Late in
the administration of Andrew Johnson, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
quarreled with the President and aligned himself with the
Radical Republicans. He was, as the symbol of Union victory
during the Civil War, their logical candidate for President in
1868.
When he
was elected, the American people hoped for an end to turmoil.
Grant provided neither vigor nor reform. Looking to Congress
for direction, he seemed bewildered. One visitor to the White
House noted "a puzzled pathos, as of a man with a problem
before him of which he does not understand the terms."
Born in
1822, Grant was the son of an Ohio tanner. He went to West
Point rather against his will and graduated in the middle of
his class. In the Mexican War he fought under Gen. Zachary
Taylor.
At the
outbreak of the Civil War, Grant was working in his father's
leather store in Galena, Illinois. He was appointed by the
Governor to command an unruly volunteer regiment. Grant
whipped it into shape and by September 1861 he had risen to
the rank of brigadier general of volunteers.
He
sought to win control of the Mississippi Valley. In February
1862 he took Fort Henry and attacked Fort Donelson. When the
Confederate commander asked for terms, Grant replied, "No
terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be
accepted." The Confederates surrendered, and President
Lincoln promoted Grant to major general of volunteers.
At
Shiloh in April, Grant fought one of the bloodiest battles in
the West and came out less well. President Lincoln fended off
demands for his removal by saying, "I can't spare this
man--he fights."
For his
next major objective, Grant maneuvered and fought skillfully
to win Vicksburg, the key city on the Mississippi, and thus
cut the Confederacy in two. Then he broke the Confederate hold
on Chattanooga.
Lincoln
appointed him General-in-Chief in March 1864. Grant directed
Sherman to drive through the South while he himself, with the
Army of the Potomac, pinned down Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of
Northern Virginia.
Finally,
on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House, Lee surrendered.
Grant wrote out magnanimous terms of surrender that would
prevent treason trials.
As
President, Grant presided over the Government much as he had
run the Army. Indeed he brought part of his Army staff to the
White House.
Although
a man of scrupulous honesty, Grant as President accepted
handsome presents from admirers. Worse, he allowed himself to
be seen with two speculators, Jay Gould and James Fisk. When
Grant realized their scheme to corner the market in gold, he
authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to sell enough gold
to wreck their plans, but the speculation had already wrought
havoc with business.
During
his campaign for re-election in 1872, Grant was attacked by
Liberal Republican reformers. He called them
"narrow-headed men," their eyes so close together
that "they can look out of the same gimlet hole without
winking." The General's friends in the Republican Party
came to be known proudly as "the Old Guard."
Grant
allowed Radical Reconstruction to run its course in the South,
bolstering it at times with military force.
After
retiring from the Presidency, Grant became a partner in a
financial firm, which went bankrupt. About that time he
learned that he had cancer of the throat. He started writing
his recollections to pay off his debts and provide for his
family, racing against death to produce a memoir that
ultimately earned nearly $450,000. Soon after completing the
last page, in 1885, he died.
-
Ulysses
Grant