With the start of the Civil War, Grant reentered the military. He eventually left the army to return home and open a general store. Grant was lonely for his wife and family, however, and took to drinking. Later he had various posts on the west coast. During the Mexican War (1846-1848) he served under General Zachary Taylor. At first Grant didn't like the idea as he had no interest in becoming a soldier, however, he realized this was his chance at a college education and eventually decided to go.Īfter graduating from West Point, Grant became an officer in the army. His father suggested that he attend the U.S. He didn't want to be a tanner like his father and spent his time on the farm where he became an excellent horseman. Grant grew up in Ohio the son of a tanner. Grant’s spouse, Julia Dent Grant.A tree in front of a tent, Cold Harbor, Va. Copyright 2006 by the White House Historical Association. The Presidential biographies on are from “The Presidents of the United States of America,” by Frank Freidel and Hugh Sidey. Soon after completing the last page, in 1885, he died. 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. About that time he learned that he had cancer of the throat. Grant allowed Radical Reconstruction to run its course in the South, bolstering it at times with military force.Īfter retiring from the Presidency, Grant became a partner in a financial firm, which went bankrupt. 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.” 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.ĭuring his campaign for re-election in 1872, Grant was attacked by Liberal Republican reformers. Worse, he allowed himself to be seen with two speculators, Jay Gould and James Fisk. Indeed he brought part of his Army staff to the White House.Īlthough a man of scrupulous honesty, Grant as President accepted handsome presents from admirers. Grant wrote out magnanimous terms of surrender that would prevent treason trials.Īs President, Grant presided over the Government much as he had run the Army. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.įinally, on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House, Lee surrendered. Grant directed Sherman to drive through the South while he himself, with the Army of the Potomac, pinned down Gen. Lincoln appointed him General-in-Chief in March 1864. Then he broke the Confederate hold on Chattanooga. President Lincoln fended off demands for his removal by saying, “I can’t spare this man–he fights.”įor 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. 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.Īt Shiloh in April, Grant fought one of the bloodiest battles in the West and came out less well. In February 1862 he took Fort Henry and attacked Fort Donelson. He sought to win control of the Mississippi Valley. Grant whipped it into shape and by September 1861 he had risen to the rank of brigadier general of volunteers. He was appointed by the Governor to command an unruly volunteer regiment. Zachary Taylor.Īt the outbreak of the Civil War, Grant was working in his father’s leather store in Galena, Illinois. He went to West Point rather against his will and graduated in the middle of his class. 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.”īorn in 1822, Grant was the son of an Ohio tanner. Looking to Congress for direction, he seemed bewildered. When he was elected, the American people hoped for an end to turmoil. He was, as the symbol of Union victory during the Civil War, their logical candidate for President in 1868.
Grant quarreled with the President and aligned himself with the Radical Republicans. Late in the administration of Andrew Johnson, Gen.
As an American hero, Grant was later elected the 18th President of the United States (1869–1877), working to implement Congressional Reconstruction and to remove the vestiges of slavery. Grant led the Union Armies to victory over the Confederacy in the American Civil War. In 1865, as commanding general, Ulysses S.
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