Today, we commemorate the 200th anniversary of Ulysses S. Grant’s birthday. Born to humble beginnings, this great defender of America won our bloodiest war, trampled the dark forces of disunion, and bandaged our deepest national wounds.
Yet progressive historians, a partisan press, and political enemies tarnished his record from the beginning. They maligned him as a drunk and a butcher, and a bumbling Western rube who was ill-suited to politics and probably corrupt. This sloppy and slanderous history thankfully has been reassessed in recent years, for Grant deserves to stand forever alongside Lincoln and Washington as one of America’s indispensable men.
BRET BAIER: WHAT WOULD ULYSSES S. GRANT DO?
The bronze equestrian statue of Ulysses S. Grant in Lincoln Park, Illinois, from a digitally improved reproduction of an original print from the 19th century. (Bildagentur-online/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
For the first three years of the Civil War, Grant fought on the western front, winning several of the Union’s early victories. While the Union commanders in the east dithered, Grant waged a raw and relentless form of warfare. He knew that "the art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can and as often as you can, and keep moving on."
Grant’s famous determination and grit were on full display during the brutal battle of Shiloh. In the first day of fighting, Confederate forces routed Grant’s army. William Tecumseh Sherman approached Grant that rainy night beneath a great oak tree, and said, "Well, Grant, we’ve had the devil’s own day, haven’t we?" Grant replied between puffs of his cigar, "Yes. Lick ‘em tomorrow though."
That’s exactly what he did the next day at Shiloh. Refusing demands to remove Grant after the carnage-filled battle, Lincoln answered simply, "I cannot spare this man—he fights." This story remains so legendary in the Army that it was commonplace for young officers in the Iraq War to conclude a hard day by borrowing from Grant: "lick ‘em tomorrow."
Grant continued his brilliant winning streak of victories and on July 4, 1863, he seized the fortress city of Vicksburg, splitting the Confederacy in two and securing the Union’s control of the mighty Mississippi. This was perhaps the greatest strategic victory of the war. Combined with the victory at Gettysburg the previous day, Grant’s seizure of Vicksburg put the Union on the path to victory.
Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of lieutenant general—a position no active-duty soldier had held since Washington, and named him commander of all Union forces. Grant came to the east with bold aggressiveness that previous commanders had lacked, telling a reporter, "if you see the President, tell him from me that whatever happens, there will be no turning back." In months that followed, Grant attacked Lee’s army again and again, never letting up or losing the initiative, and never allowing Lee to regroup or rebuild his shrinking army. Less than a year after Grant began his Overland Campaign, Union forces seized the rebel capital of Richmond.
U.S. Grant was unyielding in war, but magnanimous in peace. The man whose initials came popularly to mean "Unconditional Surrender," offered Lee and his men honorable terms at Appomattox Courthouse, partly because he knew the first goal of the war was to reunite our shattered republic. And as Lee departed the courthouse, Grant and his staff took off their hats in respect—a small act for the victors, but an extraordinary gesture to the defeated Confederates.
Gravure of Ulysses S. Grant in front of the new $50 banknote.
Grant pressed for reconciliation as our nation began to stitch the stars back onto Old Glory. In 1868, Grant ran for president with the simple slogan, "Let Us Have Peace" and fought to make good on this promise. He continued his work to bring the South back into the Union, restoring the rights of citizenship to over 150,000 former rebels and bringing Robert E. Lee to the White House as a symbol of reconciliation. Grant was also one of the greatest civil-rights presidents in our nation’s history, protecting freed slaves with laws and, when necessary, with force. When the first Ku Klux Klan terrorized the South, Grant ordered and empowered the Department of Justice and U.S. Army to destroy it, which they did.
After his presidency, Grant sadly was conned in business ventures and fell deeply into debt. But even as he lay dying of cancer, he resolved to provide for his family. A week before his death, he completed his memoirs, a monumental literary achievement that continues to rank among the greatest ever written by a statesman. He also saved his family from debt, demonstrating one last time his indomitable will.
Grant’s funeral procession saw an outpouring of 1.5 million Americans. In his eulogy, Frederick Douglass described Grant as "a man too broad for prejudice, too humane to despise the humblest, too great to be small at any point." Douglass saw in Grant "a protector" for freed blacks, "a friend" to native Americans, "a brother" to vanquished foes, and "a savior" for our imperiled nation.
After leaving office, President Ulysses S. Grant settled down in New York and invested his money into a Wall Street firm (which happened to count his son Buck as one of its owners). The firm's other partner, however, embezzled much of its investors' money, leading it to declare bankruptcy. Grant did the same soon after. (Reuters)
As a deeply honest man and a Washington outsider, Grant wasn’t always astute in spotting the unscrupulous swindlers and grifters attracted to our capital then as now. As president, he trusted some who didn’t deserve that trust. His contemporaneous progressive critics exaggerated his guilelessness as a mortal sin, using the dishonesty of others to besmirch the record of a good and great man.
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But Douglass was right; Grant was "a savior" of this republic and his few failings pale in comparison to his extraordinary achievements.
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Throughout his life, U.S. Grant exuded a profound patriotism and selflessness that our nation should remember with awe and reverence. On this bicentenary of Grant’s birth, we should restore him to the pantheon of American heroes.