Ulysses S. Grant

18th President of the United States

### Children

Frederick Dent Grant (son), Ulysses S. "Buck" Grant Jr. (son), Ellen Wrenshall "Nellie" Grant (daughter), Jesse Root Grant II (son)

### Parents

Jesse Root Grant (father)Hannah Simpson Grant (mother)

### Siblings

Samuel Simpson Grant (brother), Rachel Clara Grant (sister), Virginia Paine Grant Corbin (sister), Orvil Lynch Grant (brother), Mary Frances Grant Cramer (sister)

### Hair color

Brown

In 1865, as commanding general, **Ulysses S. Grant** led the Union Armies to victory over the Confederacy in the American Civil War. As an American hero, Grant was later elected the 18th President of the United States (1869–1877), working to implement Congressional Reconstruction and to remove the vestiges of slavery.

*The Presidency of Ulysses S Grant spanned the period in United States history that encompasses the events of the Reconstruction Era. President Ulysses S Grant represented the Republican political party which influenced the domestic and foreign policies of his presidency. The administration of the military hero was marred by a series of scandals.*

## Biography

Late in the administration of Andrew Johnson, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant quarreled with the President and aligned himself with the Radical Republicans. He was, as the symbol of Union victory during the Civil War, their logical candidate for President in 1868.

When he was elected, the American people hoped for an end to turmoil. Grant provided neither vigor nor reform. Looking to Congress for direction, he seemed bewildered. One visitor to the White House noted “a puzzled pathos, as of a man with a problem before him of which he does not understand the terms.”

Born in 1822, Grant was the son of an Ohio tanner. He went to West Point rather against his will and graduated in the middle of his class. In the Mexican War he fought under Gen. Zachary Taylor.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Grant was working in his father’s leather store in Galena, Illinois. He was appointed by the Governor to command an unruly volunteer regiment. Grant whipped it into shape and by September 1861 he had risen to the rank of brigadier general of volunteers.

He sought to win control of the Mississippi Valley. In February 1862 he took Fort Henry and attacked Fort Donelson. When the Confederate commander asked for terms, Grant replied, “No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted.” The Confederates surrendered, and President Lincoln promoted Grant to major general of volunteers.

At Shiloh in April, Grant fought one of the bloodiest battles in the West and came out less well. President Lincoln fended off demands for his removal by saying, “I can’t spare this man–he fights.”

For his next major objective, Grant maneuvered and fought skillfully to win Vicksburg, the key city on the Mississippi, and thus cut the Confederacy in two. Then he broke the Confederate hold on Chattanooga.

Lincoln appointed him General-in-Chief in March 1864. Grant directed Sherman to drive through the South while he himself, with the Army of the Potomac, pinned down Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.

Finally, on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House, Lee surrendered. Grant wrote out magnanimous terms of surrender that would prevent treason trials.

As President, Grant presided over the Government much as he had run the Army. Indeed he brought part of his Army staff to the White House.

Although a man of scrupulous honesty, Grant as President accepted handsome presents from admirers. Worse, he allowed himself to be seen with two speculators, Jay Gould and James Fisk. When Grant realized their scheme to corner the market in gold, he authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to sell enough gold to wreck their plans, but the speculation had already wrought havoc with business.

During his campaign for re-election in 1872, Grant was attacked by Liberal Republican reformers. He called them “narrow-headed men,” their eyes so close together that “they can look out of the same gimlet hole without winking.” The General’s friends in the Republican Party came to be known proudly as “the Old Guard.”

Grant allowed Radical Reconstruction to run its course in the South, bolstering it at times with military force.

After retiring from the Presidency, Grant became a partner in a financial firm, which went bankrupt. About that time he learned that he had cancer of the throat. He started writing his recollections to pay off his debts and provide for his family, racing against death to produce a memoir that ultimately earned nearly $450,000. Soon after completing the last page, in 1885, he died.

## Personality

The character traits of President Ulysses S Grant can be described as modest, quiet, prudish, highly intelligent, superstitious, courteous and loyal. It has been speculated that the Myers-Briggs personality type for Ulysses S Grant is an ISFP (Introversion, Sensing, Feeling, Perception). A quiet, easygoing character with a a "live and let live" approach to life. A perfectionist, loyal to values and beliefs. Ulysses S Grant Personality type: Practical, action-oriented and considerate.

## Nicknames

* "Uncle Sam"
* "The Hero of Appomattox"
* "Unconditional Surrender Grant"

*Meaning: The nickname of President Ulysses S Grant provides an insight into how the man was viewed by the American public during his presidency. The meaning of the Ulysses S Grant nickname "Unconditional Surrender Grant" refers to his response to terms offered in the 1862 Battle of Fort Donelson during the Civil War and his reply of "no terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted..."*

## Inaugurations

### First Inauguration

The **first inauguration of Ulysses S. Grant** as the 18th president of the United States took place on March 4, 1869, at the East Portico of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. This was the 21st inauguration and marked the commencement of the first four-year term of Ulysses S. Grant as president and the only term of Schuyler Colfax as vice president. Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase administered the presidential oath of office. Outgoing president Andrew Johnson did not attend the inaugural ceremonies, as he and Grant refused to sit with each other in the carriage going to them. Johnson also refused to go in a separate carriage. Instead, he was in the White House signing last-minute legislation. This was the fourth time an outgoing president boycotted his elected successor's inauguration, an event that would not occur again until Donald Trump boycotted Joe Biden's inauguration in 2021 after failing to overturn the results.

Grant's 1869 inaugural parade was grander than any of those before him: special tickets were required for admission to the Capitol on inauguration day, eight full divisions of soldiers marched down Pennsylvania Avenue, and windows overlooking the parade route sold for very high prices.  That evening, a ball was held in the Treasury Building.

### Second Inauguration

The **second inauguration of Ulysses S. Grant** as president of the United States was held on Tuesday, March 4, 1873, at the East Portico of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. This was the 22nd inauguration and marked the commencement of the second and final four-year term of Ulysses S. Grant as president and the only term of Henry Wilson as vice president. Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase administered the presidential oath of office. This was one of the coldest inaugurations in U.S. history with 16 °F (−9 °C) at noon, and the inaugural ball ended early when the food froze. Vice President Wilson died 2 years, 263 days into this term, and the office remained vacant since there was no constitutional provision to fill an intra-term vice-presidential vacancy until the Twenty-fifth Amendment in 1967.

## Presidents born during his Presidency

* Calvin Coolidge
* Herbert Hoover

## Presidents who died during his Presidency

* Millard Fillmore
* Franklin Pierce
* Andrew Johnson

## Accomplishments and major events

*The major accomplishments and the famous, main events that occurred during the time that Ulysses S Grant was president included the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad (1869), the Black Friday Scandal (1869), the Credit Mobilier Scandal (1872), the Panic of 1873, the Whiskey Ring Scandal (1875) and the Belknap Bribery Scandal (1876). The famous Battle of Little Bighorn (1876) also occurred during his presidency.*

**The Jim Crow Laws**

Summary: The Jim Crow Laws were enacted by Southern states, beginning in the late 1870's and early 1880s, that legalized segregation between African Americans and white people excluding African Americans from exercising their rights as citizens of the United States. The Jim Crow laws included restrictions on the rights of African Americans to vote, to find decent employment, use public facilities and schools.

**Sharecropping and Tenant Farming**

Summary: Sharecropping and Tenant Farming system replaced slavery during the Reconstruction era. The landlords of the southern plantations owned the land, cabins, the tools and equipment, the animals and the seeds to grow the crops but the poverty stricken sharecroppers and tenant farmers owned nothing.

**The 1871 Enforcement Acts**

Summary: The 1871 Enforcement Acts including the Ku Klux Klan Act were passed to extend the  guarantees of the Constitution to all citizens and to protect African Americans from violence. The Enforcements Acts are also referred to as the 1871 Civil Rights Act or the Ku Klux Klan Act.

**The Civil Rights Act of 1875**

Summary: The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was an another step in the struggle for racial equality but was never enforced as the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in 1883.

**Women's suffrage**

Summary: The issue of Women's suffrage reached a high level of prominence when the 15th Amendment  was  ratified on February 3, 1870, granting the right to vote to former slaves, but not to women. Supporters of women's suffrage were outraged and agitation by women for suffrage became increasingly vocal and more women's suffrage movements emerged.

**The Transcontinental Railroad**

Summary: The 3,500 long Transcontinental Railroad, full name the Union Pacific Transcontinental Railroad, linked the Pacific Coast to the Atlantic in 1869. The building of the Transcontinental Railroad was completed on May 10, 1869 and was an extremely important transportation system enabling Westward Expansion across the nation.

**The Molly Maguires**

Summary: The Molly Maguires were a militant, secret society established in 1877 by Irish coal miners in Pennsylvania. The goal of the Molly Maguires was to gain fair treatment and safer working conditions in the coal mining industry which led to a violent dispute with the coal companies called the 'Long Strike of 1875'.

**The Knights of Labor**

Summary: The Knights of Labor was established in 1869, led by Uriah S. Stephens, and was the first major American labor union.

**The Panic of 1873**

Summary: The Panic of 1873 was a serious economic crisis that led to riots, demonstrations, national strikes and civil unrest. The Panic of 1873 was sparked by the ruin of a banking firm called Jay Cook and Company. Other major banks collapsed due to over speculation during the reconstruction era, especially in relation to the railroads.

**Grantism**

Summary: The Whiskey Ring, Black Friday, Credit Mobilier and the Belknap Bribery Scandals rocked the Grant administration. There was never the slightest doubt as to the personal honesty of President Ulysses S Grant but the series of scandals grave rise to doubts about some of his decisions and his judgment in making various appointments.  The bribery, tax evasion and kickbacks in the Grant administration were referred to as Grantism.

**The 1869 Black Friday Scandal**

Summary: The Black Friday Scandal erupted in 1869 involving an attempt by two Wall Street speculators, Jay Gould and James Fisk, to corner the gold market on the New York Gold Exchange.

**The 1872 Credit Mobilier Scandal**

Summary: The Credit Mobilier Scandal broke in 1872 and centered on corruption by the Union Pacific Railroad and the Credit Mobilier construction company.

**The 1875 Whiskey Ring Scandal**

Summary: The 1875 Whiskey Ring Scandal involved a conspiracy by distillers to avoid paying excise taxes on liquor

**The 1876 Belknap Bribery Scandal**

Summary: The Belknap Bribery Scandal aka the Indian Ring, erupted in 1876 when the Secretary of War, William Belknap, was exposed for receiving bribes.

**The Great Chicago Fire of 1871**

Summary: The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 was another famous event during the administration of President Grant. The Great Chicago Fire (October 8, 1871 - October 10, 1871) 300 people dead and over 100,000 people homeless causing $200 million dollars of damage and destruction.

**The Battle of Little Bighorn**

Summary: The Battle of Little Bighorn took place on June 25 1876 in which the 7th Cavalry, led by General George Custer, were all killed by Native American Indians led by Chief Sitting Bull.

## Post Presidency

After leaving the White House, Grant said he "was never so happy in my life". The Grants left Washington for New York, to attend the birth of their daughter Nellie's child, staying at Hamilton Fish's residence. Calling themselves "waifs", the Grants toured Cincinnati, St. Louis, Chicago, and Galena, without a clear idea of where they would live afterward.

### World tour and diplomacy

For some years, Grant had entertained the idea of taking a long-deserved vacation after his presidency and, after liquidating one of his investments to finance the venture, the Grants set out on a world tour that lasted approximately two and a half years.

Grant's voyage abroad was funded by a Nevada-based mining company investment he made that earned him $25,000 (equivalent to $687,000 in 2022). Preparing for the tour, they arrived in Philadelphia on May 10, 1877, and were honored with celebrations during the week before their departure. On May 16, Grant and his wife left for England aboard the SS *Indiana*. During the tour, the Grants made stops in Europe, Africa, India, and points in the Middle East and Far East, meeting with notable dignitaries such as Queen Victoria, Tsar Alexander II, Pope Leo XIII, Otto von Bismarck, Li Hongzhang, Emperor Meiji and others.

As a courtesy to Grant by the Hayes administration, his touring party received federal transportation on three U.S. Navy ships: a five-month tour of the Mediterranean on the USS *Vandalia*, travel from Hong Kong to China on the USS *Ashuelot*, and transportation from China to Japan on the USS *Richmond*. During the tour, the Hayes administration encouraged Grant to assume a public unofficial diplomatic role to represent the United States and strengthen American interests abroad, while resolving issues for some countries in the process. Homesick, the Grants left Japan sailing on the SS *City of Tokio* escorted by a Japanese man-of-war, crossed the Pacific and landed in San Francisco on September 20, 1879, greeted by cheering crowds. Before returning home to Philadelphia, Grant stopped at Chicago for a reunion with General Sherman and the Army of the Tennessee. Grant's tour demonstrated to Europe and Asia that the United States was an emerging world power.

### Third term attempt

Stalwarts, led by Grant's old political ally, Roscoe Conkling, saw Grant's renewed popularity as an opportunity to regain power, and sought to nominate him for the presidency in 1880. Opponents called it a violation of the unofficial two-term rule in use since George Washington. Grant said nothing publicly but wanted the job and encouraged his men. Washburne urged him to run; Grant demurred, saying he would be happy for the Republicans to win with another candidate, though he preferred James G. Blaine to John Sherman. Even so, Conkling and John A. Logan began to organize delegates in Grant's favor. When the convention convened in Chicago in June, there were more delegates pledged to Grant than to any other candidate, but he was still short of a majority vote to get the nomination.

At the convention, Conkling nominated Grant with an eloquent speech, the most famous line being: "When asked which state he hails from, our sole reply shall be, he hails from Appomattox and its famous apple tree." With 370 votes needed for the nomination, the first ballot had Grant at 304, Blaine at 284, Sherman at 93, and the rest to minor candidates. Subsequent ballots followed, with roughly the same result; neither Grant nor Blaine could win. After thirty-six ballots, Blaine's delegates deserted him and combined with those of other candidates to nominate a compromise candidate: Representative and former Union general James A. Garfield of Ohio. A procedural motion made the vote unanimous for Garfield, who accepted the nomination. Grant gave speeches for Garfield but declined to criticize the Democratic nominee, Winfield Scott Hancock, a general who had served under him in the Army of the Potomac. Garfield won the election. Grant gave Garfield his public support and pushed him to include Stalwarts in his administration. On July 2, 1881, Garfield was shot by an assassin and died on September 19. On learning of Garfield's death from a reporter, Grant wept bitterly.

### Business failures

In the 19th century, there were no federal presidential pensions, and the Grants' personal income was limited to $6,000 a year. Grant's world tour had been costly, and he had depleted most of his savings, while he needed to earn money and find a new home. Wealthy friends bought him a house on Manhattan's Upper East Side, and to make an income, Grant, Jay Gould, and former Mexican Finance Secretary Matías Romero chartered the Mexican Southern Railroad, with plans to build a railroad from Oaxaca to Mexico City. Grant urged Chester A. Arthur, who had succeeded Garfield as president in 1881, to negotiate a free trade treaty with Mexico. Arthur and the Mexican government agreed, but the United States Senate rejected the treaty in 1883. The railroad was similarly unsuccessful, falling into bankruptcy the following year. At the same time, Grant's son Buck had opened a Wall Street brokerage house with Ferdinand Ward. Although a conniving man who swindled numerous wealthy men, Ward was at the time regarded as a rising star on Wall Street. The firm, Grant & Ward, was initially successful. In 1883, Grant joined the firm and invested $100,000 (~$2.52 million in 2021) of his own money. Grant, however, warned Ward that if his firm engaged in government business he would dissolve their partnership. To encourage investment, Ward paid investors abnormally high interest, by pledging the company's securities on multiple loans in a process called rehypothecation, which would now be understood as a Ponzi scheme. Ward, in collusion with banker James D. Fish and kept secret from bank examiners, retrieved the firm's securities from the company's bank vault. When the trades went bad, multiple loans came due, all backed up by the same collateral.

Historians agree that the elder Grant was likely unaware of Ward's intentions, but it is unclear how much Buck Grant knew. In May 1884, enough investments went bad to convince Ward that the firm would soon be bankrupt. Ward, who assumed Grant was "a child in business matters", told him of the impending failure, but assured Grant that this was a temporary shortfall. Grant approached businessman William Henry Vanderbilt, who gave him a personal loan of $150,000. Grant invested the money in the firm, but it was not enough to save it from failure. The fall of Grant & Ward set off the Panic of 1884.

Vanderbilt offered to forgive Grant's debt entirely, an offer Grant refused. Essentially penniless, but compelled by a sense of personal honor he repaid what he could with his Civil War mementos and the sale or transfer of all other assets. Vanderbilt took title to Grant's home, although he allowed the Grants to continue to reside there, and pledged to donate the souvenirs to the federal government and insisted the debt had been paid in full. Grant was distraught over Ward's deception and asked privately how he could ever "trust any human being again." In March 1885, as his health was failing, he testified against both Ward and Fish. Ward was convicted of fraud in October 1885, months after Grant's death, and served six and a half years in prison. After the collapse of Grant & Ward, there was an outpouring of sympathy for Grant.

### Memoirs, military pension, and illness

In the summer of 1884, Grant complained of a sore throat but put off seeing a doctor until late October, when he learned it was cancer, possibly caused by his frequent cigar smoking. Grant chose not to reveal the seriousness of his condition to his wife, who soon found out from Grant's doctor. Before being diagnosed, Grant attended a Methodist service for Civil War veterans in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, on August 4, 1884, receiving a standing ovation from more than ten thousand veterans and others; it would be his last public appearance. In March of the following year, *The New York Times* announced that Grant was dying of cancer, and a nationwide public concern for the former president began. Knowing of Grant and Julia's financial difficulties, Congress sought to honor him and restored him to the rank of General of the Army with full retirement pay—Grant's assumption of the presidency in 1869 had required that he resign his commission and forfeit his (and his widow's) pension.

Grant was nearly penniless and worried constantly about leaving his wife a suitable amount of money to live on. He approached *The Century Magazine* and wrote a number of articles on his Civil War campaigns at the rate of $500 (equivalent to $16,000 in 2022) each. The articles were well received by critics, and the editor, Robert Underwood Johnson, suggested that Grant write a book of memoirs, as Sherman and others had done. The magazine offered him a book contract with a 10% royalty. However, Grant's friend Mark Twain, one of the few who understood how precarious Grant's financial condition actually was, made him an offer for his memoirs that paid an unheard-of 70% royalty. To provide for his family, Grant worked intensely on his memoirs at his home in New York City. His former staff member Adam Badeau assisted him with much of the research, while his son Frederick located documents and did much of the fact-checking. Because of the summer heat and humidity, his doctors recommended that he move upstate to a cottage at the top of Mount McGregor, offered by a family friend.

On July 18, 1885, Grant finished his memoir; he lived for only five more days. Grant's memoirs treat his early life and time in the Mexican–American War briefly and include the events of his life up to the end of the Civil War. The *Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant* was a critical and commercial success. Julia Grant eventually received about $450,000 in royalties (equivalent to $14,700,000 in 2022). The memoir has been highly regarded by the public, military historians, and literary critics. Grant portrayed himself in the persona of the honorable Western hero, whose strength lies in his honesty and straightforwardness. He candidly depicted his battles against both the Confederates and internal army foes.

## Death

After a year-long struggle with throat cancer, surrounded by his family, Grant died at 8:08 a.m. in the Mount McGregor cottage on July 23, 1885, at the age of 63. Sheridan, then Commanding General of the Army, ordered a day-long tribute to Grant on all military posts, and President Grover Cleveland ordered a thirty-day nationwide period of mourning. After private services, the honor guard placed Grant's body on a special funeral train, which traveled to West Point and New York City. A quarter of a million people viewed it in the two days before the funeral. Tens of thousands of men, many of them veterans from the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), marched with Grant's casket drawn by two dozen black stallions to Riverside Park in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan. His pallbearers included Union generals Sherman and Sheridan, Confederate generals Simon Bolivar Buckner and Joseph E. Johnston, Admiral David Dixon Porter, and Senator John A. Logan, the head of the GAR. Following the casket in the seven-mile-long (11 km) procession were President Cleveland, two former living presidents Hayes and Arthur, all of the president's cabinet, as well as justices of the Supreme Court. Attendance at the New York funeral topped 1.5 million. Ceremonies were held in other major cities around the country, while Grant was eulogized in the press and likened to George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Grant's body was laid to rest in Riverside Park, first in a temporary tomb, and then—twelve years later, on April 17, 1897—in the General Grant National Memorial, also known as "Grant's Tomb", the largest mausoleum in North America.

## Facts and trivia

* Ulysses S. Grant was the first U.S. President elected after the abolishment of slavery.
* Grant's ancestors Matthew and Priscilla Grant arrived aboard the ship *Mary and John* at Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. Grant's great-grandfather fought in the French and Indian War, and his grandfather, Noah, served in the American Revolution at Bunker Hill. Afterward, Noah settled in Pennsylvania and married Rachel Kelley, the daughter of an Irish pioneer. Their son Jesse (Ulysses's father) was a Whig Party supporter and a fervent abolitionist. Jesse Grant moved to Point Pleasant, Ohio in 1820 and found work as a foreman in a tannery.
* Grant's name, Ulysses, was drawn from ballots placed in a hat. To honor his father-in-law, Jesse declared the boy named Hiram Ulysses, though he would always refer to him as *Ulysses*.
* In 1823, the family moved to Georgetown, Ohio, where five more siblings were born: Simpson, Clara, Orvil, Jennie, and Mary. At the age of five, Ulysses began his formal education, starting at a subscription school and later in two private schools.
* In his youth, Grant developed an unusual ability to ride and manage horses. Grant disliked the tannery, so his father put his ability with horses to use by giving him work driving wagon loads of supplies and transporting people.
* Unlike his siblings, Grant was not forced to attend church by his Methodist parents. For the rest of his life, he prayed privately and never officially joined any denomination. To others, including his own son, Grant appeared to be an agnostic. He inherited some of Hannah's Methodist piety and quiet nature. Grant was largely apolitical before the war but wrote, "If I had ever had any political sympathies they would have been with the Whigs. I was raised in that school."
* Grant's father wrote to Representative Thomas L. Hamer requesting that he nominate Ulysses to the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, New York. Despite political differences with Jesse Root Grant, Hamer, a Democrat, nominated his 17-year-old son to West Point in spring 1839. Grant was accepted on July 1, although he doubted his academic abilities
* Grant's full name Hiram Ulysses Grant was stuck with the name Ulysses S. Grant due to a mistake by a benefactor on his application form to West Point. And as with President Harry S. Truman, the middle initial "S" doesn’t stand for anything. But having the name "U.S." Grant him the nickname “Sam”--as in Uncle Sam--among soldiers.
* Grant graduated from West Point on June 30, 1843, ranked 21st out of 39 in his class and was promoted the next day to the rank brevet second lieutenant. Small for his age at 17, he had entered the academy weighing only 117 pounds (53 kg) at 5 feet 2 inches (1.57 m) tall; upon graduation four years later he had grown to a height of 5 feet 7 inches (1.70 m).
* Grant's future battlefield foe, Robert E. Lee, was one of West Point’s greatest students and later its commandant.
* In Missouri, Grant visited the family of his West Point classmate, Frederick Tracy Dent, and became engaged to his sister, Julia, in 1844. Four years later on August 22, 1848, they were married at Julia's home in St. Louis. Grant's abolitionist father disapproved of the Dents' owning slaves, and neither of Grant's parents attended the wedding. Grant was flanked by three fellow West Point graduates, all dressed in their blue uniforms, including Longstreet, Julia's cousin. At the end of the month, Julia was warmly received by Grant's family in Bethel, Ohio.
* Grant and Julia had four children: Frederick, Ulysses Jr. ("Buck"), Ellen ("Nellie"), and Jesse. After the wedding, Grant obtained a two-month extension to his leave and returned to St. Louis when he decided, with a wife to support, that he would remain in the army.
* Grant served with distinction in the Mexican-American War, under the command of Major Generals Winfield Scott and Zachary Taylor.
* Grant resigned from the army in 1854 and returned to his family but lived in poverty. He joined the Union Army after the American Civil War broke out in 1861 and rose to prominence after winning several early Union victories on the Western Theater.
* In 1863 Grant led the Vicksburg campaign, which gained control of the Mississippi River, dealing a serious strategic blow to the Confederacy, splitting it in two.
* President Abraham Lincoln promoted Grant to lieutenant general after his victory at Chattanooga. For thirteen months, Grant fought Robert E. Lee during the high-casualty Overland Campaign and at Petersburg.
* After their famous meeting at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865, Grant rode out to the Confederate Army the next day, accompanied by a few men, to seek out Lee. The men discussed military matters, and Grant asked Lee to ask all the Confederate armies to lay down their arms. Lee deferred, saying that was a matter for President Lincoln to address.
* A week after Lee's surrender, Lincoln was assassinated and was succeeded by President Andrew Johnson, who promoted Grant to General of the Army in 1866. Later, Grant openly broke with Johnson over Reconstruction policies; Grant used the Reconstruction Acts, which had been passed over Johnson's veto, to enforce civil rights for recently freed African Americans.
* As a general, Grant was close to President Lincoln. But when Andrew Johnson, a former Democrat, became President after Lincoln’s death, the two men eventually became opponents. While Grant was a former Democrat himself, he became aligned with the Radical Republicans.
* A war hero, drawn in by his sense of duty, Grant was unanimously nominated by the Republican Party and was elected president in 1868.
* On March 4, 1869, Grant was sworn in as the eighteenth President of the United States by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase. In his inaugural address, Grant urged the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, while large numbers of African Americans attended his inauguration. He also urged that bonds issued during the Civil War should be paid in gold and called for "proper treatment" of Native Americans and encouraged their "civilization and ultimate citizenship" The former general was 46 years old and never held elected office when he took office in 1869.
* Grant's cabinet appointments sparked both criticism and approval.
* As president, Grant was an effective civil rights executive who created the Justice Department and worked with Radical Republicans to protect African Americans during Reconstruction.
* During his tenure, Grant stabilized the post-war national economy, supported Congressional Reconstruction, ratification of the the 15th Amendment, and crushed the Ku Klux Klan.
* Under Grant, the Union was completely restored. He appointed African Americans and Jewish Americans to prominent federal offices. In 1871, Grant created the first Civil Service Commission, advancing the civil service more than any prior president.
* The Liberal Republicans and Democrats united behind Grant's opponent in the presidential election of 1872, but Grant was handily reelected, making him the first President in 40 years to serve two terms.
* Grant's Native American policy was to assimilate Indians into White culture; the Great Sioux War was fought during his term.
* Grant's foreign policy was mostly peaceful, without war, the *Alabama* Claims against Great Britain skillfully resolved. However, his prized Caribbean Dominican Republic annexation was rejected by the Senate.
* The Grant administration is traditionally known for prevalent scandals including the Gold Ring and the Whiskey Ring. However, modern scholarship has better appreciated Grant's appointed reformers and prosecutions.
* Grant's administration prosecuted Mormon polygamists (1871), and vice crimes like pornography, and abortion (1873–1877).
* The Panic of 1873 plunged the nation into a severe economic depression that allowed the Democrats to win the House majority. In the intensely disputed presidential election of 1876, Grant facilitated the approval by Congress of a peaceful compromise.
* After leaving the White House, Grant said he "was never so happy in my life". The Grants left Washington for New York, to attend the birth of their daughter Nellie's child, staying at Hamilton Fish's residence. Calling themselves "waifs", the Grants toured Cincinnati, St. Louis, Chicago, and Galena, without a clear idea of where they would live afterward.
* In his retirement, Grant was the first president to circumnavigate the world on his tour, dining with Queen Victoria and meeting many prominent foreign leaders.
* Throughout his career, Grant repeatedly told highly detailed stories of his military experiences, often making slight mistakes in terms of dates and locations.
* In 1880, Grant was unsuccessful in obtaining the Republican presidential nomination for a third term.
* In the final year of his life, facing severe financial reversals and dying of throat cancer, he wrote his memoirs, an idea suggested by Mark Twain, which proved to be a major critical and financial success. At the time of his death, he was memorialized as a symbol of national unity. Grant was a modern general and "a skillful leader who had a natural grasp of tactics and strategy".
* At the time of his death, he was memorialized as a symbol of national unity. Grant was a modern general and "a skillful leader who had a natural grasp of tactics and strategy".
* In the summer of 1884, Grant complained of a sore throat but put off seeing a doctor until late October, when he learned it was cancer, possibly caused by his frequent cigar smoking. Grant chose not to reveal the seriousness of his condition to his wife, who soon found out from Grant's doctor. Before being diagnosed, Grant attended a Methodist service for Civil War veterans in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, on August 4, 1884, receiving a standing ovation from more than ten thousand veterans and others; it would be his last public appearance.
* After a year-long struggle with throat cancer, surrounded by his family, Grant died at 8:08 a.m. in the Mount McGregor cottage on July 23, 1885, at the age of 63. President Grover Cleveland ordered a thirty-day nationwide period of mourning. After private services, the honor guard placed Grant's body on a special funeral train, which traveled to West Point and New York City. A quarter of a million people viewed it in the two days before the funeral.
* Attendance at the New York funeral topped 1.5 million. Ceremonies were held in other major cities around the country, while Grant was eulogized in the press and likened to George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
* Grant's body was laid to rest in Riverside Park, first in a temporary tomb, and then—twelve years later, on April 17, 1897—in the General Grant National Memorial, also known as "Grant's Tomb", the largest mausoleum in North America.
* Historical assessments have traditionally ranked Grant as one of the worst presidents in American history. However, revisionist challenges to this narrative have received significant support since the 2000s. Although critical of scandals, modern historians have emphasized his presidential administration's accomplishments. Grant's appointed Secretary of State Hamilton Fish is ranked high by historians.
* Several memorials honor Grant. In addition to his mausoleum—Grant's Tomb in New York City—there is the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial at the foot of Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Created by sculptor Henry Merwin Shrady and architect Edward Pearce Casey, and dedicated in 1922, it overlooks the Capitol Reflecting Pool. In 2015, restoration work began, which is expected to be completed before the bicentennial of Grant's birth in 2022.
* The Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site near St. Louis, and several other sites in Ohio and Illinois memorialize Grant's life. There are smaller memorials in Chicago's Lincoln Park and Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. Named in his honor are Grant Park, as well as several counties in western and midwestern states.
* On June 3, 1891, a bronze statue of Grant by Danish sculptor Johannes Gelert was dedicated at Grant Park in Galena, Illinois. From 1890 to 1940, part of what is now Kings Canyon National Park was called *General Grant National Park*, named for the General Grant sequoia.
* In May 2012, the Ulysses S. Grant Foundation, on the institute's fiftieth anniversary, selected Mississippi State University as the permanent location for Ulysses S. Grant's presidential library. Historian John Y. Simon edited Grant's letters into a 32-volume scholarly edition published by Southern Illinois University Press.
* Grant's image has appeared on the front of the United States fifty-dollar bill since 1913. In 1921, the *Ulysses S. Grant Centenary Association* was founded with the goal of coordinating special observances and erecting monuments in recognition of Grant's historical role. The venture was financed by the minting of 10,000 gold dollars (depicted below) and 250,000 half dollars. The coins were minted and issued in 1922, commemorating the 100th anniversary of Grant's birth.
* Grant has also appeared on several U.S. postage stamps, the first one issued in 1890, five years after his death.
* On June 19, 2020, Juneteenth protesters toppled a bronze bust, U. S. Grant (1896), at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Grant had briefly owned one slave, whom he set free. Grant's statue bust will unlikely return to Golden Gate Park.

## References

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses\_S.\_Grant#Post-presidency\_(1877%E2%80%931885)
* https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/ulysses-s-grant/
* https://www.american-historama.org/presidents-united-states/ulysses-grant.htm
* https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Grant-468