Ulysses S. Grant

Ulysses S. GrantSee military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. (born Hiram Ulysses Grant) (April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885) was general-in-chief of the Union Army from 1864 to 1865 during the American Civil War and the 18th President of the United States from 1869 to 1877.
The son of an Appalachian Ohio tanner, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at age 17. In 1846, three years after graduating, Grant served as a lieutenant in the Mexican–American War under Winfield Scott and future president Zachary Taylor. After the Mexican-American War concluded in 1848, Grant remained in the Army, but abruptly resigned in 1854. Struggling through the coming years as a real estate agent, a laborer, and a county engineer, Grant decided to join the Northern effort in the Civil War.
Appointed brigadier general of volunteers in 1861 by President Abraham Lincoln, Grant claimed the first major Union victories of the war in 1862, capturing Forts Henry and Donelson in Tennessee. He was surprised by a Confederate attack at the Battle of Shiloh, and although he emerged victorious, the severe casualties prompted a public outcry that could have resulted in driving him from the army. Subsequently, however, Grant's 1863 victory at Vicksburg, following a long campaign with many initial setbacks, and his rescue of the besieged Union army at Chattanooga, established his reputation as Lincoln's most aggressive and successful general. Named lieutenant general and general-in-chief of the Army in 1864, Grant implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's armies and its economy's ability to sustain its forces. In 1865, after mounting a successful war of attrition against his Confederate opponents, he accepted the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House.
Popular due to the Union victory in the Civil War, Grant was elected President of the United States as a Republican in 1868 and was re-elected in 1872, the first President to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. As President, Grant led Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican Party in the South, straining relations between the North and former Confederates. His administration was marred by scandal, sometimes the product of nepotism, and the neologism Grantism was coined to describe political corruption.
Grant left office in 1877 and embarked upon a two-year world tour. However, in 1884, Grant learned that he was suffering from terminal throat cancer. Unsuccessful in winning the nomination for a third term in 1880, left destitute by bad investments, and near the brink of death, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which were enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics. Two days after completing his writing, Grant died at the age of 63. Presidential historians typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents for his tolerance of corruption, but in recent years his reputation has improved among some scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans.See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998); List of presidential rankings. Historians rank the 42 men who have held the office. AP via MSNBC. msn.com. Last visited February 16, 2009. See list of greatest presidents.
==Early life and family==
Grant was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio, east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River to Jesse Root Grant (1794–1873), a tanner, and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798–1883), both Pennsylvania natives. At birth, Grant was named Hiram Ulysses.Simpson, p. 2 In the fall of 1823, the family moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio.
==Education and the Mexican-American War==
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer, who erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio."Smith, Grant, p. 24. Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only.Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' Because "U.S." also stands for "Uncle Sam," Grant's nickname became "Sam" among his army colleagues. He graduated from USMA in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.
===Mexican–American War===
Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican–American War (1846–1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Veracruz. Once Grant saw Fred Dent, his friend and later his brother-in-law, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S. soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day, regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation."Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican War
==Between wars==
The Mexican-American War concluded on February 2, 1848.
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826–1902), the daughter of a slave owner.Smith, p. 73. Together, they had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. "Buck" Grant, Jr. , Ellen Wrenshall "Nellie" Grant, and Jesse Root Grant.
Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the 4th Infantry Regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain, one of only 50 still on active duty, and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, California. Grant abruptly resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial.According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." However, the War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name."
At age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858, he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave, whom he set free in 1859, and his wife owned four slaves.His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. From 1858–1859 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area.McFeely, ch. 5.
Although Grant was not affiliated with any political party, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis, a fact that lost Grant the job of county engineer in 1859. In 1856, he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham LincolnThe Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. Grant announced his affiliation as a Republican in 1868, after years of apoliticism.Hesseltine, chapter 6.
==Civil War==
===Western Theater: 1861–63===
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 militia volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him a colonel in the Illinois militia and gave him command of undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Infantry in June 1861.
Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.
In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of the militia volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.
====Battles of Belmont, Henry, and Donelson====
Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederates violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, an old friend of Grant's and a West Point classmate, and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers. Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.
Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased against him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant on March 4 of field command of a newly launched expedition up the Tennessee River. However, Halleck soon restored Grant to field command of the expedition (personal intervention by President Lincoln may have been a factor), and on March 17 he joined his army at Savannah, Tennessee.Many authors see presidential pressure behind Grant's reinstatement to field command. See, e.g., Gott, pp. 267-68; Nevin, p. 96. But there is room to question that conclusion. Halleck relieved Grant of field command of the expedition (but not his overall command) on March 4 (OR I-10-2-3). On March 9 and 10, Halleck advised Grant to prepare himself to take the field. On March 10, the President and Secretary of War inquired about Grant's status, and on March 13, Halleck directed Grant to take the field. See Halleck to Grant, March 9, 10, 13, 1862, OR I-10-2-22, 27, 32; Thomas to Halleck, March 10, 1862, OR I-7-683. This sequence suggests that Halleck may have decided to restore Grant to field command before receiving Lincoln's inquiry. See Smith, p. 176: Halleck's "reinstatement of Grant preceded by one day the bombshell that landed on his desk from the adjutant general [on behalf of the President and Secretary of War] in Washington." At this juncture, Grant's command was known as the Army of West Tennessee; soon, however, it would acquire its more famous name as the Army of the Tennessee.
====Shiloh====
Eventually, most of Grant's expedition was staged at Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, nine miles south of Savannah and on the western side of the Tennessee River. On April 6, those troops were surprised by Confederate Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard in the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, after hastening to Pittsburg Landing from Savannah, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.
The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with approximately 12,000 casualties on each side, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time and had unpleasant repurcussions for Grant. As previously planned, Grant's superior in the Department of the Mississippi, Henry Halleck, arrived at Pittsburg Landing to take personal command in the field. Halleck proceeded to organize a 100,000-man army there, dividing it into three corps commands and a reserve for a campaign to capture Corinth, Mississippi. Initially, Grant was to command the right wing (First Corps).Halleck's 100,000-man army incorporated Grant's Army of the Tennessee, Buell's Army of the Ohio, and John Pope's Army of the Mississippi. The three armies were formally redesignated as corps. However, on April 30, perhaps in response to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the Shiloh fighting and the resulting criticism of Grant, Halleck assigned Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas to command the right wing and gave Grant the position of second-in-command of the entire 100,000-man force. Grant became very dissatisfied with this arrangement, which he complained was a censure and akin to an arrest.On May 11, Grant wrote Halleck privately that he considered his second-in-command position to be "anomylous," to constitute a "sensure," and his position to differ "but little from that of one in arrest." Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, 5:114; see Smith, p. 209. Accordingly, he explored the possibility of obtaining an assignment elsewhere and might have left the Army altogether after the Union forces occupied Corinth on May 30. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain.McFeeley, pp. 119-20; Smith, pp. 210-11. He was thus in position to play an increasingly important role in the West when, in July 1862, Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army and called to Washington.For a good discussion of Grant's experiences after Shiloh, see Brooks D. Simpson, "After Shiloh: Grant, Sherman, and Survival," 142, in Stephen E. Woodworth, ed., The Shiloh Campaign (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 2009). That fall, Grant had overall command of the Union forces for the battles of Iuka and Corinth, although the fighting in those battles fell mostly to Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans.
====Vicksburg====
In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant spent the winter of 1862–1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed. One newspaper complained that "[t]he army was being ruined in mud-turtle expeditions, under the leadership of a drunkard, whose confidential adviser [Sherman] was a lunatic."Whitelaw Reid, Ohio in the War: Her Statesmen, Her Generals, and Soldiers (New York, 1868), 1:387.
However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using United States Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and—in a daring move that defied conventional military principles—cut loose from most of his supply lines.One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles A. Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.
Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
One historian with a military background has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss."Francis V. Greene, The Mississippi (Campaigns of the Civil War - VIII) (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1884), 170-71; see William Farina, Ulysses S. Grant, 1861-1864: His Rise From Obscurity to Military Greatness (McFarland, 2007), 214. Indeed, anticipating that Grant would soon capture Vicksburg, Abraham Lincoln declared that "if Grant only does this thing down there . . ., why, Grant is my man and I am his the rest of this war."James R. Rusling, Men and Things I Saw in Civil War Days (New York: Eaton & Mains, 1899), 16-17. According to Rusling, an eyewitness, Lincoln made this remark on July 5, 1863, before learning that Grant had taken Vicksburg on July 4.
====Chattanooga====
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans and his Army of the Cumberland retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, surrounding the Federals on three sides and besieging them. On October 17, to deal with this crisis, Grant was placed in command of the sweeping, newly-created Military Division of the Mississippi; this command placed Grant in overall charge of the previously independent Departments of the Ohio, the Cumberland (embracing Chattanooga), and the Tennessee. In taking this new command, Grant chose a version of the War Department's order that relieved Rosecrans from command of the Department of the Cumberland and replaced him with Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas. Sherman succeeded Grant in charge of the Department of the Tennessee.Grant's new command unified the Union command in the West for the first time since Henry W. Halleck vacated the erstwhile Department of the Mississippi to become general-in-chief. According to his memoirs, had he so wished, Grant could have chosen a version of the War Department order continuing Rosecrans in command of the Department of the Cumberland. See Grant, Memoirs (Lib. of Am., 1990), 403. 
Grant went to Chattanooga personally to take charge of the situation. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line," Thomas's chief engineer, William F. "Baldy" Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to feed the starving men and animals of the Union army. Upon reprovisioning and reinforcement by elements of Sherman's Army of the Tennessee and troops from the Army of the Potomac under Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, Grant went on the offensive.
The Battles for Chattanooga started out with Hooker's capture of Lookout Mountain on November 24 and with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right the following day. He occupied the wrong hill and then committed only a fraction of his force against the true objective, allowing them to be repulsed by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas's men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. According to Hooker, Grant said afterward, "Damn the battle! I had nothing to do with it."Lloyd Lewis, Sherman: Fighting Prophet, 323.
Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army—a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet appointment), recently re-authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind—on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.
===General-in-Chief and strategy for victory===
In March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.
====Overland Campaign, Petersburg, and Appomattox====
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.
Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.
The campaign continued. Confederate troops beat the Union to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000–7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River.
Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a siege.
As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas.
In March 1865, Grant invited Lincoln to visit his headquarters at City Point, Virginia. By coincidence, Sherman (then campaigning in North Carolina) happened to visit City Point at the same time. This allowed for the war's only three-way meeting of Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman.Sherman, Memoirs, pp. 806-17; Donald C. Pfanz, The Petersburg Campaign: Abraham Lincoln at City Point (Lynchburg, VA, 1989), 1-2, 24-29, 94-95. This meeting was memorialized in G.P.A. Healy's famous painting "The Peacemakers." At the beginning of April, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democrats who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.
Despite his reputation, deserved or not, as an uncaring butcher, Grant was always concerned about the sufferings of the wounded. Horace Porter who served with him, described a scene of a soldier dying beside a roadside during the battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse, and Grant's reaction as the dying young man was splattered with mud by a passing rider:
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius:Korda, (2004) 
After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern United States Army.Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.''
===Allegations of anti-Semitism===
Grant's legacy has been brought into question by allegations of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11, issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part: "The Jews, as a class, violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department, and also Department orders, are hereby expelled from the Department (comprising areas of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky)."
President Lincoln ordered Grant to rescind General Order #11 on January 3, 1863, and the order was formally rescinded on January 7, 1863. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name.
The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 presidential campaign, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite.
==1868 presidential campaign==
 As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Andrew Johnson, a Southern Democrat, who preferred a moderate approach to relations with the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. This made him a hero to the Radical Republicans, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the 1868 Republican National Convention in Chicago: he faced no significant opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became his campaign slogan. In general election of that year, Grant won against former New York Governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 votes out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast. However, Grant commanded an Electoral College landslide, receiving 214 votes to Seymour's 80. When he assumed the presidency, Grant had never before held elected office and, at the age of 46, was the youngest person yet elected president.
==Presidency 1869–1877==
The second President from Ohio, Grant was elected the 18th President of the United States in 1868, and was re-elected to the office in 1872. Grant served as President from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In his re-election campaign, Grant benefited from the loyal support of Harper's Weekly political cartoonist Thomas Nast and later sent Nast a deluxe edition of Grant's autobiography when it was finished.
Albert Bigelow Paine, Thomas Nast: His Period and His Pictures, 1904.
===Reconstruction===
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction. In the late 1870s, he watched as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help to put down the waves of violence by paramilitary groups surrounding elections, Grant and his Attorney General replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army.
He supported amnesty for former Confederates and signed the Amnesty Act of 1872 to further this. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South—sufficient numbers to protect Southern African Americans, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population.
Grant confronted a Northern public tired of committing to the long war in the South, violent paramilitary organizations in the late 1870s, and a factional Republican Party.
===Civil rights===
In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders and later signed the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which entitled equal treatment in public accommodations and jury selection. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. While these were used to effectively suppress the Klan, by 1874 a new wave of paramilitary organizations arose in the Deep South. The Red Shirts and White League, that conducted insurgency in Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Louisiana, operated openly and were better organized than the Ku Klux Klan had been. They aimed to turn Republicans out of office, suppress the black vote, and disrupt elections.
Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to African American civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.
===Panic of 1873===
The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.
By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert C. Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker.Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes:Nevins, Fish 2:811
In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson .
===Economic affairs===
The Grant administration's first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Act to Strengthen the Public Credit which the GOP Congress had passed after Grant's inaugural in March 1869. The act had the effect that the gold price on New York exchange fell to $310 dollars an ounce — the lowest point since the suspension of specie payment in 1862.
As Jean Edward Smith notes in his 2002 biography on Grant, the presidential treasury secretary Boutwell reorganized the Treasury by discharging unnecessary employees, started sweeping changes in Bureau of Printing and Engraving to protect the currency from counterfeiters and revitalized tax collections to hasten the collection of revenue. These changes soon led the Treasury having a monthly surplus.
The Grant administration reduced the debt by approximately $435 million. That was achieved by selling the growing gold surplus at weekly auctions for greenbacks and buying back wartime bonds with the currency. With this Grant's treasury secretary Boutwell had established a policy which if continued would had paid off the national debt in a quarter of a century. Newspapers like the New York Tribune wanted the Government to buy more bonds and Greenbacks and the New York Times praised the Grant administration`s debt policy.
On other economic fronts Grant administration had several other accomplishments. Under Grant the nation's credit was substantially raised. Taxes were reduced by $300 million. Annual interest rates were reduced by approximately $30 million. The U.S. balance of trade was changed from $130 million against the United States to $120 million in favor of the United States. He also reduced inflation and to 1873 bolstered economic recovery. He also promoted economy in federal expenditures. His veto of the Inflation Bill in 1874 saved the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 to get worse and the veto was praised by the financial community and many newspapers.
The Resumption of Species Act of 1875 which was signed by Grant helped to end the crisis in 1879 when the law came in to effect.
He also pressed for internal improvements coupled with increased shipbuilding and foreign trade. He also wanted to enhance and improve the commercial marine.
===Foreign affairs===
In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington, negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He also proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Santo Domingo. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia.Liberian-Grebo War of 1876
===Scandals===
The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his Treasury Secretary from stopping the fraud. However, Grant eventually released large amounts of gold back onto the market, causing a large-scale financial crisis for many gold investors. Jay Gould had already prepared and quietly sold out while Fisk denied many agreements and hired thugs to intimidate his creditors.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over $3 million in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.
Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident, an embezzlement of government funds involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of Grant's first Vice President, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who, ironically, was also involved in the scandal.
Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, exercising the practice of nepotism, favored colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."
===Administration and Cabinet===
===Supreme Court appointments===
Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
*Edwin M. Stanton – 1869 (died before taking seat)
*William Strong – 1870
*Joseph P. Bradley – 1870
*Ward Hunt – 1873
*Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice) – 1874
===States admitted to the Union===
*Colorado – August 1, 1876
===Government agencies instituted===
*Department of Justice (1870)
* Office of the Solicitor General (1870)
* "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
* Office of the Surgeon General (1871)
* Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)
==Post-presidency==
===World Tour 1877-1879===
After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. He travelled first to Liverpool, England on board the Pennsylvania class steamship , subsequently visiting Scotland and Ireland; the crowds were enormous. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam (Thailand), and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress Shōken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.
In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.
Grant returned to the United States from Japan on board the Pacific Mail steamship City of Tokio. That same year, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
===Third term attempt in 1880===
In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men.Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.
===Bankruptcy===
In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. In 1884 Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant), bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
===Last days===
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Today, it is believed that Grant suffered from a T1N1 carcinoma of the tonsillar fossa. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. Grant first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties.
It was not until 1958 that Congress, believing it inappropriate that a former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting them a pension, still in effect today.
Terminally ill, Grant finished his memoir just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar." Grant's memoir has been regarded by writers as diverse as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as one of the finest works of its kind ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America. The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial honors Grant.
==See also==
*Grantism
*Grant's Farm
*History of the United States (1865–1918)
*List of American Civil War generals
*Lobbying
*National Rifle Association
*U.S. Grant Home, Galena, Illinois
*Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
*United States presidential election, 1868
*United States presidential election, 1872
*Western Theater of the American Civil War
==References==
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command, Little, Brown and Company, 1968, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 69-12632.
*Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Garland, Hamlin, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character, Macmillan Company, 1898.
* Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry—Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
*Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885–86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
*Hesseltine, William B., Ulysses S. Grant: Politician 1935.
*Lewis, Lloyd, Captain Sam Grant, Little, Brown, and Co., 1950, ISBN 0-316-52348-8.
*McFeely, William S., Grant: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Co, 1981, ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
*McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
* Nevin, David, and the Editors of Time-Life Books, The Road to Shiloh: Early Battles in the West, Time-Life Books, 1983, ISBN 0-8094-4716-9.
*Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-395-65994-9.
*Smith, Jean Edward, Grant, Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
*Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861 – 1865, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
*Official Ulysses Simpson Grant biography from the US Army Center for Military History
==Notes==
==Bibliography==
===Biographical, political===
*Bunting III, Josiah. Ulysses S. Grant (2004) ISBN 0-8050-6949-6
*William Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 (1905), vol 22
* Hesseltine, William B. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (2001) ISBN 1-931313-85-7 online edition
* Mantell, Martin E., Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
*Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936) online edition
* Rhodes, James Ford., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6 and 7 (1920) vol 6
* Scaturro, Frank J., President Grant Reconsidered (1998).
* Schouler, James., History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
* Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
* Simpson, Brooks D., The Reconstruction Presidents (1998)
* Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph over Adversity, 1822-1865 (2000)
*Skidmore, Max J. "The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: a Reconsideration." White House Studies (2005) online
===Military studies===
*Badeau, Adam. Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 vols. 1882.
*Ballard, Michael B., Vicksburg, The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-2893-9.
*Bearss, Edwin C., The Vicksburg Campaign, 3 volumes, Morningside Press, 1991, ISBN 0-89029-308-2.
*Carter, Samuel III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863 (1980)
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Moves South, 1960, ISBN 0-316-13207-1; Grant Takes Command, 1968, ISBN 0-316-13210-1; U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954)
*Cavanaugh, Michael A., and William Marvel, The Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of the Crater: "The Horrid Pit," June 25-August 6, 1864 (1989)
*Conger, A. L. The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931)
*Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg (1986).
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
*Korda, Michael. Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (2004) 161 pp
*McWhiney, Grady, Battle in the Wilderness: Grant Meets Lee (1995)
*McDonough, James Lee, Shiloh: In Hell before Night (1977).
*McDonough, James Lee, Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy (1984).
*Maney, R. Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor. Victory and Failure, 1864 (1994).
*Matter, William D., If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (1988)
*Miers, Earl Schenck., The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg. 1955.
*Mosier, John., "Grant", Palgrave MacMillan, 2006 ISBN 1-4039-7136-6.
*Rhea, Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5–6, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8071-1873-7.
*Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7–12, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8071-2136-3.
*Rhea, Gordon C., To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13–25, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8071-2535-0.
*Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 – June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.
*Miller, J. Michael, The North Anna Campaign: "Even to Hell Itself," May 21-26, 1864 (1989).
*Simpson, Brooks D., "Continuous Hammering and Mere Attrition: Lost Cause Critics and the Military Reputation of Ulysses S. Grant," in Cad Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, (2000)
*Steere, Edward, The Wilderness Campaign (1960)
*Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April. 1974.
*Williams, T. Harry, McClellan, Sherman and Grant. 1962.
===Primary sources===
*Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs (1885) online edition
*Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters (Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely, eds.) The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-94045058-5
*Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Papers, located at Mississippi State University's Mitchell Memorial Library
*Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) pp 131–73, on the Memoirs
*Johnson, R. U., and Buel, C. C., eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York, 1887-88; essays by leading generals of both sides; online edition
*Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant (1897, reprinted 2000)
*Sherman, William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. 2 vols. 1875.
*Simon, John Y., ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Southern Illinois University Press (1967- ) multivolume complete edition of letters to and from Grant. As of 2006, vol 1-28 covers through September 1878.
==External links==
*Ulysses S. Grant Association
*Extensive essay on Ulysses S. Grant and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
*First Inaugural Address
*Second Inaugural Address
*White House Biography
*Ulysses S. Grant: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress
*Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
*Emerson, Col. John W., Grant's Life in the West and His Mississippi Valley Campaigns, U.S. Grant Association website.
* Retrieved on 2008-11-03
*Many rare General Grant photographs
*Military biography of Ulysses S. Grant from the Cullum biographies
*
*The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. (1918). "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.
*Collection of US Grant Letters
*Ulysses S. Grant: America's Second Three-Star General article by Ethan Rafuse
*Historic White Haven (Grant-Dent home)
*
*Animations of the Campaigns of Ulysses S. Grant (Forts Henry and Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, Overland, and Petersburg/Appomattox)
*Ulysses S. Grant is remembered as a champion of civil rights
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