Personal Memoirs

Ulysses Simpson Grant, the commander-in-chief of Union forces during the final years of the Civil War and subsequently the eighteenth president of the United States, was born on April 27, 1822, in a two-room cabin in the remote settlement of Point Pleasant, Ohio.  Commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the 4th Infantry Regiment, Grant reported to Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, then the largest army base west of the Mississippi. He fought under General Zachary Taylor in the Mexican War of 1846, serving with many officers he would later command or fight against during the Civil War.  With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Grant re-entered the service as a colonel in the Illinois volunteer regiment and was soon appointed brigadier general. After leading expeditions that seized Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, the first major Union victories in the war, he commanded forces at the Battle of Shiloh and later broke the Confederate control of the Mississippi by capturing Vicksburg. President Lincoln promoted him to lieutenant general and named him commander of the Union army following the success of the pivotal Chattanooga campaign. In 1868 the Republican Party nominated the popular war hero as their presidential candidate, and Grant was elected with a narrow victory in the popular vote. Lacking an overall vision for the country, he proved ineffective as president while his cabinet of cronies and political contributors was both incompetent and corrupt. As Grant later confessed: ‘I did not want the Presidency, and I have never quite forgiven myself for resigning the command of the army to accept it.’ He won re-election in 1872.