#18: Grant, Ulysses

Ulysses S. Grant

April 27, 1822, Pt. Pleasant, Ohio - July 23, 1885, McGregor, New York

What a beard!

• What's in a name? According to World Book, Grant was born Hiram Ulysses Grant. Hiram! That is totally going on my short list of names for my as-yet unborn sons. (Kidding, kidding... I don't have such a list, but if I did, Hiram would be way up top.) When he was seventeen, Grant's father found out that a neighbor's son had been dismissed from the U.S. Military Academy. He wrote his congressman to appoint Ulysses as a replacement (little 'Lyss had been going to school at an academy in Ripley, Ohio in the meantime). The congressman agreed, but when he made out the appointment he wrote it for "Ulysses S. Grant," mistakenly thinking the boy's middle name was his mother's maiden name, Simpson. 'Lyss never bothered to change it; "He thought his classmates might tease him about his real initials, 'H.U.G.'" Later, as a military commander, Grant earned the nickname "Unconditional Surrender Grant" after, on his own initiative, he took Fort Donelson in 1862 and refused to give the fort commander any concessions upon surrender. He was later called a "butcher" because he lost so many men in battle.
• Grant was the first West Point graduate to serve as president. After graduating in 1843, he fought in the Mexican War (including participating in the capture of Mexico City). He was later stationed in Detroit (hey-yo) and also Sackets Harbor, New York, before being sent to the West to serve at Fort Vancouver in the Oregon Territory and Fort Humboldt in California. Grant eventually resigned, preferring to return to be closer to his wife and four children. After a series of business failures, he returned to the Army in 1861 to fight for the Union (he freed his only slave in 1859). Grant quickly moved up the ranks from drill captain to colonel to brigadier general to lieutenant commander. He was ultimately named supreme commander of all Union armies by Lincoln in 1864. He led the North to victory and emerged from the Civil War a national hero. In the North, people admired him for his fierce tenacity and in the South people respected him for having given General Robert E. Lee generous terms of surrender.
• World Book refers to Grant as "trustworthy" and "shy and retiring." He was a talented horseman. His career outside the army as a young man was marked by business failures. He tried his hand as a farmer, a real estate agent, a landlord, and a store clerk. He was terrible at all of them. His unluckiness followed him after his presidency--in retirement he invested all of his savings (about $100,000) in a banking firm, for which his son, Ulysses, Jr., was a partner. The bank turned out to be run by a dishonest man and the company ultimately failed, leaving Grant almost penniless. In his old age, Grant turned to writing his memoirs for income. Mark Twain became his publisher. The memoirs earned his family $500,000!
  
• Grant's presidency (1869 - 1877) was marked by widespread political corruption--he vowed not to be ruled by professional politicians in his inaugural address and instead appointed personal friends and army officers to government offices. The spoils system quickly thrived and over the course of his two terms in office, government fraud ballooned. During his presidency, Grant presided over two financial panics: Black Friday (spurred by a gold speculation scandal) and the Panic of 1873 (spurred by the failure of several Eastern banks). All the while, Grant continued to accept personal gifts and his cabinet members accepted bribes left and right.
• Despite all the scandals, Grant succeeded in reducing the national debt. While he was president, the First Transcontinental Railroad System was completed, which I learned about from a Lucky Luke comic book, "Des Rails sur la Prairie." (Come to think of it, almost everything I know about the American West I learned from either Lucky Luke or the Magnificent Seven.) Grant also presided over the creation of Yellowstone National Park in 1872. Hooray for national parks! Hip hip...
  

Bonus drawing!
(that is a tree trunk Grant is leaning against, for your information)