Ulysses S.

Grant
• Ulysses S. Grant born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822– July 23,
1885) was the 18th President of the United States (1869–77) as well as
military commander during the Civil War and post-war Reconstruction
periods.
• Under the command of Grant, the Union Army defeated
the Confederate military and ended the Confederate States of America.
• His image as a war hero was tarnished by corruption scandals during
his presidency.
• Grant began his life long career as a soldier after graduating from
the United States Military Academy in 1843.
• Fighting in the Mexican American War, he was a close observer of the
techniques of Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott.
• He retired from the Army in 1854, then struggled to make a living in St.
Louis.
• After many financial setbacks, he finally moved to Galena,
Illinois where he worked as a clerk in his father's tannery shop, making
Galena his permanent legal home.
• In 1861, after the American Civil War broke out, he joined the Union
war effort, taking charge of training new regiments and then engaging
the enemy near Cairo, Illinois.
• In 1862 he fought a series of major battles and captured a Confederate
army, earning a reputation as an aggressive general and allowing the
Union to seize control of most of Kentucky and Tennessee.
• In July 1863, after a long complex campaign he captured Vicksburg,
captured another Confederate army, and took control of the Mississippi
River, splitting the Confederacy and opening the way for more Union
victories and conquests.
• Lincoln promoted him, and gave him charge of all the Union Armies. As
General-in-Chief of the Union Armies from 1864 to 1865, Grant
confronted Robert E. Lee in a series of very high casualty battles
known as the Overland Campaign that ended in a stalemate siege
at Petersburg.
• During the siege, Grant coordinated a series of devastating campaigns
launched by William Tecumseh Sherman, Philip Sheridan, and George
Thomas. Finally breaking through Lee's trenches at Petersburg, the
Union Army captured Richmond, the Confederate capital in April 1865.
• Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox; the Confederacy collapsed
and the Civil War ended.
• During Reconstruction, Grant remained in command of the Army and
implemented the Congressional plans to reoccupy the South and hold
new elections in 1867 with black voters that gave Republicans control
of the Southern states.
• Enormously popular in the North after the Union's victory, he was
elected to the presidency in 1868. Reelected in 1872, he became the
first president to serve two full terms since Andrew Jackson did so forty
years earlier.
• As president, he led Reconstruction by signing and enforcing civil
rights laws and fighting Ku Klux Clan violence.
• He helped rebuild the Republican Party in the South, an effort which
resulted in the election of African Americans to Congress and state
governments for the first time.
• Despite these civil rights accomplishments, Grant's presidency was
marred by economic turmoil and multiple scandals.
• His response to the Panic of 1873 and the severe depression that
followed was heavily criticized.
• His low standards in Cabinet and federal appointments and lack of
accountability generated corruption and bribery in seven government
departments. In 1876, his reputation was severely damaged by the
graft trials of the Whiskey Ring.
• He left office at the low point of his popularity.
• After leaving office, Grant embarked on a two-year world tour that was
received favorably with many royal receptions.
• In 1880 he made an unsuccessful bid for a third presidential term.
• In 1884, broke and dying of cancer, he wrote his enormously
successful memoirs.
• Historians have ranked his Administration poorly due to tolerance of
corruption.
• His presidential reputation has improved among scholars impressed by
the Administration's support for civil rights for freed slaves.