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{{Infobox_President | name=Ulysses S. Grant|nickname="Unconditional Surrender" Grant| nationality=American| image=Ulysses Grant 1870-1880.jpg| order=18th President of the United States, [1869, [1877| successor=[Rutherford B. Hayes| death_date=| death_place=[Wilton, New York| spouse=Julia Grant| occupation=Soldier (General)].| party=Republican Party (United States)| vicepresident=Schuyler Colfax (1869-1873),Ulysses S. Grant,See #Military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885), was an United States general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869–1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union (American Civil War) general in the American Civil War, capturing Battle of Vicksburg in 1863 and Richmond, Virginia in 1865. He accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House.

After service in the Mexican-American War, an undistinguished peacetime military career, and a series of unsuccessful civilian jobs, Grant returned to service in 1861 at the outset of the Civil War and proved highly successful in training new recruits. His capture of Battle of Fort Henry and Battle of Fort Donelson in February 1862 marked the first major Union victories of the Civil War and opened up prime avenues of invasion to the South. Surprised and nearly defeated at Battle of Shiloh (April 1862), he fought back and took control of most of western Kentucky and Tennessee. His great achievement in 1862-63 was to seize control of the Mississippi River by defeating a series of Confederate States of America armies and by capturing Battle of Vicksburg in July 1863. After a victory at Third Battle of Chattanooga in late 1863, Abraham Lincoln made him general-in-chief of all Union Army.

Grant was the first Union general in the war to initiate coordinated offensives across multiple theaters. While his subordinates William Tecumseh Sherman and Philip Sheridan marched through Sherman's March to the Sea and the Shenandoah Valley respectively, Grant personally supervised the 1864 Overland Campaign against General Robert E. Lee's Army in Virginia. He employed attrition warfare against his opponent, conducting a series of large-scale battles with very high casualties that alarmed public opinion, while maneuvering ever closer to the Confederate capital, Richmond, Virginia. Grant announced he would "fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." Lincoln supported his general and replaced his losses, and Lee's dwindling army was forced into defending trenches around Richmond and Siege of Petersburg. In April 1865 Grant's vastly larger army broke through, captured Richmond, and forced Lee to surrender at Battle of Appomattox Courthouse. He has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.

Grant announced generous terms for his defeated foes, and pursued a policy of peace. He broke with President Andrew Johnson in 1867, and was elected president as a History of the United States Republican Party in 1868. He was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed. He blocked civil service reforms and defeated the Liberal Republican Party (United States) in 1872, driving out many of its founders. The Panic of 1873 pushed the nation into a Economic depression that Grant was helpless to reverse. Historical rankings of United States Presidents typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for Civil Rights for African American history.See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.

Birth and early years , Georgetown, OhioGrant was born in a small log cabin in Point Pleasant, Ohio, Clermont County, Ohio, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati, Ohio on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794–1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798–1883). His father, a tanner, and his mother were born in Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown, Ohio in Brown County, Ohio.

Family On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826–1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. (Buck) Grant, Jr., Ellen (Nellie) Wrenshall Grant, and Jesse Root Grant.

Military career {{Infobox Military Person|name= Ulysses S. Grant|lived=|placeofbirth=|placeofdeath=|image= |caption= Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, portrait by Mathew Brady|serviceyears= 1839-1854, 1861-1868|rank= General of the Army (four star)|commands=|battles= [Mexican-American War, American Civil War at [West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio,"Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school Academic administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form.Grant, Memoirs, 1952 ed., footnote by E.B. Long, sourced from the Dictionary of American Biography. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only.Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.

, painting by Emanuel Leutze.

Mexican-American War Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846–1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Battle of Resaca de la Palma, Battle of Palo Alto, Battle of Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Battle of Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Battle of Molino del Rey and Battle of Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.

Between wars After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt State Historic Park, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial.According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton (General), "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name."McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation".

A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys).His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area.McFeely, ch. 5.

Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew John C. Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican.Hesseltine, chapter 6.

Civil War Western Theater: 1861–63 of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, Illinois, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates (governor) to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment in June 1861.

Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.

In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.

Battles of Belmont, Henry, and Donelson Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederate States Army violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Battle of Belmont, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Battle of Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Battle of Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr., an old friend of Grant's and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers.

Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.

Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased towards him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.

Shiloh , photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.

The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in First Battle of Corinth. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Second Battle of Corinth and Battle of Iuka that fall.

Vicksburg In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg Campaign, Grant spent the winter of 1862–1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.

However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and—in a daring move that defied conventional military principles—cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles Anderson Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.

Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week Battle of Vicksburg. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Battle of Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the Turning point of the American Civil War of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.

A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."

Chattanooga After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George Henry Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas's chief engineer, William Farrar Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.

Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga III started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas's men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.

Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him Lieutenant General (United States) in the regular army—a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet (military) appointment), recently re-authorized by the Congress of the United States with Grant in mind—on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.

General-in-Chief and strategy for victory In March 1864, Grant put Major General William Tecumseh Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician) against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia (U.S. state), defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Prentiss Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.

Overland Campaign, Petersburg, and Appomattox The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.

The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.

Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.

The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Battle of Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000–7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River (Virginia).

Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a Siege of Petersburg.

As the summer drew on and with Grant's and William Tecumseh Sherman armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration (government) simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.

In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Valley Campaigns of 1864 to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his Sherman's March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas Campaign.

At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.

Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.

Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democratic Party (United States) who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.

Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius:Korda, (2004)

After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army.Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.

Reconstruction: Grant and Johnson As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the History of the United States Republican Party presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In U.S. presidential election, 1868, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.

Presidency 1869–1877 The first president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In United States presidential election, 1872 he won by a landslide against the Liberal Republican Party (United States) that nominated Horace Greeley.

Reconstruction Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South—sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Dominican Republic as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.

Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed.

Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006.

Panic of 1873 The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.

By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker.Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes:Nevins, Fish 2:811

In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Rutherford B. Hayes-Samuel J. Tilden U.S. presidential election, 1876; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson.

Foreign affairs In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington (1871), negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Dominican Republic. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republican Party (United States) in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska (1868) to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia.

Scandals The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday (1869), a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk (financier). They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud.

The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. United States Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native Americans in the United States trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.

Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first Vice President of the United States, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the United States presidential election, 1872 with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.

, and son, Jesse Root Grant, in 1872.Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."

Anti-Semitism Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11 (1862), issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:

The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart — opportunistic traders who were Jewish.McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order had signed he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them."Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."

The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 U.S. presidential election, 1868, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.

Administration and Cabinet by Chief Justice of the United States Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.{{Infobox U.S. Cabinet]|Vice President start=1869|Vice President end=1873|Vice President 2=Henry Wilson|State date=1869|State 2=[Hamilton Fish|War date=1869|War 2=[William T. Sherman|War start 3=1869|War end 3=1876|War 4=[Alphonso Taft|War start 5=1876|War end 5=1877|Treasury=[George S. Boutwell|Treasury start 2=1873|Treasury end 2=1874|Treasury 3=[Benjamin Bristow|Treasury start 3=1874|Treasury end 3=1876|Treasury 4=Lot M. Morrill|Justice start=1869|Justice end=1870|Justice 2=[Amos T. Akerman|Justice start 3=1871|Justice end 3=1875|Justice 4=[Edwards Pierrepont|Justice start 5=1876|Justice end 5=1877|Post=[John A. J. Creswell|Post date 2=1874|Post 3=[Marshall Jewell|Post start 4=1876|Post end 4=1877|Navy=[Adolph E. Borie|Navy start 2=1869|Navy end 2=1877|Interior=[Jacob D. Cox|Interior start 2=1870|Interior end 2=1875|Interior 3=[Zachariah Chandler|Interior start 3=1875|Interior end 3=1877-->

Supreme Court appointments Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:

• Edwin M. Stanton – 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
• William Strong (judge) – 1870
• Joseph P. Bradley – 1870
• Ward Hunt – 1873
• Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice of the United States) – 1874

States admitted to the Union

• Colorado – August 1, 1876

Government agencies instituted

• United States Department of Justice (1870)
• Office of the United States Solicitor General (1870)
• "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
• Office of the Surgeon General of the United States (1871)
• Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)

Post Presidency World Tour After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent two years (from May 17, 3PM, 1877 to 1879) traveling around the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress Shōken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.

In 1879, the Meiji period government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.

Third Term attempt in 1880 In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men.Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the Republican National Convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated {{Infobox_President | name=Ulysses S. Grant|nickname="Unconditional Surrender" Grant| nationality=American| image=Ulysses Grant 1870-1880.jpg| order=18th President of the United States, [1869, [1877| successor=[Rutherford B. Hayes| death_date=| death_place=[Wilton, New York| spouse=Julia Grant| occupation=Soldier (General)].| party=Republican Party (United States)| vicepresident=Schuyler Colfax (1869-1873),Ulysses S. Grant,See #Military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885), was an United States general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869–1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union (American Civil War) general in the American Civil War, capturing Battle of Vicksburg in 1863 and Richmond, Virginia in 1865. He accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House.

After service in the Mexican-American War, an undistinguished peacetime military career, and a series of unsuccessful civilian jobs, Grant returned to service in 1861 at the outset of the Civil War and proved highly successful in training new recruits. His capture of Battle of Fort Henry and Battle of Fort Donelson in February 1862 marked the first major Union victories of the Civil War and opened up prime avenues of invasion to the South. Surprised and nearly defeated at Battle of Shiloh (April 1862), he fought back and took control of most of western Kentucky and Tennessee. His great achievement in 1862-63 was to seize control of the Mississippi River by defeating a series of Confederate States of America armies and by capturing Battle of Vicksburg in July 1863. After a victory at Third Battle of Chattanooga in late 1863, Abraham Lincoln made him general-in-chief of all Union Army.

Grant was the first Union general in the war to initiate coordinated offensives across multiple theaters. While his subordinates William Tecumseh Sherman and Philip Sheridan marched through Sherman's March to the Sea and the Shenandoah Valley respectively, Grant personally supervised the 1864 Overland Campaign against General Robert E. Lee's Army in Virginia. He employed attrition warfare against his opponent, conducting a series of large-scale battles with very high casualties that alarmed public opinion, while maneuvering ever closer to the Confederate capital, Richmond, Virginia. Grant announced he would "fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." Lincoln supported his general and replaced his losses, and Lee's dwindling army was forced into defending trenches around Richmond and Siege of Petersburg. In April 1865 Grant's vastly larger army broke through, captured Richmond, and forced Lee to surrender at Battle of Appomattox Courthouse. He has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.

Grant announced generous terms for his defeated foes, and pursued a policy of peace. He broke with President Andrew Johnson in 1867, and was elected president as a History of the United States Republican Party in 1868. He was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed. He blocked civil service reforms and defeated the Liberal Republican Party (United States) in 1872, driving out many of its founders. The Panic of 1873 pushed the nation into a Economic depression that Grant was helpless to reverse. Historical rankings of United States Presidents typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for Civil Rights for African American history.See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.

Birth and early years , Georgetown, OhioGrant was born in a small log cabin in Point Pleasant, Ohio, Clermont County, Ohio, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati, Ohio on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794–1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798–1883). His father, a tanner, and his mother were born in Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown, Ohio in Brown County, Ohio.

Family On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826–1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. (Buck) Grant, Jr., Ellen (Nellie) Wrenshall Grant, and Jesse Root Grant.

Military career {{Infobox Military Person|name= Ulysses S. Grant|lived=|placeofbirth=|placeofdeath=|image= |caption= Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, portrait by Mathew Brady|serviceyears= 1839-1854, 1861-1868|rank= General of the Army (four star)|commands=|battles= [Mexican-American War, American Civil War at [West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio,"Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school Academic administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form.Grant, Memoirs, 1952 ed., footnote by E.B. Long, sourced from the Dictionary of American Biography. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only.Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.

, painting by Emanuel Leutze.

Mexican-American War Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846–1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Battle of Resaca de la Palma, Battle of Palo Alto, Battle of Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Battle of Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Battle of Molino del Rey and Battle of Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.

Between wars After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt State Historic Park, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial.According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton (General), "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name."McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation".

A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys).His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area.McFeely, ch. 5.

Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew John C. Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican.Hesseltine, chapter 6.

Civil War Western Theater: 1861–63 of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, Illinois, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates (governor) to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment in June 1861.

Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.

In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.

Battles of Belmont, Henry, and Donelson Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederate States Army violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Battle of Belmont, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Battle of Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Battle of Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr., an old friend of Grant's and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers.

Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.

Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased towards him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.

Shiloh , photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.

The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in First Battle of Corinth. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Second Battle of Corinth and Battle of Iuka that fall.

Vicksburg In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg Campaign, Grant spent the winter of 1862–1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.

However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and—in a daring move that defied conventional military principles—cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles Anderson Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.

Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week Battle of Vicksburg. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Battle of Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the Turning point of the American Civil War of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.

A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."

Chattanooga After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George Henry Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas's chief engineer, William Farrar Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.

Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga III started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas's men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.

Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him Lieutenant General (United States) in the regular army—a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet (military) appointment), recently re-authorized by the Congress of the United States with Grant in mind—on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.

General-in-Chief and strategy for victory In March 1864, Grant put Major General William Tecumseh Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician) against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia (U.S. state), defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Prentiss Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.

Overland Campaign, Petersburg, and Appomattox The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.

The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.

Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.

The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Battle of Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000–7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River (Virginia).

Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a Siege of Petersburg.

As the summer drew on and with Grant's and William Tecumseh Sherman armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration (government) simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.

In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Valley Campaigns of 1864 to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his Sherman's March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas Campaign.

At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.

Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.

Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democratic Party (United States) who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.

Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius:Korda, (2004)

After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army.Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.

Reconstruction: Grant and Johnson As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the History of the United States Republican Party presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In U.S. presidential election, 1868, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.

Presidency 1869–1877 The first president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In United States presidential election, 1872 he won by a landslide against the Liberal Republican Party (United States) that nominated Horace Greeley.

Reconstruction Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South—sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Dominican Republic as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.

Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed.

Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006.

Panic of 1873 The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.

By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker.Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes:Nevins, Fish 2:811

In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Rutherford B. Hayes-Samuel J. Tilden U.S. presidential election, 1876; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson.

Foreign affairs In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington (1871), negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Dominican Republic. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republican Party (United States) in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska (1868) to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia.

Scandals The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday (1869), a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk (financier). They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud.

The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. United States Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native Americans in the United States trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.

Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first Vice President of the United States, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the United States presidential election, 1872 with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.

, and son, Jesse Root Grant, in 1872.Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."

Anti-Semitism Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11 (1862), issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:

The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart — opportunistic traders who were Jewish.McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order had signed he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them."Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."

The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 U.S. presidential election, 1868, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.

Administration and Cabinet by Chief Justice of the United States Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.{{Infobox U.S. Cabinet]|Vice President start=1869|Vice President end=1873|Vice President 2=Henry Wilson|State date=1869|State 2=[Hamilton Fish|War date=1869|War 2=[William T. Sherman|War start 3=1869|War end 3=1876|War 4=[Alphonso Taft|War start 5=1876|War end 5=1877|Treasury=[George S. Boutwell|Treasury start 2=1873|Treasury end 2=1874|Treasury 3=[Benjamin Bristow|Treasury start 3=1874|Treasury end 3=1876|Treasury 4=Lot M. Morrill|Justice start=1869|Justice end=1870|Justice 2=[Amos T. Akerman|Justice start 3=1871|Justice end 3=1875|Justice 4=[Edwards Pierrepont|Justice start 5=1876|Justice end 5=1877|Post=[John A. J. Creswell|Post date 2=1874|Post 3=[Marshall Jewell|Post start 4=1876|Post end 4=1877|Navy=[Adolph E. Borie|Navy start 2=1869|Navy end 2=1877|Interior=[Jacob D. Cox|Interior start 2=1870|Interior end 2=1875|Interior 3=[Zachariah Chandler|Interior start 3=1875|Interior end 3=1877-->

Supreme Court appointments Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:

• Edwin M. Stanton – 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
• William Strong (judge) – 1870
• Joseph P. Bradley – 1870
• Ward Hunt – 1873
• Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice of the United States) – 1874

States admitted to the Union

• Colorado – August 1, 1876

Government agencies instituted

• United States Department of Justice (1870)
• Office of the United States Solicitor General (1870)
• "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
• Office of the Surgeon General of the United States (1871)
• Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)

Post Presidency World Tour After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent two years (from May 17, 3PM, 1877 to 1879) traveling around the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress Shōken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.

In 1879, the Meiji period government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.

Third Term attempt in 1880 In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men.Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the Republican National Convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated

Biography of Ulysses S. Grant
Short biography from the official White House site.

Ulysses S. Grant
Biographical article with links to related subjects and excerpts from Grant's memoirs.

Ulysses S. Grant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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