|The American Civil
War, Ulysses S. Grant
Edited by: Robert Guisepi
From humble beginnings,
Ulysses S. Grant rose to command all the Federal armies in the Civil
War and lead them to victory. So great was his popularity that the
people twice elected him to the presidency.
His Birth and Boyhood
Ulysses S. Grant was born April 27, 1822, in a two-room frame house
at Point Pleasant, Ohio, near Cincinnati. His father, Jesse Root
Grant, was foreman in a tannery and a farmer. His mother, Hannah
Simpson Grant, was a pious, hard-working frontier woman. When
Ulysses was a year old, the family moved a few miles east to
Georgetown. There his father bought a farm, built a house, and set
up a tannery of his own. Five more children were born--two boys and
Lyss, as he was called, loved horses and early learned to manage
them. When he was seven or eight years old he could drive a team and
began hauling all the wood used in the house and shops. "When about
eleven," he says in his 'Personal Memoirs', "I was strong enough to
hold a plow. From that age until seventeen I did all the work done
with horses; such as breaking up the land, furrowing, plowing corn
and potatoes, bringing in the crops when harvested, hauling all the
wood, besides tending two or three horses, a cow or two, and sawing
wood for the stoves." Three months each winter he went to a one-room
He Goes to West Point
When Lyss was 17, his father obtained for him an appointment to the
United States Military Academy at West Point. The congressman who
made the appointment did not know Ulysses' full name; so he left out
Hiram and added the mother's name, Simpson, after Ulysses. The
initials U.S. suggested Uncle Sam to Ulysses' classmates and they
gave him the nickname "Sam." Ulysses was pleased with his new name
because he disliked his old initials--H.U.G.
Cadet Grant did not care for military life and never expected to
stay in the army. He was good in mathematics and hoped sometime to
teach it. In other subjects he was about average. He was, however,
the finest horseman at the academy. Quiet and shy, he made few
He Serves in the Mexican War and Marries
When he was commissioned, Ulysses was ordered to Jefferson Barracks,
near St. Louis, Mo. While there he met Julia Dent, daughter of a
slave-owning Southern family. Within three months Grant proposed to
her and was accepted; but since he had only his pay as a lieutenant,
the wedding was postponed.
Grant was in almost every battle of the Mexican War. This
experience, he said, was of great value to him, because he became
acquainted with nearly all the officers of the regular army. Some of
them--including the great soldier Robert E. Lee--were to be on the
Confederate side in the Civil War.
Grant came back from Mexico a brevet captain, with favorable
mention. He at once married Julia (Aug. 22, 1848) and took her to
his new station, Sackett's Harbor, N. Y. Grant had formed the habit
of drinking in the Mexican campaign. At Sackett's Harbor he joined a
temperance society; but he forgot the pledge the next year when he
was sent to Detroit.
He Leaves the Army
Grant's first child, Frederick Dent Grant, was born in 1850. In 1852
his regiment was ordered to the Pacific coast by way of the Isthmus
of Panama. Mrs. Grant and her child remained with her parents.
Cholera attacked the regiment in Panama. Grant, as quartermaster,
showed great energy and resourcefulness in getting mules to carry
the delirious men across the isthmus.
Grant spent two years on the Pacific coast. Homesick, he carried
Julia's letters with him and liked to show the imprint of the hand
of his second son, Ulysses, Jr., who was born while Grant was on the
isthmus. He turned again to drink and wore slovenly uniforms. His
colonel asked for his resignation, and Grant borrowed money to
Julia's father gave Grant 80 acres to farm, near St. Louis. Grant
called the place Hardscrabble. He cleared the land, built a log
cabin, and worked hard but could not make farming pay. Two more
children were born--Nellie, in 1855, and Jesse Root, three years
later. In 1858 Grant sold his stock and implements and turned to
selling real estate in St. Louis. He failed again and walked the
streets looking for something to do. Finally his father persuaded
his younger sons to take Ulysses into their leather business at
Galena, Ill. Grant worked as a clerk, selling hides to saddle makers
and cobblers. When the Civil War broke out he was 39 years old and
was generally regarded as a failure.
Drilling Civil War Volunteers
After Fort Sumter was fired on (April 12, 1861), President Lincoln
issued a call to arms. Within two weeks Grant was drilling
volunteers in Galena, because, as he said, there was no one else to
do the job. He went with the volunteers to Springfield, Ill.,
wearing his threadbare citizen's clothes.
At Springfield, the governor made him first a clerk, then a
mustering officer. When the mustering was completed Grant left. A
few weeks later the governor telegraphed him to come back and accept
the rank of colonel because the men he had mustered in had asked for
him. Grant still had no uniform and no horse (officers were expected
to supply their own); but he enforced discipline on the rough farm
youths and in a month had a trained regiment. He marched his men
into Missouri, and in St. Louis he read in a newspaper that he had
been made a brigadier general of volunteers.
The Western Campaign
Grant reached his headquarters at Cairo, Ill., Sept. 4, 1861. Two
days later, without firing a shot, he occupied Paducah, Ky., on the
other side of the Ohio River. In November his raw recruits made an
unsuccessful attack on a Confederate camp at Belmont, Mo. Grant then
set to work to prepare his men for a long, hard struggle. Volunteers
poured in until he had nearly 20,000 men.
In February 1862 Grant advanced into Tennessee. With the aid of
Commodore A. H. Foote's gunboats, he captured Fort Henry on the
Tennessee River. Then he moved against the more formidable Fort
Donelson, on the Cumberland River. While he was besieging this fort,
the Confederate general, Simon B. Buckner--the officer who in 1858
had loaned Grant money to rejoin his family--asked for an armistice.
Grant's answer became famous in American history: "No terms except
an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose
to move immediately upon your works." Buckner surrendered the fort
with 14,000 prisoners. Newspapers in the North were filled with
praise of "Unconditional Surrender" U.S. Grant, and Lincoln named
him a major general.
The objective of the campaign in the West was to cut the Confederacy
in two by winning the Mississippi Valley. The first major success
came the next year in the battle of Shiloh in southern Tennessee. In
two days of desperate fighting--April 6 and 7, 1862--Grant pushed
the Confederate forces back to Corinth in Mississippi.
Losses on both sides were heavy. Grant was severely criticized for
his conduct in this battle because he had failed to anticipate an
attack by the enemy, but President Lincoln said, "I can't spare this
man--he fights." Grant made no excuses but spent the rest of 1862
making plans to take Vicksburg, the great Confederate stronghold on
the Mississippi River that served as a transportation point for the
Vicksburg was a brilliant operation and showed Grant at his best.
The fort surrendered unconditionally on July 4, 1863, a day after
the battle of Gettysburg. Five days later Port Hudson fell. Grant's
son Frederick, 13 years old, was with him in the Vicksburg campaign.
Grant said, "He looked out for himself in every battle."
As a reward for Vicksburg, Grant was given supreme command of all
the armies in the West. When he returned to Tennessee, he set out to
relieve a Federal army penned up in Chattanooga. The Confederates
occupied the heights of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, which
controlled the approaches to the city. On November 24 and 25, the
Federal troops stormed the heights, and the Confederates fled into
Georgia. All Tennessee was now captured, and the power of the
Confederacy west of the Alleghenies was effectively broken.
"On to Richmond"
Meanwhile the war in the East had been dragging. Lincoln, still
looking for a general to match against Robert E. Lee, asked Grant to
come to Washington. In March 1864 Grant arrived at his hotel alone
except for his son Frederick. Richard Henry Dana met him there and
wrote: "I saw that the ordinary, scrubby-looking man, with a
slightly seedy look, cigar in mouth, had a clear blue eye, and a
look of resolution, as if he could not be trifled with." The next
day Lincoln showed his confidence in Grant by appointing him
lieutenant general commanding all the Federal armies.
Grant himself took command of the armies in the East. On May 4,
1864, the army crossed the Rapidan. Grant hoped to pass unmolested
through the tangled forest of the Wilderness, but Lee attacked and
Grant's army suffered appalling losses. Grant, however, did not turn
back. "I propose," he said, "to fight it out on this line if it
takes all summer."
Lee was to find that Grant did not retreat after a defeat or rest
after a victory. The next year in April the Confederate capital,
Richmond, Va., was occupied, and Lee surrendered. The next week
Lincoln was assassinated. Grant was now the man of the hour.
He Is Elected President
Grant went to Washington to disband the army. In April 1866 congress
revived for him the rank of full general, a title not used since
George Washington had held it. The pay gave Grant financial
security, and he became a familiar figure in the streets in his
light buggy, driving a spirited horse. Gifts were showered on him.
Galena and Philadelphia both presented houses to him. New York City
gave him $100,000.
Grant had never been interested in politics and belonged to no
political party. President Johnson hoped to put through Lincoln's
mild plan of "reconstructing" the seceded states. The Radical
Republicans in Congress demanded a harsh policy. Johnson hoped to
have Grant's support, but Grant quarreled with him and was won over
by the Radicals.
While the Senate was impeaching Johnson, the Republican convention
in Chicago unanimously nominated Grant for president, with Schuyler
Colfax of Indiana for vice-president. The platform was vague, and
the campaign was fought over problems of reconstruction. Grant
received 214 electoral votes as against 80 for the Democratic
candidate, Horatio Seymour. Grant's popular majority, however, was
small--only about 306,000 out of 5,720,250 votes. Black votes in
Southern states decided the election.
Grant's First Term as President
Grant moved into the White House with Julia and his beautiful
daughter Nellie. His sons were also there from time to time, and his
old father, now a postmaster in Covington, Ky., made brief visits.
Grave problems confronted the nation. The war had brought poverty
and desolation to the South. To the North it had brought prosperity.
Speculation was rife, and there was widespread corruption in both
political and business life.
In 1869 two speculators, Jay Gould and James Fisk, attempted to
corner gold and brought pressure on Grant to keep the United States
treasury from selling it. Foreign trade was almost stopped. On Black
Friday, Sept. 24, 1869, the United States treasury, with Grant's
approval, suddenly put up for sale 4 million dollars in gold. The
price plunged, causing the ruin of many speculators.
The Radical Republicans hoped to gain Black votes in the South by
the 15th Amendment to the Constitution (1870), which provides that
"the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be
denied or abridged . . . on account of race, color, or previous
condition of servitude." The immediate result of the amendment was
an increase of terroristic acts against Blacks to prevent their
In foreign policy Grant usually supported his capable secretary of
state, Hamilton Fish. The United States had claims against Great
Britain for damage done by the Confederate cruiser Alabama and other
commerce destroyers built in England. In 1871 a treaty was signed in
Washington agreeing to submit the Alabama claims to an arbitration
tribunal to meet at Geneva, Switzerland, the next year. This was the
first important case of arbitration in United States history. Grant
wanted to annex the Dominican Republic to the United States, but his
treaty failed in the Senate.
Grant's Second Term
Led by Carl Schurz and other reformers, a group in the Republican
party set out to defeat Grant for reelection. They organized the
Liberal Republican party, which called for civil service reform, an
end to corruption in government, and the withdrawal of troops from
the South. The Democratic party joined with them in supporting
Horace Greeley, founder of the New York Tribune, for the presidency.
The regular Republicans, called Stalwarts, renominated Grant. Grant
received 286 electoral votes. Since Greeley died shortly after the
election, his 63 electoral votes were divided among other
Grant's popularity declined as evidence of serious political
corruption came to light. The government had given money and land
grants to the new railways in the West. In 1873 it was found that
certain members of Congress had been bribed to vote in the interests
of the Union Pacific Railroad. The bribes were in the form of stock
in a railway construction company, the Credit Mobilier. In 1874 the
Whiskey Ring scandal was uncovered. The ring was a combination of
distillers and tax officers who defrauded the treasury of the
revenue tax on whiskey. Grant was not personally implicated in the
scandals, but he gave appointments to unfit people and stood by them
after they had been shown to be dishonest.
The wartime boom ended with the great panic of 1873. Five years of
hard times followed. Businessmen urged the government to return to a
sound currency and call in the "greenbacks"--paper money issued
during the Civil War. The greenbacks were not based on gold or
silver in the treasury and had therefore declined in value, causing
a steep rise in prices. Grant vetoed a bill calling for more paper
currency. In 1875 he signed the Specie Resumption Act, which made
greenbacks redeemable in gold or silver coin.
His Last Years
Grant reluctantly announced that he would not be a candidate for a
third term because he knew that the scandals of his administration
had turned the voters against him. Both the Republicans and the
Democrats nominated "reform" candidates. The election was so close
that the results were disputed until March 2, when a Congressional
committee decided in favor of Rutherford B. Hayes
For the next two years Grant, with his wife and son Jesse, toured
Europe and Asia. He returned home with many gifts, but his money was
nearly gone. In 1880 the Stalwart Republicans tried to have him
nominated for a third term, but the "half-breeds" prevailed and
nominated James A. Garfield. Grant, however, was still the people's
hero, and his friends raised a large fund for him by popular
subscription. Grant went to New York City and bought a house at 3
East 66th Street.
Grant's daughter, Nellie, had been married at the White House in
1874 to a wealthy Englishman, Algernon Sartoris. Frederick was a
lieutenant colonel in the army. Jesse was a lawyer. Ulysses, Jr.,
was in a Wall Street brokerage firm, Grant and Ward.
Grant unwisely invested all his money in Grant and Ward. He paid no
attention to its operations, and his son apparently knew little
about the business. Ferdinand Ward was a dishonest speculator. The
firm crashed in 1884 and left Grant penniless and humiliated. Ward
was sent to the state penitentiary.
To earn money, Grant turned to writing. Samuel L. Clemens, better
known as Mark Twain, was then a subscription book publisher. He
offered Grant a high royalty for his memoirs, and in 1885 Grant
began to dictate them. A pain in his throat was finally diagnosed as
cancer, but Grant went on, writing with a pen, to provide for his
wife after he was gone.
In the summer of 1885 Mrs. Grant took her husband to the Adirondacks
near Saratoga. There he finished his 'Personal Memoirs' about a week
before he died on July 23. Written frankly, the work ranks high
among military biographies. It was so popular that Mrs. Grant
received nearly $450,000 from its sale. She died in 1902. A granite
tomb to Grant's memory was erected on Riverside Drive in New York
City. In 1959 it became a national memorial.
World History Project