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Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877)

Grant, already famous throughout the North as the victorious hero of the Civil War, became president in 1869. His critical victory at Vicksburg in 1863 altered the course of the Civil War; his relentless pursuit of Lee's army yielded final victory after years of failure by Union generals. Dedicated to ensuring that what had been won in war—freedom and union—would not be lost through politics, Grant faced numerous challenges as president. Successes in securing civil rights for African Americans and in foreign relations were overshadowed by scandals caused by several of his appointees who betrayed his and the nation’s trust.

Eighteenth President of the United States. Born at Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, April 27, 1822. Died at Mount McGregor, near Saratoga, N. Y., July 23, 1885. Graduated at West Point, N. Y., 1843. Served through the Mexican War, 1846-48, as Lieutenant. Resigned from the Army 1854 and settled at St. Louis and Galena, 111., i860. Was appointed Colonel June 17, 1861, and Brigadier-General August 7. Appointed Major-General of Volunteers 1862, and Commander of the Army of West Tennessee, and Commander of the Department of Tennessee. Received the surrender of Vicksburg, July 4, 1863. Major-General in Regular Army and Commander of the Military Division of the Mississippi. Won the battle of Chattanooga Nov. 25. Made Lieutenant-General March 2, 1864, and Commander of all the Union Armies March 12. Received the surrender of General Lee at Appomatox Court House April 9, 1865. Made General July 25, 1866.

Secretary of War (ad interim) Aug., 1867, to Jan., 1868. Republican candidate for President of the United States, with Schuyler Colfax as Vice-President, and elected 1868, and inaugurated March 4, 1869. Re-elected to the Presidency 1872, with Henry Wilson as Vice-President. Made a tour of the world 1877-79. Was an unsuccessful candidate for the renomination of the Presidency 1880. Was made General on the retired list March 3, 1885. His remains lie in Grant's Tomb on the Hudson, Riverside Drive, New York.

Born in 1822 in southern Ohio, Hiram Ulysses Grant worked with his farmer/tanner father during his youth and obtained his education at the local schools and nearby academies. In 1839, he received an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. A mistake in his appointment letter permanently changed his name to Ulysses S. Grant. After his graduation in 1843, Second Lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant moved to St. Louis, Missouri, assigned to Jefferson Barracks. He soon paid a visit to his former roommate, Frederick Dent, at White Haven, the Dent family plantation. There he met Fred's sister Julia, to whom he proposed in the spring of 1844, just before leaving for battle in the Mexican American War.

Ulysses and Julia Grant married four years later; their marriage, marked by love, trust, and respect, lasted 37 years. The Army reassigned Grant often between 1848 and 1852. His wife followed him when she could, but she could not accompany him to assignments on the West Coast.

His career went downhill from there. The tedium of peacetime service and the long separations from his family left him bored, depressed, and lonely. He acquired a reputation as a heavy drinker. He resigned from the Army in 1854 and returned to his family, living at White Haven. Grant tried his hand at farming and real estate, without much success.

The years the family were home at White Haven were difficult ones. Grant tried his hand at farming, selling firewood, real estate, and bill collecting, all without success. He also encountered within his own family some of the tensions that would soon split the country. Grant grew up in the free State of Ohio, and his father was an outspoken opponent of slavery. Julia was born on a plantation worked by 30 slaves. Her father raised his children to believe that slavery was the proper relationship between whites and blacks. The issue increasingly strained Grant's relationship with his father-in-law, leaving Julia caught in the middle. In 1860, Grant moved his family to Galena, Illinois to work in a leather store owned by his family, but they continued to think of White Haven as home.

The outbreak of the Civil War found him working as a clerk in his father’s Galena, Illinois, leather goods store. The coming of the Civil War was a tragedy for the nation, but an opportunity for Grant, whose strengths as a military leader became evident early in the war. He began his Civil War career in June 1861 as a colonel commanding a regiment of Illinois volunteers. From there he rose through progressively larger commands, gaining valuable experience at each level. By February 1862, he commanded a corps-size force in the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson, which brought him to national prominence and earned him a promotion to the rank of major general and command of the Army of the Tennessee.

Modest, quiet, and unpretentious, Grant won the respect of his troops and his superiors alike. President Lincoln was pleased to have a general who was more interested in taking the fight to the enemy than in self-promotion: “What I want, and what the people want, is generals who will fight battles and win victories. Grant has done this and I propose to stand by him.”

He succeeded through a remarkable combination of aggressiveness, incisiveness, strategic genius, and organizational skills. Grant's writings about his ride from Jefferson Barracks to White Haven to propose to Julia describes his military career equally well: “One of my superstitions had always been when I started to go any where, or to do anything, not to turn back, or stop until the thing intended was accomplished.”

Most importantly, Grant was one of the first Union generals to recognize the fact that the Civil War could not be won simply by outmaneuvering the enemy or occupying a few vital centers. Shiloh taught Grant that the conflict would not end until the Confederate armies were beaten into submission. He believed in seizing the initiative and never relinquishing it, giving his opponents no opportunity to rest or reconstitute.

In March 1864, Lincoln put him in command of the entire Union Army. He attacked the Confederate Army on all fronts. In April 1865, Confederate commander General Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to General Grant at Appomattox, Virginia, effectively ending the war. The terms of surrender were humane and generous.

Grant won the title of General of the Army after the war and was extremely popular throughout the North. Grateful citizens offered him homes and showered him with money. Both parties considered him as their presidential nominee in 1868. He remained neutral on most political issues, but when President Johnson tried to arrest General Lee for treason, contrary to the terms of Appomattox, Grant forced Johnson to back down. This action aligned Grant with the radical Republicans and made him the logical Republican candidate for the 1868 election.

A grateful nation, exhausted from war and political machinations between Congress and President Johnson, elected Grant president in November 1868, and reelected him by a wide margin four years later. Reconstruction remained at the forefront of domestic affairs, and Grant supported numerous efforts to ensure justice and equality under the law for African Americans. Passage of the 15th Amendment guaranteeing voting rights to African American males, as well as enforcing legislation to curb violence by white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan won him the support of many, including Frederick Douglas. Always adhering to the law, Grant was less successful as Northerners tired of the continued strife, and white Southerners were able to regain control of state governments and eventually overturn legislation that protected newly freed African Americans.

In foreign relations, Grant ensured peaceful arbitration between the United States and England over boundaries and war claims, when others, such as the powerful Senator Charles Sumner, threatened a new war. Grant’s actions earned him the enmity of Sumner, who later blocked Grant’s attempt to annex Santo Domingo.

Grant’s presidency could not avoid the greed and corruption that characterized the “Gilded Age.” Many of the scandals had started much earlier, but became more excessive during Grant’s presidency, and included some of his Cabinet members and friends. Grant himself was an honest man and supported all efforts to end abuses and bring criminals to justice, although his trust in several individuals reflected poorly on his judgment occasionally. The loose political and business morality of the period fueled the Panic of 1873, which led to a serious depression.

Acting to curb the abuses of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Grant implemented a new Indian Peace Policy. He replaced corrupt agents with religious organizations and chose a Seneca Indian, Ely Parker, as the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, the first Native American to hold a Cabinet position. Grant eventually yielded to political pressure, and took steps toward opening the Black Hills to miners. His hope of gaining legal accessto the Black Hills by renegotiating the treaty with the Sioux was impededby the “nontreaty Sioux.” They were also frequently referred to as “roamers” because of their disdain for static reservation life. Having failed to renegotiate the treaty, in November of 1875 President Grant instructed his military commanders not to enforce the standing orders forbidding miners and prospectors from entering the region. President Grant further ordered all Sioux and Northern Cheyenne roamers toreturn to their reservations by 31 January 1876 or be deemed “hostile” andturned over to the War Department if necessary. The fact that the harsh winter climate of the northern plains made it virtually impossible for the roamers to obey this presidential edict has been lost on many historians.

In an effort to end patronage, he instituted Civil Service reform in the Executive Branch, but Congress failed to enact legislation that would make the reforms permanent after he left office. In the mid-term elections of 1874, the Democrats took control of the House for the first time in almost 20 years.

While president, Grant authorized the collection, editing, and publication of the "Official Records of the War of the Rebellion" which was the first attempt ever to provide a documentary account of both the winning and losing sides of a war. All subsequent Civil War historians have relied on this immense work to separate fact from sometimes faulty memory.

Grant left office in March of 1877; six weeks later, he embarked on a worldwide tour that would last for over two years. Grant, his wife, and their youngest son embarked on a worldwide tour six weeks after the end of his second term as president. He received royal treatment wherever he went and met many world leaders. Upon returning to the United States, Grant used money that his friends and supporters had given him to buy a house in New York City. He continued to travel, visiting the West Indies and Mexico. He again sought the Republican nomination for president in 1880, but lost.

In 1882, he borrowed $100,000 to invest in a financial firm with which one of his sons was associated. The enterprise ended in bankruptcy in 1884, but Grant felt personally responsible for repaying the debt. He ended up selling everything he owned except the house in New York City where he lived. In the same year, doctors told Grant that he had cancer of the throat. In a desperate attempt to provide his penniless family with some kind of inheritance, he struggled to finish his memoirs. Grant died on July 23, 1885 at a summer cottage in the Adirondack Mountains, only four days after completing the book. Published by Mark Twain, the Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant earned his family almost half a million dollars in royalties over the next two years and has been hailed as a classic ever since.

At his funeral in New York City on August 8, 1885, an estimated one million people gathered to watch the seven-mile long funeral procession, which took five hours to pass by. Popularly known as “Grant’s Tomb,” it is the final resting place of both Ulysses S. Grant and his beloved wife, Julia. One of the largest mausoleums in the world, the memorial contains representations of Grant’s entire life: his formative years, marriage, military life, civilian career, and death, especially his roles as Civil War leader and president.