For some of us, the earliest memories of the name Ulysses Simpson Grant may not have been from words spoken by scholars about his bravery on the battlefields during the American Civil War or his two-term presidency.
It was, rather, the association made by comic, Groucho Marx, asking on his wild and wacky quiz show, “You Bet Your Life,” the inevitable booby prize question: “Who's buried in Grant's tomb?” Despite the obvious response, some contestants answered incorrectly, and the late general and 18th president of the United States probably rolled over many times in his mausoleum on Riverside Drive and 122nd Street in New York City.
But who was this reluctant soldier who became a general and an even more reluctant politician and president, and what legacy did he leave to his country?
Hiram Ulysses Grant was born in 1822, the son of an Ohio tanner. He became Ulysses S. Grant through some confusion during his tenure at West Point where he didn't want to attend and from where in 1843, he graduated 21 out of a class of 39 cadets. At the Academy, he developed a reputation as a fearless and consummate horseman.
He served as quartermaster during the Mexican War, fighting first under the command of General Zachary Taylor whom he greatly admired and then in Winfield Scott's army, which operated from the coast. Twice he was brevetted for bravery in the battles of Molino del Rey and Capultepec. With the resumption of peace, he was stationed in Mexico. Unhappy because he was separated from his wife, Julia Boggs Dent Grant whom he loved dearly, he tried unsuccessfully several times to raise enough capital for her to join him.
He began to use whiskey as a companion on those lonely nights away from home. Although an exemplary soldier, Grant's heavy drinking caused him to resign from his post as captain in July of 1854. He was also known to be a heavy cigar smoker, and one tale asserts that he smoked more than 10,000 of them during the course of the Civil War. Although this seems exaggerated, if it is so, it may have contributed to the throat cancer that claimed his life some thirty years later.
As a civilian, Grant found it difficult to gain a foothold, and he failed at farming, real estate and other business ventures in St. Louis. His two younger brothers, who now ran the family tannery, gave him a job as a store clerk. Grant was working in his father's leather store in Galena, Illinois, when the Civil War broke out.
He offered his services to the War Department and specifically to General George B. McClellan in Oho, but he got no appointment until with the help of local Congressman, Elihu Wasburne, he organized a group of state volunteers for the war effort. The Governor of Ohio, Richard Yates, recognizing Grant was a West Point graduate, appointed him Colonel of the 21st Illinois Infantry on June 17, 1861, an undisciplined and rebellious regiment.
On August 7th, Abraham Lincoln promoted Grant to brigadier general of volunteers, largely influenced by his congressional backing. Dubbed by military historian, J.F.C. Fuller as “the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age,” Grant was known for his cool determination in the face of conflict. He fought his first important battle in November of 1861, at the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky.
Three months later, aided by gunboats, he captured Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River, which marked the first two Union victories of the War. The “unconditional surrender” of Confederate General Buckner's 14,000 men made Grant a national hero overnight and he was nicknamed “Unconditional Surrender” Grant.
In early April of 1862, the Confederates led by Generals Beauregard and Johnston, sprung a surprise attack on Grant's army at the Battle of Shiloh. Grant refused to retreat and stabilized his line with the grim determination and resolve that was the hallmark of his leadership. With the arrival of reinforcements, he forged a counterattack. Although he turned a serious reverse into a Union victory, it was at the cost of 23,000 casualties, making the battle of Shiloh the bloodiest ever fought in the Unites States up until that time.
The next big challenge was the capture of the Mississippi River and its main fortress, Vicksburg. During the winter of 1862-1863, Grant's attempts to gain access though the region's bayous failed. He then developed one of the most brilliant strategies ever conceived to capture the city. He led his troops across the Mississippi by using US Navy ships and swiftly moved inland.
In so doing, he daringly cut himself loose from most of his supply lines, never giving the enemy the opportunity to concentrate their forces. His army swept eastward, capturing Jackson, Mississippi, and thus crippling the rail-line to Vicksburg in July of 1863. He was awarded a major generally after this important victory, and was given charge of all of the armies of the West.
The next winter (1864), Grant was given command of all the Union armies. Sharing headquarters with General George Meade's Army of the Potomac, he swung south of Richmond, pursuing Robert E. Lee for ten months with unrelenting force to Appomattox, which finally ended the war. At the same time, other armies under Grant's direction had torn the Confederacy apart.
After the war, Grant was put in charge of the military aspects of Reconstruction. Andrew Johnson forced him to replace Edward Stanton as Secretary of War in his fight with the Radical Republicans. Grant became the Republican Party's nominee for president in 1868. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and the youngest man (46) at the time to be elected President.
He served two terms and although he was basically an honest man, his administration couldn't have been more corrupt, especially in terms of scandals involving the Whiskey tax and Indian agents. Although he did his best to maintain peace with the Indians, the massacre of George Armstrong Custer and the Seventh Cavalry occurred during his Presidency.
Presidential historians generally rate Grant in the lowest quartile because of the widespread political and financial corruption that he tolerated even though he did not profit from any of it. Today scholars are a lot kinder, recognizing his political naiveté and his administration's support of civil rights, particularly for the African Americans but also for other minority groups.
No matter what his strengths or weaknesses, as our eighteenth president, Ulysses Simpson Grant was a brilliant, fearless general and military strategist whose courage and leadership helped to win the most tragic war in American history, which helped to define America both as a nation and as a people.
