Grant, Ulysses S.

Union Army General, 18th President of the United States

Ulysses S. Grant is one of the most dominant figures in American military history, not only because of his achievements during the American Civil War, but also because, in the eyes of many, he has come to embody what historian Russell Weigley once called “the American way of war.” To this day he is an icon for those who advocate immediate and direct military responses as a model of American military success and style. That a careful study of Grant's career has lessons to teach is undeniable; one may wonder, however, if the identification of him as the first modern general or a total warrior is altogether accurate or fully explains his career.

Born Hiram Ulysses Grant on April 27, 1822, the man who is known as Ulysses S. Grant because of a bureaucratic error on the part of a congressman seemed unlikely to emerge as one of the most significant figures in American military history. The son of an entrepreneurial tanner with a propensity for politics and controversy, the young man seemed unprepossessing enough, yet he qualified for an education at government expense. Entering West Point in 1839, Grant graduated four years later in the middle of his class, known mainly for his skill in mathematics and his horsemanship. Assigned to the 4th United States Infantry, he soon found himself part of Gen. Zachary Taylor's expeditionary force sent to the Texas–Mexico border, and in May 1846 Grant participated in the opening battles of the Mexican–American War.

Over the next year and a half, despite his assignment as the regimental quartermaster, he saw as much combat as anyone, displaying great courage in battle. Advancing to the rank of brevet captain, Grant returned home, marrying Julia Boggs Dent on August 22, 1848, before bouncing from peacetime assignment to assignment in Detroit, upstate New York, the Oregon Territory, and California. Separated from his family, alone, unhappy, unfortunate in business ventures, having taken to drink, and seeing very little future in a peacetime military, Grant resigned his commission on April 11, 1854, and made his way back to his wife and three children outside St. Louis (a fourth child would arrive in 1855). For the next six years he would struggle in civilian life before finally accepting a position in his father's general store in Galena, Illinois, in 1860. He was working in that store when war broke out the following April.

What happened during the next four years must be among the most amazing and dramatic rises to military prominence ever recorded. Although a West Point graduate and combat veteran, Grant did not receive a commission until June 1861, as the colonel of the 21st Illinois Infantry. Within two months he won promotion to brigadier general, chiefly through the influence of Galena's Republican congressman, Elihu B. Washburne. In September 1861, he responded to news of Confederate incursions into Kentucky by seizing Paducah, at the mouth of the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers; two months later he saw his first serious combat at Belmont, Missouri, when what he later styled a diversion nearly turned into a disaster when a Confederate counterattack overwhelmed his initial success. In February 1862, along with Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote, he advanced upon a brace of Confederate forts along the Tennessee–Kentucky border, taking Fort Henry, along the Tennessee, on February 6, and, 10 days later, Fort Donelson, along the Cumberland, capturing some 12,000 Confederates after containing and repulsing a breakout attempt. This victory (at the time the largest capture ever made by the U.S. Army) brought him the nickname “Unconditional Surrender” because of the stiff terms he had offered Confederate commander Simon Buckner. Promoted to major general, he barely survived a run-in with his superior officer, Henry W. Halleck, and a surprise Confederate [Page 325]counterattack at Shiloh, Tennessee, on April 6 and 7, 1862. Grant's grit and determination could not conceal the fact that he had been surprised and unprepared; his military career went into eclipse for months, although he gained some notice for Union victories at Iuka and Corinth, Mississippi, nearly six months later.

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