General Ulysses S Grant^[1]

1822 - 1885  (63 years)

• Name	Ulysses S Grant
  Prefix	General
  Nickname	Sam
  Birth	27 Apr 1822	Point Pleasant, Ohio
  Gender	Male
  Death	23 Jul 1885	Mt. McGregor, New York
  Burial	New York, New York
  Person ID	I7220	Scudder
  Last Modified	26 Sep 2011

  
  

  Father	Jesse Root Grant,   b. 23 Jan 1794, Greensburgh, Pennsylvania d. 29 Jun 1873, Covington, Kentucky (Age 79 years)
  Mother	Hannah Simpson,   b. 23 Nov 1798, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania d. 11 May 1883, Jersey City, New Jersey (Age 84 years)
  Marriage	24 Jun 1821	Bethel, Ohio
  Notes	They were married at the home of Hannah's parents, Point Pleasant.
  Family ID	F2612	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Julia Boggs Dent,   b. 16 Feb 1826, White Haven, Missouri d. 14 Dec 1902, Washington, District of Columbia (Age 76 years)
  Marriage	22 Aug 1848	St. Louis, Missouri
  Notes	They were married in the Dent homestead.
  Children	1. Frederick Dent Grant,   b. 30 May 1850, St. Louis, Missouri d. 11 Apr 1912, New York, New York (Age 61 years)   2. Ulysses S Grant, Jr.,   b. 22 Jul 1852, Bethel, Ohio d. 25 Sep 1929, San Diego, California (Age 77 years)   3. Ellen Wrenshall or Nellie Grant,   b. 4 Jul 1855, Wish-Ton-Wish, Missouri d. 30 Aug 1922, Chicago, Cook, Illinois (Age 67 years)   4. Jesse Root Grant, II,   b. 6 Feb 1858, St. Louis, Missouri d. 8 Jun 1934, Los Altos, California (Age 76 years)
  Family ID	F2616	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	3 Mar 2024

  
  

• Notes

  Born in 1822, Grant was the son of an Ohio tanner. He went to West Point rather against his will and graduated in the middle of his class. In the Mexican War he fought under Gen. Zachary Taylor. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Grant was working in his father's leather store in Galena, Illinois. He was appointed by the Governor to command an unruly volunteer regiment. Grant whipped it into shape and by September 1861 he had risen to the rank of brigadier general of volunteers. He sought to win control of the Mississippi Valley. In February 1862 he took Fort Henry and attacked Fort Donelson. When the Confederate commander asked for terms, Grant replied, "No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted." The Confederates surrendered, and President Lincoln promoted Grant to major general of volunteers. At Shiloh in April, Grant fought one of the bloodiest battles in the West and came out less well. President Lincoln fended off demands for his removal by saying, "I can't spare this man--he fights." For his next major objective, Grant maneuvered and fought skillfully to win Vicksburg, the key city on the Mississippi, and thus cut the Confederacy in two. Then he broke the Confederate hold on Chattanooga. Lincoln appointed him General-in-Chief in March 1864. Grant directed Sherman to drive through the South while he himself, with the Army of the Potomac, pinned down Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Finally, on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House, Lee surrendered. Grant wrote out magnanimous terms of surrender that would prevent treason trials. As President, Grant presided over the Government much as he had run the Army. Indeed he brought part of his Army staff to the White House. Although a man of scrupulous honesty, Grant as President accepted handsome presents from admirers. Worse, he allowed himself to be seen with two speculators, Jay Gould and James Fisk. When Grant realized their scheme to corner the market in gold, he authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to sell enough gold to wreck their plans, but the speculation had already wrought havoc with business. During his campaign for re-election in 1872, Grant was attacked by Liberal Republican reformers. He called them "narrow-headed men," their eyes so close together that "they can look out of the same gimlet hole without winking." The General's friends in the Republican Party came to be known proudly as "the Old Guard." Grant allowed Radical Reconstruction to run its course in the South, bolstering it at times with military force. After retiring from the Presidency, Grant became a partner in a financial firm, which went bankrupt. About that time he learned that he had cancer of the throat. He started writing his recollections to pay off his debts and provide for his family, racing against death to produce a memoir that ultimately earned nearly $450,000. Soon after completing the last page, in 1885, he died of throat cancer and is buried in Grant's Tomb, Riverside Drive, New York City.

  
  

• Sources

  [S109] Partial Genealogy of Descendants of Elizabeth Scudder-E, Section II, Bulletin XXX, p. 35.