Grant’s Presidency A Disaster – Post Scripts

Someone asked me when I was going to write about our early presidents again, so I decided this was a good week to do that. I couldn’t find much written about our 18th president, Ulysses S. Grant. He was a military hero of the Mexican and Civil War. Born April 27, 1822 in Pennsylvania; he disliked hunting, shunned profanity, abhorred cruelty to animals and hated the sight of blood. He never read a book on military strategy or tactics. He didn’t enjoy military pomp and ceremony or wearing full-dress uniforms. He said after attending a military review at Potsdam in his honor after the Civil War, "I am more of a farmer than a soldier. I take little interest in military affairs." This was, to be sure, an exaggeration. As a young man Grant was not eager for a military career but his father insisted he go to the Military Academy at West Point. There he did only fair work and graduated 21st in a class of 39.

Grant’s first action was in the Mexican War where he performed creditably enough but without enthusiasm. He said afterward that it was one of the most unjust wars ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. The Civil War, which Grant thought came as a punishment for America’s sins in Mexico, brought the shy, modest matter-of-fact, colorless man to life. When Lincoln called for volunteers in April 1861, Grant at once offered his services. He did an excellent job of managing the troops during the Civil War and was highly praised by President Lincoln. His prescription for military success was simple and straightforward, "Find out where your enemy is," he said. "Get at him as soon as you can. Strike at him as hard as you can, and keep moving on." After the war he let the Confederate officers keep their horses, remarking that they would need them for the spring plowing at home.

After the war Congress made Grant a full general—the first since George Washington—and the public showered him with gifts and ovations, all of which he accepted quietly but gratefully. Of course the greatest gift he received for his service during the Civil War was the presidency. In 1864 when his name was first mentioned for president, Grant told a political delegation, "I should like to be mayor of Galena, Illinois, to build a new sidewalk from my house to the depot." By 1868, however, his ambition had grown to the point where he accepted the Republican nomination almost as a matter of course with the statement, "Let us have peace." When he became president in March 1869, he seemed to be just the man the country needed at the helm in the difficult postwar years.

Grant’s presidency was a disaster. He appointed so many old friends and relatives to office that Charles Sumner told the Senate the country was suffering from "a dropsical nepotism swollen to elephantiasis." After that Grant never passed the Massachusetts Senator’s house without shaking his fist. Told once that Sumner didn’t believe in the Bible, he growled, "No, he didn’t write it." But Sumner was only one of Grant’s critics. Even friends were shocked at the scandals that punctured Grant’s years in office, though they knew he was personally honest. Grant and his wife Julia liked everyone who was nice to them and accepted gifts during their stay in the White House, not realizing that some of the gifts carried strings and required return favors. In his last annual message to Congress, Grant ruefully admitted that his presidency was not all it should have been. Once out of office, he and Julia went on a world tour and he was surprised to find himself a celebrity everywhere they went. In 1880 he made an unsuccessful bid for a third term.

Grant had developed cancer of the throat and tongue and as they were desperately in need of money he began writing articles about his experience in the Civil War for a magazine. Mark Twain, representing a publishing company, came to his rescue and offered him a contract for Grant’s Memoirs which brought the estate $450,000. He finished this just before his death on July 23, 1885, at the age of 63.