Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses Simpson Grant, originally Hiram Ulysses Grant, in Civil War victoriously campaigned at Vicksburg from 1862 to 1863, and, made commander in chief of the Army in 1864, accepted the surrender of Robert Edward Lee, general, at Appomattox in 1865; widespread graft and corruption marred his two-term presidency, the eighteenth of the United States, from 1869 to 1877.
Robert Edward Lee surrendered to Ulysses Simpson Grant at Appomattox in 1865.
Robert Edward Lee, Confederate general, surrendered to Ulysses Simpson Grant, Union general, at the hamlet of Appomattox Court House on 9 April 1865 to end effectively the Civil War.
The son of an Appalachian tanner of Ohio, Ulysses Simpson Grant of America entered the military academy at 17 years of age in 1839. The academy graduated him in 1843. In 1846, three years afterward, Grant served as a lieutenant in the Mexican War under Winfield Scott and Zachary Taylor. The conflict concluded in 1848.
Grant abruptly resigned in 1854. After struggling through the succeeding years as a real estate agent, a laborer, and a county engineer, Grant decided to join the northern effort.
Abraham Lincoln appointed Grant to brigadier of volunteers in 1861; he in 1862 claimed the first major capture of fort Henry and fort Donelson in Tennessee. A Confederate attack at the battle of Shiloh surprised him, who emerged, but the severe casualties prompted a public outcry. Following many long initial setbacks and his rescue of the besieged at Chattanooga, however, Grant subsequently established his reputation as most aggression and success to Lincoln. Named lieutenant in 1864, Grant implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks, aimed at destroying ability of economy to sustain forces of the south. He mounted a successful attrition against his Confederate opponents to courthouse in 1865.
After Andrew Jackson, four decades earlier, people elected duly popular Grant as a Republican in 1868 and re-elected him in 1872 as the first to serve fully. Grant signed and enforced congressional rights legislation to lead Reconstruction.
Grant built a powerful, patronage-based Republican Party in the south and strained relations between the north and former Confederates. Sometimes, nepotism produced scandal of his Administration; people coined the neologism to describe his politics.
Grant left office in 1877 and embarked upon a two-year world tour. Unsuccessful in winning the nomination for a third in 1880, left destitute by a fraudulent investor, and near the brink of death, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which were enormously successful among veterans, the public, and critics. However, in 1884, Grant learned that he was suffering from terminal throat cancer and, two days after completing his writing, he died at the age of 63. Historians typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile for his tolerance, but in recent years his reputation has improved among some scholars impressed by his support for rights for African Americans.
“There are many men who would have done better than I did under the circumstances in which I found myself. If I had never held command, if I had fallen, there were 10,000 behind who would have followed the contest to the end and never surrendered the Union.”
“When the men were all back in their places in line, the command to advance was given. As I looked down that long line of about three thousand armed men, advancing towards a larger force also armed, I thought what a fearful responsibility General Taylor must feel, commanding such a host and so far away from friends. The Mexicans immediately opened fire upon us, first with artillery and then with infantry. At first their shots did not reach us, and the advance was continued. As we got nearer, the cannon balls commenced going through the ranks. They hurt no one, however, during this advance, because they would strike the ground long before they reached our line, and ricochetted through the tall grass so slowly that the men would see them and open ranks and let them pass.”
“The friend in my adversity I shall always cherish most. I can better trust those who have helped to relieve the gloom of my dark hours than those who are so ready to enjoy with me the sunshine of my prosperity.”
“No other terms than unconditional and immediate surrender. I propose to move immediately upon your works.”
“Leave the matter of religion to the family altar the church and the private school supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate.”
“In every battle there comes a time when both sides consider themselves beaten. Then he who continues the attack wins.”
“The distant rear of an army engaged in battle is not the best place from which to judge correctly what is going on in front.”
“I travelled through the Northwest considerably during the winter of 1860-61. We had customers in all the little towns in southwest Wisconsin, southeast Minnesota and northeast Iowa. These generally knew I had been a captain in the regular army and had served through the Mexican war. Consequently wherever I stopped for the night, some of the people would come to the public house where I was, and sit till a late hour discussing the probabilities of the future.”
“THE CAUSE of the great War of the Rebellion against the United Status will have to be attributed to slavery. For some years before the war began it was a trite saying among some politicians that "A state half slave and half free cannot exist." All must become slave or all free, or the state will go down. I took no part myself in any such view of the case at the time, but since the war is over, reviewing the whole question, I have come to the conclusion that the saying is quite true.”
“The line between the Rebel and Union element in Georgetown was so marked that it led to divisions even in the churches. There were churches in that part of Ohio where treason was preached regularly, and where, to secure membership, hostility to the government, to the war and to the liberation of the slaves, was far more essential than a belief in the authenticity or credibility of the Bible. There were men in Georgetown who filled all the requirements for membership in these churches.”
“I only knew what was in my mind, and I wished to express it clearly”
“I have never advocated war except as a means of peace.”
“There are but few important events in the affairs of men brought about by their own choice.”
“The great bulk of the legal voters of the South were men who owned no slaves; their homes were generally in the hills and poor country; their facilities for educating their children, even up to the point of reading and writing, were very limited; their interest in the contest was very meagre--what there was, if they had been capable of seeing it, was with the North; they too needed emancipation. Under the old regime they were looked down upon by those who controlled all the affairs in the interest of slave-owners, as poor white trash who were allowed the ballot so long as they cast it according to direction.”
“I know only two tunes. One of them is 'Yankee Doodle' the other isn't.”
“I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.”