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Ulysses S. Grant, born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 – July
23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United
States (1869–1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in
the American Civil War, capturing Vicksburg in 1863 and Richmond in 1865. He
accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox
Court House.
After service in the Mexican-American War, an undistinguished peacetime military
career, and a series of unsuccessful civilian jobs, Grant returned to service in
1861 at the outset of the Civil War and proved highly successful in training new
recruits. His capture of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson in February 1862 marked the
first major Union victories of the Civil War and opened up prime avenues of
invasion to the South. Surprised and nearly defeated at Shiloh (April 1862), he
fought back and took control of most of western Kentucky and Tennessee. His great
achievement in 1862-63 was to seize control of the Mississippi River by defeating a
series of Confederate armies and by capturing Vicksburg in July 1863. After a
victory at Chattanooga in late 1863, Abraham Lincoln made him general-in-chief of
all Union armies.
Grant was the first Union general in the war to initiate coordinated offensives
across multiple theaters. While his subordinates Sherman and Sheridan marched
through Georgia and the Shenandoah Valley respectively, Grant personally supervised
the 1864 Overland Campaign against General Robert E. Lee's Army in Virginia. He
employed attrition warfare against his opponent, conducting a series of large-scale
battles with very high casualties that alarmed public opinion, while maneuvering
ever closer to the Confederate capital, Richmond. Grant announced he would "fight
it out on this line if it takes all summer." Lincoln supported his general and
replaced his losses, and Lee's dwindling army was forced into defending trenches
around Richmond and Petersburg. In April 1865 Grant's vastly larger army broke
through, captured Richmond, and forced Lee to surrender at Appomattox Court House.
He has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one
of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has
been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.
Grant announced generous terms for his defeated foes, and pursued a policy of
peace. He broke with President Andrew Johnson in 1867, and was elected president as
a Republican in 1868. He was the first president to serve for two full terms since
Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a
powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the
army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political
corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed. He blocked civil
service reforms and defeated the reform movement in the Republican party in 1872,
driving out many of its founders. The Panic of 1873 pushed the nation into a
depression that Grant was helpless to reverse. Presidential experts typically rank
Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of
corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved
somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African
Americans. Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad
investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which
was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.
 Birth and
early years
Grant was born in a small two-room cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio,
25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six
children of Jesse Root Grant (1794–1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798–1883). His
father, a tanner, and his mother were born in Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823,
they moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio. The smell of his
father's tannery was one of his earliest memories.
Family
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826–1902), the daughter of a
slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. (Buck) Grant,
Jr., Ellen (Nellie) Wrenshall Grant, and Jesse Root Grant.
Military
career
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at West Point,
New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L.
Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," knowing
Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to
in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance
register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known
by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school administration refused to accept any name
other than the nominated form. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new
name with middle initial only. He graduated from West Point 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 his friend, Fred Dent, 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.
Between
wars
After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, 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 U.S. 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. However,
he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business
ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice
on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt 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. Some biographers discount the rumors and
suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound
depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the
drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who
became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated,
"Nothing stands against his good name." 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".
A civilian 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); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys). In
1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation
he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather
shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant
& Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides
from farmers in the prosperous Galena area.
Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent
Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good 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 Lincoln and the Union Party, which combined both
Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation
until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican.
Civil
War
Western
Theater: 1861–63
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln
put out a call for 75,000 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 colonel of the 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 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
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 towards 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 of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln
caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.
Shiloh
In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and
P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate
attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, 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 over 23,000 casualties, it was the
bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck
responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking
command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the
powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in Corinth, Mississippi.
Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his
subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck
was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as
commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the
Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Corinth and Iuka
that fall.
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.
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 U.S. 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. 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.
A distinguished British historian 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." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg
and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the
rest of the War."
Chattanooga
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to
Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain,
surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command
of the city. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George H.
Thomas. 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
better supply the Army of the Cumberland.
Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late
November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga started out with
Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong
mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one
Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration
on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he
was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was
engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at
the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while
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. Grant reportedly said
afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.
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, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him 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.
At the beginning of April 1865, 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.
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius:
“ Grant understood topography, the importance of supply lines, the instant judgment
of the balance between his own strengths and the enemy's weaknesses, and above all
the need to keep his armies moving forward, despite casualties, even when things
had gone wrong—that and the simple importance of inflicting greater losses on the
enemy than he can sustain, day after day, until he breaks. Grant the boy never
retraced his steps. Grant the man did not retreat—he advanced. Generals who do that
win wars. ”
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 U.S. Army. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew
Johnson on the same day.
Reconstruction: Grant and Johnson
As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with
President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour
during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's
moderate policies toward 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. That made him a hero to
the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was
chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National
Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of
acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the
Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against
former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of
5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran
about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually
powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically
inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.
Presidency
1869–1877
The first president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States
and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In the 1872 election he
won by a landslide against the breakaway Liberal Republican party that nominated
Horace Greeley. As Grant had never legally changed his name from Hiram Ulysses
Grant, he is the only president of the United States to not have been elected using
his legal name.
Reconstruction
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching 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, 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 Confederate leaders and protection for the civil
rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed
in the South—sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the
violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so
many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant
signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth
Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was
ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to
protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to
black 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.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the
South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and
equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln
and Johnson employed.
Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's
first National Park) on March 1, 1872.
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 Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast
suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker. Historian Allan Nevins
concludes:
“ Various administrations have closed in gloom and weakness ... but no other has
closed in such paralysis and discredit as (in all domestic fields) did Grant's. The
President was without policies or popular support. He was compelled to remake his
Cabinet under a grueling fire from reformers and investigators; half its members
were utterly inexperienced, several others discredited, one was even disgraced. The
personnel of the departments was largely demoralized. The party that autumn
appealed for votes on the implicit ground that the next Administration would be
totally unlike the one in office. In its centennial year, a year of deepest
economic depression, the nation drifted almost rudderless. ”
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.
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 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.
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.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the
Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes was 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 involving Treasury Secretary William
Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S.
Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the
political career of his first vice president, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on
the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who 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, favoring 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."
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. 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. Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant)
in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
Last
days
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. 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, feeling it inappropriate that a
former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting a
pension to such individuals, a practice that continues to this day.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book 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," and Grant's memoirs are also regarded by such writers as Matthew
Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written .
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885,at the age of 63 in
Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request, "Water."
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.
Source : Some of the information on
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Ulysses S.
Grant - Projector - Biography
