U. S. Grant

1
U. S. Grant
Civil War Hero
2
Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant

• April 27, 1822 July 23, 1885) was the 18th
  President of the United States (18691877)
  following his dominant role in the second half of
  the Civil War. Under Grant, the Union Army
  defeated the Confederate military and effectively
  ended the war with the surrender of Robert E.
  Lee's army at Appomattox.

3

• Hiram Ulysses Grant was born in Point Pleasant,
  Ohio on April 27, 1822. His father Jesse Root
  Grant (17941873) was a self-reliant tanner
  (leather producer) and businessman of English
  ancestry, from an austere family. His mother
  Hannah Simpson Grant (17981883) was of Scottish
  ancestry. Both were natives of Pennsylvania. In
  the fall of 1823, the family moved to the village
  of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio

4

• Grant was neither disciplined, baptized, nor
  forced to attend church by his parents. Grant is
  said to have inherited a degree of introversion
  from his reserved, even "uncommonly detached"
  mother.

5
Work ethic

• Grant assumed the duties expected of him as a
  young man at home, which primarily included
  maintaining the firewood supply he thereby
  developed a noteworthy ability to work with, and
  control, horses in his charge, and used this in
  providing transportation as a vocation in his
  youth

6
Education

• At the age of 17, with the help of his father,
  Grant was nominated by Congressman Thomas L.
  Hamer for a position at the United States
  Military Academy at West Point, New York. Hamer
  mistakenly nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of
  Ohio." At West Point, he adopted this name with a
  middle initial only. His nickname became "Sam"
  among army colleagues at the academy, since the
  initials "U.S." stood for "Uncle Sam". The "S",
  according to Grant, did not "stand for anything",
  though Hamer had used it to abbreviate his
  mother's maiden name

7
West Point

• Grant, then standing at 5 feet 2 inches and
  weighing 117 lbs., graduated from West Point in
  1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. Part of
  Grant's demerits were due to his refusal, at
  times, of compulsory church attendance, then a
  West Point policy that Grant viewed as
  anti-republican. Grant freely admitted that he
  was lax in his studies however, he achieved
  above average grades in mathematics and geology.

8

• Grant established a reputation as a fearless and
  expert horseman, setting an equestrian high jump
  record that lasted almost 25 years. Grant later
  recalled that his departure from West Point was
  of the happiest of his times, and that his intent
  had been to resign his commission after serving
  the minimum term of obligated duty. Although
  naturally suited for cavalry, he was assigned to
  duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing
  supplies and equipment in the 4th U.S. Infantry,
  and achieved the rank of brevet second lieutenant

9
Mexican War

• During the Mexican American War (18461848),
  Lieutenant Grant served under Generals Zachary
  Taylor and Winfield Scott. Discontent with his
  responsibilities as a quartermaster, Grant made
  his way to the front lines to engage in the
  battle, and participated as a de-facto cavalryman
  in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto,
  Monterrey, and Veracruz

10

• He detailed his reflections on the war in his
  memoirs, indicating he had learned extensively by
  closely observing the decisions and actions of
  his commanding officers, particularly admiring
  Zachary Taylor's methods, and in retrospect
  identified himself with Taylor's style.

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Hardscrabble

• On August 22, 1848 after a four year engagement,
  Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (18261902), the
  daughter of a prominent Missouri plantation and
  slave owner, and sister of a West Point roommate,
  Frederick.20 He and Julia had four children
  Frederick Dent Grant Ulysses S. "Buck" Grant,
  Jr. Ellen Wrenshall "Nellie" Grant and Jesse
  Root Grant

12

• In subsequent years Capt. "Sam" Grant served at a
  variety of bleak army posts. Lonely for his wife
  and son (he had married Julia Dent in 1848), the
  taciturn, unhappy captain began drinking. Warned
  by his commanding officer, Grant resigned from
  the Army in July 1854. He borrowed money for
  transportation to St. Louis, Mo., where he joined
  his family and tried a series of occupations
  without much success farmer, realtor, candidate
  for county engineer, and customshouse clerk. He
  was working as a store clerk at the beginning of
  the Civil War in 1861.

13

• As a general in the Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant
  possessed the right qualities for prosecuting
  offensive warfare against the brilliant tactics
  of his Southern adversary Robert E. Lee. Bold and
  indefatigable, Grant believed in destroying enemy
  armies rather than merely occupying enemy
  territory. His strategic genius and tenacity
  overcame the Confederates' advantage of fighting
  a defensive war on their own territory.

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• This was a war Grant did believe in, and he
  offered his services. The governor of Illinois
  appointed him colonel of the 21st Illinois
  Volunteers in June 1861. Grant took his regiment
  to Missouri, where, to his surprise, he was
  promoted to brigadier general.
• Grant persuaded his superiors to authorize an
  attack on Ft. Henry on the Tennessee River and
  Ft. Donelson on the Cumberland in order to gain
  Union control of these two important rivers.
  Preceded by gunboats, Grant's 17,000 troops
  marched out of Cairo, Ill., on Feb. 2, 1862.
  After Ft. Henry surrendered, the soldiers took
  Ft. Donelson. Here Confederate general Simon B.
  Buckner, one of Grant's West Point classmates
  (and the man who, much earlier, had loaned the
  impecunious captain the money to rejoin his
  family), requested an armistice. Grant's reply
  became famous "No terms except an unconditional
  and immediate surrender can be accepted. I
  propose to move immediately upon your works."
  Buckner surrendered. One of the first important
  Northern victories of the war, the capture of Ft.
  Donelson won Grant promotion to major general.

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Shiloh

• Grant next concentrated 38,000 men at Pittsburgh
  Landing (Shiloh) on the Tennessee River,
  preparing for an offensive. He unwisely neglected
  to prepare for a possible Confederate
  counteroffensive. At dawn on April 6, 1862, the
  Confederate attack surprised the sleeping Union
  soldiers. Grant did his best to prevent a rout,
  and at the end of the day Union lines still held,
  but the Confederates were in command of most of
  the field. The next day the Union Army
  counterattacked with 25,000 fresh troops, who had
  arrived during the night, and drove the
  Southerners into full retreat. The North had
  triumphed in one of the bloodiest battles of the
  war, but Grant was criticized for his
  carelessness. Urged to replace Grant, President
  Abraham Lincoln refused, saying, "I can't spare
  this man - he fights."

16
Vicksburg

• Grant set out to recoup his reputation and secure
  Union control of the Mississippi River by taking
  the rebel stronghold at Vicksburg, Miss.Several
  attempts were frustrated in the North criticism
  of Grant was growing and there were reports that
  he had begun drinking heavily.

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• But in April 1863 Grant embarked on a bold scheme
  to take Vicksburg. While he marched his 20,000
  men past the fortress on the opposite (west)
  bank, an ironclad fleet sailed by the batteries.
  The flotilla rendezvoused with Grant below the
  fort and transported the troops across the river.
  In one of the most brilliant gambles of the war,
  Grant cut himself off from his base in the midst
  of enemy territory with numerically inferior
  forces. The gamble paid off. Grant drove one
  Confederate Army from the city of Jackson, then
  turned and defeated a second force at Champion's
  Hill, forcing the rebels to withdraw to Vicksburg
  on May 20. Union troops laid siege to Vicksburg,
  and on July 4 the garrison surrendered.

18
Significance of Vicksbrg

• Thus, the Confederacy was cut in two. Coming at
  the same time as the Northern victory at
  Gettysburg, this was the turning point of the
  war.

19
Lookout Mountain

• Grant was given command of the Western
  Department, and in the fall of 1863 he took
  command of the Union Army pinned down at
  Chattanooga after its defeat in the Battle of
  Chickamauga. In a series of battles on November
  23, 24, and 25, the rejuvenated Northern troops
  dislodged the besieging Confederates, the most
  spirited infantry charge of the war climaxing the
  encounter. It was a great victory Congress
  created the rank of lieutenant general for Grant,
  who was placed in command of all the armies of
  the Union.

20

• Grant was at the summit of his career. A reticent
  man, unimpressive in physical appearance, he gave
  few clues to the reasons for his success. He
  rarely communicated his thinking he was the
  epitome of the strong, silent type. But Grant had
  deep resources of character, a quietly forceful
  personality that won the respect and confidence
  of subordinates, and a decisiveness and bulldog
  tenacity that served him well in planning and
  carrying out military operations.

21

• In the spring of 1864 the Union armies launched a
  coordinated offensive designed to bring the war
  to an end. However, Lee brilliantly staved off
  Grant's stronger Army of the Potomac in a series
  of battles in Virginia. Union forces suffered
  fearful losses, especially at Cold Harbor, while
  war weariness and criticism of Grant as a
  "butcher" mounted in the North.

22

• Lee moved into entrenchments at Petersburg, Va.,
  and Grant settled down there for a long siege.
  Meanwhile, Gen. William T. Sherman captured
  Atlanta and began his march through Georgia,
  South Carolina, and North Carolina, cutting what
  remained of the Confederacy into pieces. In the
  spring of 1865 Lee fell back to Appomattox, where
  on April 9 he met Grant in the courthouse to
  receive the generous terms of surrender.

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Postwar

• Grant's postwar career was decidedly
  anticlimactic. To be sure, he was elected as a
  Republican to two terms as president (1869-1877),
  but his administrations were marred by indecisive
  leadership, an inconsistent policy on southern
  Reconstruction, and massive corruption. Coupled
  with a severe economic depression that began in
  1873, administration scandals cost Grant much of
  his popularity. Nonetheless, his presidency did
  have some solid accomplishments. The Treaty of
  Washington in 1872 resolved a major dispute with
  Great Britain over damages inflicted on American
  shipping by Confederate raiders built in British
  shipyards during the Civil War. The Enforcement
  Acts of 1870-1871 broke the power of the Ku Klux
  Klan in the Reconstruction South, and the Civil
  Rights Act of 1875 marked an unprecedented
  attempt to extend federal protection of black
  civil rights to areas of public accommodations.

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Grant Memorial