Hiram Ulysses Grant was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio, on April 27, 1822, to Jesse and Hannah Grant. In 1843, Grant graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. After his graduation, Grant’s first position was in St. Louis, Missouri, where he met his future wife, Julia Dent. Grant proposed in 1844, and Julia accepted. Before the couple could wed, Grant was unfortunately shipped off to duty in the Mexican-American War. When fighting had halted, Grant was assigned to multiple duties at posts far away from his family. Grant had begun to neglect his work and drink strenuously. He later resigned in 1854 to avoid getting kicked out of the service. After resigning, Grant spent multiple years in St. Louis, Missouri with his wife but due to several short careers, he moved to Galena, Illinois to be a clerk in his family's store. …show more content…
When the Civil War had begun in 1861, Grant sprang at a chance to volunteer in the Union army.
His first job was as the colonel of the 21st Illinois Infantry, but then was quickly promoted to brigadier general in July 1861. Then in September, Grant was given command of Southeast Missouri. His victories at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson had placed him under the public’s eyes. However, Grant and his soldiers were attacked by Confederate forces at the Battle of Shiloh which produced countless deaths. During the fight, President Abraham Lincoln had received multiple calls for Grants to be removed from command. Lincoln had refused and luckily the following day, Grant's Army, along with troops from Major General Don Carlos Buell, fended off the Confederate’s and seized the
day. Grant’s victory at Vicksburg, Mississippi, in May of 1863 displayed his amazing leadership. On May 1, 1863, Grant and his army crossed the Mississippi River at the battle of Port Gibson. Grant then sent a minority of his army under General William Sherman to capture Jackson. He began to set his sights on Vicksburg with the intention of capturing the Confederate’s supply base. Due to the strength of Vicksburg defenses, Grant was forced to lay siege to the city. On July 4, 1863, after 46 days of fighting, opposing general John Pemberton ,along with his army, surrendered. Combined with the victory at the Battle of Gettysburg, the capture of Vicksburg caused a turning point in the war. It also boosted Grant’s position up to premier commander. Later, Grant was called to break a stalemate occurring in the town of Chattanooga, Tennessee, which sealed his reputation as an effective leader. In March of 1864, Lincoln had given Grant the rank of lieutenant general, and named him general-in-chief of the Federal United States army. When Grant made his headquarters at Potomac, Maryland, Grant was determined to destroy Robert E. Lee along with the army of Northern Virginia. The battles of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor and the siege on Petersburg wounded the rebel army, which led to the fall of Richmond and Lee's surrender in 1865 at the Appomattox Court House in Virginia. Soon after the war, the Republican delegates nominated Grant as a presidential candidate in the 1868 election. At 46, Grant had become the youngest president elected at the time. Although he was known as being honest, Grant was also known for appointing people who were not the greatest. He had some success during his time in office, however, his administration's scandals ruined both of his terms as president. Although, he wasn’t the greatest as a president, people still do recognize what he did during the war and the support he had of civil rights during his presidency. All in all, Hiram Ulysses Grant was an amazing general who led the Union to victory in the Civil War.
President Abraham Lincoln demanded a decisive victory. He was tired of his military leadership’s inability to decisively engage and defeat Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Allowing the war to drag on was to the Confederacies advantage. Lincoln was so frustrated that he relieved General George B. McClellan for failing to defeat Lee at Antietam, and replaced him with General Ambrose Burnside, who proved to be very conservative in battle against General Lee. Knowing that General Lee was a student of Napoleonic warfare, Burnside feared that Lee always had a large Corps in reserve waiting to flank should he be decisively engaged from the front.
During the Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant played a main part in the Union’s Victory. He did this by: Winning multiple battles, his expertise as a leader, and defeating Robert E. Lee. Grant started his career as an officer by going through the military academy called WestPoint. After graduating as a Second Lieutenant, he made his way through the ranks in the Mexican-American War. During the Civil War, he was promoted to Brigadier General, Major General and then to Lieutenant General by President Abraham Lincoln. As a General in the war, Grant won multiple battles including: Vicksburg, Shiloh, Chattanooga, and Petersburg. Vicksburg was one of his best battles. Although he was outnumbered, Grant still managed to lead his men to victory. Vicksburg was one of the main battles that turned the war around, giving the Union Army the upper hand. All of these major battles lead to the defeat and surrender of Robert E. Lee at the Appomattox Court House in 1865. General Grant’s military skills were gained throughout his life as a soldier. All of these skills were used as he defeated countless enemies and won major battles. His expertise’s lead him to victories throughout the whole war, which ultimately helped him play a main role in the Union victory.
In November Grant tested Confederate strength at Columbus by landing troops across the Mississippi River at Belmont, Missouri. The drawn battle that followed sent him back to Cairo still eager to advance, but not necessarily along the Mississippi River. Knowing of the poor location of Fort Henry, he wanted to use Union gunboats to advantage, and foresaw that the fall of Fort Henry would open the Tennessee River as far north as Alabama. Winning reluctant permission from his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck, Grant moved south in early February. The flooded Fort Henry fell to the gunboats on February 6, 1862 and most of the garrison fled to Fort Donelson, which was eleven miles away. Grant then followed, after sending the gunboats back down the Tennessee and over to the Cumberland. In St. Louis, Halleck, a "military bureaucrat par excellence", took no official insight of Grant’s plans.
At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Grant was appointed colonel, and soon afterward brigadier general, of the Illinois Volunteers, and in September 1861 he seized Paducah, Kentucky. After an indecisive raid on Belmont, Missouri, he gained fame when in February 1862, in conjunction with the navy; he succeeded in reducing Forts Henry and Donelson, Tennessee, forcing General Simon B. Buckner to accept unconditional surrender. The Confederates surprised Grant at Shiloh, but he held his ground and then moved on to Corinth. In 1863 he established his reputation as a strategist in the brilliant campaign against Vicksburg, Mississippi, which took place on July 4. After being appointed commander in the West, he defeated Braxton Bragg at Chattanooga. Grant's victories made him so prominent that he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general and in February 1864 was given command of all Union armies.
The Battle of Shiloh was an extraordinary event in the civil war timeline and would be a great deal as to when the war was fought at its hardest. The sources I have researched and collected will help me better understand this battle and many other facts I have yet to discover. The Battle of Shiloh is not the most well known battle during the Civil war, but it gives us an idea on how gruesome the fighting was during this time. I view this battle as a turning point for the Union and the continuing losses for the Confederate army as they try to gain back territory. Officers of each side had separate plans, where the Union needed to take the Memphis and Charleston Railroads, and the Confederates just wanted to stop the Union troops from advancing further south(CWPT).
Ulysses Simpson Grant, the 18th President of the United States of America, was a significant influence on American history. Throughout his life, he always felt an exceptional commitment to the American military. This man helped the Union defeat the Confederates in the American Civil War and contributed to Americans during the Reconstruction time period, in hopes that America would be a fully industrialized nation. Grant displays many important military and political leadership roles in American society.
One of the most colorful characters of the Civil War was a General named William T. Sherman. During the period of the war (1861-1865), General Sherman went full circle from being forced to retire on trumped up charges that he was insane, to becoming a key player in bringing this bloody war to a close. He entered the annals of military history as one of the greatest and most distinguished generals of all time.
As the United States became divided through civil war in 1861, the Union was in need of a military leader who could carry their Army to victory over the resolute troops of the Confederacy. These demands were met with the unmatched leadership tactics of Commanding Union Army General, Ulysses S. Grant. Grant consistently displayed the values and image of a true military leader. These leadership qualities were displayed both on the battlefield, as Grant commanded Union troops to victory in the American Civil War, and while he served as the 18th President of the United States. Grant was a knowledgeable and skilled military leader, graduating from West Point in 1843 and continuing on to serve in the military until 1854. However, Grant’s military leadership is most clearly characterized through three distinct leadership traits other than his military competence: Firstly, Ulysses S. Grant was determined. Despite how diverse or intimidating the battle or political allegations during his Presidential scandals, Grant did not back down; secondly, Grant was inspirational, and was able to both inspire his men during battle and increase morale of the northern citizens through decisive Union victories; Lastly, Ulysses S. Grant was morally courageous both on and off the battlefield as he made ethical decisions in dealing with the terms of surrender and reconstruction of the South as well as openly supporting and focusing his efforts on emancipation. By possessing these leadership traits, Ulysses S. Grant served as one of the most influential and important military leaders in U.S. history.
The turning point of the war was reached in less than a year later(1863), this would cause the North to win the war. General Lee advanced into the North again, and this time him and his Confederate forces were defeated at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in July 1863. The Confederate forces were hard to win against because they won many of the war battle that they fought in, so with this win the North was definite to win. More than 50,000 troops were injured or killed in the Gettysburg battle, Lincoln honored union losses in his famous Gettysburg Address, to let the people know those who fought in the war sacrifice their life for a better future for us. The day after the Battle of Gettysburg ended, General Ulysses S. Grant took Vicksburg, father to the west, giving the North control over the Mississippi River valley. During Sherman’s “March to the sea,” his forces destroyed all Confederate sources of supplies and they even burned the city of Atlanta to the ground. Lincoln won his second election in 1864 and by 1865 Confederate forces were finally winding down. With the winding down of the Confederate forces, this allowed general Grant to advance on the Confederate capital of Richmond. Confederate forces were surrounded and forced to retreat leaving Richmond vulnerable to attack. On April 9, 1865 general Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox(town in Virginia), virtually ending the civil war. Less than one week later, President Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes
Braxton early years were not easy. He came from a very humble family and at times he felt the sting of rejection. He was a man of disposition, a man who wouldn’t stop for anything in order to achieve his goals. His aggressiveness and decision making led him to graduate from West Point in 1837 and immediately went on to serve in the Seminole War and the Mexican War. When the war between the states broke out, Confederate President Jefferson Davis made Bragg a Brigadier General. By the time Confederates Were battling for Tennessee, Braxton Bragg was a full general commanding nearly 40,000 troops. Bragg was known for being an obsessed man, he believed in following orders often to the point of absurdity. For instance, once while he and his men were enduring a murderous artillery barrage at Monterey during the Mexican War, Bragg witnessed an American horse driver fall dead from his saddle. Bragg ordered his retreating men to halt, and in the middle of the onslaught ordered one of the other horsemen to dismount, turn around and recover the dead man's sword because it was public property that had been issued by the government. The horseman also took from the corpse a pocket knife, fearing that if he did not Bragg would send him back for it. The preparation for the Battle of Stones River was not the best. Brigadier General Samuel Jones, failed to procure all the rations for General
Shiloh demonstrated that the Union had the resources and manpower to prevail and was ready to risk their lives to do so. The battle was the most surreal example of how many men it was possible to slaughter in battle. Overall, it was shocking, morbid, and horrendous how much death there was, especially to the people then.
The battle Shiloh took place over two days. It started as a result of the fall of Forts Henry and Donelson, Confederate Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, the commander in the area, was forced to fall back, giving up Kentucky and much of West and Middle Tennessee. He chose Corinth, Mississippi, a major transportation center, as the staging area for an offensive against Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and his Army of the Tennessee before the Army of the Ohio, under Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell, could join it. The Confederate retrenchment was a surprise, although a pleasant one, to the Union forces, and it took Grant, with about 40,000 men, some time to mount a southern offensive, along the Tennessee River, toward Pittsburgh Landing. Grant received orders to await Buell’s Army...
The notion that Thomas Jefferson had a revelation in 1819 and suddenly subscribed to the idea of “dissemination” is utterly false. Regardless, this belief is as widespread as it is erroneous. The few laymen who are aware that there was a revolution in Haiti and have made the connection between the insurrection and the Louisiana Purchase fail to realize the underlying motives of Thomas Jefferson. Historians too have been blind to the nuanced indicators that prove Jefferson’s true motives behind his Haitian, Louisiana Territory, and slave trade policies. They uniformly insist that his support for diffusion began nearly thirty years after it actually did. Thomas Jefferson’s conviction that slavery could only be ended with the employment of dissemination can be traced back to the 1790’s by a careful reexamination of his policies as president. The compilation of Jefferson’s exerted influence in Haiti, his purchase of the Louisiana territory, and his discrete avocation for the extension of slavery clearly indicate that he was attempting to end slavery by diffusion as early as 1801.
On April 12 1861, Confederate troops attacked Fort Sumter in Charleston and this event started the Civil War. Once Ulysses heard of the news, he quickly left his position as clerk at his family store to volunteer for military service in the Union army. He was first offered a position recruiting and training volunteer troops in Illinois and he accepted although he wanted field command in the actual army. On June 14, 1861, Grant was assigned colonel of the 21st Illinois Infantry, but on August 9th President Abraham Lincoln promoted Grant to Brigadier General. Ulysses’ first battle was on November 17th, 1861 when Grant and his army attacked Fort Belmont but was counterattacked and had to fall back. Although no one really won this battle, it was good experience for Grant and his troops. Grant’s first major victories took place in February 1862. On Feb. 6th, Grant, along with the help of Union Navy Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote, took over Fort Henry easily and ten days later defeated Confederate General Gideon J. Pillow at Fort Donelson. After these victories, Lincoln promotes Grant as Major General of Volunteers and gets the nickname “Unconditional Surrender”. Grant’s advancement on Fort Henry and Donel...
During the 1800s, the United States was changing, expanding, and experiencing many growing pains. In the periods before and directly after the Civil War, many people were influential and sculpted the path of the future. Ulysses S. Grant is significant to our nation’s history because he served in two wars, gave the Union its first major victory over the Confederates, and led the nation as president.