Jody Victor – Let Us Have Peace

Hiram Ulysses Grant was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio on April 27, 1822 to parents, Jesse Root Grant and Hannah Simpson Grant, both Pennsylvania natives. The Grants traced their family ancestry back to Matthew Grant, who landed in Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. Hiram Ulysses was the firstborn of six children. In the fall of 1823, Jesse and Hannah Grant moved their family to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio. The young Hiram Ulysses Grant was small, sensitive and quiet. Growing up in Ohio he became well-known for his talent with horses.

When Grant was seventeen years old he attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. His nomination to the academy was secured by Congressman Thomas L. Hamer. Congressman Hamer mistakenly nominated him as “Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio”. Grant adopted the name with the middle initial only at West Point. “Sam” became his nickname among his army colleagues since the initials “US” stood for Uncle Sam”. While at the academy he excelled in mathematics, writing, drawing and horsemanship.  He established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman, setting an equestrian high jump record that lasted nearly twenty-five years. Ulysses S. Grant graduated from West Point in 1843.

Though naturally suited for the cavalry, Grant was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster to an infantry company in Missouri, achieving the rank of lieutenant. During the Mexican American War, Lieutenant Grant served under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott. At Monterrey, he voluntarily carried a dispatch through a sniper-lined street on horseback. He was brevetted for bravery two times. At the time of the war Grant felt it was a wrongful war. He believed that the territorial gains were designed to spread slavery throughout the nation.

On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent, the daughter of a slave owner. Together they had four children: Frederick, Ulysses “Buck”, Ellen “Nellie” and Jesse. When the war ended, Lieutenant Grant remained in the army and was assigned to several different posts including Detroit, New York and the Pacific Northwest. Julia was eight months pregnant with their second child when Grant was sent to the Washington Territory. He left his wife and firstborn in San Francisco and made his way to Fort Vancouver. The journey was a difficult one and Grant narrowly escaped a cholera epidemic. At Fort Vancouver, Grant once again served as quartermaster. In 1854, he was promoted to Captain and assigned to command Company F at Fort Humbolt on the northwest California coast. Grant resigned from the Army abruptly on July 31, 1854, without any explanation.

Grant found himself a civilian at age 32 and struggled financially for several years. He labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by Julia’s father. But the farm did not prosper. He worked briefly as a tax collector. In 1860, he moved his family to Galena, Illinois to be with his family. Grant tried farming again and insurance sales. Eventually he was given a job as an assistant in his father’s tannery. The leather shop, Grant and Perkins, sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods. Grant and his wife Julia were devoted to each other and loved raising their children together after all the years of separation during his years in the army.

When the American Civil War began in 1861, experienced officers like Grant were in short supply. The Governor of Illinois assigned him to make a disciplined fighting unit out of its rebellious Illinois volunteer regiment. Grant drilled the men and instituted badly needed discipline. He soon earned the respect of his volunteers. The U.S. Army noticed his efforts and promoted him to brigadier general. Grant led his troops to fight and win battles in the western theatre. He captured Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. He forced the surrender of Vicksburg, Mississippi and defeated a larger Southern force at Chattanooga. Grant helped end the bloody Civil War when he led Union troops to trap the main Confederate Army west of Richmond, Virginia and forced its surrender in April 1865. At that point General Grant was the most revered man in the Union.

In the Presidential Election of 1868, Grant was nominated by the Radical Republicans who wanted to protect the civil and political rights of African Americans. Grant’s campaign slogan, “Let Us Have Peace”, defined his motivation and contributed to his electoral success. The nation was more than ready to heal. Ulysses S. Grant became the 18^th President of the United States and the second President to hail from Ohio. He was the first U.S. President to be elected after the nation had outlawed slavery and given citizenship to former slaves by Constitutional amendments. President Grant maintained a strong concern for the plight of African Americans and native Indian tribes. His attempt to provide justice to Native Americans was a radical reversal of previous U.S. government policy. He told Congress, “Wars of extermination…are demoralizing and wicked.”  He lobbied, not always successfully, to preserve Native American lands from encroachment by the westward advancement of pioneers.

During his two terms in office, President Grant made many advances in civil and human rights. He signed bills promoting black voting rights and prosecuting Klan members. He won passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, which gave freedmen the vote and the Ku Klux Klan Act, which empowered the president “to arrest and break up disguised night marauders.” President Grant was the first president to sign a congressional civil rights act. The law was titled the Civil Rights Act of 1875 and it entitled equal treatment in public accommodations and jury selection.

When he finished his two terms in office, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife Julia. Everywhere they went the crowds waiting to see him were enormous. They dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam (Thailand), Burma and China. They were received in Japan by Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken. There is a tree still standing today in Tokyo that Grant planted during his visit. While touring the world Grant remarked, “I appreciate the fact, and am proud of it, that the attentions I am receiving are intended more for our country than for me personally.”

The Grants’ trip around the world was very successful but also very costly. When they returned to America they had depleted most of their savings and Grant needed to earn money. He had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the Presidency. (Later Congress restored Grant to General of the Army with full retirement pay.) In 1881, he purchased a house in New York City and placed most of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward (suggested by his son Buck, who worked on Wall Street). In 1884, Ward swindled Grant and other investors, bankrupted the company and fled. With all his assets now depleted, Grant had to repay one of his creditors, William H. Vanderbilt, with his Civil War mementos.

Century Magazine approached him to write articles about his Civil War experiences. He discovered that he enjoyed the process and decided to compile his memoirs. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for his memoirs, including seventy-five percent of the book’s sales as royalties. At the time he was writing his memoirs, Grant was suffering from throat cancer. He approached these last two battles as he had all others- with dogged determination. His final days were spent on his porch with pencil and paper in hand, wrapped in blankets and in fearsome pain. He completed the book just days before his death on July 23, 1885. Mark Twain promoted the book as “the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar.” It was a huge success, selling over 300,000 copies. The book royalties earned Grant over $450,000, providing financial security for his family.