Ulysses S. Grant: A Look Back

 

This year the Hayes Presidential Library and Museumsat Spiegel Grove will  celebrate the 200^th birthday of the 19^th president who was born in Delaware, Ohio on October 4, 1822. Celebrations will soon be underway for another Ohio president, also born 200 years ago. Ulysses S. Grant was born on the 27^th of this month near the Ohio River at Point Pleasant. The son of a tanner and later a West Point graduate and a veteran of the War with Mexico, Grant suffered innumerable failures and setbacks in his personal life.

                                                        

                                    

                                        General Ulysses S. Grant

But with quiet confidence and enduring love for his wife Julia, Grant in 7 years rose from a lowly clerk in his father’s store to commander of all the Union armies and President of the United States.

As president, Grant advanced the Reconstruction agenda, battled the KKK, and signed the Civil Rights Act of 1875. There were mistakes and scandals. Yet, he became the most well-known and popular American of his time. When Grant left office after two terms, future President James Garfield wrote, “No American has carried greater fame out of the White House than this silent man who leaves today.”

While a great general, Ulysses S. Grant was a poor businessman. Swindled by his son’s brokerage partner, Grant found himself destitute.  A short time later, his doctors gave him the sad diagnosis of throat cancer. With a death sentence before him, Grant could only think of providing a way out of poverty for his beloved Julia.

Mark Twain offered an advance of $25,000 for publication of each of 2 volumes of his military memoirs, but Grant refused believing that Twain would lose money. They settled on a profit sharing deal. Even though he was in a race against time, Grant proved to be a gifted writer. Through excruciating pain, fits of coughing and at times, unable to eat or speak, he continued to write. Finally, on July 19th, 1885, Grant penned his final words. Four days later, the man who had saved the Union breathed his last. More than one million people, both Union and Confederate, attended his funeral in New York City.

                                                         

Grant Writing his "Personal Memoirs"

Grant’s “Personal Memoirs” became America’s first blockbuster. As he had hoped, Julia lived on in comfort, receiving $450,000 from Twain’s firm. To this day, his work has never been out of print. Every president since, has consulted Grant’s memoirs when writing their own.

                                                              

                                      Tomb of Ulysses S. Grant

                                              

As one historian wrote, “In the generations after his death in 1885, Grant’s reputation as a general and president spiraled downward until the current generation of biographers and historians has persuasively resurrected it.” Another wrote, “…how fortunate the nation was that Grant went into the world – to save the Union, to lead it and, on his deathbed, to write one of the finest memoirs in all of American letters.” Pick up one of these recent biographies or better yet, read his “Personal Memoirs.” They do not disappoint.

                                                         

                  Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, First Edition

 

William Feaga of the 72nd Ohio at the Running of the Vicksburg Batteries

Union Soldiers at Vicksburg by Kurtz and Allison

On April 16, 1863, a joint army/naval operation was commanded by General Ulysses S. Grant and Admiral David Porter.  Porter succeeded in making the daring run of eleven vessels: steamers, rams, and gunboats passed the Rebel batteries at Vicksburg, giving Grant the naval power to bring his troops across the Mississippi River which he accomplished on April 29th.  

William Feaga, 72nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry

Jacob S. Holtz Collection, Hayes Presidential Libraryand Museums

Few Union soldiers ever forgot the sights and sounds of that daring run of Union vessels past the Vicksburg batteries on that night. The next day William Feaga of the 72nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry wrote the following home to his family in Seneca County, Ohio

Jake had ought to been here last night we had a lively time of it from half past 11 until half past one some of our boats ran passed Vicksburg there was 5 Gun boats, 3 rams one Tug and 3 transports started they went through safe but one Transport got burned the Henry Clay and th Forest Queen was damaged some. One shot went in a porthole of one of the Gun boats and killed one man and wounded two more this is the total of our loss I believe as near as I can find out after the boats got through they drove the rebels out of Warrenton a place below Vicksburg oposite the mouth of the Canal you se on this piece of map I send you now this Dr. Caul brought up for he was down there all night they have been firing all day and while I write we can hear heavy guns one of our boys just came from down there so close that he could se the rebels fire on our gun boats today of all the thunder and lightning I ever heard in my life it would not equal last night so we could se the flash of the gun then hear the report. Which was so terable that the Earth appeard all in a quiver it is only about 6 miles straight through to Vicksburg.

To read more of William Feaga's war correspondence and other letters in the Holtz collection, follow this link.

Panoramic View of Vicksburg and Map of Canal, Fortification, and Vicinity, 1863
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Note: The Above Map is from the Library of Congress Map Division and can be viewed in a larger format by following this link

In his memoirs, General Grant described the event: The enemy were evidently expecting our fleet, for they were ready to light up the river by means of bonfires on the east side and by firing houses on the point of land opposite the city on the Louisiana side. The sight was magnificent, but terrible. I witnessed it from the deck of a river transport, run out into the middle of the river and as low down as it was prudent to go. My mind was much relieved when I learned that no one on the transports had been killed, and but few, if any, wounded.  

To read the Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, follow this link