Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant; April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885) was the 18th president of the United States (1869–1877) following his success as military commander in theAmerican Civil War. Under Grant, the Union Army defeated the Confederate military; the war, and secession, ended with the surrender of Robert E. Lee's army at Appomattox Court House. As president, Grant led the Radical Republicans in their effort to eliminate vestiges of Confederate nationalism and slavery, protect African American citizenship, and defeat the Ku Klux Klan. In foreign policy, Grant sought to increase American trade and influence, while remaining at peace with the world. Although his Republican Party split in 1872 as reformers denounced him, Grant was easily reelected. During his second term the country's economy was devastated by the Panic of 1873, while investigations exposed corruption scandals in the administration. Theconservative white Southerners regained control of Southern state governments and Democrats took control of the federal House of Representatives. By the time Grant left the White House in 1877, his Reconstruction policies were being undone.
A career soldier, Grant graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point and served in the Mexican–American War. When the Civil War began in 1861, he rejoined the Union army. In 1862, Grant was promoted to major general and took control of Kentucky and most of Tennessee. He then led Union forces to victory after initial setbacks in the Battle of Shiloh, earning a reputation as an aggressive commander. In July 1863, Grant defeated Confederate armies and seized Vicksburg, giving the Union control of the Mississippi River and dividing the Confederacy in two. After the Battle of Chattanooga in late 1863, President Abraham Lincoln promoted Grant to lieutenant general and commander of all of the Union armies. As commander, Grant confronted Robert E. Lee in a series of bloody battles in 1864, which ended with Grant trapping Lee at Petersburg, Virginia. During the siege, Grant coordinated a series of devastating campaigns launched by generals William Tecumseh Sherman, Philip Sheridan, and George Henry Thomas in other theaters. Finally breaking through Lee's trenches, the Union Army captured Richmond in April 1865. Lee surrendered his depleted forces to Grant at Appomattox as the Confederacy collapsed. Most historians have hailed Grant's military genius, despite losses of men.[1]
After the Civil War, Grant served two terms as president and worked to stabilize the nation during the turbulent Reconstruction period that followed. He enforced civil rights laws and fought Ku Klux Klan violence. Grant encouraged passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, giving protection for African-American voting rights. He used the army to build the Republican Party in the South, based on black voters, Northern newcomers ("Carpetbaggers"), and native Southern white supporters ("Scalawags"). As a result, African-Americans were represented in the Congress for the first time in American history in 1870. Although there were some gains in political and civil rights by African Americans in the early 1870s, by the time Grant left office in 1877, Democrats in the South had regained control of state governments, while most blacks lost their political power for nearly a century. Although Grant's Indian peace policy reduced Indian violence and created the Board of Indian Commissioners, conflict continued that culminated in the Battle of the Little Big Horn. In the long run, even his supporters agreed that his policies were unsuccessful. Grant's reputation fell as the economy plunged into the United States' first industrial depression, called the Panic of 1873. In his second term, Grant had to respond to a series of Congressional investigations into financial corruption in the government, including bribery charges against two cabinet members.
Grant's foreign policy, led by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, settled the Alabama Claims with Britain and avoided war with Spain over the Virginius Affair, but his attempted annexation of the Dominican Republic failed. Grant's response to the Panic of 1873 gave some financial relief to New York banking houses, but was ineffective in stopping the five-year industrial depression that followed. After leaving office, Grant embarked on a two-year world tour that included many enthusiastic receptions. In 1880, he made an unsuccessful bid for a third presidential term. However,his memoirs, written as he was dying, were a critical and popular success, and his death prompted an outpouring of national mourning. Historians have, until recently, ranked Grant as nearly the worst president; Grant's reputation was marred by his defense of corrupt appointees and by his conservative deflationary policy during the Panic of 1873. [2] While still below average, hisreputation among scholars has significantly improved in recent years because of greater appreciation for his commitment to civil rights, moral courage in his prosecution of the Ku Klux Klan, and enforcement of voting rights.[3]
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[show]Early life and family
Main article: Early life and career of Ulysses S. Grant
Hiram Ulysses Grant was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio, on April 27, 1822, to Jesse Root Grant, a tanner and businessman, and Hannah (Simpson) Grant.[4] Jesse Grant was a Whig with abolitionist sentiments.[5] In the fall of 1823, the family moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio. Raised in a Methodist family devoid of religious pretension, Grant prayed privately and was not an official member of the church.[6] Unlike his younger siblings, Grant was neither disciplined, baptized, nor forced to attend church by his parents.[7] One of his biographers suggests that Grant inherited a degree of introversion from his reserved, even "uncommonly detached" mother. (She never took occasion to visit the White House during her son's presidency.)[8] Grant developed an unusual ability to work with, and control, horses in his charge, and became known as a capable horseman.[9]
When Grant was 17, Congressman Thomas L. Hamer nominated him for a position at the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, New York. Hamer mistakenly wrote down the name as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio." At West Point, he adopted this name with a middle initial only. His nickname became "Sam" among army colleagues at the academy, since the initials "U.S." also stood for "Uncle Sam". The "S", according to Grant, did not stand for anything, though Hamer had used it to abbreviate his mother's maiden name.[10] Grant's appointment to West Point was facilitated by his family's influence, while Grant himself later recalled "a military life had no charms for me".[11] Grant stood 5 feet 1 inches and weighed 117 lbs when he entered West Point.[12] Grant later said that he was lax in his studies, but he achieved above average grades in mathematics and geology.[13] Although Grant had a quiet nature, he established a few intimate friends at West Point, including Frederick Tracy Dent and Rufus Ingalls.[14] While not excelling scholastically, Grant studied under Romantic artist Robert Walter Weir and produced nine surviving artworks.[13] He also established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman, setting an equestrian high-jump record that stood for almost 25 years.[13]He graduated in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. Grant was glad to leave West Point and planned to resign his commission after serving the minimum term of obligated duty.[15] Despite his excellent horsemanship, he was not assigned to the cavalry, as assignments were determined by class rank, not aptitude.[13] Grant was instead assigned as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment in the 4th Infantry Regiment, with the rank of brevet second lieutenant.[16]
Military career, 1843–1854
Grant's first assignment after graduation took him to the Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis, Missouri, in September 1843.[17] It was the nation's largest military bastion in the West, commanded by Colonel Stephen W. Kearny. Grant was happy with his new commander, but still looked forward to the end of his military service and a possible teaching career.[18] Grant spent some of his time in Missouri visiting the family of his West Point classmate, Frederick Dent, and getting to know Dent's sister, Julia; the two became secretly engaged in 1844.[18]
Rising tensions with Mexico saw Grant's unit shifted to Louisiana that year as a part of the Army of Observation under Major General Zachary Taylor.[19] When the Mexican–American Warbroke out in 1846, the Army entered Mexico. Not content with his responsibilities as a quartermaster, Grant made his way to the front lines to engage in the battle, and participated as a de facto cavalryman at the Battle of Resaca de la Palma.[20] The army continued its advance into Mexico. At Monterrey, Grant demonstrated his equestrian ability, carrying a dispatch through sniper-lined streets on horseback while mounted in one stirrup.[21] President James K. Polk, wary of Taylor's growing popularity, divided his army, sending some troops (including Grant's unit) to form a new army under Major General Winfield Scott.[22] Scott's army landed at Veracruz and advanced toward Mexico City. The army met the Mexican forces at battles of Molino del Reyand Chapultepec outside Mexico City. At Chapultepec, Grant dragged a howitzer into a church steeple to bombard nearby Mexican troops.[23] Scott's army entered the city, and the Mexicans agreed to peace not long after.
In his memoirs, Grant later wrote that he had learned about military leadership by observing the decisions and actions of his commanding officers, and in retrospect he identified himself with Taylor's style. At the time, he felt that the war was a wrongful one and believed that territorial gains were designed to spread slavery throughout the nation; writing in 1883, Grant said "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." He also opined that the later Civil War was inflicted on the nation as punishment for its aggression in Mexico.[24]
On August 22, 1848, Grant and Julia were married after a four-year engagement.[25] In all, they had four children: Frederick, Ulysses Jr. ("Buck"), Ellen ("Nellie"), and Jesse.[26] Grant was assigned to several different posts over the ensuing six years. His first post-war assignments took him and Julia to Detroit and Sackets Harbor, New York, the location that made them the happiest.[27] In the spring of 1852, he traveled in to Washington, D.C., in a failed attempt to prevail upon the Congress to rescind an order that he, in his capacity as quartermaster, reimburse the military $1000 in losses incurred on his watch, for which he bore no personal guilt.[28] He was sent west to Fort Vancouver in the Oregon Territory in 1852, initially landing in San Franciscoduring the height of the California Gold Rush. Julia could not accompany him as she was eight months pregnant with their second child.[29] The journey proved to be an ordeal due to transportation disruptions and an outbreak of cholera within the entourage while traveling overland through Panama. Grant made use of his organizational skills, arranging makeshift transportation and hospital facilities to take care of the sick; even so there were 150 fatalities.[30] After Grant arrived in San Francisco, he traveled to Fort Vancouver, continuing his service as quartermaster.
To supplement a military salary inadequate to support his family, Grant, assuming his work as quartermaster so equipped him, attempted but failed at several business ventures.[31] The business failures in the West confirmed Jesse Grant's belief that his son had no head for business, creating frustration for both father and son. In one case, Grant had even naively allowed himself to be swindled by a partner.[32] Grant grew unhappy at his financial troubles and the separation from his family, and rumors began to circulate that Grant was drinking to excess.[32]
In the summer of 1853, Grant was promoted to captain, one of only fifty on active duty, and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, on the northwest California coast. Without explanation, he shortly thereafter resigned from the army on July 31, 1854. The commanding officer at Fort Humboldt, brevet Lieutenant Colonel Robert C. Buchanan, a strict disciplinarian, received reports that Grant was intoxicated off duty while seated at the pay officer's table. In lieu of a court-martial, Buchanan gave Grant an ultimatum to sign a drafted resignation letter. Grant resigned; the War Department stated on his record, "Nothing stands against his good name."[33] Rumors, however, persisted in the regular army of Grant's intemperance.[a] Years later, Grant said, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign."[35] Grant's father, again believing his son's only potential for success to be in the military, tried to get the Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, to rescind the resignation, to no avail.[36]
Civilian life
At age 32, with no civilian vocation, Grant struggled through seven financially lean years. His father, Jesse, initially offered Grant a position in the Galena, Illinois, branch of the tannery business, on condition that Julia and the children stay with her parents in Missouri or the Grants in Kentucky, for economic reasons. Ulysses and Julia were adamantly opposed to another separation and declined the offer.[37] In 1854, Grant farmed on his brother-in-law's property near St. Louis, using slaves owned by Julia's father, but it did not succeed.[37] Two years later, Grant and his family moved to a section of his father-in-law's farm and, to give his family a home, built a house he called "Hardscrabble".[37] Julia hated the rustic house, which she described as an "unattractive cabin".[37] During this time, Grant also acquired a slave from Julia's father, a thirty-five-year-old man named William Jones.[38] Having met with no success farming, the Grants left the farm when their fourth and final child was born in 1858. Grant freed his slave in 1859 instead of selling him, at a time when slaves commanded a high price and Grant needed money badly.[38] For the next year, the family took a small house in St. Louis where Grant worked with Julia's cousin Harry Boggs, again without success, as a bill collector.[39] In 1860, Jesse offered him the job in his tannery in Galena, without condition, and Grant accepted. The leather shop, "Grant & Perkins", sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods, and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. He moved his family to a rental house in Galena that year.[40][41][42]
Grant was not politically active and never endorsed any candidate before the Civil War.[43] His father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in Missouri, a factor that helped derail Grant's bid to become county engineer in 1859, while his father was an outspoken Republican in Galena.[44] In the 1856 election, Grant cast his first presidential vote for the Democrat, James Buchanan, saying he was really voting against John C. Frémont, the Republican.[43] In 1860, he favored the Democratic presidential candidate Stephen A. Douglas over Abraham Lincoln, and Lincoln over the Southern Democrat, John C. Breckinridge. Lacking the residency requirements in Illinois at the time, he could not vote. By August 1863, after the fall of Vicksburg during the Civil War, Grant's political sympathies fully coincided with the Radical Republicans' aggressive prosecution of the war and promotion of the abolition of slavery.[45]
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