lincoln gave him overall command of the Union forces. He coordinated the final campaigns and accepted the surrender of Robert E. Lee (1865). He served under President Andrew Johnson as secretary of war (1867–68). As president, Grant achieved foreign policy successes, but failed to prevent the growth of domestic corruption. He was easily re-elected in 1872, but members of his administration were implicated in a corruption scandal and he retired at the end of his second term.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents