Ulysses S. Grant

Grant at Cold Harbor in 1864 (www.clangrant-us.org/ images/grant_cold_harbor. url)

My Hero is Ulysses S Grant, and that is saying a lot since I am from the south. Ulysses Simpson Grant was born in Georgetown, Ohio on April 27,1822 to Jesse Root Grant and Hannah Simpson Grant. During his boyhood he developed a passion for horses, which lasted his whole life and a passion which I also share with him. Ulysses frequently was found in his father’s tanner shop, where animal hides were made into leather, in his memoirs he said that he despised his father’s profession. When Ulysses was 17 he father registered him for the United States Military Academy at West Point although he barely passed the academy’s height requirement. While at West Point, he majored in mathematics but skipped many of his other classes, Grant pulled his work together, however and graduated respectfully, finishing 21st out of 39 students.

A few years after Grant graduated from West Point, he was called into service by the Mexican-American War, where he served under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott. During one battle he was sent to receive more ammunition from another regiment by riding down a Mexican occupied street, hanging on the side of his horse. After the war, he married Julia Dent on August 22, 1848. Grant was assigned to many forts around the country so he could not be with his wife, so he began to drink and smoke cigars, which could have contributed to his death. When he returned he was low on money so he asked his father for assistance. He moved to Galena, Illinois where he was a store clerk for his father and his brothers. He lived with their Julia and his sons on a house on a hill above Galena. Grant did not vote in the election of 1860, but he helped serve wine and oysters at a victory party held by his father. Soon after, The Civil War began.

Ulysses S Grant was a flawed man, and that is why he is a hero. He was bankrupt and a victim of circumstances just like other people. But, he overcame these problems to become a great American hero. Grant is highly praised today for his fighting a general is quoted as saying he “Fought like a bulldog” and battle tactics Which are admired by other military leaders and historians alike. When I saw his documentary on the American Experience on PBS it got me interested in history. History is now my favorite subject in school. I thank Ulysses S. Grant for that.

When the Civil War began, Grant asked repeatedly asked for a command and was repeatedly denied; finally he received a command for the 21st Illinois a bunch of rag tags who had run their last general out. Grant turned the men into a fighting force, and soon after that he captured Fort Henry and Fort Donaldson in Tennessee, earning the union its first great victories in the war and earning Grant the nickname Unconditional Surrender Grant for the terms of surrender he had asked for from the commander at Donaldson. Soon after though, that praise would turn to cursing during April 1862 when Confederate forces surprised Grant at Shiloh, Tennessee in the bloodiest battle ever fought in the U.S at that time. Although Grant recovered from the surprise and won victory with a counterattack on the second day, with over 23,000 dead they began to call Grant a ”butcher”. But Grant redeemed himself at Vicksburg, Mississippi where he executed an expert battle tactic, which I admire. He attempted multiply plans to try and capture the city, but all of them failed, and he was continually pressured by the northern public to capture the city. Grant thought up an ingeniously simple tactic, to separate his army into groups and to send some regiments to capture the city of Jackson, thereby cutting off the city’s supply lines, while the remaining regiments lay siege to Vicksburg finally on July 4th 1863, Grant won a victory, that in coalition with the victory at Gettysburg turned the tide of war in the Union’s favor, I admire this campaign because it showed his tactical planning was optimal, I praise Grant for his tactics, they were simple effective and frank. He soon took over in Virginia as General-in- chief of the Union Army where he battled with Robert E. Lee at the Wilderness, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg and he showed another reason why h is my hero, he was resilient and he never gave in even though he suffered defeats at The Wilderness, and Cold Harbor and the northern public criticized him once again for loss of troops, especially at Cold Harbor where he left dying me n upon the battlefield but he overcame these obstacles, which makes him a hero in my eyes because of his resilience.

Finally, Lee surrendered to him at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865 to give the Union victory in the War. But Grant gave generous terms for the South and did not punish them harshly as some Northerners wanted to. Grant is a hero to me for his generosity. He was now considered a hero to the people of the country. In 1868, as a reward for his great service to the country, the citizens of the United States eventually rewarded him by voting him the 18th President of the United States

Political scandals and the pain of Reconstruction battered Grant’s terms in the White House. There was Black Friday in 1869, where two stockbrokers on Wall Street tricked Grant and cornered the gold market. Grant favored a limited amount of Troops in the south to protect blacks that were being targeted by groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. There was the Whiskey Ring in which members of Grant’s cabinet were involved in stealing $3 million in tax money. Eventually Grant ended is term in the White House and went on a trip around the world and even settled a dispute between China and Japan. In 1884 Grant discovered that he had throat cancer and his family was bankrupt, because of a business blunder he’d made. So, to earn money for his family, he wrote his memoirs, which became a great success, selling over 300,000 copies and making over 450,000 dollars. Ulysses Simpson Grant died on July 23,1885, he is now buried in Grant’s tomb in New York.