President Ulysses S. Grant

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President Ulysses S. Grant
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Ulysses S. Grant

• Ulysses S. Grant, (April 27, 1822 July 23,
  1885), was an American general and the eighteenth
  President of the United States serving two terms.
  (18691877).
• He achieved international fame as the leading
  Union general in the American Civil War,
  capturing Vicksburg in 1863.
• He accepted the surrender of his Confederate
  opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House.

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The Grant Family

• On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs
  Dent (18261902), the daughter of a slave owner.
• They had four children
• -Frederick
• -Ulysses, Jr.
• -Ellen (Nellie) -Jesse.

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President Grant

• The first president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th
  President of the United States and served two
  terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877.
• In the 1872 election he won by a landslide
  against Horace Greeley.

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President Grant

• Grant presided over the last half of
  Reconstruction.
• He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and
  protection for the civil rights of
  African-Americans.
• He favored a limited number of troops to be
  stationed in the South to protect rights of
  Southern blacks, and suppress the violent tactics
  of the Ku Klux Klan.

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President Grant

• In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting
  voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders.
• Grant signed a bill into law that created
  Yellowstone National Park (America's first
  National Park) on March 1, 1872.

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Panic of 1873

• At the end of the Civil War, there was a boom in
  railroad construction, with 35,000 miles of new
  track laid across the country between 1866 and
  1873.
• The railroad industry, at the time the nation's
  largest employer outside of agriculture, involved
  large amounts of money and risk.

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Panic of 1873

• A large infusion of cash from speculators caused
  abnormal growth in the railroad industry. Many
  people had invested heavily in the railroads.
• President Ulysses S. Grant's policy of
  contracting the money supply made matters worse.
  While businesses were expanding, the money they
  needed to finance it was becoming more scarce.

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Panic of 1873

• Entrepreneurs had planned to build a second
  transcontinental railroad, called the Northern
  Pacific Railway. Firms that provided the
  financing, had become overextended and declared
  bankruptcy.
• This caused a major upset to the economy of the
  United States.

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Post Presidency

• After the end of his second term in the White
  House, Grant spent two years (1877 to 1879)
  traveling around the world with his wife.
• He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England the
  crowds were huge.
• The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor
  Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany.
• They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land,
  Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially
  received by Emperor and Empress at the Imperial
  Palace.
• Today in Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant
  planted during his stay.

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Last Days

• In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York
  City.
• Grant learned at the same time that he was
  suffering from throat cancer.
• Grant lost most of his money in an investment
  deal after his presidency.
• At the time retired U.S. Presidents were not
  given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his
  military pension when he assumed the office of
  President.

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Last Days

• It was not until 1958 that Congress, feeling it
  inappropriate that a former president or his wife
  might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting
  a pension to such individuals, a practice that
  continues to this day.

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Last Days

• Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for
  the publication of his memoirs, including 75 of
  the book's sales as royalties.
• Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a
  few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over
  300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over
  450,000.

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Grants Death

• Ulysses S. Grant died on Thursday, July 23,
  1885,at the age of 63 in New York.
• His last word was a request, "Water."
• His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park,
  beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the
  largest mausoleum in North America.

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Grants Tomb