Ulysses S. Grant (1822 - 1885) was an American soldier and statesman who commanded the Union Army to victory in the American Civil War and served as the eighteenth president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. [1] As president he pressed for the enforcement of Reconstruction and the protection of the civil rights of freed African Americans, while his administrations were damaged by a series of corruption scandals. [3] His Personal Memoirs, completed days before his death, is regarded as a classic of American military writing. [4]
Early life and military career
Born Hiram Ulysses Grant on 27 April 1822 at Point Pleasant, Ohio, he was the son of a tanner and grew up in Georgetown, Ohio. A clerical error in his nomination to the United States Military Academy produced the name by which he became known. He graduated from West Point in 1843, in the middle of his class. [1]
Grant served with distinction in the Mexican-American War of 1846-48, a conflict he later described as unjust. Posted to isolated stations on the Pacific coast and separated from his family, he resigned his commission in 1854. The following years were difficult: he failed at farming and business in Missouri and was working in his father's leather goods store in Galena, Illinois, when the Civil War began. [2]
The Civil War
Grant re-entered the army in 1861 and rose rapidly. His capture of Fort Donelson in February 1862, with a demand for unconditional surrender, produced the first major Union victory of the war. He held the field at Shiloh after a near-disastrous first day, and in July 1863 completed the long campaign against Vicksburg, splitting the Confederacy along the Mississippi. [1]
After relieving the besieged Union force at Chattanooga, he was made lieutenant general in March 1864 and given command of all Union armies. He pursued a strategy of continuous pressure on multiple fronts, accepting heavy losses in the Overland Campaign and the siege of Petersburg, and accepted the surrender of Robert E. Lee's army at Appomattox Court House on 9 April 1865 on deliberately conciliatory terms. [2]
Presidency
Elected president in 1868 as a Republican and re-elected in 1872, Grant made the enforcement of Reconstruction central to his administration. He supported ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, signed the Enforcement Acts and used federal power against the Ku Klux Klan, breaking its organised violence in parts of the South. The Department of Justice was created during his presidency to prosecute such cases. [3]
In foreign affairs the Treaty of Washington of 1871 settled the Alabama claims with Britain by arbitration. His "Peace Policy" toward Native American nations sought assimilation through civilian and missionary agents, yet his years in office also saw sustained warfare on the Plains. [1]
Grant's terms were marred by financial scandals, among them the Black Friday gold scheme of 1869 and the Whiskey Ring of 1875, which implicated officials close to him although he was not personally found to have profited. The Panic of 1873 brought a long depression, and by 1877 northern support for Reconstruction had collapsed. [3]
Later years and legacy
After leaving office Grant made a two-year world tour and was widely received as a head of state. In 1884 the failure of the investment firm Grant and Ward left him bankrupt, and he was soon after diagnosed with throat cancer. He wrote his Personal Memoirs in his final months to provide for his family; published by Mark Twain, the book sold in great numbers and earned praise for its clarity and restraint. [4] Grant died at Mount McGregor, New York, on 23 July 1885 and was buried in New York City.
His reputation declined for much of the twentieth century under the influence of historians sympathetic to the Lost Cause, and has risen substantially since, particularly in recognition of his record on civil rights. [2]
