Early life

Hiram Ulysses Grant was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio, on April 27, 1822. He was the son of Jesse Root Grant, a tanner and farmer, and Hannah Simpson. When Ulysses was a year old, the family moved a few miles east to Georgetown. There his father bought a farm and set up a tannery of his own.

Lyss, as Grant was called, spent his childhood doing chores on the farm. He loved horses and learned to manage them at an early age. For three months each winter he went to a one-room schoolhouse.

Army career

When Lyss was 17, his father obtained for him an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. The appointment was mistakenly made under the name Ulysses S. Grant, leaving out Hiram and adding his mother's name, Simpson. Grant was happy with the new name. He came to be known as U.S. Grant—Uncle Sam Grant. His classmates called him Sam.

Grant did not care for military life and never expected to stay in the Army. Nevertheless, he was the finest horseman at West Point. He graduated in 1843.

Grant was then assigned to a military post near St. Louis, Missouri. From 1846 to 1848 he fought in almost every battle of the Mexican War. The United States victory over Mexico in this conflict added more than 500,000 square miles (1.3 million square kilometers) of Mexican territory to the United States.

Marriage and resignation from the Army

After returning from Mexico, Grant married Julia Dent, the sister of his roommate at West Point. They had four children—three sons and a daughter.

In 1852 Grant left his family to begin an assignment on the Pacific coast. He was promoted to captain in 1853. The next year Grant, lonely and homesick, resigned from the Army and returned home to Missouri.

Grant settled with his family at the Dent family's estate near St. Louis. He tried his hand at farming, but he was unsuccessful. A real estate partnership in St. Louis also failed. Finally he joined his brothers in their leather business in Galena, Illinois.

Civil War

When the Civil War broke out in April 1861, President Abraham Lincoln asked for volunteers for the Union army. Grant immediately began to help recruit and train troops in Galena. He was made colonel in charge of a volunteer regiment and was soon promoted to brigadier general.

Grant proved himself to be a skillful military leader. In February 1862 he and his forces won the first major Union victory of the war at Fort Donelson in Tennessee. During the battle Grant refused to accept any terms except unconditional surrender by the Confederate commander. From that point on Grant was widely known as Unconditional Surrender Grant, after his initials. After this battle Grant was promoted to major general.

In 1863 Grant led brilliant Union victories at Vicksburg, Mississippi, and Chattanooga, Tennessee. The next year he was given command of all the Union armies. Grant himself took charge of the campaign against the Confederate general Robert E. Lee. Grant accepted Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House in Virginia on April 9, 1865. This surrender, in effect, marked the end of the Civil War.

The presidency

In 1866 Grant was made a general, the highest rank in the Army. Two years later the Republican Party nominated him for president. He accepted with a note ending with the words, “Let us have peace.” Grant defeated his Democratic opponent, Horatio Seymour, and took office in March 1869. He was reelected in 1872.

President Grant faced many serious problems, most of them resulting from the Civil War. The war had brought poverty and desolation to the South. Grant had to continue the difficult process of reconstructing the Union, which had begun under presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson.

Grant was a so-called Radical Republican who favored harsh policies against the defeated Southern states. He also supported civil rights for former slaves. Grant worked for adoption of the 15th Amendment to the Constitution, which gave blacks the right to vote. In 1871 he helped win passage of the Ku Klux Klan Act, which suppressed the racist activities of that group. However, he was not very effective in enforcing these civil-rights laws.

Grant's popularity declined in his second term because of a series of political scandals. The public learned that prominent Republican politicians had accepted bribes from new railways in the West. In 1874 the Whiskey Ring scandal was uncovered. In this controversy, high-ranking government officials helped whiskey makers avoid paying taxes to the federal treasury.

Later life

After leaving office in 1877, Grant toured Europe and Asia with his family. He was honored everywhere as the man who had saved the American Union. Upon returning to the United States, he bought a home in New York City.

In the 1880s Grant lost most of his money in a business venture. To pay off his debts he began to write the story of his life. He continued the task even after he learned he had cancer. Grant finished his book about a week before his death, which came on July 23, 1885. A granite tomb was erected in his memory on Riverside Drive in New York City. In 1959 it became a national memorial.