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Ulysses Simpson Grant was born on April 27, 1822 in Point
Pleasant, Ohio. His father was Jesse Root Grant and his mother
was Hannah Simpson Grant. His given name at birth was Hiram
Ulysses Grant, but his family took to calling him by his
middle name. Later in life he dropped the name Hiram and used
his mother’s maiden name, Simpson, as his own middle name.
It was a good political move. “The Hero of Appomattox”
thereafter had the patriotic moniker of “U. S.” Grant. He
served as our nation’s 18th President from March
4, 1869 to March 3, 1877.
General Ulysses S. Grant was a career military officer. He
graduated from the United States Military Academy at West
Point, New York in 1843. He fought valiantly in the
Mexican-American War and later rose to become President
Lincoln’s top military commander during the Civil War.
General Grant accepted the final surrender of the great
General Robert E. Lee, on behalf of the Confederacy, at the
Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia.
U. S. Grant married Julia Boggs Dent in 1848. They had four
children: Frederick, Ulysses, Ellen and Jesse. On the day of
Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, General & Mrs. Grant
declined an invitation to join Mr. Lincoln at Ford’s Theater
that evening. They went to New Jersey to visit family instead.
President Ulysses S. Grant died on July 23, 1885 in Mt.
McGregor, New York. A heavy smoker, he died of throat cancer. |
