General Ulysses S. Grant
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.Grant 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. |
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.
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.
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."
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. |