Ulysses S. Grant led the Union Army to victory in the American Civil War. He later served as the 18th president of the United States (1869-77).
I’ve learned some interesting things about him.
Grant was posthumously promoted to General of the Armies in December, 2022. It’s the highest military rank in the U.S. Army.
Grant is one of only three men to achieve it. The other two are John J. Pershing and George Washington.
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Grant was born Hiram Ulysses Grant on April 27, 1822, in Point Pleasant, Ohio. Grant’s father arranged for him to enter the United States Military Academy at West Point when he was 17 years old.
A clerical error had listed him as Ulysses S. Grant. He thought the error might jeopardize his chances of being accepted at the school, so he adopted the new name.
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Grant had been invited to join President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865, the night Lincoln was assassinated. He declined because he and his wife had made plans to visit their children.
Grant described Lincoln’s death as the “darkest day of my life,” and bitterly regretted not being there, thinking he might have been able to prevent the assassination.
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Grant is an unsung civil rights hero. In his review of Ron Chernow’s biography of Grant, Thomas Ricks writes that
“Grant possibly did concretely more for black equality than anyone before or since, though that history is unrecognized even in today’s black community.
“He broke the power of the Ku Klux Klan through legislation, military force and prosecution… Grant established the U.S. Justice Department in 1870 to prosecute the KKK and support the civil rights (and voting rights) of African-Americans.
“So many Klansmen were prosecuted and jailed that the Klan was broken as a force in the south and did not rise again until the 1920s.”
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After leaving the presidency, Grant became a partner in a financial firm. Another partner embezzled investors’ money. The firm went bankrupt and Grant lost everything.
That same year, he learned he had throat cancer. To earn money, he began writing magazine articles about his Civil War experiences. An editor suggested he write his memoirs.
He signed a contract with none other than Mark Twain who had established a publishing company. Grant died a few days after finishing the book. His Personal Memoirs was a bestseller.
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I was astounded to learn that back in his cadet days, Grant was a talented artist. He took drawing classes at West Point because “it was important for officers to be able to sketch accurate maps, and, during wartime, show enemy deployments and fortifications.”
Eight of the watercolor paintings he created at West Point survive, including the two shown below. You can see all eight paintings here.
