Ulysses S. Grant

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Learn how Civil War vet Ulysses Grant won the presidency but struggled with a country amid Reconstruction

Key events in the life of Ulysses S. Grant.

Print of a Republican campaign banner for the 1872 presidential election invoking the working-class origins of running mates Ulysses S. Grant and Henry Wilson.

Cartoon by Thomas Nast depicting Ulysses Grant and captioned “A Burden He Has to Shoulder.”

Cartoon by Thomas Nast in support of Ulysses Grant, captioned, “The crowning insult to him who occupies the Presidential chair.”

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Ulysses S. Grant summary

Ulysses S. Grant

Q: How did Ulysses S. Grant affect the outcome of the American Civil War?

Ulysses S. Grant achieved two major Union victories early in the war . He later became commander of all Union forces after seizing Vicksburg , Mississippi. Grant ordered Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman to take Atlanta in the South while he personally marched on the Confederate army in Virginia. Grant’s strategy defeated the Confederacy by 1865.

Q: What was Ulysses S. Grant’s relationship with the Lakota Indians?

Pres. Ulysses S. Grant observed the Second Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868, which maintained peace with the Lakota Indians on the Great Sioux Reservation. However, he violated the treaty after gold was discovered in the Black Hills. With Grant’s approval the army seized the land and expelled the Lakota by 1877. Learn more.

Q: What was Ulysses S. Grant’s policy regarding Reconstruction?

After the American Civil War the former Confederate states reinstated their antebellum racial hierarchy through repressive laws and the Ku Klux Klan ’s anti-Black terrorist activity. Pres. Ulysses S. Grant pushed for Black men’s right to vote through the Fifteenth Amendment and supported legislation that punished those who tried to limit that constitutional right. Learn more.

president of United States

Also known as: Hiram Ulysses Grant

Written by John Y. Simon

Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Mar 8, 2024 • Article History

Ulysses S. Grant

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Category: History & Society

Original name:: Hiram Ulysses Grant

Born:: April 27, 1822, Point Pleasant, Ohio, U.S.

Died:: July 23, 1885, Mount McGregor, New York (aged 63)

Title / Office:: presidency of the United States of America (1869-1877), United States

Political Affiliation:: Republican Party

Awards And Honors:: Hall of Fame (1900)

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How did Ulysses S. Grant affect the outcome of the American Civil War?

What was Ulysses S. Grant’s relationship with the Lakota Indians?

What was Ulysses S. Grant’s policy regarding Reconstruction?

Ulysses S. Grant (born April 27, 1822, Point Pleasant, Ohio, U.S.—died July 23, 1885, Mount McGregor, New York) was a U.S. general, commander of the Union armies during the late years (1864–65) of the American Civil War, and the 18th president of the United States (1869–77). Grant was the son of Jesse Root Grant, a tanner, and Hannah Simpson, and he grew up in Georgetown, Ohio. Detesting the work around the family tannery, Ulysses instead performed his share of chores on farmland owned by his father and developed considerable skill in handling horses. In 1839 Jesse secured for Ulysses an ...(100 of 2824 words)

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