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Ulysses S. Grant was the 18th US president and a successful general during the Civil War. He had a mediocre life outside the military, but excelled in recruiting and training volunteers. His presidency was corrupt and ineffective, but he signed orders to create Yellowstone National Park and the Justice Department. He died of throat cancer in 1885 and is best remembered for his military successes.
President Ulysses S. Grant was the 18th president of the United States. He was also a commander in the Army of Tennessee and later a lieutenant general in the Army during the American Civil War. While recognized as a good general, his legacy as president is not great.
Born April 22, 1822, Hiram Ulysses Grant was from Point Pleasant, Ohio. He grew up in a large family with five siblings. Ulysses S. Grant apparently led a quiet and normal life until he was nominated as a candidate to attend the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York. He took the name “Ulysses S. Grant” because his congressman had named him by that name, knowing that Grant’s mother’s maiden name was Simpson. Grant had to register under that name and kept it after graduating in the middle of his class as a solidly mediocre student.
Mediocre, in fact, characterized much of Ulysses S. Grant’s life when he was not associated with the military. Although, as Lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant, he had been decorated for valor during the Mexican-American War, after he resigned from the Army in 1854, he worked several jobs, all of them failing. He had married Julia Dent in 1848, and needing to support his family, Ulysses S. Grant went to his father’s home in Galena, Illinois and asked for a job in the leather shop. His father was a tanner.
Ulysses S. Grant was still working for his father in the spring of 1861, and when President Abraham Lincoln called up 75,000 volunteers after the attack on Fort Sumter, Grant recruited a company of volunteers and went with them to Springfield, Illinois. The governor of Illinois was impressed and offered Ulysses S. Grant a position to recruit and train new volunteers. Grant excelled at this task and in August 1861 found himself a volunteer brigadier general, appointed by Abraham Lincoln himself.
As Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant, he went on to achieve early combat glory at the Battle of Forts Henry and Donelson in Tennessee. He was nearly defeated at the Battle of Shiloh, but reinforcements arrived in time and forced the Confederate army to retreat. His victory at the Battle of Vicksburg ensured his lasting reputation as a hard-nosed fighter and genuine tactician.
After Ulysses S. Grant received the surrender of General Robert E. Lee at Appamattox Courthouse in Virginia, he entered the world of politics. President Andrew Johnson made him Secretary of War, but the two disagreed on many points, and Ulysses S. Grant ran for president in 1868 and was elected.
Grant was a personally honest man. However, he associated with dishonest men who gave him bad advice and for whom he vouched, even when their corruption became apparent. The American economy suffered under his tenure and the Panic of 1873 also occurred under his control.
No doubt Grant had a difficult situation as far as the South was concerned, but his insistence on pursuing radical Reconstruction made matters worse. While a military presence was needed to help control the Ku Klux Klan, the region’s infrastructure was in shambles and the federal government did little to improve the situation. People have suffered, regardless of their previous affiliations.
President Grant signed the order to form Yellowstone National Park, created the Justice Department, the Army Meteorological Bureau (now the National Weather Service), and the Surgeon General’s office. His foreign policy was somewhat successful, but overall his presidency was corrupt and ineffective.
Ulysses S. Grant died of throat cancer on July 23, 1885. He had written his memoirs to help provide for his family. He lost his military pension when he became president, and no pensions were provided to former presidents at the time.
Grant is best remembered for his military successes. He was a tenacious and cunning fighter. In all likelihood, that would be how he would have wanted to be remembered.
