Ulysses S. Grant Ironically, Ulysses

Ulysses S. Grant Ironically, Ulysses S. Grant was a rather unremarkable youth who failed at every occupation he attempted, until that is, he entered the U.S. Army where his talents of leadership secured the unity of the United States. William T. Sherman marveled at Grant's self-confidence, his equanimity, his resilience and determination, however he could not explain the secret of his friend's success (Simpson xvii). Sherman once remarked, "I knew him as a cadet at West Point...and as a growing general all through the bloody Civil War.

Yet to me he is a mystery, and I believe he is a mystery to himself" (Simpson xvii). Grant was called the American Sphinx, and remains what a newspaper reporter once called him, "an unpronounceable man" (Simpson xvii). Walt Whitman said of Grant, "In all Homer and Shakespeare there is no fortune or personality really more picturesque or rapidly changing, more full of heroism, pathos, contrast" (Simpson xix).

But perhaps Theodore Lyman best expressed the fascination some people have about Grant when he observed in 1864, "He is the concentration of all that is American" (Simpson xix). Hiram Ulysses Grant, born April 27, 1822, grew up in Georgetown, Ohio. His childhood was spent in school and helping earn his keep by doing chores like other frontier children (Ulysses).

His father, Jesse Root Grant, owned a tannery, but Hiram detested everything about the business, thus realizing his son would never be a businessman, Hiram was sent to the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1839 (Ulysses). When he arrived at the academy, he discovered his name was not listed on the roster, however there was a U.S. Grant listed, thus rather than risk refusal and add confusion, Hiram changed his name then and there, and Ulysses S. Grant was born (Ulysses).

Grant was not a particularly outstanding student. He excelled in mathematics, horsemanship and art, but graduated 21st out of 39 cadets in his class, and like most cadets, planned to resign after his tour of duty (Ulysses). Following graduation, Grant was stationed in St. Louis, Missouri, and while there visited a former roommate, Frederick Dent.

He soon fell in love with Fred's sister, Julia, but before they could marry, he was sent to the Mexican War, of which he wrote in later years that it was "one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation" (Ulysses). He served officially as a quartermaster, but he also saw action and demonstrated heroism under fire. The war allowed Grant to learn from the successes and failures of generals Winfield Scott and Zachary Taylor (Ulysses).

Following the war, Grant, Julie and their son Fred led a peaceful life, until he was transferred to Fort Vancouver in 1852. With his family left behind, Grant lost money in business ventures, became depressed, began to drink, and resigned from the Army in 1854 (Ulysses). The family moved to Missouri and farmed land given to them by Julie's father. By 1857, after several years of failed crops, Grant moved to St.

Louis, where is failed at several business ventures, then eventually moved his family to Galena, Illinois and took a job as a clerk in his father's leather business (Ulysses). Shortly after the Civil War began in 1861, Grant became a battlefield commander, winning the Union's first major victory when he captured Fort Donelson in Tennessee and in April 1862 he turned back the Confederates at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee (Ulysses).

Although Shiloh was a victory, it was also the bloodiest battle the country had yet witnessed (some twenty-four thousand men killed, wounded, or missing during two days of fighting), leading to rumors of that Grant was drunk and negligent (Lasner). In fact, according to Lynn Fabian Lasner, Grant was relieved of his command, and even considered resigning, but Sherman persuaded him to stay (Lasner). Due to Lincoln's loyalty, he was placed back in command, with the goal of capturing the fortified town of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River (Lasner).

Lasner writes, his "army marched 180 miles in three weeks, fought and won five battles on the way, and besieged the city for forty-eight days. On the fourth of July, 1863, the thirty thousand defenders of Vicksburg surrendered" (Lasner). This victory divided the Confederacy, and at last gave Grant an arena for success, the battlefield (Lasner). In March 1864, Lincoln appointed Grant as General-in-Chief of the Union Army.

While Sherman drove through the South, Grant used the Army of the Potomac to circle General Lee's Army, using City Point, Virginia as the Headquarters of the Armies of the United States (Ulysses1). From here, Grant directed the various Union troops across the country, with the main goal being to destroy Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, and as he and Sherman moved farther into Confederate strongholds, it became apparent that the last battles of the war were close at hand (Ulysses1).

Lincoln traveled to City Point, and between March 20 and April 8, 1865, he met with Grant, Sherman and other key officers to discuss the final push into Petersburg and the conditions for reuniting the nation when the war ended (Ulysses1). Grant then moved his headquarters to Petersburg so he would be near the final battleground, and his military strategy proved correct, for Lee was defeated at Petersburg, and surrendered at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865 (Ulysses1).

Under Grant's command, Union troops had pierced the heart of the South by destroying homes, farms and factories, until the Southerners had no will to fight (Ulysses). Grant's terms of surrender were generous and helped begin the process of healing the nation into a whole again (Ulysses1). Grant had entered the war as a failure, a man who could barely provide for his family, and after four bloody years of war, he emerged as a national hero.

Although Grant had no intention of a political life, after Lincoln was assassinated, he felt pulled into service. By March of 1868, President Andrew Johnson was impeached for several reasons, including neglecting to enforce the Reconstruction Acts, and while impeachment proceedings were still under way, the Republicans nominated Grant as their presidential candidate (Lasner). Grant accepted and his campaign slogan echoed the sentiments of the time, "Let us have peace" (Lasner).

Elizabeth Deane writes that Grant presided over a crucial period in American history and is not the failed president that many believe, "This is a man who held the country together at a time when it could easily have come apart, and who stood up for the rights of African-Americans during those terrible, violent years" (Lasner).

Grant searched for solutions to the violence, and even tried to annex the independent nation of Santo Domingo as a haven for African-Americans who might want to emigrate, but the Senate defeated the treaty (Lasner). He sent federal troops to stop the violence of the Ku Klux Klan in South Carolina.

Historian Eric Foner notes, "Possibly the most massive Klan action anywhere in the South came four-month later when five hundred masked men assaulted a Union County jail and lynched eight prisoners," an act that led Congress to pass the Enforcement Act which classified the Klan's activities as a rebellion against the federal government (Lasner). Grant's troops made hundreds of arrests and forced thousands of Klansmen to flee South Carolina, and in all more than three thousand indictments were issued from federal grand juries (Lasner).

Foner remarks that Grant's tactics, "produced a dramatic decline in violence throughout the South" (Lasner). Throughout his two terms in office, Grant worked tirelessly to unite the North and South, and even met with Native American leaders, including.