Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant;[b] April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885) was the 18th president of the United States, serving from 1869 to 1877. As commanding general, Grant led the Union Army to victory in the American Civil War in 1865.
Grant was born in Ohio and graduated from the United States Military Academy (West Point) in 1843. He served with distinction in the Mexican–American War, but resigned from the army in 1854 and returned to civilian life impoverished. In 1861, shortly after the Civil War began, Grant joined the Union Army and rose to prominence after securing victories in the western theater. In 1863, he led the Vicksburg campaign that gave Union forces control of the Mississippi River and dealt a major strategic blow to the Confederacy. President Abraham Lincoln promoted Grant to lieutenant general and command of all Union armies after his victory at Chattanooga. For thirteen months, Grant fought Robert E. Lee during the high-casualty Overland Campaign which ended with the capture of Lee's army at Appomattox, where he formally surrendered to Grant. In 1866, President Andrew Johnson promoted Grant to General of the Army. Later, Grant broke with Johnson over Reconstruction policies. A war hero, drawn in by his sense of duty, Grant was unanimously nominated by the Republican Party and then elected president in 1868.
As president, Grant stabilized the post-war national economy, supported congressional Reconstruction and the Fifteenth Amendment, and prosecuted the Ku Klux Klan. Under Grant, the Union was completely restored. An effective civil rights executive, Grant signed a bill to create the United States Department of Justice and worked with Radical Republicans to protect African Americans during Reconstruction. In 1871, he created the first Civil Service Commission, advancing the civil service more than any prior president. Grant was re-elected in the 1872 presidential election, but was inundated by executive scandals during his second term. His response to the Panic of 1873 was ineffective in halting the Long Depression, which contributed to the Democrats winning the House majority in 1874. Grant's Native American policy was to assimilate Indians into Anglo-American culture. In Grant's foreign policy, the Alabama Claims against Britain were peacefully resolved, but the Senate rejected Grant's annexation of Santo Domingo. In the disputed 1876 presidential election, Grant facilitated the approval by Congress of a peaceful compromise.
Leaving office in 1877, Grant undertook a world tour, becoming the first president to circumnavigate the world. In 1880, he was unsuccessful in obtaining the Republican nomination for a third term. In 1885, impoverished and dying of throat cancer, Grant wrote his memoirs, covering his life through the Civil War, which were posthumously published and became a major critical and financial success. At his death, Grant was the most popular American and was memorialized as a symbol of national unity. Due to the pseudohistorical and negationist mythology of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy spread by Confederate sympathizers around the turn of the 20th century, historical assessments and rankings of Grant's presidency suffered considerably before they began recovering in the 21st century. Grant's critics take a negative view of his economic mismanagement and the corruption within his administration, while his admirers emphasize his policy towards Native Americans, vigorous enforcement of civil and voting rights for African Americans, and securing North and South as a single nation within the Union.[5] Modern scholarship has better appreciated Grant's appointments of Cabinet reformers.
Grant's father Jesse Root Grant was a Whig Party supporter and a fervent abolitionist.[6] Jesse and Hannah Simpson were married on June 24, 1821, and their first child, Hiram Ulysses Grant, was born on April 27, 1822.[7] The name Ulysses was drawn from ballots placed in a hat. To honor his father-in-law, Jesse named the boy "Hiram Ulysses", though he always referred to him as "Ulysses".[8] In 1823, the family moved to Georgetown, Ohio, where five siblings were born: Simpson, Clara, Orvil, Jennie, and Mary.[9] At the age of five, Ulysses started at a subscription school and later attended two private schools.[10] In the winter of 1836–1837, Grant was a student at Maysville Seminary, and in the autumn of 1838, he attended John Rankin's academy.
In his youth, Grant developed an unusual ability to ride and manage horses;[11] his father gave him work driving supply wagons and transporting people.[12] Unlike his siblings, Grant was not forced to attend church by his Methodist parents.[13] For the rest of his life, he prayed privately and never officially joined any denomination.[14] To others, including his own son, Grant appeared to be agnostic.[15] Grant was largely apolitical before the war but wrote, "If I had ever had any political sympathies they would have been with the Whigs. I was raised in that school."[16]
At Jesse Grant's request, Representative Thomas L. Hamer nominated Ulysses to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, in spring 1839. Grant was accepted on July 1.[17] Unfamiliar with Grant, Hamer altered his name, so Grant was enlisted under the name "U. S. Grant".[c][21] Since the initials "U.S." also stood for "Uncle Sam", he became known among army colleagues as "Sam."[22]
Initially, Grant was indifferent to military life, but within a year he reexamined his desire to leave the academy and later wrote that "on the whole I like this place very much".[23] He earned a reputation as the "most proficient" horseman.[24] Seeking relief from military routine, he studied under Romantic artist Robert Walter Weir, producing nine surviving artworks.[25] He spent more time reading books from the library than his academic texts.[26] On Sundays, cadets were required to march to services at the academy's church, which Grant disliked.[27] Quiet by nature, he established a few intimate friends among fellow cadets, including Frederick Tracy Dent and James Longs