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.
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."
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.
He 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.
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.
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.