Ulysses S. Grant

Ulysses S. Grant was born in Ohio in 1822 and graduated from West Point before serving in the Mexican-American War. After leaving the army, he struggled in civilian life, but the Civil War restored his military career. His victories at Fort Donelson, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, and ultimately over Robert E. Lee made him the Union’s leading general. In 1868, Republicans nominated him as the symbol of Union victory and Reconstruction, and he won the presidency.

Grant’s first term focused on enforcing Reconstruction and protecting the rights of newly freed African Americans. He supported ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment and used federal power against the Ku Klux Klan through Enforcement Acts. His administration prosecuted white supremacist terrorism in the South more aggressively than any other nineteenth-century administration.

Grant also pursued policies of national reconciliation, western expansion, and Native policy reform, though his administration remained tied to military campaigns and land pressure against Native nations. His “Peace Policy” toward Native peoples aimed to reduce corruption and violence but still assumed assimilation and federal control. Internationally, he peacefully resolved major claims with Britain through the Treaty of Washington and the Alabama Claims arbitration.

Grant won reelection in 1872. His second term faced challenges from misconduct among some associates, though Grant himself was not personally corrupt and remained committed to Reconstruction and equal rights. He left office in 1877 as Reconstruction was collapsing. Later, after financial ruin and terminal cancer, he wrote celebrated memoirs before his death in 1885.