ArticleTitle stringclasses 109 values | Question stringlengths 4 586 ⌀ | Answer stringlengths 1 926 ⌀ | ArticleFile stringclasses 57 values | EvidencesAvailable stringclasses 120 values |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Theodore_Roosevelt | Who was Roosevelt's presidential hero? | Lincoln was Roosevelt's presidential hero. | data/set3/a7 | Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. ( ; October 27 1858 January 6 1919), also known as T.R., and to the public (but never to friends and intimates) as Teddy, was the twenty-sixth President of the United States, and a leader of the Republican Party and of the Progressive Movement. He became the youngest President in United States history at the age of 42. He served in many roles including Governor of New York, historian, naturalist, explorer, author, and soldier. Roosevelt is most famous for his personality: his energy, his vast range of interests and achievements, his model of masculinity, and his "cowboy" persona. His last name, often mispronounced, is, per Roosevelt, "pronounced as if it were spelled 'Rosavelt', in three syllables, the first syllable as if it was 'Rose.'"
As Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Navy, he prepared for and advocated war with Spain in 1898. He organized and helped command the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, the Rough Riders, during the Spanish-American War. Returning to New York as a war hero, he was elected Republican governor in 1899. He was a professional historian, a lawyer, a naturalist and explorer of the Amazon Basin; his 35 books include works on outdoor life, natural history, the American frontier, political history, naval history, and his autobiography.
In 1901, as Vice President, Roosevelt succeeded President William McKinley after McKinley's assassination. He is the youngest person ever to become President (John F. Kennedy is the youngest elected President). Roosevelt was a Progressive reformer who sought to move the dominant Republican Party into the Progressive camp. He distrusted wealthy businessmen and dissolved forty monopolistic corporations as a "trust buster". He was clear, however, to show he did not disagree with trusts and capitalism in principle but was only against corrupt, illegal practices. His "Square Deal" promised a fair shake for both the average citizen (through regulation of railroad rates and pure food and drugs) and the businessmen. As an outdoorsman, he promoted the conservation movement, emphasizing efficient use of natural resources. After 1906 he attacked big business and suggested the courts were biased against labor unions. In 1910, he broke with his friend and anointed successor William Howard Taft, but lost the Republican nomination to Taft and ran in the 1912 election on his own one-time Bull Moose ticket. Roosevelt beat Taft in the popular vote and pulled so many Progressives out of the Republican Party that Democrat Woodrow Wilson won in 1912, and the conservative faction took control of the Republican Party for the next two decades.
Roosevelt negotiated for the U.S. to take control of the Panama Canal and its construction in 1904; he felt the Canal's completion was his most important and historically significant international achievement. He was the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize, winning its Peace Prize in 1906, for negotiating the peace in the Russo-Japanese War.
Historian Thomas Bailey, who disagreed with Roosevelt's policies, nevertheless concluded, "Roosevelt was a great personality, a great activist, a great preacher of the moralities, a great controversialist, a great showman. He dominated his era as he dominated conversations....the masses loved him; he proved to be a great popular idol and a great vote getter." His image stands alongside Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln on Mount Rushmore. Surveys of scholars have consistently ranked him from #3 to #7 on the list of greatest American presidents.
Theodore Roosevelt at age 11
Theodore Roosevelt was born in a four-story brownstone at 28 East 20th Street, in the modern-day Gramercy section of New York City, the second of four children of Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. (1831â1877) and Mittie Bulloch (1834â1884). He had an elder sister Anna, nicknamed "Bamie" as a child and "Bye" as an adult for being always on the go; and two younger siblingsâhis brother Elliott (the father of Eleanor Roosevelt) and his sister Corinne, (grandmother of newspaper columnists, Joseph and Stewart Alsop).
The Roosevelts had been in New York since the mid 18th century and had grown with the emerging New York commerce class after the American Revolution. Unlike many of the earlier "log cabin Presidents," Roosevelt was born into a wealthy family. By the 19th century, the family had grown in wealth, power and influence from the profits of several businesses including hardware and plate-glass importing. The family was strongly Democratic in its political affiliation until the mid-1850s, then joined the new Republican Party. Theodore's father, known in the family as "Thee", was a New York City philanthropist, merchant, and partner in the family glass-importing firm Roosevelt and Son. He was a prominent supporter of Abraham Lincoln and the Union effort during the American Civil War. His mother Mittie Bulloch was a Southern belle from a slave-owning family in Savannah, Georgia and had quiet Confederate sympathies. Mittie's brother, Theodore's uncle, James Dunwoody Bulloch, was a U.S. Navy officer who became a Confederate admiral and naval procurement agent in Britain. Another uncle Irvine Bulloch was a midshipman on the Confederate raider, CSS Alabama; both remained in England after the war. . Pringle (1931) p. 11 From his grandparents' home, a young Roosevelt witnessed Abraham Lincoln's funeral procession in New York.
Sickly and asthmatic as a youngster, Roosevelt had to sleep propped up in bed or slouching in a chair during much of his early childhood, and had frequent ailments. Despite his illnesses, he was a hyperactive and often mischievous young man. His lifelong interest in zoology was formed at age seven upon seeing a dead seal at a local market. After obtaining the seal's head, the young Roosevelt and two of his cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Learning the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with many animals that he killed or caught, studied, and prepared for display. At age nine, he codified his observation of insects with a paper titled "The Natural History of Insects". "TR's LegacyâThe Environment". Retrieved March 6, 2006.
To combat his poor physical condition, his father compelled the young Roosevelt to take up exercise. To deal with bullies, Roosevelt started boxing lessons. Thayer, William Roscoe (1919). Theodore Roosevelt: An Intimate Biography, Chapter I, p. 20. Bartleby.com. Two trips abroad had a permanent impact: family tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and of the Middle East 1872 to 1873.
Theodore Sr. had a tremendous influence on his son. Of him Roosevelt wrote, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Roosevelt, Theodore (1913). Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography, Chapter I, p. 13. Roosevelt's sister later wrote, "He told me frequently that he never took any serious step or made any vital decision for his country without thinking first what position his father would have taken." "The Film & More: Program Transcript Part One". Retrieved March 9 2006.
Young "Teedie" , as he was nicknamed as a child, (the nickname "Teddy" was from his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee, and he later harbored an intense dislike for it) was mostly home schooled by tutors and his parents. A leading biographer says: "The most obvious drawback to the home schooling Roosevelt keely received was uneven coverage of the various areas of human knowledge." He was solid in geography (thanks to his careful observations on all his travels) and very well read in history, strong in biology, French and German, but deficient in mathematics, Latin and Greek. Brands T. R. p. 49â50 He matriculated at Harvard College in 1876, graduating magna cum laude. His father's death in 1878 was a tremendous blow, but Roosevelt redoubled his activities. He did well in science, philosophy and rhetoric courses but fared poorly in Latin and Greek. He studied biology with great interest and indeed was already an accomplished naturalist and published ornithologist. He had a photographic memory and developed a life-long habit of devouring books, memorizing every detail. Brands p. 62 He was an eloquent conversationalist who, throughout his life, sought out the company of the smartest people. He could multitask in extraordinary fashion, dictating letters to one secretary and memoranda to another, while browsing through a new book.
While at Harvard, Roosevelt was active in rowing, boxing and the Alpha Delta Phi and Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternities. He also edited a student magazine. He was runner-up in the Harvard boxing championship, losing to C.S. Hanks. The sportsmanship Roosevelt showed in that fight was long remembered. Upon graduating from Harvard, Roosevelt underwent a physical examination and his doctor advised him that due to serious heart problems, he should find a desk job and avoid strenuous activity. Roosevelt chose to embrace strenuous life instead. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris.
He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude (22nd of 177) from Harvard in 1880, and entered Columbia Law School. When offered a chance to run for New York Assemblyman in 1881, he dropped out of law school to pursue his new goal of entering public life. Brands, pp 123â29
Roosevelt as NY State Assemblyman 1883, photo
Roosevelt was a Republican activist during his years in the Assembly, writing more bills than any other New York state legislator. Already a major player in state politics, he attended the Republican National Convention in 1884 and fought alongside the Mugwump reformers; they lost to the Stalwart faction that nominated James G. Blaine. Refusing to join other Mugwumps in supporting Democrat Grover Cleveland, the Democratic nominee, he stayed loyal.
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt (July 29, 1861 in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts â February 14 1884 in Manhattan, New York) was the first wife of Theodore Roosevelt and mother of their only child together, Alice Lee Roosevelt. Alice Roosevelt died of an undiagnosed case of Bright's Disease two days after Alice Lee was born. Theodore Roosevelt's mother Mittie died of Typhoid fever in the same house on the same day, Feb. 14, 1884. After the simultaneous deaths of his mother and wife, Roosevelt left his daughter in the care of his sister in New York and moved out to Dakota Territory.
Theodore Roosevelt as Badlands hunter in 1885. New York studio photo. Note the engraved knife and rifle courtesy of Tiffany and Co.
Roosevelt built a second ranch he named Elk Horn thirty five miles (56 km) north of the boomtown, Medora, North Dakota. On the banks of the "Little Missouri," Roosevelt learned to ride, rope, and hunt.
Roosevelt rebuilt his life and began writing about frontier life for Eastern magazines. As a deputy sheriff, Roosevelt hunted down three outlaws who stole his river boat and were escaping north with it up the Little Missouri River. Capturing them, he decided against hanging them and sending his foreman back by boat, he took the thieves back overland for trial in Dickinson, guarding them forty hours without sleep and reading Tolstoy to keep himself awake. When he ran out of his own books he read a dime store western one of the thieves was carrying.
While working on a tough project aimed at hunting down a group of relentless horse thieves, Roosevelt came across the famous Deadwood, South Dakota Sheriff Seth Bullock. The two would remain friends for life. (Morris, Rise of, 241â245, 247â250)
After the uniquely severe U.S. winter of 1886-1887 wiped out his herd of cattle and his $60,000 investment (together with those of his competitors), he returned to the East, where in 1885, he had built Sagamore Hill in Oyster Bay, New York. It would be his home and estate until his death. Roosevelt ran as the Republican candidate for mayor of New York City in 1886 as "The Cowboy of the Dakotas." He came in third.
Following the election, he went to London in 1886 and married his childhood sweetheart, Edith Kermit Carow. Thayer, Chapter V, pp. 4, 6. They honeymooned in Europe, and Roosevelt led a party to the summit of Mont Blanc, a feat which resulted in his induction into the British Royal Society. Encyclopedia Britannica, 1910 Edition, Topic: Theodore Roosevelt They had five children: Theodore Jr., Kermit, Ethel Carow, Archibald Bulloch "Archie", and Quentin. Although Roosevelt's father was also named Theodore Roosevelt, he died while the future president was still childless and unmarried, so the future President Roosevelt took the suffix of Sr. and subsequently named his son Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. Because Roosevelt was still alive when his grandson and namesake was born, his grandson was named Theodore Roosevelt III, and the president's son retained the Jr. after his father's death.
Roosevelt's book The Naval War of 1812 (1882) was standard history for two generations. Roosevelt undertook extensive and original research going computing British and American man-of-war broadside throw weights. See The Naval War of 1812, via Project Gutenberg.
By comparison, however, his hastily-written biographies of Thomas Hart Benton (1887) and Gouverneur Morris (1888) are considered superficial. Pringle (1931) p 116 His major achievement was a four-volume history of the frontier, The Winning of the West (1889â1896), which had a notable impact on historiography as it presented a highly original version of the frontier thesis elaborated upon in 1893 by his friend Frederick Jackson Turner. Roosevelt argued that the harsh frontier conditions had created a new "race": the American people that replaced the "scattered savage tribes, whose life was but a few degrees less meaningless, squalid, and ferocious than that of the wild beasts with whom they held joint ownership". He believed that "the conquest and settlement by the whites of the Indian lands was necessary to the greatness of the race and to the well-being of civilized mankind". He was using an evolutionary model in which new environmental conditions allow a new species to form. His many articles in upscale magazines provided a much-needed income, as well as cementing a reputation as a major national intellectual. He was later chosen president of the
American Historical Association.
In the The Winning of the West (1889â1896), Roosevelt's frontier thesis stressed the racial struggle between "civilization" and "savagery." He supported Nordicism, the belief in the superiority of the "Nordic" race, along with social Darwinism and racialism. Excerpts:
# "The settler and pioneer have at bottom had justice on their side; this great continent could not have been kept as nothing but a game preserve for squalid savages".
# "The most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with savages".
# "American and Indian, Boer and Zulu, Cossack and Tartar, New Zealander and Maori, â in each case the victor, horrible though many of his deeds are, has laid deep the foundations for the future greatness of a mighty people".
# "..it is of incalculable importance that America, Australia, and Siberia should pass out of the hands of their red, black, and yellow aboriginal owners, and become the heritage of the dominant world races".
# "The world would have halted had it not been for the Teutonic conquests in alien lands; but the victories of Moslem over Christian have always proved a curse in the end. Nothing but sheer evil has come from the victories of Turk and Tartar".
What did not, however, conform to the views of Roosevelt's day was that race should never be the primary factor in someone of ability performing any job. Some notable events in Theodore Roosevelt's life included:
*Developing a close relationship with the Hidatsa Indians that is maintained today in the oral tradition of the tribe.
*Inviting reformer Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House, an action which caused outrage among many newpapers in the American South, which objected to "mixing of the races on social occassions."
*Openly supporting a bill in the New York State Assembly which allowed desegregation of schools in the state, personally noting that his children had been educated with other races and there was nothing wrong with it.
*Appointed the Collector of the Port of Charleston post to an African-American, Dr. William D. Crum, and when he was urged to withdraw the appointment, wrote the following:
:I do not intend to appoint any unfit man to office. So far as I legitimately can, I shall always endeavor to pay regard to the wishes and feelings of the people of each locality; but I cannot consent to take the position that the doorway of hope - the door of opportunity - is to be shut upon any man, no matter how worthy, purely upon the grounds of race or color. Such an attitude would, according to my contentions, be fundamentally wrong.
*Defended the Postmaster of Indianola, Mississippi, Minnie D. Cox. She was an African-American, and on that basis alone she was threatened with mob violence and was forced to resign. Roosevelt took action by closing the post office there, ignored her resignation, and still paid her what she was due as if nothing happened.
New York City Police Commissioner 1896
In the 1888 presidential election, Roosevelt campaigned in the Midwest for Benjamin Harrison. President Harrison appointed Roosevelt to the United States Civil Service Commission, where he served until 1895. Thayer, ch. VI, pp. 1â2. In his term, he vigorously fought the spoilsmen and demanded the enforcement of civil service laws. In spite of Roosevelt's support for Harrison's reelection bid in the presidential election of 1892, the eventual winner, Grover Cleveland (a Bourbon Democrat), re appointed him to the same post.
Roosevelt became president of the board of New York City Police Commissioners in 1895. During the two years he held this post, Roosevelt radically reformed the police department. The police force was reputed as one of the most corrupt in America. NYPD's history division records Roosevelt was, "an iron-willed leader of unimpeachable honesty, (who) brought a reforming zeal to the New York City Police Commission in 1895." Andrews, William, "The Early Years: The Challenge of Public Order - 1845 to 1870", - New York City Police Department History Site. Retrieved August 28 2006. Roosevelt and his fellow commissioners established new disciplinary rules, created a bicycle squad to police New York's traffic problems and standardized the use of pistols by officers. Editors, "Leadership of the City of New York Police Department 1845â1901", - The New York City Police Department Museum. Retrieved August 28 2006. Roosevelt implemented regular inspections of firearms, annual physical exams, appointed 1,600 new recruits based on their physical and mental qualifications and not on political affiliation, opened the department to ethnic minorities and women, established meritorious service medals, and shut down corrupt police hostelries. During his tenure a Municipal Lodging House was established by the Board of Charities and Roosevelt required officers to register with the Board. He also had telephones installed in station houses. Always an energetic man, he made a habit of walking officers' beats late at night and early in the morning to make sure they were on duty. Brands ch 11 He became caught up in public disagreements with commissioner Parker, who sought to negate or delay the promotion of many officers put forward by Roosevelt.
Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt (front center) at the Naval War College, c. 1897
Roosevelt had always been fascinated by naval history. Urged by Roosevelt's close friend, Congressman Henry Cabot Lodge, President William McKinley appointed a delighted Roosevelt to the post of Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897. (Because of the inactivity of Secretary of the Navy John D. Long at the time, this basically gave Roosevelt control over the department.) Roosevelt was instrumental in preparing the Navy for the Spanish-American War Brands ch 12 and was an enthusiastic proponent of testing the U.S. military in battle, at one point stating "I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one".
Roosevelt left his civilian Navy post to form the famous "Rough Riders" Regiment
Upon the declaration of war in 1898 that would be known as the Spanish-American War, Roosevelt resigned from the Navy Department and, with the aid of U.S. Army Colonel Leonard Wood, organized the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment from cowboys from the Western territories to Ivy League friends from New York. The newspapers called them the "Rough Riders." Originally Roosevelt held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and served under Colonel Wood, but after Wood was promoted to Brigadier General of Volunteer Forces, Roosevelt was promoted to Colonel and given command of the Regiment. . Even after his return to civilian life, Roosevelt preferred to be known as "Colonel Roosevelt" or "The Colonel." As a moniker, "Teddy" remained much more popular with the general public; however, political friends and others who worked closely with Roosevelt customarily addressed him by his rank.
Colonel Roosevelt and his "Rough Riders" after capturing San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War
Under his leadership, the Rough Riders became famous for dual charges up Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill in July 1898 (the battle was named after the latter hill). Out of all the Rough Riders, Roosevelt was the only one who had a horse, and was forced to walk up Kettle Hill on foot after his horse, Little Texas, became tired. For his actions, Roosevelt was nominated for the Medal of Honor which was subsequently disapproved. It has been widely speculated this disapproval was because of Roosevelt's outspoken comments of the handling of the War. In September 1997, Congressman Rick Lazio representing the 2nd District of New York sent two award recommendations to the U.S. Army Military Awards Branch. These recommendations addressed to Brigadier General Earl Simms, the Army's Adjutant General and one to Master Sergeant Gary Soots, Chief of Authorizations, would prove successful in garnering the much sought after award. Soots Letter Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 2001 for his actions. Brands ch 13 He was the first and, as of 2007, the only President of the United States to be awarded with America's highest military honor, and the only person in history to receive both his nation's highest honor for military valor and the world's foremost prize for peace. Chicago newspaper sees cowboy-TR campaigning for governor
On leaving the Army, Roosevelt re-entered New York state politics and was elected governor of New York in 1898 on the Republican ticket. He made such a concerted effort to root out corruption and "machine politics" Republican boss Thomas Collier Platt forced him on McKinley as a running mate in the 1900 election, against the wishes of McKinley's manager Senator Mark Hanna. Roosevelt was a powerful campaign asset for the Republican ticket, which defeated William Jennings Bryan in a landslide based on restoration of prosperity at home and a successful war and new prestige abroad. Bryan stumped for Free Silver again, but McKinley's promise of prosperity through the Gold Standard, high tariffs, and the restoration of business confidence enlarged his margin of victory. Bryan had strongly supported the war against Spain, but denounced the annexation of the Philippines as imperialism that would spoil America's innocence. Roosevelt countered with many speeches that argued it was best for the Filipinos to have stability, and the Americans to have a proud place in the world. Roosevelt's six months as Vice President (March to September, 1901) were uneventful. Brands ch 14â15 On September 2, 1901, at the Minnesota State Fair, Roosevelt first used in a public speech a saying that would later be universally associated with him: "Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far."
At the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York President McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz (Zol-gash), on September 6, 1901. Roosevelt had been giving a speech in Vermont when he heard of the shooting. He rushed to Buffalo but after being assured the President would recover, he went on a planned family camping and hiking trip to Mount Marcy. In the mountains a runner notified him McKinley was on his death bed. Roosevelt pondered with his wife, Edith, how best to respond, not wanting to show up in Buffalo and wait on McKinley's death. Roosevelt was rushed by a series of stagecoaches to North Creek train station. At the station, Roosevelt was handed a telegram that said President McKinley died at 2:30 AM that morning. Roosevelt continued by train from North Creek to Buffalo. He arrived in Buffalo later that day, accepting an invitation to stay at the home of Ansley Wilcox, a prominent lawyer and friend since the early 1880s when they had both worked closely with New York State Governor Grover Cleveland on civil service reform. Wilcox recalled, "the family and most of the household were in the country, but he Roosevelt was offered a quiet place to sleep and eat, and accepted it." Roosevelt was a successful president. He would achieve a lot of goals in life. Some of these goals were that he won the Spanish-American War, and the Nobel Peace Prize, and he also was the youngest president in United States history. "It is a dreadful thing to come into the Presidency this way." Retrieved February 2 2007.
Nashville Tennessee News sketch of Theodore Roosevelt inauguration minus the customary Bible. Inauguration photos were not allowed after a rival photographer unceremoniously knocked down another's camera. Roosevelt took the oath of office in the Ansley Wilcox House at Buffalo, New York borrowing Wilcox's morning coat. Roosevelt did not swear on a Bible , in contrast to the usual tradition of US presidents Bibles and Scripture Passages Used by Presidents in Taking the Oath of Office. Retrieved September 23, 2007. . Expressing the fears of many old line Republicans, Mark Hanna lamented "that damned cowboy is president now." Roosevelt was the youngest person to assume the presidency, at 42, and he promised to continue McKinley's cabinet and his basic policies. Roosevelt did so, but after winning election in 1904, he moved to the political left, stretching his ties to the Republican Party's conservative leaders. Brands ch 16
A national emergency was averted in 1902 when Roosevelt found a compromise to the anthracite coal strike by the United Mine Workers of America that threatened the heating supplies of most urban homes. Roosevelt called the mine owners and the labor leaders to the White House and negotiated a compromise. Miners were on strike for 163 days before it ended; they were granted a 10% pay increase and a 9-hour day (from the previous 10 hours), but the union was not officially recognized and the price of coal went up. Brands ch 17
Theodore Roosevelt promised to continue McKinley's program, and at first he worked closely with McKinley's men. His 20,000-word address to the Congress in December 1901, asked Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits." They did not act but Roosevelt did, issuing 44 lawsuits against major corporations; he was called the "trust-buster."
Roosevelt firmly believed: "The Government must in increasing degree supervise and regulate the workings of the railways engaged in interstate commerce." Inaction was a danger, he argued: "Such increased supervision is the only alternative to an increase of the present evils on the one hand or a still more radical policy on the other." Annual Message December 1904
His biggest success was passage of the Hepburn Act of 1906, the provisions of which were to be regulated by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). The most important provision of the Act gave the ICC the power to replace existing rates with "just-and-reasonable" maximum rates, with the ICC to define what was just and reasonable. Anti-rebate provisions were toughened, free passes were outlawed, and the penalties for violation were increased. Finally, the ICC gained the power to prescribe a uniform system of accounting, require standardized reports, and inspect railroad accounts. The Act made ICC orders binding; that is, the railroads had to either obey or contest the ICC orders in federal court. To speed the process, appeals from the district courts would go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In response to public clamor (and due to the uproar cause by Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle), Roosevelt pushed Congress to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, as well as the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. These laws provided for labeling of foods and drugs, inspection of livestock and mandated sanitary conditions at meatpacking plants. Congress replaced Roosevelt's proposals with a version supported by the major meatpackers who worried about the overseas markets, and did not want small unsanitary plants undercutting their domestic market. Blum 1980 pp 43â44
Democrats attack Roosevelt as militarist and ineffective in this 1904 election cartoon
Theodore Roosevelt was the fifth Vice President to succeed to the office of President, but the first to win election in his own right. (Millard Fillmore ran and lost on a third-party ticket four years after leaving office and Chester Arthur was denied nomination by his party in 1884). After Senator Mark Hanna, McKinley's old campaign manager, died in February 1904, there was no one in the Republican Party to oppose Roosevelt and he easily won the nomination. When an effort to draft former president Grover Cleveland failed, the Democrats were without a candidate and finally settled on obscure New York judge Alton B. Parker. The outcome was never in doubt. Roosevelt crushed Parker 56%-38% in the popular vote and 336-140 in the Electoral College, sweeping the country outside the perennially Democratic Solid South. Socialist Eugene Debs got 3%. The night of the election, after his victory was clear, Roosevelt promised not to run again in 1908. He later regretted that promise, as it compelled him to leave the White House at the age of only fifty, at the height of his popularity.
Roosevelt worked closely with early conservationists such as Gifford Pinchot, pictured above, with whom he organized the first National Governors Conservation Conference at the White House in 1908
Roosevelt was the first American president to consider the long-term needs for efficient conservation of national resources, winning the support of fellow hunters and fishermen to bolster his political base. Roosevelt was the last trained observer to ever see a passenger pigeon, and on March 14, 1903, Roosevelt created the first National Bird Preserve, (the beginning of the Wildlife Refuge system) on Pelican Island, Florida. Roosevelt worked with the major figures of the conservation movement, especially his chief adviser on the matter Gifford Pinchot. Roosevelt urged Congress to establish the United States Forest Service (1905), to manage government forest lands, and he appointed Gifford Pinchot to head the service. Roosevelt set aside more land for national parks and nature preserves than all of his predecessors combined, 194 million acres (785,000 km²). In all, by 1909, the Roosevelt administration had created an unprecedented 42 million acres (170,000 km²) of national forests, 53 national wildlife refuges and 18 areas of "special interest", including the Grand Canyon. The Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the Badlands commemorates his conservationist philosophy. Roosevelt and Muir In 1903, Roosevelt toured the Yosemite Valley with John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, but Roosevelt believed in the more efficient use of natural resources by corporations like lumber companies unlike Muir. In 1907, with Congress about to block him, Roosevelt hurried to designate 16 million acres (65,000 km²) of new national forests. In May 1908, he sponsored the Conference of Governors held in the White House, with a focus on the most efficient planning, analysis and use of water, forests and other natural resources. Roosevelt explained, "There is an intimate relation between our streams and the development and conservation of all the other great permanent sources of wealth." During his presidency, Roosevelt promoted the nascent conservation movement in essays for Outdoor Life magazine. To Roosevelt, conservation meant more and better usage and less waste, and a long-term perspective. In 2006, a group of American high school students developed a 10 minute video on Roosevelt's conservation legacy with the help of Roosevelt scholar Edward Renehan and Roosevelt descendant, Tweed Roosevelt. See Commented out because it's a YouTube link used as a ref, it's original research, and really it's not a reference. But maybe someone else will think differently. -->
Roosevelt's conservationist leanings also impelled him to preserve national sites of scientific, particularly archaeological, interest. The 1906 passage of the Antiquities Act gave him a tool for creating national monuments by presidential proclamation, without requiring Congressional approval for each monument on an item-by-item basis. The language of the Antiquities Act specifically called for the preservation of "historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest," and was primarily construed by its creator, Congressman James F. Lacey (assisted by the prominent archaeologist Edgar Lee Hewett), as targeting the prehistoric ruins of the American Southwest. Roosevelt, however, applied a typically broad interpretation to the Act, and the first national monument he proclaimed, Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming, was preserved for reasons tied more to geology than archaeology.
Roosevelt's conservationism caused him to forbid having a Christmas tree in the White House. He was reportedly upset when he found a small tree his son had been hiding. After learning about the commercial farming of Christmas trees, where no virgin forests were cut down to supply the demand during the Christmas holiday, he relented and allowed his family to have a tree each season.
In Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and the Panama Canal Zone, Roosevelt used the Army's medical service, under Walter Reed and William C. Gorgas, to eliminate the yellow fever menace and install a new regime of public health. In the new possessions the Roosevelt administration used the army to build railways, telegraph and telephone lines, and upgrade roads and port facilities.
The Philippines saw the U.S. Army for the first time using a systematic doctrine of counter-insurgency. Despite the ad hoc nature of the force deployed by Roosevelt the Army was able to end the insurgency by 1902. Over the course of the war the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built over 3000 miles of roads and worked to build an entire education system, even bringing in thousands of American teachers to spearhead the effort.
Roosevelt builds the canal and shovels dirt on Colombia
Roosevelt dramatically increased the size of the navy, forming the Great White Fleet, which toured the world in 1907. This display was designed to impress the Japanese. Yet, the ships were almost forced to return because of the inadequacy of American ports in the Pacific. See Edward S Miller,War Plan Orange (Annapolis, 1991) Roosevelt also added the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which stated that the United States could intervene in Latin American affairs when corruption of governments made it necessary.
Roosevelt gained international praise for helping negotiate the end of the Russo-Japanese War, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Roosevelt later arbitrated a dispute between France and Germany over the division of Morocco. Some historians have argued these latter two actions helped in a small way to avert a world war. The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (2005). "Theodore Roosevelt (1901â1909)". Retrieved March 6 2006.
Roosevelt's most famous foreign policy initiative, following the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, was the construction of the Panama Canal, which upon its completion shortened the route of freighters between San Francisco, California and New York City by 8,000 miles (13,000 km).
Colombia first proposed the canal in their country as opposed to rival Nicaragua, and Colombia signed a treaty for an agreed-upon sum. At the time, Panama was a province of Colombia. According to the treaty, in 1902, the U.S. was to buy out the equipment and excavations from France, which had been attempting to build a canal since 1881. While the Colombian negotiating team had signed the treaty, ratification by the Colombian Senate became problematic. The Colombian Senate balked at the price and asked for ten million dollars over the original agreed upon price. When the U.S. refused to re-negotiate the price, the Colombian politicians proposed cutting the original French company that started the project out of the deal and giving that difference to Colombia.
The original deal stipulated the French company was to be reasonably compensated. Realizing the Colombian Senate was no longer bargaining in good faith, Roosevelt tired of these last-minute attempts by the Colombians to cheat the French out of their entire investment, and ultimately decided, with the encouragement of Panamanian business interests, to help Panama declare independence from Colombia in 1903.
A brief Panamanian revolution of only a few hours followed the declaration, as Colombian soldiers were bribed $50 each to lay down their arms. On November 3, 1903, the Republic of Panama was created, with its constitution written in advance by the United States. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. signed a protection treaty with Panama. And after the signing of the treaty, a man named Nathan Johnson Forest assisted Panama with the initial planning phases for the canal. The U.S. then paid ten million to secure rights to build on, and control, the Canal Zone. Construction began in 1904 and was completed in 1914.
It took a long time to build the Panama Canal because of the rampant spread of tropical diseases. Over 200 workers died of yellow fever and malaria, spread by mosquitoes. Roosevelt initiated work on clearing swamps and other areas in which the insects bred. As the health threat finally receded, this greatly facilitated the construction of the Canal.
Roosevelt, (on the 12" gun turret at right), addresses the crew of USS Connecticut (BB18), in Hampton Roads, Virginia, upon her return from the Fleet's cruise
As Roosevelt's administration drew to a close, the president dispatched a fleet consisting of four US Navy battleship squadrons and their escorts, on a world-wide voyage of circumnavigation from December 16, 1907, to February 22, 1909. With their hulls painted white (except for the beautiful gilded scrollwork) and red, white, and blue banners on their bows, these ships would come to be known as The Great White Fleet. Roosevelt wanted to demonstrate to his country and the world that the US Navy was capable of operating in a global theater, particularly in the Pacific. This was extraordinarily important at a time when tensions were slowly growing between the United States and Japan. The latter had recently shown its navy's competence in defeating the Russians in the Russo-Japanese War, and the US Navy fleet in the west was relatively small. As a mark of the mission's success, the Atlantic Fleet battleships only later came to be known as the "Great White Fleet."
When the real Great White Fleet sailed into Yokahama, Japan, the Japanese went to extraordinary lengths to show that their country desired peace with the US. Thousands of Japanese school children waved American flags, purchased by the government, as they greeted the Navy brass coming ashore. In February 1909, the fleet returned home to Hampton Roads, Virginia, and Roosevelt was there to witness the triumphant return. His appearance indicated that he saw the fleet's long voyage as a fitting finish for his administration. Roosevelt said to the officers of the Fleet, "Other nations may do what you have done, but they'll have to follow you." This parting act of grand strategy by Roosevelt greatly expanded the respect for, as well as the role of, the United States in the international arena. However, the visit of the Great White Fleet to Tokyo also encouraged Japanese militarists. They had always argued for an even more aggressive Japanese ship building and naval expansion program, and the recent show of force by the U.S. convinced enough of their countrymen that they were right. In a real sense, this set in motion the chain of events leading to the U.S. & Japan confronting each other 30 years later - during WWII.
A Lincoln cent
Roosevelt thought American coins and currency were common and uninspiring. Roosevelt had the opportunity to pose for a young Lithuanian-born sculptor, Victor David Brenner, who, since arriving nineteen years earlier in the United States had become one of the nationâs premier medalists. Roosevelt had learned of Brenner's talents in a settlement house on New York City's Lower East Side and was immediately impressed with a bas-relief that Brenner had made of Lincoln, based on the early Civil War era photographer, Mathew Brady's photograph. Roosevelt, who considered Lincoln the savior of the Union and the greatest Republican President and who also considered himself Lincolnâs political heir, ordered the new Lincoln penny to be based on Brenner's work and that it go just in time to commemorate Lincolnâs 100th birthday in 1909. The likeness of President Lincoln on the obverse of the coin is an adaptation of a plaque Brenner executed several years earlier and which had come to the attention of President Roosevelt in New York. /ref>
Roosevelt took Cabinet members and friends on long, fast-paced hikes, boxed in the state rooms of the White House, romped with his children, and read voraciously. Hanson, David C. (2005). "Theodore Roosevelt: Lion in the White House". Retrieved March 6 2006. In 1908, he was permanently blinded in his left eye during one of his boxing bouts, but this injury was kept from the public at the time. Smith, Ira R. T.; Morris, Joe Alex (1949). "Dear Mr. President": The Story of Fifty Years in the White House Mail Room, p. 52. Julian Messner. His many enthusiastic interests and limitless energy led one ambassador to wryly explain, "You must always remember that the President is about six." Kennedy, Robert C. (2005). "'I hear there are some kids in the White House this year'". Retrieved March 6 2006.
Roosevelt shoots holes in the dictionary as the ghosts of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dr Johnson moan.
During his presidency, Roosevelt tried but did not succeed to advance the cause of simplified spelling. He tried to force government to adopt the system, sending an order to the Public Printer to use the system in all public documents. The order was obeyed, and among the documents thus printed was the President's special message regarding the Panama Canal. The New York World translated the Thanksgiving Day proclamation:
The reform annoyed the public, forcing him to rescind the order. Roosevelt's friend, literary critic Brander Matthews, one of the chief advocates of the reform, remonstrated with him for abandoning the effort. Roosevelt replied on December 16: "I could not by fighting have kept the new spelling in, and it was evidently worse than useless to go into an undignified contest when I was beaten. Do you know that the one word as to which I thought the new spelling was wrong thru was more responsible than anything else for our discomfiture?" Next summer Roosevelt was watching a naval review when a launch marked "Pres Bot" chugged ostentatiously by. The President waved and laughed with delight. Pringle 465â7
Roosevelt's oldest daughter, Alice, was a controversial character during Roosevelt's stay in the White House. When friends asked if he could rein in his elder daughter, Roosevelt said, "I can be President of the United States, or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both." In turn, Alice said of him that he always wanted to be "the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral." (Some sources attribute this quote to one of Roosevelt's sons instead.) Thayer, Chapter XIII, p. 7.
Roosevelt's contribution to the White House was the construction of the original West Wing, which he had built to free up the second floor rooms in the residence that formerly housed the president's staff. He and Edith also had the entire house renovated and restored to the federal style, tearing out the Victorian furnishings and details (including Tiffany windows) that had been installed over the previous three decades.
1902 The Washington Post political cartoon that spawned the Teddy bear name.
#In the sphere of race relations, Booker T. Washington became the first black man to dine as a guest at the White House in 1901.
#Oscar S. Straus became the first Jewish person appointed as a Cabinet Secretary, under Roosevelt.
#In August, 1902, Roosevelt became the first U.S. president to take a public automobile ride. This occurred during a parade in Hartford, Connecticut
#In 1910 he became the first U.S. President to ride in an airplane.
#On August 25, 1905 he became the first U.S. President to ride in a military submarine when he boarded the USS Holland (SS-1) and ran submerged with her for 55 minutes.
#In 1906, he made the first trip, by a President, outside the United States, visiting Panama to inspect the construction progress of the Panama Canal on November 9.
#In 1902, in response to the assassination of President William McKinley on September 6 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became the first president to be under constant Secret Service protection.
# In 1906, Roosevelt became the first American to be awarded a Nobel Prize.
#In 2001, he became the first and only President up to date to receive a Medal of Honor, making him the only person to date to win the world's highest peace honor, as well as his nation's top military honor.
#He was the first and to date only president from Long Island, New York.
#He was the first President to officially refer to the White House as such, on his official stationery. This had been the common name (referring to the color of the building), but until then, the official name was "The Executive Mansion"
#He was the first President to wear a necktie for his official Presidential Portrait.
#He was the first President to approve a coin, the Lincoln cent, with a man's face on it, in 1909, just in time for the centennial of Lincoln's birth. Lincoln was Roosevelt's presidential hero.
#He was the first President to coin an internationally recognized trademark, although not deliberately. His offhand remark, "good to the last drop," about some coffee drunk at the Maxwell House hotel in Tennessee, see Maxwell House coffee.
#He is the only president to have a famous toy named after him (the Teddy bear, named after a bear he refused to shoot in a 1902 hunt in Mississipi).
John Singer Sargent, Theodore Roosevelt, 1903; click on painting for background story.
Roosevelt appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
*Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. 1902
*William Rufus Day 1903
*William Henry Moody 1906
*Oklahoma 1907
Roosevelt standing next to a dead elephant during a safari
In March 1909, shortly after the end of his second term, Roosevelt left New York for a safari in east and central Africa. Roosevelt's party landed in Mombasa, British East Africa (now Kenya), traveled to the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) before following the Nile up to Khartoum in modern Sudan. Financed by Andrew Carnegie and by his own proposed writings, Roosevelt hunted for specimens for the Smithsonian Institution and for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. His party, which included scientists from the Smithsonian and was led by Frederick Selous, the famous big game hunter and explorer, and they killed or trapped over 11,397 animals, from insects and moles to hippopotamuses and elephants. 512 of the animals were big game animals, including six rare white rhinos. 262 of these were consumed by the expedition. Tons of salted animals and their skins were shipped to Washington; the quantity was so large that it took years to mount them all, and the Smithsonian was able to share many duplicate animals with other museums.
Regarding the large number of animals taken, Roosevelt said, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned." O'Toole, Patricia (2005) When Trumpets Call, p. 67, Simon and Schuster, ISBN 0-684-86477-0 However, although the safari was ostensibly conducted in the name of science, there was another, quite large element to it as well. In addition to many native peoples and local leaders, interaction with renowned professional hunters and land owning families made the safari as much a political and social event, as it was a hunting excursion. Roosevelt wrote a detailed account of the adventure in the book "African Game Trails", where he describes the excitement of the chase, the people he met, and the flora and fauna he collected in the name of science.
Roosevelt certified William Howard Taft to be a genuine "progressive" in 1908, when Roosevelt pushed through the nomination of his Secretary of War for the Presidency. Taft easily defeated three-time candidate William Jennings Bryan. Taft had a different progressivism, one that stressed the rule of law and preferred that judges rather than administrators or politicians make the basic decisions about fairness. Taft usually proved a less adroit politician than Roosevelt and lacked the energy and personal magnetism, not to mention the publicity devices, the dedicated supporters, and the broad base of public support that made Roosevelt so formidable. When Roosevelt realized that lowering the tariff would risk severe tensions inside the Republican Party pitting producers (manufacturers and farmers) against merchants and consumers he stopped talking about the issue. Taft ignored the risks and tackled the tariff boldly, on the one hand encouraging reformers to fight for lower rates, and then cutting deals with conservative leaders that kept overall rates high. The resulting Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909 was too high for most reformers, but instead of blaming this on Senator Nelson Aldrich and big business, Taft took credit, calling it the best tariff ever. Again he had managed to alienate all sides. While the crisis was building inside the Party, Roosevelt was touring Africa and Europe, so as to allow Taft to be his own man. Thayer, Chapter XXI, p. 10.
1909 cartoon: TR hands his policies to the care of Taft while William Loeb carries the "Big Stick"
Unlike Roosevelt, Taft never attacked business or businessmen in his rhetoric. However, he was attentive to the law, so he launched 90 antitrust suits, including one against the largest corporation, U.S. Steel, for an acquisition that Roosevelt had personally approved. Consequently, Taft lost the support of antitrust reformers (who disliked his conservative rhetoric), of big business (which disliked his actions), and of Roosevelt, who felt humiliated by his protégé. The left wing of the Republican Party began agitating against Taft. Senator Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin created the National Progressive Republican League (precursor to the Progressive Party (United States, 1924)) to defeat the power of political bossism at the state level and to replace Taft at the national level. More trouble came when Taft fired Gifford Pinchot, a leading conservationist and close ally of Roosevelt. Pinchot alleged that Taft's Secretary of Interior Richard Ballinger was in league with big timber interests. Conservationists sided with Pinchot, and Taft alienated yet another vocal constituency.
Roosevelt, back from Europe, unexpectedly launched an attack on the federal courts, which deeply upset Taft. Not only had Roosevelt alienated big business, he was also attacking both the judiciary and the deep faith Republicans had in their judges (most of whom had been appointed by McKinley, Roosevelt or Taft.) In the 1910 Congressional elections, Democrats swept to power, and Taft's reelection in 1912 was increasingly in doubt. In 1911, Taft responded with a vigorous stumping tour that allowed him to sign up most of the party leaders long before Roosevelt announced.
The battle between Taft and Roosevelt bitterly split the Republican Party; Taft's people dominated the party until 1936.
Late in 1911, Roosevelt finally broke with Taft and LaFollette and announced himself as a candidate for the Republican nomination. But Roosevelt had delayed too long, and Taft had already won the support of most party leaders in the country. Because of LaFollette's nervous breakdown on the campaign trail before Roosevelt's entry, most of LaFollette's supporters went over to Roosevelt, the new progressive Republican candidate.
Roosevelt, stepping up his attack on judges, carried nine of the states with preferential primaries, LaFollette took two, and Taft only one. The 1912 Primaries represented the first extensive use of the Presidential Primary, a reform achievement of the progressive movement. However, these primary elections, while demonstrating Roosevelt's popularity with the electorate, were in no ways as important as primaries are today. First of all, there were fewer states where the common voter was given a forum to express himself, such as a primary. Many more states selected convention delegates either at party conventions, or in caucuses, which were not as open as today's caucuses. So while the man in the street still adored Roosevelt, most professional Republican politicians were supporting Taft, and they proved difficult to upset in non-primary states.
At the Republican Convention in Chicago, despite being the incumbent, Taft's victory was not immediately assured. But after two weeks, Roosevelt, realizing he would not be able to win the nomination outright, asked his followers to leave the convention hall. They moved to the Auditorium Theatre, and then Roosevelt, along with key allies such as Pinchot and Albert Beveridge created the Progressive Party, structuring it as a permanent organization that would field complete tickets at the presidential and state level. It was popularly known as the "Bull Moose Party," which got its name after Roosevelt told reporters, "I'm as fit as a bull moose." Carl M. Cannon, The Pursuit of Happiness in Times of War, Rowman & Littlefield: 2003, p. 142. ISBN 0742525929. At the convention Roosevelt cried out, "We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord." Roosevelt's platform echoed his 1907â08 proposals, calling for vigorous government intervention to protect the people from the selfish interests. Thayer, Chapter XXII, pp. 25 31.
The bullet-damaged speech and eyeglass case on display at the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace
While campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on October 14, 1912, a saloonkeeper named John Schrank failed in an assassination attempt on Roosevelt. Schrank did shoot the former President, but the bullet lodged in Roosevelt's chest only after penetrating both his steel eyeglass case and passing through a thick (50 pages) single-folded copy of the speech he was carrying in his jacket. Accessed Dec. 21, 2007 . Roosevelt, as a very experienced hunter and anatomist, decide the fact he wasn't coughing blood meant the bullet had not completely penetrated the chest wall to his lung (he was correct), and so declined suggestions he go to the hospital immediately. Instead, he delivered his scheduled speech with blood seeping into his shirt. He spoke for ninety minutes. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Afterwards, doctors determined by probe and X-ray the bullet had traversed three inches of tissue and lodged in Roosevelt's chest muscle but did not penetrate the pleura, and it would be more dangerous to attempt to remove the bullet than to leave it in place. Roosevelt carried it with him until he died. Roosevelt Timeline
Due to the bullet wound, Roosevelt was taken off the campaign trail in the final weeks of the race (which ended election day, November 5). Though the other two campaigners stopped their own campaigns in the week Roosevelt was in the hospital, they resumed it once he was released. The overall effect of the shooting was uncertain. Roosevelt for many reasons failed to move enough Republicans in his direction. He did win 4.1 million votes (27%), compared to Taft's 3.5 million (23%). However, Wilson's 6.3 million votes (42%) were enough to garner 435 electoral votes. Roosevelt had 88 electoral votes to Taft's 8 electoral votes. (This meant that Taft became the only incumbent President in history to actually come in third place in an attempt to be re-elected.) But Pennsylvania was Roosevelt's only Eastern state; in the Midwest he carried Michigan, Minnesota and South Dakota; in the West, California and Washington; he did not win any Southern states. Although he lost, he won more votes than former presidents Martin Van Buren and Millard Fillmore who also ran again and also lost. More important, he pulled so many progressives out of the Republican party that it took on a much more conservative cast for the next generation.
The initial party. From left to right (seated): Father Zahm, Rondon, Kermit, Cherrie, Miller, four Brazilians, Roosevelt, Fiala. Only Roosevelt, Kermit, Cherrie, Rondon and the Brazilians traveled down the River of Doubt.
Roosevelt's popular book Through the Brazilian Wilderness describes his expedition into the Brazilian jungle in 1913 as a member of the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition co-named after its leader, Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon. The book describes all of the scientific discovery, scenic tropical vistas and exotic flora, fauna and wild life experienced on the expedition. A friend, Father John Augustine Zahm, had searched for new adventures and found them in the forests of South America. After a briefing of several of his own expeditions, he convinced Roosevelt to commit to such an expedition in 1912. To finance the expedition, Roosevelt received support from the American Museum of Natural History, promising to bring back many new animal specimens. Once in South America, a new far more ambitious goal was added: to find the headwaters of the Rio da Duvida, the River of Doubt, and trace it north to the Madiera and thence to the Amazon River. It was later renamed Rio Roosevelt (Rio Teodoro today, 640 km long) in honor of the former President. Roosevelt's crew consisted of his 24-year-old son Kermit, Colonel Cândido Rondon, a naturalist sent by the American Museum of Natural History named George K. Cherrie, Brazilian Lieutenant Joao Lyra, team physician Dr. José Antonio Cajazeira, and sixteen highly skilled paddlers (called camaradas in Portuguese). The initial expedition started, probably unwisely, on December 9, 1913, at the height of the rainy season. The trip down the River of Doubt started on February 27, 1914.
Roosevelt, wearing sun helmet, barely survived an expedition in 1913 into the Amazonian rain forest to trace the River of Doubt later named the Rio Roosevelt.
During the trip down the river, Roosevelt contracted malaria and a serious infection resulting from a minor leg wound. These illnesses so weakened Roosevelt that, by six weeks into the expedition, he had to be attended day and night by the expedition's physician, Dr. Cajazeira, and his son, Kermit. By this time, Roosevelt considered his own condition a threat to the survival of the others. At one point, Kermit had to talk him out of his wish to be left behind so as not to slow down the expedition, now with only a few weeks rations left. Roosevelt was having chest pains when he tried to walk, his temperature soared to 103 °F (39 °C), and at times he was delirious. He had lost over fifty pounds (20 kg). Without the constant support of his son, Kermit, Dr. Cajazeira, and the continued leadership of Colonel Rondon, Roosevelt would likely have perished. Despite his concern for Roosevelt, Rondon had been slowing down the pace of the expedition by his dedication to his own map-making and other geographical goals that demanded regular stops to fix the expedition's position via sun-based survey.
Upon his return to New York, friends and family were startled by Roosevelt's physical appearance and fatigue. Roosevelt wrote to a friend that the trip had cut his life short by ten years. He might not have really known just how accurate that analysis would prove to be, because the effects of the South America expedition had so greatly weakened him that they significantly contributed to his declining health. For the rest of his life, he would be plagued by flareups of malaria and leg inflammations so severe that they would require hospitalization. Thayer, Chapter XXIII, pp. 4â7.
When Roosevelt had recovered enough of his strength, he found that he had a new battle on his hands. In professional circles, there was doubt about his claims of having discovered and navigated a completely uncharted river over 625 miles (1,000 km) long. Roosevelt would have to defend himself and win international recognition of the expedition's newly-named Rio Roosevelt. Toward this end, Roosevelt went to Washington, D.C., and spoke at a standing-room-only convention to defend his claims. His official report and its defense silenced the critics, and he was able to triumphantly return to his home in Oyster Bay.
Despite his weakened condition and slow recovery from his South America expedition, Roosevelt continued to write with passion on subjects ranging from foreign policy to the importance of the national park system. As an editor of Outlook magazine, he had weekly access to a large, educated national audience. In all, Roosevelt wrote about 18 books (each in several editions), including his Autobiography, Rough Riders and History of the Naval War of 1812, ranching, explorations, and wildlife. His most ambitious book was the 4 volume narrative The Winning of the West, which attempted to connect the origin of a new "race" of Americans (i.e. what he considered the present population of the United States to be) to the frontier conditions their ancestors endured in throughout the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries.
Roosevelt angrily complained about the foreign policy of President Wilson, calling it "weak." This caused him to develop an intense dislike for Woodrow Wilson. When World War I began in 1914, Roosevelt strongly supported the Allies of World War I and demanded a harsher policy against Germany, especially regarding submarine warfare. In 1916, he campaigned energetically for Charles Evans Hughes and repeatedly denounced Irish-Americans and German-Americans who Roosevelt said were unpatriotic because they put the interest of Ireland and Germany ahead of America's by supporting neutrality. He insisted one had to be 100% American, not a "hyphenated American" who juggled multiple loyalties. When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, Roosevelt sought to raise a volunteer infantry division, but Wilson refused. Brands 781â4; Cramer, C.H. Newton D. Baker (1961) 110â113
Roosevelt's attacks on Wilson helped the Republicans win control of Congress in the off-year elections of 1918. Roosevelt was popular enough to seriously contest the 1920 Republican nomination, but his health was broken by 1918, because of the lingering malaria. His son Quentin, a daring pilot with the American forces in France, was shot down behind German lines in 1918. Quentin was his youngest son and probably the most liked by him. It is said the death of his son distressed him so much that Roosevelt never recovered from his loss. Dalton, (2002)p 507
Theodore Roosevelt Grave in Youngs Memorial Cemetery Oyster Bay, New York
Twenty-six steps leading to Roosevelt's grave, commemorating his service as 26th President
Despite his debilitating diseases, Roosevelt remained active to the end of his life. He was an enthusiastic proponent of the Scouting movement. The Boy Scouts of America gave him the title of Chief Scout Citizen, the only person to hold such title. One early Scout leader said, "The two things that gave Scouting great impetus and made it very popular were the uniform and Teddy Roosevelt's jingoism." Larson, Keith (2006). "Theodore Roosevelt". Retrieved March 6 2006.
On January 6, 1919, Roosevelt died in his sleep of a coronary embolism at Oyster Bay, and was buried in nearby Youngs Memorial Cemetery. Upon receiving word of his death, his son, Archie, telegraphed his siblings simply, "The old lion is dead." Dalton, (2002) p. 507 Woodrow Wilson's vice president at the time Thomas R. Marshall said of his death "Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight." Manners, William. TR and Will: A Friendship that Split the Republican Party. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1969.
Roosevelt Family in 1903 with Quentin on the left, TR, Ted, Jr., "Archie", Alice, Kermit, Edith, and Ethel
Roosevelt intensely disliked being called "Teddy," and was quick to point out this fact to those who used the nickname, though it would become widely used by newspapers during his political career. He attended the Madison Square Presbyterian Church until the age of 16. Later in life, when Roosevelt lived at Oyster Bay he attended an Episcopal church with his wife. While in Washington he attended services at Grace Reformed Church. "The Religious Affiliation of Theodore Roosevelt U.S. President". Retrieved March 7 2006. As President he firmly believed in the separation of church and state and thought it unwise to have In God We Trust on currency, because he thought it sacrilegious to put the name of the Deity on something so common as money. Reynolds, Ralph C. (1999). "In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash". Retrieved March 7 2006. He was also a Freemason, and regularly attended the Matinecock Lodge's meetings. He once said that "One of the things that so greatly attracted me to Masonry that I hailed the chance of becoming a Mason was that it really did act up to what we, as a government, are pledged to namely to treat each man on his merit as a man." Matinecock Masonic Historical Society. "History". Retrieved March 12 2006.
Roosevelt had a lifelong interest in pursuing what he called, in an 1899 speech, "the strenuous life." To this end, he exercised regularly and took up boxing, tennis, hiking, rowing, polo, and horseback riding. As governor of New York, he boxed with sparring partners several times a week, a practice he regularly continued as President until one blow detached his left retina, leaving him blind in that eye (a fact not made public until many years later). Thereafter, he practiced jujutsu and continued his habit of skinny-dipping in the Potomac River during winter. Thayer, Chapter XVII, pp. 22 24. Shaw, K.B. & Maiden, David (2006). "Theodore Roosevelt".
Retrieved March 7 2006.
Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt's estate
He was an enthusiastic singlestick player and, according to Harper's Weekly, in 1905 showed up at a White House reception with his arm bandaged after a bout with General Leonard Wood. Amberger, J Christoph, Secret History of the Sword Adventures in Ancient Martial Arts 1998, ISBN 1-892515-04-0. Roosevelt was also an avid reader, reading tens of thousands of books, at a rate of several a day in multiple languages. Along with Thomas Jefferson Roosevelt is often considered the most well read of any American politician. David H. Burton, The Learned Presidency 1988, p 12.
Roosevelt's face on Mt. Rushmore
1910 cartoon shows Roosevelt's multiple roles to 1898
1910 cartoon shows Roosevelt's multiple roles from 1899 to 1910
For his gallantry at San Juan Hill, Roosevelt's commanders recommended him for the Medal of Honor, but his subsequent telegrams to the War Department complaining about the delays in returning American troops from Cuba doomed his chances. In the late 1990s, Roosevelt's supporters again took up the flag on his behalf and overcame opposition from elements within the U.S. Army and the National Archives. On January 16, 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded Theodore Roosevelt the Medal of Honor posthumously for his charge up San Juan Hill, Cuba, during the Spanish-American War. Roosevelt's eldest son, Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., received the Medal of Honor for heroism at the Battle of Normandy in 1944. The Roosevelts thus became one of only two father-son pairs to receive this honor.
Roosevelt's legacy includes several other important commemorations. Roosevelt was included with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln at the Mount Rushmore Memorial, designed in 1927. The United States Navy named two ships for Roosevelt: the USS Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600), a submarine was in commission from 1961 to 1982; and the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), an aircraft carrier that has been on active duty in the Atlantic Fleet since 1986.
The Roosevelt Memorial Association (later the Theodore Roosevelt Association) or "TRA", was founded in 1920 to preserve Roosevelt's legacy. The Association preserved TR's birthplace, "Sagamore Hill" home, papers, and video film.
Overall, historians credit Roosevelt for changing the nation's political system by permanently placing the presidency at center stage and making character as important as the issues. His notable accomplishments include trust-busting and conservationism. However, he has been criticized for his interventionist and imperialist approach to nations he considered "uncivilized". Even so, history and legend have been kind to him. His friend, historian Henry Adams, proclaimed, "Roosevelt, more than any other living man ....showed the singular primitive quality that belongs to ultimate matter the quality that mediaeval theology assigned to God he was pure act." Historians typically rank Roosevelt among the top five presidents. The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (2005). "Biography: Impact and Legacy". Retrieved March 7 2006. "Legacy". Retrieved March 7 2006.
Roosevelt has been quoted by virtually all the major Republican and Democratic candidates for the 2008 US Presidential Election. Political pundits have brought up Roosevelt's name in book after book. The degree of discussion ranges from a single sentence by democrat Bill Richardson talking about him as "BR" breaking Roosevelt's (or "TR") 1907 single handshaking record, John Edwards mentioning Roosevelt in a fall of 2007 speech to John McCain devoting an entire chapter to him in his main background book. Even the lone candidate that did not mention Roosevelt in an autobiographical book, democrat, Joe Biden, nevertheless, began mentioning Roosevelt's taking on of corporate interests speeches in New Hampshire in the summer of 2007.
Roosevelt's 1901 saying "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick" is still being occasionally quoted by politicians and columnists in different countries - not only in English but also in translation to various other languages. For example, following the Second Lebanon War of August 2006, opponents of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accused him of "Speaking loudly and carrying a small stick".
The well-known Nicaraguan poet Rubén DarÃo published in 1905 a poem entitled A Roosevelt (To Roosevelt) which was included in Cantos de Vida y Esperanza (Songs of Life and Hope)
As a charismatic President often considered larger than life, Roosevelt has appeared in numerous fiction books, television shows, films, and other media of popular culture. Roosvelt was played by Robin Williams in the box office hit Night at the Museum and its upcoming sequel.
"Drawing the Line in Mississippi," by Clifford Berryman, referring to Roosevelt's sparing the bear.
Filmmaker John Milius also directed two films in which Roosevelt was a central character: The Wind and the Lion (1975) in which he was played by Brian Keith; and Rough Riders (1997) in which he was played by Tom Berenger. Keith's performance is widely considered to be the definitive screen depiction of Roosevelt.
Roosevelt's lasting popular legacy, however, is the stuffed toy bearsâteddy bearsânamed after him following an incident on a hunting trip in 1902. Roosevelt famously refused to kill a captured black bear simply for the sake of making a kill. Bears and later bear cubs became closely associated with Roosevelt in political cartoons thereafter. "History of the Teddy Bear". Retrieved March 7 2006.
On June 26, 2006, Roosevelt, once again, made the cover of TIME magazine with the lead story, "The Making of AmericaâTheodore RooseveltâThe 20th Century Express": "At home and abroad, Theodore Roosevelt was the locomotive President, the man who drew his flourishing nation into the future."
The Washington Nationals major league baseball team has a fan tradition called the Presidents Race. In it four caricatures of presidents Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt race against each other. A running gag has been Theodore Roosevelt's inability to win a single Presidents Race.
In 2006 Roosevelt' likeness was used in "Night at the Museum (The movie).
Theodore Roosevelt was one of the first presidents whose voice was recorded for posterity. Several of his recorded speeches survive. Vincent Voice Library at Michigan State University. Retrieved September 23, 2007.
* Roosevelt goes for first aeroplane ride in Arch Hoxsey plane 1910
*Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. father
*Martha Bulloch mother
*Eleanor Roosevelt niece, First Lady of the United States (1933â1945)
*Alice Roosevelt first wife
*Edith Carow Roosevelt second wife
*Alice Roosevelt first daughter
*Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. first son
*Kermit Roosevelt second son
*Ethel Roosevelt second daughter
*Archibald Roosevelt third son
*Quentin Roosevelt fourth son
*Elliott Roosevelt brother
*Anna Cowles sister
*Corinne Robinson sister
*Franklin D. Roosevelt, cousin, 32nd President of the United States
*Theodore Roosevelt Association 1920 organization founded to preserve Roosevelt's historical legacy
*Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia 1940 compendium of Roosevelt's key writings, sayings and conversations
*Reynier Tyson 4th great-grandfather, early German-American settler
*Panama Canal
*Great White Fleet
*Russo-Japanese War
*List of U.S. political appointments that crossed party lines
*Progressivism
*
*Auchincloss, Louis, ed. Theodore Roosevelt, The Rough Riders and an Autobiography (Library of America, 2004) ISBN 978-1-93108265-5
*Auchincloss, Louis, ed. Theodore Roosevelt, Letters and Speeches (Library of America, 2004) ISBN 978-1-93108266-2
*Brands, H.W. ed. The Selected Letters of Theodore Roosevelt. (2001)
*Harbaugh, William ed. The Writings Of Theodore Roosevelt (1967). A one-volume selection of Roosevelt's speeches and essays.
*Hart, Albert Bushnell and Herbert Ronald Ferleger, eds. Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia (1941), Roosevelt's opinions on many issues; online version at
*Morison, Elting E., John Morton Blum, and Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., eds., The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 8 vols. (1951â1954). Very large, annotated edition of letters from TR.
*Roosevelt, Theodore (1999). Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography. online at Bartleby.com.
*Roosevelt, Theodore. The Works of Theodore Roosevelt (National edition, 20 vol. 1926); 18,000 pages containing most of TR's speeches, books and essays, but not his letters; a CD-ROM edition is available; some of TR's books are available online through Project Bartleby
* Theodore Roosevelt books and speeches on Project Gutenberg
*Blum, John Morton The Republican Roosevelt. (1954). Series of essays that examine how TR did politics
*Brands, H.W. Theodore Roosevelt (2001), full biography
* Chace, James. 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft, and Debs - The Election That Changed the Country. (2004). 323 pp.
*Cooper, John Milton The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. (1983) a dual scholarly biography
*Dalton, Kathleen. Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life. (2002), full scholarly biography
* Fehn, Bruce. "Theodore Roosevelt and American Masculinity." Magazine of History (2005) 19(2): 52â59. Issn: 0882-228x Fulltext online at Ebsco. Provides a lesson plan on TR as the historical figure who most exemplifies the quality of masculinity.
*Gluck, Sherwin. "T.R.'s Summer White House, Oyster Bay." (1999) Chronicles the events of TR's presidency during the summers of his two terms.
*Gould, Lewis L. The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. (1991), standard history of his domestic and foreign policy as president
*Harbaugh, William Henry. The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt. (1963), full scholarly biography
*Keller, Morton, ed., Theodore Roosevelt: A Profile (1967) excerpts from TR and from historians.
* Kohn, Edward. "Crossing the Rubicon: Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and the 1884 Republican National Convention." Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2006 5(1): 18â45. Issn: 1537-7814 Fulltext: in History Cooperative
*Millard, Candice. River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey. (2005)
*McCullough, David. Mornings on Horseback, The Story of an Extraordinary Family. a Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt. (2001) popular biography to 1884
*Morris, Edmund The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, to 1901 (1979); vol 2: Theodore Rex 1901â1909. (2001); Pulitzer prize for Volume 1. Biography.
* Mowry, George. The Era of Theodore Roosevelt and the Birth of Modern America, 1900â1912. (1954) general survey of era; online
*Mowry, George E. Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement. (2001) focus on 1912
* O'Toole, Patricia. When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt after the White House. (2005). 494 pp.
*Powell, Jim. Bully Boy: The Truth About Theodore Roosevelt's Legacy (Crown Forum, 2006). Denounces TR policies from conservative/libertarian perspective
*Pringle, Henry F. Theodore Roosevelt (1932; 2nd ed. 1956), full scholarly biography
*Putnam, Carleton Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography, Volume I: The Formative Years (1958), only volume published, to age 28.
*Renehan, Edward J. The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War. (Oxford University Press, 1998), examines TR and his family during the World War I period
*Strock, James M. Theodore Roosevelt on Leadership. Random House, 2003.
* Watts, Sarah. Rough Rider in the White House: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of Desire. 2003. 289 pp.
*Beale Howard K. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power. (1956). standard history of his foreign policy
* Holmes, James R. Theodore Roosevelt and World Order: Police Power in International Relations. 2006. 328 pp.
* Marks III, Frederick W. Velvet on Iron: The Diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt (1979)
* David McCullough. The Path between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870â1914 (1977).
* Ricard, Serge. "The Roosevelt Corollary." Presidential Studies Quarterly 2006 36(1): 17â26. Issn: 0360-4918 Fulltext: in Swetswise and Ingenta
* Tilchin, William N. and Neu, Charles E., ed. Artists of Power: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Their Enduring Impact on U.S. Foreign Policy. Praeger, 2006. 196 pp.
* Tilchin, William N. Theodore Roosevelt and the British Empire: A Study in Presidential Statecraft (1997)
* Theodore Roosevelt Association - Founded in 1920 by Roosevelt's friends and admirers to preserve his legacy. Extensive online resources and bibliography
* Extensive essay on Theodore Roosevelt and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* NY Times Headline, January 6, 1919, Theodore Roosevelt Dies Suddenly at Oyster Bay Home; Nation Shocked, Pays Tribute to Former President; Our Flag on All Seas and in All Lands at Half Mast
* "The Early Years: The Challenge of Public Order - 1845 to 1870", by William Andrews, New York City Police Department History Site
* "Leadership of the City of New York Police Department 1845â1901", - The New York City Police Department Museum
* PBS "American Experience" Theodore Roosevelt
* My Brother Theodore Roosevelt, 1921 By Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, a bestseller with a woman's and sister's point of view on TR. Full text and Full text Search, Free to Read and Search.
* Almanac of Theodore Roosevelt
* Downloadable audio recordings of Roosevelt in MP3 format
* Audio clips of Roosevelt's speeches
* Roosevelt podcasts Audio Recording of Roosevelt's Progressive Party Acceptance Speech, "Progressive Covenant with the People" with text included.
* Quotes
* Theodore Roosevelt Works - Bartleby's Online Books
* Presidential Biography by Stanley L. Klos
*
* Index of T. Roosevelt Etexts
* Detailed biography of Theodore Roosevelt from the 1911 version of Encyclopedia Britannica
* Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Address
* State of the Union addresses for 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, and 1908
* Nobel Peace Prize 1906: Theodore Roosevelt
* Theodore Roosevelt Papers at the Library of Congress
* Theodore Roosevelt: His Life & Times on Film (LOC)
* Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
* Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site
* Sagamore Hill National Historic Site
* NobelPrize.org's entry on Theodore Roosevelt
* Congressional Medal of Honor's entry on Theodore Roosevelt; including citation and pictures
* Medal of Honor Recipients on Film
* White House biography
* Vice Presidents Dot Com
* Family and Descendants of Theodore Roosevelt
* Ron Schuler's Parlour Tricks: Teddy
* Theodore Roosevelt Links
* Theodore Roosevelt Quotes, Pictures and Biography at TeddyRoosevelt.com
* Theodore Roosevelt cylinder recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.
* On Theodore Roosevelt's progressive vision from the Roosevelt Institution, a student think tank inspired in part by Theodore Roosevelt.
* Boone and Crockett Club, founded by Theodore Roosevelt
* How to pronounce Theodore Roosevelt
* Yesterday's News blog 1901 newspaper account of Roosevelt's "Big Stick" speech at the Minnesota State Fair
* Archive of Theodore Roosevelt Pictures
* still of Theodore Roosevelt going on first aeroplane flight
* different view of Theodore Roosevelt & Arch Hoxsey in Wright aeroplane St Louis October 1910
*
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
September 14
1901
March 4
1909
Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
William Howard Taft
Vice President of the United States
March 4
1901
September 14
1901
William McKinley
Garret Hobart
Charles W. Fairbanks
List of Governors of New York
January 1
1899
December 31
1900
Timothy L. Woodruff
Frank S. Black
Benjamin Barker Odell, Jr.
New York City
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
Edith Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Bulloch Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Polymath
author
historian
conservationist
Civil servant
History of United States Republican Party
Dutch Reformed
October 27
1858
January 6
1919
President of the United States
History of the United States Republican Party
Progressivism
List of Governors of New York
United States Navy
Rough Riders
Rough Riders
Spanish-American War
Amazon Basin
William McKinley
John F. Kennedy
Progressive Era
trust-busting
trust (law)
capitalism
Square Deal
conservation
labor union
William Howard Taft
U.S. presidential election, 1912
Progressive Party (United States, 1912)
Woodrow Wilson
conservative
Panama Canal
Nobel Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
Russo-Japanese War
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
Mount Rushmore
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
Gramercy, New York
New York City
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
Martha Bulloch
Bamie Roosevelt
Elliott Roosevelt I
Eleanor Roosevelt
Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
newspaper
Joseph Alsop
Stewart Alsop
American Revolution
History of the United States Democratic Party
History of the United States Republican Party
philanthropy
Abraham Lincoln
American Civil War
slavery
Savannah, Georgia
Confederate
James Dunwoody Bulloch
U.S. Navy
Irvine Bulloch
CSS Alabama
asthma
zoology
Pinniped
taxidermy
March 6
2006
boxing
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
March 9
2006
biology
French language
German language
mathematics
Latin
Greek language
Harvard College
magna cum laude
science
philosophy
rhetoric
ornithology
eidetic memory
Alpha Delta Phi
Delta Kappa Epsilon
C.S. Hanks
Phi Beta Kappa
Columbia Law School
New York Assembly
History of the United States Republican Party
Mugwump
James G. Blaine
Grover Cleveland
History of the United States Democratic Party
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
July 29
1861
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
February 14
1884
Manhattan, New York
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Bright's disease
Typhoid fever
Dakota Territory
Badlands
Tiffany and Co.
Medora, North Dakota
Little Missouri River (North Dakota)
Dickinson
Deadwood, South Dakota
South Dakota
Sheriff
Seth Bullock
winter of 1886-1887
Sagamore Hill
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Edith Roosevelt
Mont Blanc
British Royal Society
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt III
man-of-war
broadside
Thomas Hart Benton (senator)
Gouverneur Morris
historiography
frontier thesis
Frederick Jackson Turner
American Historical Association
Nordicism
social Darwinism
racialism
Booker T. Washington
New York
Charleston
Postmaster
Indianola, Mississippi
U.S. presidential election, 1888
Benjamin Harrison
United States Civil Service Commission
spoils system
U.S. presidential election, 1892
Grover Cleveland
Bourbon Democrat
New York City Police Commissioner
August 28
2006
August 28
2006
Henry Cabot Lodge
William McKinley
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Secretary of the Navy
John D. Long
Spanish-American War
Rough Riders
Leonard Wood
Rough Riders
cowboy
Ivy League
Lieutenant Colonel
Brigadier General
Rough Riders
Rough Riders
Kettle Hill
Battle of San Juan Hill
Medal of Honor
as of 2007
machine politics
Thomas C. Platt
United States presidential election, 1900
Mark Hanna
William Jennings Bryan
Minnesota State Fair
Big stick Diplomacy
Pan-American Exposition
Buffalo, New York
William McKinley
Leon Czolgosz
September 6
1901
Mount Marcy
Ansley Wilcox
Grover Cleveland
February 2
2007
Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site
Buffalo, New York
New York
Bible
Mark Hanna
United Mine Workers of America
trust (19th century)
Trust Buster
Hepburn Act
Interstate Commerce Commission
Upton Sinclair
The Jungle
Pure Food and Drug Act
Meat Inspection Act
Millard Fillmore
Chester Arthur
Mark Hanna
Grover Cleveland
Alton B. Parker
Electoral College
Solid South
Eugene Debs
Gifford Pinchot
passenger pigeon
March 14
1903
Florida
conservation
Gifford Pinchot
United States Forest Service
national park
nature preserve
national forest
national wildlife refuge
Grand Canyon
Theodore Roosevelt National Park
Badlands
John Muir
Conference of Governors
Outdoor Life
Edward Renehan
Tweed Roosevelt
YouTube
April 23
2006
archaeology
Antiquities Act
U.S. National Monument
James F. Lacey
Edgar Lee Hewett
Devils Tower National Monument
Wyoming
geology
Christmas tree
White House
virgin forests
Cuba
Philippines
Puerto Rico
Panama Canal Zone
Walter Reed
William C. Gorgas
yellow fever
Great White Fleet
Roosevelt Corollary
Monroe Doctrine
Latin American
Russo-Japanese War
Nobel Peace Prize
France
Germany
Morocco
world war
March 6
2006
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty
Panama Canal
San Francisco, California
California
New York City
Colombia
Nicaragua
Panama
November 3
1903
Nathan Johnson Forest
US Navy
battleship
circumnavigation
December 16
1907
February 22
1909
Great White Fleet
Russians
Russo-Japanese War
U.S. Atlantic Fleet
grand strategy
Victor David Brenner
New York City
Lower East Side
American Civil War
Mathew Brady
Lincoln cent
March 6
2006
March 6
2006
simplified spelling
Brander Matthews
December 16
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
West Wing
federal style
Louis Comfort Tiffany
race relations
Booker T. Washington
White House
Oscar Straus (politician)
Hartford
Connecticut
submarine
USS Holland (SS-1)
Panama Canal
November 9
William McKinley
September 6
1901
Secret Service
Nobel Prize
Long Island
Lincoln cent
Maxwell House
Teddy bear
John Singer Sargent
President of the United States
Vice President of the United States
Charles W. Fairbanks
United States Secretary of State
John Hay
Elihu Root
Robert Bacon
United States Secretary of the Treasury
Lyman J. Gage
L. M. Shaw
George B. Cortelyou
United States Secretary of War
Elihu Root
William Howard Taft
Luke Edward Wright
Attorney General of the United States
Philander C. Knox
William Henry Moody
Charles Joseph Bonaparte
Postmaster General of the United States
Charles Emory Smith
Henry C. Payne
Robert Wynne
George B. Cortelyou
George von Lengerke Meyer
United States Secretary of the Navy
John Davis Long
William Henry Moody
Paul Morton
Charles Joseph Bonaparte
Victor H. Metcalf
Truman Handy Newberry
United States Secretary of the Interior
Ethan A. Hitchcock (Interior)
James Rudolph Garfield
United States Secretary of Agriculture
James Wilson (U.S. politician)
United States Secretary of Commerce and Labor
George B. Cortelyou
Victor H. Metcalf
Oscar Straus (politician)
Supreme Court of the United States
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
William R. Day
William Henry Moody
Oklahoma
safari
East Africa
central Africa
Mombasa
British East Africa
Kenya
Belgian Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Nile
Khartoum
Sudan
Andrew Carnegie
Smithsonian Institution
American Museum of Natural History
Frederick Selous
insect
Mole (animal)
hippopotamus
elephant
White Rhinoceros
Washington, D.C.
taxidermy
museum
National Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History
science
flora
fauna
William Howard Taft
U.S. presidential election, 1908
William Jennings Bryan
Payne-Aldrich tariff
Nelson Aldrich
William Loeb
Robert M. La Follette, Sr.
Wisconsin
Progressive Party (United States, 1924)
Gifford Pinchot
Richard Ballinger
Republican Convention
Chicago
Auditorium Building, Chicago
Pinchot
Albert Beveridge
Progressive Party 1912 (United States)
Bull Moose Party
Armageddon
statesmanship
Woodrow Wilson
monopoly
Trust (19th century)
U.S. Steel
Standard Oil
Howard Taft
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Wisconsin
October 14
1912
John Schrank
assassination
chest
steel
eyeglass
pleura
Pennsylvania
Eastern United States
Midwest
Michigan
Minnesota
South Dakota
Western United States
California
Washington
Martin Van Buren
Millard Fillmore
John Augustine Zahm
Cândido Rondon
Kermit Roosevelt
Brazil
Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition
Brazil
Cândido Rondon
John Augustine Zahm
American Museum of Natural History
River of Doubt
Amazon River
Rio Roosevelt
Cândido Rondon
American Museum of Natural History
Portuguese language
December 9
1913
February 27
1914
Rio Roosevelt
malaria
Rio Roosevelt
Oyster Bay
World War I
Allies of World War I
Germany
Charles Evans Hughes
hyphenated American
Quentin Roosevelt
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Scouting
Boy Scouts of America
March 6
2006
January 6
1919
embolism
Archibald Roosevelt
Thomas R. Marshall
Death (personification)
Quentin Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Archibald Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Kermit Roosevelt
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Madison Square Presbyterian Church
Episcopal Church in the United States of America
Grace Reformed Church
March 7
2006
separation of church and state
In God We Trust
March 7
2006
Freemason
March 12
2006
The Strenuous Life
jujutsu
skinny-dipping
Potomac River
March 7
2006
Sagamore Hill
singlestick
Harper's Weekly
Leonard Wood
Thomas Jefferson
Mt. Rushmore
Medal of Honor
Cuba
National Archives and Records Administration
January 16
2001
Bill Clinton
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Battle of Normandy
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
Mount Rushmore
United States Navy
USS Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600)
USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71)
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
Sagamore Hill
Henry Adams
March 7
2006
March 7
2006
Joseph Biden
Second Lebanon War
Israel
Ehud Olmert
Nicaragua
Rubén DarÃo
Robin Williams
Night at the Museum
John Milius
The Wind and the Lion
Brian Keith
Rough Riders (film)
Tom Berenger
teddy bears
American black bear
March 7
2006
June 26
2006
Time (magazine)
Washington Nationals
Presidents Race
Michigan State University
Megabyte
ogg
Theora
Theora
Megabyte
ogg
Theora
Theora
Arch Hoxsey
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
Martha Bulloch
Eleanor Roosevelt
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
Edith Carow Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Elliott Roosevelt I
Bamie Roosevelt
Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia
Reynier Tyson
Panama Canal
Great White Fleet
Russo-Japanese War
List of U.S. political appointments that crossed party lines
Progressivism
Library of America
Library of America
Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia
Edmund Morris (writer)
Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project
University of California, Santa Barbara
think tank
Arch Hoxsey
Frank S. Black
List of Governors of New York
Benjamin B. Odell, Jr.
Garret Hobart
Vice President of the United States
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
President of the United States
William Howard Taft
Garret Hobart
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1900
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1904
William Howard Taft
Progressive Party (United States, 1912)
U.S. presidential election, 1912
Grover Cleveland
Oldest living United States president
William Howard Taft
President of the United States
October 27
1858
New York, New York
January 6
1919
Oyster Bay, New York
|
Theodore_Roosevelt | Who was Roosevelt's presidential hero? | Lincoln was Roosevelt's presidential hero | data/set3/a7 | Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. ( ; October 27 1858 January 6 1919), also known as T.R., and to the public (but never to friends and intimates) as Teddy, was the twenty-sixth President of the United States, and a leader of the Republican Party and of the Progressive Movement. He became the youngest President in United States history at the age of 42. He served in many roles including Governor of New York, historian, naturalist, explorer, author, and soldier. Roosevelt is most famous for his personality: his energy, his vast range of interests and achievements, his model of masculinity, and his "cowboy" persona. His last name, often mispronounced, is, per Roosevelt, "pronounced as if it were spelled 'Rosavelt', in three syllables, the first syllable as if it was 'Rose.'"
As Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Navy, he prepared for and advocated war with Spain in 1898. He organized and helped command the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, the Rough Riders, during the Spanish-American War. Returning to New York as a war hero, he was elected Republican governor in 1899. He was a professional historian, a lawyer, a naturalist and explorer of the Amazon Basin; his 35 books include works on outdoor life, natural history, the American frontier, political history, naval history, and his autobiography.
In 1901, as Vice President, Roosevelt succeeded President William McKinley after McKinley's assassination. He is the youngest person ever to become President (John F. Kennedy is the youngest elected President). Roosevelt was a Progressive reformer who sought to move the dominant Republican Party into the Progressive camp. He distrusted wealthy businessmen and dissolved forty monopolistic corporations as a "trust buster". He was clear, however, to show he did not disagree with trusts and capitalism in principle but was only against corrupt, illegal practices. His "Square Deal" promised a fair shake for both the average citizen (through regulation of railroad rates and pure food and drugs) and the businessmen. As an outdoorsman, he promoted the conservation movement, emphasizing efficient use of natural resources. After 1906 he attacked big business and suggested the courts were biased against labor unions. In 1910, he broke with his friend and anointed successor William Howard Taft, but lost the Republican nomination to Taft and ran in the 1912 election on his own one-time Bull Moose ticket. Roosevelt beat Taft in the popular vote and pulled so many Progressives out of the Republican Party that Democrat Woodrow Wilson won in 1912, and the conservative faction took control of the Republican Party for the next two decades.
Roosevelt negotiated for the U.S. to take control of the Panama Canal and its construction in 1904; he felt the Canal's completion was his most important and historically significant international achievement. He was the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize, winning its Peace Prize in 1906, for negotiating the peace in the Russo-Japanese War.
Historian Thomas Bailey, who disagreed with Roosevelt's policies, nevertheless concluded, "Roosevelt was a great personality, a great activist, a great preacher of the moralities, a great controversialist, a great showman. He dominated his era as he dominated conversations....the masses loved him; he proved to be a great popular idol and a great vote getter." His image stands alongside Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln on Mount Rushmore. Surveys of scholars have consistently ranked him from #3 to #7 on the list of greatest American presidents.
Theodore Roosevelt at age 11
Theodore Roosevelt was born in a four-story brownstone at 28 East 20th Street, in the modern-day Gramercy section of New York City, the second of four children of Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. (1831â1877) and Mittie Bulloch (1834â1884). He had an elder sister Anna, nicknamed "Bamie" as a child and "Bye" as an adult for being always on the go; and two younger siblingsâhis brother Elliott (the father of Eleanor Roosevelt) and his sister Corinne, (grandmother of newspaper columnists, Joseph and Stewart Alsop).
The Roosevelts had been in New York since the mid 18th century and had grown with the emerging New York commerce class after the American Revolution. Unlike many of the earlier "log cabin Presidents," Roosevelt was born into a wealthy family. By the 19th century, the family had grown in wealth, power and influence from the profits of several businesses including hardware and plate-glass importing. The family was strongly Democratic in its political affiliation until the mid-1850s, then joined the new Republican Party. Theodore's father, known in the family as "Thee", was a New York City philanthropist, merchant, and partner in the family glass-importing firm Roosevelt and Son. He was a prominent supporter of Abraham Lincoln and the Union effort during the American Civil War. His mother Mittie Bulloch was a Southern belle from a slave-owning family in Savannah, Georgia and had quiet Confederate sympathies. Mittie's brother, Theodore's uncle, James Dunwoody Bulloch, was a U.S. Navy officer who became a Confederate admiral and naval procurement agent in Britain. Another uncle Irvine Bulloch was a midshipman on the Confederate raider, CSS Alabama; both remained in England after the war. . Pringle (1931) p. 11 From his grandparents' home, a young Roosevelt witnessed Abraham Lincoln's funeral procession in New York.
Sickly and asthmatic as a youngster, Roosevelt had to sleep propped up in bed or slouching in a chair during much of his early childhood, and had frequent ailments. Despite his illnesses, he was a hyperactive and often mischievous young man. His lifelong interest in zoology was formed at age seven upon seeing a dead seal at a local market. After obtaining the seal's head, the young Roosevelt and two of his cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Learning the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with many animals that he killed or caught, studied, and prepared for display. At age nine, he codified his observation of insects with a paper titled "The Natural History of Insects". "TR's LegacyâThe Environment". Retrieved March 6, 2006.
To combat his poor physical condition, his father compelled the young Roosevelt to take up exercise. To deal with bullies, Roosevelt started boxing lessons. Thayer, William Roscoe (1919). Theodore Roosevelt: An Intimate Biography, Chapter I, p. 20. Bartleby.com. Two trips abroad had a permanent impact: family tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and of the Middle East 1872 to 1873.
Theodore Sr. had a tremendous influence on his son. Of him Roosevelt wrote, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Roosevelt, Theodore (1913). Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography, Chapter I, p. 13. Roosevelt's sister later wrote, "He told me frequently that he never took any serious step or made any vital decision for his country without thinking first what position his father would have taken." "The Film & More: Program Transcript Part One". Retrieved March 9 2006.
Young "Teedie" , as he was nicknamed as a child, (the nickname "Teddy" was from his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee, and he later harbored an intense dislike for it) was mostly home schooled by tutors and his parents. A leading biographer says: "The most obvious drawback to the home schooling Roosevelt keely received was uneven coverage of the various areas of human knowledge." He was solid in geography (thanks to his careful observations on all his travels) and very well read in history, strong in biology, French and German, but deficient in mathematics, Latin and Greek. Brands T. R. p. 49â50 He matriculated at Harvard College in 1876, graduating magna cum laude. His father's death in 1878 was a tremendous blow, but Roosevelt redoubled his activities. He did well in science, philosophy and rhetoric courses but fared poorly in Latin and Greek. He studied biology with great interest and indeed was already an accomplished naturalist and published ornithologist. He had a photographic memory and developed a life-long habit of devouring books, memorizing every detail. Brands p. 62 He was an eloquent conversationalist who, throughout his life, sought out the company of the smartest people. He could multitask in extraordinary fashion, dictating letters to one secretary and memoranda to another, while browsing through a new book.
While at Harvard, Roosevelt was active in rowing, boxing and the Alpha Delta Phi and Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternities. He also edited a student magazine. He was runner-up in the Harvard boxing championship, losing to C.S. Hanks. The sportsmanship Roosevelt showed in that fight was long remembered. Upon graduating from Harvard, Roosevelt underwent a physical examination and his doctor advised him that due to serious heart problems, he should find a desk job and avoid strenuous activity. Roosevelt chose to embrace strenuous life instead. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris.
He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude (22nd of 177) from Harvard in 1880, and entered Columbia Law School. When offered a chance to run for New York Assemblyman in 1881, he dropped out of law school to pursue his new goal of entering public life. Brands, pp 123â29
Roosevelt as NY State Assemblyman 1883, photo
Roosevelt was a Republican activist during his years in the Assembly, writing more bills than any other New York state legislator. Already a major player in state politics, he attended the Republican National Convention in 1884 and fought alongside the Mugwump reformers; they lost to the Stalwart faction that nominated James G. Blaine. Refusing to join other Mugwumps in supporting Democrat Grover Cleveland, the Democratic nominee, he stayed loyal.
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt (July 29, 1861 in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts â February 14 1884 in Manhattan, New York) was the first wife of Theodore Roosevelt and mother of their only child together, Alice Lee Roosevelt. Alice Roosevelt died of an undiagnosed case of Bright's Disease two days after Alice Lee was born. Theodore Roosevelt's mother Mittie died of Typhoid fever in the same house on the same day, Feb. 14, 1884. After the simultaneous deaths of his mother and wife, Roosevelt left his daughter in the care of his sister in New York and moved out to Dakota Territory.
Theodore Roosevelt as Badlands hunter in 1885. New York studio photo. Note the engraved knife and rifle courtesy of Tiffany and Co.
Roosevelt built a second ranch he named Elk Horn thirty five miles (56 km) north of the boomtown, Medora, North Dakota. On the banks of the "Little Missouri," Roosevelt learned to ride, rope, and hunt.
Roosevelt rebuilt his life and began writing about frontier life for Eastern magazines. As a deputy sheriff, Roosevelt hunted down three outlaws who stole his river boat and were escaping north with it up the Little Missouri River. Capturing them, he decided against hanging them and sending his foreman back by boat, he took the thieves back overland for trial in Dickinson, guarding them forty hours without sleep and reading Tolstoy to keep himself awake. When he ran out of his own books he read a dime store western one of the thieves was carrying.
While working on a tough project aimed at hunting down a group of relentless horse thieves, Roosevelt came across the famous Deadwood, South Dakota Sheriff Seth Bullock. The two would remain friends for life. (Morris, Rise of, 241â245, 247â250)
After the uniquely severe U.S. winter of 1886-1887 wiped out his herd of cattle and his $60,000 investment (together with those of his competitors), he returned to the East, where in 1885, he had built Sagamore Hill in Oyster Bay, New York. It would be his home and estate until his death. Roosevelt ran as the Republican candidate for mayor of New York City in 1886 as "The Cowboy of the Dakotas." He came in third.
Following the election, he went to London in 1886 and married his childhood sweetheart, Edith Kermit Carow. Thayer, Chapter V, pp. 4, 6. They honeymooned in Europe, and Roosevelt led a party to the summit of Mont Blanc, a feat which resulted in his induction into the British Royal Society. Encyclopedia Britannica, 1910 Edition, Topic: Theodore Roosevelt They had five children: Theodore Jr., Kermit, Ethel Carow, Archibald Bulloch "Archie", and Quentin. Although Roosevelt's father was also named Theodore Roosevelt, he died while the future president was still childless and unmarried, so the future President Roosevelt took the suffix of Sr. and subsequently named his son Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. Because Roosevelt was still alive when his grandson and namesake was born, his grandson was named Theodore Roosevelt III, and the president's son retained the Jr. after his father's death.
Roosevelt's book The Naval War of 1812 (1882) was standard history for two generations. Roosevelt undertook extensive and original research going computing British and American man-of-war broadside throw weights. See The Naval War of 1812, via Project Gutenberg.
By comparison, however, his hastily-written biographies of Thomas Hart Benton (1887) and Gouverneur Morris (1888) are considered superficial. Pringle (1931) p 116 His major achievement was a four-volume history of the frontier, The Winning of the West (1889â1896), which had a notable impact on historiography as it presented a highly original version of the frontier thesis elaborated upon in 1893 by his friend Frederick Jackson Turner. Roosevelt argued that the harsh frontier conditions had created a new "race": the American people that replaced the "scattered savage tribes, whose life was but a few degrees less meaningless, squalid, and ferocious than that of the wild beasts with whom they held joint ownership". He believed that "the conquest and settlement by the whites of the Indian lands was necessary to the greatness of the race and to the well-being of civilized mankind". He was using an evolutionary model in which new environmental conditions allow a new species to form. His many articles in upscale magazines provided a much-needed income, as well as cementing a reputation as a major national intellectual. He was later chosen president of the
American Historical Association.
In the The Winning of the West (1889â1896), Roosevelt's frontier thesis stressed the racial struggle between "civilization" and "savagery." He supported Nordicism, the belief in the superiority of the "Nordic" race, along with social Darwinism and racialism. Excerpts:
# "The settler and pioneer have at bottom had justice on their side; this great continent could not have been kept as nothing but a game preserve for squalid savages".
# "The most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with savages".
# "American and Indian, Boer and Zulu, Cossack and Tartar, New Zealander and Maori, â in each case the victor, horrible though many of his deeds are, has laid deep the foundations for the future greatness of a mighty people".
# "..it is of incalculable importance that America, Australia, and Siberia should pass out of the hands of their red, black, and yellow aboriginal owners, and become the heritage of the dominant world races".
# "The world would have halted had it not been for the Teutonic conquests in alien lands; but the victories of Moslem over Christian have always proved a curse in the end. Nothing but sheer evil has come from the victories of Turk and Tartar".
What did not, however, conform to the views of Roosevelt's day was that race should never be the primary factor in someone of ability performing any job. Some notable events in Theodore Roosevelt's life included:
*Developing a close relationship with the Hidatsa Indians that is maintained today in the oral tradition of the tribe.
*Inviting reformer Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House, an action which caused outrage among many newpapers in the American South, which objected to "mixing of the races on social occassions."
*Openly supporting a bill in the New York State Assembly which allowed desegregation of schools in the state, personally noting that his children had been educated with other races and there was nothing wrong with it.
*Appointed the Collector of the Port of Charleston post to an African-American, Dr. William D. Crum, and when he was urged to withdraw the appointment, wrote the following:
:I do not intend to appoint any unfit man to office. So far as I legitimately can, I shall always endeavor to pay regard to the wishes and feelings of the people of each locality; but I cannot consent to take the position that the doorway of hope - the door of opportunity - is to be shut upon any man, no matter how worthy, purely upon the grounds of race or color. Such an attitude would, according to my contentions, be fundamentally wrong.
*Defended the Postmaster of Indianola, Mississippi, Minnie D. Cox. She was an African-American, and on that basis alone she was threatened with mob violence and was forced to resign. Roosevelt took action by closing the post office there, ignored her resignation, and still paid her what she was due as if nothing happened.
New York City Police Commissioner 1896
In the 1888 presidential election, Roosevelt campaigned in the Midwest for Benjamin Harrison. President Harrison appointed Roosevelt to the United States Civil Service Commission, where he served until 1895. Thayer, ch. VI, pp. 1â2. In his term, he vigorously fought the spoilsmen and demanded the enforcement of civil service laws. In spite of Roosevelt's support for Harrison's reelection bid in the presidential election of 1892, the eventual winner, Grover Cleveland (a Bourbon Democrat), re appointed him to the same post.
Roosevelt became president of the board of New York City Police Commissioners in 1895. During the two years he held this post, Roosevelt radically reformed the police department. The police force was reputed as one of the most corrupt in America. NYPD's history division records Roosevelt was, "an iron-willed leader of unimpeachable honesty, (who) brought a reforming zeal to the New York City Police Commission in 1895." Andrews, William, "The Early Years: The Challenge of Public Order - 1845 to 1870", - New York City Police Department History Site. Retrieved August 28 2006. Roosevelt and his fellow commissioners established new disciplinary rules, created a bicycle squad to police New York's traffic problems and standardized the use of pistols by officers. Editors, "Leadership of the City of New York Police Department 1845â1901", - The New York City Police Department Museum. Retrieved August 28 2006. Roosevelt implemented regular inspections of firearms, annual physical exams, appointed 1,600 new recruits based on their physical and mental qualifications and not on political affiliation, opened the department to ethnic minorities and women, established meritorious service medals, and shut down corrupt police hostelries. During his tenure a Municipal Lodging House was established by the Board of Charities and Roosevelt required officers to register with the Board. He also had telephones installed in station houses. Always an energetic man, he made a habit of walking officers' beats late at night and early in the morning to make sure they were on duty. Brands ch 11 He became caught up in public disagreements with commissioner Parker, who sought to negate or delay the promotion of many officers put forward by Roosevelt.
Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt (front center) at the Naval War College, c. 1897
Roosevelt had always been fascinated by naval history. Urged by Roosevelt's close friend, Congressman Henry Cabot Lodge, President William McKinley appointed a delighted Roosevelt to the post of Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897. (Because of the inactivity of Secretary of the Navy John D. Long at the time, this basically gave Roosevelt control over the department.) Roosevelt was instrumental in preparing the Navy for the Spanish-American War Brands ch 12 and was an enthusiastic proponent of testing the U.S. military in battle, at one point stating "I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one".
Roosevelt left his civilian Navy post to form the famous "Rough Riders" Regiment
Upon the declaration of war in 1898 that would be known as the Spanish-American War, Roosevelt resigned from the Navy Department and, with the aid of U.S. Army Colonel Leonard Wood, organized the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment from cowboys from the Western territories to Ivy League friends from New York. The newspapers called them the "Rough Riders." Originally Roosevelt held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and served under Colonel Wood, but after Wood was promoted to Brigadier General of Volunteer Forces, Roosevelt was promoted to Colonel and given command of the Regiment. . Even after his return to civilian life, Roosevelt preferred to be known as "Colonel Roosevelt" or "The Colonel." As a moniker, "Teddy" remained much more popular with the general public; however, political friends and others who worked closely with Roosevelt customarily addressed him by his rank.
Colonel Roosevelt and his "Rough Riders" after capturing San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War
Under his leadership, the Rough Riders became famous for dual charges up Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill in July 1898 (the battle was named after the latter hill). Out of all the Rough Riders, Roosevelt was the only one who had a horse, and was forced to walk up Kettle Hill on foot after his horse, Little Texas, became tired. For his actions, Roosevelt was nominated for the Medal of Honor which was subsequently disapproved. It has been widely speculated this disapproval was because of Roosevelt's outspoken comments of the handling of the War. In September 1997, Congressman Rick Lazio representing the 2nd District of New York sent two award recommendations to the U.S. Army Military Awards Branch. These recommendations addressed to Brigadier General Earl Simms, the Army's Adjutant General and one to Master Sergeant Gary Soots, Chief of Authorizations, would prove successful in garnering the much sought after award. Soots Letter Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 2001 for his actions. Brands ch 13 He was the first and, as of 2007, the only President of the United States to be awarded with America's highest military honor, and the only person in history to receive both his nation's highest honor for military valor and the world's foremost prize for peace. Chicago newspaper sees cowboy-TR campaigning for governor
On leaving the Army, Roosevelt re-entered New York state politics and was elected governor of New York in 1898 on the Republican ticket. He made such a concerted effort to root out corruption and "machine politics" Republican boss Thomas Collier Platt forced him on McKinley as a running mate in the 1900 election, against the wishes of McKinley's manager Senator Mark Hanna. Roosevelt was a powerful campaign asset for the Republican ticket, which defeated William Jennings Bryan in a landslide based on restoration of prosperity at home and a successful war and new prestige abroad. Bryan stumped for Free Silver again, but McKinley's promise of prosperity through the Gold Standard, high tariffs, and the restoration of business confidence enlarged his margin of victory. Bryan had strongly supported the war against Spain, but denounced the annexation of the Philippines as imperialism that would spoil America's innocence. Roosevelt countered with many speeches that argued it was best for the Filipinos to have stability, and the Americans to have a proud place in the world. Roosevelt's six months as Vice President (March to September, 1901) were uneventful. Brands ch 14â15 On September 2, 1901, at the Minnesota State Fair, Roosevelt first used in a public speech a saying that would later be universally associated with him: "Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far."
At the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York President McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz (Zol-gash), on September 6, 1901. Roosevelt had been giving a speech in Vermont when he heard of the shooting. He rushed to Buffalo but after being assured the President would recover, he went on a planned family camping and hiking trip to Mount Marcy. In the mountains a runner notified him McKinley was on his death bed. Roosevelt pondered with his wife, Edith, how best to respond, not wanting to show up in Buffalo and wait on McKinley's death. Roosevelt was rushed by a series of stagecoaches to North Creek train station. At the station, Roosevelt was handed a telegram that said President McKinley died at 2:30 AM that morning. Roosevelt continued by train from North Creek to Buffalo. He arrived in Buffalo later that day, accepting an invitation to stay at the home of Ansley Wilcox, a prominent lawyer and friend since the early 1880s when they had both worked closely with New York State Governor Grover Cleveland on civil service reform. Wilcox recalled, "the family and most of the household were in the country, but he Roosevelt was offered a quiet place to sleep and eat, and accepted it." Roosevelt was a successful president. He would achieve a lot of goals in life. Some of these goals were that he won the Spanish-American War, and the Nobel Peace Prize, and he also was the youngest president in United States history. "It is a dreadful thing to come into the Presidency this way." Retrieved February 2 2007.
Nashville Tennessee News sketch of Theodore Roosevelt inauguration minus the customary Bible. Inauguration photos were not allowed after a rival photographer unceremoniously knocked down another's camera. Roosevelt took the oath of office in the Ansley Wilcox House at Buffalo, New York borrowing Wilcox's morning coat. Roosevelt did not swear on a Bible , in contrast to the usual tradition of US presidents Bibles and Scripture Passages Used by Presidents in Taking the Oath of Office. Retrieved September 23, 2007. . Expressing the fears of many old line Republicans, Mark Hanna lamented "that damned cowboy is president now." Roosevelt was the youngest person to assume the presidency, at 42, and he promised to continue McKinley's cabinet and his basic policies. Roosevelt did so, but after winning election in 1904, he moved to the political left, stretching his ties to the Republican Party's conservative leaders. Brands ch 16
A national emergency was averted in 1902 when Roosevelt found a compromise to the anthracite coal strike by the United Mine Workers of America that threatened the heating supplies of most urban homes. Roosevelt called the mine owners and the labor leaders to the White House and negotiated a compromise. Miners were on strike for 163 days before it ended; they were granted a 10% pay increase and a 9-hour day (from the previous 10 hours), but the union was not officially recognized and the price of coal went up. Brands ch 17
Theodore Roosevelt promised to continue McKinley's program, and at first he worked closely with McKinley's men. His 20,000-word address to the Congress in December 1901, asked Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits." They did not act but Roosevelt did, issuing 44 lawsuits against major corporations; he was called the "trust-buster."
Roosevelt firmly believed: "The Government must in increasing degree supervise and regulate the workings of the railways engaged in interstate commerce." Inaction was a danger, he argued: "Such increased supervision is the only alternative to an increase of the present evils on the one hand or a still more radical policy on the other." Annual Message December 1904
His biggest success was passage of the Hepburn Act of 1906, the provisions of which were to be regulated by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). The most important provision of the Act gave the ICC the power to replace existing rates with "just-and-reasonable" maximum rates, with the ICC to define what was just and reasonable. Anti-rebate provisions were toughened, free passes were outlawed, and the penalties for violation were increased. Finally, the ICC gained the power to prescribe a uniform system of accounting, require standardized reports, and inspect railroad accounts. The Act made ICC orders binding; that is, the railroads had to either obey or contest the ICC orders in federal court. To speed the process, appeals from the district courts would go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In response to public clamor (and due to the uproar cause by Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle), Roosevelt pushed Congress to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, as well as the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. These laws provided for labeling of foods and drugs, inspection of livestock and mandated sanitary conditions at meatpacking plants. Congress replaced Roosevelt's proposals with a version supported by the major meatpackers who worried about the overseas markets, and did not want small unsanitary plants undercutting their domestic market. Blum 1980 pp 43â44
Democrats attack Roosevelt as militarist and ineffective in this 1904 election cartoon
Theodore Roosevelt was the fifth Vice President to succeed to the office of President, but the first to win election in his own right. (Millard Fillmore ran and lost on a third-party ticket four years after leaving office and Chester Arthur was denied nomination by his party in 1884). After Senator Mark Hanna, McKinley's old campaign manager, died in February 1904, there was no one in the Republican Party to oppose Roosevelt and he easily won the nomination. When an effort to draft former president Grover Cleveland failed, the Democrats were without a candidate and finally settled on obscure New York judge Alton B. Parker. The outcome was never in doubt. Roosevelt crushed Parker 56%-38% in the popular vote and 336-140 in the Electoral College, sweeping the country outside the perennially Democratic Solid South. Socialist Eugene Debs got 3%. The night of the election, after his victory was clear, Roosevelt promised not to run again in 1908. He later regretted that promise, as it compelled him to leave the White House at the age of only fifty, at the height of his popularity.
Roosevelt worked closely with early conservationists such as Gifford Pinchot, pictured above, with whom he organized the first National Governors Conservation Conference at the White House in 1908
Roosevelt was the first American president to consider the long-term needs for efficient conservation of national resources, winning the support of fellow hunters and fishermen to bolster his political base. Roosevelt was the last trained observer to ever see a passenger pigeon, and on March 14, 1903, Roosevelt created the first National Bird Preserve, (the beginning of the Wildlife Refuge system) on Pelican Island, Florida. Roosevelt worked with the major figures of the conservation movement, especially his chief adviser on the matter Gifford Pinchot. Roosevelt urged Congress to establish the United States Forest Service (1905), to manage government forest lands, and he appointed Gifford Pinchot to head the service. Roosevelt set aside more land for national parks and nature preserves than all of his predecessors combined, 194 million acres (785,000 km²). In all, by 1909, the Roosevelt administration had created an unprecedented 42 million acres (170,000 km²) of national forests, 53 national wildlife refuges and 18 areas of "special interest", including the Grand Canyon. The Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the Badlands commemorates his conservationist philosophy. Roosevelt and Muir In 1903, Roosevelt toured the Yosemite Valley with John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, but Roosevelt believed in the more efficient use of natural resources by corporations like lumber companies unlike Muir. In 1907, with Congress about to block him, Roosevelt hurried to designate 16 million acres (65,000 km²) of new national forests. In May 1908, he sponsored the Conference of Governors held in the White House, with a focus on the most efficient planning, analysis and use of water, forests and other natural resources. Roosevelt explained, "There is an intimate relation between our streams and the development and conservation of all the other great permanent sources of wealth." During his presidency, Roosevelt promoted the nascent conservation movement in essays for Outdoor Life magazine. To Roosevelt, conservation meant more and better usage and less waste, and a long-term perspective. In 2006, a group of American high school students developed a 10 minute video on Roosevelt's conservation legacy with the help of Roosevelt scholar Edward Renehan and Roosevelt descendant, Tweed Roosevelt. See Commented out because it's a YouTube link used as a ref, it's original research, and really it's not a reference. But maybe someone else will think differently. -->
Roosevelt's conservationist leanings also impelled him to preserve national sites of scientific, particularly archaeological, interest. The 1906 passage of the Antiquities Act gave him a tool for creating national monuments by presidential proclamation, without requiring Congressional approval for each monument on an item-by-item basis. The language of the Antiquities Act specifically called for the preservation of "historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest," and was primarily construed by its creator, Congressman James F. Lacey (assisted by the prominent archaeologist Edgar Lee Hewett), as targeting the prehistoric ruins of the American Southwest. Roosevelt, however, applied a typically broad interpretation to the Act, and the first national monument he proclaimed, Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming, was preserved for reasons tied more to geology than archaeology.
Roosevelt's conservationism caused him to forbid having a Christmas tree in the White House. He was reportedly upset when he found a small tree his son had been hiding. After learning about the commercial farming of Christmas trees, where no virgin forests were cut down to supply the demand during the Christmas holiday, he relented and allowed his family to have a tree each season.
In Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and the Panama Canal Zone, Roosevelt used the Army's medical service, under Walter Reed and William C. Gorgas, to eliminate the yellow fever menace and install a new regime of public health. In the new possessions the Roosevelt administration used the army to build railways, telegraph and telephone lines, and upgrade roads and port facilities.
The Philippines saw the U.S. Army for the first time using a systematic doctrine of counter-insurgency. Despite the ad hoc nature of the force deployed by Roosevelt the Army was able to end the insurgency by 1902. Over the course of the war the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built over 3000 miles of roads and worked to build an entire education system, even bringing in thousands of American teachers to spearhead the effort.
Roosevelt builds the canal and shovels dirt on Colombia
Roosevelt dramatically increased the size of the navy, forming the Great White Fleet, which toured the world in 1907. This display was designed to impress the Japanese. Yet, the ships were almost forced to return because of the inadequacy of American ports in the Pacific. See Edward S Miller,War Plan Orange (Annapolis, 1991) Roosevelt also added the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which stated that the United States could intervene in Latin American affairs when corruption of governments made it necessary.
Roosevelt gained international praise for helping negotiate the end of the Russo-Japanese War, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Roosevelt later arbitrated a dispute between France and Germany over the division of Morocco. Some historians have argued these latter two actions helped in a small way to avert a world war. The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (2005). "Theodore Roosevelt (1901â1909)". Retrieved March 6 2006.
Roosevelt's most famous foreign policy initiative, following the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, was the construction of the Panama Canal, which upon its completion shortened the route of freighters between San Francisco, California and New York City by 8,000 miles (13,000 km).
Colombia first proposed the canal in their country as opposed to rival Nicaragua, and Colombia signed a treaty for an agreed-upon sum. At the time, Panama was a province of Colombia. According to the treaty, in 1902, the U.S. was to buy out the equipment and excavations from France, which had been attempting to build a canal since 1881. While the Colombian negotiating team had signed the treaty, ratification by the Colombian Senate became problematic. The Colombian Senate balked at the price and asked for ten million dollars over the original agreed upon price. When the U.S. refused to re-negotiate the price, the Colombian politicians proposed cutting the original French company that started the project out of the deal and giving that difference to Colombia.
The original deal stipulated the French company was to be reasonably compensated. Realizing the Colombian Senate was no longer bargaining in good faith, Roosevelt tired of these last-minute attempts by the Colombians to cheat the French out of their entire investment, and ultimately decided, with the encouragement of Panamanian business interests, to help Panama declare independence from Colombia in 1903.
A brief Panamanian revolution of only a few hours followed the declaration, as Colombian soldiers were bribed $50 each to lay down their arms. On November 3, 1903, the Republic of Panama was created, with its constitution written in advance by the United States. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. signed a protection treaty with Panama. And after the signing of the treaty, a man named Nathan Johnson Forest assisted Panama with the initial planning phases for the canal. The U.S. then paid ten million to secure rights to build on, and control, the Canal Zone. Construction began in 1904 and was completed in 1914.
It took a long time to build the Panama Canal because of the rampant spread of tropical diseases. Over 200 workers died of yellow fever and malaria, spread by mosquitoes. Roosevelt initiated work on clearing swamps and other areas in which the insects bred. As the health threat finally receded, this greatly facilitated the construction of the Canal.
Roosevelt, (on the 12" gun turret at right), addresses the crew of USS Connecticut (BB18), in Hampton Roads, Virginia, upon her return from the Fleet's cruise
As Roosevelt's administration drew to a close, the president dispatched a fleet consisting of four US Navy battleship squadrons and their escorts, on a world-wide voyage of circumnavigation from December 16, 1907, to February 22, 1909. With their hulls painted white (except for the beautiful gilded scrollwork) and red, white, and blue banners on their bows, these ships would come to be known as The Great White Fleet. Roosevelt wanted to demonstrate to his country and the world that the US Navy was capable of operating in a global theater, particularly in the Pacific. This was extraordinarily important at a time when tensions were slowly growing between the United States and Japan. The latter had recently shown its navy's competence in defeating the Russians in the Russo-Japanese War, and the US Navy fleet in the west was relatively small. As a mark of the mission's success, the Atlantic Fleet battleships only later came to be known as the "Great White Fleet."
When the real Great White Fleet sailed into Yokahama, Japan, the Japanese went to extraordinary lengths to show that their country desired peace with the US. Thousands of Japanese school children waved American flags, purchased by the government, as they greeted the Navy brass coming ashore. In February 1909, the fleet returned home to Hampton Roads, Virginia, and Roosevelt was there to witness the triumphant return. His appearance indicated that he saw the fleet's long voyage as a fitting finish for his administration. Roosevelt said to the officers of the Fleet, "Other nations may do what you have done, but they'll have to follow you." This parting act of grand strategy by Roosevelt greatly expanded the respect for, as well as the role of, the United States in the international arena. However, the visit of the Great White Fleet to Tokyo also encouraged Japanese militarists. They had always argued for an even more aggressive Japanese ship building and naval expansion program, and the recent show of force by the U.S. convinced enough of their countrymen that they were right. In a real sense, this set in motion the chain of events leading to the U.S. & Japan confronting each other 30 years later - during WWII.
A Lincoln cent
Roosevelt thought American coins and currency were common and uninspiring. Roosevelt had the opportunity to pose for a young Lithuanian-born sculptor, Victor David Brenner, who, since arriving nineteen years earlier in the United States had become one of the nationâs premier medalists. Roosevelt had learned of Brenner's talents in a settlement house on New York City's Lower East Side and was immediately impressed with a bas-relief that Brenner had made of Lincoln, based on the early Civil War era photographer, Mathew Brady's photograph. Roosevelt, who considered Lincoln the savior of the Union and the greatest Republican President and who also considered himself Lincolnâs political heir, ordered the new Lincoln penny to be based on Brenner's work and that it go just in time to commemorate Lincolnâs 100th birthday in 1909. The likeness of President Lincoln on the obverse of the coin is an adaptation of a plaque Brenner executed several years earlier and which had come to the attention of President Roosevelt in New York. /ref>
Roosevelt took Cabinet members and friends on long, fast-paced hikes, boxed in the state rooms of the White House, romped with his children, and read voraciously. Hanson, David C. (2005). "Theodore Roosevelt: Lion in the White House". Retrieved March 6 2006. In 1908, he was permanently blinded in his left eye during one of his boxing bouts, but this injury was kept from the public at the time. Smith, Ira R. T.; Morris, Joe Alex (1949). "Dear Mr. President": The Story of Fifty Years in the White House Mail Room, p. 52. Julian Messner. His many enthusiastic interests and limitless energy led one ambassador to wryly explain, "You must always remember that the President is about six." Kennedy, Robert C. (2005). "'I hear there are some kids in the White House this year'". Retrieved March 6 2006.
Roosevelt shoots holes in the dictionary as the ghosts of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dr Johnson moan.
During his presidency, Roosevelt tried but did not succeed to advance the cause of simplified spelling. He tried to force government to adopt the system, sending an order to the Public Printer to use the system in all public documents. The order was obeyed, and among the documents thus printed was the President's special message regarding the Panama Canal. The New York World translated the Thanksgiving Day proclamation:
The reform annoyed the public, forcing him to rescind the order. Roosevelt's friend, literary critic Brander Matthews, one of the chief advocates of the reform, remonstrated with him for abandoning the effort. Roosevelt replied on December 16: "I could not by fighting have kept the new spelling in, and it was evidently worse than useless to go into an undignified contest when I was beaten. Do you know that the one word as to which I thought the new spelling was wrong thru was more responsible than anything else for our discomfiture?" Next summer Roosevelt was watching a naval review when a launch marked "Pres Bot" chugged ostentatiously by. The President waved and laughed with delight. Pringle 465â7
Roosevelt's oldest daughter, Alice, was a controversial character during Roosevelt's stay in the White House. When friends asked if he could rein in his elder daughter, Roosevelt said, "I can be President of the United States, or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both." In turn, Alice said of him that he always wanted to be "the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral." (Some sources attribute this quote to one of Roosevelt's sons instead.) Thayer, Chapter XIII, p. 7.
Roosevelt's contribution to the White House was the construction of the original West Wing, which he had built to free up the second floor rooms in the residence that formerly housed the president's staff. He and Edith also had the entire house renovated and restored to the federal style, tearing out the Victorian furnishings and details (including Tiffany windows) that had been installed over the previous three decades.
1902 The Washington Post political cartoon that spawned the Teddy bear name.
#In the sphere of race relations, Booker T. Washington became the first black man to dine as a guest at the White House in 1901.
#Oscar S. Straus became the first Jewish person appointed as a Cabinet Secretary, under Roosevelt.
#In August, 1902, Roosevelt became the first U.S. president to take a public automobile ride. This occurred during a parade in Hartford, Connecticut
#In 1910 he became the first U.S. President to ride in an airplane.
#On August 25, 1905 he became the first U.S. President to ride in a military submarine when he boarded the USS Holland (SS-1) and ran submerged with her for 55 minutes.
#In 1906, he made the first trip, by a President, outside the United States, visiting Panama to inspect the construction progress of the Panama Canal on November 9.
#In 1902, in response to the assassination of President William McKinley on September 6 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became the first president to be under constant Secret Service protection.
# In 1906, Roosevelt became the first American to be awarded a Nobel Prize.
#In 2001, he became the first and only President up to date to receive a Medal of Honor, making him the only person to date to win the world's highest peace honor, as well as his nation's top military honor.
#He was the first and to date only president from Long Island, New York.
#He was the first President to officially refer to the White House as such, on his official stationery. This had been the common name (referring to the color of the building), but until then, the official name was "The Executive Mansion"
#He was the first President to wear a necktie for his official Presidential Portrait.
#He was the first President to approve a coin, the Lincoln cent, with a man's face on it, in 1909, just in time for the centennial of Lincoln's birth. Lincoln was Roosevelt's presidential hero.
#He was the first President to coin an internationally recognized trademark, although not deliberately. His offhand remark, "good to the last drop," about some coffee drunk at the Maxwell House hotel in Tennessee, see Maxwell House coffee.
#He is the only president to have a famous toy named after him (the Teddy bear, named after a bear he refused to shoot in a 1902 hunt in Mississipi).
John Singer Sargent, Theodore Roosevelt, 1903; click on painting for background story.
Roosevelt appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
*Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. 1902
*William Rufus Day 1903
*William Henry Moody 1906
*Oklahoma 1907
Roosevelt standing next to a dead elephant during a safari
In March 1909, shortly after the end of his second term, Roosevelt left New York for a safari in east and central Africa. Roosevelt's party landed in Mombasa, British East Africa (now Kenya), traveled to the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) before following the Nile up to Khartoum in modern Sudan. Financed by Andrew Carnegie and by his own proposed writings, Roosevelt hunted for specimens for the Smithsonian Institution and for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. His party, which included scientists from the Smithsonian and was led by Frederick Selous, the famous big game hunter and explorer, and they killed or trapped over 11,397 animals, from insects and moles to hippopotamuses and elephants. 512 of the animals were big game animals, including six rare white rhinos. 262 of these were consumed by the expedition. Tons of salted animals and their skins were shipped to Washington; the quantity was so large that it took years to mount them all, and the Smithsonian was able to share many duplicate animals with other museums.
Regarding the large number of animals taken, Roosevelt said, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned." O'Toole, Patricia (2005) When Trumpets Call, p. 67, Simon and Schuster, ISBN 0-684-86477-0 However, although the safari was ostensibly conducted in the name of science, there was another, quite large element to it as well. In addition to many native peoples and local leaders, interaction with renowned professional hunters and land owning families made the safari as much a political and social event, as it was a hunting excursion. Roosevelt wrote a detailed account of the adventure in the book "African Game Trails", where he describes the excitement of the chase, the people he met, and the flora and fauna he collected in the name of science.
Roosevelt certified William Howard Taft to be a genuine "progressive" in 1908, when Roosevelt pushed through the nomination of his Secretary of War for the Presidency. Taft easily defeated three-time candidate William Jennings Bryan. Taft had a different progressivism, one that stressed the rule of law and preferred that judges rather than administrators or politicians make the basic decisions about fairness. Taft usually proved a less adroit politician than Roosevelt and lacked the energy and personal magnetism, not to mention the publicity devices, the dedicated supporters, and the broad base of public support that made Roosevelt so formidable. When Roosevelt realized that lowering the tariff would risk severe tensions inside the Republican Party pitting producers (manufacturers and farmers) against merchants and consumers he stopped talking about the issue. Taft ignored the risks and tackled the tariff boldly, on the one hand encouraging reformers to fight for lower rates, and then cutting deals with conservative leaders that kept overall rates high. The resulting Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909 was too high for most reformers, but instead of blaming this on Senator Nelson Aldrich and big business, Taft took credit, calling it the best tariff ever. Again he had managed to alienate all sides. While the crisis was building inside the Party, Roosevelt was touring Africa and Europe, so as to allow Taft to be his own man. Thayer, Chapter XXI, p. 10.
1909 cartoon: TR hands his policies to the care of Taft while William Loeb carries the "Big Stick"
Unlike Roosevelt, Taft never attacked business or businessmen in his rhetoric. However, he was attentive to the law, so he launched 90 antitrust suits, including one against the largest corporation, U.S. Steel, for an acquisition that Roosevelt had personally approved. Consequently, Taft lost the support of antitrust reformers (who disliked his conservative rhetoric), of big business (which disliked his actions), and of Roosevelt, who felt humiliated by his protégé. The left wing of the Republican Party began agitating against Taft. Senator Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin created the National Progressive Republican League (precursor to the Progressive Party (United States, 1924)) to defeat the power of political bossism at the state level and to replace Taft at the national level. More trouble came when Taft fired Gifford Pinchot, a leading conservationist and close ally of Roosevelt. Pinchot alleged that Taft's Secretary of Interior Richard Ballinger was in league with big timber interests. Conservationists sided with Pinchot, and Taft alienated yet another vocal constituency.
Roosevelt, back from Europe, unexpectedly launched an attack on the federal courts, which deeply upset Taft. Not only had Roosevelt alienated big business, he was also attacking both the judiciary and the deep faith Republicans had in their judges (most of whom had been appointed by McKinley, Roosevelt or Taft.) In the 1910 Congressional elections, Democrats swept to power, and Taft's reelection in 1912 was increasingly in doubt. In 1911, Taft responded with a vigorous stumping tour that allowed him to sign up most of the party leaders long before Roosevelt announced.
The battle between Taft and Roosevelt bitterly split the Republican Party; Taft's people dominated the party until 1936.
Late in 1911, Roosevelt finally broke with Taft and LaFollette and announced himself as a candidate for the Republican nomination. But Roosevelt had delayed too long, and Taft had already won the support of most party leaders in the country. Because of LaFollette's nervous breakdown on the campaign trail before Roosevelt's entry, most of LaFollette's supporters went over to Roosevelt, the new progressive Republican candidate.
Roosevelt, stepping up his attack on judges, carried nine of the states with preferential primaries, LaFollette took two, and Taft only one. The 1912 Primaries represented the first extensive use of the Presidential Primary, a reform achievement of the progressive movement. However, these primary elections, while demonstrating Roosevelt's popularity with the electorate, were in no ways as important as primaries are today. First of all, there were fewer states where the common voter was given a forum to express himself, such as a primary. Many more states selected convention delegates either at party conventions, or in caucuses, which were not as open as today's caucuses. So while the man in the street still adored Roosevelt, most professional Republican politicians were supporting Taft, and they proved difficult to upset in non-primary states.
At the Republican Convention in Chicago, despite being the incumbent, Taft's victory was not immediately assured. But after two weeks, Roosevelt, realizing he would not be able to win the nomination outright, asked his followers to leave the convention hall. They moved to the Auditorium Theatre, and then Roosevelt, along with key allies such as Pinchot and Albert Beveridge created the Progressive Party, structuring it as a permanent organization that would field complete tickets at the presidential and state level. It was popularly known as the "Bull Moose Party," which got its name after Roosevelt told reporters, "I'm as fit as a bull moose." Carl M. Cannon, The Pursuit of Happiness in Times of War, Rowman & Littlefield: 2003, p. 142. ISBN 0742525929. At the convention Roosevelt cried out, "We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord." Roosevelt's platform echoed his 1907â08 proposals, calling for vigorous government intervention to protect the people from the selfish interests. Thayer, Chapter XXII, pp. 25 31.
The bullet-damaged speech and eyeglass case on display at the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace
While campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on October 14, 1912, a saloonkeeper named John Schrank failed in an assassination attempt on Roosevelt. Schrank did shoot the former President, but the bullet lodged in Roosevelt's chest only after penetrating both his steel eyeglass case and passing through a thick (50 pages) single-folded copy of the speech he was carrying in his jacket. Accessed Dec. 21, 2007 . Roosevelt, as a very experienced hunter and anatomist, decide the fact he wasn't coughing blood meant the bullet had not completely penetrated the chest wall to his lung (he was correct), and so declined suggestions he go to the hospital immediately. Instead, he delivered his scheduled speech with blood seeping into his shirt. He spoke for ninety minutes. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Afterwards, doctors determined by probe and X-ray the bullet had traversed three inches of tissue and lodged in Roosevelt's chest muscle but did not penetrate the pleura, and it would be more dangerous to attempt to remove the bullet than to leave it in place. Roosevelt carried it with him until he died. Roosevelt Timeline
Due to the bullet wound, Roosevelt was taken off the campaign trail in the final weeks of the race (which ended election day, November 5). Though the other two campaigners stopped their own campaigns in the week Roosevelt was in the hospital, they resumed it once he was released. The overall effect of the shooting was uncertain. Roosevelt for many reasons failed to move enough Republicans in his direction. He did win 4.1 million votes (27%), compared to Taft's 3.5 million (23%). However, Wilson's 6.3 million votes (42%) were enough to garner 435 electoral votes. Roosevelt had 88 electoral votes to Taft's 8 electoral votes. (This meant that Taft became the only incumbent President in history to actually come in third place in an attempt to be re-elected.) But Pennsylvania was Roosevelt's only Eastern state; in the Midwest he carried Michigan, Minnesota and South Dakota; in the West, California and Washington; he did not win any Southern states. Although he lost, he won more votes than former presidents Martin Van Buren and Millard Fillmore who also ran again and also lost. More important, he pulled so many progressives out of the Republican party that it took on a much more conservative cast for the next generation.
The initial party. From left to right (seated): Father Zahm, Rondon, Kermit, Cherrie, Miller, four Brazilians, Roosevelt, Fiala. Only Roosevelt, Kermit, Cherrie, Rondon and the Brazilians traveled down the River of Doubt.
Roosevelt's popular book Through the Brazilian Wilderness describes his expedition into the Brazilian jungle in 1913 as a member of the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition co-named after its leader, Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon. The book describes all of the scientific discovery, scenic tropical vistas and exotic flora, fauna and wild life experienced on the expedition. A friend, Father John Augustine Zahm, had searched for new adventures and found them in the forests of South America. After a briefing of several of his own expeditions, he convinced Roosevelt to commit to such an expedition in 1912. To finance the expedition, Roosevelt received support from the American Museum of Natural History, promising to bring back many new animal specimens. Once in South America, a new far more ambitious goal was added: to find the headwaters of the Rio da Duvida, the River of Doubt, and trace it north to the Madiera and thence to the Amazon River. It was later renamed Rio Roosevelt (Rio Teodoro today, 640 km long) in honor of the former President. Roosevelt's crew consisted of his 24-year-old son Kermit, Colonel Cândido Rondon, a naturalist sent by the American Museum of Natural History named George K. Cherrie, Brazilian Lieutenant Joao Lyra, team physician Dr. José Antonio Cajazeira, and sixteen highly skilled paddlers (called camaradas in Portuguese). The initial expedition started, probably unwisely, on December 9, 1913, at the height of the rainy season. The trip down the River of Doubt started on February 27, 1914.
Roosevelt, wearing sun helmet, barely survived an expedition in 1913 into the Amazonian rain forest to trace the River of Doubt later named the Rio Roosevelt.
During the trip down the river, Roosevelt contracted malaria and a serious infection resulting from a minor leg wound. These illnesses so weakened Roosevelt that, by six weeks into the expedition, he had to be attended day and night by the expedition's physician, Dr. Cajazeira, and his son, Kermit. By this time, Roosevelt considered his own condition a threat to the survival of the others. At one point, Kermit had to talk him out of his wish to be left behind so as not to slow down the expedition, now with only a few weeks rations left. Roosevelt was having chest pains when he tried to walk, his temperature soared to 103 °F (39 °C), and at times he was delirious. He had lost over fifty pounds (20 kg). Without the constant support of his son, Kermit, Dr. Cajazeira, and the continued leadership of Colonel Rondon, Roosevelt would likely have perished. Despite his concern for Roosevelt, Rondon had been slowing down the pace of the expedition by his dedication to his own map-making and other geographical goals that demanded regular stops to fix the expedition's position via sun-based survey.
Upon his return to New York, friends and family were startled by Roosevelt's physical appearance and fatigue. Roosevelt wrote to a friend that the trip had cut his life short by ten years. He might not have really known just how accurate that analysis would prove to be, because the effects of the South America expedition had so greatly weakened him that they significantly contributed to his declining health. For the rest of his life, he would be plagued by flareups of malaria and leg inflammations so severe that they would require hospitalization. Thayer, Chapter XXIII, pp. 4â7.
When Roosevelt had recovered enough of his strength, he found that he had a new battle on his hands. In professional circles, there was doubt about his claims of having discovered and navigated a completely uncharted river over 625 miles (1,000 km) long. Roosevelt would have to defend himself and win international recognition of the expedition's newly-named Rio Roosevelt. Toward this end, Roosevelt went to Washington, D.C., and spoke at a standing-room-only convention to defend his claims. His official report and its defense silenced the critics, and he was able to triumphantly return to his home in Oyster Bay.
Despite his weakened condition and slow recovery from his South America expedition, Roosevelt continued to write with passion on subjects ranging from foreign policy to the importance of the national park system. As an editor of Outlook magazine, he had weekly access to a large, educated national audience. In all, Roosevelt wrote about 18 books (each in several editions), including his Autobiography, Rough Riders and History of the Naval War of 1812, ranching, explorations, and wildlife. His most ambitious book was the 4 volume narrative The Winning of the West, which attempted to connect the origin of a new "race" of Americans (i.e. what he considered the present population of the United States to be) to the frontier conditions their ancestors endured in throughout the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries.
Roosevelt angrily complained about the foreign policy of President Wilson, calling it "weak." This caused him to develop an intense dislike for Woodrow Wilson. When World War I began in 1914, Roosevelt strongly supported the Allies of World War I and demanded a harsher policy against Germany, especially regarding submarine warfare. In 1916, he campaigned energetically for Charles Evans Hughes and repeatedly denounced Irish-Americans and German-Americans who Roosevelt said were unpatriotic because they put the interest of Ireland and Germany ahead of America's by supporting neutrality. He insisted one had to be 100% American, not a "hyphenated American" who juggled multiple loyalties. When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, Roosevelt sought to raise a volunteer infantry division, but Wilson refused. Brands 781â4; Cramer, C.H. Newton D. Baker (1961) 110â113
Roosevelt's attacks on Wilson helped the Republicans win control of Congress in the off-year elections of 1918. Roosevelt was popular enough to seriously contest the 1920 Republican nomination, but his health was broken by 1918, because of the lingering malaria. His son Quentin, a daring pilot with the American forces in France, was shot down behind German lines in 1918. Quentin was his youngest son and probably the most liked by him. It is said the death of his son distressed him so much that Roosevelt never recovered from his loss. Dalton, (2002)p 507
Theodore Roosevelt Grave in Youngs Memorial Cemetery Oyster Bay, New York
Twenty-six steps leading to Roosevelt's grave, commemorating his service as 26th President
Despite his debilitating diseases, Roosevelt remained active to the end of his life. He was an enthusiastic proponent of the Scouting movement. The Boy Scouts of America gave him the title of Chief Scout Citizen, the only person to hold such title. One early Scout leader said, "The two things that gave Scouting great impetus and made it very popular were the uniform and Teddy Roosevelt's jingoism." Larson, Keith (2006). "Theodore Roosevelt". Retrieved March 6 2006.
On January 6, 1919, Roosevelt died in his sleep of a coronary embolism at Oyster Bay, and was buried in nearby Youngs Memorial Cemetery. Upon receiving word of his death, his son, Archie, telegraphed his siblings simply, "The old lion is dead." Dalton, (2002) p. 507 Woodrow Wilson's vice president at the time Thomas R. Marshall said of his death "Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight." Manners, William. TR and Will: A Friendship that Split the Republican Party. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1969.
Roosevelt Family in 1903 with Quentin on the left, TR, Ted, Jr., "Archie", Alice, Kermit, Edith, and Ethel
Roosevelt intensely disliked being called "Teddy," and was quick to point out this fact to those who used the nickname, though it would become widely used by newspapers during his political career. He attended the Madison Square Presbyterian Church until the age of 16. Later in life, when Roosevelt lived at Oyster Bay he attended an Episcopal church with his wife. While in Washington he attended services at Grace Reformed Church. "The Religious Affiliation of Theodore Roosevelt U.S. President". Retrieved March 7 2006. As President he firmly believed in the separation of church and state and thought it unwise to have In God We Trust on currency, because he thought it sacrilegious to put the name of the Deity on something so common as money. Reynolds, Ralph C. (1999). "In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash". Retrieved March 7 2006. He was also a Freemason, and regularly attended the Matinecock Lodge's meetings. He once said that "One of the things that so greatly attracted me to Masonry that I hailed the chance of becoming a Mason was that it really did act up to what we, as a government, are pledged to namely to treat each man on his merit as a man." Matinecock Masonic Historical Society. "History". Retrieved March 12 2006.
Roosevelt had a lifelong interest in pursuing what he called, in an 1899 speech, "the strenuous life." To this end, he exercised regularly and took up boxing, tennis, hiking, rowing, polo, and horseback riding. As governor of New York, he boxed with sparring partners several times a week, a practice he regularly continued as President until one blow detached his left retina, leaving him blind in that eye (a fact not made public until many years later). Thereafter, he practiced jujutsu and continued his habit of skinny-dipping in the Potomac River during winter. Thayer, Chapter XVII, pp. 22 24. Shaw, K.B. & Maiden, David (2006). "Theodore Roosevelt".
Retrieved March 7 2006.
Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt's estate
He was an enthusiastic singlestick player and, according to Harper's Weekly, in 1905 showed up at a White House reception with his arm bandaged after a bout with General Leonard Wood. Amberger, J Christoph, Secret History of the Sword Adventures in Ancient Martial Arts 1998, ISBN 1-892515-04-0. Roosevelt was also an avid reader, reading tens of thousands of books, at a rate of several a day in multiple languages. Along with Thomas Jefferson Roosevelt is often considered the most well read of any American politician. David H. Burton, The Learned Presidency 1988, p 12.
Roosevelt's face on Mt. Rushmore
1910 cartoon shows Roosevelt's multiple roles to 1898
1910 cartoon shows Roosevelt's multiple roles from 1899 to 1910
For his gallantry at San Juan Hill, Roosevelt's commanders recommended him for the Medal of Honor, but his subsequent telegrams to the War Department complaining about the delays in returning American troops from Cuba doomed his chances. In the late 1990s, Roosevelt's supporters again took up the flag on his behalf and overcame opposition from elements within the U.S. Army and the National Archives. On January 16, 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded Theodore Roosevelt the Medal of Honor posthumously for his charge up San Juan Hill, Cuba, during the Spanish-American War. Roosevelt's eldest son, Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., received the Medal of Honor for heroism at the Battle of Normandy in 1944. The Roosevelts thus became one of only two father-son pairs to receive this honor.
Roosevelt's legacy includes several other important commemorations. Roosevelt was included with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln at the Mount Rushmore Memorial, designed in 1927. The United States Navy named two ships for Roosevelt: the USS Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600), a submarine was in commission from 1961 to 1982; and the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), an aircraft carrier that has been on active duty in the Atlantic Fleet since 1986.
The Roosevelt Memorial Association (later the Theodore Roosevelt Association) or "TRA", was founded in 1920 to preserve Roosevelt's legacy. The Association preserved TR's birthplace, "Sagamore Hill" home, papers, and video film.
Overall, historians credit Roosevelt for changing the nation's political system by permanently placing the presidency at center stage and making character as important as the issues. His notable accomplishments include trust-busting and conservationism. However, he has been criticized for his interventionist and imperialist approach to nations he considered "uncivilized". Even so, history and legend have been kind to him. His friend, historian Henry Adams, proclaimed, "Roosevelt, more than any other living man ....showed the singular primitive quality that belongs to ultimate matter the quality that mediaeval theology assigned to God he was pure act." Historians typically rank Roosevelt among the top five presidents. The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (2005). "Biography: Impact and Legacy". Retrieved March 7 2006. "Legacy". Retrieved March 7 2006.
Roosevelt has been quoted by virtually all the major Republican and Democratic candidates for the 2008 US Presidential Election. Political pundits have brought up Roosevelt's name in book after book. The degree of discussion ranges from a single sentence by democrat Bill Richardson talking about him as "BR" breaking Roosevelt's (or "TR") 1907 single handshaking record, John Edwards mentioning Roosevelt in a fall of 2007 speech to John McCain devoting an entire chapter to him in his main background book. Even the lone candidate that did not mention Roosevelt in an autobiographical book, democrat, Joe Biden, nevertheless, began mentioning Roosevelt's taking on of corporate interests speeches in New Hampshire in the summer of 2007.
Roosevelt's 1901 saying "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick" is still being occasionally quoted by politicians and columnists in different countries - not only in English but also in translation to various other languages. For example, following the Second Lebanon War of August 2006, opponents of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accused him of "Speaking loudly and carrying a small stick".
The well-known Nicaraguan poet Rubén DarÃo published in 1905 a poem entitled A Roosevelt (To Roosevelt) which was included in Cantos de Vida y Esperanza (Songs of Life and Hope)
As a charismatic President often considered larger than life, Roosevelt has appeared in numerous fiction books, television shows, films, and other media of popular culture. Roosvelt was played by Robin Williams in the box office hit Night at the Museum and its upcoming sequel.
"Drawing the Line in Mississippi," by Clifford Berryman, referring to Roosevelt's sparing the bear.
Filmmaker John Milius also directed two films in which Roosevelt was a central character: The Wind and the Lion (1975) in which he was played by Brian Keith; and Rough Riders (1997) in which he was played by Tom Berenger. Keith's performance is widely considered to be the definitive screen depiction of Roosevelt.
Roosevelt's lasting popular legacy, however, is the stuffed toy bearsâteddy bearsânamed after him following an incident on a hunting trip in 1902. Roosevelt famously refused to kill a captured black bear simply for the sake of making a kill. Bears and later bear cubs became closely associated with Roosevelt in political cartoons thereafter. "History of the Teddy Bear". Retrieved March 7 2006.
On June 26, 2006, Roosevelt, once again, made the cover of TIME magazine with the lead story, "The Making of AmericaâTheodore RooseveltâThe 20th Century Express": "At home and abroad, Theodore Roosevelt was the locomotive President, the man who drew his flourishing nation into the future."
The Washington Nationals major league baseball team has a fan tradition called the Presidents Race. In it four caricatures of presidents Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt race against each other. A running gag has been Theodore Roosevelt's inability to win a single Presidents Race.
In 2006 Roosevelt' likeness was used in "Night at the Museum (The movie).
Theodore Roosevelt was one of the first presidents whose voice was recorded for posterity. Several of his recorded speeches survive. Vincent Voice Library at Michigan State University. Retrieved September 23, 2007.
* Roosevelt goes for first aeroplane ride in Arch Hoxsey plane 1910
*Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. father
*Martha Bulloch mother
*Eleanor Roosevelt niece, First Lady of the United States (1933â1945)
*Alice Roosevelt first wife
*Edith Carow Roosevelt second wife
*Alice Roosevelt first daughter
*Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. first son
*Kermit Roosevelt second son
*Ethel Roosevelt second daughter
*Archibald Roosevelt third son
*Quentin Roosevelt fourth son
*Elliott Roosevelt brother
*Anna Cowles sister
*Corinne Robinson sister
*Franklin D. Roosevelt, cousin, 32nd President of the United States
*Theodore Roosevelt Association 1920 organization founded to preserve Roosevelt's historical legacy
*Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia 1940 compendium of Roosevelt's key writings, sayings and conversations
*Reynier Tyson 4th great-grandfather, early German-American settler
*Panama Canal
*Great White Fleet
*Russo-Japanese War
*List of U.S. political appointments that crossed party lines
*Progressivism
*
*Auchincloss, Louis, ed. Theodore Roosevelt, The Rough Riders and an Autobiography (Library of America, 2004) ISBN 978-1-93108265-5
*Auchincloss, Louis, ed. Theodore Roosevelt, Letters and Speeches (Library of America, 2004) ISBN 978-1-93108266-2
*Brands, H.W. ed. The Selected Letters of Theodore Roosevelt. (2001)
*Harbaugh, William ed. The Writings Of Theodore Roosevelt (1967). A one-volume selection of Roosevelt's speeches and essays.
*Hart, Albert Bushnell and Herbert Ronald Ferleger, eds. Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia (1941), Roosevelt's opinions on many issues; online version at
*Morison, Elting E., John Morton Blum, and Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., eds., The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 8 vols. (1951â1954). Very large, annotated edition of letters from TR.
*Roosevelt, Theodore (1999). Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography. online at Bartleby.com.
*Roosevelt, Theodore. The Works of Theodore Roosevelt (National edition, 20 vol. 1926); 18,000 pages containing most of TR's speeches, books and essays, but not his letters; a CD-ROM edition is available; some of TR's books are available online through Project Bartleby
* Theodore Roosevelt books and speeches on Project Gutenberg
*Blum, John Morton The Republican Roosevelt. (1954). Series of essays that examine how TR did politics
*Brands, H.W. Theodore Roosevelt (2001), full biography
* Chace, James. 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft, and Debs - The Election That Changed the Country. (2004). 323 pp.
*Cooper, John Milton The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. (1983) a dual scholarly biography
*Dalton, Kathleen. Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life. (2002), full scholarly biography
* Fehn, Bruce. "Theodore Roosevelt and American Masculinity." Magazine of History (2005) 19(2): 52â59. Issn: 0882-228x Fulltext online at Ebsco. Provides a lesson plan on TR as the historical figure who most exemplifies the quality of masculinity.
*Gluck, Sherwin. "T.R.'s Summer White House, Oyster Bay." (1999) Chronicles the events of TR's presidency during the summers of his two terms.
*Gould, Lewis L. The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. (1991), standard history of his domestic and foreign policy as president
*Harbaugh, William Henry. The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt. (1963), full scholarly biography
*Keller, Morton, ed., Theodore Roosevelt: A Profile (1967) excerpts from TR and from historians.
* Kohn, Edward. "Crossing the Rubicon: Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and the 1884 Republican National Convention." Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2006 5(1): 18â45. Issn: 1537-7814 Fulltext: in History Cooperative
*Millard, Candice. River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey. (2005)
*McCullough, David. Mornings on Horseback, The Story of an Extraordinary Family. a Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt. (2001) popular biography to 1884
*Morris, Edmund The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, to 1901 (1979); vol 2: Theodore Rex 1901â1909. (2001); Pulitzer prize for Volume 1. Biography.
* Mowry, George. The Era of Theodore Roosevelt and the Birth of Modern America, 1900â1912. (1954) general survey of era; online
*Mowry, George E. Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement. (2001) focus on 1912
* O'Toole, Patricia. When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt after the White House. (2005). 494 pp.
*Powell, Jim. Bully Boy: The Truth About Theodore Roosevelt's Legacy (Crown Forum, 2006). Denounces TR policies from conservative/libertarian perspective
*Pringle, Henry F. Theodore Roosevelt (1932; 2nd ed. 1956), full scholarly biography
*Putnam, Carleton Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography, Volume I: The Formative Years (1958), only volume published, to age 28.
*Renehan, Edward J. The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War. (Oxford University Press, 1998), examines TR and his family during the World War I period
*Strock, James M. Theodore Roosevelt on Leadership. Random House, 2003.
* Watts, Sarah. Rough Rider in the White House: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of Desire. 2003. 289 pp.
*Beale Howard K. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power. (1956). standard history of his foreign policy
* Holmes, James R. Theodore Roosevelt and World Order: Police Power in International Relations. 2006. 328 pp.
* Marks III, Frederick W. Velvet on Iron: The Diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt (1979)
* David McCullough. The Path between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870â1914 (1977).
* Ricard, Serge. "The Roosevelt Corollary." Presidential Studies Quarterly 2006 36(1): 17â26. Issn: 0360-4918 Fulltext: in Swetswise and Ingenta
* Tilchin, William N. and Neu, Charles E., ed. Artists of Power: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Their Enduring Impact on U.S. Foreign Policy. Praeger, 2006. 196 pp.
* Tilchin, William N. Theodore Roosevelt and the British Empire: A Study in Presidential Statecraft (1997)
* Theodore Roosevelt Association - Founded in 1920 by Roosevelt's friends and admirers to preserve his legacy. Extensive online resources and bibliography
* Extensive essay on Theodore Roosevelt and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* NY Times Headline, January 6, 1919, Theodore Roosevelt Dies Suddenly at Oyster Bay Home; Nation Shocked, Pays Tribute to Former President; Our Flag on All Seas and in All Lands at Half Mast
* "The Early Years: The Challenge of Public Order - 1845 to 1870", by William Andrews, New York City Police Department History Site
* "Leadership of the City of New York Police Department 1845â1901", - The New York City Police Department Museum
* PBS "American Experience" Theodore Roosevelt
* My Brother Theodore Roosevelt, 1921 By Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, a bestseller with a woman's and sister's point of view on TR. Full text and Full text Search, Free to Read and Search.
* Almanac of Theodore Roosevelt
* Downloadable audio recordings of Roosevelt in MP3 format
* Audio clips of Roosevelt's speeches
* Roosevelt podcasts Audio Recording of Roosevelt's Progressive Party Acceptance Speech, "Progressive Covenant with the People" with text included.
* Quotes
* Theodore Roosevelt Works - Bartleby's Online Books
* Presidential Biography by Stanley L. Klos
*
* Index of T. Roosevelt Etexts
* Detailed biography of Theodore Roosevelt from the 1911 version of Encyclopedia Britannica
* Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Address
* State of the Union addresses for 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, and 1908
* Nobel Peace Prize 1906: Theodore Roosevelt
* Theodore Roosevelt Papers at the Library of Congress
* Theodore Roosevelt: His Life & Times on Film (LOC)
* Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
* Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site
* Sagamore Hill National Historic Site
* NobelPrize.org's entry on Theodore Roosevelt
* Congressional Medal of Honor's entry on Theodore Roosevelt; including citation and pictures
* Medal of Honor Recipients on Film
* White House biography
* Vice Presidents Dot Com
* Family and Descendants of Theodore Roosevelt
* Ron Schuler's Parlour Tricks: Teddy
* Theodore Roosevelt Links
* Theodore Roosevelt Quotes, Pictures and Biography at TeddyRoosevelt.com
* Theodore Roosevelt cylinder recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.
* On Theodore Roosevelt's progressive vision from the Roosevelt Institution, a student think tank inspired in part by Theodore Roosevelt.
* Boone and Crockett Club, founded by Theodore Roosevelt
* How to pronounce Theodore Roosevelt
* Yesterday's News blog 1901 newspaper account of Roosevelt's "Big Stick" speech at the Minnesota State Fair
* Archive of Theodore Roosevelt Pictures
* still of Theodore Roosevelt going on first aeroplane flight
* different view of Theodore Roosevelt & Arch Hoxsey in Wright aeroplane St Louis October 1910
*
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
September 14
1901
March 4
1909
Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
William Howard Taft
Vice President of the United States
March 4
1901
September 14
1901
William McKinley
Garret Hobart
Charles W. Fairbanks
List of Governors of New York
January 1
1899
December 31
1900
Timothy L. Woodruff
Frank S. Black
Benjamin Barker Odell, Jr.
New York City
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
Edith Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Bulloch Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Polymath
author
historian
conservationist
Civil servant
History of United States Republican Party
Dutch Reformed
October 27
1858
January 6
1919
President of the United States
History of the United States Republican Party
Progressivism
List of Governors of New York
United States Navy
Rough Riders
Rough Riders
Spanish-American War
Amazon Basin
William McKinley
John F. Kennedy
Progressive Era
trust-busting
trust (law)
capitalism
Square Deal
conservation
labor union
William Howard Taft
U.S. presidential election, 1912
Progressive Party (United States, 1912)
Woodrow Wilson
conservative
Panama Canal
Nobel Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
Russo-Japanese War
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
Mount Rushmore
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
Gramercy, New York
New York City
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
Martha Bulloch
Bamie Roosevelt
Elliott Roosevelt I
Eleanor Roosevelt
Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
newspaper
Joseph Alsop
Stewart Alsop
American Revolution
History of the United States Democratic Party
History of the United States Republican Party
philanthropy
Abraham Lincoln
American Civil War
slavery
Savannah, Georgia
Confederate
James Dunwoody Bulloch
U.S. Navy
Irvine Bulloch
CSS Alabama
asthma
zoology
Pinniped
taxidermy
March 6
2006
boxing
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
March 9
2006
biology
French language
German language
mathematics
Latin
Greek language
Harvard College
magna cum laude
science
philosophy
rhetoric
ornithology
eidetic memory
Alpha Delta Phi
Delta Kappa Epsilon
C.S. Hanks
Phi Beta Kappa
Columbia Law School
New York Assembly
History of the United States Republican Party
Mugwump
James G. Blaine
Grover Cleveland
History of the United States Democratic Party
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
July 29
1861
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
February 14
1884
Manhattan, New York
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Bright's disease
Typhoid fever
Dakota Territory
Badlands
Tiffany and Co.
Medora, North Dakota
Little Missouri River (North Dakota)
Dickinson
Deadwood, South Dakota
South Dakota
Sheriff
Seth Bullock
winter of 1886-1887
Sagamore Hill
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Edith Roosevelt
Mont Blanc
British Royal Society
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt III
man-of-war
broadside
Thomas Hart Benton (senator)
Gouverneur Morris
historiography
frontier thesis
Frederick Jackson Turner
American Historical Association
Nordicism
social Darwinism
racialism
Booker T. Washington
New York
Charleston
Postmaster
Indianola, Mississippi
U.S. presidential election, 1888
Benjamin Harrison
United States Civil Service Commission
spoils system
U.S. presidential election, 1892
Grover Cleveland
Bourbon Democrat
New York City Police Commissioner
August 28
2006
August 28
2006
Henry Cabot Lodge
William McKinley
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Secretary of the Navy
John D. Long
Spanish-American War
Rough Riders
Leonard Wood
Rough Riders
cowboy
Ivy League
Lieutenant Colonel
Brigadier General
Rough Riders
Rough Riders
Kettle Hill
Battle of San Juan Hill
Medal of Honor
as of 2007
machine politics
Thomas C. Platt
United States presidential election, 1900
Mark Hanna
William Jennings Bryan
Minnesota State Fair
Big stick Diplomacy
Pan-American Exposition
Buffalo, New York
William McKinley
Leon Czolgosz
September 6
1901
Mount Marcy
Ansley Wilcox
Grover Cleveland
February 2
2007
Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site
Buffalo, New York
New York
Bible
Mark Hanna
United Mine Workers of America
trust (19th century)
Trust Buster
Hepburn Act
Interstate Commerce Commission
Upton Sinclair
The Jungle
Pure Food and Drug Act
Meat Inspection Act
Millard Fillmore
Chester Arthur
Mark Hanna
Grover Cleveland
Alton B. Parker
Electoral College
Solid South
Eugene Debs
Gifford Pinchot
passenger pigeon
March 14
1903
Florida
conservation
Gifford Pinchot
United States Forest Service
national park
nature preserve
national forest
national wildlife refuge
Grand Canyon
Theodore Roosevelt National Park
Badlands
John Muir
Conference of Governors
Outdoor Life
Edward Renehan
Tweed Roosevelt
YouTube
April 23
2006
archaeology
Antiquities Act
U.S. National Monument
James F. Lacey
Edgar Lee Hewett
Devils Tower National Monument
Wyoming
geology
Christmas tree
White House
virgin forests
Cuba
Philippines
Puerto Rico
Panama Canal Zone
Walter Reed
William C. Gorgas
yellow fever
Great White Fleet
Roosevelt Corollary
Monroe Doctrine
Latin American
Russo-Japanese War
Nobel Peace Prize
France
Germany
Morocco
world war
March 6
2006
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty
Panama Canal
San Francisco, California
California
New York City
Colombia
Nicaragua
Panama
November 3
1903
Nathan Johnson Forest
US Navy
battleship
circumnavigation
December 16
1907
February 22
1909
Great White Fleet
Russians
Russo-Japanese War
U.S. Atlantic Fleet
grand strategy
Victor David Brenner
New York City
Lower East Side
American Civil War
Mathew Brady
Lincoln cent
March 6
2006
March 6
2006
simplified spelling
Brander Matthews
December 16
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
West Wing
federal style
Louis Comfort Tiffany
race relations
Booker T. Washington
White House
Oscar Straus (politician)
Hartford
Connecticut
submarine
USS Holland (SS-1)
Panama Canal
November 9
William McKinley
September 6
1901
Secret Service
Nobel Prize
Long Island
Lincoln cent
Maxwell House
Teddy bear
John Singer Sargent
President of the United States
Vice President of the United States
Charles W. Fairbanks
United States Secretary of State
John Hay
Elihu Root
Robert Bacon
United States Secretary of the Treasury
Lyman J. Gage
L. M. Shaw
George B. Cortelyou
United States Secretary of War
Elihu Root
William Howard Taft
Luke Edward Wright
Attorney General of the United States
Philander C. Knox
William Henry Moody
Charles Joseph Bonaparte
Postmaster General of the United States
Charles Emory Smith
Henry C. Payne
Robert Wynne
George B. Cortelyou
George von Lengerke Meyer
United States Secretary of the Navy
John Davis Long
William Henry Moody
Paul Morton
Charles Joseph Bonaparte
Victor H. Metcalf
Truman Handy Newberry
United States Secretary of the Interior
Ethan A. Hitchcock (Interior)
James Rudolph Garfield
United States Secretary of Agriculture
James Wilson (U.S. politician)
United States Secretary of Commerce and Labor
George B. Cortelyou
Victor H. Metcalf
Oscar Straus (politician)
Supreme Court of the United States
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
William R. Day
William Henry Moody
Oklahoma
safari
East Africa
central Africa
Mombasa
British East Africa
Kenya
Belgian Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Nile
Khartoum
Sudan
Andrew Carnegie
Smithsonian Institution
American Museum of Natural History
Frederick Selous
insect
Mole (animal)
hippopotamus
elephant
White Rhinoceros
Washington, D.C.
taxidermy
museum
National Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History
science
flora
fauna
William Howard Taft
U.S. presidential election, 1908
William Jennings Bryan
Payne-Aldrich tariff
Nelson Aldrich
William Loeb
Robert M. La Follette, Sr.
Wisconsin
Progressive Party (United States, 1924)
Gifford Pinchot
Richard Ballinger
Republican Convention
Chicago
Auditorium Building, Chicago
Pinchot
Albert Beveridge
Progressive Party 1912 (United States)
Bull Moose Party
Armageddon
statesmanship
Woodrow Wilson
monopoly
Trust (19th century)
U.S. Steel
Standard Oil
Howard Taft
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Wisconsin
October 14
1912
John Schrank
assassination
chest
steel
eyeglass
pleura
Pennsylvania
Eastern United States
Midwest
Michigan
Minnesota
South Dakota
Western United States
California
Washington
Martin Van Buren
Millard Fillmore
John Augustine Zahm
Cândido Rondon
Kermit Roosevelt
Brazil
Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition
Brazil
Cândido Rondon
John Augustine Zahm
American Museum of Natural History
River of Doubt
Amazon River
Rio Roosevelt
Cândido Rondon
American Museum of Natural History
Portuguese language
December 9
1913
February 27
1914
Rio Roosevelt
malaria
Rio Roosevelt
Oyster Bay
World War I
Allies of World War I
Germany
Charles Evans Hughes
hyphenated American
Quentin Roosevelt
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Scouting
Boy Scouts of America
March 6
2006
January 6
1919
embolism
Archibald Roosevelt
Thomas R. Marshall
Death (personification)
Quentin Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Archibald Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Kermit Roosevelt
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Madison Square Presbyterian Church
Episcopal Church in the United States of America
Grace Reformed Church
March 7
2006
separation of church and state
In God We Trust
March 7
2006
Freemason
March 12
2006
The Strenuous Life
jujutsu
skinny-dipping
Potomac River
March 7
2006
Sagamore Hill
singlestick
Harper's Weekly
Leonard Wood
Thomas Jefferson
Mt. Rushmore
Medal of Honor
Cuba
National Archives and Records Administration
January 16
2001
Bill Clinton
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Battle of Normandy
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
Mount Rushmore
United States Navy
USS Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600)
USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71)
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
Sagamore Hill
Henry Adams
March 7
2006
March 7
2006
Joseph Biden
Second Lebanon War
Israel
Ehud Olmert
Nicaragua
Rubén DarÃo
Robin Williams
Night at the Museum
John Milius
The Wind and the Lion
Brian Keith
Rough Riders (film)
Tom Berenger
teddy bears
American black bear
March 7
2006
June 26
2006
Time (magazine)
Washington Nationals
Presidents Race
Michigan State University
Megabyte
ogg
Theora
Theora
Megabyte
ogg
Theora
Theora
Arch Hoxsey
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
Martha Bulloch
Eleanor Roosevelt
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
Edith Carow Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Elliott Roosevelt I
Bamie Roosevelt
Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia
Reynier Tyson
Panama Canal
Great White Fleet
Russo-Japanese War
List of U.S. political appointments that crossed party lines
Progressivism
Library of America
Library of America
Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia
Edmund Morris (writer)
Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project
University of California, Santa Barbara
think tank
Arch Hoxsey
Frank S. Black
List of Governors of New York
Benjamin B. Odell, Jr.
Garret Hobart
Vice President of the United States
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
President of the United States
William Howard Taft
Garret Hobart
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1900
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1904
William Howard Taft
Progressive Party (United States, 1912)
U.S. presidential election, 1912
Grover Cleveland
Oldest living United States president
William Howard Taft
President of the United States
October 27
1858
New York, New York
January 6
1919
Oyster Bay, New York
|
Theodore_Roosevelt | When did Roosevelt die? | On January 6, 1919, Roosevelt died in his sleep. | data/set3/a7 | Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. ( ; October 27 1858 January 6 1919), also known as T.R., and to the public (but never to friends and intimates) as Teddy, was the twenty-sixth President of the United States, and a leader of the Republican Party and of the Progressive Movement. He became the youngest President in United States history at the age of 42. He served in many roles including Governor of New York, historian, naturalist, explorer, author, and soldier. Roosevelt is most famous for his personality: his energy, his vast range of interests and achievements, his model of masculinity, and his "cowboy" persona. His last name, often mispronounced, is, per Roosevelt, "pronounced as if it were spelled 'Rosavelt', in three syllables, the first syllable as if it was 'Rose.'"
As Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Navy, he prepared for and advocated war with Spain in 1898. He organized and helped command the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, the Rough Riders, during the Spanish-American War. Returning to New York as a war hero, he was elected Republican governor in 1899. He was a professional historian, a lawyer, a naturalist and explorer of the Amazon Basin; his 35 books include works on outdoor life, natural history, the American frontier, political history, naval history, and his autobiography.
In 1901, as Vice President, Roosevelt succeeded President William McKinley after McKinley's assassination. He is the youngest person ever to become President (John F. Kennedy is the youngest elected President). Roosevelt was a Progressive reformer who sought to move the dominant Republican Party into the Progressive camp. He distrusted wealthy businessmen and dissolved forty monopolistic corporations as a "trust buster". He was clear, however, to show he did not disagree with trusts and capitalism in principle but was only against corrupt, illegal practices. His "Square Deal" promised a fair shake for both the average citizen (through regulation of railroad rates and pure food and drugs) and the businessmen. As an outdoorsman, he promoted the conservation movement, emphasizing efficient use of natural resources. After 1906 he attacked big business and suggested the courts were biased against labor unions. In 1910, he broke with his friend and anointed successor William Howard Taft, but lost the Republican nomination to Taft and ran in the 1912 election on his own one-time Bull Moose ticket. Roosevelt beat Taft in the popular vote and pulled so many Progressives out of the Republican Party that Democrat Woodrow Wilson won in 1912, and the conservative faction took control of the Republican Party for the next two decades.
Roosevelt negotiated for the U.S. to take control of the Panama Canal and its construction in 1904; he felt the Canal's completion was his most important and historically significant international achievement. He was the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize, winning its Peace Prize in 1906, for negotiating the peace in the Russo-Japanese War.
Historian Thomas Bailey, who disagreed with Roosevelt's policies, nevertheless concluded, "Roosevelt was a great personality, a great activist, a great preacher of the moralities, a great controversialist, a great showman. He dominated his era as he dominated conversations....the masses loved him; he proved to be a great popular idol and a great vote getter." His image stands alongside Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln on Mount Rushmore. Surveys of scholars have consistently ranked him from #3 to #7 on the list of greatest American presidents.
Theodore Roosevelt at age 11
Theodore Roosevelt was born in a four-story brownstone at 28 East 20th Street, in the modern-day Gramercy section of New York City, the second of four children of Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. (1831â1877) and Mittie Bulloch (1834â1884). He had an elder sister Anna, nicknamed "Bamie" as a child and "Bye" as an adult for being always on the go; and two younger siblingsâhis brother Elliott (the father of Eleanor Roosevelt) and his sister Corinne, (grandmother of newspaper columnists, Joseph and Stewart Alsop).
The Roosevelts had been in New York since the mid 18th century and had grown with the emerging New York commerce class after the American Revolution. Unlike many of the earlier "log cabin Presidents," Roosevelt was born into a wealthy family. By the 19th century, the family had grown in wealth, power and influence from the profits of several businesses including hardware and plate-glass importing. The family was strongly Democratic in its political affiliation until the mid-1850s, then joined the new Republican Party. Theodore's father, known in the family as "Thee", was a New York City philanthropist, merchant, and partner in the family glass-importing firm Roosevelt and Son. He was a prominent supporter of Abraham Lincoln and the Union effort during the American Civil War. His mother Mittie Bulloch was a Southern belle from a slave-owning family in Savannah, Georgia and had quiet Confederate sympathies. Mittie's brother, Theodore's uncle, James Dunwoody Bulloch, was a U.S. Navy officer who became a Confederate admiral and naval procurement agent in Britain. Another uncle Irvine Bulloch was a midshipman on the Confederate raider, CSS Alabama; both remained in England after the war. . Pringle (1931) p. 11 From his grandparents' home, a young Roosevelt witnessed Abraham Lincoln's funeral procession in New York.
Sickly and asthmatic as a youngster, Roosevelt had to sleep propped up in bed or slouching in a chair during much of his early childhood, and had frequent ailments. Despite his illnesses, he was a hyperactive and often mischievous young man. His lifelong interest in zoology was formed at age seven upon seeing a dead seal at a local market. After obtaining the seal's head, the young Roosevelt and two of his cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Learning the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with many animals that he killed or caught, studied, and prepared for display. At age nine, he codified his observation of insects with a paper titled "The Natural History of Insects". "TR's LegacyâThe Environment". Retrieved March 6, 2006.
To combat his poor physical condition, his father compelled the young Roosevelt to take up exercise. To deal with bullies, Roosevelt started boxing lessons. Thayer, William Roscoe (1919). Theodore Roosevelt: An Intimate Biography, Chapter I, p. 20. Bartleby.com. Two trips abroad had a permanent impact: family tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and of the Middle East 1872 to 1873.
Theodore Sr. had a tremendous influence on his son. Of him Roosevelt wrote, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Roosevelt, Theodore (1913). Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography, Chapter I, p. 13. Roosevelt's sister later wrote, "He told me frequently that he never took any serious step or made any vital decision for his country without thinking first what position his father would have taken." "The Film & More: Program Transcript Part One". Retrieved March 9 2006.
Young "Teedie" , as he was nicknamed as a child, (the nickname "Teddy" was from his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee, and he later harbored an intense dislike for it) was mostly home schooled by tutors and his parents. A leading biographer says: "The most obvious drawback to the home schooling Roosevelt keely received was uneven coverage of the various areas of human knowledge." He was solid in geography (thanks to his careful observations on all his travels) and very well read in history, strong in biology, French and German, but deficient in mathematics, Latin and Greek. Brands T. R. p. 49â50 He matriculated at Harvard College in 1876, graduating magna cum laude. His father's death in 1878 was a tremendous blow, but Roosevelt redoubled his activities. He did well in science, philosophy and rhetoric courses but fared poorly in Latin and Greek. He studied biology with great interest and indeed was already an accomplished naturalist and published ornithologist. He had a photographic memory and developed a life-long habit of devouring books, memorizing every detail. Brands p. 62 He was an eloquent conversationalist who, throughout his life, sought out the company of the smartest people. He could multitask in extraordinary fashion, dictating letters to one secretary and memoranda to another, while browsing through a new book.
While at Harvard, Roosevelt was active in rowing, boxing and the Alpha Delta Phi and Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternities. He also edited a student magazine. He was runner-up in the Harvard boxing championship, losing to C.S. Hanks. The sportsmanship Roosevelt showed in that fight was long remembered. Upon graduating from Harvard, Roosevelt underwent a physical examination and his doctor advised him that due to serious heart problems, he should find a desk job and avoid strenuous activity. Roosevelt chose to embrace strenuous life instead. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris.
He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude (22nd of 177) from Harvard in 1880, and entered Columbia Law School. When offered a chance to run for New York Assemblyman in 1881, he dropped out of law school to pursue his new goal of entering public life. Brands, pp 123â29
Roosevelt as NY State Assemblyman 1883, photo
Roosevelt was a Republican activist during his years in the Assembly, writing more bills than any other New York state legislator. Already a major player in state politics, he attended the Republican National Convention in 1884 and fought alongside the Mugwump reformers; they lost to the Stalwart faction that nominated James G. Blaine. Refusing to join other Mugwumps in supporting Democrat Grover Cleveland, the Democratic nominee, he stayed loyal.
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt (July 29, 1861 in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts â February 14 1884 in Manhattan, New York) was the first wife of Theodore Roosevelt and mother of their only child together, Alice Lee Roosevelt. Alice Roosevelt died of an undiagnosed case of Bright's Disease two days after Alice Lee was born. Theodore Roosevelt's mother Mittie died of Typhoid fever in the same house on the same day, Feb. 14, 1884. After the simultaneous deaths of his mother and wife, Roosevelt left his daughter in the care of his sister in New York and moved out to Dakota Territory.
Theodore Roosevelt as Badlands hunter in 1885. New York studio photo. Note the engraved knife and rifle courtesy of Tiffany and Co.
Roosevelt built a second ranch he named Elk Horn thirty five miles (56 km) north of the boomtown, Medora, North Dakota. On the banks of the "Little Missouri," Roosevelt learned to ride, rope, and hunt.
Roosevelt rebuilt his life and began writing about frontier life for Eastern magazines. As a deputy sheriff, Roosevelt hunted down three outlaws who stole his river boat and were escaping north with it up the Little Missouri River. Capturing them, he decided against hanging them and sending his foreman back by boat, he took the thieves back overland for trial in Dickinson, guarding them forty hours without sleep and reading Tolstoy to keep himself awake. When he ran out of his own books he read a dime store western one of the thieves was carrying.
While working on a tough project aimed at hunting down a group of relentless horse thieves, Roosevelt came across the famous Deadwood, South Dakota Sheriff Seth Bullock. The two would remain friends for life. (Morris, Rise of, 241â245, 247â250)
After the uniquely severe U.S. winter of 1886-1887 wiped out his herd of cattle and his $60,000 investment (together with those of his competitors), he returned to the East, where in 1885, he had built Sagamore Hill in Oyster Bay, New York. It would be his home and estate until his death. Roosevelt ran as the Republican candidate for mayor of New York City in 1886 as "The Cowboy of the Dakotas." He came in third.
Following the election, he went to London in 1886 and married his childhood sweetheart, Edith Kermit Carow. Thayer, Chapter V, pp. 4, 6. They honeymooned in Europe, and Roosevelt led a party to the summit of Mont Blanc, a feat which resulted in his induction into the British Royal Society. Encyclopedia Britannica, 1910 Edition, Topic: Theodore Roosevelt They had five children: Theodore Jr., Kermit, Ethel Carow, Archibald Bulloch "Archie", and Quentin. Although Roosevelt's father was also named Theodore Roosevelt, he died while the future president was still childless and unmarried, so the future President Roosevelt took the suffix of Sr. and subsequently named his son Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. Because Roosevelt was still alive when his grandson and namesake was born, his grandson was named Theodore Roosevelt III, and the president's son retained the Jr. after his father's death.
Roosevelt's book The Naval War of 1812 (1882) was standard history for two generations. Roosevelt undertook extensive and original research going computing British and American man-of-war broadside throw weights. See The Naval War of 1812, via Project Gutenberg.
By comparison, however, his hastily-written biographies of Thomas Hart Benton (1887) and Gouverneur Morris (1888) are considered superficial. Pringle (1931) p 116 His major achievement was a four-volume history of the frontier, The Winning of the West (1889â1896), which had a notable impact on historiography as it presented a highly original version of the frontier thesis elaborated upon in 1893 by his friend Frederick Jackson Turner. Roosevelt argued that the harsh frontier conditions had created a new "race": the American people that replaced the "scattered savage tribes, whose life was but a few degrees less meaningless, squalid, and ferocious than that of the wild beasts with whom they held joint ownership". He believed that "the conquest and settlement by the whites of the Indian lands was necessary to the greatness of the race and to the well-being of civilized mankind". He was using an evolutionary model in which new environmental conditions allow a new species to form. His many articles in upscale magazines provided a much-needed income, as well as cementing a reputation as a major national intellectual. He was later chosen president of the
American Historical Association.
In the The Winning of the West (1889â1896), Roosevelt's frontier thesis stressed the racial struggle between "civilization" and "savagery." He supported Nordicism, the belief in the superiority of the "Nordic" race, along with social Darwinism and racialism. Excerpts:
# "The settler and pioneer have at bottom had justice on their side; this great continent could not have been kept as nothing but a game preserve for squalid savages".
# "The most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with savages".
# "American and Indian, Boer and Zulu, Cossack and Tartar, New Zealander and Maori, â in each case the victor, horrible though many of his deeds are, has laid deep the foundations for the future greatness of a mighty people".
# "..it is of incalculable importance that America, Australia, and Siberia should pass out of the hands of their red, black, and yellow aboriginal owners, and become the heritage of the dominant world races".
# "The world would have halted had it not been for the Teutonic conquests in alien lands; but the victories of Moslem over Christian have always proved a curse in the end. Nothing but sheer evil has come from the victories of Turk and Tartar".
What did not, however, conform to the views of Roosevelt's day was that race should never be the primary factor in someone of ability performing any job. Some notable events in Theodore Roosevelt's life included:
*Developing a close relationship with the Hidatsa Indians that is maintained today in the oral tradition of the tribe.
*Inviting reformer Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House, an action which caused outrage among many newpapers in the American South, which objected to "mixing of the races on social occassions."
*Openly supporting a bill in the New York State Assembly which allowed desegregation of schools in the state, personally noting that his children had been educated with other races and there was nothing wrong with it.
*Appointed the Collector of the Port of Charleston post to an African-American, Dr. William D. Crum, and when he was urged to withdraw the appointment, wrote the following:
:I do not intend to appoint any unfit man to office. So far as I legitimately can, I shall always endeavor to pay regard to the wishes and feelings of the people of each locality; but I cannot consent to take the position that the doorway of hope - the door of opportunity - is to be shut upon any man, no matter how worthy, purely upon the grounds of race or color. Such an attitude would, according to my contentions, be fundamentally wrong.
*Defended the Postmaster of Indianola, Mississippi, Minnie D. Cox. She was an African-American, and on that basis alone she was threatened with mob violence and was forced to resign. Roosevelt took action by closing the post office there, ignored her resignation, and still paid her what she was due as if nothing happened.
New York City Police Commissioner 1896
In the 1888 presidential election, Roosevelt campaigned in the Midwest for Benjamin Harrison. President Harrison appointed Roosevelt to the United States Civil Service Commission, where he served until 1895. Thayer, ch. VI, pp. 1â2. In his term, he vigorously fought the spoilsmen and demanded the enforcement of civil service laws. In spite of Roosevelt's support for Harrison's reelection bid in the presidential election of 1892, the eventual winner, Grover Cleveland (a Bourbon Democrat), re appointed him to the same post.
Roosevelt became president of the board of New York City Police Commissioners in 1895. During the two years he held this post, Roosevelt radically reformed the police department. The police force was reputed as one of the most corrupt in America. NYPD's history division records Roosevelt was, "an iron-willed leader of unimpeachable honesty, (who) brought a reforming zeal to the New York City Police Commission in 1895." Andrews, William, "The Early Years: The Challenge of Public Order - 1845 to 1870", - New York City Police Department History Site. Retrieved August 28 2006. Roosevelt and his fellow commissioners established new disciplinary rules, created a bicycle squad to police New York's traffic problems and standardized the use of pistols by officers. Editors, "Leadership of the City of New York Police Department 1845â1901", - The New York City Police Department Museum. Retrieved August 28 2006. Roosevelt implemented regular inspections of firearms, annual physical exams, appointed 1,600 new recruits based on their physical and mental qualifications and not on political affiliation, opened the department to ethnic minorities and women, established meritorious service medals, and shut down corrupt police hostelries. During his tenure a Municipal Lodging House was established by the Board of Charities and Roosevelt required officers to register with the Board. He also had telephones installed in station houses. Always an energetic man, he made a habit of walking officers' beats late at night and early in the morning to make sure they were on duty. Brands ch 11 He became caught up in public disagreements with commissioner Parker, who sought to negate or delay the promotion of many officers put forward by Roosevelt.
Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt (front center) at the Naval War College, c. 1897
Roosevelt had always been fascinated by naval history. Urged by Roosevelt's close friend, Congressman Henry Cabot Lodge, President William McKinley appointed a delighted Roosevelt to the post of Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897. (Because of the inactivity of Secretary of the Navy John D. Long at the time, this basically gave Roosevelt control over the department.) Roosevelt was instrumental in preparing the Navy for the Spanish-American War Brands ch 12 and was an enthusiastic proponent of testing the U.S. military in battle, at one point stating "I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one".
Roosevelt left his civilian Navy post to form the famous "Rough Riders" Regiment
Upon the declaration of war in 1898 that would be known as the Spanish-American War, Roosevelt resigned from the Navy Department and, with the aid of U.S. Army Colonel Leonard Wood, organized the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment from cowboys from the Western territories to Ivy League friends from New York. The newspapers called them the "Rough Riders." Originally Roosevelt held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and served under Colonel Wood, but after Wood was promoted to Brigadier General of Volunteer Forces, Roosevelt was promoted to Colonel and given command of the Regiment. . Even after his return to civilian life, Roosevelt preferred to be known as "Colonel Roosevelt" or "The Colonel." As a moniker, "Teddy" remained much more popular with the general public; however, political friends and others who worked closely with Roosevelt customarily addressed him by his rank.
Colonel Roosevelt and his "Rough Riders" after capturing San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War
Under his leadership, the Rough Riders became famous for dual charges up Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill in July 1898 (the battle was named after the latter hill). Out of all the Rough Riders, Roosevelt was the only one who had a horse, and was forced to walk up Kettle Hill on foot after his horse, Little Texas, became tired. For his actions, Roosevelt was nominated for the Medal of Honor which was subsequently disapproved. It has been widely speculated this disapproval was because of Roosevelt's outspoken comments of the handling of the War. In September 1997, Congressman Rick Lazio representing the 2nd District of New York sent two award recommendations to the U.S. Army Military Awards Branch. These recommendations addressed to Brigadier General Earl Simms, the Army's Adjutant General and one to Master Sergeant Gary Soots, Chief of Authorizations, would prove successful in garnering the much sought after award. Soots Letter Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 2001 for his actions. Brands ch 13 He was the first and, as of 2007, the only President of the United States to be awarded with America's highest military honor, and the only person in history to receive both his nation's highest honor for military valor and the world's foremost prize for peace. Chicago newspaper sees cowboy-TR campaigning for governor
On leaving the Army, Roosevelt re-entered New York state politics and was elected governor of New York in 1898 on the Republican ticket. He made such a concerted effort to root out corruption and "machine politics" Republican boss Thomas Collier Platt forced him on McKinley as a running mate in the 1900 election, against the wishes of McKinley's manager Senator Mark Hanna. Roosevelt was a powerful campaign asset for the Republican ticket, which defeated William Jennings Bryan in a landslide based on restoration of prosperity at home and a successful war and new prestige abroad. Bryan stumped for Free Silver again, but McKinley's promise of prosperity through the Gold Standard, high tariffs, and the restoration of business confidence enlarged his margin of victory. Bryan had strongly supported the war against Spain, but denounced the annexation of the Philippines as imperialism that would spoil America's innocence. Roosevelt countered with many speeches that argued it was best for the Filipinos to have stability, and the Americans to have a proud place in the world. Roosevelt's six months as Vice President (March to September, 1901) were uneventful. Brands ch 14â15 On September 2, 1901, at the Minnesota State Fair, Roosevelt first used in a public speech a saying that would later be universally associated with him: "Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far."
At the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York President McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz (Zol-gash), on September 6, 1901. Roosevelt had been giving a speech in Vermont when he heard of the shooting. He rushed to Buffalo but after being assured the President would recover, he went on a planned family camping and hiking trip to Mount Marcy. In the mountains a runner notified him McKinley was on his death bed. Roosevelt pondered with his wife, Edith, how best to respond, not wanting to show up in Buffalo and wait on McKinley's death. Roosevelt was rushed by a series of stagecoaches to North Creek train station. At the station, Roosevelt was handed a telegram that said President McKinley died at 2:30 AM that morning. Roosevelt continued by train from North Creek to Buffalo. He arrived in Buffalo later that day, accepting an invitation to stay at the home of Ansley Wilcox, a prominent lawyer and friend since the early 1880s when they had both worked closely with New York State Governor Grover Cleveland on civil service reform. Wilcox recalled, "the family and most of the household were in the country, but he Roosevelt was offered a quiet place to sleep and eat, and accepted it." Roosevelt was a successful president. He would achieve a lot of goals in life. Some of these goals were that he won the Spanish-American War, and the Nobel Peace Prize, and he also was the youngest president in United States history. "It is a dreadful thing to come into the Presidency this way." Retrieved February 2 2007.
Nashville Tennessee News sketch of Theodore Roosevelt inauguration minus the customary Bible. Inauguration photos were not allowed after a rival photographer unceremoniously knocked down another's camera. Roosevelt took the oath of office in the Ansley Wilcox House at Buffalo, New York borrowing Wilcox's morning coat. Roosevelt did not swear on a Bible , in contrast to the usual tradition of US presidents Bibles and Scripture Passages Used by Presidents in Taking the Oath of Office. Retrieved September 23, 2007. . Expressing the fears of many old line Republicans, Mark Hanna lamented "that damned cowboy is president now." Roosevelt was the youngest person to assume the presidency, at 42, and he promised to continue McKinley's cabinet and his basic policies. Roosevelt did so, but after winning election in 1904, he moved to the political left, stretching his ties to the Republican Party's conservative leaders. Brands ch 16
A national emergency was averted in 1902 when Roosevelt found a compromise to the anthracite coal strike by the United Mine Workers of America that threatened the heating supplies of most urban homes. Roosevelt called the mine owners and the labor leaders to the White House and negotiated a compromise. Miners were on strike for 163 days before it ended; they were granted a 10% pay increase and a 9-hour day (from the previous 10 hours), but the union was not officially recognized and the price of coal went up. Brands ch 17
Theodore Roosevelt promised to continue McKinley's program, and at first he worked closely with McKinley's men. His 20,000-word address to the Congress in December 1901, asked Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits." They did not act but Roosevelt did, issuing 44 lawsuits against major corporations; he was called the "trust-buster."
Roosevelt firmly believed: "The Government must in increasing degree supervise and regulate the workings of the railways engaged in interstate commerce." Inaction was a danger, he argued: "Such increased supervision is the only alternative to an increase of the present evils on the one hand or a still more radical policy on the other." Annual Message December 1904
His biggest success was passage of the Hepburn Act of 1906, the provisions of which were to be regulated by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). The most important provision of the Act gave the ICC the power to replace existing rates with "just-and-reasonable" maximum rates, with the ICC to define what was just and reasonable. Anti-rebate provisions were toughened, free passes were outlawed, and the penalties for violation were increased. Finally, the ICC gained the power to prescribe a uniform system of accounting, require standardized reports, and inspect railroad accounts. The Act made ICC orders binding; that is, the railroads had to either obey or contest the ICC orders in federal court. To speed the process, appeals from the district courts would go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In response to public clamor (and due to the uproar cause by Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle), Roosevelt pushed Congress to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, as well as the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. These laws provided for labeling of foods and drugs, inspection of livestock and mandated sanitary conditions at meatpacking plants. Congress replaced Roosevelt's proposals with a version supported by the major meatpackers who worried about the overseas markets, and did not want small unsanitary plants undercutting their domestic market. Blum 1980 pp 43â44
Democrats attack Roosevelt as militarist and ineffective in this 1904 election cartoon
Theodore Roosevelt was the fifth Vice President to succeed to the office of President, but the first to win election in his own right. (Millard Fillmore ran and lost on a third-party ticket four years after leaving office and Chester Arthur was denied nomination by his party in 1884). After Senator Mark Hanna, McKinley's old campaign manager, died in February 1904, there was no one in the Republican Party to oppose Roosevelt and he easily won the nomination. When an effort to draft former president Grover Cleveland failed, the Democrats were without a candidate and finally settled on obscure New York judge Alton B. Parker. The outcome was never in doubt. Roosevelt crushed Parker 56%-38% in the popular vote and 336-140 in the Electoral College, sweeping the country outside the perennially Democratic Solid South. Socialist Eugene Debs got 3%. The night of the election, after his victory was clear, Roosevelt promised not to run again in 1908. He later regretted that promise, as it compelled him to leave the White House at the age of only fifty, at the height of his popularity.
Roosevelt worked closely with early conservationists such as Gifford Pinchot, pictured above, with whom he organized the first National Governors Conservation Conference at the White House in 1908
Roosevelt was the first American president to consider the long-term needs for efficient conservation of national resources, winning the support of fellow hunters and fishermen to bolster his political base. Roosevelt was the last trained observer to ever see a passenger pigeon, and on March 14, 1903, Roosevelt created the first National Bird Preserve, (the beginning of the Wildlife Refuge system) on Pelican Island, Florida. Roosevelt worked with the major figures of the conservation movement, especially his chief adviser on the matter Gifford Pinchot. Roosevelt urged Congress to establish the United States Forest Service (1905), to manage government forest lands, and he appointed Gifford Pinchot to head the service. Roosevelt set aside more land for national parks and nature preserves than all of his predecessors combined, 194 million acres (785,000 km²). In all, by 1909, the Roosevelt administration had created an unprecedented 42 million acres (170,000 km²) of national forests, 53 national wildlife refuges and 18 areas of "special interest", including the Grand Canyon. The Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the Badlands commemorates his conservationist philosophy. Roosevelt and Muir In 1903, Roosevelt toured the Yosemite Valley with John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, but Roosevelt believed in the more efficient use of natural resources by corporations like lumber companies unlike Muir. In 1907, with Congress about to block him, Roosevelt hurried to designate 16 million acres (65,000 km²) of new national forests. In May 1908, he sponsored the Conference of Governors held in the White House, with a focus on the most efficient planning, analysis and use of water, forests and other natural resources. Roosevelt explained, "There is an intimate relation between our streams and the development and conservation of all the other great permanent sources of wealth." During his presidency, Roosevelt promoted the nascent conservation movement in essays for Outdoor Life magazine. To Roosevelt, conservation meant more and better usage and less waste, and a long-term perspective. In 2006, a group of American high school students developed a 10 minute video on Roosevelt's conservation legacy with the help of Roosevelt scholar Edward Renehan and Roosevelt descendant, Tweed Roosevelt. See Commented out because it's a YouTube link used as a ref, it's original research, and really it's not a reference. But maybe someone else will think differently. -->
Roosevelt's conservationist leanings also impelled him to preserve national sites of scientific, particularly archaeological, interest. The 1906 passage of the Antiquities Act gave him a tool for creating national monuments by presidential proclamation, without requiring Congressional approval for each monument on an item-by-item basis. The language of the Antiquities Act specifically called for the preservation of "historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest," and was primarily construed by its creator, Congressman James F. Lacey (assisted by the prominent archaeologist Edgar Lee Hewett), as targeting the prehistoric ruins of the American Southwest. Roosevelt, however, applied a typically broad interpretation to the Act, and the first national monument he proclaimed, Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming, was preserved for reasons tied more to geology than archaeology.
Roosevelt's conservationism caused him to forbid having a Christmas tree in the White House. He was reportedly upset when he found a small tree his son had been hiding. After learning about the commercial farming of Christmas trees, where no virgin forests were cut down to supply the demand during the Christmas holiday, he relented and allowed his family to have a tree each season.
In Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and the Panama Canal Zone, Roosevelt used the Army's medical service, under Walter Reed and William C. Gorgas, to eliminate the yellow fever menace and install a new regime of public health. In the new possessions the Roosevelt administration used the army to build railways, telegraph and telephone lines, and upgrade roads and port facilities.
The Philippines saw the U.S. Army for the first time using a systematic doctrine of counter-insurgency. Despite the ad hoc nature of the force deployed by Roosevelt the Army was able to end the insurgency by 1902. Over the course of the war the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built over 3000 miles of roads and worked to build an entire education system, even bringing in thousands of American teachers to spearhead the effort.
Roosevelt builds the canal and shovels dirt on Colombia
Roosevelt dramatically increased the size of the navy, forming the Great White Fleet, which toured the world in 1907. This display was designed to impress the Japanese. Yet, the ships were almost forced to return because of the inadequacy of American ports in the Pacific. See Edward S Miller,War Plan Orange (Annapolis, 1991) Roosevelt also added the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which stated that the United States could intervene in Latin American affairs when corruption of governments made it necessary.
Roosevelt gained international praise for helping negotiate the end of the Russo-Japanese War, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Roosevelt later arbitrated a dispute between France and Germany over the division of Morocco. Some historians have argued these latter two actions helped in a small way to avert a world war. The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (2005). "Theodore Roosevelt (1901â1909)". Retrieved March 6 2006.
Roosevelt's most famous foreign policy initiative, following the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, was the construction of the Panama Canal, which upon its completion shortened the route of freighters between San Francisco, California and New York City by 8,000 miles (13,000 km).
Colombia first proposed the canal in their country as opposed to rival Nicaragua, and Colombia signed a treaty for an agreed-upon sum. At the time, Panama was a province of Colombia. According to the treaty, in 1902, the U.S. was to buy out the equipment and excavations from France, which had been attempting to build a canal since 1881. While the Colombian negotiating team had signed the treaty, ratification by the Colombian Senate became problematic. The Colombian Senate balked at the price and asked for ten million dollars over the original agreed upon price. When the U.S. refused to re-negotiate the price, the Colombian politicians proposed cutting the original French company that started the project out of the deal and giving that difference to Colombia.
The original deal stipulated the French company was to be reasonably compensated. Realizing the Colombian Senate was no longer bargaining in good faith, Roosevelt tired of these last-minute attempts by the Colombians to cheat the French out of their entire investment, and ultimately decided, with the encouragement of Panamanian business interests, to help Panama declare independence from Colombia in 1903.
A brief Panamanian revolution of only a few hours followed the declaration, as Colombian soldiers were bribed $50 each to lay down their arms. On November 3, 1903, the Republic of Panama was created, with its constitution written in advance by the United States. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. signed a protection treaty with Panama. And after the signing of the treaty, a man named Nathan Johnson Forest assisted Panama with the initial planning phases for the canal. The U.S. then paid ten million to secure rights to build on, and control, the Canal Zone. Construction began in 1904 and was completed in 1914.
It took a long time to build the Panama Canal because of the rampant spread of tropical diseases. Over 200 workers died of yellow fever and malaria, spread by mosquitoes. Roosevelt initiated work on clearing swamps and other areas in which the insects bred. As the health threat finally receded, this greatly facilitated the construction of the Canal.
Roosevelt, (on the 12" gun turret at right), addresses the crew of USS Connecticut (BB18), in Hampton Roads, Virginia, upon her return from the Fleet's cruise
As Roosevelt's administration drew to a close, the president dispatched a fleet consisting of four US Navy battleship squadrons and their escorts, on a world-wide voyage of circumnavigation from December 16, 1907, to February 22, 1909. With their hulls painted white (except for the beautiful gilded scrollwork) and red, white, and blue banners on their bows, these ships would come to be known as The Great White Fleet. Roosevelt wanted to demonstrate to his country and the world that the US Navy was capable of operating in a global theater, particularly in the Pacific. This was extraordinarily important at a time when tensions were slowly growing between the United States and Japan. The latter had recently shown its navy's competence in defeating the Russians in the Russo-Japanese War, and the US Navy fleet in the west was relatively small. As a mark of the mission's success, the Atlantic Fleet battleships only later came to be known as the "Great White Fleet."
When the real Great White Fleet sailed into Yokahama, Japan, the Japanese went to extraordinary lengths to show that their country desired peace with the US. Thousands of Japanese school children waved American flags, purchased by the government, as they greeted the Navy brass coming ashore. In February 1909, the fleet returned home to Hampton Roads, Virginia, and Roosevelt was there to witness the triumphant return. His appearance indicated that he saw the fleet's long voyage as a fitting finish for his administration. Roosevelt said to the officers of the Fleet, "Other nations may do what you have done, but they'll have to follow you." This parting act of grand strategy by Roosevelt greatly expanded the respect for, as well as the role of, the United States in the international arena. However, the visit of the Great White Fleet to Tokyo also encouraged Japanese militarists. They had always argued for an even more aggressive Japanese ship building and naval expansion program, and the recent show of force by the U.S. convinced enough of their countrymen that they were right. In a real sense, this set in motion the chain of events leading to the U.S. & Japan confronting each other 30 years later - during WWII.
A Lincoln cent
Roosevelt thought American coins and currency were common and uninspiring. Roosevelt had the opportunity to pose for a young Lithuanian-born sculptor, Victor David Brenner, who, since arriving nineteen years earlier in the United States had become one of the nationâs premier medalists. Roosevelt had learned of Brenner's talents in a settlement house on New York City's Lower East Side and was immediately impressed with a bas-relief that Brenner had made of Lincoln, based on the early Civil War era photographer, Mathew Brady's photograph. Roosevelt, who considered Lincoln the savior of the Union and the greatest Republican President and who also considered himself Lincolnâs political heir, ordered the new Lincoln penny to be based on Brenner's work and that it go just in time to commemorate Lincolnâs 100th birthday in 1909. The likeness of President Lincoln on the obverse of the coin is an adaptation of a plaque Brenner executed several years earlier and which had come to the attention of President Roosevelt in New York. /ref>
Roosevelt took Cabinet members and friends on long, fast-paced hikes, boxed in the state rooms of the White House, romped with his children, and read voraciously. Hanson, David C. (2005). "Theodore Roosevelt: Lion in the White House". Retrieved March 6 2006. In 1908, he was permanently blinded in his left eye during one of his boxing bouts, but this injury was kept from the public at the time. Smith, Ira R. T.; Morris, Joe Alex (1949). "Dear Mr. President": The Story of Fifty Years in the White House Mail Room, p. 52. Julian Messner. His many enthusiastic interests and limitless energy led one ambassador to wryly explain, "You must always remember that the President is about six." Kennedy, Robert C. (2005). "'I hear there are some kids in the White House this year'". Retrieved March 6 2006.
Roosevelt shoots holes in the dictionary as the ghosts of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dr Johnson moan.
During his presidency, Roosevelt tried but did not succeed to advance the cause of simplified spelling. He tried to force government to adopt the system, sending an order to the Public Printer to use the system in all public documents. The order was obeyed, and among the documents thus printed was the President's special message regarding the Panama Canal. The New York World translated the Thanksgiving Day proclamation:
The reform annoyed the public, forcing him to rescind the order. Roosevelt's friend, literary critic Brander Matthews, one of the chief advocates of the reform, remonstrated with him for abandoning the effort. Roosevelt replied on December 16: "I could not by fighting have kept the new spelling in, and it was evidently worse than useless to go into an undignified contest when I was beaten. Do you know that the one word as to which I thought the new spelling was wrong thru was more responsible than anything else for our discomfiture?" Next summer Roosevelt was watching a naval review when a launch marked "Pres Bot" chugged ostentatiously by. The President waved and laughed with delight. Pringle 465â7
Roosevelt's oldest daughter, Alice, was a controversial character during Roosevelt's stay in the White House. When friends asked if he could rein in his elder daughter, Roosevelt said, "I can be President of the United States, or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both." In turn, Alice said of him that he always wanted to be "the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral." (Some sources attribute this quote to one of Roosevelt's sons instead.) Thayer, Chapter XIII, p. 7.
Roosevelt's contribution to the White House was the construction of the original West Wing, which he had built to free up the second floor rooms in the residence that formerly housed the president's staff. He and Edith also had the entire house renovated and restored to the federal style, tearing out the Victorian furnishings and details (including Tiffany windows) that had been installed over the previous three decades.
1902 The Washington Post political cartoon that spawned the Teddy bear name.
#In the sphere of race relations, Booker T. Washington became the first black man to dine as a guest at the White House in 1901.
#Oscar S. Straus became the first Jewish person appointed as a Cabinet Secretary, under Roosevelt.
#In August, 1902, Roosevelt became the first U.S. president to take a public automobile ride. This occurred during a parade in Hartford, Connecticut
#In 1910 he became the first U.S. President to ride in an airplane.
#On August 25, 1905 he became the first U.S. President to ride in a military submarine when he boarded the USS Holland (SS-1) and ran submerged with her for 55 minutes.
#In 1906, he made the first trip, by a President, outside the United States, visiting Panama to inspect the construction progress of the Panama Canal on November 9.
#In 1902, in response to the assassination of President William McKinley on September 6 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became the first president to be under constant Secret Service protection.
# In 1906, Roosevelt became the first American to be awarded a Nobel Prize.
#In 2001, he became the first and only President up to date to receive a Medal of Honor, making him the only person to date to win the world's highest peace honor, as well as his nation's top military honor.
#He was the first and to date only president from Long Island, New York.
#He was the first President to officially refer to the White House as such, on his official stationery. This had been the common name (referring to the color of the building), but until then, the official name was "The Executive Mansion"
#He was the first President to wear a necktie for his official Presidential Portrait.
#He was the first President to approve a coin, the Lincoln cent, with a man's face on it, in 1909, just in time for the centennial of Lincoln's birth. Lincoln was Roosevelt's presidential hero.
#He was the first President to coin an internationally recognized trademark, although not deliberately. His offhand remark, "good to the last drop," about some coffee drunk at the Maxwell House hotel in Tennessee, see Maxwell House coffee.
#He is the only president to have a famous toy named after him (the Teddy bear, named after a bear he refused to shoot in a 1902 hunt in Mississipi).
John Singer Sargent, Theodore Roosevelt, 1903; click on painting for background story.
Roosevelt appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
*Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. 1902
*William Rufus Day 1903
*William Henry Moody 1906
*Oklahoma 1907
Roosevelt standing next to a dead elephant during a safari
In March 1909, shortly after the end of his second term, Roosevelt left New York for a safari in east and central Africa. Roosevelt's party landed in Mombasa, British East Africa (now Kenya), traveled to the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) before following the Nile up to Khartoum in modern Sudan. Financed by Andrew Carnegie and by his own proposed writings, Roosevelt hunted for specimens for the Smithsonian Institution and for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. His party, which included scientists from the Smithsonian and was led by Frederick Selous, the famous big game hunter and explorer, and they killed or trapped over 11,397 animals, from insects and moles to hippopotamuses and elephants. 512 of the animals were big game animals, including six rare white rhinos. 262 of these were consumed by the expedition. Tons of salted animals and their skins were shipped to Washington; the quantity was so large that it took years to mount them all, and the Smithsonian was able to share many duplicate animals with other museums.
Regarding the large number of animals taken, Roosevelt said, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned." O'Toole, Patricia (2005) When Trumpets Call, p. 67, Simon and Schuster, ISBN 0-684-86477-0 However, although the safari was ostensibly conducted in the name of science, there was another, quite large element to it as well. In addition to many native peoples and local leaders, interaction with renowned professional hunters and land owning families made the safari as much a political and social event, as it was a hunting excursion. Roosevelt wrote a detailed account of the adventure in the book "African Game Trails", where he describes the excitement of the chase, the people he met, and the flora and fauna he collected in the name of science.
Roosevelt certified William Howard Taft to be a genuine "progressive" in 1908, when Roosevelt pushed through the nomination of his Secretary of War for the Presidency. Taft easily defeated three-time candidate William Jennings Bryan. Taft had a different progressivism, one that stressed the rule of law and preferred that judges rather than administrators or politicians make the basic decisions about fairness. Taft usually proved a less adroit politician than Roosevelt and lacked the energy and personal magnetism, not to mention the publicity devices, the dedicated supporters, and the broad base of public support that made Roosevelt so formidable. When Roosevelt realized that lowering the tariff would risk severe tensions inside the Republican Party pitting producers (manufacturers and farmers) against merchants and consumers he stopped talking about the issue. Taft ignored the risks and tackled the tariff boldly, on the one hand encouraging reformers to fight for lower rates, and then cutting deals with conservative leaders that kept overall rates high. The resulting Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909 was too high for most reformers, but instead of blaming this on Senator Nelson Aldrich and big business, Taft took credit, calling it the best tariff ever. Again he had managed to alienate all sides. While the crisis was building inside the Party, Roosevelt was touring Africa and Europe, so as to allow Taft to be his own man. Thayer, Chapter XXI, p. 10.
1909 cartoon: TR hands his policies to the care of Taft while William Loeb carries the "Big Stick"
Unlike Roosevelt, Taft never attacked business or businessmen in his rhetoric. However, he was attentive to the law, so he launched 90 antitrust suits, including one against the largest corporation, U.S. Steel, for an acquisition that Roosevelt had personally approved. Consequently, Taft lost the support of antitrust reformers (who disliked his conservative rhetoric), of big business (which disliked his actions), and of Roosevelt, who felt humiliated by his protégé. The left wing of the Republican Party began agitating against Taft. Senator Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin created the National Progressive Republican League (precursor to the Progressive Party (United States, 1924)) to defeat the power of political bossism at the state level and to replace Taft at the national level. More trouble came when Taft fired Gifford Pinchot, a leading conservationist and close ally of Roosevelt. Pinchot alleged that Taft's Secretary of Interior Richard Ballinger was in league with big timber interests. Conservationists sided with Pinchot, and Taft alienated yet another vocal constituency.
Roosevelt, back from Europe, unexpectedly launched an attack on the federal courts, which deeply upset Taft. Not only had Roosevelt alienated big business, he was also attacking both the judiciary and the deep faith Republicans had in their judges (most of whom had been appointed by McKinley, Roosevelt or Taft.) In the 1910 Congressional elections, Democrats swept to power, and Taft's reelection in 1912 was increasingly in doubt. In 1911, Taft responded with a vigorous stumping tour that allowed him to sign up most of the party leaders long before Roosevelt announced.
The battle between Taft and Roosevelt bitterly split the Republican Party; Taft's people dominated the party until 1936.
Late in 1911, Roosevelt finally broke with Taft and LaFollette and announced himself as a candidate for the Republican nomination. But Roosevelt had delayed too long, and Taft had already won the support of most party leaders in the country. Because of LaFollette's nervous breakdown on the campaign trail before Roosevelt's entry, most of LaFollette's supporters went over to Roosevelt, the new progressive Republican candidate.
Roosevelt, stepping up his attack on judges, carried nine of the states with preferential primaries, LaFollette took two, and Taft only one. The 1912 Primaries represented the first extensive use of the Presidential Primary, a reform achievement of the progressive movement. However, these primary elections, while demonstrating Roosevelt's popularity with the electorate, were in no ways as important as primaries are today. First of all, there were fewer states where the common voter was given a forum to express himself, such as a primary. Many more states selected convention delegates either at party conventions, or in caucuses, which were not as open as today's caucuses. So while the man in the street still adored Roosevelt, most professional Republican politicians were supporting Taft, and they proved difficult to upset in non-primary states.
At the Republican Convention in Chicago, despite being the incumbent, Taft's victory was not immediately assured. But after two weeks, Roosevelt, realizing he would not be able to win the nomination outright, asked his followers to leave the convention hall. They moved to the Auditorium Theatre, and then Roosevelt, along with key allies such as Pinchot and Albert Beveridge created the Progressive Party, structuring it as a permanent organization that would field complete tickets at the presidential and state level. It was popularly known as the "Bull Moose Party," which got its name after Roosevelt told reporters, "I'm as fit as a bull moose." Carl M. Cannon, The Pursuit of Happiness in Times of War, Rowman & Littlefield: 2003, p. 142. ISBN 0742525929. At the convention Roosevelt cried out, "We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord." Roosevelt's platform echoed his 1907â08 proposals, calling for vigorous government intervention to protect the people from the selfish interests. Thayer, Chapter XXII, pp. 25 31.
The bullet-damaged speech and eyeglass case on display at the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace
While campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on October 14, 1912, a saloonkeeper named John Schrank failed in an assassination attempt on Roosevelt. Schrank did shoot the former President, but the bullet lodged in Roosevelt's chest only after penetrating both his steel eyeglass case and passing through a thick (50 pages) single-folded copy of the speech he was carrying in his jacket. Accessed Dec. 21, 2007 . Roosevelt, as a very experienced hunter and anatomist, decide the fact he wasn't coughing blood meant the bullet had not completely penetrated the chest wall to his lung (he was correct), and so declined suggestions he go to the hospital immediately. Instead, he delivered his scheduled speech with blood seeping into his shirt. He spoke for ninety minutes. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Afterwards, doctors determined by probe and X-ray the bullet had traversed three inches of tissue and lodged in Roosevelt's chest muscle but did not penetrate the pleura, and it would be more dangerous to attempt to remove the bullet than to leave it in place. Roosevelt carried it with him until he died. Roosevelt Timeline
Due to the bullet wound, Roosevelt was taken off the campaign trail in the final weeks of the race (which ended election day, November 5). Though the other two campaigners stopped their own campaigns in the week Roosevelt was in the hospital, they resumed it once he was released. The overall effect of the shooting was uncertain. Roosevelt for many reasons failed to move enough Republicans in his direction. He did win 4.1 million votes (27%), compared to Taft's 3.5 million (23%). However, Wilson's 6.3 million votes (42%) were enough to garner 435 electoral votes. Roosevelt had 88 electoral votes to Taft's 8 electoral votes. (This meant that Taft became the only incumbent President in history to actually come in third place in an attempt to be re-elected.) But Pennsylvania was Roosevelt's only Eastern state; in the Midwest he carried Michigan, Minnesota and South Dakota; in the West, California and Washington; he did not win any Southern states. Although he lost, he won more votes than former presidents Martin Van Buren and Millard Fillmore who also ran again and also lost. More important, he pulled so many progressives out of the Republican party that it took on a much more conservative cast for the next generation.
The initial party. From left to right (seated): Father Zahm, Rondon, Kermit, Cherrie, Miller, four Brazilians, Roosevelt, Fiala. Only Roosevelt, Kermit, Cherrie, Rondon and the Brazilians traveled down the River of Doubt.
Roosevelt's popular book Through the Brazilian Wilderness describes his expedition into the Brazilian jungle in 1913 as a member of the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition co-named after its leader, Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon. The book describes all of the scientific discovery, scenic tropical vistas and exotic flora, fauna and wild life experienced on the expedition. A friend, Father John Augustine Zahm, had searched for new adventures and found them in the forests of South America. After a briefing of several of his own expeditions, he convinced Roosevelt to commit to such an expedition in 1912. To finance the expedition, Roosevelt received support from the American Museum of Natural History, promising to bring back many new animal specimens. Once in South America, a new far more ambitious goal was added: to find the headwaters of the Rio da Duvida, the River of Doubt, and trace it north to the Madiera and thence to the Amazon River. It was later renamed Rio Roosevelt (Rio Teodoro today, 640 km long) in honor of the former President. Roosevelt's crew consisted of his 24-year-old son Kermit, Colonel Cândido Rondon, a naturalist sent by the American Museum of Natural History named George K. Cherrie, Brazilian Lieutenant Joao Lyra, team physician Dr. José Antonio Cajazeira, and sixteen highly skilled paddlers (called camaradas in Portuguese). The initial expedition started, probably unwisely, on December 9, 1913, at the height of the rainy season. The trip down the River of Doubt started on February 27, 1914.
Roosevelt, wearing sun helmet, barely survived an expedition in 1913 into the Amazonian rain forest to trace the River of Doubt later named the Rio Roosevelt.
During the trip down the river, Roosevelt contracted malaria and a serious infection resulting from a minor leg wound. These illnesses so weakened Roosevelt that, by six weeks into the expedition, he had to be attended day and night by the expedition's physician, Dr. Cajazeira, and his son, Kermit. By this time, Roosevelt considered his own condition a threat to the survival of the others. At one point, Kermit had to talk him out of his wish to be left behind so as not to slow down the expedition, now with only a few weeks rations left. Roosevelt was having chest pains when he tried to walk, his temperature soared to 103 °F (39 °C), and at times he was delirious. He had lost over fifty pounds (20 kg). Without the constant support of his son, Kermit, Dr. Cajazeira, and the continued leadership of Colonel Rondon, Roosevelt would likely have perished. Despite his concern for Roosevelt, Rondon had been slowing down the pace of the expedition by his dedication to his own map-making and other geographical goals that demanded regular stops to fix the expedition's position via sun-based survey.
Upon his return to New York, friends and family were startled by Roosevelt's physical appearance and fatigue. Roosevelt wrote to a friend that the trip had cut his life short by ten years. He might not have really known just how accurate that analysis would prove to be, because the effects of the South America expedition had so greatly weakened him that they significantly contributed to his declining health. For the rest of his life, he would be plagued by flareups of malaria and leg inflammations so severe that they would require hospitalization. Thayer, Chapter XXIII, pp. 4â7.
When Roosevelt had recovered enough of his strength, he found that he had a new battle on his hands. In professional circles, there was doubt about his claims of having discovered and navigated a completely uncharted river over 625 miles (1,000 km) long. Roosevelt would have to defend himself and win international recognition of the expedition's newly-named Rio Roosevelt. Toward this end, Roosevelt went to Washington, D.C., and spoke at a standing-room-only convention to defend his claims. His official report and its defense silenced the critics, and he was able to triumphantly return to his home in Oyster Bay.
Despite his weakened condition and slow recovery from his South America expedition, Roosevelt continued to write with passion on subjects ranging from foreign policy to the importance of the national park system. As an editor of Outlook magazine, he had weekly access to a large, educated national audience. In all, Roosevelt wrote about 18 books (each in several editions), including his Autobiography, Rough Riders and History of the Naval War of 1812, ranching, explorations, and wildlife. His most ambitious book was the 4 volume narrative The Winning of the West, which attempted to connect the origin of a new "race" of Americans (i.e. what he considered the present population of the United States to be) to the frontier conditions their ancestors endured in throughout the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries.
Roosevelt angrily complained about the foreign policy of President Wilson, calling it "weak." This caused him to develop an intense dislike for Woodrow Wilson. When World War I began in 1914, Roosevelt strongly supported the Allies of World War I and demanded a harsher policy against Germany, especially regarding submarine warfare. In 1916, he campaigned energetically for Charles Evans Hughes and repeatedly denounced Irish-Americans and German-Americans who Roosevelt said were unpatriotic because they put the interest of Ireland and Germany ahead of America's by supporting neutrality. He insisted one had to be 100% American, not a "hyphenated American" who juggled multiple loyalties. When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, Roosevelt sought to raise a volunteer infantry division, but Wilson refused. Brands 781â4; Cramer, C.H. Newton D. Baker (1961) 110â113
Roosevelt's attacks on Wilson helped the Republicans win control of Congress in the off-year elections of 1918. Roosevelt was popular enough to seriously contest the 1920 Republican nomination, but his health was broken by 1918, because of the lingering malaria. His son Quentin, a daring pilot with the American forces in France, was shot down behind German lines in 1918. Quentin was his youngest son and probably the most liked by him. It is said the death of his son distressed him so much that Roosevelt never recovered from his loss. Dalton, (2002)p 507
Theodore Roosevelt Grave in Youngs Memorial Cemetery Oyster Bay, New York
Twenty-six steps leading to Roosevelt's grave, commemorating his service as 26th President
Despite his debilitating diseases, Roosevelt remained active to the end of his life. He was an enthusiastic proponent of the Scouting movement. The Boy Scouts of America gave him the title of Chief Scout Citizen, the only person to hold such title. One early Scout leader said, "The two things that gave Scouting great impetus and made it very popular were the uniform and Teddy Roosevelt's jingoism." Larson, Keith (2006). "Theodore Roosevelt". Retrieved March 6 2006.
On January 6, 1919, Roosevelt died in his sleep of a coronary embolism at Oyster Bay, and was buried in nearby Youngs Memorial Cemetery. Upon receiving word of his death, his son, Archie, telegraphed his siblings simply, "The old lion is dead." Dalton, (2002) p. 507 Woodrow Wilson's vice president at the time Thomas R. Marshall said of his death "Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight." Manners, William. TR and Will: A Friendship that Split the Republican Party. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1969.
Roosevelt Family in 1903 with Quentin on the left, TR, Ted, Jr., "Archie", Alice, Kermit, Edith, and Ethel
Roosevelt intensely disliked being called "Teddy," and was quick to point out this fact to those who used the nickname, though it would become widely used by newspapers during his political career. He attended the Madison Square Presbyterian Church until the age of 16. Later in life, when Roosevelt lived at Oyster Bay he attended an Episcopal church with his wife. While in Washington he attended services at Grace Reformed Church. "The Religious Affiliation of Theodore Roosevelt U.S. President". Retrieved March 7 2006. As President he firmly believed in the separation of church and state and thought it unwise to have In God We Trust on currency, because he thought it sacrilegious to put the name of the Deity on something so common as money. Reynolds, Ralph C. (1999). "In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash". Retrieved March 7 2006. He was also a Freemason, and regularly attended the Matinecock Lodge's meetings. He once said that "One of the things that so greatly attracted me to Masonry that I hailed the chance of becoming a Mason was that it really did act up to what we, as a government, are pledged to namely to treat each man on his merit as a man." Matinecock Masonic Historical Society. "History". Retrieved March 12 2006.
Roosevelt had a lifelong interest in pursuing what he called, in an 1899 speech, "the strenuous life." To this end, he exercised regularly and took up boxing, tennis, hiking, rowing, polo, and horseback riding. As governor of New York, he boxed with sparring partners several times a week, a practice he regularly continued as President until one blow detached his left retina, leaving him blind in that eye (a fact not made public until many years later). Thereafter, he practiced jujutsu and continued his habit of skinny-dipping in the Potomac River during winter. Thayer, Chapter XVII, pp. 22 24. Shaw, K.B. & Maiden, David (2006). "Theodore Roosevelt".
Retrieved March 7 2006.
Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt's estate
He was an enthusiastic singlestick player and, according to Harper's Weekly, in 1905 showed up at a White House reception with his arm bandaged after a bout with General Leonard Wood. Amberger, J Christoph, Secret History of the Sword Adventures in Ancient Martial Arts 1998, ISBN 1-892515-04-0. Roosevelt was also an avid reader, reading tens of thousands of books, at a rate of several a day in multiple languages. Along with Thomas Jefferson Roosevelt is often considered the most well read of any American politician. David H. Burton, The Learned Presidency 1988, p 12.
Roosevelt's face on Mt. Rushmore
1910 cartoon shows Roosevelt's multiple roles to 1898
1910 cartoon shows Roosevelt's multiple roles from 1899 to 1910
For his gallantry at San Juan Hill, Roosevelt's commanders recommended him for the Medal of Honor, but his subsequent telegrams to the War Department complaining about the delays in returning American troops from Cuba doomed his chances. In the late 1990s, Roosevelt's supporters again took up the flag on his behalf and overcame opposition from elements within the U.S. Army and the National Archives. On January 16, 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded Theodore Roosevelt the Medal of Honor posthumously for his charge up San Juan Hill, Cuba, during the Spanish-American War. Roosevelt's eldest son, Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., received the Medal of Honor for heroism at the Battle of Normandy in 1944. The Roosevelts thus became one of only two father-son pairs to receive this honor.
Roosevelt's legacy includes several other important commemorations. Roosevelt was included with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln at the Mount Rushmore Memorial, designed in 1927. The United States Navy named two ships for Roosevelt: the USS Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600), a submarine was in commission from 1961 to 1982; and the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), an aircraft carrier that has been on active duty in the Atlantic Fleet since 1986.
The Roosevelt Memorial Association (later the Theodore Roosevelt Association) or "TRA", was founded in 1920 to preserve Roosevelt's legacy. The Association preserved TR's birthplace, "Sagamore Hill" home, papers, and video film.
Overall, historians credit Roosevelt for changing the nation's political system by permanently placing the presidency at center stage and making character as important as the issues. His notable accomplishments include trust-busting and conservationism. However, he has been criticized for his interventionist and imperialist approach to nations he considered "uncivilized". Even so, history and legend have been kind to him. His friend, historian Henry Adams, proclaimed, "Roosevelt, more than any other living man ....showed the singular primitive quality that belongs to ultimate matter the quality that mediaeval theology assigned to God he was pure act." Historians typically rank Roosevelt among the top five presidents. The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (2005). "Biography: Impact and Legacy". Retrieved March 7 2006. "Legacy". Retrieved March 7 2006.
Roosevelt has been quoted by virtually all the major Republican and Democratic candidates for the 2008 US Presidential Election. Political pundits have brought up Roosevelt's name in book after book. The degree of discussion ranges from a single sentence by democrat Bill Richardson talking about him as "BR" breaking Roosevelt's (or "TR") 1907 single handshaking record, John Edwards mentioning Roosevelt in a fall of 2007 speech to John McCain devoting an entire chapter to him in his main background book. Even the lone candidate that did not mention Roosevelt in an autobiographical book, democrat, Joe Biden, nevertheless, began mentioning Roosevelt's taking on of corporate interests speeches in New Hampshire in the summer of 2007.
Roosevelt's 1901 saying "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick" is still being occasionally quoted by politicians and columnists in different countries - not only in English but also in translation to various other languages. For example, following the Second Lebanon War of August 2006, opponents of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accused him of "Speaking loudly and carrying a small stick".
The well-known Nicaraguan poet Rubén DarÃo published in 1905 a poem entitled A Roosevelt (To Roosevelt) which was included in Cantos de Vida y Esperanza (Songs of Life and Hope)
As a charismatic President often considered larger than life, Roosevelt has appeared in numerous fiction books, television shows, films, and other media of popular culture. Roosvelt was played by Robin Williams in the box office hit Night at the Museum and its upcoming sequel.
"Drawing the Line in Mississippi," by Clifford Berryman, referring to Roosevelt's sparing the bear.
Filmmaker John Milius also directed two films in which Roosevelt was a central character: The Wind and the Lion (1975) in which he was played by Brian Keith; and Rough Riders (1997) in which he was played by Tom Berenger. Keith's performance is widely considered to be the definitive screen depiction of Roosevelt.
Roosevelt's lasting popular legacy, however, is the stuffed toy bearsâteddy bearsânamed after him following an incident on a hunting trip in 1902. Roosevelt famously refused to kill a captured black bear simply for the sake of making a kill. Bears and later bear cubs became closely associated with Roosevelt in political cartoons thereafter. "History of the Teddy Bear". Retrieved March 7 2006.
On June 26, 2006, Roosevelt, once again, made the cover of TIME magazine with the lead story, "The Making of AmericaâTheodore RooseveltâThe 20th Century Express": "At home and abroad, Theodore Roosevelt was the locomotive President, the man who drew his flourishing nation into the future."
The Washington Nationals major league baseball team has a fan tradition called the Presidents Race. In it four caricatures of presidents Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt race against each other. A running gag has been Theodore Roosevelt's inability to win a single Presidents Race.
In 2006 Roosevelt' likeness was used in "Night at the Museum (The movie).
Theodore Roosevelt was one of the first presidents whose voice was recorded for posterity. Several of his recorded speeches survive. Vincent Voice Library at Michigan State University. Retrieved September 23, 2007.
* Roosevelt goes for first aeroplane ride in Arch Hoxsey plane 1910
*Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. father
*Martha Bulloch mother
*Eleanor Roosevelt niece, First Lady of the United States (1933â1945)
*Alice Roosevelt first wife
*Edith Carow Roosevelt second wife
*Alice Roosevelt first daughter
*Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. first son
*Kermit Roosevelt second son
*Ethel Roosevelt second daughter
*Archibald Roosevelt third son
*Quentin Roosevelt fourth son
*Elliott Roosevelt brother
*Anna Cowles sister
*Corinne Robinson sister
*Franklin D. Roosevelt, cousin, 32nd President of the United States
*Theodore Roosevelt Association 1920 organization founded to preserve Roosevelt's historical legacy
*Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia 1940 compendium of Roosevelt's key writings, sayings and conversations
*Reynier Tyson 4th great-grandfather, early German-American settler
*Panama Canal
*Great White Fleet
*Russo-Japanese War
*List of U.S. political appointments that crossed party lines
*Progressivism
*
*Auchincloss, Louis, ed. Theodore Roosevelt, The Rough Riders and an Autobiography (Library of America, 2004) ISBN 978-1-93108265-5
*Auchincloss, Louis, ed. Theodore Roosevelt, Letters and Speeches (Library of America, 2004) ISBN 978-1-93108266-2
*Brands, H.W. ed. The Selected Letters of Theodore Roosevelt. (2001)
*Harbaugh, William ed. The Writings Of Theodore Roosevelt (1967). A one-volume selection of Roosevelt's speeches and essays.
*Hart, Albert Bushnell and Herbert Ronald Ferleger, eds. Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia (1941), Roosevelt's opinions on many issues; online version at
*Morison, Elting E., John Morton Blum, and Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., eds., The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 8 vols. (1951â1954). Very large, annotated edition of letters from TR.
*Roosevelt, Theodore (1999). Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography. online at Bartleby.com.
*Roosevelt, Theodore. The Works of Theodore Roosevelt (National edition, 20 vol. 1926); 18,000 pages containing most of TR's speeches, books and essays, but not his letters; a CD-ROM edition is available; some of TR's books are available online through Project Bartleby
* Theodore Roosevelt books and speeches on Project Gutenberg
*Blum, John Morton The Republican Roosevelt. (1954). Series of essays that examine how TR did politics
*Brands, H.W. Theodore Roosevelt (2001), full biography
* Chace, James. 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft, and Debs - The Election That Changed the Country. (2004). 323 pp.
*Cooper, John Milton The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. (1983) a dual scholarly biography
*Dalton, Kathleen. Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life. (2002), full scholarly biography
* Fehn, Bruce. "Theodore Roosevelt and American Masculinity." Magazine of History (2005) 19(2): 52â59. Issn: 0882-228x Fulltext online at Ebsco. Provides a lesson plan on TR as the historical figure who most exemplifies the quality of masculinity.
*Gluck, Sherwin. "T.R.'s Summer White House, Oyster Bay." (1999) Chronicles the events of TR's presidency during the summers of his two terms.
*Gould, Lewis L. The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. (1991), standard history of his domestic and foreign policy as president
*Harbaugh, William Henry. The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt. (1963), full scholarly biography
*Keller, Morton, ed., Theodore Roosevelt: A Profile (1967) excerpts from TR and from historians.
* Kohn, Edward. "Crossing the Rubicon: Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and the 1884 Republican National Convention." Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2006 5(1): 18â45. Issn: 1537-7814 Fulltext: in History Cooperative
*Millard, Candice. River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey. (2005)
*McCullough, David. Mornings on Horseback, The Story of an Extraordinary Family. a Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt. (2001) popular biography to 1884
*Morris, Edmund The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, to 1901 (1979); vol 2: Theodore Rex 1901â1909. (2001); Pulitzer prize for Volume 1. Biography.
* Mowry, George. The Era of Theodore Roosevelt and the Birth of Modern America, 1900â1912. (1954) general survey of era; online
*Mowry, George E. Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement. (2001) focus on 1912
* O'Toole, Patricia. When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt after the White House. (2005). 494 pp.
*Powell, Jim. Bully Boy: The Truth About Theodore Roosevelt's Legacy (Crown Forum, 2006). Denounces TR policies from conservative/libertarian perspective
*Pringle, Henry F. Theodore Roosevelt (1932; 2nd ed. 1956), full scholarly biography
*Putnam, Carleton Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography, Volume I: The Formative Years (1958), only volume published, to age 28.
*Renehan, Edward J. The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War. (Oxford University Press, 1998), examines TR and his family during the World War I period
*Strock, James M. Theodore Roosevelt on Leadership. Random House, 2003.
* Watts, Sarah. Rough Rider in the White House: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of Desire. 2003. 289 pp.
*Beale Howard K. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power. (1956). standard history of his foreign policy
* Holmes, James R. Theodore Roosevelt and World Order: Police Power in International Relations. 2006. 328 pp.
* Marks III, Frederick W. Velvet on Iron: The Diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt (1979)
* David McCullough. The Path between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870â1914 (1977).
* Ricard, Serge. "The Roosevelt Corollary." Presidential Studies Quarterly 2006 36(1): 17â26. Issn: 0360-4918 Fulltext: in Swetswise and Ingenta
* Tilchin, William N. and Neu, Charles E., ed. Artists of Power: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Their Enduring Impact on U.S. Foreign Policy. Praeger, 2006. 196 pp.
* Tilchin, William N. Theodore Roosevelt and the British Empire: A Study in Presidential Statecraft (1997)
* Theodore Roosevelt Association - Founded in 1920 by Roosevelt's friends and admirers to preserve his legacy. Extensive online resources and bibliography
* Extensive essay on Theodore Roosevelt and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* NY Times Headline, January 6, 1919, Theodore Roosevelt Dies Suddenly at Oyster Bay Home; Nation Shocked, Pays Tribute to Former President; Our Flag on All Seas and in All Lands at Half Mast
* "The Early Years: The Challenge of Public Order - 1845 to 1870", by William Andrews, New York City Police Department History Site
* "Leadership of the City of New York Police Department 1845â1901", - The New York City Police Department Museum
* PBS "American Experience" Theodore Roosevelt
* My Brother Theodore Roosevelt, 1921 By Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, a bestseller with a woman's and sister's point of view on TR. Full text and Full text Search, Free to Read and Search.
* Almanac of Theodore Roosevelt
* Downloadable audio recordings of Roosevelt in MP3 format
* Audio clips of Roosevelt's speeches
* Roosevelt podcasts Audio Recording of Roosevelt's Progressive Party Acceptance Speech, "Progressive Covenant with the People" with text included.
* Quotes
* Theodore Roosevelt Works - Bartleby's Online Books
* Presidential Biography by Stanley L. Klos
*
* Index of T. Roosevelt Etexts
* Detailed biography of Theodore Roosevelt from the 1911 version of Encyclopedia Britannica
* Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Address
* State of the Union addresses for 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, and 1908
* Nobel Peace Prize 1906: Theodore Roosevelt
* Theodore Roosevelt Papers at the Library of Congress
* Theodore Roosevelt: His Life & Times on Film (LOC)
* Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
* Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site
* Sagamore Hill National Historic Site
* NobelPrize.org's entry on Theodore Roosevelt
* Congressional Medal of Honor's entry on Theodore Roosevelt; including citation and pictures
* Medal of Honor Recipients on Film
* White House biography
* Vice Presidents Dot Com
* Family and Descendants of Theodore Roosevelt
* Ron Schuler's Parlour Tricks: Teddy
* Theodore Roosevelt Links
* Theodore Roosevelt Quotes, Pictures and Biography at TeddyRoosevelt.com
* Theodore Roosevelt cylinder recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.
* On Theodore Roosevelt's progressive vision from the Roosevelt Institution, a student think tank inspired in part by Theodore Roosevelt.
* Boone and Crockett Club, founded by Theodore Roosevelt
* How to pronounce Theodore Roosevelt
* Yesterday's News blog 1901 newspaper account of Roosevelt's "Big Stick" speech at the Minnesota State Fair
* Archive of Theodore Roosevelt Pictures
* still of Theodore Roosevelt going on first aeroplane flight
* different view of Theodore Roosevelt & Arch Hoxsey in Wright aeroplane St Louis October 1910
*
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
September 14
1901
March 4
1909
Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
William Howard Taft
Vice President of the United States
March 4
1901
September 14
1901
William McKinley
Garret Hobart
Charles W. Fairbanks
List of Governors of New York
January 1
1899
December 31
1900
Timothy L. Woodruff
Frank S. Black
Benjamin Barker Odell, Jr.
New York City
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
Edith Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Bulloch Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Polymath
author
historian
conservationist
Civil servant
History of United States Republican Party
Dutch Reformed
October 27
1858
January 6
1919
President of the United States
History of the United States Republican Party
Progressivism
List of Governors of New York
United States Navy
Rough Riders
Rough Riders
Spanish-American War
Amazon Basin
William McKinley
John F. Kennedy
Progressive Era
trust-busting
trust (law)
capitalism
Square Deal
conservation
labor union
William Howard Taft
U.S. presidential election, 1912
Progressive Party (United States, 1912)
Woodrow Wilson
conservative
Panama Canal
Nobel Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
Russo-Japanese War
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
Mount Rushmore
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
Gramercy, New York
New York City
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
Martha Bulloch
Bamie Roosevelt
Elliott Roosevelt I
Eleanor Roosevelt
Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
newspaper
Joseph Alsop
Stewart Alsop
American Revolution
History of the United States Democratic Party
History of the United States Republican Party
philanthropy
Abraham Lincoln
American Civil War
slavery
Savannah, Georgia
Confederate
James Dunwoody Bulloch
U.S. Navy
Irvine Bulloch
CSS Alabama
asthma
zoology
Pinniped
taxidermy
March 6
2006
boxing
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
March 9
2006
biology
French language
German language
mathematics
Latin
Greek language
Harvard College
magna cum laude
science
philosophy
rhetoric
ornithology
eidetic memory
Alpha Delta Phi
Delta Kappa Epsilon
C.S. Hanks
Phi Beta Kappa
Columbia Law School
New York Assembly
History of the United States Republican Party
Mugwump
James G. Blaine
Grover Cleveland
History of the United States Democratic Party
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
July 29
1861
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
February 14
1884
Manhattan, New York
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Bright's disease
Typhoid fever
Dakota Territory
Badlands
Tiffany and Co.
Medora, North Dakota
Little Missouri River (North Dakota)
Dickinson
Deadwood, South Dakota
South Dakota
Sheriff
Seth Bullock
winter of 1886-1887
Sagamore Hill
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Edith Roosevelt
Mont Blanc
British Royal Society
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt III
man-of-war
broadside
Thomas Hart Benton (senator)
Gouverneur Morris
historiography
frontier thesis
Frederick Jackson Turner
American Historical Association
Nordicism
social Darwinism
racialism
Booker T. Washington
New York
Charleston
Postmaster
Indianola, Mississippi
U.S. presidential election, 1888
Benjamin Harrison
United States Civil Service Commission
spoils system
U.S. presidential election, 1892
Grover Cleveland
Bourbon Democrat
New York City Police Commissioner
August 28
2006
August 28
2006
Henry Cabot Lodge
William McKinley
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Secretary of the Navy
John D. Long
Spanish-American War
Rough Riders
Leonard Wood
Rough Riders
cowboy
Ivy League
Lieutenant Colonel
Brigadier General
Rough Riders
Rough Riders
Kettle Hill
Battle of San Juan Hill
Medal of Honor
as of 2007
machine politics
Thomas C. Platt
United States presidential election, 1900
Mark Hanna
William Jennings Bryan
Minnesota State Fair
Big stick Diplomacy
Pan-American Exposition
Buffalo, New York
William McKinley
Leon Czolgosz
September 6
1901
Mount Marcy
Ansley Wilcox
Grover Cleveland
February 2
2007
Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site
Buffalo, New York
New York
Bible
Mark Hanna
United Mine Workers of America
trust (19th century)
Trust Buster
Hepburn Act
Interstate Commerce Commission
Upton Sinclair
The Jungle
Pure Food and Drug Act
Meat Inspection Act
Millard Fillmore
Chester Arthur
Mark Hanna
Grover Cleveland
Alton B. Parker
Electoral College
Solid South
Eugene Debs
Gifford Pinchot
passenger pigeon
March 14
1903
Florida
conservation
Gifford Pinchot
United States Forest Service
national park
nature preserve
national forest
national wildlife refuge
Grand Canyon
Theodore Roosevelt National Park
Badlands
John Muir
Conference of Governors
Outdoor Life
Edward Renehan
Tweed Roosevelt
YouTube
April 23
2006
archaeology
Antiquities Act
U.S. National Monument
James F. Lacey
Edgar Lee Hewett
Devils Tower National Monument
Wyoming
geology
Christmas tree
White House
virgin forests
Cuba
Philippines
Puerto Rico
Panama Canal Zone
Walter Reed
William C. Gorgas
yellow fever
Great White Fleet
Roosevelt Corollary
Monroe Doctrine
Latin American
Russo-Japanese War
Nobel Peace Prize
France
Germany
Morocco
world war
March 6
2006
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty
Panama Canal
San Francisco, California
California
New York City
Colombia
Nicaragua
Panama
November 3
1903
Nathan Johnson Forest
US Navy
battleship
circumnavigation
December 16
1907
February 22
1909
Great White Fleet
Russians
Russo-Japanese War
U.S. Atlantic Fleet
grand strategy
Victor David Brenner
New York City
Lower East Side
American Civil War
Mathew Brady
Lincoln cent
March 6
2006
March 6
2006
simplified spelling
Brander Matthews
December 16
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
West Wing
federal style
Louis Comfort Tiffany
race relations
Booker T. Washington
White House
Oscar Straus (politician)
Hartford
Connecticut
submarine
USS Holland (SS-1)
Panama Canal
November 9
William McKinley
September 6
1901
Secret Service
Nobel Prize
Long Island
Lincoln cent
Maxwell House
Teddy bear
John Singer Sargent
President of the United States
Vice President of the United States
Charles W. Fairbanks
United States Secretary of State
John Hay
Elihu Root
Robert Bacon
United States Secretary of the Treasury
Lyman J. Gage
L. M. Shaw
George B. Cortelyou
United States Secretary of War
Elihu Root
William Howard Taft
Luke Edward Wright
Attorney General of the United States
Philander C. Knox
William Henry Moody
Charles Joseph Bonaparte
Postmaster General of the United States
Charles Emory Smith
Henry C. Payne
Robert Wynne
George B. Cortelyou
George von Lengerke Meyer
United States Secretary of the Navy
John Davis Long
William Henry Moody
Paul Morton
Charles Joseph Bonaparte
Victor H. Metcalf
Truman Handy Newberry
United States Secretary of the Interior
Ethan A. Hitchcock (Interior)
James Rudolph Garfield
United States Secretary of Agriculture
James Wilson (U.S. politician)
United States Secretary of Commerce and Labor
George B. Cortelyou
Victor H. Metcalf
Oscar Straus (politician)
Supreme Court of the United States
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
William R. Day
William Henry Moody
Oklahoma
safari
East Africa
central Africa
Mombasa
British East Africa
Kenya
Belgian Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Nile
Khartoum
Sudan
Andrew Carnegie
Smithsonian Institution
American Museum of Natural History
Frederick Selous
insect
Mole (animal)
hippopotamus
elephant
White Rhinoceros
Washington, D.C.
taxidermy
museum
National Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History
science
flora
fauna
William Howard Taft
U.S. presidential election, 1908
William Jennings Bryan
Payne-Aldrich tariff
Nelson Aldrich
William Loeb
Robert M. La Follette, Sr.
Wisconsin
Progressive Party (United States, 1924)
Gifford Pinchot
Richard Ballinger
Republican Convention
Chicago
Auditorium Building, Chicago
Pinchot
Albert Beveridge
Progressive Party 1912 (United States)
Bull Moose Party
Armageddon
statesmanship
Woodrow Wilson
monopoly
Trust (19th century)
U.S. Steel
Standard Oil
Howard Taft
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Wisconsin
October 14
1912
John Schrank
assassination
chest
steel
eyeglass
pleura
Pennsylvania
Eastern United States
Midwest
Michigan
Minnesota
South Dakota
Western United States
California
Washington
Martin Van Buren
Millard Fillmore
John Augustine Zahm
Cândido Rondon
Kermit Roosevelt
Brazil
Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition
Brazil
Cândido Rondon
John Augustine Zahm
American Museum of Natural History
River of Doubt
Amazon River
Rio Roosevelt
Cândido Rondon
American Museum of Natural History
Portuguese language
December 9
1913
February 27
1914
Rio Roosevelt
malaria
Rio Roosevelt
Oyster Bay
World War I
Allies of World War I
Germany
Charles Evans Hughes
hyphenated American
Quentin Roosevelt
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Scouting
Boy Scouts of America
March 6
2006
January 6
1919
embolism
Archibald Roosevelt
Thomas R. Marshall
Death (personification)
Quentin Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Archibald Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Kermit Roosevelt
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Madison Square Presbyterian Church
Episcopal Church in the United States of America
Grace Reformed Church
March 7
2006
separation of church and state
In God We Trust
March 7
2006
Freemason
March 12
2006
The Strenuous Life
jujutsu
skinny-dipping
Potomac River
March 7
2006
Sagamore Hill
singlestick
Harper's Weekly
Leonard Wood
Thomas Jefferson
Mt. Rushmore
Medal of Honor
Cuba
National Archives and Records Administration
January 16
2001
Bill Clinton
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Battle of Normandy
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
Mount Rushmore
United States Navy
USS Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600)
USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71)
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
Sagamore Hill
Henry Adams
March 7
2006
March 7
2006
Joseph Biden
Second Lebanon War
Israel
Ehud Olmert
Nicaragua
Rubén DarÃo
Robin Williams
Night at the Museum
John Milius
The Wind and the Lion
Brian Keith
Rough Riders (film)
Tom Berenger
teddy bears
American black bear
March 7
2006
June 26
2006
Time (magazine)
Washington Nationals
Presidents Race
Michigan State University
Megabyte
ogg
Theora
Theora
Megabyte
ogg
Theora
Theora
Arch Hoxsey
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
Martha Bulloch
Eleanor Roosevelt
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
Edith Carow Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Elliott Roosevelt I
Bamie Roosevelt
Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia
Reynier Tyson
Panama Canal
Great White Fleet
Russo-Japanese War
List of U.S. political appointments that crossed party lines
Progressivism
Library of America
Library of America
Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia
Edmund Morris (writer)
Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project
University of California, Santa Barbara
think tank
Arch Hoxsey
Frank S. Black
List of Governors of New York
Benjamin B. Odell, Jr.
Garret Hobart
Vice President of the United States
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
President of the United States
William Howard Taft
Garret Hobart
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1900
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1904
William Howard Taft
Progressive Party (United States, 1912)
U.S. presidential election, 1912
Grover Cleveland
Oldest living United States president
William Howard Taft
President of the United States
October 27
1858
New York, New York
January 6
1919
Oyster Bay, New York
|
Theodore_Roosevelt | When did Roosevelt die? | On January 6, 1919, Roosevelt died in his sleep. | data/set3/a7 | Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. ( ; October 27 1858 January 6 1919), also known as T.R., and to the public (but never to friends and intimates) as Teddy, was the twenty-sixth President of the United States, and a leader of the Republican Party and of the Progressive Movement. He became the youngest President in United States history at the age of 42. He served in many roles including Governor of New York, historian, naturalist, explorer, author, and soldier. Roosevelt is most famous for his personality: his energy, his vast range of interests and achievements, his model of masculinity, and his "cowboy" persona. His last name, often mispronounced, is, per Roosevelt, "pronounced as if it were spelled 'Rosavelt', in three syllables, the first syllable as if it was 'Rose.'"
As Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Navy, he prepared for and advocated war with Spain in 1898. He organized and helped command the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, the Rough Riders, during the Spanish-American War. Returning to New York as a war hero, he was elected Republican governor in 1899. He was a professional historian, a lawyer, a naturalist and explorer of the Amazon Basin; his 35 books include works on outdoor life, natural history, the American frontier, political history, naval history, and his autobiography.
In 1901, as Vice President, Roosevelt succeeded President William McKinley after McKinley's assassination. He is the youngest person ever to become President (John F. Kennedy is the youngest elected President). Roosevelt was a Progressive reformer who sought to move the dominant Republican Party into the Progressive camp. He distrusted wealthy businessmen and dissolved forty monopolistic corporations as a "trust buster". He was clear, however, to show he did not disagree with trusts and capitalism in principle but was only against corrupt, illegal practices. His "Square Deal" promised a fair shake for both the average citizen (through regulation of railroad rates and pure food and drugs) and the businessmen. As an outdoorsman, he promoted the conservation movement, emphasizing efficient use of natural resources. After 1906 he attacked big business and suggested the courts were biased against labor unions. In 1910, he broke with his friend and anointed successor William Howard Taft, but lost the Republican nomination to Taft and ran in the 1912 election on his own one-time Bull Moose ticket. Roosevelt beat Taft in the popular vote and pulled so many Progressives out of the Republican Party that Democrat Woodrow Wilson won in 1912, and the conservative faction took control of the Republican Party for the next two decades.
Roosevelt negotiated for the U.S. to take control of the Panama Canal and its construction in 1904; he felt the Canal's completion was his most important and historically significant international achievement. He was the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize, winning its Peace Prize in 1906, for negotiating the peace in the Russo-Japanese War.
Historian Thomas Bailey, who disagreed with Roosevelt's policies, nevertheless concluded, "Roosevelt was a great personality, a great activist, a great preacher of the moralities, a great controversialist, a great showman. He dominated his era as he dominated conversations....the masses loved him; he proved to be a great popular idol and a great vote getter." His image stands alongside Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln on Mount Rushmore. Surveys of scholars have consistently ranked him from #3 to #7 on the list of greatest American presidents.
Theodore Roosevelt at age 11
Theodore Roosevelt was born in a four-story brownstone at 28 East 20th Street, in the modern-day Gramercy section of New York City, the second of four children of Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. (1831â1877) and Mittie Bulloch (1834â1884). He had an elder sister Anna, nicknamed "Bamie" as a child and "Bye" as an adult for being always on the go; and two younger siblingsâhis brother Elliott (the father of Eleanor Roosevelt) and his sister Corinne, (grandmother of newspaper columnists, Joseph and Stewart Alsop).
The Roosevelts had been in New York since the mid 18th century and had grown with the emerging New York commerce class after the American Revolution. Unlike many of the earlier "log cabin Presidents," Roosevelt was born into a wealthy family. By the 19th century, the family had grown in wealth, power and influence from the profits of several businesses including hardware and plate-glass importing. The family was strongly Democratic in its political affiliation until the mid-1850s, then joined the new Republican Party. Theodore's father, known in the family as "Thee", was a New York City philanthropist, merchant, and partner in the family glass-importing firm Roosevelt and Son. He was a prominent supporter of Abraham Lincoln and the Union effort during the American Civil War. His mother Mittie Bulloch was a Southern belle from a slave-owning family in Savannah, Georgia and had quiet Confederate sympathies. Mittie's brother, Theodore's uncle, James Dunwoody Bulloch, was a U.S. Navy officer who became a Confederate admiral and naval procurement agent in Britain. Another uncle Irvine Bulloch was a midshipman on the Confederate raider, CSS Alabama; both remained in England after the war. . Pringle (1931) p. 11 From his grandparents' home, a young Roosevelt witnessed Abraham Lincoln's funeral procession in New York.
Sickly and asthmatic as a youngster, Roosevelt had to sleep propped up in bed or slouching in a chair during much of his early childhood, and had frequent ailments. Despite his illnesses, he was a hyperactive and often mischievous young man. His lifelong interest in zoology was formed at age seven upon seeing a dead seal at a local market. After obtaining the seal's head, the young Roosevelt and two of his cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Learning the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with many animals that he killed or caught, studied, and prepared for display. At age nine, he codified his observation of insects with a paper titled "The Natural History of Insects". "TR's LegacyâThe Environment". Retrieved March 6, 2006.
To combat his poor physical condition, his father compelled the young Roosevelt to take up exercise. To deal with bullies, Roosevelt started boxing lessons. Thayer, William Roscoe (1919). Theodore Roosevelt: An Intimate Biography, Chapter I, p. 20. Bartleby.com. Two trips abroad had a permanent impact: family tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and of the Middle East 1872 to 1873.
Theodore Sr. had a tremendous influence on his son. Of him Roosevelt wrote, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Roosevelt, Theodore (1913). Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography, Chapter I, p. 13. Roosevelt's sister later wrote, "He told me frequently that he never took any serious step or made any vital decision for his country without thinking first what position his father would have taken." "The Film & More: Program Transcript Part One". Retrieved March 9 2006.
Young "Teedie" , as he was nicknamed as a child, (the nickname "Teddy" was from his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee, and he later harbored an intense dislike for it) was mostly home schooled by tutors and his parents. A leading biographer says: "The most obvious drawback to the home schooling Roosevelt keely received was uneven coverage of the various areas of human knowledge." He was solid in geography (thanks to his careful observations on all his travels) and very well read in history, strong in biology, French and German, but deficient in mathematics, Latin and Greek. Brands T. R. p. 49â50 He matriculated at Harvard College in 1876, graduating magna cum laude. His father's death in 1878 was a tremendous blow, but Roosevelt redoubled his activities. He did well in science, philosophy and rhetoric courses but fared poorly in Latin and Greek. He studied biology with great interest and indeed was already an accomplished naturalist and published ornithologist. He had a photographic memory and developed a life-long habit of devouring books, memorizing every detail. Brands p. 62 He was an eloquent conversationalist who, throughout his life, sought out the company of the smartest people. He could multitask in extraordinary fashion, dictating letters to one secretary and memoranda to another, while browsing through a new book.
While at Harvard, Roosevelt was active in rowing, boxing and the Alpha Delta Phi and Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternities. He also edited a student magazine. He was runner-up in the Harvard boxing championship, losing to C.S. Hanks. The sportsmanship Roosevelt showed in that fight was long remembered. Upon graduating from Harvard, Roosevelt underwent a physical examination and his doctor advised him that due to serious heart problems, he should find a desk job and avoid strenuous activity. Roosevelt chose to embrace strenuous life instead. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris.
He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude (22nd of 177) from Harvard in 1880, and entered Columbia Law School. When offered a chance to run for New York Assemblyman in 1881, he dropped out of law school to pursue his new goal of entering public life. Brands, pp 123â29
Roosevelt as NY State Assemblyman 1883, photo
Roosevelt was a Republican activist during his years in the Assembly, writing more bills than any other New York state legislator. Already a major player in state politics, he attended the Republican National Convention in 1884 and fought alongside the Mugwump reformers; they lost to the Stalwart faction that nominated James G. Blaine. Refusing to join other Mugwumps in supporting Democrat Grover Cleveland, the Democratic nominee, he stayed loyal.
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt (July 29, 1861 in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts â February 14 1884 in Manhattan, New York) was the first wife of Theodore Roosevelt and mother of their only child together, Alice Lee Roosevelt. Alice Roosevelt died of an undiagnosed case of Bright's Disease two days after Alice Lee was born. Theodore Roosevelt's mother Mittie died of Typhoid fever in the same house on the same day, Feb. 14, 1884. After the simultaneous deaths of his mother and wife, Roosevelt left his daughter in the care of his sister in New York and moved out to Dakota Territory.
Theodore Roosevelt as Badlands hunter in 1885. New York studio photo. Note the engraved knife and rifle courtesy of Tiffany and Co.
Roosevelt built a second ranch he named Elk Horn thirty five miles (56 km) north of the boomtown, Medora, North Dakota. On the banks of the "Little Missouri," Roosevelt learned to ride, rope, and hunt.
Roosevelt rebuilt his life and began writing about frontier life for Eastern magazines. As a deputy sheriff, Roosevelt hunted down three outlaws who stole his river boat and were escaping north with it up the Little Missouri River. Capturing them, he decided against hanging them and sending his foreman back by boat, he took the thieves back overland for trial in Dickinson, guarding them forty hours without sleep and reading Tolstoy to keep himself awake. When he ran out of his own books he read a dime store western one of the thieves was carrying.
While working on a tough project aimed at hunting down a group of relentless horse thieves, Roosevelt came across the famous Deadwood, South Dakota Sheriff Seth Bullock. The two would remain friends for life. (Morris, Rise of, 241â245, 247â250)
After the uniquely severe U.S. winter of 1886-1887 wiped out his herd of cattle and his $60,000 investment (together with those of his competitors), he returned to the East, where in 1885, he had built Sagamore Hill in Oyster Bay, New York. It would be his home and estate until his death. Roosevelt ran as the Republican candidate for mayor of New York City in 1886 as "The Cowboy of the Dakotas." He came in third.
Following the election, he went to London in 1886 and married his childhood sweetheart, Edith Kermit Carow. Thayer, Chapter V, pp. 4, 6. They honeymooned in Europe, and Roosevelt led a party to the summit of Mont Blanc, a feat which resulted in his induction into the British Royal Society. Encyclopedia Britannica, 1910 Edition, Topic: Theodore Roosevelt They had five children: Theodore Jr., Kermit, Ethel Carow, Archibald Bulloch "Archie", and Quentin. Although Roosevelt's father was also named Theodore Roosevelt, he died while the future president was still childless and unmarried, so the future President Roosevelt took the suffix of Sr. and subsequently named his son Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. Because Roosevelt was still alive when his grandson and namesake was born, his grandson was named Theodore Roosevelt III, and the president's son retained the Jr. after his father's death.
Roosevelt's book The Naval War of 1812 (1882) was standard history for two generations. Roosevelt undertook extensive and original research going computing British and American man-of-war broadside throw weights. See The Naval War of 1812, via Project Gutenberg.
By comparison, however, his hastily-written biographies of Thomas Hart Benton (1887) and Gouverneur Morris (1888) are considered superficial. Pringle (1931) p 116 His major achievement was a four-volume history of the frontier, The Winning of the West (1889â1896), which had a notable impact on historiography as it presented a highly original version of the frontier thesis elaborated upon in 1893 by his friend Frederick Jackson Turner. Roosevelt argued that the harsh frontier conditions had created a new "race": the American people that replaced the "scattered savage tribes, whose life was but a few degrees less meaningless, squalid, and ferocious than that of the wild beasts with whom they held joint ownership". He believed that "the conquest and settlement by the whites of the Indian lands was necessary to the greatness of the race and to the well-being of civilized mankind". He was using an evolutionary model in which new environmental conditions allow a new species to form. His many articles in upscale magazines provided a much-needed income, as well as cementing a reputation as a major national intellectual. He was later chosen president of the
American Historical Association.
In the The Winning of the West (1889â1896), Roosevelt's frontier thesis stressed the racial struggle between "civilization" and "savagery." He supported Nordicism, the belief in the superiority of the "Nordic" race, along with social Darwinism and racialism. Excerpts:
# "The settler and pioneer have at bottom had justice on their side; this great continent could not have been kept as nothing but a game preserve for squalid savages".
# "The most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with savages".
# "American and Indian, Boer and Zulu, Cossack and Tartar, New Zealander and Maori, â in each case the victor, horrible though many of his deeds are, has laid deep the foundations for the future greatness of a mighty people".
# "..it is of incalculable importance that America, Australia, and Siberia should pass out of the hands of their red, black, and yellow aboriginal owners, and become the heritage of the dominant world races".
# "The world would have halted had it not been for the Teutonic conquests in alien lands; but the victories of Moslem over Christian have always proved a curse in the end. Nothing but sheer evil has come from the victories of Turk and Tartar".
What did not, however, conform to the views of Roosevelt's day was that race should never be the primary factor in someone of ability performing any job. Some notable events in Theodore Roosevelt's life included:
*Developing a close relationship with the Hidatsa Indians that is maintained today in the oral tradition of the tribe.
*Inviting reformer Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House, an action which caused outrage among many newpapers in the American South, which objected to "mixing of the races on social occassions."
*Openly supporting a bill in the New York State Assembly which allowed desegregation of schools in the state, personally noting that his children had been educated with other races and there was nothing wrong with it.
*Appointed the Collector of the Port of Charleston post to an African-American, Dr. William D. Crum, and when he was urged to withdraw the appointment, wrote the following:
:I do not intend to appoint any unfit man to office. So far as I legitimately can, I shall always endeavor to pay regard to the wishes and feelings of the people of each locality; but I cannot consent to take the position that the doorway of hope - the door of opportunity - is to be shut upon any man, no matter how worthy, purely upon the grounds of race or color. Such an attitude would, according to my contentions, be fundamentally wrong.
*Defended the Postmaster of Indianola, Mississippi, Minnie D. Cox. She was an African-American, and on that basis alone she was threatened with mob violence and was forced to resign. Roosevelt took action by closing the post office there, ignored her resignation, and still paid her what she was due as if nothing happened.
New York City Police Commissioner 1896
In the 1888 presidential election, Roosevelt campaigned in the Midwest for Benjamin Harrison. President Harrison appointed Roosevelt to the United States Civil Service Commission, where he served until 1895. Thayer, ch. VI, pp. 1â2. In his term, he vigorously fought the spoilsmen and demanded the enforcement of civil service laws. In spite of Roosevelt's support for Harrison's reelection bid in the presidential election of 1892, the eventual winner, Grover Cleveland (a Bourbon Democrat), re appointed him to the same post.
Roosevelt became president of the board of New York City Police Commissioners in 1895. During the two years he held this post, Roosevelt radically reformed the police department. The police force was reputed as one of the most corrupt in America. NYPD's history division records Roosevelt was, "an iron-willed leader of unimpeachable honesty, (who) brought a reforming zeal to the New York City Police Commission in 1895." Andrews, William, "The Early Years: The Challenge of Public Order - 1845 to 1870", - New York City Police Department History Site. Retrieved August 28 2006. Roosevelt and his fellow commissioners established new disciplinary rules, created a bicycle squad to police New York's traffic problems and standardized the use of pistols by officers. Editors, "Leadership of the City of New York Police Department 1845â1901", - The New York City Police Department Museum. Retrieved August 28 2006. Roosevelt implemented regular inspections of firearms, annual physical exams, appointed 1,600 new recruits based on their physical and mental qualifications and not on political affiliation, opened the department to ethnic minorities and women, established meritorious service medals, and shut down corrupt police hostelries. During his tenure a Municipal Lodging House was established by the Board of Charities and Roosevelt required officers to register with the Board. He also had telephones installed in station houses. Always an energetic man, he made a habit of walking officers' beats late at night and early in the morning to make sure they were on duty. Brands ch 11 He became caught up in public disagreements with commissioner Parker, who sought to negate or delay the promotion of many officers put forward by Roosevelt.
Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt (front center) at the Naval War College, c. 1897
Roosevelt had always been fascinated by naval history. Urged by Roosevelt's close friend, Congressman Henry Cabot Lodge, President William McKinley appointed a delighted Roosevelt to the post of Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897. (Because of the inactivity of Secretary of the Navy John D. Long at the time, this basically gave Roosevelt control over the department.) Roosevelt was instrumental in preparing the Navy for the Spanish-American War Brands ch 12 and was an enthusiastic proponent of testing the U.S. military in battle, at one point stating "I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one".
Roosevelt left his civilian Navy post to form the famous "Rough Riders" Regiment
Upon the declaration of war in 1898 that would be known as the Spanish-American War, Roosevelt resigned from the Navy Department and, with the aid of U.S. Army Colonel Leonard Wood, organized the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment from cowboys from the Western territories to Ivy League friends from New York. The newspapers called them the "Rough Riders." Originally Roosevelt held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and served under Colonel Wood, but after Wood was promoted to Brigadier General of Volunteer Forces, Roosevelt was promoted to Colonel and given command of the Regiment. . Even after his return to civilian life, Roosevelt preferred to be known as "Colonel Roosevelt" or "The Colonel." As a moniker, "Teddy" remained much more popular with the general public; however, political friends and others who worked closely with Roosevelt customarily addressed him by his rank.
Colonel Roosevelt and his "Rough Riders" after capturing San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War
Under his leadership, the Rough Riders became famous for dual charges up Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill in July 1898 (the battle was named after the latter hill). Out of all the Rough Riders, Roosevelt was the only one who had a horse, and was forced to walk up Kettle Hill on foot after his horse, Little Texas, became tired. For his actions, Roosevelt was nominated for the Medal of Honor which was subsequently disapproved. It has been widely speculated this disapproval was because of Roosevelt's outspoken comments of the handling of the War. In September 1997, Congressman Rick Lazio representing the 2nd District of New York sent two award recommendations to the U.S. Army Military Awards Branch. These recommendations addressed to Brigadier General Earl Simms, the Army's Adjutant General and one to Master Sergeant Gary Soots, Chief of Authorizations, would prove successful in garnering the much sought after award. Soots Letter Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 2001 for his actions. Brands ch 13 He was the first and, as of 2007, the only President of the United States to be awarded with America's highest military honor, and the only person in history to receive both his nation's highest honor for military valor and the world's foremost prize for peace. Chicago newspaper sees cowboy-TR campaigning for governor
On leaving the Army, Roosevelt re-entered New York state politics and was elected governor of New York in 1898 on the Republican ticket. He made such a concerted effort to root out corruption and "machine politics" Republican boss Thomas Collier Platt forced him on McKinley as a running mate in the 1900 election, against the wishes of McKinley's manager Senator Mark Hanna. Roosevelt was a powerful campaign asset for the Republican ticket, which defeated William Jennings Bryan in a landslide based on restoration of prosperity at home and a successful war and new prestige abroad. Bryan stumped for Free Silver again, but McKinley's promise of prosperity through the Gold Standard, high tariffs, and the restoration of business confidence enlarged his margin of victory. Bryan had strongly supported the war against Spain, but denounced the annexation of the Philippines as imperialism that would spoil America's innocence. Roosevelt countered with many speeches that argued it was best for the Filipinos to have stability, and the Americans to have a proud place in the world. Roosevelt's six months as Vice President (March to September, 1901) were uneventful. Brands ch 14â15 On September 2, 1901, at the Minnesota State Fair, Roosevelt first used in a public speech a saying that would later be universally associated with him: "Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far."
At the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York President McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz (Zol-gash), on September 6, 1901. Roosevelt had been giving a speech in Vermont when he heard of the shooting. He rushed to Buffalo but after being assured the President would recover, he went on a planned family camping and hiking trip to Mount Marcy. In the mountains a runner notified him McKinley was on his death bed. Roosevelt pondered with his wife, Edith, how best to respond, not wanting to show up in Buffalo and wait on McKinley's death. Roosevelt was rushed by a series of stagecoaches to North Creek train station. At the station, Roosevelt was handed a telegram that said President McKinley died at 2:30 AM that morning. Roosevelt continued by train from North Creek to Buffalo. He arrived in Buffalo later that day, accepting an invitation to stay at the home of Ansley Wilcox, a prominent lawyer and friend since the early 1880s when they had both worked closely with New York State Governor Grover Cleveland on civil service reform. Wilcox recalled, "the family and most of the household were in the country, but he Roosevelt was offered a quiet place to sleep and eat, and accepted it." Roosevelt was a successful president. He would achieve a lot of goals in life. Some of these goals were that he won the Spanish-American War, and the Nobel Peace Prize, and he also was the youngest president in United States history. "It is a dreadful thing to come into the Presidency this way." Retrieved February 2 2007.
Nashville Tennessee News sketch of Theodore Roosevelt inauguration minus the customary Bible. Inauguration photos were not allowed after a rival photographer unceremoniously knocked down another's camera. Roosevelt took the oath of office in the Ansley Wilcox House at Buffalo, New York borrowing Wilcox's morning coat. Roosevelt did not swear on a Bible , in contrast to the usual tradition of US presidents Bibles and Scripture Passages Used by Presidents in Taking the Oath of Office. Retrieved September 23, 2007. . Expressing the fears of many old line Republicans, Mark Hanna lamented "that damned cowboy is president now." Roosevelt was the youngest person to assume the presidency, at 42, and he promised to continue McKinley's cabinet and his basic policies. Roosevelt did so, but after winning election in 1904, he moved to the political left, stretching his ties to the Republican Party's conservative leaders. Brands ch 16
A national emergency was averted in 1902 when Roosevelt found a compromise to the anthracite coal strike by the United Mine Workers of America that threatened the heating supplies of most urban homes. Roosevelt called the mine owners and the labor leaders to the White House and negotiated a compromise. Miners were on strike for 163 days before it ended; they were granted a 10% pay increase and a 9-hour day (from the previous 10 hours), but the union was not officially recognized and the price of coal went up. Brands ch 17
Theodore Roosevelt promised to continue McKinley's program, and at first he worked closely with McKinley's men. His 20,000-word address to the Congress in December 1901, asked Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits." They did not act but Roosevelt did, issuing 44 lawsuits against major corporations; he was called the "trust-buster."
Roosevelt firmly believed: "The Government must in increasing degree supervise and regulate the workings of the railways engaged in interstate commerce." Inaction was a danger, he argued: "Such increased supervision is the only alternative to an increase of the present evils on the one hand or a still more radical policy on the other." Annual Message December 1904
His biggest success was passage of the Hepburn Act of 1906, the provisions of which were to be regulated by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). The most important provision of the Act gave the ICC the power to replace existing rates with "just-and-reasonable" maximum rates, with the ICC to define what was just and reasonable. Anti-rebate provisions were toughened, free passes were outlawed, and the penalties for violation were increased. Finally, the ICC gained the power to prescribe a uniform system of accounting, require standardized reports, and inspect railroad accounts. The Act made ICC orders binding; that is, the railroads had to either obey or contest the ICC orders in federal court. To speed the process, appeals from the district courts would go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In response to public clamor (and due to the uproar cause by Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle), Roosevelt pushed Congress to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, as well as the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. These laws provided for labeling of foods and drugs, inspection of livestock and mandated sanitary conditions at meatpacking plants. Congress replaced Roosevelt's proposals with a version supported by the major meatpackers who worried about the overseas markets, and did not want small unsanitary plants undercutting their domestic market. Blum 1980 pp 43â44
Democrats attack Roosevelt as militarist and ineffective in this 1904 election cartoon
Theodore Roosevelt was the fifth Vice President to succeed to the office of President, but the first to win election in his own right. (Millard Fillmore ran and lost on a third-party ticket four years after leaving office and Chester Arthur was denied nomination by his party in 1884). After Senator Mark Hanna, McKinley's old campaign manager, died in February 1904, there was no one in the Republican Party to oppose Roosevelt and he easily won the nomination. When an effort to draft former president Grover Cleveland failed, the Democrats were without a candidate and finally settled on obscure New York judge Alton B. Parker. The outcome was never in doubt. Roosevelt crushed Parker 56%-38% in the popular vote and 336-140 in the Electoral College, sweeping the country outside the perennially Democratic Solid South. Socialist Eugene Debs got 3%. The night of the election, after his victory was clear, Roosevelt promised not to run again in 1908. He later regretted that promise, as it compelled him to leave the White House at the age of only fifty, at the height of his popularity.
Roosevelt worked closely with early conservationists such as Gifford Pinchot, pictured above, with whom he organized the first National Governors Conservation Conference at the White House in 1908
Roosevelt was the first American president to consider the long-term needs for efficient conservation of national resources, winning the support of fellow hunters and fishermen to bolster his political base. Roosevelt was the last trained observer to ever see a passenger pigeon, and on March 14, 1903, Roosevelt created the first National Bird Preserve, (the beginning of the Wildlife Refuge system) on Pelican Island, Florida. Roosevelt worked with the major figures of the conservation movement, especially his chief adviser on the matter Gifford Pinchot. Roosevelt urged Congress to establish the United States Forest Service (1905), to manage government forest lands, and he appointed Gifford Pinchot to head the service. Roosevelt set aside more land for national parks and nature preserves than all of his predecessors combined, 194 million acres (785,000 km²). In all, by 1909, the Roosevelt administration had created an unprecedented 42 million acres (170,000 km²) of national forests, 53 national wildlife refuges and 18 areas of "special interest", including the Grand Canyon. The Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the Badlands commemorates his conservationist philosophy. Roosevelt and Muir In 1903, Roosevelt toured the Yosemite Valley with John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, but Roosevelt believed in the more efficient use of natural resources by corporations like lumber companies unlike Muir. In 1907, with Congress about to block him, Roosevelt hurried to designate 16 million acres (65,000 km²) of new national forests. In May 1908, he sponsored the Conference of Governors held in the White House, with a focus on the most efficient planning, analysis and use of water, forests and other natural resources. Roosevelt explained, "There is an intimate relation between our streams and the development and conservation of all the other great permanent sources of wealth." During his presidency, Roosevelt promoted the nascent conservation movement in essays for Outdoor Life magazine. To Roosevelt, conservation meant more and better usage and less waste, and a long-term perspective. In 2006, a group of American high school students developed a 10 minute video on Roosevelt's conservation legacy with the help of Roosevelt scholar Edward Renehan and Roosevelt descendant, Tweed Roosevelt. See Commented out because it's a YouTube link used as a ref, it's original research, and really it's not a reference. But maybe someone else will think differently. -->
Roosevelt's conservationist leanings also impelled him to preserve national sites of scientific, particularly archaeological, interest. The 1906 passage of the Antiquities Act gave him a tool for creating national monuments by presidential proclamation, without requiring Congressional approval for each monument on an item-by-item basis. The language of the Antiquities Act specifically called for the preservation of "historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest," and was primarily construed by its creator, Congressman James F. Lacey (assisted by the prominent archaeologist Edgar Lee Hewett), as targeting the prehistoric ruins of the American Southwest. Roosevelt, however, applied a typically broad interpretation to the Act, and the first national monument he proclaimed, Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming, was preserved for reasons tied more to geology than archaeology.
Roosevelt's conservationism caused him to forbid having a Christmas tree in the White House. He was reportedly upset when he found a small tree his son had been hiding. After learning about the commercial farming of Christmas trees, where no virgin forests were cut down to supply the demand during the Christmas holiday, he relented and allowed his family to have a tree each season.
In Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and the Panama Canal Zone, Roosevelt used the Army's medical service, under Walter Reed and William C. Gorgas, to eliminate the yellow fever menace and install a new regime of public health. In the new possessions the Roosevelt administration used the army to build railways, telegraph and telephone lines, and upgrade roads and port facilities.
The Philippines saw the U.S. Army for the first time using a systematic doctrine of counter-insurgency. Despite the ad hoc nature of the force deployed by Roosevelt the Army was able to end the insurgency by 1902. Over the course of the war the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built over 3000 miles of roads and worked to build an entire education system, even bringing in thousands of American teachers to spearhead the effort.
Roosevelt builds the canal and shovels dirt on Colombia
Roosevelt dramatically increased the size of the navy, forming the Great White Fleet, which toured the world in 1907. This display was designed to impress the Japanese. Yet, the ships were almost forced to return because of the inadequacy of American ports in the Pacific. See Edward S Miller,War Plan Orange (Annapolis, 1991) Roosevelt also added the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which stated that the United States could intervene in Latin American affairs when corruption of governments made it necessary.
Roosevelt gained international praise for helping negotiate the end of the Russo-Japanese War, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Roosevelt later arbitrated a dispute between France and Germany over the division of Morocco. Some historians have argued these latter two actions helped in a small way to avert a world war. The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (2005). "Theodore Roosevelt (1901â1909)". Retrieved March 6 2006.
Roosevelt's most famous foreign policy initiative, following the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, was the construction of the Panama Canal, which upon its completion shortened the route of freighters between San Francisco, California and New York City by 8,000 miles (13,000 km).
Colombia first proposed the canal in their country as opposed to rival Nicaragua, and Colombia signed a treaty for an agreed-upon sum. At the time, Panama was a province of Colombia. According to the treaty, in 1902, the U.S. was to buy out the equipment and excavations from France, which had been attempting to build a canal since 1881. While the Colombian negotiating team had signed the treaty, ratification by the Colombian Senate became problematic. The Colombian Senate balked at the price and asked for ten million dollars over the original agreed upon price. When the U.S. refused to re-negotiate the price, the Colombian politicians proposed cutting the original French company that started the project out of the deal and giving that difference to Colombia.
The original deal stipulated the French company was to be reasonably compensated. Realizing the Colombian Senate was no longer bargaining in good faith, Roosevelt tired of these last-minute attempts by the Colombians to cheat the French out of their entire investment, and ultimately decided, with the encouragement of Panamanian business interests, to help Panama declare independence from Colombia in 1903.
A brief Panamanian revolution of only a few hours followed the declaration, as Colombian soldiers were bribed $50 each to lay down their arms. On November 3, 1903, the Republic of Panama was created, with its constitution written in advance by the United States. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. signed a protection treaty with Panama. And after the signing of the treaty, a man named Nathan Johnson Forest assisted Panama with the initial planning phases for the canal. The U.S. then paid ten million to secure rights to build on, and control, the Canal Zone. Construction began in 1904 and was completed in 1914.
It took a long time to build the Panama Canal because of the rampant spread of tropical diseases. Over 200 workers died of yellow fever and malaria, spread by mosquitoes. Roosevelt initiated work on clearing swamps and other areas in which the insects bred. As the health threat finally receded, this greatly facilitated the construction of the Canal.
Roosevelt, (on the 12" gun turret at right), addresses the crew of USS Connecticut (BB18), in Hampton Roads, Virginia, upon her return from the Fleet's cruise
As Roosevelt's administration drew to a close, the president dispatched a fleet consisting of four US Navy battleship squadrons and their escorts, on a world-wide voyage of circumnavigation from December 16, 1907, to February 22, 1909. With their hulls painted white (except for the beautiful gilded scrollwork) and red, white, and blue banners on their bows, these ships would come to be known as The Great White Fleet. Roosevelt wanted to demonstrate to his country and the world that the US Navy was capable of operating in a global theater, particularly in the Pacific. This was extraordinarily important at a time when tensions were slowly growing between the United States and Japan. The latter had recently shown its navy's competence in defeating the Russians in the Russo-Japanese War, and the US Navy fleet in the west was relatively small. As a mark of the mission's success, the Atlantic Fleet battleships only later came to be known as the "Great White Fleet."
When the real Great White Fleet sailed into Yokahama, Japan, the Japanese went to extraordinary lengths to show that their country desired peace with the US. Thousands of Japanese school children waved American flags, purchased by the government, as they greeted the Navy brass coming ashore. In February 1909, the fleet returned home to Hampton Roads, Virginia, and Roosevelt was there to witness the triumphant return. His appearance indicated that he saw the fleet's long voyage as a fitting finish for his administration. Roosevelt said to the officers of the Fleet, "Other nations may do what you have done, but they'll have to follow you." This parting act of grand strategy by Roosevelt greatly expanded the respect for, as well as the role of, the United States in the international arena. However, the visit of the Great White Fleet to Tokyo also encouraged Japanese militarists. They had always argued for an even more aggressive Japanese ship building and naval expansion program, and the recent show of force by the U.S. convinced enough of their countrymen that they were right. In a real sense, this set in motion the chain of events leading to the U.S. & Japan confronting each other 30 years later - during WWII.
A Lincoln cent
Roosevelt thought American coins and currency were common and uninspiring. Roosevelt had the opportunity to pose for a young Lithuanian-born sculptor, Victor David Brenner, who, since arriving nineteen years earlier in the United States had become one of the nationâs premier medalists. Roosevelt had learned of Brenner's talents in a settlement house on New York City's Lower East Side and was immediately impressed with a bas-relief that Brenner had made of Lincoln, based on the early Civil War era photographer, Mathew Brady's photograph. Roosevelt, who considered Lincoln the savior of the Union and the greatest Republican President and who also considered himself Lincolnâs political heir, ordered the new Lincoln penny to be based on Brenner's work and that it go just in time to commemorate Lincolnâs 100th birthday in 1909. The likeness of President Lincoln on the obverse of the coin is an adaptation of a plaque Brenner executed several years earlier and which had come to the attention of President Roosevelt in New York. /ref>
Roosevelt took Cabinet members and friends on long, fast-paced hikes, boxed in the state rooms of the White House, romped with his children, and read voraciously. Hanson, David C. (2005). "Theodore Roosevelt: Lion in the White House". Retrieved March 6 2006. In 1908, he was permanently blinded in his left eye during one of his boxing bouts, but this injury was kept from the public at the time. Smith, Ira R. T.; Morris, Joe Alex (1949). "Dear Mr. President": The Story of Fifty Years in the White House Mail Room, p. 52. Julian Messner. His many enthusiastic interests and limitless energy led one ambassador to wryly explain, "You must always remember that the President is about six." Kennedy, Robert C. (2005). "'I hear there are some kids in the White House this year'". Retrieved March 6 2006.
Roosevelt shoots holes in the dictionary as the ghosts of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dr Johnson moan.
During his presidency, Roosevelt tried but did not succeed to advance the cause of simplified spelling. He tried to force government to adopt the system, sending an order to the Public Printer to use the system in all public documents. The order was obeyed, and among the documents thus printed was the President's special message regarding the Panama Canal. The New York World translated the Thanksgiving Day proclamation:
The reform annoyed the public, forcing him to rescind the order. Roosevelt's friend, literary critic Brander Matthews, one of the chief advocates of the reform, remonstrated with him for abandoning the effort. Roosevelt replied on December 16: "I could not by fighting have kept the new spelling in, and it was evidently worse than useless to go into an undignified contest when I was beaten. Do you know that the one word as to which I thought the new spelling was wrong thru was more responsible than anything else for our discomfiture?" Next summer Roosevelt was watching a naval review when a launch marked "Pres Bot" chugged ostentatiously by. The President waved and laughed with delight. Pringle 465â7
Roosevelt's oldest daughter, Alice, was a controversial character during Roosevelt's stay in the White House. When friends asked if he could rein in his elder daughter, Roosevelt said, "I can be President of the United States, or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both." In turn, Alice said of him that he always wanted to be "the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral." (Some sources attribute this quote to one of Roosevelt's sons instead.) Thayer, Chapter XIII, p. 7.
Roosevelt's contribution to the White House was the construction of the original West Wing, which he had built to free up the second floor rooms in the residence that formerly housed the president's staff. He and Edith also had the entire house renovated and restored to the federal style, tearing out the Victorian furnishings and details (including Tiffany windows) that had been installed over the previous three decades.
1902 The Washington Post political cartoon that spawned the Teddy bear name.
#In the sphere of race relations, Booker T. Washington became the first black man to dine as a guest at the White House in 1901.
#Oscar S. Straus became the first Jewish person appointed as a Cabinet Secretary, under Roosevelt.
#In August, 1902, Roosevelt became the first U.S. president to take a public automobile ride. This occurred during a parade in Hartford, Connecticut
#In 1910 he became the first U.S. President to ride in an airplane.
#On August 25, 1905 he became the first U.S. President to ride in a military submarine when he boarded the USS Holland (SS-1) and ran submerged with her for 55 minutes.
#In 1906, he made the first trip, by a President, outside the United States, visiting Panama to inspect the construction progress of the Panama Canal on November 9.
#In 1902, in response to the assassination of President William McKinley on September 6 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became the first president to be under constant Secret Service protection.
# In 1906, Roosevelt became the first American to be awarded a Nobel Prize.
#In 2001, he became the first and only President up to date to receive a Medal of Honor, making him the only person to date to win the world's highest peace honor, as well as his nation's top military honor.
#He was the first and to date only president from Long Island, New York.
#He was the first President to officially refer to the White House as such, on his official stationery. This had been the common name (referring to the color of the building), but until then, the official name was "The Executive Mansion"
#He was the first President to wear a necktie for his official Presidential Portrait.
#He was the first President to approve a coin, the Lincoln cent, with a man's face on it, in 1909, just in time for the centennial of Lincoln's birth. Lincoln was Roosevelt's presidential hero.
#He was the first President to coin an internationally recognized trademark, although not deliberately. His offhand remark, "good to the last drop," about some coffee drunk at the Maxwell House hotel in Tennessee, see Maxwell House coffee.
#He is the only president to have a famous toy named after him (the Teddy bear, named after a bear he refused to shoot in a 1902 hunt in Mississipi).
John Singer Sargent, Theodore Roosevelt, 1903; click on painting for background story.
Roosevelt appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
*Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. 1902
*William Rufus Day 1903
*William Henry Moody 1906
*Oklahoma 1907
Roosevelt standing next to a dead elephant during a safari
In March 1909, shortly after the end of his second term, Roosevelt left New York for a safari in east and central Africa. Roosevelt's party landed in Mombasa, British East Africa (now Kenya), traveled to the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) before following the Nile up to Khartoum in modern Sudan. Financed by Andrew Carnegie and by his own proposed writings, Roosevelt hunted for specimens for the Smithsonian Institution and for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. His party, which included scientists from the Smithsonian and was led by Frederick Selous, the famous big game hunter and explorer, and they killed or trapped over 11,397 animals, from insects and moles to hippopotamuses and elephants. 512 of the animals were big game animals, including six rare white rhinos. 262 of these were consumed by the expedition. Tons of salted animals and their skins were shipped to Washington; the quantity was so large that it took years to mount them all, and the Smithsonian was able to share many duplicate animals with other museums.
Regarding the large number of animals taken, Roosevelt said, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned." O'Toole, Patricia (2005) When Trumpets Call, p. 67, Simon and Schuster, ISBN 0-684-86477-0 However, although the safari was ostensibly conducted in the name of science, there was another, quite large element to it as well. In addition to many native peoples and local leaders, interaction with renowned professional hunters and land owning families made the safari as much a political and social event, as it was a hunting excursion. Roosevelt wrote a detailed account of the adventure in the book "African Game Trails", where he describes the excitement of the chase, the people he met, and the flora and fauna he collected in the name of science.
Roosevelt certified William Howard Taft to be a genuine "progressive" in 1908, when Roosevelt pushed through the nomination of his Secretary of War for the Presidency. Taft easily defeated three-time candidate William Jennings Bryan. Taft had a different progressivism, one that stressed the rule of law and preferred that judges rather than administrators or politicians make the basic decisions about fairness. Taft usually proved a less adroit politician than Roosevelt and lacked the energy and personal magnetism, not to mention the publicity devices, the dedicated supporters, and the broad base of public support that made Roosevelt so formidable. When Roosevelt realized that lowering the tariff would risk severe tensions inside the Republican Party pitting producers (manufacturers and farmers) against merchants and consumers he stopped talking about the issue. Taft ignored the risks and tackled the tariff boldly, on the one hand encouraging reformers to fight for lower rates, and then cutting deals with conservative leaders that kept overall rates high. The resulting Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909 was too high for most reformers, but instead of blaming this on Senator Nelson Aldrich and big business, Taft took credit, calling it the best tariff ever. Again he had managed to alienate all sides. While the crisis was building inside the Party, Roosevelt was touring Africa and Europe, so as to allow Taft to be his own man. Thayer, Chapter XXI, p. 10.
1909 cartoon: TR hands his policies to the care of Taft while William Loeb carries the "Big Stick"
Unlike Roosevelt, Taft never attacked business or businessmen in his rhetoric. However, he was attentive to the law, so he launched 90 antitrust suits, including one against the largest corporation, U.S. Steel, for an acquisition that Roosevelt had personally approved. Consequently, Taft lost the support of antitrust reformers (who disliked his conservative rhetoric), of big business (which disliked his actions), and of Roosevelt, who felt humiliated by his protégé. The left wing of the Republican Party began agitating against Taft. Senator Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin created the National Progressive Republican League (precursor to the Progressive Party (United States, 1924)) to defeat the power of political bossism at the state level and to replace Taft at the national level. More trouble came when Taft fired Gifford Pinchot, a leading conservationist and close ally of Roosevelt. Pinchot alleged that Taft's Secretary of Interior Richard Ballinger was in league with big timber interests. Conservationists sided with Pinchot, and Taft alienated yet another vocal constituency.
Roosevelt, back from Europe, unexpectedly launched an attack on the federal courts, which deeply upset Taft. Not only had Roosevelt alienated big business, he was also attacking both the judiciary and the deep faith Republicans had in their judges (most of whom had been appointed by McKinley, Roosevelt or Taft.) In the 1910 Congressional elections, Democrats swept to power, and Taft's reelection in 1912 was increasingly in doubt. In 1911, Taft responded with a vigorous stumping tour that allowed him to sign up most of the party leaders long before Roosevelt announced.
The battle between Taft and Roosevelt bitterly split the Republican Party; Taft's people dominated the party until 1936.
Late in 1911, Roosevelt finally broke with Taft and LaFollette and announced himself as a candidate for the Republican nomination. But Roosevelt had delayed too long, and Taft had already won the support of most party leaders in the country. Because of LaFollette's nervous breakdown on the campaign trail before Roosevelt's entry, most of LaFollette's supporters went over to Roosevelt, the new progressive Republican candidate.
Roosevelt, stepping up his attack on judges, carried nine of the states with preferential primaries, LaFollette took two, and Taft only one. The 1912 Primaries represented the first extensive use of the Presidential Primary, a reform achievement of the progressive movement. However, these primary elections, while demonstrating Roosevelt's popularity with the electorate, were in no ways as important as primaries are today. First of all, there were fewer states where the common voter was given a forum to express himself, such as a primary. Many more states selected convention delegates either at party conventions, or in caucuses, which were not as open as today's caucuses. So while the man in the street still adored Roosevelt, most professional Republican politicians were supporting Taft, and they proved difficult to upset in non-primary states.
At the Republican Convention in Chicago, despite being the incumbent, Taft's victory was not immediately assured. But after two weeks, Roosevelt, realizing he would not be able to win the nomination outright, asked his followers to leave the convention hall. They moved to the Auditorium Theatre, and then Roosevelt, along with key allies such as Pinchot and Albert Beveridge created the Progressive Party, structuring it as a permanent organization that would field complete tickets at the presidential and state level. It was popularly known as the "Bull Moose Party," which got its name after Roosevelt told reporters, "I'm as fit as a bull moose." Carl M. Cannon, The Pursuit of Happiness in Times of War, Rowman & Littlefield: 2003, p. 142. ISBN 0742525929. At the convention Roosevelt cried out, "We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord." Roosevelt's platform echoed his 1907â08 proposals, calling for vigorous government intervention to protect the people from the selfish interests. Thayer, Chapter XXII, pp. 25 31.
The bullet-damaged speech and eyeglass case on display at the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace
While campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on October 14, 1912, a saloonkeeper named John Schrank failed in an assassination attempt on Roosevelt. Schrank did shoot the former President, but the bullet lodged in Roosevelt's chest only after penetrating both his steel eyeglass case and passing through a thick (50 pages) single-folded copy of the speech he was carrying in his jacket. Accessed Dec. 21, 2007 . Roosevelt, as a very experienced hunter and anatomist, decide the fact he wasn't coughing blood meant the bullet had not completely penetrated the chest wall to his lung (he was correct), and so declined suggestions he go to the hospital immediately. Instead, he delivered his scheduled speech with blood seeping into his shirt. He spoke for ninety minutes. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Afterwards, doctors determined by probe and X-ray the bullet had traversed three inches of tissue and lodged in Roosevelt's chest muscle but did not penetrate the pleura, and it would be more dangerous to attempt to remove the bullet than to leave it in place. Roosevelt carried it with him until he died. Roosevelt Timeline
Due to the bullet wound, Roosevelt was taken off the campaign trail in the final weeks of the race (which ended election day, November 5). Though the other two campaigners stopped their own campaigns in the week Roosevelt was in the hospital, they resumed it once he was released. The overall effect of the shooting was uncertain. Roosevelt for many reasons failed to move enough Republicans in his direction. He did win 4.1 million votes (27%), compared to Taft's 3.5 million (23%). However, Wilson's 6.3 million votes (42%) were enough to garner 435 electoral votes. Roosevelt had 88 electoral votes to Taft's 8 electoral votes. (This meant that Taft became the only incumbent President in history to actually come in third place in an attempt to be re-elected.) But Pennsylvania was Roosevelt's only Eastern state; in the Midwest he carried Michigan, Minnesota and South Dakota; in the West, California and Washington; he did not win any Southern states. Although he lost, he won more votes than former presidents Martin Van Buren and Millard Fillmore who also ran again and also lost. More important, he pulled so many progressives out of the Republican party that it took on a much more conservative cast for the next generation.
The initial party. From left to right (seated): Father Zahm, Rondon, Kermit, Cherrie, Miller, four Brazilians, Roosevelt, Fiala. Only Roosevelt, Kermit, Cherrie, Rondon and the Brazilians traveled down the River of Doubt.
Roosevelt's popular book Through the Brazilian Wilderness describes his expedition into the Brazilian jungle in 1913 as a member of the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition co-named after its leader, Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon. The book describes all of the scientific discovery, scenic tropical vistas and exotic flora, fauna and wild life experienced on the expedition. A friend, Father John Augustine Zahm, had searched for new adventures and found them in the forests of South America. After a briefing of several of his own expeditions, he convinced Roosevelt to commit to such an expedition in 1912. To finance the expedition, Roosevelt received support from the American Museum of Natural History, promising to bring back many new animal specimens. Once in South America, a new far more ambitious goal was added: to find the headwaters of the Rio da Duvida, the River of Doubt, and trace it north to the Madiera and thence to the Amazon River. It was later renamed Rio Roosevelt (Rio Teodoro today, 640 km long) in honor of the former President. Roosevelt's crew consisted of his 24-year-old son Kermit, Colonel Cândido Rondon, a naturalist sent by the American Museum of Natural History named George K. Cherrie, Brazilian Lieutenant Joao Lyra, team physician Dr. José Antonio Cajazeira, and sixteen highly skilled paddlers (called camaradas in Portuguese). The initial expedition started, probably unwisely, on December 9, 1913, at the height of the rainy season. The trip down the River of Doubt started on February 27, 1914.
Roosevelt, wearing sun helmet, barely survived an expedition in 1913 into the Amazonian rain forest to trace the River of Doubt later named the Rio Roosevelt.
During the trip down the river, Roosevelt contracted malaria and a serious infection resulting from a minor leg wound. These illnesses so weakened Roosevelt that, by six weeks into the expedition, he had to be attended day and night by the expedition's physician, Dr. Cajazeira, and his son, Kermit. By this time, Roosevelt considered his own condition a threat to the survival of the others. At one point, Kermit had to talk him out of his wish to be left behind so as not to slow down the expedition, now with only a few weeks rations left. Roosevelt was having chest pains when he tried to walk, his temperature soared to 103 °F (39 °C), and at times he was delirious. He had lost over fifty pounds (20 kg). Without the constant support of his son, Kermit, Dr. Cajazeira, and the continued leadership of Colonel Rondon, Roosevelt would likely have perished. Despite his concern for Roosevelt, Rondon had been slowing down the pace of the expedition by his dedication to his own map-making and other geographical goals that demanded regular stops to fix the expedition's position via sun-based survey.
Upon his return to New York, friends and family were startled by Roosevelt's physical appearance and fatigue. Roosevelt wrote to a friend that the trip had cut his life short by ten years. He might not have really known just how accurate that analysis would prove to be, because the effects of the South America expedition had so greatly weakened him that they significantly contributed to his declining health. For the rest of his life, he would be plagued by flareups of malaria and leg inflammations so severe that they would require hospitalization. Thayer, Chapter XXIII, pp. 4â7.
When Roosevelt had recovered enough of his strength, he found that he had a new battle on his hands. In professional circles, there was doubt about his claims of having discovered and navigated a completely uncharted river over 625 miles (1,000 km) long. Roosevelt would have to defend himself and win international recognition of the expedition's newly-named Rio Roosevelt. Toward this end, Roosevelt went to Washington, D.C., and spoke at a standing-room-only convention to defend his claims. His official report and its defense silenced the critics, and he was able to triumphantly return to his home in Oyster Bay.
Despite his weakened condition and slow recovery from his South America expedition, Roosevelt continued to write with passion on subjects ranging from foreign policy to the importance of the national park system. As an editor of Outlook magazine, he had weekly access to a large, educated national audience. In all, Roosevelt wrote about 18 books (each in several editions), including his Autobiography, Rough Riders and History of the Naval War of 1812, ranching, explorations, and wildlife. His most ambitious book was the 4 volume narrative The Winning of the West, which attempted to connect the origin of a new "race" of Americans (i.e. what he considered the present population of the United States to be) to the frontier conditions their ancestors endured in throughout the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries.
Roosevelt angrily complained about the foreign policy of President Wilson, calling it "weak." This caused him to develop an intense dislike for Woodrow Wilson. When World War I began in 1914, Roosevelt strongly supported the Allies of World War I and demanded a harsher policy against Germany, especially regarding submarine warfare. In 1916, he campaigned energetically for Charles Evans Hughes and repeatedly denounced Irish-Americans and German-Americans who Roosevelt said were unpatriotic because they put the interest of Ireland and Germany ahead of America's by supporting neutrality. He insisted one had to be 100% American, not a "hyphenated American" who juggled multiple loyalties. When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, Roosevelt sought to raise a volunteer infantry division, but Wilson refused. Brands 781â4; Cramer, C.H. Newton D. Baker (1961) 110â113
Roosevelt's attacks on Wilson helped the Republicans win control of Congress in the off-year elections of 1918. Roosevelt was popular enough to seriously contest the 1920 Republican nomination, but his health was broken by 1918, because of the lingering malaria. His son Quentin, a daring pilot with the American forces in France, was shot down behind German lines in 1918. Quentin was his youngest son and probably the most liked by him. It is said the death of his son distressed him so much that Roosevelt never recovered from his loss. Dalton, (2002)p 507
Theodore Roosevelt Grave in Youngs Memorial Cemetery Oyster Bay, New York
Twenty-six steps leading to Roosevelt's grave, commemorating his service as 26th President
Despite his debilitating diseases, Roosevelt remained active to the end of his life. He was an enthusiastic proponent of the Scouting movement. The Boy Scouts of America gave him the title of Chief Scout Citizen, the only person to hold such title. One early Scout leader said, "The two things that gave Scouting great impetus and made it very popular were the uniform and Teddy Roosevelt's jingoism." Larson, Keith (2006). "Theodore Roosevelt". Retrieved March 6 2006.
On January 6, 1919, Roosevelt died in his sleep of a coronary embolism at Oyster Bay, and was buried in nearby Youngs Memorial Cemetery. Upon receiving word of his death, his son, Archie, telegraphed his siblings simply, "The old lion is dead." Dalton, (2002) p. 507 Woodrow Wilson's vice president at the time Thomas R. Marshall said of his death "Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight." Manners, William. TR and Will: A Friendship that Split the Republican Party. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1969.
Roosevelt Family in 1903 with Quentin on the left, TR, Ted, Jr., "Archie", Alice, Kermit, Edith, and Ethel
Roosevelt intensely disliked being called "Teddy," and was quick to point out this fact to those who used the nickname, though it would become widely used by newspapers during his political career. He attended the Madison Square Presbyterian Church until the age of 16. Later in life, when Roosevelt lived at Oyster Bay he attended an Episcopal church with his wife. While in Washington he attended services at Grace Reformed Church. "The Religious Affiliation of Theodore Roosevelt U.S. President". Retrieved March 7 2006. As President he firmly believed in the separation of church and state and thought it unwise to have In God We Trust on currency, because he thought it sacrilegious to put the name of the Deity on something so common as money. Reynolds, Ralph C. (1999). "In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash". Retrieved March 7 2006. He was also a Freemason, and regularly attended the Matinecock Lodge's meetings. He once said that "One of the things that so greatly attracted me to Masonry that I hailed the chance of becoming a Mason was that it really did act up to what we, as a government, are pledged to namely to treat each man on his merit as a man." Matinecock Masonic Historical Society. "History". Retrieved March 12 2006.
Roosevelt had a lifelong interest in pursuing what he called, in an 1899 speech, "the strenuous life." To this end, he exercised regularly and took up boxing, tennis, hiking, rowing, polo, and horseback riding. As governor of New York, he boxed with sparring partners several times a week, a practice he regularly continued as President until one blow detached his left retina, leaving him blind in that eye (a fact not made public until many years later). Thereafter, he practiced jujutsu and continued his habit of skinny-dipping in the Potomac River during winter. Thayer, Chapter XVII, pp. 22 24. Shaw, K.B. & Maiden, David (2006). "Theodore Roosevelt".
Retrieved March 7 2006.
Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt's estate
He was an enthusiastic singlestick player and, according to Harper's Weekly, in 1905 showed up at a White House reception with his arm bandaged after a bout with General Leonard Wood. Amberger, J Christoph, Secret History of the Sword Adventures in Ancient Martial Arts 1998, ISBN 1-892515-04-0. Roosevelt was also an avid reader, reading tens of thousands of books, at a rate of several a day in multiple languages. Along with Thomas Jefferson Roosevelt is often considered the most well read of any American politician. David H. Burton, The Learned Presidency 1988, p 12.
Roosevelt's face on Mt. Rushmore
1910 cartoon shows Roosevelt's multiple roles to 1898
1910 cartoon shows Roosevelt's multiple roles from 1899 to 1910
For his gallantry at San Juan Hill, Roosevelt's commanders recommended him for the Medal of Honor, but his subsequent telegrams to the War Department complaining about the delays in returning American troops from Cuba doomed his chances. In the late 1990s, Roosevelt's supporters again took up the flag on his behalf and overcame opposition from elements within the U.S. Army and the National Archives. On January 16, 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded Theodore Roosevelt the Medal of Honor posthumously for his charge up San Juan Hill, Cuba, during the Spanish-American War. Roosevelt's eldest son, Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., received the Medal of Honor for heroism at the Battle of Normandy in 1944. The Roosevelts thus became one of only two father-son pairs to receive this honor.
Roosevelt's legacy includes several other important commemorations. Roosevelt was included with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln at the Mount Rushmore Memorial, designed in 1927. The United States Navy named two ships for Roosevelt: the USS Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600), a submarine was in commission from 1961 to 1982; and the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), an aircraft carrier that has been on active duty in the Atlantic Fleet since 1986.
The Roosevelt Memorial Association (later the Theodore Roosevelt Association) or "TRA", was founded in 1920 to preserve Roosevelt's legacy. The Association preserved TR's birthplace, "Sagamore Hill" home, papers, and video film.
Overall, historians credit Roosevelt for changing the nation's political system by permanently placing the presidency at center stage and making character as important as the issues. His notable accomplishments include trust-busting and conservationism. However, he has been criticized for his interventionist and imperialist approach to nations he considered "uncivilized". Even so, history and legend have been kind to him. His friend, historian Henry Adams, proclaimed, "Roosevelt, more than any other living man ....showed the singular primitive quality that belongs to ultimate matter the quality that mediaeval theology assigned to God he was pure act." Historians typically rank Roosevelt among the top five presidents. The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (2005). "Biography: Impact and Legacy". Retrieved March 7 2006. "Legacy". Retrieved March 7 2006.
Roosevelt has been quoted by virtually all the major Republican and Democratic candidates for the 2008 US Presidential Election. Political pundits have brought up Roosevelt's name in book after book. The degree of discussion ranges from a single sentence by democrat Bill Richardson talking about him as "BR" breaking Roosevelt's (or "TR") 1907 single handshaking record, John Edwards mentioning Roosevelt in a fall of 2007 speech to John McCain devoting an entire chapter to him in his main background book. Even the lone candidate that did not mention Roosevelt in an autobiographical book, democrat, Joe Biden, nevertheless, began mentioning Roosevelt's taking on of corporate interests speeches in New Hampshire in the summer of 2007.
Roosevelt's 1901 saying "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick" is still being occasionally quoted by politicians and columnists in different countries - not only in English but also in translation to various other languages. For example, following the Second Lebanon War of August 2006, opponents of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accused him of "Speaking loudly and carrying a small stick".
The well-known Nicaraguan poet Rubén DarÃo published in 1905 a poem entitled A Roosevelt (To Roosevelt) which was included in Cantos de Vida y Esperanza (Songs of Life and Hope)
As a charismatic President often considered larger than life, Roosevelt has appeared in numerous fiction books, television shows, films, and other media of popular culture. Roosvelt was played by Robin Williams in the box office hit Night at the Museum and its upcoming sequel.
"Drawing the Line in Mississippi," by Clifford Berryman, referring to Roosevelt's sparing the bear.
Filmmaker John Milius also directed two films in which Roosevelt was a central character: The Wind and the Lion (1975) in which he was played by Brian Keith; and Rough Riders (1997) in which he was played by Tom Berenger. Keith's performance is widely considered to be the definitive screen depiction of Roosevelt.
Roosevelt's lasting popular legacy, however, is the stuffed toy bearsâteddy bearsânamed after him following an incident on a hunting trip in 1902. Roosevelt famously refused to kill a captured black bear simply for the sake of making a kill. Bears and later bear cubs became closely associated with Roosevelt in political cartoons thereafter. "History of the Teddy Bear". Retrieved March 7 2006.
On June 26, 2006, Roosevelt, once again, made the cover of TIME magazine with the lead story, "The Making of AmericaâTheodore RooseveltâThe 20th Century Express": "At home and abroad, Theodore Roosevelt was the locomotive President, the man who drew his flourishing nation into the future."
The Washington Nationals major league baseball team has a fan tradition called the Presidents Race. In it four caricatures of presidents Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt race against each other. A running gag has been Theodore Roosevelt's inability to win a single Presidents Race.
In 2006 Roosevelt' likeness was used in "Night at the Museum (The movie).
Theodore Roosevelt was one of the first presidents whose voice was recorded for posterity. Several of his recorded speeches survive. Vincent Voice Library at Michigan State University. Retrieved September 23, 2007.
* Roosevelt goes for first aeroplane ride in Arch Hoxsey plane 1910
*Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. father
*Martha Bulloch mother
*Eleanor Roosevelt niece, First Lady of the United States (1933â1945)
*Alice Roosevelt first wife
*Edith Carow Roosevelt second wife
*Alice Roosevelt first daughter
*Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. first son
*Kermit Roosevelt second son
*Ethel Roosevelt second daughter
*Archibald Roosevelt third son
*Quentin Roosevelt fourth son
*Elliott Roosevelt brother
*Anna Cowles sister
*Corinne Robinson sister
*Franklin D. Roosevelt, cousin, 32nd President of the United States
*Theodore Roosevelt Association 1920 organization founded to preserve Roosevelt's historical legacy
*Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia 1940 compendium of Roosevelt's key writings, sayings and conversations
*Reynier Tyson 4th great-grandfather, early German-American settler
*Panama Canal
*Great White Fleet
*Russo-Japanese War
*List of U.S. political appointments that crossed party lines
*Progressivism
*
*Auchincloss, Louis, ed. Theodore Roosevelt, The Rough Riders and an Autobiography (Library of America, 2004) ISBN 978-1-93108265-5
*Auchincloss, Louis, ed. Theodore Roosevelt, Letters and Speeches (Library of America, 2004) ISBN 978-1-93108266-2
*Brands, H.W. ed. The Selected Letters of Theodore Roosevelt. (2001)
*Harbaugh, William ed. The Writings Of Theodore Roosevelt (1967). A one-volume selection of Roosevelt's speeches and essays.
*Hart, Albert Bushnell and Herbert Ronald Ferleger, eds. Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia (1941), Roosevelt's opinions on many issues; online version at
*Morison, Elting E., John Morton Blum, and Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., eds., The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 8 vols. (1951â1954). Very large, annotated edition of letters from TR.
*Roosevelt, Theodore (1999). Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography. online at Bartleby.com.
*Roosevelt, Theodore. The Works of Theodore Roosevelt (National edition, 20 vol. 1926); 18,000 pages containing most of TR's speeches, books and essays, but not his letters; a CD-ROM edition is available; some of TR's books are available online through Project Bartleby
* Theodore Roosevelt books and speeches on Project Gutenberg
*Blum, John Morton The Republican Roosevelt. (1954). Series of essays that examine how TR did politics
*Brands, H.W. Theodore Roosevelt (2001), full biography
* Chace, James. 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft, and Debs - The Election That Changed the Country. (2004). 323 pp.
*Cooper, John Milton The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. (1983) a dual scholarly biography
*Dalton, Kathleen. Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life. (2002), full scholarly biography
* Fehn, Bruce. "Theodore Roosevelt and American Masculinity." Magazine of History (2005) 19(2): 52â59. Issn: 0882-228x Fulltext online at Ebsco. Provides a lesson plan on TR as the historical figure who most exemplifies the quality of masculinity.
*Gluck, Sherwin. "T.R.'s Summer White House, Oyster Bay." (1999) Chronicles the events of TR's presidency during the summers of his two terms.
*Gould, Lewis L. The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. (1991), standard history of his domestic and foreign policy as president
*Harbaugh, William Henry. The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt. (1963), full scholarly biography
*Keller, Morton, ed., Theodore Roosevelt: A Profile (1967) excerpts from TR and from historians.
* Kohn, Edward. "Crossing the Rubicon: Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and the 1884 Republican National Convention." Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2006 5(1): 18â45. Issn: 1537-7814 Fulltext: in History Cooperative
*Millard, Candice. River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey. (2005)
*McCullough, David. Mornings on Horseback, The Story of an Extraordinary Family. a Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt. (2001) popular biography to 1884
*Morris, Edmund The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, to 1901 (1979); vol 2: Theodore Rex 1901â1909. (2001); Pulitzer prize for Volume 1. Biography.
* Mowry, George. The Era of Theodore Roosevelt and the Birth of Modern America, 1900â1912. (1954) general survey of era; online
*Mowry, George E. Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement. (2001) focus on 1912
* O'Toole, Patricia. When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt after the White House. (2005). 494 pp.
*Powell, Jim. Bully Boy: The Truth About Theodore Roosevelt's Legacy (Crown Forum, 2006). Denounces TR policies from conservative/libertarian perspective
*Pringle, Henry F. Theodore Roosevelt (1932; 2nd ed. 1956), full scholarly biography
*Putnam, Carleton Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography, Volume I: The Formative Years (1958), only volume published, to age 28.
*Renehan, Edward J. The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War. (Oxford University Press, 1998), examines TR and his family during the World War I period
*Strock, James M. Theodore Roosevelt on Leadership. Random House, 2003.
* Watts, Sarah. Rough Rider in the White House: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of Desire. 2003. 289 pp.
*Beale Howard K. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power. (1956). standard history of his foreign policy
* Holmes, James R. Theodore Roosevelt and World Order: Police Power in International Relations. 2006. 328 pp.
* Marks III, Frederick W. Velvet on Iron: The Diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt (1979)
* David McCullough. The Path between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870â1914 (1977).
* Ricard, Serge. "The Roosevelt Corollary." Presidential Studies Quarterly 2006 36(1): 17â26. Issn: 0360-4918 Fulltext: in Swetswise and Ingenta
* Tilchin, William N. and Neu, Charles E., ed. Artists of Power: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Their Enduring Impact on U.S. Foreign Policy. Praeger, 2006. 196 pp.
* Tilchin, William N. Theodore Roosevelt and the British Empire: A Study in Presidential Statecraft (1997)
* Theodore Roosevelt Association - Founded in 1920 by Roosevelt's friends and admirers to preserve his legacy. Extensive online resources and bibliography
* Extensive essay on Theodore Roosevelt and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* NY Times Headline, January 6, 1919, Theodore Roosevelt Dies Suddenly at Oyster Bay Home; Nation Shocked, Pays Tribute to Former President; Our Flag on All Seas and in All Lands at Half Mast
* "The Early Years: The Challenge of Public Order - 1845 to 1870", by William Andrews, New York City Police Department History Site
* "Leadership of the City of New York Police Department 1845â1901", - The New York City Police Department Museum
* PBS "American Experience" Theodore Roosevelt
* My Brother Theodore Roosevelt, 1921 By Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, a bestseller with a woman's and sister's point of view on TR. Full text and Full text Search, Free to Read and Search.
* Almanac of Theodore Roosevelt
* Downloadable audio recordings of Roosevelt in MP3 format
* Audio clips of Roosevelt's speeches
* Roosevelt podcasts Audio Recording of Roosevelt's Progressive Party Acceptance Speech, "Progressive Covenant with the People" with text included.
* Quotes
* Theodore Roosevelt Works - Bartleby's Online Books
* Presidential Biography by Stanley L. Klos
*
* Index of T. Roosevelt Etexts
* Detailed biography of Theodore Roosevelt from the 1911 version of Encyclopedia Britannica
* Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Address
* State of the Union addresses for 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, and 1908
* Nobel Peace Prize 1906: Theodore Roosevelt
* Theodore Roosevelt Papers at the Library of Congress
* Theodore Roosevelt: His Life & Times on Film (LOC)
* Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
* Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site
* Sagamore Hill National Historic Site
* NobelPrize.org's entry on Theodore Roosevelt
* Congressional Medal of Honor's entry on Theodore Roosevelt; including citation and pictures
* Medal of Honor Recipients on Film
* White House biography
* Vice Presidents Dot Com
* Family and Descendants of Theodore Roosevelt
* Ron Schuler's Parlour Tricks: Teddy
* Theodore Roosevelt Links
* Theodore Roosevelt Quotes, Pictures and Biography at TeddyRoosevelt.com
* Theodore Roosevelt cylinder recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.
* On Theodore Roosevelt's progressive vision from the Roosevelt Institution, a student think tank inspired in part by Theodore Roosevelt.
* Boone and Crockett Club, founded by Theodore Roosevelt
* How to pronounce Theodore Roosevelt
* Yesterday's News blog 1901 newspaper account of Roosevelt's "Big Stick" speech at the Minnesota State Fair
* Archive of Theodore Roosevelt Pictures
* still of Theodore Roosevelt going on first aeroplane flight
* different view of Theodore Roosevelt & Arch Hoxsey in Wright aeroplane St Louis October 1910
*
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
September 14
1901
March 4
1909
Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
William Howard Taft
Vice President of the United States
March 4
1901
September 14
1901
William McKinley
Garret Hobart
Charles W. Fairbanks
List of Governors of New York
January 1
1899
December 31
1900
Timothy L. Woodruff
Frank S. Black
Benjamin Barker Odell, Jr.
New York City
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
Edith Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Bulloch Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Polymath
author
historian
conservationist
Civil servant
History of United States Republican Party
Dutch Reformed
October 27
1858
January 6
1919
President of the United States
History of the United States Republican Party
Progressivism
List of Governors of New York
United States Navy
Rough Riders
Rough Riders
Spanish-American War
Amazon Basin
William McKinley
John F. Kennedy
Progressive Era
trust-busting
trust (law)
capitalism
Square Deal
conservation
labor union
William Howard Taft
U.S. presidential election, 1912
Progressive Party (United States, 1912)
Woodrow Wilson
conservative
Panama Canal
Nobel Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
Russo-Japanese War
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
Mount Rushmore
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
Gramercy, New York
New York City
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
Martha Bulloch
Bamie Roosevelt
Elliott Roosevelt I
Eleanor Roosevelt
Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
newspaper
Joseph Alsop
Stewart Alsop
American Revolution
History of the United States Democratic Party
History of the United States Republican Party
philanthropy
Abraham Lincoln
American Civil War
slavery
Savannah, Georgia
Confederate
James Dunwoody Bulloch
U.S. Navy
Irvine Bulloch
CSS Alabama
asthma
zoology
Pinniped
taxidermy
March 6
2006
boxing
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
March 9
2006
biology
French language
German language
mathematics
Latin
Greek language
Harvard College
magna cum laude
science
philosophy
rhetoric
ornithology
eidetic memory
Alpha Delta Phi
Delta Kappa Epsilon
C.S. Hanks
Phi Beta Kappa
Columbia Law School
New York Assembly
History of the United States Republican Party
Mugwump
James G. Blaine
Grover Cleveland
History of the United States Democratic Party
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
July 29
1861
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
February 14
1884
Manhattan, New York
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Bright's disease
Typhoid fever
Dakota Territory
Badlands
Tiffany and Co.
Medora, North Dakota
Little Missouri River (North Dakota)
Dickinson
Deadwood, South Dakota
South Dakota
Sheriff
Seth Bullock
winter of 1886-1887
Sagamore Hill
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Edith Roosevelt
Mont Blanc
British Royal Society
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt III
man-of-war
broadside
Thomas Hart Benton (senator)
Gouverneur Morris
historiography
frontier thesis
Frederick Jackson Turner
American Historical Association
Nordicism
social Darwinism
racialism
Booker T. Washington
New York
Charleston
Postmaster
Indianola, Mississippi
U.S. presidential election, 1888
Benjamin Harrison
United States Civil Service Commission
spoils system
U.S. presidential election, 1892
Grover Cleveland
Bourbon Democrat
New York City Police Commissioner
August 28
2006
August 28
2006
Henry Cabot Lodge
William McKinley
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Secretary of the Navy
John D. Long
Spanish-American War
Rough Riders
Leonard Wood
Rough Riders
cowboy
Ivy League
Lieutenant Colonel
Brigadier General
Rough Riders
Rough Riders
Kettle Hill
Battle of San Juan Hill
Medal of Honor
as of 2007
machine politics
Thomas C. Platt
United States presidential election, 1900
Mark Hanna
William Jennings Bryan
Minnesota State Fair
Big stick Diplomacy
Pan-American Exposition
Buffalo, New York
William McKinley
Leon Czolgosz
September 6
1901
Mount Marcy
Ansley Wilcox
Grover Cleveland
February 2
2007
Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site
Buffalo, New York
New York
Bible
Mark Hanna
United Mine Workers of America
trust (19th century)
Trust Buster
Hepburn Act
Interstate Commerce Commission
Upton Sinclair
The Jungle
Pure Food and Drug Act
Meat Inspection Act
Millard Fillmore
Chester Arthur
Mark Hanna
Grover Cleveland
Alton B. Parker
Electoral College
Solid South
Eugene Debs
Gifford Pinchot
passenger pigeon
March 14
1903
Florida
conservation
Gifford Pinchot
United States Forest Service
national park
nature preserve
national forest
national wildlife refuge
Grand Canyon
Theodore Roosevelt National Park
Badlands
John Muir
Conference of Governors
Outdoor Life
Edward Renehan
Tweed Roosevelt
YouTube
April 23
2006
archaeology
Antiquities Act
U.S. National Monument
James F. Lacey
Edgar Lee Hewett
Devils Tower National Monument
Wyoming
geology
Christmas tree
White House
virgin forests
Cuba
Philippines
Puerto Rico
Panama Canal Zone
Walter Reed
William C. Gorgas
yellow fever
Great White Fleet
Roosevelt Corollary
Monroe Doctrine
Latin American
Russo-Japanese War
Nobel Peace Prize
France
Germany
Morocco
world war
March 6
2006
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty
Panama Canal
San Francisco, California
California
New York City
Colombia
Nicaragua
Panama
November 3
1903
Nathan Johnson Forest
US Navy
battleship
circumnavigation
December 16
1907
February 22
1909
Great White Fleet
Russians
Russo-Japanese War
U.S. Atlantic Fleet
grand strategy
Victor David Brenner
New York City
Lower East Side
American Civil War
Mathew Brady
Lincoln cent
March 6
2006
March 6
2006
simplified spelling
Brander Matthews
December 16
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
West Wing
federal style
Louis Comfort Tiffany
race relations
Booker T. Washington
White House
Oscar Straus (politician)
Hartford
Connecticut
submarine
USS Holland (SS-1)
Panama Canal
November 9
William McKinley
September 6
1901
Secret Service
Nobel Prize
Long Island
Lincoln cent
Maxwell House
Teddy bear
John Singer Sargent
President of the United States
Vice President of the United States
Charles W. Fairbanks
United States Secretary of State
John Hay
Elihu Root
Robert Bacon
United States Secretary of the Treasury
Lyman J. Gage
L. M. Shaw
George B. Cortelyou
United States Secretary of War
Elihu Root
William Howard Taft
Luke Edward Wright
Attorney General of the United States
Philander C. Knox
William Henry Moody
Charles Joseph Bonaparte
Postmaster General of the United States
Charles Emory Smith
Henry C. Payne
Robert Wynne
George B. Cortelyou
George von Lengerke Meyer
United States Secretary of the Navy
John Davis Long
William Henry Moody
Paul Morton
Charles Joseph Bonaparte
Victor H. Metcalf
Truman Handy Newberry
United States Secretary of the Interior
Ethan A. Hitchcock (Interior)
James Rudolph Garfield
United States Secretary of Agriculture
James Wilson (U.S. politician)
United States Secretary of Commerce and Labor
George B. Cortelyou
Victor H. Metcalf
Oscar Straus (politician)
Supreme Court of the United States
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
William R. Day
William Henry Moody
Oklahoma
safari
East Africa
central Africa
Mombasa
British East Africa
Kenya
Belgian Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Nile
Khartoum
Sudan
Andrew Carnegie
Smithsonian Institution
American Museum of Natural History
Frederick Selous
insect
Mole (animal)
hippopotamus
elephant
White Rhinoceros
Washington, D.C.
taxidermy
museum
National Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History
science
flora
fauna
William Howard Taft
U.S. presidential election, 1908
William Jennings Bryan
Payne-Aldrich tariff
Nelson Aldrich
William Loeb
Robert M. La Follette, Sr.
Wisconsin
Progressive Party (United States, 1924)
Gifford Pinchot
Richard Ballinger
Republican Convention
Chicago
Auditorium Building, Chicago
Pinchot
Albert Beveridge
Progressive Party 1912 (United States)
Bull Moose Party
Armageddon
statesmanship
Woodrow Wilson
monopoly
Trust (19th century)
U.S. Steel
Standard Oil
Howard Taft
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Wisconsin
October 14
1912
John Schrank
assassination
chest
steel
eyeglass
pleura
Pennsylvania
Eastern United States
Midwest
Michigan
Minnesota
South Dakota
Western United States
California
Washington
Martin Van Buren
Millard Fillmore
John Augustine Zahm
Cândido Rondon
Kermit Roosevelt
Brazil
Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition
Brazil
Cândido Rondon
John Augustine Zahm
American Museum of Natural History
River of Doubt
Amazon River
Rio Roosevelt
Cândido Rondon
American Museum of Natural History
Portuguese language
December 9
1913
February 27
1914
Rio Roosevelt
malaria
Rio Roosevelt
Oyster Bay
World War I
Allies of World War I
Germany
Charles Evans Hughes
hyphenated American
Quentin Roosevelt
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Scouting
Boy Scouts of America
March 6
2006
January 6
1919
embolism
Archibald Roosevelt
Thomas R. Marshall
Death (personification)
Quentin Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Archibald Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Kermit Roosevelt
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Madison Square Presbyterian Church
Episcopal Church in the United States of America
Grace Reformed Church
March 7
2006
separation of church and state
In God We Trust
March 7
2006
Freemason
March 12
2006
The Strenuous Life
jujutsu
skinny-dipping
Potomac River
March 7
2006
Sagamore Hill
singlestick
Harper's Weekly
Leonard Wood
Thomas Jefferson
Mt. Rushmore
Medal of Honor
Cuba
National Archives and Records Administration
January 16
2001
Bill Clinton
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Battle of Normandy
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
Mount Rushmore
United States Navy
USS Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600)
USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71)
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
Sagamore Hill
Henry Adams
March 7
2006
March 7
2006
Joseph Biden
Second Lebanon War
Israel
Ehud Olmert
Nicaragua
Rubén DarÃo
Robin Williams
Night at the Museum
John Milius
The Wind and the Lion
Brian Keith
Rough Riders (film)
Tom Berenger
teddy bears
American black bear
March 7
2006
June 26
2006
Time (magazine)
Washington Nationals
Presidents Race
Michigan State University
Megabyte
ogg
Theora
Theora
Megabyte
ogg
Theora
Theora
Arch Hoxsey
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
Martha Bulloch
Eleanor Roosevelt
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
Edith Carow Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Elliott Roosevelt I
Bamie Roosevelt
Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia
Reynier Tyson
Panama Canal
Great White Fleet
Russo-Japanese War
List of U.S. political appointments that crossed party lines
Progressivism
Library of America
Library of America
Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia
Edmund Morris (writer)
Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project
University of California, Santa Barbara
think tank
Arch Hoxsey
Frank S. Black
List of Governors of New York
Benjamin B. Odell, Jr.
Garret Hobart
Vice President of the United States
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
President of the United States
William Howard Taft
Garret Hobart
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1900
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1904
William Howard Taft
Progressive Party (United States, 1912)
U.S. presidential election, 1912
Grover Cleveland
Oldest living United States president
William Howard Taft
President of the United States
October 27
1858
New York, New York
January 6
1919
Oyster Bay, New York
|
Theodore_Roosevelt | Who helped to fund Roosevelt's African safari? | Financed by Andrew Carnegie and his own proposed writings | data/set3/a7 | Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. ( ; October 27 1858 January 6 1919), also known as T.R., and to the public (but never to friends and intimates) as Teddy, was the twenty-sixth President of the United States, and a leader of the Republican Party and of the Progressive Movement. He became the youngest President in United States history at the age of 42. He served in many roles including Governor of New York, historian, naturalist, explorer, author, and soldier. Roosevelt is most famous for his personality: his energy, his vast range of interests and achievements, his model of masculinity, and his "cowboy" persona. His last name, often mispronounced, is, per Roosevelt, "pronounced as if it were spelled 'Rosavelt', in three syllables, the first syllable as if it was 'Rose.'"
As Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Navy, he prepared for and advocated war with Spain in 1898. He organized and helped command the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, the Rough Riders, during the Spanish-American War. Returning to New York as a war hero, he was elected Republican governor in 1899. He was a professional historian, a lawyer, a naturalist and explorer of the Amazon Basin; his 35 books include works on outdoor life, natural history, the American frontier, political history, naval history, and his autobiography.
In 1901, as Vice President, Roosevelt succeeded President William McKinley after McKinley's assassination. He is the youngest person ever to become President (John F. Kennedy is the youngest elected President). Roosevelt was a Progressive reformer who sought to move the dominant Republican Party into the Progressive camp. He distrusted wealthy businessmen and dissolved forty monopolistic corporations as a "trust buster". He was clear, however, to show he did not disagree with trusts and capitalism in principle but was only against corrupt, illegal practices. His "Square Deal" promised a fair shake for both the average citizen (through regulation of railroad rates and pure food and drugs) and the businessmen. As an outdoorsman, he promoted the conservation movement, emphasizing efficient use of natural resources. After 1906 he attacked big business and suggested the courts were biased against labor unions. In 1910, he broke with his friend and anointed successor William Howard Taft, but lost the Republican nomination to Taft and ran in the 1912 election on his own one-time Bull Moose ticket. Roosevelt beat Taft in the popular vote and pulled so many Progressives out of the Republican Party that Democrat Woodrow Wilson won in 1912, and the conservative faction took control of the Republican Party for the next two decades.
Roosevelt negotiated for the U.S. to take control of the Panama Canal and its construction in 1904; he felt the Canal's completion was his most important and historically significant international achievement. He was the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize, winning its Peace Prize in 1906, for negotiating the peace in the Russo-Japanese War.
Historian Thomas Bailey, who disagreed with Roosevelt's policies, nevertheless concluded, "Roosevelt was a great personality, a great activist, a great preacher of the moralities, a great controversialist, a great showman. He dominated his era as he dominated conversations....the masses loved him; he proved to be a great popular idol and a great vote getter." His image stands alongside Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln on Mount Rushmore. Surveys of scholars have consistently ranked him from #3 to #7 on the list of greatest American presidents.
Theodore Roosevelt at age 11
Theodore Roosevelt was born in a four-story brownstone at 28 East 20th Street, in the modern-day Gramercy section of New York City, the second of four children of Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. (1831â1877) and Mittie Bulloch (1834â1884). He had an elder sister Anna, nicknamed "Bamie" as a child and "Bye" as an adult for being always on the go; and two younger siblingsâhis brother Elliott (the father of Eleanor Roosevelt) and his sister Corinne, (grandmother of newspaper columnists, Joseph and Stewart Alsop).
The Roosevelts had been in New York since the mid 18th century and had grown with the emerging New York commerce class after the American Revolution. Unlike many of the earlier "log cabin Presidents," Roosevelt was born into a wealthy family. By the 19th century, the family had grown in wealth, power and influence from the profits of several businesses including hardware and plate-glass importing. The family was strongly Democratic in its political affiliation until the mid-1850s, then joined the new Republican Party. Theodore's father, known in the family as "Thee", was a New York City philanthropist, merchant, and partner in the family glass-importing firm Roosevelt and Son. He was a prominent supporter of Abraham Lincoln and the Union effort during the American Civil War. His mother Mittie Bulloch was a Southern belle from a slave-owning family in Savannah, Georgia and had quiet Confederate sympathies. Mittie's brother, Theodore's uncle, James Dunwoody Bulloch, was a U.S. Navy officer who became a Confederate admiral and naval procurement agent in Britain. Another uncle Irvine Bulloch was a midshipman on the Confederate raider, CSS Alabama; both remained in England after the war. . Pringle (1931) p. 11 From his grandparents' home, a young Roosevelt witnessed Abraham Lincoln's funeral procession in New York.
Sickly and asthmatic as a youngster, Roosevelt had to sleep propped up in bed or slouching in a chair during much of his early childhood, and had frequent ailments. Despite his illnesses, he was a hyperactive and often mischievous young man. His lifelong interest in zoology was formed at age seven upon seeing a dead seal at a local market. After obtaining the seal's head, the young Roosevelt and two of his cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Learning the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with many animals that he killed or caught, studied, and prepared for display. At age nine, he codified his observation of insects with a paper titled "The Natural History of Insects". "TR's LegacyâThe Environment". Retrieved March 6, 2006.
To combat his poor physical condition, his father compelled the young Roosevelt to take up exercise. To deal with bullies, Roosevelt started boxing lessons. Thayer, William Roscoe (1919). Theodore Roosevelt: An Intimate Biography, Chapter I, p. 20. Bartleby.com. Two trips abroad had a permanent impact: family tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and of the Middle East 1872 to 1873.
Theodore Sr. had a tremendous influence on his son. Of him Roosevelt wrote, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Roosevelt, Theodore (1913). Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography, Chapter I, p. 13. Roosevelt's sister later wrote, "He told me frequently that he never took any serious step or made any vital decision for his country without thinking first what position his father would have taken." "The Film & More: Program Transcript Part One". Retrieved March 9 2006.
Young "Teedie" , as he was nicknamed as a child, (the nickname "Teddy" was from his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee, and he later harbored an intense dislike for it) was mostly home schooled by tutors and his parents. A leading biographer says: "The most obvious drawback to the home schooling Roosevelt keely received was uneven coverage of the various areas of human knowledge." He was solid in geography (thanks to his careful observations on all his travels) and very well read in history, strong in biology, French and German, but deficient in mathematics, Latin and Greek. Brands T. R. p. 49â50 He matriculated at Harvard College in 1876, graduating magna cum laude. His father's death in 1878 was a tremendous blow, but Roosevelt redoubled his activities. He did well in science, philosophy and rhetoric courses but fared poorly in Latin and Greek. He studied biology with great interest and indeed was already an accomplished naturalist and published ornithologist. He had a photographic memory and developed a life-long habit of devouring books, memorizing every detail. Brands p. 62 He was an eloquent conversationalist who, throughout his life, sought out the company of the smartest people. He could multitask in extraordinary fashion, dictating letters to one secretary and memoranda to another, while browsing through a new book.
While at Harvard, Roosevelt was active in rowing, boxing and the Alpha Delta Phi and Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternities. He also edited a student magazine. He was runner-up in the Harvard boxing championship, losing to C.S. Hanks. The sportsmanship Roosevelt showed in that fight was long remembered. Upon graduating from Harvard, Roosevelt underwent a physical examination and his doctor advised him that due to serious heart problems, he should find a desk job and avoid strenuous activity. Roosevelt chose to embrace strenuous life instead. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris.
He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude (22nd of 177) from Harvard in 1880, and entered Columbia Law School. When offered a chance to run for New York Assemblyman in 1881, he dropped out of law school to pursue his new goal of entering public life. Brands, pp 123â29
Roosevelt as NY State Assemblyman 1883, photo
Roosevelt was a Republican activist during his years in the Assembly, writing more bills than any other New York state legislator. Already a major player in state politics, he attended the Republican National Convention in 1884 and fought alongside the Mugwump reformers; they lost to the Stalwart faction that nominated James G. Blaine. Refusing to join other Mugwumps in supporting Democrat Grover Cleveland, the Democratic nominee, he stayed loyal.
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt (July 29, 1861 in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts â February 14 1884 in Manhattan, New York) was the first wife of Theodore Roosevelt and mother of their only child together, Alice Lee Roosevelt. Alice Roosevelt died of an undiagnosed case of Bright's Disease two days after Alice Lee was born. Theodore Roosevelt's mother Mittie died of Typhoid fever in the same house on the same day, Feb. 14, 1884. After the simultaneous deaths of his mother and wife, Roosevelt left his daughter in the care of his sister in New York and moved out to Dakota Territory.
Theodore Roosevelt as Badlands hunter in 1885. New York studio photo. Note the engraved knife and rifle courtesy of Tiffany and Co.
Roosevelt built a second ranch he named Elk Horn thirty five miles (56 km) north of the boomtown, Medora, North Dakota. On the banks of the "Little Missouri," Roosevelt learned to ride, rope, and hunt.
Roosevelt rebuilt his life and began writing about frontier life for Eastern magazines. As a deputy sheriff, Roosevelt hunted down three outlaws who stole his river boat and were escaping north with it up the Little Missouri River. Capturing them, he decided against hanging them and sending his foreman back by boat, he took the thieves back overland for trial in Dickinson, guarding them forty hours without sleep and reading Tolstoy to keep himself awake. When he ran out of his own books he read a dime store western one of the thieves was carrying.
While working on a tough project aimed at hunting down a group of relentless horse thieves, Roosevelt came across the famous Deadwood, South Dakota Sheriff Seth Bullock. The two would remain friends for life. (Morris, Rise of, 241â245, 247â250)
After the uniquely severe U.S. winter of 1886-1887 wiped out his herd of cattle and his $60,000 investment (together with those of his competitors), he returned to the East, where in 1885, he had built Sagamore Hill in Oyster Bay, New York. It would be his home and estate until his death. Roosevelt ran as the Republican candidate for mayor of New York City in 1886 as "The Cowboy of the Dakotas." He came in third.
Following the election, he went to London in 1886 and married his childhood sweetheart, Edith Kermit Carow. Thayer, Chapter V, pp. 4, 6. They honeymooned in Europe, and Roosevelt led a party to the summit of Mont Blanc, a feat which resulted in his induction into the British Royal Society. Encyclopedia Britannica, 1910 Edition, Topic: Theodore Roosevelt They had five children: Theodore Jr., Kermit, Ethel Carow, Archibald Bulloch "Archie", and Quentin. Although Roosevelt's father was also named Theodore Roosevelt, he died while the future president was still childless and unmarried, so the future President Roosevelt took the suffix of Sr. and subsequently named his son Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. Because Roosevelt was still alive when his grandson and namesake was born, his grandson was named Theodore Roosevelt III, and the president's son retained the Jr. after his father's death.
Roosevelt's book The Naval War of 1812 (1882) was standard history for two generations. Roosevelt undertook extensive and original research going computing British and American man-of-war broadside throw weights. See The Naval War of 1812, via Project Gutenberg.
By comparison, however, his hastily-written biographies of Thomas Hart Benton (1887) and Gouverneur Morris (1888) are considered superficial. Pringle (1931) p 116 His major achievement was a four-volume history of the frontier, The Winning of the West (1889â1896), which had a notable impact on historiography as it presented a highly original version of the frontier thesis elaborated upon in 1893 by his friend Frederick Jackson Turner. Roosevelt argued that the harsh frontier conditions had created a new "race": the American people that replaced the "scattered savage tribes, whose life was but a few degrees less meaningless, squalid, and ferocious than that of the wild beasts with whom they held joint ownership". He believed that "the conquest and settlement by the whites of the Indian lands was necessary to the greatness of the race and to the well-being of civilized mankind". He was using an evolutionary model in which new environmental conditions allow a new species to form. His many articles in upscale magazines provided a much-needed income, as well as cementing a reputation as a major national intellectual. He was later chosen president of the
American Historical Association.
In the The Winning of the West (1889â1896), Roosevelt's frontier thesis stressed the racial struggle between "civilization" and "savagery." He supported Nordicism, the belief in the superiority of the "Nordic" race, along with social Darwinism and racialism. Excerpts:
# "The settler and pioneer have at bottom had justice on their side; this great continent could not have been kept as nothing but a game preserve for squalid savages".
# "The most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with savages".
# "American and Indian, Boer and Zulu, Cossack and Tartar, New Zealander and Maori, â in each case the victor, horrible though many of his deeds are, has laid deep the foundations for the future greatness of a mighty people".
# "..it is of incalculable importance that America, Australia, and Siberia should pass out of the hands of their red, black, and yellow aboriginal owners, and become the heritage of the dominant world races".
# "The world would have halted had it not been for the Teutonic conquests in alien lands; but the victories of Moslem over Christian have always proved a curse in the end. Nothing but sheer evil has come from the victories of Turk and Tartar".
What did not, however, conform to the views of Roosevelt's day was that race should never be the primary factor in someone of ability performing any job. Some notable events in Theodore Roosevelt's life included:
*Developing a close relationship with the Hidatsa Indians that is maintained today in the oral tradition of the tribe.
*Inviting reformer Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House, an action which caused outrage among many newpapers in the American South, which objected to "mixing of the races on social occassions."
*Openly supporting a bill in the New York State Assembly which allowed desegregation of schools in the state, personally noting that his children had been educated with other races and there was nothing wrong with it.
*Appointed the Collector of the Port of Charleston post to an African-American, Dr. William D. Crum, and when he was urged to withdraw the appointment, wrote the following:
:I do not intend to appoint any unfit man to office. So far as I legitimately can, I shall always endeavor to pay regard to the wishes and feelings of the people of each locality; but I cannot consent to take the position that the doorway of hope - the door of opportunity - is to be shut upon any man, no matter how worthy, purely upon the grounds of race or color. Such an attitude would, according to my contentions, be fundamentally wrong.
*Defended the Postmaster of Indianola, Mississippi, Minnie D. Cox. She was an African-American, and on that basis alone she was threatened with mob violence and was forced to resign. Roosevelt took action by closing the post office there, ignored her resignation, and still paid her what she was due as if nothing happened.
New York City Police Commissioner 1896
In the 1888 presidential election, Roosevelt campaigned in the Midwest for Benjamin Harrison. President Harrison appointed Roosevelt to the United States Civil Service Commission, where he served until 1895. Thayer, ch. VI, pp. 1â2. In his term, he vigorously fought the spoilsmen and demanded the enforcement of civil service laws. In spite of Roosevelt's support for Harrison's reelection bid in the presidential election of 1892, the eventual winner, Grover Cleveland (a Bourbon Democrat), re appointed him to the same post.
Roosevelt became president of the board of New York City Police Commissioners in 1895. During the two years he held this post, Roosevelt radically reformed the police department. The police force was reputed as one of the most corrupt in America. NYPD's history division records Roosevelt was, "an iron-willed leader of unimpeachable honesty, (who) brought a reforming zeal to the New York City Police Commission in 1895." Andrews, William, "The Early Years: The Challenge of Public Order - 1845 to 1870", - New York City Police Department History Site. Retrieved August 28 2006. Roosevelt and his fellow commissioners established new disciplinary rules, created a bicycle squad to police New York's traffic problems and standardized the use of pistols by officers. Editors, "Leadership of the City of New York Police Department 1845â1901", - The New York City Police Department Museum. Retrieved August 28 2006. Roosevelt implemented regular inspections of firearms, annual physical exams, appointed 1,600 new recruits based on their physical and mental qualifications and not on political affiliation, opened the department to ethnic minorities and women, established meritorious service medals, and shut down corrupt police hostelries. During his tenure a Municipal Lodging House was established by the Board of Charities and Roosevelt required officers to register with the Board. He also had telephones installed in station houses. Always an energetic man, he made a habit of walking officers' beats late at night and early in the morning to make sure they were on duty. Brands ch 11 He became caught up in public disagreements with commissioner Parker, who sought to negate or delay the promotion of many officers put forward by Roosevelt.
Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt (front center) at the Naval War College, c. 1897
Roosevelt had always been fascinated by naval history. Urged by Roosevelt's close friend, Congressman Henry Cabot Lodge, President William McKinley appointed a delighted Roosevelt to the post of Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897. (Because of the inactivity of Secretary of the Navy John D. Long at the time, this basically gave Roosevelt control over the department.) Roosevelt was instrumental in preparing the Navy for the Spanish-American War Brands ch 12 and was an enthusiastic proponent of testing the U.S. military in battle, at one point stating "I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one".
Roosevelt left his civilian Navy post to form the famous "Rough Riders" Regiment
Upon the declaration of war in 1898 that would be known as the Spanish-American War, Roosevelt resigned from the Navy Department and, with the aid of U.S. Army Colonel Leonard Wood, organized the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment from cowboys from the Western territories to Ivy League friends from New York. The newspapers called them the "Rough Riders." Originally Roosevelt held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and served under Colonel Wood, but after Wood was promoted to Brigadier General of Volunteer Forces, Roosevelt was promoted to Colonel and given command of the Regiment. . Even after his return to civilian life, Roosevelt preferred to be known as "Colonel Roosevelt" or "The Colonel." As a moniker, "Teddy" remained much more popular with the general public; however, political friends and others who worked closely with Roosevelt customarily addressed him by his rank.
Colonel Roosevelt and his "Rough Riders" after capturing San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War
Under his leadership, the Rough Riders became famous for dual charges up Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill in July 1898 (the battle was named after the latter hill). Out of all the Rough Riders, Roosevelt was the only one who had a horse, and was forced to walk up Kettle Hill on foot after his horse, Little Texas, became tired. For his actions, Roosevelt was nominated for the Medal of Honor which was subsequently disapproved. It has been widely speculated this disapproval was because of Roosevelt's outspoken comments of the handling of the War. In September 1997, Congressman Rick Lazio representing the 2nd District of New York sent two award recommendations to the U.S. Army Military Awards Branch. These recommendations addressed to Brigadier General Earl Simms, the Army's Adjutant General and one to Master Sergeant Gary Soots, Chief of Authorizations, would prove successful in garnering the much sought after award. Soots Letter Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 2001 for his actions. Brands ch 13 He was the first and, as of 2007, the only President of the United States to be awarded with America's highest military honor, and the only person in history to receive both his nation's highest honor for military valor and the world's foremost prize for peace. Chicago newspaper sees cowboy-TR campaigning for governor
On leaving the Army, Roosevelt re-entered New York state politics and was elected governor of New York in 1898 on the Republican ticket. He made such a concerted effort to root out corruption and "machine politics" Republican boss Thomas Collier Platt forced him on McKinley as a running mate in the 1900 election, against the wishes of McKinley's manager Senator Mark Hanna. Roosevelt was a powerful campaign asset for the Republican ticket, which defeated William Jennings Bryan in a landslide based on restoration of prosperity at home and a successful war and new prestige abroad. Bryan stumped for Free Silver again, but McKinley's promise of prosperity through the Gold Standard, high tariffs, and the restoration of business confidence enlarged his margin of victory. Bryan had strongly supported the war against Spain, but denounced the annexation of the Philippines as imperialism that would spoil America's innocence. Roosevelt countered with many speeches that argued it was best for the Filipinos to have stability, and the Americans to have a proud place in the world. Roosevelt's six months as Vice President (March to September, 1901) were uneventful. Brands ch 14â15 On September 2, 1901, at the Minnesota State Fair, Roosevelt first used in a public speech a saying that would later be universally associated with him: "Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far."
At the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York President McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz (Zol-gash), on September 6, 1901. Roosevelt had been giving a speech in Vermont when he heard of the shooting. He rushed to Buffalo but after being assured the President would recover, he went on a planned family camping and hiking trip to Mount Marcy. In the mountains a runner notified him McKinley was on his death bed. Roosevelt pondered with his wife, Edith, how best to respond, not wanting to show up in Buffalo and wait on McKinley's death. Roosevelt was rushed by a series of stagecoaches to North Creek train station. At the station, Roosevelt was handed a telegram that said President McKinley died at 2:30 AM that morning. Roosevelt continued by train from North Creek to Buffalo. He arrived in Buffalo later that day, accepting an invitation to stay at the home of Ansley Wilcox, a prominent lawyer and friend since the early 1880s when they had both worked closely with New York State Governor Grover Cleveland on civil service reform. Wilcox recalled, "the family and most of the household were in the country, but he Roosevelt was offered a quiet place to sleep and eat, and accepted it." Roosevelt was a successful president. He would achieve a lot of goals in life. Some of these goals were that he won the Spanish-American War, and the Nobel Peace Prize, and he also was the youngest president in United States history. "It is a dreadful thing to come into the Presidency this way." Retrieved February 2 2007.
Nashville Tennessee News sketch of Theodore Roosevelt inauguration minus the customary Bible. Inauguration photos were not allowed after a rival photographer unceremoniously knocked down another's camera. Roosevelt took the oath of office in the Ansley Wilcox House at Buffalo, New York borrowing Wilcox's morning coat. Roosevelt did not swear on a Bible , in contrast to the usual tradition of US presidents Bibles and Scripture Passages Used by Presidents in Taking the Oath of Office. Retrieved September 23, 2007. . Expressing the fears of many old line Republicans, Mark Hanna lamented "that damned cowboy is president now." Roosevelt was the youngest person to assume the presidency, at 42, and he promised to continue McKinley's cabinet and his basic policies. Roosevelt did so, but after winning election in 1904, he moved to the political left, stretching his ties to the Republican Party's conservative leaders. Brands ch 16
A national emergency was averted in 1902 when Roosevelt found a compromise to the anthracite coal strike by the United Mine Workers of America that threatened the heating supplies of most urban homes. Roosevelt called the mine owners and the labor leaders to the White House and negotiated a compromise. Miners were on strike for 163 days before it ended; they were granted a 10% pay increase and a 9-hour day (from the previous 10 hours), but the union was not officially recognized and the price of coal went up. Brands ch 17
Theodore Roosevelt promised to continue McKinley's program, and at first he worked closely with McKinley's men. His 20,000-word address to the Congress in December 1901, asked Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits." They did not act but Roosevelt did, issuing 44 lawsuits against major corporations; he was called the "trust-buster."
Roosevelt firmly believed: "The Government must in increasing degree supervise and regulate the workings of the railways engaged in interstate commerce." Inaction was a danger, he argued: "Such increased supervision is the only alternative to an increase of the present evils on the one hand or a still more radical policy on the other." Annual Message December 1904
His biggest success was passage of the Hepburn Act of 1906, the provisions of which were to be regulated by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). The most important provision of the Act gave the ICC the power to replace existing rates with "just-and-reasonable" maximum rates, with the ICC to define what was just and reasonable. Anti-rebate provisions were toughened, free passes were outlawed, and the penalties for violation were increased. Finally, the ICC gained the power to prescribe a uniform system of accounting, require standardized reports, and inspect railroad accounts. The Act made ICC orders binding; that is, the railroads had to either obey or contest the ICC orders in federal court. To speed the process, appeals from the district courts would go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In response to public clamor (and due to the uproar cause by Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle), Roosevelt pushed Congress to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, as well as the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. These laws provided for labeling of foods and drugs, inspection of livestock and mandated sanitary conditions at meatpacking plants. Congress replaced Roosevelt's proposals with a version supported by the major meatpackers who worried about the overseas markets, and did not want small unsanitary plants undercutting their domestic market. Blum 1980 pp 43â44
Democrats attack Roosevelt as militarist and ineffective in this 1904 election cartoon
Theodore Roosevelt was the fifth Vice President to succeed to the office of President, but the first to win election in his own right. (Millard Fillmore ran and lost on a third-party ticket four years after leaving office and Chester Arthur was denied nomination by his party in 1884). After Senator Mark Hanna, McKinley's old campaign manager, died in February 1904, there was no one in the Republican Party to oppose Roosevelt and he easily won the nomination. When an effort to draft former president Grover Cleveland failed, the Democrats were without a candidate and finally settled on obscure New York judge Alton B. Parker. The outcome was never in doubt. Roosevelt crushed Parker 56%-38% in the popular vote and 336-140 in the Electoral College, sweeping the country outside the perennially Democratic Solid South. Socialist Eugene Debs got 3%. The night of the election, after his victory was clear, Roosevelt promised not to run again in 1908. He later regretted that promise, as it compelled him to leave the White House at the age of only fifty, at the height of his popularity.
Roosevelt worked closely with early conservationists such as Gifford Pinchot, pictured above, with whom he organized the first National Governors Conservation Conference at the White House in 1908
Roosevelt was the first American president to consider the long-term needs for efficient conservation of national resources, winning the support of fellow hunters and fishermen to bolster his political base. Roosevelt was the last trained observer to ever see a passenger pigeon, and on March 14, 1903, Roosevelt created the first National Bird Preserve, (the beginning of the Wildlife Refuge system) on Pelican Island, Florida. Roosevelt worked with the major figures of the conservation movement, especially his chief adviser on the matter Gifford Pinchot. Roosevelt urged Congress to establish the United States Forest Service (1905), to manage government forest lands, and he appointed Gifford Pinchot to head the service. Roosevelt set aside more land for national parks and nature preserves than all of his predecessors combined, 194 million acres (785,000 km²). In all, by 1909, the Roosevelt administration had created an unprecedented 42 million acres (170,000 km²) of national forests, 53 national wildlife refuges and 18 areas of "special interest", including the Grand Canyon. The Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the Badlands commemorates his conservationist philosophy. Roosevelt and Muir In 1903, Roosevelt toured the Yosemite Valley with John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, but Roosevelt believed in the more efficient use of natural resources by corporations like lumber companies unlike Muir. In 1907, with Congress about to block him, Roosevelt hurried to designate 16 million acres (65,000 km²) of new national forests. In May 1908, he sponsored the Conference of Governors held in the White House, with a focus on the most efficient planning, analysis and use of water, forests and other natural resources. Roosevelt explained, "There is an intimate relation between our streams and the development and conservation of all the other great permanent sources of wealth." During his presidency, Roosevelt promoted the nascent conservation movement in essays for Outdoor Life magazine. To Roosevelt, conservation meant more and better usage and less waste, and a long-term perspective. In 2006, a group of American high school students developed a 10 minute video on Roosevelt's conservation legacy with the help of Roosevelt scholar Edward Renehan and Roosevelt descendant, Tweed Roosevelt. See Commented out because it's a YouTube link used as a ref, it's original research, and really it's not a reference. But maybe someone else will think differently. -->
Roosevelt's conservationist leanings also impelled him to preserve national sites of scientific, particularly archaeological, interest. The 1906 passage of the Antiquities Act gave him a tool for creating national monuments by presidential proclamation, without requiring Congressional approval for each monument on an item-by-item basis. The language of the Antiquities Act specifically called for the preservation of "historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest," and was primarily construed by its creator, Congressman James F. Lacey (assisted by the prominent archaeologist Edgar Lee Hewett), as targeting the prehistoric ruins of the American Southwest. Roosevelt, however, applied a typically broad interpretation to the Act, and the first national monument he proclaimed, Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming, was preserved for reasons tied more to geology than archaeology.
Roosevelt's conservationism caused him to forbid having a Christmas tree in the White House. He was reportedly upset when he found a small tree his son had been hiding. After learning about the commercial farming of Christmas trees, where no virgin forests were cut down to supply the demand during the Christmas holiday, he relented and allowed his family to have a tree each season.
In Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and the Panama Canal Zone, Roosevelt used the Army's medical service, under Walter Reed and William C. Gorgas, to eliminate the yellow fever menace and install a new regime of public health. In the new possessions the Roosevelt administration used the army to build railways, telegraph and telephone lines, and upgrade roads and port facilities.
The Philippines saw the U.S. Army for the first time using a systematic doctrine of counter-insurgency. Despite the ad hoc nature of the force deployed by Roosevelt the Army was able to end the insurgency by 1902. Over the course of the war the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built over 3000 miles of roads and worked to build an entire education system, even bringing in thousands of American teachers to spearhead the effort.
Roosevelt builds the canal and shovels dirt on Colombia
Roosevelt dramatically increased the size of the navy, forming the Great White Fleet, which toured the world in 1907. This display was designed to impress the Japanese. Yet, the ships were almost forced to return because of the inadequacy of American ports in the Pacific. See Edward S Miller,War Plan Orange (Annapolis, 1991) Roosevelt also added the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which stated that the United States could intervene in Latin American affairs when corruption of governments made it necessary.
Roosevelt gained international praise for helping negotiate the end of the Russo-Japanese War, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Roosevelt later arbitrated a dispute between France and Germany over the division of Morocco. Some historians have argued these latter two actions helped in a small way to avert a world war. The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (2005). "Theodore Roosevelt (1901â1909)". Retrieved March 6 2006.
Roosevelt's most famous foreign policy initiative, following the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, was the construction of the Panama Canal, which upon its completion shortened the route of freighters between San Francisco, California and New York City by 8,000 miles (13,000 km).
Colombia first proposed the canal in their country as opposed to rival Nicaragua, and Colombia signed a treaty for an agreed-upon sum. At the time, Panama was a province of Colombia. According to the treaty, in 1902, the U.S. was to buy out the equipment and excavations from France, which had been attempting to build a canal since 1881. While the Colombian negotiating team had signed the treaty, ratification by the Colombian Senate became problematic. The Colombian Senate balked at the price and asked for ten million dollars over the original agreed upon price. When the U.S. refused to re-negotiate the price, the Colombian politicians proposed cutting the original French company that started the project out of the deal and giving that difference to Colombia.
The original deal stipulated the French company was to be reasonably compensated. Realizing the Colombian Senate was no longer bargaining in good faith, Roosevelt tired of these last-minute attempts by the Colombians to cheat the French out of their entire investment, and ultimately decided, with the encouragement of Panamanian business interests, to help Panama declare independence from Colombia in 1903.
A brief Panamanian revolution of only a few hours followed the declaration, as Colombian soldiers were bribed $50 each to lay down their arms. On November 3, 1903, the Republic of Panama was created, with its constitution written in advance by the United States. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. signed a protection treaty with Panama. And after the signing of the treaty, a man named Nathan Johnson Forest assisted Panama with the initial planning phases for the canal. The U.S. then paid ten million to secure rights to build on, and control, the Canal Zone. Construction began in 1904 and was completed in 1914.
It took a long time to build the Panama Canal because of the rampant spread of tropical diseases. Over 200 workers died of yellow fever and malaria, spread by mosquitoes. Roosevelt initiated work on clearing swamps and other areas in which the insects bred. As the health threat finally receded, this greatly facilitated the construction of the Canal.
Roosevelt, (on the 12" gun turret at right), addresses the crew of USS Connecticut (BB18), in Hampton Roads, Virginia, upon her return from the Fleet's cruise
As Roosevelt's administration drew to a close, the president dispatched a fleet consisting of four US Navy battleship squadrons and their escorts, on a world-wide voyage of circumnavigation from December 16, 1907, to February 22, 1909. With their hulls painted white (except for the beautiful gilded scrollwork) and red, white, and blue banners on their bows, these ships would come to be known as The Great White Fleet. Roosevelt wanted to demonstrate to his country and the world that the US Navy was capable of operating in a global theater, particularly in the Pacific. This was extraordinarily important at a time when tensions were slowly growing between the United States and Japan. The latter had recently shown its navy's competence in defeating the Russians in the Russo-Japanese War, and the US Navy fleet in the west was relatively small. As a mark of the mission's success, the Atlantic Fleet battleships only later came to be known as the "Great White Fleet."
When the real Great White Fleet sailed into Yokahama, Japan, the Japanese went to extraordinary lengths to show that their country desired peace with the US. Thousands of Japanese school children waved American flags, purchased by the government, as they greeted the Navy brass coming ashore. In February 1909, the fleet returned home to Hampton Roads, Virginia, and Roosevelt was there to witness the triumphant return. His appearance indicated that he saw the fleet's long voyage as a fitting finish for his administration. Roosevelt said to the officers of the Fleet, "Other nations may do what you have done, but they'll have to follow you." This parting act of grand strategy by Roosevelt greatly expanded the respect for, as well as the role of, the United States in the international arena. However, the visit of the Great White Fleet to Tokyo also encouraged Japanese militarists. They had always argued for an even more aggressive Japanese ship building and naval expansion program, and the recent show of force by the U.S. convinced enough of their countrymen that they were right. In a real sense, this set in motion the chain of events leading to the U.S. & Japan confronting each other 30 years later - during WWII.
A Lincoln cent
Roosevelt thought American coins and currency were common and uninspiring. Roosevelt had the opportunity to pose for a young Lithuanian-born sculptor, Victor David Brenner, who, since arriving nineteen years earlier in the United States had become one of the nationâs premier medalists. Roosevelt had learned of Brenner's talents in a settlement house on New York City's Lower East Side and was immediately impressed with a bas-relief that Brenner had made of Lincoln, based on the early Civil War era photographer, Mathew Brady's photograph. Roosevelt, who considered Lincoln the savior of the Union and the greatest Republican President and who also considered himself Lincolnâs political heir, ordered the new Lincoln penny to be based on Brenner's work and that it go just in time to commemorate Lincolnâs 100th birthday in 1909. The likeness of President Lincoln on the obverse of the coin is an adaptation of a plaque Brenner executed several years earlier and which had come to the attention of President Roosevelt in New York. /ref>
Roosevelt took Cabinet members and friends on long, fast-paced hikes, boxed in the state rooms of the White House, romped with his children, and read voraciously. Hanson, David C. (2005). "Theodore Roosevelt: Lion in the White House". Retrieved March 6 2006. In 1908, he was permanently blinded in his left eye during one of his boxing bouts, but this injury was kept from the public at the time. Smith, Ira R. T.; Morris, Joe Alex (1949). "Dear Mr. President": The Story of Fifty Years in the White House Mail Room, p. 52. Julian Messner. His many enthusiastic interests and limitless energy led one ambassador to wryly explain, "You must always remember that the President is about six." Kennedy, Robert C. (2005). "'I hear there are some kids in the White House this year'". Retrieved March 6 2006.
Roosevelt shoots holes in the dictionary as the ghosts of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dr Johnson moan.
During his presidency, Roosevelt tried but did not succeed to advance the cause of simplified spelling. He tried to force government to adopt the system, sending an order to the Public Printer to use the system in all public documents. The order was obeyed, and among the documents thus printed was the President's special message regarding the Panama Canal. The New York World translated the Thanksgiving Day proclamation:
The reform annoyed the public, forcing him to rescind the order. Roosevelt's friend, literary critic Brander Matthews, one of the chief advocates of the reform, remonstrated with him for abandoning the effort. Roosevelt replied on December 16: "I could not by fighting have kept the new spelling in, and it was evidently worse than useless to go into an undignified contest when I was beaten. Do you know that the one word as to which I thought the new spelling was wrong thru was more responsible than anything else for our discomfiture?" Next summer Roosevelt was watching a naval review when a launch marked "Pres Bot" chugged ostentatiously by. The President waved and laughed with delight. Pringle 465â7
Roosevelt's oldest daughter, Alice, was a controversial character during Roosevelt's stay in the White House. When friends asked if he could rein in his elder daughter, Roosevelt said, "I can be President of the United States, or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both." In turn, Alice said of him that he always wanted to be "the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral." (Some sources attribute this quote to one of Roosevelt's sons instead.) Thayer, Chapter XIII, p. 7.
Roosevelt's contribution to the White House was the construction of the original West Wing, which he had built to free up the second floor rooms in the residence that formerly housed the president's staff. He and Edith also had the entire house renovated and restored to the federal style, tearing out the Victorian furnishings and details (including Tiffany windows) that had been installed over the previous three decades.
1902 The Washington Post political cartoon that spawned the Teddy bear name.
#In the sphere of race relations, Booker T. Washington became the first black man to dine as a guest at the White House in 1901.
#Oscar S. Straus became the first Jewish person appointed as a Cabinet Secretary, under Roosevelt.
#In August, 1902, Roosevelt became the first U.S. president to take a public automobile ride. This occurred during a parade in Hartford, Connecticut
#In 1910 he became the first U.S. President to ride in an airplane.
#On August 25, 1905 he became the first U.S. President to ride in a military submarine when he boarded the USS Holland (SS-1) and ran submerged with her for 55 minutes.
#In 1906, he made the first trip, by a President, outside the United States, visiting Panama to inspect the construction progress of the Panama Canal on November 9.
#In 1902, in response to the assassination of President William McKinley on September 6 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became the first president to be under constant Secret Service protection.
# In 1906, Roosevelt became the first American to be awarded a Nobel Prize.
#In 2001, he became the first and only President up to date to receive a Medal of Honor, making him the only person to date to win the world's highest peace honor, as well as his nation's top military honor.
#He was the first and to date only president from Long Island, New York.
#He was the first President to officially refer to the White House as such, on his official stationery. This had been the common name (referring to the color of the building), but until then, the official name was "The Executive Mansion"
#He was the first President to wear a necktie for his official Presidential Portrait.
#He was the first President to approve a coin, the Lincoln cent, with a man's face on it, in 1909, just in time for the centennial of Lincoln's birth. Lincoln was Roosevelt's presidential hero.
#He was the first President to coin an internationally recognized trademark, although not deliberately. His offhand remark, "good to the last drop," about some coffee drunk at the Maxwell House hotel in Tennessee, see Maxwell House coffee.
#He is the only president to have a famous toy named after him (the Teddy bear, named after a bear he refused to shoot in a 1902 hunt in Mississipi).
John Singer Sargent, Theodore Roosevelt, 1903; click on painting for background story.
Roosevelt appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
*Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. 1902
*William Rufus Day 1903
*William Henry Moody 1906
*Oklahoma 1907
Roosevelt standing next to a dead elephant during a safari
In March 1909, shortly after the end of his second term, Roosevelt left New York for a safari in east and central Africa. Roosevelt's party landed in Mombasa, British East Africa (now Kenya), traveled to the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) before following the Nile up to Khartoum in modern Sudan. Financed by Andrew Carnegie and by his own proposed writings, Roosevelt hunted for specimens for the Smithsonian Institution and for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. His party, which included scientists from the Smithsonian and was led by Frederick Selous, the famous big game hunter and explorer, and they killed or trapped over 11,397 animals, from insects and moles to hippopotamuses and elephants. 512 of the animals were big game animals, including six rare white rhinos. 262 of these were consumed by the expedition. Tons of salted animals and their skins were shipped to Washington; the quantity was so large that it took years to mount them all, and the Smithsonian was able to share many duplicate animals with other museums.
Regarding the large number of animals taken, Roosevelt said, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned." O'Toole, Patricia (2005) When Trumpets Call, p. 67, Simon and Schuster, ISBN 0-684-86477-0 However, although the safari was ostensibly conducted in the name of science, there was another, quite large element to it as well. In addition to many native peoples and local leaders, interaction with renowned professional hunters and land owning families made the safari as much a political and social event, as it was a hunting excursion. Roosevelt wrote a detailed account of the adventure in the book "African Game Trails", where he describes the excitement of the chase, the people he met, and the flora and fauna he collected in the name of science.
Roosevelt certified William Howard Taft to be a genuine "progressive" in 1908, when Roosevelt pushed through the nomination of his Secretary of War for the Presidency. Taft easily defeated three-time candidate William Jennings Bryan. Taft had a different progressivism, one that stressed the rule of law and preferred that judges rather than administrators or politicians make the basic decisions about fairness. Taft usually proved a less adroit politician than Roosevelt and lacked the energy and personal magnetism, not to mention the publicity devices, the dedicated supporters, and the broad base of public support that made Roosevelt so formidable. When Roosevelt realized that lowering the tariff would risk severe tensions inside the Republican Party pitting producers (manufacturers and farmers) against merchants and consumers he stopped talking about the issue. Taft ignored the risks and tackled the tariff boldly, on the one hand encouraging reformers to fight for lower rates, and then cutting deals with conservative leaders that kept overall rates high. The resulting Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909 was too high for most reformers, but instead of blaming this on Senator Nelson Aldrich and big business, Taft took credit, calling it the best tariff ever. Again he had managed to alienate all sides. While the crisis was building inside the Party, Roosevelt was touring Africa and Europe, so as to allow Taft to be his own man. Thayer, Chapter XXI, p. 10.
1909 cartoon: TR hands his policies to the care of Taft while William Loeb carries the "Big Stick"
Unlike Roosevelt, Taft never attacked business or businessmen in his rhetoric. However, he was attentive to the law, so he launched 90 antitrust suits, including one against the largest corporation, U.S. Steel, for an acquisition that Roosevelt had personally approved. Consequently, Taft lost the support of antitrust reformers (who disliked his conservative rhetoric), of big business (which disliked his actions), and of Roosevelt, who felt humiliated by his protégé. The left wing of the Republican Party began agitating against Taft. Senator Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin created the National Progressive Republican League (precursor to the Progressive Party (United States, 1924)) to defeat the power of political bossism at the state level and to replace Taft at the national level. More trouble came when Taft fired Gifford Pinchot, a leading conservationist and close ally of Roosevelt. Pinchot alleged that Taft's Secretary of Interior Richard Ballinger was in league with big timber interests. Conservationists sided with Pinchot, and Taft alienated yet another vocal constituency.
Roosevelt, back from Europe, unexpectedly launched an attack on the federal courts, which deeply upset Taft. Not only had Roosevelt alienated big business, he was also attacking both the judiciary and the deep faith Republicans had in their judges (most of whom had been appointed by McKinley, Roosevelt or Taft.) In the 1910 Congressional elections, Democrats swept to power, and Taft's reelection in 1912 was increasingly in doubt. In 1911, Taft responded with a vigorous stumping tour that allowed him to sign up most of the party leaders long before Roosevelt announced.
The battle between Taft and Roosevelt bitterly split the Republican Party; Taft's people dominated the party until 1936.
Late in 1911, Roosevelt finally broke with Taft and LaFollette and announced himself as a candidate for the Republican nomination. But Roosevelt had delayed too long, and Taft had already won the support of most party leaders in the country. Because of LaFollette's nervous breakdown on the campaign trail before Roosevelt's entry, most of LaFollette's supporters went over to Roosevelt, the new progressive Republican candidate.
Roosevelt, stepping up his attack on judges, carried nine of the states with preferential primaries, LaFollette took two, and Taft only one. The 1912 Primaries represented the first extensive use of the Presidential Primary, a reform achievement of the progressive movement. However, these primary elections, while demonstrating Roosevelt's popularity with the electorate, were in no ways as important as primaries are today. First of all, there were fewer states where the common voter was given a forum to express himself, such as a primary. Many more states selected convention delegates either at party conventions, or in caucuses, which were not as open as today's caucuses. So while the man in the street still adored Roosevelt, most professional Republican politicians were supporting Taft, and they proved difficult to upset in non-primary states.
At the Republican Convention in Chicago, despite being the incumbent, Taft's victory was not immediately assured. But after two weeks, Roosevelt, realizing he would not be able to win the nomination outright, asked his followers to leave the convention hall. They moved to the Auditorium Theatre, and then Roosevelt, along with key allies such as Pinchot and Albert Beveridge created the Progressive Party, structuring it as a permanent organization that would field complete tickets at the presidential and state level. It was popularly known as the "Bull Moose Party," which got its name after Roosevelt told reporters, "I'm as fit as a bull moose." Carl M. Cannon, The Pursuit of Happiness in Times of War, Rowman & Littlefield: 2003, p. 142. ISBN 0742525929. At the convention Roosevelt cried out, "We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord." Roosevelt's platform echoed his 1907â08 proposals, calling for vigorous government intervention to protect the people from the selfish interests. Thayer, Chapter XXII, pp. 25 31.
The bullet-damaged speech and eyeglass case on display at the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace
While campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on October 14, 1912, a saloonkeeper named John Schrank failed in an assassination attempt on Roosevelt. Schrank did shoot the former President, but the bullet lodged in Roosevelt's chest only after penetrating both his steel eyeglass case and passing through a thick (50 pages) single-folded copy of the speech he was carrying in his jacket. Accessed Dec. 21, 2007 . Roosevelt, as a very experienced hunter and anatomist, decide the fact he wasn't coughing blood meant the bullet had not completely penetrated the chest wall to his lung (he was correct), and so declined suggestions he go to the hospital immediately. Instead, he delivered his scheduled speech with blood seeping into his shirt. He spoke for ninety minutes. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Afterwards, doctors determined by probe and X-ray the bullet had traversed three inches of tissue and lodged in Roosevelt's chest muscle but did not penetrate the pleura, and it would be more dangerous to attempt to remove the bullet than to leave it in place. Roosevelt carried it with him until he died. Roosevelt Timeline
Due to the bullet wound, Roosevelt was taken off the campaign trail in the final weeks of the race (which ended election day, November 5). Though the other two campaigners stopped their own campaigns in the week Roosevelt was in the hospital, they resumed it once he was released. The overall effect of the shooting was uncertain. Roosevelt for many reasons failed to move enough Republicans in his direction. He did win 4.1 million votes (27%), compared to Taft's 3.5 million (23%). However, Wilson's 6.3 million votes (42%) were enough to garner 435 electoral votes. Roosevelt had 88 electoral votes to Taft's 8 electoral votes. (This meant that Taft became the only incumbent President in history to actually come in third place in an attempt to be re-elected.) But Pennsylvania was Roosevelt's only Eastern state; in the Midwest he carried Michigan, Minnesota and South Dakota; in the West, California and Washington; he did not win any Southern states. Although he lost, he won more votes than former presidents Martin Van Buren and Millard Fillmore who also ran again and also lost. More important, he pulled so many progressives out of the Republican party that it took on a much more conservative cast for the next generation.
The initial party. From left to right (seated): Father Zahm, Rondon, Kermit, Cherrie, Miller, four Brazilians, Roosevelt, Fiala. Only Roosevelt, Kermit, Cherrie, Rondon and the Brazilians traveled down the River of Doubt.
Roosevelt's popular book Through the Brazilian Wilderness describes his expedition into the Brazilian jungle in 1913 as a member of the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition co-named after its leader, Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon. The book describes all of the scientific discovery, scenic tropical vistas and exotic flora, fauna and wild life experienced on the expedition. A friend, Father John Augustine Zahm, had searched for new adventures and found them in the forests of South America. After a briefing of several of his own expeditions, he convinced Roosevelt to commit to such an expedition in 1912. To finance the expedition, Roosevelt received support from the American Museum of Natural History, promising to bring back many new animal specimens. Once in South America, a new far more ambitious goal was added: to find the headwaters of the Rio da Duvida, the River of Doubt, and trace it north to the Madiera and thence to the Amazon River. It was later renamed Rio Roosevelt (Rio Teodoro today, 640 km long) in honor of the former President. Roosevelt's crew consisted of his 24-year-old son Kermit, Colonel Cândido Rondon, a naturalist sent by the American Museum of Natural History named George K. Cherrie, Brazilian Lieutenant Joao Lyra, team physician Dr. José Antonio Cajazeira, and sixteen highly skilled paddlers (called camaradas in Portuguese). The initial expedition started, probably unwisely, on December 9, 1913, at the height of the rainy season. The trip down the River of Doubt started on February 27, 1914.
Roosevelt, wearing sun helmet, barely survived an expedition in 1913 into the Amazonian rain forest to trace the River of Doubt later named the Rio Roosevelt.
During the trip down the river, Roosevelt contracted malaria and a serious infection resulting from a minor leg wound. These illnesses so weakened Roosevelt that, by six weeks into the expedition, he had to be attended day and night by the expedition's physician, Dr. Cajazeira, and his son, Kermit. By this time, Roosevelt considered his own condition a threat to the survival of the others. At one point, Kermit had to talk him out of his wish to be left behind so as not to slow down the expedition, now with only a few weeks rations left. Roosevelt was having chest pains when he tried to walk, his temperature soared to 103 °F (39 °C), and at times he was delirious. He had lost over fifty pounds (20 kg). Without the constant support of his son, Kermit, Dr. Cajazeira, and the continued leadership of Colonel Rondon, Roosevelt would likely have perished. Despite his concern for Roosevelt, Rondon had been slowing down the pace of the expedition by his dedication to his own map-making and other geographical goals that demanded regular stops to fix the expedition's position via sun-based survey.
Upon his return to New York, friends and family were startled by Roosevelt's physical appearance and fatigue. Roosevelt wrote to a friend that the trip had cut his life short by ten years. He might not have really known just how accurate that analysis would prove to be, because the effects of the South America expedition had so greatly weakened him that they significantly contributed to his declining health. For the rest of his life, he would be plagued by flareups of malaria and leg inflammations so severe that they would require hospitalization. Thayer, Chapter XXIII, pp. 4â7.
When Roosevelt had recovered enough of his strength, he found that he had a new battle on his hands. In professional circles, there was doubt about his claims of having discovered and navigated a completely uncharted river over 625 miles (1,000 km) long. Roosevelt would have to defend himself and win international recognition of the expedition's newly-named Rio Roosevelt. Toward this end, Roosevelt went to Washington, D.C., and spoke at a standing-room-only convention to defend his claims. His official report and its defense silenced the critics, and he was able to triumphantly return to his home in Oyster Bay.
Despite his weakened condition and slow recovery from his South America expedition, Roosevelt continued to write with passion on subjects ranging from foreign policy to the importance of the national park system. As an editor of Outlook magazine, he had weekly access to a large, educated national audience. In all, Roosevelt wrote about 18 books (each in several editions), including his Autobiography, Rough Riders and History of the Naval War of 1812, ranching, explorations, and wildlife. His most ambitious book was the 4 volume narrative The Winning of the West, which attempted to connect the origin of a new "race" of Americans (i.e. what he considered the present population of the United States to be) to the frontier conditions their ancestors endured in throughout the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries.
Roosevelt angrily complained about the foreign policy of President Wilson, calling it "weak." This caused him to develop an intense dislike for Woodrow Wilson. When World War I began in 1914, Roosevelt strongly supported the Allies of World War I and demanded a harsher policy against Germany, especially regarding submarine warfare. In 1916, he campaigned energetically for Charles Evans Hughes and repeatedly denounced Irish-Americans and German-Americans who Roosevelt said were unpatriotic because they put the interest of Ireland and Germany ahead of America's by supporting neutrality. He insisted one had to be 100% American, not a "hyphenated American" who juggled multiple loyalties. When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, Roosevelt sought to raise a volunteer infantry division, but Wilson refused. Brands 781â4; Cramer, C.H. Newton D. Baker (1961) 110â113
Roosevelt's attacks on Wilson helped the Republicans win control of Congress in the off-year elections of 1918. Roosevelt was popular enough to seriously contest the 1920 Republican nomination, but his health was broken by 1918, because of the lingering malaria. His son Quentin, a daring pilot with the American forces in France, was shot down behind German lines in 1918. Quentin was his youngest son and probably the most liked by him. It is said the death of his son distressed him so much that Roosevelt never recovered from his loss. Dalton, (2002)p 507
Theodore Roosevelt Grave in Youngs Memorial Cemetery Oyster Bay, New York
Twenty-six steps leading to Roosevelt's grave, commemorating his service as 26th President
Despite his debilitating diseases, Roosevelt remained active to the end of his life. He was an enthusiastic proponent of the Scouting movement. The Boy Scouts of America gave him the title of Chief Scout Citizen, the only person to hold such title. One early Scout leader said, "The two things that gave Scouting great impetus and made it very popular were the uniform and Teddy Roosevelt's jingoism." Larson, Keith (2006). "Theodore Roosevelt". Retrieved March 6 2006.
On January 6, 1919, Roosevelt died in his sleep of a coronary embolism at Oyster Bay, and was buried in nearby Youngs Memorial Cemetery. Upon receiving word of his death, his son, Archie, telegraphed his siblings simply, "The old lion is dead." Dalton, (2002) p. 507 Woodrow Wilson's vice president at the time Thomas R. Marshall said of his death "Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight." Manners, William. TR and Will: A Friendship that Split the Republican Party. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1969.
Roosevelt Family in 1903 with Quentin on the left, TR, Ted, Jr., "Archie", Alice, Kermit, Edith, and Ethel
Roosevelt intensely disliked being called "Teddy," and was quick to point out this fact to those who used the nickname, though it would become widely used by newspapers during his political career. He attended the Madison Square Presbyterian Church until the age of 16. Later in life, when Roosevelt lived at Oyster Bay he attended an Episcopal church with his wife. While in Washington he attended services at Grace Reformed Church. "The Religious Affiliation of Theodore Roosevelt U.S. President". Retrieved March 7 2006. As President he firmly believed in the separation of church and state and thought it unwise to have In God We Trust on currency, because he thought it sacrilegious to put the name of the Deity on something so common as money. Reynolds, Ralph C. (1999). "In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash". Retrieved March 7 2006. He was also a Freemason, and regularly attended the Matinecock Lodge's meetings. He once said that "One of the things that so greatly attracted me to Masonry that I hailed the chance of becoming a Mason was that it really did act up to what we, as a government, are pledged to namely to treat each man on his merit as a man." Matinecock Masonic Historical Society. "History". Retrieved March 12 2006.
Roosevelt had a lifelong interest in pursuing what he called, in an 1899 speech, "the strenuous life." To this end, he exercised regularly and took up boxing, tennis, hiking, rowing, polo, and horseback riding. As governor of New York, he boxed with sparring partners several times a week, a practice he regularly continued as President until one blow detached his left retina, leaving him blind in that eye (a fact not made public until many years later). Thereafter, he practiced jujutsu and continued his habit of skinny-dipping in the Potomac River during winter. Thayer, Chapter XVII, pp. 22 24. Shaw, K.B. & Maiden, David (2006). "Theodore Roosevelt".
Retrieved March 7 2006.
Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt's estate
He was an enthusiastic singlestick player and, according to Harper's Weekly, in 1905 showed up at a White House reception with his arm bandaged after a bout with General Leonard Wood. Amberger, J Christoph, Secret History of the Sword Adventures in Ancient Martial Arts 1998, ISBN 1-892515-04-0. Roosevelt was also an avid reader, reading tens of thousands of books, at a rate of several a day in multiple languages. Along with Thomas Jefferson Roosevelt is often considered the most well read of any American politician. David H. Burton, The Learned Presidency 1988, p 12.
Roosevelt's face on Mt. Rushmore
1910 cartoon shows Roosevelt's multiple roles to 1898
1910 cartoon shows Roosevelt's multiple roles from 1899 to 1910
For his gallantry at San Juan Hill, Roosevelt's commanders recommended him for the Medal of Honor, but his subsequent telegrams to the War Department complaining about the delays in returning American troops from Cuba doomed his chances. In the late 1990s, Roosevelt's supporters again took up the flag on his behalf and overcame opposition from elements within the U.S. Army and the National Archives. On January 16, 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded Theodore Roosevelt the Medal of Honor posthumously for his charge up San Juan Hill, Cuba, during the Spanish-American War. Roosevelt's eldest son, Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., received the Medal of Honor for heroism at the Battle of Normandy in 1944. The Roosevelts thus became one of only two father-son pairs to receive this honor.
Roosevelt's legacy includes several other important commemorations. Roosevelt was included with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln at the Mount Rushmore Memorial, designed in 1927. The United States Navy named two ships for Roosevelt: the USS Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600), a submarine was in commission from 1961 to 1982; and the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), an aircraft carrier that has been on active duty in the Atlantic Fleet since 1986.
The Roosevelt Memorial Association (later the Theodore Roosevelt Association) or "TRA", was founded in 1920 to preserve Roosevelt's legacy. The Association preserved TR's birthplace, "Sagamore Hill" home, papers, and video film.
Overall, historians credit Roosevelt for changing the nation's political system by permanently placing the presidency at center stage and making character as important as the issues. His notable accomplishments include trust-busting and conservationism. However, he has been criticized for his interventionist and imperialist approach to nations he considered "uncivilized". Even so, history and legend have been kind to him. His friend, historian Henry Adams, proclaimed, "Roosevelt, more than any other living man ....showed the singular primitive quality that belongs to ultimate matter the quality that mediaeval theology assigned to God he was pure act." Historians typically rank Roosevelt among the top five presidents. The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (2005). "Biography: Impact and Legacy". Retrieved March 7 2006. "Legacy". Retrieved March 7 2006.
Roosevelt has been quoted by virtually all the major Republican and Democratic candidates for the 2008 US Presidential Election. Political pundits have brought up Roosevelt's name in book after book. The degree of discussion ranges from a single sentence by democrat Bill Richardson talking about him as "BR" breaking Roosevelt's (or "TR") 1907 single handshaking record, John Edwards mentioning Roosevelt in a fall of 2007 speech to John McCain devoting an entire chapter to him in his main background book. Even the lone candidate that did not mention Roosevelt in an autobiographical book, democrat, Joe Biden, nevertheless, began mentioning Roosevelt's taking on of corporate interests speeches in New Hampshire in the summer of 2007.
Roosevelt's 1901 saying "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick" is still being occasionally quoted by politicians and columnists in different countries - not only in English but also in translation to various other languages. For example, following the Second Lebanon War of August 2006, opponents of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accused him of "Speaking loudly and carrying a small stick".
The well-known Nicaraguan poet Rubén DarÃo published in 1905 a poem entitled A Roosevelt (To Roosevelt) which was included in Cantos de Vida y Esperanza (Songs of Life and Hope)
As a charismatic President often considered larger than life, Roosevelt has appeared in numerous fiction books, television shows, films, and other media of popular culture. Roosvelt was played by Robin Williams in the box office hit Night at the Museum and its upcoming sequel.
"Drawing the Line in Mississippi," by Clifford Berryman, referring to Roosevelt's sparing the bear.
Filmmaker John Milius also directed two films in which Roosevelt was a central character: The Wind and the Lion (1975) in which he was played by Brian Keith; and Rough Riders (1997) in which he was played by Tom Berenger. Keith's performance is widely considered to be the definitive screen depiction of Roosevelt.
Roosevelt's lasting popular legacy, however, is the stuffed toy bearsâteddy bearsânamed after him following an incident on a hunting trip in 1902. Roosevelt famously refused to kill a captured black bear simply for the sake of making a kill. Bears and later bear cubs became closely associated with Roosevelt in political cartoons thereafter. "History of the Teddy Bear". Retrieved March 7 2006.
On June 26, 2006, Roosevelt, once again, made the cover of TIME magazine with the lead story, "The Making of AmericaâTheodore RooseveltâThe 20th Century Express": "At home and abroad, Theodore Roosevelt was the locomotive President, the man who drew his flourishing nation into the future."
The Washington Nationals major league baseball team has a fan tradition called the Presidents Race. In it four caricatures of presidents Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt race against each other. A running gag has been Theodore Roosevelt's inability to win a single Presidents Race.
In 2006 Roosevelt' likeness was used in "Night at the Museum (The movie).
Theodore Roosevelt was one of the first presidents whose voice was recorded for posterity. Several of his recorded speeches survive. Vincent Voice Library at Michigan State University. Retrieved September 23, 2007.
* Roosevelt goes for first aeroplane ride in Arch Hoxsey plane 1910
*Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. father
*Martha Bulloch mother
*Eleanor Roosevelt niece, First Lady of the United States (1933â1945)
*Alice Roosevelt first wife
*Edith Carow Roosevelt second wife
*Alice Roosevelt first daughter
*Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. first son
*Kermit Roosevelt second son
*Ethel Roosevelt second daughter
*Archibald Roosevelt third son
*Quentin Roosevelt fourth son
*Elliott Roosevelt brother
*Anna Cowles sister
*Corinne Robinson sister
*Franklin D. Roosevelt, cousin, 32nd President of the United States
*Theodore Roosevelt Association 1920 organization founded to preserve Roosevelt's historical legacy
*Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia 1940 compendium of Roosevelt's key writings, sayings and conversations
*Reynier Tyson 4th great-grandfather, early German-American settler
*Panama Canal
*Great White Fleet
*Russo-Japanese War
*List of U.S. political appointments that crossed party lines
*Progressivism
*
*Auchincloss, Louis, ed. Theodore Roosevelt, The Rough Riders and an Autobiography (Library of America, 2004) ISBN 978-1-93108265-5
*Auchincloss, Louis, ed. Theodore Roosevelt, Letters and Speeches (Library of America, 2004) ISBN 978-1-93108266-2
*Brands, H.W. ed. The Selected Letters of Theodore Roosevelt. (2001)
*Harbaugh, William ed. The Writings Of Theodore Roosevelt (1967). A one-volume selection of Roosevelt's speeches and essays.
*Hart, Albert Bushnell and Herbert Ronald Ferleger, eds. Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia (1941), Roosevelt's opinions on many issues; online version at
*Morison, Elting E., John Morton Blum, and Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., eds., The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 8 vols. (1951â1954). Very large, annotated edition of letters from TR.
*Roosevelt, Theodore (1999). Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography. online at Bartleby.com.
*Roosevelt, Theodore. The Works of Theodore Roosevelt (National edition, 20 vol. 1926); 18,000 pages containing most of TR's speeches, books and essays, but not his letters; a CD-ROM edition is available; some of TR's books are available online through Project Bartleby
* Theodore Roosevelt books and speeches on Project Gutenberg
*Blum, John Morton The Republican Roosevelt. (1954). Series of essays that examine how TR did politics
*Brands, H.W. Theodore Roosevelt (2001), full biography
* Chace, James. 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft, and Debs - The Election That Changed the Country. (2004). 323 pp.
*Cooper, John Milton The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. (1983) a dual scholarly biography
*Dalton, Kathleen. Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life. (2002), full scholarly biography
* Fehn, Bruce. "Theodore Roosevelt and American Masculinity." Magazine of History (2005) 19(2): 52â59. Issn: 0882-228x Fulltext online at Ebsco. Provides a lesson plan on TR as the historical figure who most exemplifies the quality of masculinity.
*Gluck, Sherwin. "T.R.'s Summer White House, Oyster Bay." (1999) Chronicles the events of TR's presidency during the summers of his two terms.
*Gould, Lewis L. The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. (1991), standard history of his domestic and foreign policy as president
*Harbaugh, William Henry. The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt. (1963), full scholarly biography
*Keller, Morton, ed., Theodore Roosevelt: A Profile (1967) excerpts from TR and from historians.
* Kohn, Edward. "Crossing the Rubicon: Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and the 1884 Republican National Convention." Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2006 5(1): 18â45. Issn: 1537-7814 Fulltext: in History Cooperative
*Millard, Candice. River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey. (2005)
*McCullough, David. Mornings on Horseback, The Story of an Extraordinary Family. a Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt. (2001) popular biography to 1884
*Morris, Edmund The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, to 1901 (1979); vol 2: Theodore Rex 1901â1909. (2001); Pulitzer prize for Volume 1. Biography.
* Mowry, George. The Era of Theodore Roosevelt and the Birth of Modern America, 1900â1912. (1954) general survey of era; online
*Mowry, George E. Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement. (2001) focus on 1912
* O'Toole, Patricia. When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt after the White House. (2005). 494 pp.
*Powell, Jim. Bully Boy: The Truth About Theodore Roosevelt's Legacy (Crown Forum, 2006). Denounces TR policies from conservative/libertarian perspective
*Pringle, Henry F. Theodore Roosevelt (1932; 2nd ed. 1956), full scholarly biography
*Putnam, Carleton Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography, Volume I: The Formative Years (1958), only volume published, to age 28.
*Renehan, Edward J. The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War. (Oxford University Press, 1998), examines TR and his family during the World War I period
*Strock, James M. Theodore Roosevelt on Leadership. Random House, 2003.
* Watts, Sarah. Rough Rider in the White House: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of Desire. 2003. 289 pp.
*Beale Howard K. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power. (1956). standard history of his foreign policy
* Holmes, James R. Theodore Roosevelt and World Order: Police Power in International Relations. 2006. 328 pp.
* Marks III, Frederick W. Velvet on Iron: The Diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt (1979)
* David McCullough. The Path between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870â1914 (1977).
* Ricard, Serge. "The Roosevelt Corollary." Presidential Studies Quarterly 2006 36(1): 17â26. Issn: 0360-4918 Fulltext: in Swetswise and Ingenta
* Tilchin, William N. and Neu, Charles E., ed. Artists of Power: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Their Enduring Impact on U.S. Foreign Policy. Praeger, 2006. 196 pp.
* Tilchin, William N. Theodore Roosevelt and the British Empire: A Study in Presidential Statecraft (1997)
* Theodore Roosevelt Association - Founded in 1920 by Roosevelt's friends and admirers to preserve his legacy. Extensive online resources and bibliography
* Extensive essay on Theodore Roosevelt and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* NY Times Headline, January 6, 1919, Theodore Roosevelt Dies Suddenly at Oyster Bay Home; Nation Shocked, Pays Tribute to Former President; Our Flag on All Seas and in All Lands at Half Mast
* "The Early Years: The Challenge of Public Order - 1845 to 1870", by William Andrews, New York City Police Department History Site
* "Leadership of the City of New York Police Department 1845â1901", - The New York City Police Department Museum
* PBS "American Experience" Theodore Roosevelt
* My Brother Theodore Roosevelt, 1921 By Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, a bestseller with a woman's and sister's point of view on TR. Full text and Full text Search, Free to Read and Search.
* Almanac of Theodore Roosevelt
* Downloadable audio recordings of Roosevelt in MP3 format
* Audio clips of Roosevelt's speeches
* Roosevelt podcasts Audio Recording of Roosevelt's Progressive Party Acceptance Speech, "Progressive Covenant with the People" with text included.
* Quotes
* Theodore Roosevelt Works - Bartleby's Online Books
* Presidential Biography by Stanley L. Klos
*
* Index of T. Roosevelt Etexts
* Detailed biography of Theodore Roosevelt from the 1911 version of Encyclopedia Britannica
* Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Address
* State of the Union addresses for 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, and 1908
* Nobel Peace Prize 1906: Theodore Roosevelt
* Theodore Roosevelt Papers at the Library of Congress
* Theodore Roosevelt: His Life & Times on Film (LOC)
* Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
* Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site
* Sagamore Hill National Historic Site
* NobelPrize.org's entry on Theodore Roosevelt
* Congressional Medal of Honor's entry on Theodore Roosevelt; including citation and pictures
* Medal of Honor Recipients on Film
* White House biography
* Vice Presidents Dot Com
* Family and Descendants of Theodore Roosevelt
* Ron Schuler's Parlour Tricks: Teddy
* Theodore Roosevelt Links
* Theodore Roosevelt Quotes, Pictures and Biography at TeddyRoosevelt.com
* Theodore Roosevelt cylinder recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.
* On Theodore Roosevelt's progressive vision from the Roosevelt Institution, a student think tank inspired in part by Theodore Roosevelt.
* Boone and Crockett Club, founded by Theodore Roosevelt
* How to pronounce Theodore Roosevelt
* Yesterday's News blog 1901 newspaper account of Roosevelt's "Big Stick" speech at the Minnesota State Fair
* Archive of Theodore Roosevelt Pictures
* still of Theodore Roosevelt going on first aeroplane flight
* different view of Theodore Roosevelt & Arch Hoxsey in Wright aeroplane St Louis October 1910
*
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
September 14
1901
March 4
1909
Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
William Howard Taft
Vice President of the United States
March 4
1901
September 14
1901
William McKinley
Garret Hobart
Charles W. Fairbanks
List of Governors of New York
January 1
1899
December 31
1900
Timothy L. Woodruff
Frank S. Black
Benjamin Barker Odell, Jr.
New York City
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
Edith Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Bulloch Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Polymath
author
historian
conservationist
Civil servant
History of United States Republican Party
Dutch Reformed
October 27
1858
January 6
1919
President of the United States
History of the United States Republican Party
Progressivism
List of Governors of New York
United States Navy
Rough Riders
Rough Riders
Spanish-American War
Amazon Basin
William McKinley
John F. Kennedy
Progressive Era
trust-busting
trust (law)
capitalism
Square Deal
conservation
labor union
William Howard Taft
U.S. presidential election, 1912
Progressive Party (United States, 1912)
Woodrow Wilson
conservative
Panama Canal
Nobel Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
Russo-Japanese War
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
Mount Rushmore
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
Gramercy, New York
New York City
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
Martha Bulloch
Bamie Roosevelt
Elliott Roosevelt I
Eleanor Roosevelt
Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
newspaper
Joseph Alsop
Stewart Alsop
American Revolution
History of the United States Democratic Party
History of the United States Republican Party
philanthropy
Abraham Lincoln
American Civil War
slavery
Savannah, Georgia
Confederate
James Dunwoody Bulloch
U.S. Navy
Irvine Bulloch
CSS Alabama
asthma
zoology
Pinniped
taxidermy
March 6
2006
boxing
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
March 9
2006
biology
French language
German language
mathematics
Latin
Greek language
Harvard College
magna cum laude
science
philosophy
rhetoric
ornithology
eidetic memory
Alpha Delta Phi
Delta Kappa Epsilon
C.S. Hanks
Phi Beta Kappa
Columbia Law School
New York Assembly
History of the United States Republican Party
Mugwump
James G. Blaine
Grover Cleveland
History of the United States Democratic Party
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
July 29
1861
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
February 14
1884
Manhattan, New York
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Bright's disease
Typhoid fever
Dakota Territory
Badlands
Tiffany and Co.
Medora, North Dakota
Little Missouri River (North Dakota)
Dickinson
Deadwood, South Dakota
South Dakota
Sheriff
Seth Bullock
winter of 1886-1887
Sagamore Hill
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Edith Roosevelt
Mont Blanc
British Royal Society
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt III
man-of-war
broadside
Thomas Hart Benton (senator)
Gouverneur Morris
historiography
frontier thesis
Frederick Jackson Turner
American Historical Association
Nordicism
social Darwinism
racialism
Booker T. Washington
New York
Charleston
Postmaster
Indianola, Mississippi
U.S. presidential election, 1888
Benjamin Harrison
United States Civil Service Commission
spoils system
U.S. presidential election, 1892
Grover Cleveland
Bourbon Democrat
New York City Police Commissioner
August 28
2006
August 28
2006
Henry Cabot Lodge
William McKinley
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Secretary of the Navy
John D. Long
Spanish-American War
Rough Riders
Leonard Wood
Rough Riders
cowboy
Ivy League
Lieutenant Colonel
Brigadier General
Rough Riders
Rough Riders
Kettle Hill
Battle of San Juan Hill
Medal of Honor
as of 2007
machine politics
Thomas C. Platt
United States presidential election, 1900
Mark Hanna
William Jennings Bryan
Minnesota State Fair
Big stick Diplomacy
Pan-American Exposition
Buffalo, New York
William McKinley
Leon Czolgosz
September 6
1901
Mount Marcy
Ansley Wilcox
Grover Cleveland
February 2
2007
Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site
Buffalo, New York
New York
Bible
Mark Hanna
United Mine Workers of America
trust (19th century)
Trust Buster
Hepburn Act
Interstate Commerce Commission
Upton Sinclair
The Jungle
Pure Food and Drug Act
Meat Inspection Act
Millard Fillmore
Chester Arthur
Mark Hanna
Grover Cleveland
Alton B. Parker
Electoral College
Solid South
Eugene Debs
Gifford Pinchot
passenger pigeon
March 14
1903
Florida
conservation
Gifford Pinchot
United States Forest Service
national park
nature preserve
national forest
national wildlife refuge
Grand Canyon
Theodore Roosevelt National Park
Badlands
John Muir
Conference of Governors
Outdoor Life
Edward Renehan
Tweed Roosevelt
YouTube
April 23
2006
archaeology
Antiquities Act
U.S. National Monument
James F. Lacey
Edgar Lee Hewett
Devils Tower National Monument
Wyoming
geology
Christmas tree
White House
virgin forests
Cuba
Philippines
Puerto Rico
Panama Canal Zone
Walter Reed
William C. Gorgas
yellow fever
Great White Fleet
Roosevelt Corollary
Monroe Doctrine
Latin American
Russo-Japanese War
Nobel Peace Prize
France
Germany
Morocco
world war
March 6
2006
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty
Panama Canal
San Francisco, California
California
New York City
Colombia
Nicaragua
Panama
November 3
1903
Nathan Johnson Forest
US Navy
battleship
circumnavigation
December 16
1907
February 22
1909
Great White Fleet
Russians
Russo-Japanese War
U.S. Atlantic Fleet
grand strategy
Victor David Brenner
New York City
Lower East Side
American Civil War
Mathew Brady
Lincoln cent
March 6
2006
March 6
2006
simplified spelling
Brander Matthews
December 16
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
West Wing
federal style
Louis Comfort Tiffany
race relations
Booker T. Washington
White House
Oscar Straus (politician)
Hartford
Connecticut
submarine
USS Holland (SS-1)
Panama Canal
November 9
William McKinley
September 6
1901
Secret Service
Nobel Prize
Long Island
Lincoln cent
Maxwell House
Teddy bear
John Singer Sargent
President of the United States
Vice President of the United States
Charles W. Fairbanks
United States Secretary of State
John Hay
Elihu Root
Robert Bacon
United States Secretary of the Treasury
Lyman J. Gage
L. M. Shaw
George B. Cortelyou
United States Secretary of War
Elihu Root
William Howard Taft
Luke Edward Wright
Attorney General of the United States
Philander C. Knox
William Henry Moody
Charles Joseph Bonaparte
Postmaster General of the United States
Charles Emory Smith
Henry C. Payne
Robert Wynne
George B. Cortelyou
George von Lengerke Meyer
United States Secretary of the Navy
John Davis Long
William Henry Moody
Paul Morton
Charles Joseph Bonaparte
Victor H. Metcalf
Truman Handy Newberry
United States Secretary of the Interior
Ethan A. Hitchcock (Interior)
James Rudolph Garfield
United States Secretary of Agriculture
James Wilson (U.S. politician)
United States Secretary of Commerce and Labor
George B. Cortelyou
Victor H. Metcalf
Oscar Straus (politician)
Supreme Court of the United States
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
William R. Day
William Henry Moody
Oklahoma
safari
East Africa
central Africa
Mombasa
British East Africa
Kenya
Belgian Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Nile
Khartoum
Sudan
Andrew Carnegie
Smithsonian Institution
American Museum of Natural History
Frederick Selous
insect
Mole (animal)
hippopotamus
elephant
White Rhinoceros
Washington, D.C.
taxidermy
museum
National Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History
science
flora
fauna
William Howard Taft
U.S. presidential election, 1908
William Jennings Bryan
Payne-Aldrich tariff
Nelson Aldrich
William Loeb
Robert M. La Follette, Sr.
Wisconsin
Progressive Party (United States, 1924)
Gifford Pinchot
Richard Ballinger
Republican Convention
Chicago
Auditorium Building, Chicago
Pinchot
Albert Beveridge
Progressive Party 1912 (United States)
Bull Moose Party
Armageddon
statesmanship
Woodrow Wilson
monopoly
Trust (19th century)
U.S. Steel
Standard Oil
Howard Taft
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Wisconsin
October 14
1912
John Schrank
assassination
chest
steel
eyeglass
pleura
Pennsylvania
Eastern United States
Midwest
Michigan
Minnesota
South Dakota
Western United States
California
Washington
Martin Van Buren
Millard Fillmore
John Augustine Zahm
Cândido Rondon
Kermit Roosevelt
Brazil
Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition
Brazil
Cândido Rondon
John Augustine Zahm
American Museum of Natural History
River of Doubt
Amazon River
Rio Roosevelt
Cândido Rondon
American Museum of Natural History
Portuguese language
December 9
1913
February 27
1914
Rio Roosevelt
malaria
Rio Roosevelt
Oyster Bay
World War I
Allies of World War I
Germany
Charles Evans Hughes
hyphenated American
Quentin Roosevelt
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Scouting
Boy Scouts of America
March 6
2006
January 6
1919
embolism
Archibald Roosevelt
Thomas R. Marshall
Death (personification)
Quentin Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Archibald Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Kermit Roosevelt
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Madison Square Presbyterian Church
Episcopal Church in the United States of America
Grace Reformed Church
March 7
2006
separation of church and state
In God We Trust
March 7
2006
Freemason
March 12
2006
The Strenuous Life
jujutsu
skinny-dipping
Potomac River
March 7
2006
Sagamore Hill
singlestick
Harper's Weekly
Leonard Wood
Thomas Jefferson
Mt. Rushmore
Medal of Honor
Cuba
National Archives and Records Administration
January 16
2001
Bill Clinton
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Battle of Normandy
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
Mount Rushmore
United States Navy
USS Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600)
USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71)
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
Sagamore Hill
Henry Adams
March 7
2006
March 7
2006
Joseph Biden
Second Lebanon War
Israel
Ehud Olmert
Nicaragua
Rubén DarÃo
Robin Williams
Night at the Museum
John Milius
The Wind and the Lion
Brian Keith
Rough Riders (film)
Tom Berenger
teddy bears
American black bear
March 7
2006
June 26
2006
Time (magazine)
Washington Nationals
Presidents Race
Michigan State University
Megabyte
ogg
Theora
Theora
Megabyte
ogg
Theora
Theora
Arch Hoxsey
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
Martha Bulloch
Eleanor Roosevelt
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
Edith Carow Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Elliott Roosevelt I
Bamie Roosevelt
Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia
Reynier Tyson
Panama Canal
Great White Fleet
Russo-Japanese War
List of U.S. political appointments that crossed party lines
Progressivism
Library of America
Library of America
Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia
Edmund Morris (writer)
Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project
University of California, Santa Barbara
think tank
Arch Hoxsey
Frank S. Black
List of Governors of New York
Benjamin B. Odell, Jr.
Garret Hobart
Vice President of the United States
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
President of the United States
William Howard Taft
Garret Hobart
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1900
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1904
William Howard Taft
Progressive Party (United States, 1912)
U.S. presidential election, 1912
Grover Cleveland
Oldest living United States president
William Howard Taft
President of the United States
October 27
1858
New York, New York
January 6
1919
Oyster Bay, New York
|
Theodore_Roosevelt | Who helped to fund Roosevelt's African safari? | Andrew Carnegie | data/set3/a7 | Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. ( ; October 27 1858 January 6 1919), also known as T.R., and to the public (but never to friends and intimates) as Teddy, was the twenty-sixth President of the United States, and a leader of the Republican Party and of the Progressive Movement. He became the youngest President in United States history at the age of 42. He served in many roles including Governor of New York, historian, naturalist, explorer, author, and soldier. Roosevelt is most famous for his personality: his energy, his vast range of interests and achievements, his model of masculinity, and his "cowboy" persona. His last name, often mispronounced, is, per Roosevelt, "pronounced as if it were spelled 'Rosavelt', in three syllables, the first syllable as if it was 'Rose.'"
As Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Navy, he prepared for and advocated war with Spain in 1898. He organized and helped command the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, the Rough Riders, during the Spanish-American War. Returning to New York as a war hero, he was elected Republican governor in 1899. He was a professional historian, a lawyer, a naturalist and explorer of the Amazon Basin; his 35 books include works on outdoor life, natural history, the American frontier, political history, naval history, and his autobiography.
In 1901, as Vice President, Roosevelt succeeded President William McKinley after McKinley's assassination. He is the youngest person ever to become President (John F. Kennedy is the youngest elected President). Roosevelt was a Progressive reformer who sought to move the dominant Republican Party into the Progressive camp. He distrusted wealthy businessmen and dissolved forty monopolistic corporations as a "trust buster". He was clear, however, to show he did not disagree with trusts and capitalism in principle but was only against corrupt, illegal practices. His "Square Deal" promised a fair shake for both the average citizen (through regulation of railroad rates and pure food and drugs) and the businessmen. As an outdoorsman, he promoted the conservation movement, emphasizing efficient use of natural resources. After 1906 he attacked big business and suggested the courts were biased against labor unions. In 1910, he broke with his friend and anointed successor William Howard Taft, but lost the Republican nomination to Taft and ran in the 1912 election on his own one-time Bull Moose ticket. Roosevelt beat Taft in the popular vote and pulled so many Progressives out of the Republican Party that Democrat Woodrow Wilson won in 1912, and the conservative faction took control of the Republican Party for the next two decades.
Roosevelt negotiated for the U.S. to take control of the Panama Canal and its construction in 1904; he felt the Canal's completion was his most important and historically significant international achievement. He was the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize, winning its Peace Prize in 1906, for negotiating the peace in the Russo-Japanese War.
Historian Thomas Bailey, who disagreed with Roosevelt's policies, nevertheless concluded, "Roosevelt was a great personality, a great activist, a great preacher of the moralities, a great controversialist, a great showman. He dominated his era as he dominated conversations....the masses loved him; he proved to be a great popular idol and a great vote getter." His image stands alongside Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln on Mount Rushmore. Surveys of scholars have consistently ranked him from #3 to #7 on the list of greatest American presidents.
Theodore Roosevelt at age 11
Theodore Roosevelt was born in a four-story brownstone at 28 East 20th Street, in the modern-day Gramercy section of New York City, the second of four children of Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. (1831â1877) and Mittie Bulloch (1834â1884). He had an elder sister Anna, nicknamed "Bamie" as a child and "Bye" as an adult for being always on the go; and two younger siblingsâhis brother Elliott (the father of Eleanor Roosevelt) and his sister Corinne, (grandmother of newspaper columnists, Joseph and Stewart Alsop).
The Roosevelts had been in New York since the mid 18th century and had grown with the emerging New York commerce class after the American Revolution. Unlike many of the earlier "log cabin Presidents," Roosevelt was born into a wealthy family. By the 19th century, the family had grown in wealth, power and influence from the profits of several businesses including hardware and plate-glass importing. The family was strongly Democratic in its political affiliation until the mid-1850s, then joined the new Republican Party. Theodore's father, known in the family as "Thee", was a New York City philanthropist, merchant, and partner in the family glass-importing firm Roosevelt and Son. He was a prominent supporter of Abraham Lincoln and the Union effort during the American Civil War. His mother Mittie Bulloch was a Southern belle from a slave-owning family in Savannah, Georgia and had quiet Confederate sympathies. Mittie's brother, Theodore's uncle, James Dunwoody Bulloch, was a U.S. Navy officer who became a Confederate admiral and naval procurement agent in Britain. Another uncle Irvine Bulloch was a midshipman on the Confederate raider, CSS Alabama; both remained in England after the war. . Pringle (1931) p. 11 From his grandparents' home, a young Roosevelt witnessed Abraham Lincoln's funeral procession in New York.
Sickly and asthmatic as a youngster, Roosevelt had to sleep propped up in bed or slouching in a chair during much of his early childhood, and had frequent ailments. Despite his illnesses, he was a hyperactive and often mischievous young man. His lifelong interest in zoology was formed at age seven upon seeing a dead seal at a local market. After obtaining the seal's head, the young Roosevelt and two of his cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Learning the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with many animals that he killed or caught, studied, and prepared for display. At age nine, he codified his observation of insects with a paper titled "The Natural History of Insects". "TR's LegacyâThe Environment". Retrieved March 6, 2006.
To combat his poor physical condition, his father compelled the young Roosevelt to take up exercise. To deal with bullies, Roosevelt started boxing lessons. Thayer, William Roscoe (1919). Theodore Roosevelt: An Intimate Biography, Chapter I, p. 20. Bartleby.com. Two trips abroad had a permanent impact: family tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and of the Middle East 1872 to 1873.
Theodore Sr. had a tremendous influence on his son. Of him Roosevelt wrote, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Roosevelt, Theodore (1913). Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography, Chapter I, p. 13. Roosevelt's sister later wrote, "He told me frequently that he never took any serious step or made any vital decision for his country without thinking first what position his father would have taken." "The Film & More: Program Transcript Part One". Retrieved March 9 2006.
Young "Teedie" , as he was nicknamed as a child, (the nickname "Teddy" was from his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee, and he later harbored an intense dislike for it) was mostly home schooled by tutors and his parents. A leading biographer says: "The most obvious drawback to the home schooling Roosevelt keely received was uneven coverage of the various areas of human knowledge." He was solid in geography (thanks to his careful observations on all his travels) and very well read in history, strong in biology, French and German, but deficient in mathematics, Latin and Greek. Brands T. R. p. 49â50 He matriculated at Harvard College in 1876, graduating magna cum laude. His father's death in 1878 was a tremendous blow, but Roosevelt redoubled his activities. He did well in science, philosophy and rhetoric courses but fared poorly in Latin and Greek. He studied biology with great interest and indeed was already an accomplished naturalist and published ornithologist. He had a photographic memory and developed a life-long habit of devouring books, memorizing every detail. Brands p. 62 He was an eloquent conversationalist who, throughout his life, sought out the company of the smartest people. He could multitask in extraordinary fashion, dictating letters to one secretary and memoranda to another, while browsing through a new book.
While at Harvard, Roosevelt was active in rowing, boxing and the Alpha Delta Phi and Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternities. He also edited a student magazine. He was runner-up in the Harvard boxing championship, losing to C.S. Hanks. The sportsmanship Roosevelt showed in that fight was long remembered. Upon graduating from Harvard, Roosevelt underwent a physical examination and his doctor advised him that due to serious heart problems, he should find a desk job and avoid strenuous activity. Roosevelt chose to embrace strenuous life instead. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris.
He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude (22nd of 177) from Harvard in 1880, and entered Columbia Law School. When offered a chance to run for New York Assemblyman in 1881, he dropped out of law school to pursue his new goal of entering public life. Brands, pp 123â29
Roosevelt as NY State Assemblyman 1883, photo
Roosevelt was a Republican activist during his years in the Assembly, writing more bills than any other New York state legislator. Already a major player in state politics, he attended the Republican National Convention in 1884 and fought alongside the Mugwump reformers; they lost to the Stalwart faction that nominated James G. Blaine. Refusing to join other Mugwumps in supporting Democrat Grover Cleveland, the Democratic nominee, he stayed loyal.
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt (July 29, 1861 in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts â February 14 1884 in Manhattan, New York) was the first wife of Theodore Roosevelt and mother of their only child together, Alice Lee Roosevelt. Alice Roosevelt died of an undiagnosed case of Bright's Disease two days after Alice Lee was born. Theodore Roosevelt's mother Mittie died of Typhoid fever in the same house on the same day, Feb. 14, 1884. After the simultaneous deaths of his mother and wife, Roosevelt left his daughter in the care of his sister in New York and moved out to Dakota Territory.
Theodore Roosevelt as Badlands hunter in 1885. New York studio photo. Note the engraved knife and rifle courtesy of Tiffany and Co.
Roosevelt built a second ranch he named Elk Horn thirty five miles (56 km) north of the boomtown, Medora, North Dakota. On the banks of the "Little Missouri," Roosevelt learned to ride, rope, and hunt.
Roosevelt rebuilt his life and began writing about frontier life for Eastern magazines. As a deputy sheriff, Roosevelt hunted down three outlaws who stole his river boat and were escaping north with it up the Little Missouri River. Capturing them, he decided against hanging them and sending his foreman back by boat, he took the thieves back overland for trial in Dickinson, guarding them forty hours without sleep and reading Tolstoy to keep himself awake. When he ran out of his own books he read a dime store western one of the thieves was carrying.
While working on a tough project aimed at hunting down a group of relentless horse thieves, Roosevelt came across the famous Deadwood, South Dakota Sheriff Seth Bullock. The two would remain friends for life. (Morris, Rise of, 241â245, 247â250)
After the uniquely severe U.S. winter of 1886-1887 wiped out his herd of cattle and his $60,000 investment (together with those of his competitors), he returned to the East, where in 1885, he had built Sagamore Hill in Oyster Bay, New York. It would be his home and estate until his death. Roosevelt ran as the Republican candidate for mayor of New York City in 1886 as "The Cowboy of the Dakotas." He came in third.
Following the election, he went to London in 1886 and married his childhood sweetheart, Edith Kermit Carow. Thayer, Chapter V, pp. 4, 6. They honeymooned in Europe, and Roosevelt led a party to the summit of Mont Blanc, a feat which resulted in his induction into the British Royal Society. Encyclopedia Britannica, 1910 Edition, Topic: Theodore Roosevelt They had five children: Theodore Jr., Kermit, Ethel Carow, Archibald Bulloch "Archie", and Quentin. Although Roosevelt's father was also named Theodore Roosevelt, he died while the future president was still childless and unmarried, so the future President Roosevelt took the suffix of Sr. and subsequently named his son Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. Because Roosevelt was still alive when his grandson and namesake was born, his grandson was named Theodore Roosevelt III, and the president's son retained the Jr. after his father's death.
Roosevelt's book The Naval War of 1812 (1882) was standard history for two generations. Roosevelt undertook extensive and original research going computing British and American man-of-war broadside throw weights. See The Naval War of 1812, via Project Gutenberg.
By comparison, however, his hastily-written biographies of Thomas Hart Benton (1887) and Gouverneur Morris (1888) are considered superficial. Pringle (1931) p 116 His major achievement was a four-volume history of the frontier, The Winning of the West (1889â1896), which had a notable impact on historiography as it presented a highly original version of the frontier thesis elaborated upon in 1893 by his friend Frederick Jackson Turner. Roosevelt argued that the harsh frontier conditions had created a new "race": the American people that replaced the "scattered savage tribes, whose life was but a few degrees less meaningless, squalid, and ferocious than that of the wild beasts with whom they held joint ownership". He believed that "the conquest and settlement by the whites of the Indian lands was necessary to the greatness of the race and to the well-being of civilized mankind". He was using an evolutionary model in which new environmental conditions allow a new species to form. His many articles in upscale magazines provided a much-needed income, as well as cementing a reputation as a major national intellectual. He was later chosen president of the
American Historical Association.
In the The Winning of the West (1889â1896), Roosevelt's frontier thesis stressed the racial struggle between "civilization" and "savagery." He supported Nordicism, the belief in the superiority of the "Nordic" race, along with social Darwinism and racialism. Excerpts:
# "The settler and pioneer have at bottom had justice on their side; this great continent could not have been kept as nothing but a game preserve for squalid savages".
# "The most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with savages".
# "American and Indian, Boer and Zulu, Cossack and Tartar, New Zealander and Maori, â in each case the victor, horrible though many of his deeds are, has laid deep the foundations for the future greatness of a mighty people".
# "..it is of incalculable importance that America, Australia, and Siberia should pass out of the hands of their red, black, and yellow aboriginal owners, and become the heritage of the dominant world races".
# "The world would have halted had it not been for the Teutonic conquests in alien lands; but the victories of Moslem over Christian have always proved a curse in the end. Nothing but sheer evil has come from the victories of Turk and Tartar".
What did not, however, conform to the views of Roosevelt's day was that race should never be the primary factor in someone of ability performing any job. Some notable events in Theodore Roosevelt's life included:
*Developing a close relationship with the Hidatsa Indians that is maintained today in the oral tradition of the tribe.
*Inviting reformer Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House, an action which caused outrage among many newpapers in the American South, which objected to "mixing of the races on social occassions."
*Openly supporting a bill in the New York State Assembly which allowed desegregation of schools in the state, personally noting that his children had been educated with other races and there was nothing wrong with it.
*Appointed the Collector of the Port of Charleston post to an African-American, Dr. William D. Crum, and when he was urged to withdraw the appointment, wrote the following:
:I do not intend to appoint any unfit man to office. So far as I legitimately can, I shall always endeavor to pay regard to the wishes and feelings of the people of each locality; but I cannot consent to take the position that the doorway of hope - the door of opportunity - is to be shut upon any man, no matter how worthy, purely upon the grounds of race or color. Such an attitude would, according to my contentions, be fundamentally wrong.
*Defended the Postmaster of Indianola, Mississippi, Minnie D. Cox. She was an African-American, and on that basis alone she was threatened with mob violence and was forced to resign. Roosevelt took action by closing the post office there, ignored her resignation, and still paid her what she was due as if nothing happened.
New York City Police Commissioner 1896
In the 1888 presidential election, Roosevelt campaigned in the Midwest for Benjamin Harrison. President Harrison appointed Roosevelt to the United States Civil Service Commission, where he served until 1895. Thayer, ch. VI, pp. 1â2. In his term, he vigorously fought the spoilsmen and demanded the enforcement of civil service laws. In spite of Roosevelt's support for Harrison's reelection bid in the presidential election of 1892, the eventual winner, Grover Cleveland (a Bourbon Democrat), re appointed him to the same post.
Roosevelt became president of the board of New York City Police Commissioners in 1895. During the two years he held this post, Roosevelt radically reformed the police department. The police force was reputed as one of the most corrupt in America. NYPD's history division records Roosevelt was, "an iron-willed leader of unimpeachable honesty, (who) brought a reforming zeal to the New York City Police Commission in 1895." Andrews, William, "The Early Years: The Challenge of Public Order - 1845 to 1870", - New York City Police Department History Site. Retrieved August 28 2006. Roosevelt and his fellow commissioners established new disciplinary rules, created a bicycle squad to police New York's traffic problems and standardized the use of pistols by officers. Editors, "Leadership of the City of New York Police Department 1845â1901", - The New York City Police Department Museum. Retrieved August 28 2006. Roosevelt implemented regular inspections of firearms, annual physical exams, appointed 1,600 new recruits based on their physical and mental qualifications and not on political affiliation, opened the department to ethnic minorities and women, established meritorious service medals, and shut down corrupt police hostelries. During his tenure a Municipal Lodging House was established by the Board of Charities and Roosevelt required officers to register with the Board. He also had telephones installed in station houses. Always an energetic man, he made a habit of walking officers' beats late at night and early in the morning to make sure they were on duty. Brands ch 11 He became caught up in public disagreements with commissioner Parker, who sought to negate or delay the promotion of many officers put forward by Roosevelt.
Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt (front center) at the Naval War College, c. 1897
Roosevelt had always been fascinated by naval history. Urged by Roosevelt's close friend, Congressman Henry Cabot Lodge, President William McKinley appointed a delighted Roosevelt to the post of Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897. (Because of the inactivity of Secretary of the Navy John D. Long at the time, this basically gave Roosevelt control over the department.) Roosevelt was instrumental in preparing the Navy for the Spanish-American War Brands ch 12 and was an enthusiastic proponent of testing the U.S. military in battle, at one point stating "I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one".
Roosevelt left his civilian Navy post to form the famous "Rough Riders" Regiment
Upon the declaration of war in 1898 that would be known as the Spanish-American War, Roosevelt resigned from the Navy Department and, with the aid of U.S. Army Colonel Leonard Wood, organized the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment from cowboys from the Western territories to Ivy League friends from New York. The newspapers called them the "Rough Riders." Originally Roosevelt held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and served under Colonel Wood, but after Wood was promoted to Brigadier General of Volunteer Forces, Roosevelt was promoted to Colonel and given command of the Regiment. . Even after his return to civilian life, Roosevelt preferred to be known as "Colonel Roosevelt" or "The Colonel." As a moniker, "Teddy" remained much more popular with the general public; however, political friends and others who worked closely with Roosevelt customarily addressed him by his rank.
Colonel Roosevelt and his "Rough Riders" after capturing San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War
Under his leadership, the Rough Riders became famous for dual charges up Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill in July 1898 (the battle was named after the latter hill). Out of all the Rough Riders, Roosevelt was the only one who had a horse, and was forced to walk up Kettle Hill on foot after his horse, Little Texas, became tired. For his actions, Roosevelt was nominated for the Medal of Honor which was subsequently disapproved. It has been widely speculated this disapproval was because of Roosevelt's outspoken comments of the handling of the War. In September 1997, Congressman Rick Lazio representing the 2nd District of New York sent two award recommendations to the U.S. Army Military Awards Branch. These recommendations addressed to Brigadier General Earl Simms, the Army's Adjutant General and one to Master Sergeant Gary Soots, Chief of Authorizations, would prove successful in garnering the much sought after award. Soots Letter Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 2001 for his actions. Brands ch 13 He was the first and, as of 2007, the only President of the United States to be awarded with America's highest military honor, and the only person in history to receive both his nation's highest honor for military valor and the world's foremost prize for peace. Chicago newspaper sees cowboy-TR campaigning for governor
On leaving the Army, Roosevelt re-entered New York state politics and was elected governor of New York in 1898 on the Republican ticket. He made such a concerted effort to root out corruption and "machine politics" Republican boss Thomas Collier Platt forced him on McKinley as a running mate in the 1900 election, against the wishes of McKinley's manager Senator Mark Hanna. Roosevelt was a powerful campaign asset for the Republican ticket, which defeated William Jennings Bryan in a landslide based on restoration of prosperity at home and a successful war and new prestige abroad. Bryan stumped for Free Silver again, but McKinley's promise of prosperity through the Gold Standard, high tariffs, and the restoration of business confidence enlarged his margin of victory. Bryan had strongly supported the war against Spain, but denounced the annexation of the Philippines as imperialism that would spoil America's innocence. Roosevelt countered with many speeches that argued it was best for the Filipinos to have stability, and the Americans to have a proud place in the world. Roosevelt's six months as Vice President (March to September, 1901) were uneventful. Brands ch 14â15 On September 2, 1901, at the Minnesota State Fair, Roosevelt first used in a public speech a saying that would later be universally associated with him: "Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far."
At the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York President McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz (Zol-gash), on September 6, 1901. Roosevelt had been giving a speech in Vermont when he heard of the shooting. He rushed to Buffalo but after being assured the President would recover, he went on a planned family camping and hiking trip to Mount Marcy. In the mountains a runner notified him McKinley was on his death bed. Roosevelt pondered with his wife, Edith, how best to respond, not wanting to show up in Buffalo and wait on McKinley's death. Roosevelt was rushed by a series of stagecoaches to North Creek train station. At the station, Roosevelt was handed a telegram that said President McKinley died at 2:30 AM that morning. Roosevelt continued by train from North Creek to Buffalo. He arrived in Buffalo later that day, accepting an invitation to stay at the home of Ansley Wilcox, a prominent lawyer and friend since the early 1880s when they had both worked closely with New York State Governor Grover Cleveland on civil service reform. Wilcox recalled, "the family and most of the household were in the country, but he Roosevelt was offered a quiet place to sleep and eat, and accepted it." Roosevelt was a successful president. He would achieve a lot of goals in life. Some of these goals were that he won the Spanish-American War, and the Nobel Peace Prize, and he also was the youngest president in United States history. "It is a dreadful thing to come into the Presidency this way." Retrieved February 2 2007.
Nashville Tennessee News sketch of Theodore Roosevelt inauguration minus the customary Bible. Inauguration photos were not allowed after a rival photographer unceremoniously knocked down another's camera. Roosevelt took the oath of office in the Ansley Wilcox House at Buffalo, New York borrowing Wilcox's morning coat. Roosevelt did not swear on a Bible , in contrast to the usual tradition of US presidents Bibles and Scripture Passages Used by Presidents in Taking the Oath of Office. Retrieved September 23, 2007. . Expressing the fears of many old line Republicans, Mark Hanna lamented "that damned cowboy is president now." Roosevelt was the youngest person to assume the presidency, at 42, and he promised to continue McKinley's cabinet and his basic policies. Roosevelt did so, but after winning election in 1904, he moved to the political left, stretching his ties to the Republican Party's conservative leaders. Brands ch 16
A national emergency was averted in 1902 when Roosevelt found a compromise to the anthracite coal strike by the United Mine Workers of America that threatened the heating supplies of most urban homes. Roosevelt called the mine owners and the labor leaders to the White House and negotiated a compromise. Miners were on strike for 163 days before it ended; they were granted a 10% pay increase and a 9-hour day (from the previous 10 hours), but the union was not officially recognized and the price of coal went up. Brands ch 17
Theodore Roosevelt promised to continue McKinley's program, and at first he worked closely with McKinley's men. His 20,000-word address to the Congress in December 1901, asked Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits." They did not act but Roosevelt did, issuing 44 lawsuits against major corporations; he was called the "trust-buster."
Roosevelt firmly believed: "The Government must in increasing degree supervise and regulate the workings of the railways engaged in interstate commerce." Inaction was a danger, he argued: "Such increased supervision is the only alternative to an increase of the present evils on the one hand or a still more radical policy on the other." Annual Message December 1904
His biggest success was passage of the Hepburn Act of 1906, the provisions of which were to be regulated by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). The most important provision of the Act gave the ICC the power to replace existing rates with "just-and-reasonable" maximum rates, with the ICC to define what was just and reasonable. Anti-rebate provisions were toughened, free passes were outlawed, and the penalties for violation were increased. Finally, the ICC gained the power to prescribe a uniform system of accounting, require standardized reports, and inspect railroad accounts. The Act made ICC orders binding; that is, the railroads had to either obey or contest the ICC orders in federal court. To speed the process, appeals from the district courts would go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In response to public clamor (and due to the uproar cause by Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle), Roosevelt pushed Congress to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, as well as the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. These laws provided for labeling of foods and drugs, inspection of livestock and mandated sanitary conditions at meatpacking plants. Congress replaced Roosevelt's proposals with a version supported by the major meatpackers who worried about the overseas markets, and did not want small unsanitary plants undercutting their domestic market. Blum 1980 pp 43â44
Democrats attack Roosevelt as militarist and ineffective in this 1904 election cartoon
Theodore Roosevelt was the fifth Vice President to succeed to the office of President, but the first to win election in his own right. (Millard Fillmore ran and lost on a third-party ticket four years after leaving office and Chester Arthur was denied nomination by his party in 1884). After Senator Mark Hanna, McKinley's old campaign manager, died in February 1904, there was no one in the Republican Party to oppose Roosevelt and he easily won the nomination. When an effort to draft former president Grover Cleveland failed, the Democrats were without a candidate and finally settled on obscure New York judge Alton B. Parker. The outcome was never in doubt. Roosevelt crushed Parker 56%-38% in the popular vote and 336-140 in the Electoral College, sweeping the country outside the perennially Democratic Solid South. Socialist Eugene Debs got 3%. The night of the election, after his victory was clear, Roosevelt promised not to run again in 1908. He later regretted that promise, as it compelled him to leave the White House at the age of only fifty, at the height of his popularity.
Roosevelt worked closely with early conservationists such as Gifford Pinchot, pictured above, with whom he organized the first National Governors Conservation Conference at the White House in 1908
Roosevelt was the first American president to consider the long-term needs for efficient conservation of national resources, winning the support of fellow hunters and fishermen to bolster his political base. Roosevelt was the last trained observer to ever see a passenger pigeon, and on March 14, 1903, Roosevelt created the first National Bird Preserve, (the beginning of the Wildlife Refuge system) on Pelican Island, Florida. Roosevelt worked with the major figures of the conservation movement, especially his chief adviser on the matter Gifford Pinchot. Roosevelt urged Congress to establish the United States Forest Service (1905), to manage government forest lands, and he appointed Gifford Pinchot to head the service. Roosevelt set aside more land for national parks and nature preserves than all of his predecessors combined, 194 million acres (785,000 km²). In all, by 1909, the Roosevelt administration had created an unprecedented 42 million acres (170,000 km²) of national forests, 53 national wildlife refuges and 18 areas of "special interest", including the Grand Canyon. The Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the Badlands commemorates his conservationist philosophy. Roosevelt and Muir In 1903, Roosevelt toured the Yosemite Valley with John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, but Roosevelt believed in the more efficient use of natural resources by corporations like lumber companies unlike Muir. In 1907, with Congress about to block him, Roosevelt hurried to designate 16 million acres (65,000 km²) of new national forests. In May 1908, he sponsored the Conference of Governors held in the White House, with a focus on the most efficient planning, analysis and use of water, forests and other natural resources. Roosevelt explained, "There is an intimate relation between our streams and the development and conservation of all the other great permanent sources of wealth." During his presidency, Roosevelt promoted the nascent conservation movement in essays for Outdoor Life magazine. To Roosevelt, conservation meant more and better usage and less waste, and a long-term perspective. In 2006, a group of American high school students developed a 10 minute video on Roosevelt's conservation legacy with the help of Roosevelt scholar Edward Renehan and Roosevelt descendant, Tweed Roosevelt. See Commented out because it's a YouTube link used as a ref, it's original research, and really it's not a reference. But maybe someone else will think differently. -->
Roosevelt's conservationist leanings also impelled him to preserve national sites of scientific, particularly archaeological, interest. The 1906 passage of the Antiquities Act gave him a tool for creating national monuments by presidential proclamation, without requiring Congressional approval for each monument on an item-by-item basis. The language of the Antiquities Act specifically called for the preservation of "historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest," and was primarily construed by its creator, Congressman James F. Lacey (assisted by the prominent archaeologist Edgar Lee Hewett), as targeting the prehistoric ruins of the American Southwest. Roosevelt, however, applied a typically broad interpretation to the Act, and the first national monument he proclaimed, Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming, was preserved for reasons tied more to geology than archaeology.
Roosevelt's conservationism caused him to forbid having a Christmas tree in the White House. He was reportedly upset when he found a small tree his son had been hiding. After learning about the commercial farming of Christmas trees, where no virgin forests were cut down to supply the demand during the Christmas holiday, he relented and allowed his family to have a tree each season.
In Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and the Panama Canal Zone, Roosevelt used the Army's medical service, under Walter Reed and William C. Gorgas, to eliminate the yellow fever menace and install a new regime of public health. In the new possessions the Roosevelt administration used the army to build railways, telegraph and telephone lines, and upgrade roads and port facilities.
The Philippines saw the U.S. Army for the first time using a systematic doctrine of counter-insurgency. Despite the ad hoc nature of the force deployed by Roosevelt the Army was able to end the insurgency by 1902. Over the course of the war the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built over 3000 miles of roads and worked to build an entire education system, even bringing in thousands of American teachers to spearhead the effort.
Roosevelt builds the canal and shovels dirt on Colombia
Roosevelt dramatically increased the size of the navy, forming the Great White Fleet, which toured the world in 1907. This display was designed to impress the Japanese. Yet, the ships were almost forced to return because of the inadequacy of American ports in the Pacific. See Edward S Miller,War Plan Orange (Annapolis, 1991) Roosevelt also added the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which stated that the United States could intervene in Latin American affairs when corruption of governments made it necessary.
Roosevelt gained international praise for helping negotiate the end of the Russo-Japanese War, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Roosevelt later arbitrated a dispute between France and Germany over the division of Morocco. Some historians have argued these latter two actions helped in a small way to avert a world war. The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (2005). "Theodore Roosevelt (1901â1909)". Retrieved March 6 2006.
Roosevelt's most famous foreign policy initiative, following the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, was the construction of the Panama Canal, which upon its completion shortened the route of freighters between San Francisco, California and New York City by 8,000 miles (13,000 km).
Colombia first proposed the canal in their country as opposed to rival Nicaragua, and Colombia signed a treaty for an agreed-upon sum. At the time, Panama was a province of Colombia. According to the treaty, in 1902, the U.S. was to buy out the equipment and excavations from France, which had been attempting to build a canal since 1881. While the Colombian negotiating team had signed the treaty, ratification by the Colombian Senate became problematic. The Colombian Senate balked at the price and asked for ten million dollars over the original agreed upon price. When the U.S. refused to re-negotiate the price, the Colombian politicians proposed cutting the original French company that started the project out of the deal and giving that difference to Colombia.
The original deal stipulated the French company was to be reasonably compensated. Realizing the Colombian Senate was no longer bargaining in good faith, Roosevelt tired of these last-minute attempts by the Colombians to cheat the French out of their entire investment, and ultimately decided, with the encouragement of Panamanian business interests, to help Panama declare independence from Colombia in 1903.
A brief Panamanian revolution of only a few hours followed the declaration, as Colombian soldiers were bribed $50 each to lay down their arms. On November 3, 1903, the Republic of Panama was created, with its constitution written in advance by the United States. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. signed a protection treaty with Panama. And after the signing of the treaty, a man named Nathan Johnson Forest assisted Panama with the initial planning phases for the canal. The U.S. then paid ten million to secure rights to build on, and control, the Canal Zone. Construction began in 1904 and was completed in 1914.
It took a long time to build the Panama Canal because of the rampant spread of tropical diseases. Over 200 workers died of yellow fever and malaria, spread by mosquitoes. Roosevelt initiated work on clearing swamps and other areas in which the insects bred. As the health threat finally receded, this greatly facilitated the construction of the Canal.
Roosevelt, (on the 12" gun turret at right), addresses the crew of USS Connecticut (BB18), in Hampton Roads, Virginia, upon her return from the Fleet's cruise
As Roosevelt's administration drew to a close, the president dispatched a fleet consisting of four US Navy battleship squadrons and their escorts, on a world-wide voyage of circumnavigation from December 16, 1907, to February 22, 1909. With their hulls painted white (except for the beautiful gilded scrollwork) and red, white, and blue banners on their bows, these ships would come to be known as The Great White Fleet. Roosevelt wanted to demonstrate to his country and the world that the US Navy was capable of operating in a global theater, particularly in the Pacific. This was extraordinarily important at a time when tensions were slowly growing between the United States and Japan. The latter had recently shown its navy's competence in defeating the Russians in the Russo-Japanese War, and the US Navy fleet in the west was relatively small. As a mark of the mission's success, the Atlantic Fleet battleships only later came to be known as the "Great White Fleet."
When the real Great White Fleet sailed into Yokahama, Japan, the Japanese went to extraordinary lengths to show that their country desired peace with the US. Thousands of Japanese school children waved American flags, purchased by the government, as they greeted the Navy brass coming ashore. In February 1909, the fleet returned home to Hampton Roads, Virginia, and Roosevelt was there to witness the triumphant return. His appearance indicated that he saw the fleet's long voyage as a fitting finish for his administration. Roosevelt said to the officers of the Fleet, "Other nations may do what you have done, but they'll have to follow you." This parting act of grand strategy by Roosevelt greatly expanded the respect for, as well as the role of, the United States in the international arena. However, the visit of the Great White Fleet to Tokyo also encouraged Japanese militarists. They had always argued for an even more aggressive Japanese ship building and naval expansion program, and the recent show of force by the U.S. convinced enough of their countrymen that they were right. In a real sense, this set in motion the chain of events leading to the U.S. & Japan confronting each other 30 years later - during WWII.
A Lincoln cent
Roosevelt thought American coins and currency were common and uninspiring. Roosevelt had the opportunity to pose for a young Lithuanian-born sculptor, Victor David Brenner, who, since arriving nineteen years earlier in the United States had become one of the nationâs premier medalists. Roosevelt had learned of Brenner's talents in a settlement house on New York City's Lower East Side and was immediately impressed with a bas-relief that Brenner had made of Lincoln, based on the early Civil War era photographer, Mathew Brady's photograph. Roosevelt, who considered Lincoln the savior of the Union and the greatest Republican President and who also considered himself Lincolnâs political heir, ordered the new Lincoln penny to be based on Brenner's work and that it go just in time to commemorate Lincolnâs 100th birthday in 1909. The likeness of President Lincoln on the obverse of the coin is an adaptation of a plaque Brenner executed several years earlier and which had come to the attention of President Roosevelt in New York. /ref>
Roosevelt took Cabinet members and friends on long, fast-paced hikes, boxed in the state rooms of the White House, romped with his children, and read voraciously. Hanson, David C. (2005). "Theodore Roosevelt: Lion in the White House". Retrieved March 6 2006. In 1908, he was permanently blinded in his left eye during one of his boxing bouts, but this injury was kept from the public at the time. Smith, Ira R. T.; Morris, Joe Alex (1949). "Dear Mr. President": The Story of Fifty Years in the White House Mail Room, p. 52. Julian Messner. His many enthusiastic interests and limitless energy led one ambassador to wryly explain, "You must always remember that the President is about six." Kennedy, Robert C. (2005). "'I hear there are some kids in the White House this year'". Retrieved March 6 2006.
Roosevelt shoots holes in the dictionary as the ghosts of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dr Johnson moan.
During his presidency, Roosevelt tried but did not succeed to advance the cause of simplified spelling. He tried to force government to adopt the system, sending an order to the Public Printer to use the system in all public documents. The order was obeyed, and among the documents thus printed was the President's special message regarding the Panama Canal. The New York World translated the Thanksgiving Day proclamation:
The reform annoyed the public, forcing him to rescind the order. Roosevelt's friend, literary critic Brander Matthews, one of the chief advocates of the reform, remonstrated with him for abandoning the effort. Roosevelt replied on December 16: "I could not by fighting have kept the new spelling in, and it was evidently worse than useless to go into an undignified contest when I was beaten. Do you know that the one word as to which I thought the new spelling was wrong thru was more responsible than anything else for our discomfiture?" Next summer Roosevelt was watching a naval review when a launch marked "Pres Bot" chugged ostentatiously by. The President waved and laughed with delight. Pringle 465â7
Roosevelt's oldest daughter, Alice, was a controversial character during Roosevelt's stay in the White House. When friends asked if he could rein in his elder daughter, Roosevelt said, "I can be President of the United States, or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both." In turn, Alice said of him that he always wanted to be "the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral." (Some sources attribute this quote to one of Roosevelt's sons instead.) Thayer, Chapter XIII, p. 7.
Roosevelt's contribution to the White House was the construction of the original West Wing, which he had built to free up the second floor rooms in the residence that formerly housed the president's staff. He and Edith also had the entire house renovated and restored to the federal style, tearing out the Victorian furnishings and details (including Tiffany windows) that had been installed over the previous three decades.
1902 The Washington Post political cartoon that spawned the Teddy bear name.
#In the sphere of race relations, Booker T. Washington became the first black man to dine as a guest at the White House in 1901.
#Oscar S. Straus became the first Jewish person appointed as a Cabinet Secretary, under Roosevelt.
#In August, 1902, Roosevelt became the first U.S. president to take a public automobile ride. This occurred during a parade in Hartford, Connecticut
#In 1910 he became the first U.S. President to ride in an airplane.
#On August 25, 1905 he became the first U.S. President to ride in a military submarine when he boarded the USS Holland (SS-1) and ran submerged with her for 55 minutes.
#In 1906, he made the first trip, by a President, outside the United States, visiting Panama to inspect the construction progress of the Panama Canal on November 9.
#In 1902, in response to the assassination of President William McKinley on September 6 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became the first president to be under constant Secret Service protection.
# In 1906, Roosevelt became the first American to be awarded a Nobel Prize.
#In 2001, he became the first and only President up to date to receive a Medal of Honor, making him the only person to date to win the world's highest peace honor, as well as his nation's top military honor.
#He was the first and to date only president from Long Island, New York.
#He was the first President to officially refer to the White House as such, on his official stationery. This had been the common name (referring to the color of the building), but until then, the official name was "The Executive Mansion"
#He was the first President to wear a necktie for his official Presidential Portrait.
#He was the first President to approve a coin, the Lincoln cent, with a man's face on it, in 1909, just in time for the centennial of Lincoln's birth. Lincoln was Roosevelt's presidential hero.
#He was the first President to coin an internationally recognized trademark, although not deliberately. His offhand remark, "good to the last drop," about some coffee drunk at the Maxwell House hotel in Tennessee, see Maxwell House coffee.
#He is the only president to have a famous toy named after him (the Teddy bear, named after a bear he refused to shoot in a 1902 hunt in Mississipi).
John Singer Sargent, Theodore Roosevelt, 1903; click on painting for background story.
Roosevelt appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
*Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. 1902
*William Rufus Day 1903
*William Henry Moody 1906
*Oklahoma 1907
Roosevelt standing next to a dead elephant during a safari
In March 1909, shortly after the end of his second term, Roosevelt left New York for a safari in east and central Africa. Roosevelt's party landed in Mombasa, British East Africa (now Kenya), traveled to the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) before following the Nile up to Khartoum in modern Sudan. Financed by Andrew Carnegie and by his own proposed writings, Roosevelt hunted for specimens for the Smithsonian Institution and for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. His party, which included scientists from the Smithsonian and was led by Frederick Selous, the famous big game hunter and explorer, and they killed or trapped over 11,397 animals, from insects and moles to hippopotamuses and elephants. 512 of the animals were big game animals, including six rare white rhinos. 262 of these were consumed by the expedition. Tons of salted animals and their skins were shipped to Washington; the quantity was so large that it took years to mount them all, and the Smithsonian was able to share many duplicate animals with other museums.
Regarding the large number of animals taken, Roosevelt said, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned." O'Toole, Patricia (2005) When Trumpets Call, p. 67, Simon and Schuster, ISBN 0-684-86477-0 However, although the safari was ostensibly conducted in the name of science, there was another, quite large element to it as well. In addition to many native peoples and local leaders, interaction with renowned professional hunters and land owning families made the safari as much a political and social event, as it was a hunting excursion. Roosevelt wrote a detailed account of the adventure in the book "African Game Trails", where he describes the excitement of the chase, the people he met, and the flora and fauna he collected in the name of science.
Roosevelt certified William Howard Taft to be a genuine "progressive" in 1908, when Roosevelt pushed through the nomination of his Secretary of War for the Presidency. Taft easily defeated three-time candidate William Jennings Bryan. Taft had a different progressivism, one that stressed the rule of law and preferred that judges rather than administrators or politicians make the basic decisions about fairness. Taft usually proved a less adroit politician than Roosevelt and lacked the energy and personal magnetism, not to mention the publicity devices, the dedicated supporters, and the broad base of public support that made Roosevelt so formidable. When Roosevelt realized that lowering the tariff would risk severe tensions inside the Republican Party pitting producers (manufacturers and farmers) against merchants and consumers he stopped talking about the issue. Taft ignored the risks and tackled the tariff boldly, on the one hand encouraging reformers to fight for lower rates, and then cutting deals with conservative leaders that kept overall rates high. The resulting Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909 was too high for most reformers, but instead of blaming this on Senator Nelson Aldrich and big business, Taft took credit, calling it the best tariff ever. Again he had managed to alienate all sides. While the crisis was building inside the Party, Roosevelt was touring Africa and Europe, so as to allow Taft to be his own man. Thayer, Chapter XXI, p. 10.
1909 cartoon: TR hands his policies to the care of Taft while William Loeb carries the "Big Stick"
Unlike Roosevelt, Taft never attacked business or businessmen in his rhetoric. However, he was attentive to the law, so he launched 90 antitrust suits, including one against the largest corporation, U.S. Steel, for an acquisition that Roosevelt had personally approved. Consequently, Taft lost the support of antitrust reformers (who disliked his conservative rhetoric), of big business (which disliked his actions), and of Roosevelt, who felt humiliated by his protégé. The left wing of the Republican Party began agitating against Taft. Senator Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin created the National Progressive Republican League (precursor to the Progressive Party (United States, 1924)) to defeat the power of political bossism at the state level and to replace Taft at the national level. More trouble came when Taft fired Gifford Pinchot, a leading conservationist and close ally of Roosevelt. Pinchot alleged that Taft's Secretary of Interior Richard Ballinger was in league with big timber interests. Conservationists sided with Pinchot, and Taft alienated yet another vocal constituency.
Roosevelt, back from Europe, unexpectedly launched an attack on the federal courts, which deeply upset Taft. Not only had Roosevelt alienated big business, he was also attacking both the judiciary and the deep faith Republicans had in their judges (most of whom had been appointed by McKinley, Roosevelt or Taft.) In the 1910 Congressional elections, Democrats swept to power, and Taft's reelection in 1912 was increasingly in doubt. In 1911, Taft responded with a vigorous stumping tour that allowed him to sign up most of the party leaders long before Roosevelt announced.
The battle between Taft and Roosevelt bitterly split the Republican Party; Taft's people dominated the party until 1936.
Late in 1911, Roosevelt finally broke with Taft and LaFollette and announced himself as a candidate for the Republican nomination. But Roosevelt had delayed too long, and Taft had already won the support of most party leaders in the country. Because of LaFollette's nervous breakdown on the campaign trail before Roosevelt's entry, most of LaFollette's supporters went over to Roosevelt, the new progressive Republican candidate.
Roosevelt, stepping up his attack on judges, carried nine of the states with preferential primaries, LaFollette took two, and Taft only one. The 1912 Primaries represented the first extensive use of the Presidential Primary, a reform achievement of the progressive movement. However, these primary elections, while demonstrating Roosevelt's popularity with the electorate, were in no ways as important as primaries are today. First of all, there were fewer states where the common voter was given a forum to express himself, such as a primary. Many more states selected convention delegates either at party conventions, or in caucuses, which were not as open as today's caucuses. So while the man in the street still adored Roosevelt, most professional Republican politicians were supporting Taft, and they proved difficult to upset in non-primary states.
At the Republican Convention in Chicago, despite being the incumbent, Taft's victory was not immediately assured. But after two weeks, Roosevelt, realizing he would not be able to win the nomination outright, asked his followers to leave the convention hall. They moved to the Auditorium Theatre, and then Roosevelt, along with key allies such as Pinchot and Albert Beveridge created the Progressive Party, structuring it as a permanent organization that would field complete tickets at the presidential and state level. It was popularly known as the "Bull Moose Party," which got its name after Roosevelt told reporters, "I'm as fit as a bull moose." Carl M. Cannon, The Pursuit of Happiness in Times of War, Rowman & Littlefield: 2003, p. 142. ISBN 0742525929. At the convention Roosevelt cried out, "We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord." Roosevelt's platform echoed his 1907â08 proposals, calling for vigorous government intervention to protect the people from the selfish interests. Thayer, Chapter XXII, pp. 25 31.
The bullet-damaged speech and eyeglass case on display at the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace
While campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on October 14, 1912, a saloonkeeper named John Schrank failed in an assassination attempt on Roosevelt. Schrank did shoot the former President, but the bullet lodged in Roosevelt's chest only after penetrating both his steel eyeglass case and passing through a thick (50 pages) single-folded copy of the speech he was carrying in his jacket. Accessed Dec. 21, 2007 . Roosevelt, as a very experienced hunter and anatomist, decide the fact he wasn't coughing blood meant the bullet had not completely penetrated the chest wall to his lung (he was correct), and so declined suggestions he go to the hospital immediately. Instead, he delivered his scheduled speech with blood seeping into his shirt. He spoke for ninety minutes. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Afterwards, doctors determined by probe and X-ray the bullet had traversed three inches of tissue and lodged in Roosevelt's chest muscle but did not penetrate the pleura, and it would be more dangerous to attempt to remove the bullet than to leave it in place. Roosevelt carried it with him until he died. Roosevelt Timeline
Due to the bullet wound, Roosevelt was taken off the campaign trail in the final weeks of the race (which ended election day, November 5). Though the other two campaigners stopped their own campaigns in the week Roosevelt was in the hospital, they resumed it once he was released. The overall effect of the shooting was uncertain. Roosevelt for many reasons failed to move enough Republicans in his direction. He did win 4.1 million votes (27%), compared to Taft's 3.5 million (23%). However, Wilson's 6.3 million votes (42%) were enough to garner 435 electoral votes. Roosevelt had 88 electoral votes to Taft's 8 electoral votes. (This meant that Taft became the only incumbent President in history to actually come in third place in an attempt to be re-elected.) But Pennsylvania was Roosevelt's only Eastern state; in the Midwest he carried Michigan, Minnesota and South Dakota; in the West, California and Washington; he did not win any Southern states. Although he lost, he won more votes than former presidents Martin Van Buren and Millard Fillmore who also ran again and also lost. More important, he pulled so many progressives out of the Republican party that it took on a much more conservative cast for the next generation.
The initial party. From left to right (seated): Father Zahm, Rondon, Kermit, Cherrie, Miller, four Brazilians, Roosevelt, Fiala. Only Roosevelt, Kermit, Cherrie, Rondon and the Brazilians traveled down the River of Doubt.
Roosevelt's popular book Through the Brazilian Wilderness describes his expedition into the Brazilian jungle in 1913 as a member of the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition co-named after its leader, Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon. The book describes all of the scientific discovery, scenic tropical vistas and exotic flora, fauna and wild life experienced on the expedition. A friend, Father John Augustine Zahm, had searched for new adventures and found them in the forests of South America. After a briefing of several of his own expeditions, he convinced Roosevelt to commit to such an expedition in 1912. To finance the expedition, Roosevelt received support from the American Museum of Natural History, promising to bring back many new animal specimens. Once in South America, a new far more ambitious goal was added: to find the headwaters of the Rio da Duvida, the River of Doubt, and trace it north to the Madiera and thence to the Amazon River. It was later renamed Rio Roosevelt (Rio Teodoro today, 640 km long) in honor of the former President. Roosevelt's crew consisted of his 24-year-old son Kermit, Colonel Cândido Rondon, a naturalist sent by the American Museum of Natural History named George K. Cherrie, Brazilian Lieutenant Joao Lyra, team physician Dr. José Antonio Cajazeira, and sixteen highly skilled paddlers (called camaradas in Portuguese). The initial expedition started, probably unwisely, on December 9, 1913, at the height of the rainy season. The trip down the River of Doubt started on February 27, 1914.
Roosevelt, wearing sun helmet, barely survived an expedition in 1913 into the Amazonian rain forest to trace the River of Doubt later named the Rio Roosevelt.
During the trip down the river, Roosevelt contracted malaria and a serious infection resulting from a minor leg wound. These illnesses so weakened Roosevelt that, by six weeks into the expedition, he had to be attended day and night by the expedition's physician, Dr. Cajazeira, and his son, Kermit. By this time, Roosevelt considered his own condition a threat to the survival of the others. At one point, Kermit had to talk him out of his wish to be left behind so as not to slow down the expedition, now with only a few weeks rations left. Roosevelt was having chest pains when he tried to walk, his temperature soared to 103 °F (39 °C), and at times he was delirious. He had lost over fifty pounds (20 kg). Without the constant support of his son, Kermit, Dr. Cajazeira, and the continued leadership of Colonel Rondon, Roosevelt would likely have perished. Despite his concern for Roosevelt, Rondon had been slowing down the pace of the expedition by his dedication to his own map-making and other geographical goals that demanded regular stops to fix the expedition's position via sun-based survey.
Upon his return to New York, friends and family were startled by Roosevelt's physical appearance and fatigue. Roosevelt wrote to a friend that the trip had cut his life short by ten years. He might not have really known just how accurate that analysis would prove to be, because the effects of the South America expedition had so greatly weakened him that they significantly contributed to his declining health. For the rest of his life, he would be plagued by flareups of malaria and leg inflammations so severe that they would require hospitalization. Thayer, Chapter XXIII, pp. 4â7.
When Roosevelt had recovered enough of his strength, he found that he had a new battle on his hands. In professional circles, there was doubt about his claims of having discovered and navigated a completely uncharted river over 625 miles (1,000 km) long. Roosevelt would have to defend himself and win international recognition of the expedition's newly-named Rio Roosevelt. Toward this end, Roosevelt went to Washington, D.C., and spoke at a standing-room-only convention to defend his claims. His official report and its defense silenced the critics, and he was able to triumphantly return to his home in Oyster Bay.
Despite his weakened condition and slow recovery from his South America expedition, Roosevelt continued to write with passion on subjects ranging from foreign policy to the importance of the national park system. As an editor of Outlook magazine, he had weekly access to a large, educated national audience. In all, Roosevelt wrote about 18 books (each in several editions), including his Autobiography, Rough Riders and History of the Naval War of 1812, ranching, explorations, and wildlife. His most ambitious book was the 4 volume narrative The Winning of the West, which attempted to connect the origin of a new "race" of Americans (i.e. what he considered the present population of the United States to be) to the frontier conditions their ancestors endured in throughout the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries.
Roosevelt angrily complained about the foreign policy of President Wilson, calling it "weak." This caused him to develop an intense dislike for Woodrow Wilson. When World War I began in 1914, Roosevelt strongly supported the Allies of World War I and demanded a harsher policy against Germany, especially regarding submarine warfare. In 1916, he campaigned energetically for Charles Evans Hughes and repeatedly denounced Irish-Americans and German-Americans who Roosevelt said were unpatriotic because they put the interest of Ireland and Germany ahead of America's by supporting neutrality. He insisted one had to be 100% American, not a "hyphenated American" who juggled multiple loyalties. When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, Roosevelt sought to raise a volunteer infantry division, but Wilson refused. Brands 781â4; Cramer, C.H. Newton D. Baker (1961) 110â113
Roosevelt's attacks on Wilson helped the Republicans win control of Congress in the off-year elections of 1918. Roosevelt was popular enough to seriously contest the 1920 Republican nomination, but his health was broken by 1918, because of the lingering malaria. His son Quentin, a daring pilot with the American forces in France, was shot down behind German lines in 1918. Quentin was his youngest son and probably the most liked by him. It is said the death of his son distressed him so much that Roosevelt never recovered from his loss. Dalton, (2002)p 507
Theodore Roosevelt Grave in Youngs Memorial Cemetery Oyster Bay, New York
Twenty-six steps leading to Roosevelt's grave, commemorating his service as 26th President
Despite his debilitating diseases, Roosevelt remained active to the end of his life. He was an enthusiastic proponent of the Scouting movement. The Boy Scouts of America gave him the title of Chief Scout Citizen, the only person to hold such title. One early Scout leader said, "The two things that gave Scouting great impetus and made it very popular were the uniform and Teddy Roosevelt's jingoism." Larson, Keith (2006). "Theodore Roosevelt". Retrieved March 6 2006.
On January 6, 1919, Roosevelt died in his sleep of a coronary embolism at Oyster Bay, and was buried in nearby Youngs Memorial Cemetery. Upon receiving word of his death, his son, Archie, telegraphed his siblings simply, "The old lion is dead." Dalton, (2002) p. 507 Woodrow Wilson's vice president at the time Thomas R. Marshall said of his death "Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight." Manners, William. TR and Will: A Friendship that Split the Republican Party. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1969.
Roosevelt Family in 1903 with Quentin on the left, TR, Ted, Jr., "Archie", Alice, Kermit, Edith, and Ethel
Roosevelt intensely disliked being called "Teddy," and was quick to point out this fact to those who used the nickname, though it would become widely used by newspapers during his political career. He attended the Madison Square Presbyterian Church until the age of 16. Later in life, when Roosevelt lived at Oyster Bay he attended an Episcopal church with his wife. While in Washington he attended services at Grace Reformed Church. "The Religious Affiliation of Theodore Roosevelt U.S. President". Retrieved March 7 2006. As President he firmly believed in the separation of church and state and thought it unwise to have In God We Trust on currency, because he thought it sacrilegious to put the name of the Deity on something so common as money. Reynolds, Ralph C. (1999). "In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash". Retrieved March 7 2006. He was also a Freemason, and regularly attended the Matinecock Lodge's meetings. He once said that "One of the things that so greatly attracted me to Masonry that I hailed the chance of becoming a Mason was that it really did act up to what we, as a government, are pledged to namely to treat each man on his merit as a man." Matinecock Masonic Historical Society. "History". Retrieved March 12 2006.
Roosevelt had a lifelong interest in pursuing what he called, in an 1899 speech, "the strenuous life." To this end, he exercised regularly and took up boxing, tennis, hiking, rowing, polo, and horseback riding. As governor of New York, he boxed with sparring partners several times a week, a practice he regularly continued as President until one blow detached his left retina, leaving him blind in that eye (a fact not made public until many years later). Thereafter, he practiced jujutsu and continued his habit of skinny-dipping in the Potomac River during winter. Thayer, Chapter XVII, pp. 22 24. Shaw, K.B. & Maiden, David (2006). "Theodore Roosevelt".
Retrieved March 7 2006.
Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt's estate
He was an enthusiastic singlestick player and, according to Harper's Weekly, in 1905 showed up at a White House reception with his arm bandaged after a bout with General Leonard Wood. Amberger, J Christoph, Secret History of the Sword Adventures in Ancient Martial Arts 1998, ISBN 1-892515-04-0. Roosevelt was also an avid reader, reading tens of thousands of books, at a rate of several a day in multiple languages. Along with Thomas Jefferson Roosevelt is often considered the most well read of any American politician. David H. Burton, The Learned Presidency 1988, p 12.
Roosevelt's face on Mt. Rushmore
1910 cartoon shows Roosevelt's multiple roles to 1898
1910 cartoon shows Roosevelt's multiple roles from 1899 to 1910
For his gallantry at San Juan Hill, Roosevelt's commanders recommended him for the Medal of Honor, but his subsequent telegrams to the War Department complaining about the delays in returning American troops from Cuba doomed his chances. In the late 1990s, Roosevelt's supporters again took up the flag on his behalf and overcame opposition from elements within the U.S. Army and the National Archives. On January 16, 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded Theodore Roosevelt the Medal of Honor posthumously for his charge up San Juan Hill, Cuba, during the Spanish-American War. Roosevelt's eldest son, Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., received the Medal of Honor for heroism at the Battle of Normandy in 1944. The Roosevelts thus became one of only two father-son pairs to receive this honor.
Roosevelt's legacy includes several other important commemorations. Roosevelt was included with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln at the Mount Rushmore Memorial, designed in 1927. The United States Navy named two ships for Roosevelt: the USS Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600), a submarine was in commission from 1961 to 1982; and the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), an aircraft carrier that has been on active duty in the Atlantic Fleet since 1986.
The Roosevelt Memorial Association (later the Theodore Roosevelt Association) or "TRA", was founded in 1920 to preserve Roosevelt's legacy. The Association preserved TR's birthplace, "Sagamore Hill" home, papers, and video film.
Overall, historians credit Roosevelt for changing the nation's political system by permanently placing the presidency at center stage and making character as important as the issues. His notable accomplishments include trust-busting and conservationism. However, he has been criticized for his interventionist and imperialist approach to nations he considered "uncivilized". Even so, history and legend have been kind to him. His friend, historian Henry Adams, proclaimed, "Roosevelt, more than any other living man ....showed the singular primitive quality that belongs to ultimate matter the quality that mediaeval theology assigned to God he was pure act." Historians typically rank Roosevelt among the top five presidents. The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (2005). "Biography: Impact and Legacy". Retrieved March 7 2006. "Legacy". Retrieved March 7 2006.
Roosevelt has been quoted by virtually all the major Republican and Democratic candidates for the 2008 US Presidential Election. Political pundits have brought up Roosevelt's name in book after book. The degree of discussion ranges from a single sentence by democrat Bill Richardson talking about him as "BR" breaking Roosevelt's (or "TR") 1907 single handshaking record, John Edwards mentioning Roosevelt in a fall of 2007 speech to John McCain devoting an entire chapter to him in his main background book. Even the lone candidate that did not mention Roosevelt in an autobiographical book, democrat, Joe Biden, nevertheless, began mentioning Roosevelt's taking on of corporate interests speeches in New Hampshire in the summer of 2007.
Roosevelt's 1901 saying "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick" is still being occasionally quoted by politicians and columnists in different countries - not only in English but also in translation to various other languages. For example, following the Second Lebanon War of August 2006, opponents of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accused him of "Speaking loudly and carrying a small stick".
The well-known Nicaraguan poet Rubén DarÃo published in 1905 a poem entitled A Roosevelt (To Roosevelt) which was included in Cantos de Vida y Esperanza (Songs of Life and Hope)
As a charismatic President often considered larger than life, Roosevelt has appeared in numerous fiction books, television shows, films, and other media of popular culture. Roosvelt was played by Robin Williams in the box office hit Night at the Museum and its upcoming sequel.
"Drawing the Line in Mississippi," by Clifford Berryman, referring to Roosevelt's sparing the bear.
Filmmaker John Milius also directed two films in which Roosevelt was a central character: The Wind and the Lion (1975) in which he was played by Brian Keith; and Rough Riders (1997) in which he was played by Tom Berenger. Keith's performance is widely considered to be the definitive screen depiction of Roosevelt.
Roosevelt's lasting popular legacy, however, is the stuffed toy bearsâteddy bearsânamed after him following an incident on a hunting trip in 1902. Roosevelt famously refused to kill a captured black bear simply for the sake of making a kill. Bears and later bear cubs became closely associated with Roosevelt in political cartoons thereafter. "History of the Teddy Bear". Retrieved March 7 2006.
On June 26, 2006, Roosevelt, once again, made the cover of TIME magazine with the lead story, "The Making of AmericaâTheodore RooseveltâThe 20th Century Express": "At home and abroad, Theodore Roosevelt was the locomotive President, the man who drew his flourishing nation into the future."
The Washington Nationals major league baseball team has a fan tradition called the Presidents Race. In it four caricatures of presidents Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt race against each other. A running gag has been Theodore Roosevelt's inability to win a single Presidents Race.
In 2006 Roosevelt' likeness was used in "Night at the Museum (The movie).
Theodore Roosevelt was one of the first presidents whose voice was recorded for posterity. Several of his recorded speeches survive. Vincent Voice Library at Michigan State University. Retrieved September 23, 2007.
* Roosevelt goes for first aeroplane ride in Arch Hoxsey plane 1910
*Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. father
*Martha Bulloch mother
*Eleanor Roosevelt niece, First Lady of the United States (1933â1945)
*Alice Roosevelt first wife
*Edith Carow Roosevelt second wife
*Alice Roosevelt first daughter
*Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. first son
*Kermit Roosevelt second son
*Ethel Roosevelt second daughter
*Archibald Roosevelt third son
*Quentin Roosevelt fourth son
*Elliott Roosevelt brother
*Anna Cowles sister
*Corinne Robinson sister
*Franklin D. Roosevelt, cousin, 32nd President of the United States
*Theodore Roosevelt Association 1920 organization founded to preserve Roosevelt's historical legacy
*Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia 1940 compendium of Roosevelt's key writings, sayings and conversations
*Reynier Tyson 4th great-grandfather, early German-American settler
*Panama Canal
*Great White Fleet
*Russo-Japanese War
*List of U.S. political appointments that crossed party lines
*Progressivism
*
*Auchincloss, Louis, ed. Theodore Roosevelt, The Rough Riders and an Autobiography (Library of America, 2004) ISBN 978-1-93108265-5
*Auchincloss, Louis, ed. Theodore Roosevelt, Letters and Speeches (Library of America, 2004) ISBN 978-1-93108266-2
*Brands, H.W. ed. The Selected Letters of Theodore Roosevelt. (2001)
*Harbaugh, William ed. The Writings Of Theodore Roosevelt (1967). A one-volume selection of Roosevelt's speeches and essays.
*Hart, Albert Bushnell and Herbert Ronald Ferleger, eds. Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia (1941), Roosevelt's opinions on many issues; online version at
*Morison, Elting E., John Morton Blum, and Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., eds., The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 8 vols. (1951â1954). Very large, annotated edition of letters from TR.
*Roosevelt, Theodore (1999). Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography. online at Bartleby.com.
*Roosevelt, Theodore. The Works of Theodore Roosevelt (National edition, 20 vol. 1926); 18,000 pages containing most of TR's speeches, books and essays, but not his letters; a CD-ROM edition is available; some of TR's books are available online through Project Bartleby
* Theodore Roosevelt books and speeches on Project Gutenberg
*Blum, John Morton The Republican Roosevelt. (1954). Series of essays that examine how TR did politics
*Brands, H.W. Theodore Roosevelt (2001), full biography
* Chace, James. 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft, and Debs - The Election That Changed the Country. (2004). 323 pp.
*Cooper, John Milton The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. (1983) a dual scholarly biography
*Dalton, Kathleen. Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life. (2002), full scholarly biography
* Fehn, Bruce. "Theodore Roosevelt and American Masculinity." Magazine of History (2005) 19(2): 52â59. Issn: 0882-228x Fulltext online at Ebsco. Provides a lesson plan on TR as the historical figure who most exemplifies the quality of masculinity.
*Gluck, Sherwin. "T.R.'s Summer White House, Oyster Bay." (1999) Chronicles the events of TR's presidency during the summers of his two terms.
*Gould, Lewis L. The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. (1991), standard history of his domestic and foreign policy as president
*Harbaugh, William Henry. The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt. (1963), full scholarly biography
*Keller, Morton, ed., Theodore Roosevelt: A Profile (1967) excerpts from TR and from historians.
* Kohn, Edward. "Crossing the Rubicon: Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and the 1884 Republican National Convention." Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2006 5(1): 18â45. Issn: 1537-7814 Fulltext: in History Cooperative
*Millard, Candice. River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey. (2005)
*McCullough, David. Mornings on Horseback, The Story of an Extraordinary Family. a Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt. (2001) popular biography to 1884
*Morris, Edmund The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, to 1901 (1979); vol 2: Theodore Rex 1901â1909. (2001); Pulitzer prize for Volume 1. Biography.
* Mowry, George. The Era of Theodore Roosevelt and the Birth of Modern America, 1900â1912. (1954) general survey of era; online
*Mowry, George E. Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement. (2001) focus on 1912
* O'Toole, Patricia. When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt after the White House. (2005). 494 pp.
*Powell, Jim. Bully Boy: The Truth About Theodore Roosevelt's Legacy (Crown Forum, 2006). Denounces TR policies from conservative/libertarian perspective
*Pringle, Henry F. Theodore Roosevelt (1932; 2nd ed. 1956), full scholarly biography
*Putnam, Carleton Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography, Volume I: The Formative Years (1958), only volume published, to age 28.
*Renehan, Edward J. The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War. (Oxford University Press, 1998), examines TR and his family during the World War I period
*Strock, James M. Theodore Roosevelt on Leadership. Random House, 2003.
* Watts, Sarah. Rough Rider in the White House: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of Desire. 2003. 289 pp.
*Beale Howard K. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power. (1956). standard history of his foreign policy
* Holmes, James R. Theodore Roosevelt and World Order: Police Power in International Relations. 2006. 328 pp.
* Marks III, Frederick W. Velvet on Iron: The Diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt (1979)
* David McCullough. The Path between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870â1914 (1977).
* Ricard, Serge. "The Roosevelt Corollary." Presidential Studies Quarterly 2006 36(1): 17â26. Issn: 0360-4918 Fulltext: in Swetswise and Ingenta
* Tilchin, William N. and Neu, Charles E., ed. Artists of Power: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Their Enduring Impact on U.S. Foreign Policy. Praeger, 2006. 196 pp.
* Tilchin, William N. Theodore Roosevelt and the British Empire: A Study in Presidential Statecraft (1997)
* Theodore Roosevelt Association - Founded in 1920 by Roosevelt's friends and admirers to preserve his legacy. Extensive online resources and bibliography
* Extensive essay on Theodore Roosevelt and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* NY Times Headline, January 6, 1919, Theodore Roosevelt Dies Suddenly at Oyster Bay Home; Nation Shocked, Pays Tribute to Former President; Our Flag on All Seas and in All Lands at Half Mast
* "The Early Years: The Challenge of Public Order - 1845 to 1870", by William Andrews, New York City Police Department History Site
* "Leadership of the City of New York Police Department 1845â1901", - The New York City Police Department Museum
* PBS "American Experience" Theodore Roosevelt
* My Brother Theodore Roosevelt, 1921 By Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, a bestseller with a woman's and sister's point of view on TR. Full text and Full text Search, Free to Read and Search.
* Almanac of Theodore Roosevelt
* Downloadable audio recordings of Roosevelt in MP3 format
* Audio clips of Roosevelt's speeches
* Roosevelt podcasts Audio Recording of Roosevelt's Progressive Party Acceptance Speech, "Progressive Covenant with the People" with text included.
* Quotes
* Theodore Roosevelt Works - Bartleby's Online Books
* Presidential Biography by Stanley L. Klos
*
* Index of T. Roosevelt Etexts
* Detailed biography of Theodore Roosevelt from the 1911 version of Encyclopedia Britannica
* Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Address
* State of the Union addresses for 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, and 1908
* Nobel Peace Prize 1906: Theodore Roosevelt
* Theodore Roosevelt Papers at the Library of Congress
* Theodore Roosevelt: His Life & Times on Film (LOC)
* Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
* Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site
* Sagamore Hill National Historic Site
* NobelPrize.org's entry on Theodore Roosevelt
* Congressional Medal of Honor's entry on Theodore Roosevelt; including citation and pictures
* Medal of Honor Recipients on Film
* White House biography
* Vice Presidents Dot Com
* Family and Descendants of Theodore Roosevelt
* Ron Schuler's Parlour Tricks: Teddy
* Theodore Roosevelt Links
* Theodore Roosevelt Quotes, Pictures and Biography at TeddyRoosevelt.com
* Theodore Roosevelt cylinder recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.
* On Theodore Roosevelt's progressive vision from the Roosevelt Institution, a student think tank inspired in part by Theodore Roosevelt.
* Boone and Crockett Club, founded by Theodore Roosevelt
* How to pronounce Theodore Roosevelt
* Yesterday's News blog 1901 newspaper account of Roosevelt's "Big Stick" speech at the Minnesota State Fair
* Archive of Theodore Roosevelt Pictures
* still of Theodore Roosevelt going on first aeroplane flight
* different view of Theodore Roosevelt & Arch Hoxsey in Wright aeroplane St Louis October 1910
*
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
September 14
1901
March 4
1909
Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
William Howard Taft
Vice President of the United States
March 4
1901
September 14
1901
William McKinley
Garret Hobart
Charles W. Fairbanks
List of Governors of New York
January 1
1899
December 31
1900
Timothy L. Woodruff
Frank S. Black
Benjamin Barker Odell, Jr.
New York City
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
Edith Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Bulloch Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Polymath
author
historian
conservationist
Civil servant
History of United States Republican Party
Dutch Reformed
October 27
1858
January 6
1919
President of the United States
History of the United States Republican Party
Progressivism
List of Governors of New York
United States Navy
Rough Riders
Rough Riders
Spanish-American War
Amazon Basin
William McKinley
John F. Kennedy
Progressive Era
trust-busting
trust (law)
capitalism
Square Deal
conservation
labor union
William Howard Taft
U.S. presidential election, 1912
Progressive Party (United States, 1912)
Woodrow Wilson
conservative
Panama Canal
Nobel Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
Russo-Japanese War
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
Mount Rushmore
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
Gramercy, New York
New York City
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
Martha Bulloch
Bamie Roosevelt
Elliott Roosevelt I
Eleanor Roosevelt
Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
newspaper
Joseph Alsop
Stewart Alsop
American Revolution
History of the United States Democratic Party
History of the United States Republican Party
philanthropy
Abraham Lincoln
American Civil War
slavery
Savannah, Georgia
Confederate
James Dunwoody Bulloch
U.S. Navy
Irvine Bulloch
CSS Alabama
asthma
zoology
Pinniped
taxidermy
March 6
2006
boxing
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
March 9
2006
biology
French language
German language
mathematics
Latin
Greek language
Harvard College
magna cum laude
science
philosophy
rhetoric
ornithology
eidetic memory
Alpha Delta Phi
Delta Kappa Epsilon
C.S. Hanks
Phi Beta Kappa
Columbia Law School
New York Assembly
History of the United States Republican Party
Mugwump
James G. Blaine
Grover Cleveland
History of the United States Democratic Party
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
July 29
1861
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
February 14
1884
Manhattan, New York
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Bright's disease
Typhoid fever
Dakota Territory
Badlands
Tiffany and Co.
Medora, North Dakota
Little Missouri River (North Dakota)
Dickinson
Deadwood, South Dakota
South Dakota
Sheriff
Seth Bullock
winter of 1886-1887
Sagamore Hill
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Edith Roosevelt
Mont Blanc
British Royal Society
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt III
man-of-war
broadside
Thomas Hart Benton (senator)
Gouverneur Morris
historiography
frontier thesis
Frederick Jackson Turner
American Historical Association
Nordicism
social Darwinism
racialism
Booker T. Washington
New York
Charleston
Postmaster
Indianola, Mississippi
U.S. presidential election, 1888
Benjamin Harrison
United States Civil Service Commission
spoils system
U.S. presidential election, 1892
Grover Cleveland
Bourbon Democrat
New York City Police Commissioner
August 28
2006
August 28
2006
Henry Cabot Lodge
William McKinley
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Secretary of the Navy
John D. Long
Spanish-American War
Rough Riders
Leonard Wood
Rough Riders
cowboy
Ivy League
Lieutenant Colonel
Brigadier General
Rough Riders
Rough Riders
Kettle Hill
Battle of San Juan Hill
Medal of Honor
as of 2007
machine politics
Thomas C. Platt
United States presidential election, 1900
Mark Hanna
William Jennings Bryan
Minnesota State Fair
Big stick Diplomacy
Pan-American Exposition
Buffalo, New York
William McKinley
Leon Czolgosz
September 6
1901
Mount Marcy
Ansley Wilcox
Grover Cleveland
February 2
2007
Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site
Buffalo, New York
New York
Bible
Mark Hanna
United Mine Workers of America
trust (19th century)
Trust Buster
Hepburn Act
Interstate Commerce Commission
Upton Sinclair
The Jungle
Pure Food and Drug Act
Meat Inspection Act
Millard Fillmore
Chester Arthur
Mark Hanna
Grover Cleveland
Alton B. Parker
Electoral College
Solid South
Eugene Debs
Gifford Pinchot
passenger pigeon
March 14
1903
Florida
conservation
Gifford Pinchot
United States Forest Service
national park
nature preserve
national forest
national wildlife refuge
Grand Canyon
Theodore Roosevelt National Park
Badlands
John Muir
Conference of Governors
Outdoor Life
Edward Renehan
Tweed Roosevelt
YouTube
April 23
2006
archaeology
Antiquities Act
U.S. National Monument
James F. Lacey
Edgar Lee Hewett
Devils Tower National Monument
Wyoming
geology
Christmas tree
White House
virgin forests
Cuba
Philippines
Puerto Rico
Panama Canal Zone
Walter Reed
William C. Gorgas
yellow fever
Great White Fleet
Roosevelt Corollary
Monroe Doctrine
Latin American
Russo-Japanese War
Nobel Peace Prize
France
Germany
Morocco
world war
March 6
2006
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty
Panama Canal
San Francisco, California
California
New York City
Colombia
Nicaragua
Panama
November 3
1903
Nathan Johnson Forest
US Navy
battleship
circumnavigation
December 16
1907
February 22
1909
Great White Fleet
Russians
Russo-Japanese War
U.S. Atlantic Fleet
grand strategy
Victor David Brenner
New York City
Lower East Side
American Civil War
Mathew Brady
Lincoln cent
March 6
2006
March 6
2006
simplified spelling
Brander Matthews
December 16
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
West Wing
federal style
Louis Comfort Tiffany
race relations
Booker T. Washington
White House
Oscar Straus (politician)
Hartford
Connecticut
submarine
USS Holland (SS-1)
Panama Canal
November 9
William McKinley
September 6
1901
Secret Service
Nobel Prize
Long Island
Lincoln cent
Maxwell House
Teddy bear
John Singer Sargent
President of the United States
Vice President of the United States
Charles W. Fairbanks
United States Secretary of State
John Hay
Elihu Root
Robert Bacon
United States Secretary of the Treasury
Lyman J. Gage
L. M. Shaw
George B. Cortelyou
United States Secretary of War
Elihu Root
William Howard Taft
Luke Edward Wright
Attorney General of the United States
Philander C. Knox
William Henry Moody
Charles Joseph Bonaparte
Postmaster General of the United States
Charles Emory Smith
Henry C. Payne
Robert Wynne
George B. Cortelyou
George von Lengerke Meyer
United States Secretary of the Navy
John Davis Long
William Henry Moody
Paul Morton
Charles Joseph Bonaparte
Victor H. Metcalf
Truman Handy Newberry
United States Secretary of the Interior
Ethan A. Hitchcock (Interior)
James Rudolph Garfield
United States Secretary of Agriculture
James Wilson (U.S. politician)
United States Secretary of Commerce and Labor
George B. Cortelyou
Victor H. Metcalf
Oscar Straus (politician)
Supreme Court of the United States
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
William R. Day
William Henry Moody
Oklahoma
safari
East Africa
central Africa
Mombasa
British East Africa
Kenya
Belgian Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Nile
Khartoum
Sudan
Andrew Carnegie
Smithsonian Institution
American Museum of Natural History
Frederick Selous
insect
Mole (animal)
hippopotamus
elephant
White Rhinoceros
Washington, D.C.
taxidermy
museum
National Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History
science
flora
fauna
William Howard Taft
U.S. presidential election, 1908
William Jennings Bryan
Payne-Aldrich tariff
Nelson Aldrich
William Loeb
Robert M. La Follette, Sr.
Wisconsin
Progressive Party (United States, 1924)
Gifford Pinchot
Richard Ballinger
Republican Convention
Chicago
Auditorium Building, Chicago
Pinchot
Albert Beveridge
Progressive Party 1912 (United States)
Bull Moose Party
Armageddon
statesmanship
Woodrow Wilson
monopoly
Trust (19th century)
U.S. Steel
Standard Oil
Howard Taft
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Wisconsin
October 14
1912
John Schrank
assassination
chest
steel
eyeglass
pleura
Pennsylvania
Eastern United States
Midwest
Michigan
Minnesota
South Dakota
Western United States
California
Washington
Martin Van Buren
Millard Fillmore
John Augustine Zahm
Cândido Rondon
Kermit Roosevelt
Brazil
Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition
Brazil
Cândido Rondon
John Augustine Zahm
American Museum of Natural History
River of Doubt
Amazon River
Rio Roosevelt
Cândido Rondon
American Museum of Natural History
Portuguese language
December 9
1913
February 27
1914
Rio Roosevelt
malaria
Rio Roosevelt
Oyster Bay
World War I
Allies of World War I
Germany
Charles Evans Hughes
hyphenated American
Quentin Roosevelt
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Scouting
Boy Scouts of America
March 6
2006
January 6
1919
embolism
Archibald Roosevelt
Thomas R. Marshall
Death (personification)
Quentin Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Archibald Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Kermit Roosevelt
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Madison Square Presbyterian Church
Episcopal Church in the United States of America
Grace Reformed Church
March 7
2006
separation of church and state
In God We Trust
March 7
2006
Freemason
March 12
2006
The Strenuous Life
jujutsu
skinny-dipping
Potomac River
March 7
2006
Sagamore Hill
singlestick
Harper's Weekly
Leonard Wood
Thomas Jefferson
Mt. Rushmore
Medal of Honor
Cuba
National Archives and Records Administration
January 16
2001
Bill Clinton
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Battle of Normandy
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
Mount Rushmore
United States Navy
USS Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600)
USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71)
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
Sagamore Hill
Henry Adams
March 7
2006
March 7
2006
Joseph Biden
Second Lebanon War
Israel
Ehud Olmert
Nicaragua
Rubén DarÃo
Robin Williams
Night at the Museum
John Milius
The Wind and the Lion
Brian Keith
Rough Riders (film)
Tom Berenger
teddy bears
American black bear
March 7
2006
June 26
2006
Time (magazine)
Washington Nationals
Presidents Race
Michigan State University
Megabyte
ogg
Theora
Theora
Megabyte
ogg
Theora
Theora
Arch Hoxsey
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
Martha Bulloch
Eleanor Roosevelt
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
Edith Carow Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Elliott Roosevelt I
Bamie Roosevelt
Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia
Reynier Tyson
Panama Canal
Great White Fleet
Russo-Japanese War
List of U.S. political appointments that crossed party lines
Progressivism
Library of America
Library of America
Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia
Edmund Morris (writer)
Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project
University of California, Santa Barbara
think tank
Arch Hoxsey
Frank S. Black
List of Governors of New York
Benjamin B. Odell, Jr.
Garret Hobart
Vice President of the United States
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
President of the United States
William Howard Taft
Garret Hobart
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1900
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1904
William Howard Taft
Progressive Party (United States, 1912)
U.S. presidential election, 1912
Grover Cleveland
Oldest living United States president
William Howard Taft
President of the United States
October 27
1858
New York, New York
January 6
1919
Oyster Bay, New York
|
Theodore_Roosevelt | Did Roosevelt support racial integration in schools? | yes | data/set3/a7 | Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. ( ; October 27 1858 January 6 1919), also known as T.R., and to the public (but never to friends and intimates) as Teddy, was the twenty-sixth President of the United States, and a leader of the Republican Party and of the Progressive Movement. He became the youngest President in United States history at the age of 42. He served in many roles including Governor of New York, historian, naturalist, explorer, author, and soldier. Roosevelt is most famous for his personality: his energy, his vast range of interests and achievements, his model of masculinity, and his "cowboy" persona. His last name, often mispronounced, is, per Roosevelt, "pronounced as if it were spelled 'Rosavelt', in three syllables, the first syllable as if it was 'Rose.'"
As Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Navy, he prepared for and advocated war with Spain in 1898. He organized and helped command the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, the Rough Riders, during the Spanish-American War. Returning to New York as a war hero, he was elected Republican governor in 1899. He was a professional historian, a lawyer, a naturalist and explorer of the Amazon Basin; his 35 books include works on outdoor life, natural history, the American frontier, political history, naval history, and his autobiography.
In 1901, as Vice President, Roosevelt succeeded President William McKinley after McKinley's assassination. He is the youngest person ever to become President (John F. Kennedy is the youngest elected President). Roosevelt was a Progressive reformer who sought to move the dominant Republican Party into the Progressive camp. He distrusted wealthy businessmen and dissolved forty monopolistic corporations as a "trust buster". He was clear, however, to show he did not disagree with trusts and capitalism in principle but was only against corrupt, illegal practices. His "Square Deal" promised a fair shake for both the average citizen (through regulation of railroad rates and pure food and drugs) and the businessmen. As an outdoorsman, he promoted the conservation movement, emphasizing efficient use of natural resources. After 1906 he attacked big business and suggested the courts were biased against labor unions. In 1910, he broke with his friend and anointed successor William Howard Taft, but lost the Republican nomination to Taft and ran in the 1912 election on his own one-time Bull Moose ticket. Roosevelt beat Taft in the popular vote and pulled so many Progressives out of the Republican Party that Democrat Woodrow Wilson won in 1912, and the conservative faction took control of the Republican Party for the next two decades.
Roosevelt negotiated for the U.S. to take control of the Panama Canal and its construction in 1904; he felt the Canal's completion was his most important and historically significant international achievement. He was the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize, winning its Peace Prize in 1906, for negotiating the peace in the Russo-Japanese War.
Historian Thomas Bailey, who disagreed with Roosevelt's policies, nevertheless concluded, "Roosevelt was a great personality, a great activist, a great preacher of the moralities, a great controversialist, a great showman. He dominated his era as he dominated conversations....the masses loved him; he proved to be a great popular idol and a great vote getter." His image stands alongside Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln on Mount Rushmore. Surveys of scholars have consistently ranked him from #3 to #7 on the list of greatest American presidents.
Theodore Roosevelt at age 11
Theodore Roosevelt was born in a four-story brownstone at 28 East 20th Street, in the modern-day Gramercy section of New York City, the second of four children of Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. (1831â1877) and Mittie Bulloch (1834â1884). He had an elder sister Anna, nicknamed "Bamie" as a child and "Bye" as an adult for being always on the go; and two younger siblingsâhis brother Elliott (the father of Eleanor Roosevelt) and his sister Corinne, (grandmother of newspaper columnists, Joseph and Stewart Alsop).
The Roosevelts had been in New York since the mid 18th century and had grown with the emerging New York commerce class after the American Revolution. Unlike many of the earlier "log cabin Presidents," Roosevelt was born into a wealthy family. By the 19th century, the family had grown in wealth, power and influence from the profits of several businesses including hardware and plate-glass importing. The family was strongly Democratic in its political affiliation until the mid-1850s, then joined the new Republican Party. Theodore's father, known in the family as "Thee", was a New York City philanthropist, merchant, and partner in the family glass-importing firm Roosevelt and Son. He was a prominent supporter of Abraham Lincoln and the Union effort during the American Civil War. His mother Mittie Bulloch was a Southern belle from a slave-owning family in Savannah, Georgia and had quiet Confederate sympathies. Mittie's brother, Theodore's uncle, James Dunwoody Bulloch, was a U.S. Navy officer who became a Confederate admiral and naval procurement agent in Britain. Another uncle Irvine Bulloch was a midshipman on the Confederate raider, CSS Alabama; both remained in England after the war. . Pringle (1931) p. 11 From his grandparents' home, a young Roosevelt witnessed Abraham Lincoln's funeral procession in New York.
Sickly and asthmatic as a youngster, Roosevelt had to sleep propped up in bed or slouching in a chair during much of his early childhood, and had frequent ailments. Despite his illnesses, he was a hyperactive and often mischievous young man. His lifelong interest in zoology was formed at age seven upon seeing a dead seal at a local market. After obtaining the seal's head, the young Roosevelt and two of his cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Learning the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with many animals that he killed or caught, studied, and prepared for display. At age nine, he codified his observation of insects with a paper titled "The Natural History of Insects". "TR's LegacyâThe Environment". Retrieved March 6, 2006.
To combat his poor physical condition, his father compelled the young Roosevelt to take up exercise. To deal with bullies, Roosevelt started boxing lessons. Thayer, William Roscoe (1919). Theodore Roosevelt: An Intimate Biography, Chapter I, p. 20. Bartleby.com. Two trips abroad had a permanent impact: family tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and of the Middle East 1872 to 1873.
Theodore Sr. had a tremendous influence on his son. Of him Roosevelt wrote, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Roosevelt, Theodore (1913). Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography, Chapter I, p. 13. Roosevelt's sister later wrote, "He told me frequently that he never took any serious step or made any vital decision for his country without thinking first what position his father would have taken." "The Film & More: Program Transcript Part One". Retrieved March 9 2006.
Young "Teedie" , as he was nicknamed as a child, (the nickname "Teddy" was from his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee, and he later harbored an intense dislike for it) was mostly home schooled by tutors and his parents. A leading biographer says: "The most obvious drawback to the home schooling Roosevelt keely received was uneven coverage of the various areas of human knowledge." He was solid in geography (thanks to his careful observations on all his travels) and very well read in history, strong in biology, French and German, but deficient in mathematics, Latin and Greek. Brands T. R. p. 49â50 He matriculated at Harvard College in 1876, graduating magna cum laude. His father's death in 1878 was a tremendous blow, but Roosevelt redoubled his activities. He did well in science, philosophy and rhetoric courses but fared poorly in Latin and Greek. He studied biology with great interest and indeed was already an accomplished naturalist and published ornithologist. He had a photographic memory and developed a life-long habit of devouring books, memorizing every detail. Brands p. 62 He was an eloquent conversationalist who, throughout his life, sought out the company of the smartest people. He could multitask in extraordinary fashion, dictating letters to one secretary and memoranda to another, while browsing through a new book.
While at Harvard, Roosevelt was active in rowing, boxing and the Alpha Delta Phi and Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternities. He also edited a student magazine. He was runner-up in the Harvard boxing championship, losing to C.S. Hanks. The sportsmanship Roosevelt showed in that fight was long remembered. Upon graduating from Harvard, Roosevelt underwent a physical examination and his doctor advised him that due to serious heart problems, he should find a desk job and avoid strenuous activity. Roosevelt chose to embrace strenuous life instead. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris.
He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude (22nd of 177) from Harvard in 1880, and entered Columbia Law School. When offered a chance to run for New York Assemblyman in 1881, he dropped out of law school to pursue his new goal of entering public life. Brands, pp 123â29
Roosevelt as NY State Assemblyman 1883, photo
Roosevelt was a Republican activist during his years in the Assembly, writing more bills than any other New York state legislator. Already a major player in state politics, he attended the Republican National Convention in 1884 and fought alongside the Mugwump reformers; they lost to the Stalwart faction that nominated James G. Blaine. Refusing to join other Mugwumps in supporting Democrat Grover Cleveland, the Democratic nominee, he stayed loyal.
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt (July 29, 1861 in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts â February 14 1884 in Manhattan, New York) was the first wife of Theodore Roosevelt and mother of their only child together, Alice Lee Roosevelt. Alice Roosevelt died of an undiagnosed case of Bright's Disease two days after Alice Lee was born. Theodore Roosevelt's mother Mittie died of Typhoid fever in the same house on the same day, Feb. 14, 1884. After the simultaneous deaths of his mother and wife, Roosevelt left his daughter in the care of his sister in New York and moved out to Dakota Territory.
Theodore Roosevelt as Badlands hunter in 1885. New York studio photo. Note the engraved knife and rifle courtesy of Tiffany and Co.
Roosevelt built a second ranch he named Elk Horn thirty five miles (56 km) north of the boomtown, Medora, North Dakota. On the banks of the "Little Missouri," Roosevelt learned to ride, rope, and hunt.
Roosevelt rebuilt his life and began writing about frontier life for Eastern magazines. As a deputy sheriff, Roosevelt hunted down three outlaws who stole his river boat and were escaping north with it up the Little Missouri River. Capturing them, he decided against hanging them and sending his foreman back by boat, he took the thieves back overland for trial in Dickinson, guarding them forty hours without sleep and reading Tolstoy to keep himself awake. When he ran out of his own books he read a dime store western one of the thieves was carrying.
While working on a tough project aimed at hunting down a group of relentless horse thieves, Roosevelt came across the famous Deadwood, South Dakota Sheriff Seth Bullock. The two would remain friends for life. (Morris, Rise of, 241â245, 247â250)
After the uniquely severe U.S. winter of 1886-1887 wiped out his herd of cattle and his $60,000 investment (together with those of his competitors), he returned to the East, where in 1885, he had built Sagamore Hill in Oyster Bay, New York. It would be his home and estate until his death. Roosevelt ran as the Republican candidate for mayor of New York City in 1886 as "The Cowboy of the Dakotas." He came in third.
Following the election, he went to London in 1886 and married his childhood sweetheart, Edith Kermit Carow. Thayer, Chapter V, pp. 4, 6. They honeymooned in Europe, and Roosevelt led a party to the summit of Mont Blanc, a feat which resulted in his induction into the British Royal Society. Encyclopedia Britannica, 1910 Edition, Topic: Theodore Roosevelt They had five children: Theodore Jr., Kermit, Ethel Carow, Archibald Bulloch "Archie", and Quentin. Although Roosevelt's father was also named Theodore Roosevelt, he died while the future president was still childless and unmarried, so the future President Roosevelt took the suffix of Sr. and subsequently named his son Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. Because Roosevelt was still alive when his grandson and namesake was born, his grandson was named Theodore Roosevelt III, and the president's son retained the Jr. after his father's death.
Roosevelt's book The Naval War of 1812 (1882) was standard history for two generations. Roosevelt undertook extensive and original research going computing British and American man-of-war broadside throw weights. See The Naval War of 1812, via Project Gutenberg.
By comparison, however, his hastily-written biographies of Thomas Hart Benton (1887) and Gouverneur Morris (1888) are considered superficial. Pringle (1931) p 116 His major achievement was a four-volume history of the frontier, The Winning of the West (1889â1896), which had a notable impact on historiography as it presented a highly original version of the frontier thesis elaborated upon in 1893 by his friend Frederick Jackson Turner. Roosevelt argued that the harsh frontier conditions had created a new "race": the American people that replaced the "scattered savage tribes, whose life was but a few degrees less meaningless, squalid, and ferocious than that of the wild beasts with whom they held joint ownership". He believed that "the conquest and settlement by the whites of the Indian lands was necessary to the greatness of the race and to the well-being of civilized mankind". He was using an evolutionary model in which new environmental conditions allow a new species to form. His many articles in upscale magazines provided a much-needed income, as well as cementing a reputation as a major national intellectual. He was later chosen president of the
American Historical Association.
In the The Winning of the West (1889â1896), Roosevelt's frontier thesis stressed the racial struggle between "civilization" and "savagery." He supported Nordicism, the belief in the superiority of the "Nordic" race, along with social Darwinism and racialism. Excerpts:
# "The settler and pioneer have at bottom had justice on their side; this great continent could not have been kept as nothing but a game preserve for squalid savages".
# "The most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with savages".
# "American and Indian, Boer and Zulu, Cossack and Tartar, New Zealander and Maori, â in each case the victor, horrible though many of his deeds are, has laid deep the foundations for the future greatness of a mighty people".
# "..it is of incalculable importance that America, Australia, and Siberia should pass out of the hands of their red, black, and yellow aboriginal owners, and become the heritage of the dominant world races".
# "The world would have halted had it not been for the Teutonic conquests in alien lands; but the victories of Moslem over Christian have always proved a curse in the end. Nothing but sheer evil has come from the victories of Turk and Tartar".
What did not, however, conform to the views of Roosevelt's day was that race should never be the primary factor in someone of ability performing any job. Some notable events in Theodore Roosevelt's life included:
*Developing a close relationship with the Hidatsa Indians that is maintained today in the oral tradition of the tribe.
*Inviting reformer Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House, an action which caused outrage among many newpapers in the American South, which objected to "mixing of the races on social occassions."
*Openly supporting a bill in the New York State Assembly which allowed desegregation of schools in the state, personally noting that his children had been educated with other races and there was nothing wrong with it.
*Appointed the Collector of the Port of Charleston post to an African-American, Dr. William D. Crum, and when he was urged to withdraw the appointment, wrote the following:
:I do not intend to appoint any unfit man to office. So far as I legitimately can, I shall always endeavor to pay regard to the wishes and feelings of the people of each locality; but I cannot consent to take the position that the doorway of hope - the door of opportunity - is to be shut upon any man, no matter how worthy, purely upon the grounds of race or color. Such an attitude would, according to my contentions, be fundamentally wrong.
*Defended the Postmaster of Indianola, Mississippi, Minnie D. Cox. She was an African-American, and on that basis alone she was threatened with mob violence and was forced to resign. Roosevelt took action by closing the post office there, ignored her resignation, and still paid her what she was due as if nothing happened.
New York City Police Commissioner 1896
In the 1888 presidential election, Roosevelt campaigned in the Midwest for Benjamin Harrison. President Harrison appointed Roosevelt to the United States Civil Service Commission, where he served until 1895. Thayer, ch. VI, pp. 1â2. In his term, he vigorously fought the spoilsmen and demanded the enforcement of civil service laws. In spite of Roosevelt's support for Harrison's reelection bid in the presidential election of 1892, the eventual winner, Grover Cleveland (a Bourbon Democrat), re appointed him to the same post.
Roosevelt became president of the board of New York City Police Commissioners in 1895. During the two years he held this post, Roosevelt radically reformed the police department. The police force was reputed as one of the most corrupt in America. NYPD's history division records Roosevelt was, "an iron-willed leader of unimpeachable honesty, (who) brought a reforming zeal to the New York City Police Commission in 1895." Andrews, William, "The Early Years: The Challenge of Public Order - 1845 to 1870", - New York City Police Department History Site. Retrieved August 28 2006. Roosevelt and his fellow commissioners established new disciplinary rules, created a bicycle squad to police New York's traffic problems and standardized the use of pistols by officers. Editors, "Leadership of the City of New York Police Department 1845â1901", - The New York City Police Department Museum. Retrieved August 28 2006. Roosevelt implemented regular inspections of firearms, annual physical exams, appointed 1,600 new recruits based on their physical and mental qualifications and not on political affiliation, opened the department to ethnic minorities and women, established meritorious service medals, and shut down corrupt police hostelries. During his tenure a Municipal Lodging House was established by the Board of Charities and Roosevelt required officers to register with the Board. He also had telephones installed in station houses. Always an energetic man, he made a habit of walking officers' beats late at night and early in the morning to make sure they were on duty. Brands ch 11 He became caught up in public disagreements with commissioner Parker, who sought to negate or delay the promotion of many officers put forward by Roosevelt.
Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt (front center) at the Naval War College, c. 1897
Roosevelt had always been fascinated by naval history. Urged by Roosevelt's close friend, Congressman Henry Cabot Lodge, President William McKinley appointed a delighted Roosevelt to the post of Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897. (Because of the inactivity of Secretary of the Navy John D. Long at the time, this basically gave Roosevelt control over the department.) Roosevelt was instrumental in preparing the Navy for the Spanish-American War Brands ch 12 and was an enthusiastic proponent of testing the U.S. military in battle, at one point stating "I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one".
Roosevelt left his civilian Navy post to form the famous "Rough Riders" Regiment
Upon the declaration of war in 1898 that would be known as the Spanish-American War, Roosevelt resigned from the Navy Department and, with the aid of U.S. Army Colonel Leonard Wood, organized the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment from cowboys from the Western territories to Ivy League friends from New York. The newspapers called them the "Rough Riders." Originally Roosevelt held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and served under Colonel Wood, but after Wood was promoted to Brigadier General of Volunteer Forces, Roosevelt was promoted to Colonel and given command of the Regiment. . Even after his return to civilian life, Roosevelt preferred to be known as "Colonel Roosevelt" or "The Colonel." As a moniker, "Teddy" remained much more popular with the general public; however, political friends and others who worked closely with Roosevelt customarily addressed him by his rank.
Colonel Roosevelt and his "Rough Riders" after capturing San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War
Under his leadership, the Rough Riders became famous for dual charges up Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill in July 1898 (the battle was named after the latter hill). Out of all the Rough Riders, Roosevelt was the only one who had a horse, and was forced to walk up Kettle Hill on foot after his horse, Little Texas, became tired. For his actions, Roosevelt was nominated for the Medal of Honor which was subsequently disapproved. It has been widely speculated this disapproval was because of Roosevelt's outspoken comments of the handling of the War. In September 1997, Congressman Rick Lazio representing the 2nd District of New York sent two award recommendations to the U.S. Army Military Awards Branch. These recommendations addressed to Brigadier General Earl Simms, the Army's Adjutant General and one to Master Sergeant Gary Soots, Chief of Authorizations, would prove successful in garnering the much sought after award. Soots Letter Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 2001 for his actions. Brands ch 13 He was the first and, as of 2007, the only President of the United States to be awarded with America's highest military honor, and the only person in history to receive both his nation's highest honor for military valor and the world's foremost prize for peace. Chicago newspaper sees cowboy-TR campaigning for governor
On leaving the Army, Roosevelt re-entered New York state politics and was elected governor of New York in 1898 on the Republican ticket. He made such a concerted effort to root out corruption and "machine politics" Republican boss Thomas Collier Platt forced him on McKinley as a running mate in the 1900 election, against the wishes of McKinley's manager Senator Mark Hanna. Roosevelt was a powerful campaign asset for the Republican ticket, which defeated William Jennings Bryan in a landslide based on restoration of prosperity at home and a successful war and new prestige abroad. Bryan stumped for Free Silver again, but McKinley's promise of prosperity through the Gold Standard, high tariffs, and the restoration of business confidence enlarged his margin of victory. Bryan had strongly supported the war against Spain, but denounced the annexation of the Philippines as imperialism that would spoil America's innocence. Roosevelt countered with many speeches that argued it was best for the Filipinos to have stability, and the Americans to have a proud place in the world. Roosevelt's six months as Vice President (March to September, 1901) were uneventful. Brands ch 14â15 On September 2, 1901, at the Minnesota State Fair, Roosevelt first used in a public speech a saying that would later be universally associated with him: "Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far."
At the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York President McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz (Zol-gash), on September 6, 1901. Roosevelt had been giving a speech in Vermont when he heard of the shooting. He rushed to Buffalo but after being assured the President would recover, he went on a planned family camping and hiking trip to Mount Marcy. In the mountains a runner notified him McKinley was on his death bed. Roosevelt pondered with his wife, Edith, how best to respond, not wanting to show up in Buffalo and wait on McKinley's death. Roosevelt was rushed by a series of stagecoaches to North Creek train station. At the station, Roosevelt was handed a telegram that said President McKinley died at 2:30 AM that morning. Roosevelt continued by train from North Creek to Buffalo. He arrived in Buffalo later that day, accepting an invitation to stay at the home of Ansley Wilcox, a prominent lawyer and friend since the early 1880s when they had both worked closely with New York State Governor Grover Cleveland on civil service reform. Wilcox recalled, "the family and most of the household were in the country, but he Roosevelt was offered a quiet place to sleep and eat, and accepted it." Roosevelt was a successful president. He would achieve a lot of goals in life. Some of these goals were that he won the Spanish-American War, and the Nobel Peace Prize, and he also was the youngest president in United States history. "It is a dreadful thing to come into the Presidency this way." Retrieved February 2 2007.
Nashville Tennessee News sketch of Theodore Roosevelt inauguration minus the customary Bible. Inauguration photos were not allowed after a rival photographer unceremoniously knocked down another's camera. Roosevelt took the oath of office in the Ansley Wilcox House at Buffalo, New York borrowing Wilcox's morning coat. Roosevelt did not swear on a Bible , in contrast to the usual tradition of US presidents Bibles and Scripture Passages Used by Presidents in Taking the Oath of Office. Retrieved September 23, 2007. . Expressing the fears of many old line Republicans, Mark Hanna lamented "that damned cowboy is president now." Roosevelt was the youngest person to assume the presidency, at 42, and he promised to continue McKinley's cabinet and his basic policies. Roosevelt did so, but after winning election in 1904, he moved to the political left, stretching his ties to the Republican Party's conservative leaders. Brands ch 16
A national emergency was averted in 1902 when Roosevelt found a compromise to the anthracite coal strike by the United Mine Workers of America that threatened the heating supplies of most urban homes. Roosevelt called the mine owners and the labor leaders to the White House and negotiated a compromise. Miners were on strike for 163 days before it ended; they were granted a 10% pay increase and a 9-hour day (from the previous 10 hours), but the union was not officially recognized and the price of coal went up. Brands ch 17
Theodore Roosevelt promised to continue McKinley's program, and at first he worked closely with McKinley's men. His 20,000-word address to the Congress in December 1901, asked Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits." They did not act but Roosevelt did, issuing 44 lawsuits against major corporations; he was called the "trust-buster."
Roosevelt firmly believed: "The Government must in increasing degree supervise and regulate the workings of the railways engaged in interstate commerce." Inaction was a danger, he argued: "Such increased supervision is the only alternative to an increase of the present evils on the one hand or a still more radical policy on the other." Annual Message December 1904
His biggest success was passage of the Hepburn Act of 1906, the provisions of which were to be regulated by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). The most important provision of the Act gave the ICC the power to replace existing rates with "just-and-reasonable" maximum rates, with the ICC to define what was just and reasonable. Anti-rebate provisions were toughened, free passes were outlawed, and the penalties for violation were increased. Finally, the ICC gained the power to prescribe a uniform system of accounting, require standardized reports, and inspect railroad accounts. The Act made ICC orders binding; that is, the railroads had to either obey or contest the ICC orders in federal court. To speed the process, appeals from the district courts would go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In response to public clamor (and due to the uproar cause by Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle), Roosevelt pushed Congress to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, as well as the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. These laws provided for labeling of foods and drugs, inspection of livestock and mandated sanitary conditions at meatpacking plants. Congress replaced Roosevelt's proposals with a version supported by the major meatpackers who worried about the overseas markets, and did not want small unsanitary plants undercutting their domestic market. Blum 1980 pp 43â44
Democrats attack Roosevelt as militarist and ineffective in this 1904 election cartoon
Theodore Roosevelt was the fifth Vice President to succeed to the office of President, but the first to win election in his own right. (Millard Fillmore ran and lost on a third-party ticket four years after leaving office and Chester Arthur was denied nomination by his party in 1884). After Senator Mark Hanna, McKinley's old campaign manager, died in February 1904, there was no one in the Republican Party to oppose Roosevelt and he easily won the nomination. When an effort to draft former president Grover Cleveland failed, the Democrats were without a candidate and finally settled on obscure New York judge Alton B. Parker. The outcome was never in doubt. Roosevelt crushed Parker 56%-38% in the popular vote and 336-140 in the Electoral College, sweeping the country outside the perennially Democratic Solid South. Socialist Eugene Debs got 3%. The night of the election, after his victory was clear, Roosevelt promised not to run again in 1908. He later regretted that promise, as it compelled him to leave the White House at the age of only fifty, at the height of his popularity.
Roosevelt worked closely with early conservationists such as Gifford Pinchot, pictured above, with whom he organized the first National Governors Conservation Conference at the White House in 1908
Roosevelt was the first American president to consider the long-term needs for efficient conservation of national resources, winning the support of fellow hunters and fishermen to bolster his political base. Roosevelt was the last trained observer to ever see a passenger pigeon, and on March 14, 1903, Roosevelt created the first National Bird Preserve, (the beginning of the Wildlife Refuge system) on Pelican Island, Florida. Roosevelt worked with the major figures of the conservation movement, especially his chief adviser on the matter Gifford Pinchot. Roosevelt urged Congress to establish the United States Forest Service (1905), to manage government forest lands, and he appointed Gifford Pinchot to head the service. Roosevelt set aside more land for national parks and nature preserves than all of his predecessors combined, 194 million acres (785,000 km²). In all, by 1909, the Roosevelt administration had created an unprecedented 42 million acres (170,000 km²) of national forests, 53 national wildlife refuges and 18 areas of "special interest", including the Grand Canyon. The Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the Badlands commemorates his conservationist philosophy. Roosevelt and Muir In 1903, Roosevelt toured the Yosemite Valley with John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, but Roosevelt believed in the more efficient use of natural resources by corporations like lumber companies unlike Muir. In 1907, with Congress about to block him, Roosevelt hurried to designate 16 million acres (65,000 km²) of new national forests. In May 1908, he sponsored the Conference of Governors held in the White House, with a focus on the most efficient planning, analysis and use of water, forests and other natural resources. Roosevelt explained, "There is an intimate relation between our streams and the development and conservation of all the other great permanent sources of wealth." During his presidency, Roosevelt promoted the nascent conservation movement in essays for Outdoor Life magazine. To Roosevelt, conservation meant more and better usage and less waste, and a long-term perspective. In 2006, a group of American high school students developed a 10 minute video on Roosevelt's conservation legacy with the help of Roosevelt scholar Edward Renehan and Roosevelt descendant, Tweed Roosevelt. See Commented out because it's a YouTube link used as a ref, it's original research, and really it's not a reference. But maybe someone else will think differently. -->
Roosevelt's conservationist leanings also impelled him to preserve national sites of scientific, particularly archaeological, interest. The 1906 passage of the Antiquities Act gave him a tool for creating national monuments by presidential proclamation, without requiring Congressional approval for each monument on an item-by-item basis. The language of the Antiquities Act specifically called for the preservation of "historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest," and was primarily construed by its creator, Congressman James F. Lacey (assisted by the prominent archaeologist Edgar Lee Hewett), as targeting the prehistoric ruins of the American Southwest. Roosevelt, however, applied a typically broad interpretation to the Act, and the first national monument he proclaimed, Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming, was preserved for reasons tied more to geology than archaeology.
Roosevelt's conservationism caused him to forbid having a Christmas tree in the White House. He was reportedly upset when he found a small tree his son had been hiding. After learning about the commercial farming of Christmas trees, where no virgin forests were cut down to supply the demand during the Christmas holiday, he relented and allowed his family to have a tree each season.
In Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and the Panama Canal Zone, Roosevelt used the Army's medical service, under Walter Reed and William C. Gorgas, to eliminate the yellow fever menace and install a new regime of public health. In the new possessions the Roosevelt administration used the army to build railways, telegraph and telephone lines, and upgrade roads and port facilities.
The Philippines saw the U.S. Army for the first time using a systematic doctrine of counter-insurgency. Despite the ad hoc nature of the force deployed by Roosevelt the Army was able to end the insurgency by 1902. Over the course of the war the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built over 3000 miles of roads and worked to build an entire education system, even bringing in thousands of American teachers to spearhead the effort.
Roosevelt builds the canal and shovels dirt on Colombia
Roosevelt dramatically increased the size of the navy, forming the Great White Fleet, which toured the world in 1907. This display was designed to impress the Japanese. Yet, the ships were almost forced to return because of the inadequacy of American ports in the Pacific. See Edward S Miller,War Plan Orange (Annapolis, 1991) Roosevelt also added the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which stated that the United States could intervene in Latin American affairs when corruption of governments made it necessary.
Roosevelt gained international praise for helping negotiate the end of the Russo-Japanese War, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Roosevelt later arbitrated a dispute between France and Germany over the division of Morocco. Some historians have argued these latter two actions helped in a small way to avert a world war. The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (2005). "Theodore Roosevelt (1901â1909)". Retrieved March 6 2006.
Roosevelt's most famous foreign policy initiative, following the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, was the construction of the Panama Canal, which upon its completion shortened the route of freighters between San Francisco, California and New York City by 8,000 miles (13,000 km).
Colombia first proposed the canal in their country as opposed to rival Nicaragua, and Colombia signed a treaty for an agreed-upon sum. At the time, Panama was a province of Colombia. According to the treaty, in 1902, the U.S. was to buy out the equipment and excavations from France, which had been attempting to build a canal since 1881. While the Colombian negotiating team had signed the treaty, ratification by the Colombian Senate became problematic. The Colombian Senate balked at the price and asked for ten million dollars over the original agreed upon price. When the U.S. refused to re-negotiate the price, the Colombian politicians proposed cutting the original French company that started the project out of the deal and giving that difference to Colombia.
The original deal stipulated the French company was to be reasonably compensated. Realizing the Colombian Senate was no longer bargaining in good faith, Roosevelt tired of these last-minute attempts by the Colombians to cheat the French out of their entire investment, and ultimately decided, with the encouragement of Panamanian business interests, to help Panama declare independence from Colombia in 1903.
A brief Panamanian revolution of only a few hours followed the declaration, as Colombian soldiers were bribed $50 each to lay down their arms. On November 3, 1903, the Republic of Panama was created, with its constitution written in advance by the United States. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. signed a protection treaty with Panama. And after the signing of the treaty, a man named Nathan Johnson Forest assisted Panama with the initial planning phases for the canal. The U.S. then paid ten million to secure rights to build on, and control, the Canal Zone. Construction began in 1904 and was completed in 1914.
It took a long time to build the Panama Canal because of the rampant spread of tropical diseases. Over 200 workers died of yellow fever and malaria, spread by mosquitoes. Roosevelt initiated work on clearing swamps and other areas in which the insects bred. As the health threat finally receded, this greatly facilitated the construction of the Canal.
Roosevelt, (on the 12" gun turret at right), addresses the crew of USS Connecticut (BB18), in Hampton Roads, Virginia, upon her return from the Fleet's cruise
As Roosevelt's administration drew to a close, the president dispatched a fleet consisting of four US Navy battleship squadrons and their escorts, on a world-wide voyage of circumnavigation from December 16, 1907, to February 22, 1909. With their hulls painted white (except for the beautiful gilded scrollwork) and red, white, and blue banners on their bows, these ships would come to be known as The Great White Fleet. Roosevelt wanted to demonstrate to his country and the world that the US Navy was capable of operating in a global theater, particularly in the Pacific. This was extraordinarily important at a time when tensions were slowly growing between the United States and Japan. The latter had recently shown its navy's competence in defeating the Russians in the Russo-Japanese War, and the US Navy fleet in the west was relatively small. As a mark of the mission's success, the Atlantic Fleet battleships only later came to be known as the "Great White Fleet."
When the real Great White Fleet sailed into Yokahama, Japan, the Japanese went to extraordinary lengths to show that their country desired peace with the US. Thousands of Japanese school children waved American flags, purchased by the government, as they greeted the Navy brass coming ashore. In February 1909, the fleet returned home to Hampton Roads, Virginia, and Roosevelt was there to witness the triumphant return. His appearance indicated that he saw the fleet's long voyage as a fitting finish for his administration. Roosevelt said to the officers of the Fleet, "Other nations may do what you have done, but they'll have to follow you." This parting act of grand strategy by Roosevelt greatly expanded the respect for, as well as the role of, the United States in the international arena. However, the visit of the Great White Fleet to Tokyo also encouraged Japanese militarists. They had always argued for an even more aggressive Japanese ship building and naval expansion program, and the recent show of force by the U.S. convinced enough of their countrymen that they were right. In a real sense, this set in motion the chain of events leading to the U.S. & Japan confronting each other 30 years later - during WWII.
A Lincoln cent
Roosevelt thought American coins and currency were common and uninspiring. Roosevelt had the opportunity to pose for a young Lithuanian-born sculptor, Victor David Brenner, who, since arriving nineteen years earlier in the United States had become one of the nationâs premier medalists. Roosevelt had learned of Brenner's talents in a settlement house on New York City's Lower East Side and was immediately impressed with a bas-relief that Brenner had made of Lincoln, based on the early Civil War era photographer, Mathew Brady's photograph. Roosevelt, who considered Lincoln the savior of the Union and the greatest Republican President and who also considered himself Lincolnâs political heir, ordered the new Lincoln penny to be based on Brenner's work and that it go just in time to commemorate Lincolnâs 100th birthday in 1909. The likeness of President Lincoln on the obverse of the coin is an adaptation of a plaque Brenner executed several years earlier and which had come to the attention of President Roosevelt in New York. /ref>
Roosevelt took Cabinet members and friends on long, fast-paced hikes, boxed in the state rooms of the White House, romped with his children, and read voraciously. Hanson, David C. (2005). "Theodore Roosevelt: Lion in the White House". Retrieved March 6 2006. In 1908, he was permanently blinded in his left eye during one of his boxing bouts, but this injury was kept from the public at the time. Smith, Ira R. T.; Morris, Joe Alex (1949). "Dear Mr. President": The Story of Fifty Years in the White House Mail Room, p. 52. Julian Messner. His many enthusiastic interests and limitless energy led one ambassador to wryly explain, "You must always remember that the President is about six." Kennedy, Robert C. (2005). "'I hear there are some kids in the White House this year'". Retrieved March 6 2006.
Roosevelt shoots holes in the dictionary as the ghosts of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dr Johnson moan.
During his presidency, Roosevelt tried but did not succeed to advance the cause of simplified spelling. He tried to force government to adopt the system, sending an order to the Public Printer to use the system in all public documents. The order was obeyed, and among the documents thus printed was the President's special message regarding the Panama Canal. The New York World translated the Thanksgiving Day proclamation:
The reform annoyed the public, forcing him to rescind the order. Roosevelt's friend, literary critic Brander Matthews, one of the chief advocates of the reform, remonstrated with him for abandoning the effort. Roosevelt replied on December 16: "I could not by fighting have kept the new spelling in, and it was evidently worse than useless to go into an undignified contest when I was beaten. Do you know that the one word as to which I thought the new spelling was wrong thru was more responsible than anything else for our discomfiture?" Next summer Roosevelt was watching a naval review when a launch marked "Pres Bot" chugged ostentatiously by. The President waved and laughed with delight. Pringle 465â7
Roosevelt's oldest daughter, Alice, was a controversial character during Roosevelt's stay in the White House. When friends asked if he could rein in his elder daughter, Roosevelt said, "I can be President of the United States, or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both." In turn, Alice said of him that he always wanted to be "the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral." (Some sources attribute this quote to one of Roosevelt's sons instead.) Thayer, Chapter XIII, p. 7.
Roosevelt's contribution to the White House was the construction of the original West Wing, which he had built to free up the second floor rooms in the residence that formerly housed the president's staff. He and Edith also had the entire house renovated and restored to the federal style, tearing out the Victorian furnishings and details (including Tiffany windows) that had been installed over the previous three decades.
1902 The Washington Post political cartoon that spawned the Teddy bear name.
#In the sphere of race relations, Booker T. Washington became the first black man to dine as a guest at the White House in 1901.
#Oscar S. Straus became the first Jewish person appointed as a Cabinet Secretary, under Roosevelt.
#In August, 1902, Roosevelt became the first U.S. president to take a public automobile ride. This occurred during a parade in Hartford, Connecticut
#In 1910 he became the first U.S. President to ride in an airplane.
#On August 25, 1905 he became the first U.S. President to ride in a military submarine when he boarded the USS Holland (SS-1) and ran submerged with her for 55 minutes.
#In 1906, he made the first trip, by a President, outside the United States, visiting Panama to inspect the construction progress of the Panama Canal on November 9.
#In 1902, in response to the assassination of President William McKinley on September 6 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became the first president to be under constant Secret Service protection.
# In 1906, Roosevelt became the first American to be awarded a Nobel Prize.
#In 2001, he became the first and only President up to date to receive a Medal of Honor, making him the only person to date to win the world's highest peace honor, as well as his nation's top military honor.
#He was the first and to date only president from Long Island, New York.
#He was the first President to officially refer to the White House as such, on his official stationery. This had been the common name (referring to the color of the building), but until then, the official name was "The Executive Mansion"
#He was the first President to wear a necktie for his official Presidential Portrait.
#He was the first President to approve a coin, the Lincoln cent, with a man's face on it, in 1909, just in time for the centennial of Lincoln's birth. Lincoln was Roosevelt's presidential hero.
#He was the first President to coin an internationally recognized trademark, although not deliberately. His offhand remark, "good to the last drop," about some coffee drunk at the Maxwell House hotel in Tennessee, see Maxwell House coffee.
#He is the only president to have a famous toy named after him (the Teddy bear, named after a bear he refused to shoot in a 1902 hunt in Mississipi).
John Singer Sargent, Theodore Roosevelt, 1903; click on painting for background story.
Roosevelt appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
*Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. 1902
*William Rufus Day 1903
*William Henry Moody 1906
*Oklahoma 1907
Roosevelt standing next to a dead elephant during a safari
In March 1909, shortly after the end of his second term, Roosevelt left New York for a safari in east and central Africa. Roosevelt's party landed in Mombasa, British East Africa (now Kenya), traveled to the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) before following the Nile up to Khartoum in modern Sudan. Financed by Andrew Carnegie and by his own proposed writings, Roosevelt hunted for specimens for the Smithsonian Institution and for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. His party, which included scientists from the Smithsonian and was led by Frederick Selous, the famous big game hunter and explorer, and they killed or trapped over 11,397 animals, from insects and moles to hippopotamuses and elephants. 512 of the animals were big game animals, including six rare white rhinos. 262 of these were consumed by the expedition. Tons of salted animals and their skins were shipped to Washington; the quantity was so large that it took years to mount them all, and the Smithsonian was able to share many duplicate animals with other museums.
Regarding the large number of animals taken, Roosevelt said, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned." O'Toole, Patricia (2005) When Trumpets Call, p. 67, Simon and Schuster, ISBN 0-684-86477-0 However, although the safari was ostensibly conducted in the name of science, there was another, quite large element to it as well. In addition to many native peoples and local leaders, interaction with renowned professional hunters and land owning families made the safari as much a political and social event, as it was a hunting excursion. Roosevelt wrote a detailed account of the adventure in the book "African Game Trails", where he describes the excitement of the chase, the people he met, and the flora and fauna he collected in the name of science.
Roosevelt certified William Howard Taft to be a genuine "progressive" in 1908, when Roosevelt pushed through the nomination of his Secretary of War for the Presidency. Taft easily defeated three-time candidate William Jennings Bryan. Taft had a different progressivism, one that stressed the rule of law and preferred that judges rather than administrators or politicians make the basic decisions about fairness. Taft usually proved a less adroit politician than Roosevelt and lacked the energy and personal magnetism, not to mention the publicity devices, the dedicated supporters, and the broad base of public support that made Roosevelt so formidable. When Roosevelt realized that lowering the tariff would risk severe tensions inside the Republican Party pitting producers (manufacturers and farmers) against merchants and consumers he stopped talking about the issue. Taft ignored the risks and tackled the tariff boldly, on the one hand encouraging reformers to fight for lower rates, and then cutting deals with conservative leaders that kept overall rates high. The resulting Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909 was too high for most reformers, but instead of blaming this on Senator Nelson Aldrich and big business, Taft took credit, calling it the best tariff ever. Again he had managed to alienate all sides. While the crisis was building inside the Party, Roosevelt was touring Africa and Europe, so as to allow Taft to be his own man. Thayer, Chapter XXI, p. 10.
1909 cartoon: TR hands his policies to the care of Taft while William Loeb carries the "Big Stick"
Unlike Roosevelt, Taft never attacked business or businessmen in his rhetoric. However, he was attentive to the law, so he launched 90 antitrust suits, including one against the largest corporation, U.S. Steel, for an acquisition that Roosevelt had personally approved. Consequently, Taft lost the support of antitrust reformers (who disliked his conservative rhetoric), of big business (which disliked his actions), and of Roosevelt, who felt humiliated by his protégé. The left wing of the Republican Party began agitating against Taft. Senator Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin created the National Progressive Republican League (precursor to the Progressive Party (United States, 1924)) to defeat the power of political bossism at the state level and to replace Taft at the national level. More trouble came when Taft fired Gifford Pinchot, a leading conservationist and close ally of Roosevelt. Pinchot alleged that Taft's Secretary of Interior Richard Ballinger was in league with big timber interests. Conservationists sided with Pinchot, and Taft alienated yet another vocal constituency.
Roosevelt, back from Europe, unexpectedly launched an attack on the federal courts, which deeply upset Taft. Not only had Roosevelt alienated big business, he was also attacking both the judiciary and the deep faith Republicans had in their judges (most of whom had been appointed by McKinley, Roosevelt or Taft.) In the 1910 Congressional elections, Democrats swept to power, and Taft's reelection in 1912 was increasingly in doubt. In 1911, Taft responded with a vigorous stumping tour that allowed him to sign up most of the party leaders long before Roosevelt announced.
The battle between Taft and Roosevelt bitterly split the Republican Party; Taft's people dominated the party until 1936.
Late in 1911, Roosevelt finally broke with Taft and LaFollette and announced himself as a candidate for the Republican nomination. But Roosevelt had delayed too long, and Taft had already won the support of most party leaders in the country. Because of LaFollette's nervous breakdown on the campaign trail before Roosevelt's entry, most of LaFollette's supporters went over to Roosevelt, the new progressive Republican candidate.
Roosevelt, stepping up his attack on judges, carried nine of the states with preferential primaries, LaFollette took two, and Taft only one. The 1912 Primaries represented the first extensive use of the Presidential Primary, a reform achievement of the progressive movement. However, these primary elections, while demonstrating Roosevelt's popularity with the electorate, were in no ways as important as primaries are today. First of all, there were fewer states where the common voter was given a forum to express himself, such as a primary. Many more states selected convention delegates either at party conventions, or in caucuses, which were not as open as today's caucuses. So while the man in the street still adored Roosevelt, most professional Republican politicians were supporting Taft, and they proved difficult to upset in non-primary states.
At the Republican Convention in Chicago, despite being the incumbent, Taft's victory was not immediately assured. But after two weeks, Roosevelt, realizing he would not be able to win the nomination outright, asked his followers to leave the convention hall. They moved to the Auditorium Theatre, and then Roosevelt, along with key allies such as Pinchot and Albert Beveridge created the Progressive Party, structuring it as a permanent organization that would field complete tickets at the presidential and state level. It was popularly known as the "Bull Moose Party," which got its name after Roosevelt told reporters, "I'm as fit as a bull moose." Carl M. Cannon, The Pursuit of Happiness in Times of War, Rowman & Littlefield: 2003, p. 142. ISBN 0742525929. At the convention Roosevelt cried out, "We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord." Roosevelt's platform echoed his 1907â08 proposals, calling for vigorous government intervention to protect the people from the selfish interests. Thayer, Chapter XXII, pp. 25 31.
The bullet-damaged speech and eyeglass case on display at the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace
While campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on October 14, 1912, a saloonkeeper named John Schrank failed in an assassination attempt on Roosevelt. Schrank did shoot the former President, but the bullet lodged in Roosevelt's chest only after penetrating both his steel eyeglass case and passing through a thick (50 pages) single-folded copy of the speech he was carrying in his jacket. Accessed Dec. 21, 2007 . Roosevelt, as a very experienced hunter and anatomist, decide the fact he wasn't coughing blood meant the bullet had not completely penetrated the chest wall to his lung (he was correct), and so declined suggestions he go to the hospital immediately. Instead, he delivered his scheduled speech with blood seeping into his shirt. He spoke for ninety minutes. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Afterwards, doctors determined by probe and X-ray the bullet had traversed three inches of tissue and lodged in Roosevelt's chest muscle but did not penetrate the pleura, and it would be more dangerous to attempt to remove the bullet than to leave it in place. Roosevelt carried it with him until he died. Roosevelt Timeline
Due to the bullet wound, Roosevelt was taken off the campaign trail in the final weeks of the race (which ended election day, November 5). Though the other two campaigners stopped their own campaigns in the week Roosevelt was in the hospital, they resumed it once he was released. The overall effect of the shooting was uncertain. Roosevelt for many reasons failed to move enough Republicans in his direction. He did win 4.1 million votes (27%), compared to Taft's 3.5 million (23%). However, Wilson's 6.3 million votes (42%) were enough to garner 435 electoral votes. Roosevelt had 88 electoral votes to Taft's 8 electoral votes. (This meant that Taft became the only incumbent President in history to actually come in third place in an attempt to be re-elected.) But Pennsylvania was Roosevelt's only Eastern state; in the Midwest he carried Michigan, Minnesota and South Dakota; in the West, California and Washington; he did not win any Southern states. Although he lost, he won more votes than former presidents Martin Van Buren and Millard Fillmore who also ran again and also lost. More important, he pulled so many progressives out of the Republican party that it took on a much more conservative cast for the next generation.
The initial party. From left to right (seated): Father Zahm, Rondon, Kermit, Cherrie, Miller, four Brazilians, Roosevelt, Fiala. Only Roosevelt, Kermit, Cherrie, Rondon and the Brazilians traveled down the River of Doubt.
Roosevelt's popular book Through the Brazilian Wilderness describes his expedition into the Brazilian jungle in 1913 as a member of the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition co-named after its leader, Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon. The book describes all of the scientific discovery, scenic tropical vistas and exotic flora, fauna and wild life experienced on the expedition. A friend, Father John Augustine Zahm, had searched for new adventures and found them in the forests of South America. After a briefing of several of his own expeditions, he convinced Roosevelt to commit to such an expedition in 1912. To finance the expedition, Roosevelt received support from the American Museum of Natural History, promising to bring back many new animal specimens. Once in South America, a new far more ambitious goal was added: to find the headwaters of the Rio da Duvida, the River of Doubt, and trace it north to the Madiera and thence to the Amazon River. It was later renamed Rio Roosevelt (Rio Teodoro today, 640 km long) in honor of the former President. Roosevelt's crew consisted of his 24-year-old son Kermit, Colonel Cândido Rondon, a naturalist sent by the American Museum of Natural History named George K. Cherrie, Brazilian Lieutenant Joao Lyra, team physician Dr. José Antonio Cajazeira, and sixteen highly skilled paddlers (called camaradas in Portuguese). The initial expedition started, probably unwisely, on December 9, 1913, at the height of the rainy season. The trip down the River of Doubt started on February 27, 1914.
Roosevelt, wearing sun helmet, barely survived an expedition in 1913 into the Amazonian rain forest to trace the River of Doubt later named the Rio Roosevelt.
During the trip down the river, Roosevelt contracted malaria and a serious infection resulting from a minor leg wound. These illnesses so weakened Roosevelt that, by six weeks into the expedition, he had to be attended day and night by the expedition's physician, Dr. Cajazeira, and his son, Kermit. By this time, Roosevelt considered his own condition a threat to the survival of the others. At one point, Kermit had to talk him out of his wish to be left behind so as not to slow down the expedition, now with only a few weeks rations left. Roosevelt was having chest pains when he tried to walk, his temperature soared to 103 °F (39 °C), and at times he was delirious. He had lost over fifty pounds (20 kg). Without the constant support of his son, Kermit, Dr. Cajazeira, and the continued leadership of Colonel Rondon, Roosevelt would likely have perished. Despite his concern for Roosevelt, Rondon had been slowing down the pace of the expedition by his dedication to his own map-making and other geographical goals that demanded regular stops to fix the expedition's position via sun-based survey.
Upon his return to New York, friends and family were startled by Roosevelt's physical appearance and fatigue. Roosevelt wrote to a friend that the trip had cut his life short by ten years. He might not have really known just how accurate that analysis would prove to be, because the effects of the South America expedition had so greatly weakened him that they significantly contributed to his declining health. For the rest of his life, he would be plagued by flareups of malaria and leg inflammations so severe that they would require hospitalization. Thayer, Chapter XXIII, pp. 4â7.
When Roosevelt had recovered enough of his strength, he found that he had a new battle on his hands. In professional circles, there was doubt about his claims of having discovered and navigated a completely uncharted river over 625 miles (1,000 km) long. Roosevelt would have to defend himself and win international recognition of the expedition's newly-named Rio Roosevelt. Toward this end, Roosevelt went to Washington, D.C., and spoke at a standing-room-only convention to defend his claims. His official report and its defense silenced the critics, and he was able to triumphantly return to his home in Oyster Bay.
Despite his weakened condition and slow recovery from his South America expedition, Roosevelt continued to write with passion on subjects ranging from foreign policy to the importance of the national park system. As an editor of Outlook magazine, he had weekly access to a large, educated national audience. In all, Roosevelt wrote about 18 books (each in several editions), including his Autobiography, Rough Riders and History of the Naval War of 1812, ranching, explorations, and wildlife. His most ambitious book was the 4 volume narrative The Winning of the West, which attempted to connect the origin of a new "race" of Americans (i.e. what he considered the present population of the United States to be) to the frontier conditions their ancestors endured in throughout the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries.
Roosevelt angrily complained about the foreign policy of President Wilson, calling it "weak." This caused him to develop an intense dislike for Woodrow Wilson. When World War I began in 1914, Roosevelt strongly supported the Allies of World War I and demanded a harsher policy against Germany, especially regarding submarine warfare. In 1916, he campaigned energetically for Charles Evans Hughes and repeatedly denounced Irish-Americans and German-Americans who Roosevelt said were unpatriotic because they put the interest of Ireland and Germany ahead of America's by supporting neutrality. He insisted one had to be 100% American, not a "hyphenated American" who juggled multiple loyalties. When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, Roosevelt sought to raise a volunteer infantry division, but Wilson refused. Brands 781â4; Cramer, C.H. Newton D. Baker (1961) 110â113
Roosevelt's attacks on Wilson helped the Republicans win control of Congress in the off-year elections of 1918. Roosevelt was popular enough to seriously contest the 1920 Republican nomination, but his health was broken by 1918, because of the lingering malaria. His son Quentin, a daring pilot with the American forces in France, was shot down behind German lines in 1918. Quentin was his youngest son and probably the most liked by him. It is said the death of his son distressed him so much that Roosevelt never recovered from his loss. Dalton, (2002)p 507
Theodore Roosevelt Grave in Youngs Memorial Cemetery Oyster Bay, New York
Twenty-six steps leading to Roosevelt's grave, commemorating his service as 26th President
Despite his debilitating diseases, Roosevelt remained active to the end of his life. He was an enthusiastic proponent of the Scouting movement. The Boy Scouts of America gave him the title of Chief Scout Citizen, the only person to hold such title. One early Scout leader said, "The two things that gave Scouting great impetus and made it very popular were the uniform and Teddy Roosevelt's jingoism." Larson, Keith (2006). "Theodore Roosevelt". Retrieved March 6 2006.
On January 6, 1919, Roosevelt died in his sleep of a coronary embolism at Oyster Bay, and was buried in nearby Youngs Memorial Cemetery. Upon receiving word of his death, his son, Archie, telegraphed his siblings simply, "The old lion is dead." Dalton, (2002) p. 507 Woodrow Wilson's vice president at the time Thomas R. Marshall said of his death "Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight." Manners, William. TR and Will: A Friendship that Split the Republican Party. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1969.
Roosevelt Family in 1903 with Quentin on the left, TR, Ted, Jr., "Archie", Alice, Kermit, Edith, and Ethel
Roosevelt intensely disliked being called "Teddy," and was quick to point out this fact to those who used the nickname, though it would become widely used by newspapers during his political career. He attended the Madison Square Presbyterian Church until the age of 16. Later in life, when Roosevelt lived at Oyster Bay he attended an Episcopal church with his wife. While in Washington he attended services at Grace Reformed Church. "The Religious Affiliation of Theodore Roosevelt U.S. President". Retrieved March 7 2006. As President he firmly believed in the separation of church and state and thought it unwise to have In God We Trust on currency, because he thought it sacrilegious to put the name of the Deity on something so common as money. Reynolds, Ralph C. (1999). "In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash". Retrieved March 7 2006. He was also a Freemason, and regularly attended the Matinecock Lodge's meetings. He once said that "One of the things that so greatly attracted me to Masonry that I hailed the chance of becoming a Mason was that it really did act up to what we, as a government, are pledged to namely to treat each man on his merit as a man." Matinecock Masonic Historical Society. "History". Retrieved March 12 2006.
Roosevelt had a lifelong interest in pursuing what he called, in an 1899 speech, "the strenuous life." To this end, he exercised regularly and took up boxing, tennis, hiking, rowing, polo, and horseback riding. As governor of New York, he boxed with sparring partners several times a week, a practice he regularly continued as President until one blow detached his left retina, leaving him blind in that eye (a fact not made public until many years later). Thereafter, he practiced jujutsu and continued his habit of skinny-dipping in the Potomac River during winter. Thayer, Chapter XVII, pp. 22 24. Shaw, K.B. & Maiden, David (2006). "Theodore Roosevelt".
Retrieved March 7 2006.
Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt's estate
He was an enthusiastic singlestick player and, according to Harper's Weekly, in 1905 showed up at a White House reception with his arm bandaged after a bout with General Leonard Wood. Amberger, J Christoph, Secret History of the Sword Adventures in Ancient Martial Arts 1998, ISBN 1-892515-04-0. Roosevelt was also an avid reader, reading tens of thousands of books, at a rate of several a day in multiple languages. Along with Thomas Jefferson Roosevelt is often considered the most well read of any American politician. David H. Burton, The Learned Presidency 1988, p 12.
Roosevelt's face on Mt. Rushmore
1910 cartoon shows Roosevelt's multiple roles to 1898
1910 cartoon shows Roosevelt's multiple roles from 1899 to 1910
For his gallantry at San Juan Hill, Roosevelt's commanders recommended him for the Medal of Honor, but his subsequent telegrams to the War Department complaining about the delays in returning American troops from Cuba doomed his chances. In the late 1990s, Roosevelt's supporters again took up the flag on his behalf and overcame opposition from elements within the U.S. Army and the National Archives. On January 16, 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded Theodore Roosevelt the Medal of Honor posthumously for his charge up San Juan Hill, Cuba, during the Spanish-American War. Roosevelt's eldest son, Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., received the Medal of Honor for heroism at the Battle of Normandy in 1944. The Roosevelts thus became one of only two father-son pairs to receive this honor.
Roosevelt's legacy includes several other important commemorations. Roosevelt was included with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln at the Mount Rushmore Memorial, designed in 1927. The United States Navy named two ships for Roosevelt: the USS Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600), a submarine was in commission from 1961 to 1982; and the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), an aircraft carrier that has been on active duty in the Atlantic Fleet since 1986.
The Roosevelt Memorial Association (later the Theodore Roosevelt Association) or "TRA", was founded in 1920 to preserve Roosevelt's legacy. The Association preserved TR's birthplace, "Sagamore Hill" home, papers, and video film.
Overall, historians credit Roosevelt for changing the nation's political system by permanently placing the presidency at center stage and making character as important as the issues. His notable accomplishments include trust-busting and conservationism. However, he has been criticized for his interventionist and imperialist approach to nations he considered "uncivilized". Even so, history and legend have been kind to him. His friend, historian Henry Adams, proclaimed, "Roosevelt, more than any other living man ....showed the singular primitive quality that belongs to ultimate matter the quality that mediaeval theology assigned to God he was pure act." Historians typically rank Roosevelt among the top five presidents. The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (2005). "Biography: Impact and Legacy". Retrieved March 7 2006. "Legacy". Retrieved March 7 2006.
Roosevelt has been quoted by virtually all the major Republican and Democratic candidates for the 2008 US Presidential Election. Political pundits have brought up Roosevelt's name in book after book. The degree of discussion ranges from a single sentence by democrat Bill Richardson talking about him as "BR" breaking Roosevelt's (or "TR") 1907 single handshaking record, John Edwards mentioning Roosevelt in a fall of 2007 speech to John McCain devoting an entire chapter to him in his main background book. Even the lone candidate that did not mention Roosevelt in an autobiographical book, democrat, Joe Biden, nevertheless, began mentioning Roosevelt's taking on of corporate interests speeches in New Hampshire in the summer of 2007.
Roosevelt's 1901 saying "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick" is still being occasionally quoted by politicians and columnists in different countries - not only in English but also in translation to various other languages. For example, following the Second Lebanon War of August 2006, opponents of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accused him of "Speaking loudly and carrying a small stick".
The well-known Nicaraguan poet Rubén DarÃo published in 1905 a poem entitled A Roosevelt (To Roosevelt) which was included in Cantos de Vida y Esperanza (Songs of Life and Hope)
As a charismatic President often considered larger than life, Roosevelt has appeared in numerous fiction books, television shows, films, and other media of popular culture. Roosvelt was played by Robin Williams in the box office hit Night at the Museum and its upcoming sequel.
"Drawing the Line in Mississippi," by Clifford Berryman, referring to Roosevelt's sparing the bear.
Filmmaker John Milius also directed two films in which Roosevelt was a central character: The Wind and the Lion (1975) in which he was played by Brian Keith; and Rough Riders (1997) in which he was played by Tom Berenger. Keith's performance is widely considered to be the definitive screen depiction of Roosevelt.
Roosevelt's lasting popular legacy, however, is the stuffed toy bearsâteddy bearsânamed after him following an incident on a hunting trip in 1902. Roosevelt famously refused to kill a captured black bear simply for the sake of making a kill. Bears and later bear cubs became closely associated with Roosevelt in political cartoons thereafter. "History of the Teddy Bear". Retrieved March 7 2006.
On June 26, 2006, Roosevelt, once again, made the cover of TIME magazine with the lead story, "The Making of AmericaâTheodore RooseveltâThe 20th Century Express": "At home and abroad, Theodore Roosevelt was the locomotive President, the man who drew his flourishing nation into the future."
The Washington Nationals major league baseball team has a fan tradition called the Presidents Race. In it four caricatures of presidents Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt race against each other. A running gag has been Theodore Roosevelt's inability to win a single Presidents Race.
In 2006 Roosevelt' likeness was used in "Night at the Museum (The movie).
Theodore Roosevelt was one of the first presidents whose voice was recorded for posterity. Several of his recorded speeches survive. Vincent Voice Library at Michigan State University. Retrieved September 23, 2007.
* Roosevelt goes for first aeroplane ride in Arch Hoxsey plane 1910
*Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. father
*Martha Bulloch mother
*Eleanor Roosevelt niece, First Lady of the United States (1933â1945)
*Alice Roosevelt first wife
*Edith Carow Roosevelt second wife
*Alice Roosevelt first daughter
*Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. first son
*Kermit Roosevelt second son
*Ethel Roosevelt second daughter
*Archibald Roosevelt third son
*Quentin Roosevelt fourth son
*Elliott Roosevelt brother
*Anna Cowles sister
*Corinne Robinson sister
*Franklin D. Roosevelt, cousin, 32nd President of the United States
*Theodore Roosevelt Association 1920 organization founded to preserve Roosevelt's historical legacy
*Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia 1940 compendium of Roosevelt's key writings, sayings and conversations
*Reynier Tyson 4th great-grandfather, early German-American settler
*Panama Canal
*Great White Fleet
*Russo-Japanese War
*List of U.S. political appointments that crossed party lines
*Progressivism
*
*Auchincloss, Louis, ed. Theodore Roosevelt, The Rough Riders and an Autobiography (Library of America, 2004) ISBN 978-1-93108265-5
*Auchincloss, Louis, ed. Theodore Roosevelt, Letters and Speeches (Library of America, 2004) ISBN 978-1-93108266-2
*Brands, H.W. ed. The Selected Letters of Theodore Roosevelt. (2001)
*Harbaugh, William ed. The Writings Of Theodore Roosevelt (1967). A one-volume selection of Roosevelt's speeches and essays.
*Hart, Albert Bushnell and Herbert Ronald Ferleger, eds. Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia (1941), Roosevelt's opinions on many issues; online version at
*Morison, Elting E., John Morton Blum, and Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., eds., The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 8 vols. (1951â1954). Very large, annotated edition of letters from TR.
*Roosevelt, Theodore (1999). Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography. online at Bartleby.com.
*Roosevelt, Theodore. The Works of Theodore Roosevelt (National edition, 20 vol. 1926); 18,000 pages containing most of TR's speeches, books and essays, but not his letters; a CD-ROM edition is available; some of TR's books are available online through Project Bartleby
* Theodore Roosevelt books and speeches on Project Gutenberg
*Blum, John Morton The Republican Roosevelt. (1954). Series of essays that examine how TR did politics
*Brands, H.W. Theodore Roosevelt (2001), full biography
* Chace, James. 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft, and Debs - The Election That Changed the Country. (2004). 323 pp.
*Cooper, John Milton The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. (1983) a dual scholarly biography
*Dalton, Kathleen. Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life. (2002), full scholarly biography
* Fehn, Bruce. "Theodore Roosevelt and American Masculinity." Magazine of History (2005) 19(2): 52â59. Issn: 0882-228x Fulltext online at Ebsco. Provides a lesson plan on TR as the historical figure who most exemplifies the quality of masculinity.
*Gluck, Sherwin. "T.R.'s Summer White House, Oyster Bay." (1999) Chronicles the events of TR's presidency during the summers of his two terms.
*Gould, Lewis L. The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. (1991), standard history of his domestic and foreign policy as president
*Harbaugh, William Henry. The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt. (1963), full scholarly biography
*Keller, Morton, ed., Theodore Roosevelt: A Profile (1967) excerpts from TR and from historians.
* Kohn, Edward. "Crossing the Rubicon: Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and the 1884 Republican National Convention." Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2006 5(1): 18â45. Issn: 1537-7814 Fulltext: in History Cooperative
*Millard, Candice. River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey. (2005)
*McCullough, David. Mornings on Horseback, The Story of an Extraordinary Family. a Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt. (2001) popular biography to 1884
*Morris, Edmund The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, to 1901 (1979); vol 2: Theodore Rex 1901â1909. (2001); Pulitzer prize for Volume 1. Biography.
* Mowry, George. The Era of Theodore Roosevelt and the Birth of Modern America, 1900â1912. (1954) general survey of era; online
*Mowry, George E. Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement. (2001) focus on 1912
* O'Toole, Patricia. When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt after the White House. (2005). 494 pp.
*Powell, Jim. Bully Boy: The Truth About Theodore Roosevelt's Legacy (Crown Forum, 2006). Denounces TR policies from conservative/libertarian perspective
*Pringle, Henry F. Theodore Roosevelt (1932; 2nd ed. 1956), full scholarly biography
*Putnam, Carleton Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography, Volume I: The Formative Years (1958), only volume published, to age 28.
*Renehan, Edward J. The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War. (Oxford University Press, 1998), examines TR and his family during the World War I period
*Strock, James M. Theodore Roosevelt on Leadership. Random House, 2003.
* Watts, Sarah. Rough Rider in the White House: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of Desire. 2003. 289 pp.
*Beale Howard K. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power. (1956). standard history of his foreign policy
* Holmes, James R. Theodore Roosevelt and World Order: Police Power in International Relations. 2006. 328 pp.
* Marks III, Frederick W. Velvet on Iron: The Diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt (1979)
* David McCullough. The Path between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870â1914 (1977).
* Ricard, Serge. "The Roosevelt Corollary." Presidential Studies Quarterly 2006 36(1): 17â26. Issn: 0360-4918 Fulltext: in Swetswise and Ingenta
* Tilchin, William N. and Neu, Charles E., ed. Artists of Power: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Their Enduring Impact on U.S. Foreign Policy. Praeger, 2006. 196 pp.
* Tilchin, William N. Theodore Roosevelt and the British Empire: A Study in Presidential Statecraft (1997)
* Theodore Roosevelt Association - Founded in 1920 by Roosevelt's friends and admirers to preserve his legacy. Extensive online resources and bibliography
* Extensive essay on Theodore Roosevelt and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* NY Times Headline, January 6, 1919, Theodore Roosevelt Dies Suddenly at Oyster Bay Home; Nation Shocked, Pays Tribute to Former President; Our Flag on All Seas and in All Lands at Half Mast
* "The Early Years: The Challenge of Public Order - 1845 to 1870", by William Andrews, New York City Police Department History Site
* "Leadership of the City of New York Police Department 1845â1901", - The New York City Police Department Museum
* PBS "American Experience" Theodore Roosevelt
* My Brother Theodore Roosevelt, 1921 By Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, a bestseller with a woman's and sister's point of view on TR. Full text and Full text Search, Free to Read and Search.
* Almanac of Theodore Roosevelt
* Downloadable audio recordings of Roosevelt in MP3 format
* Audio clips of Roosevelt's speeches
* Roosevelt podcasts Audio Recording of Roosevelt's Progressive Party Acceptance Speech, "Progressive Covenant with the People" with text included.
* Quotes
* Theodore Roosevelt Works - Bartleby's Online Books
* Presidential Biography by Stanley L. Klos
*
* Index of T. Roosevelt Etexts
* Detailed biography of Theodore Roosevelt from the 1911 version of Encyclopedia Britannica
* Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Address
* State of the Union addresses for 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, and 1908
* Nobel Peace Prize 1906: Theodore Roosevelt
* Theodore Roosevelt Papers at the Library of Congress
* Theodore Roosevelt: His Life & Times on Film (LOC)
* Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
* Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site
* Sagamore Hill National Historic Site
* NobelPrize.org's entry on Theodore Roosevelt
* Congressional Medal of Honor's entry on Theodore Roosevelt; including citation and pictures
* Medal of Honor Recipients on Film
* White House biography
* Vice Presidents Dot Com
* Family and Descendants of Theodore Roosevelt
* Ron Schuler's Parlour Tricks: Teddy
* Theodore Roosevelt Links
* Theodore Roosevelt Quotes, Pictures and Biography at TeddyRoosevelt.com
* Theodore Roosevelt cylinder recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.
* On Theodore Roosevelt's progressive vision from the Roosevelt Institution, a student think tank inspired in part by Theodore Roosevelt.
* Boone and Crockett Club, founded by Theodore Roosevelt
* How to pronounce Theodore Roosevelt
* Yesterday's News blog 1901 newspaper account of Roosevelt's "Big Stick" speech at the Minnesota State Fair
* Archive of Theodore Roosevelt Pictures
* still of Theodore Roosevelt going on first aeroplane flight
* different view of Theodore Roosevelt & Arch Hoxsey in Wright aeroplane St Louis October 1910
*
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
September 14
1901
March 4
1909
Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
William Howard Taft
Vice President of the United States
March 4
1901
September 14
1901
William McKinley
Garret Hobart
Charles W. Fairbanks
List of Governors of New York
January 1
1899
December 31
1900
Timothy L. Woodruff
Frank S. Black
Benjamin Barker Odell, Jr.
New York City
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
Edith Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Bulloch Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Polymath
author
historian
conservationist
Civil servant
History of United States Republican Party
Dutch Reformed
October 27
1858
January 6
1919
President of the United States
History of the United States Republican Party
Progressivism
List of Governors of New York
United States Navy
Rough Riders
Rough Riders
Spanish-American War
Amazon Basin
William McKinley
John F. Kennedy
Progressive Era
trust-busting
trust (law)
capitalism
Square Deal
conservation
labor union
William Howard Taft
U.S. presidential election, 1912
Progressive Party (United States, 1912)
Woodrow Wilson
conservative
Panama Canal
Nobel Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
Russo-Japanese War
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
Mount Rushmore
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
Gramercy, New York
New York City
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
Martha Bulloch
Bamie Roosevelt
Elliott Roosevelt I
Eleanor Roosevelt
Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
newspaper
Joseph Alsop
Stewart Alsop
American Revolution
History of the United States Democratic Party
History of the United States Republican Party
philanthropy
Abraham Lincoln
American Civil War
slavery
Savannah, Georgia
Confederate
James Dunwoody Bulloch
U.S. Navy
Irvine Bulloch
CSS Alabama
asthma
zoology
Pinniped
taxidermy
March 6
2006
boxing
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
March 9
2006
biology
French language
German language
mathematics
Latin
Greek language
Harvard College
magna cum laude
science
philosophy
rhetoric
ornithology
eidetic memory
Alpha Delta Phi
Delta Kappa Epsilon
C.S. Hanks
Phi Beta Kappa
Columbia Law School
New York Assembly
History of the United States Republican Party
Mugwump
James G. Blaine
Grover Cleveland
History of the United States Democratic Party
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
July 29
1861
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
February 14
1884
Manhattan, New York
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Bright's disease
Typhoid fever
Dakota Territory
Badlands
Tiffany and Co.
Medora, North Dakota
Little Missouri River (North Dakota)
Dickinson
Deadwood, South Dakota
South Dakota
Sheriff
Seth Bullock
winter of 1886-1887
Sagamore Hill
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Edith Roosevelt
Mont Blanc
British Royal Society
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt III
man-of-war
broadside
Thomas Hart Benton (senator)
Gouverneur Morris
historiography
frontier thesis
Frederick Jackson Turner
American Historical Association
Nordicism
social Darwinism
racialism
Booker T. Washington
New York
Charleston
Postmaster
Indianola, Mississippi
U.S. presidential election, 1888
Benjamin Harrison
United States Civil Service Commission
spoils system
U.S. presidential election, 1892
Grover Cleveland
Bourbon Democrat
New York City Police Commissioner
August 28
2006
August 28
2006
Henry Cabot Lodge
William McKinley
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Secretary of the Navy
John D. Long
Spanish-American War
Rough Riders
Leonard Wood
Rough Riders
cowboy
Ivy League
Lieutenant Colonel
Brigadier General
Rough Riders
Rough Riders
Kettle Hill
Battle of San Juan Hill
Medal of Honor
as of 2007
machine politics
Thomas C. Platt
United States presidential election, 1900
Mark Hanna
William Jennings Bryan
Minnesota State Fair
Big stick Diplomacy
Pan-American Exposition
Buffalo, New York
William McKinley
Leon Czolgosz
September 6
1901
Mount Marcy
Ansley Wilcox
Grover Cleveland
February 2
2007
Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site
Buffalo, New York
New York
Bible
Mark Hanna
United Mine Workers of America
trust (19th century)
Trust Buster
Hepburn Act
Interstate Commerce Commission
Upton Sinclair
The Jungle
Pure Food and Drug Act
Meat Inspection Act
Millard Fillmore
Chester Arthur
Mark Hanna
Grover Cleveland
Alton B. Parker
Electoral College
Solid South
Eugene Debs
Gifford Pinchot
passenger pigeon
March 14
1903
Florida
conservation
Gifford Pinchot
United States Forest Service
national park
nature preserve
national forest
national wildlife refuge
Grand Canyon
Theodore Roosevelt National Park
Badlands
John Muir
Conference of Governors
Outdoor Life
Edward Renehan
Tweed Roosevelt
YouTube
April 23
2006
archaeology
Antiquities Act
U.S. National Monument
James F. Lacey
Edgar Lee Hewett
Devils Tower National Monument
Wyoming
geology
Christmas tree
White House
virgin forests
Cuba
Philippines
Puerto Rico
Panama Canal Zone
Walter Reed
William C. Gorgas
yellow fever
Great White Fleet
Roosevelt Corollary
Monroe Doctrine
Latin American
Russo-Japanese War
Nobel Peace Prize
France
Germany
Morocco
world war
March 6
2006
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty
Panama Canal
San Francisco, California
California
New York City
Colombia
Nicaragua
Panama
November 3
1903
Nathan Johnson Forest
US Navy
battleship
circumnavigation
December 16
1907
February 22
1909
Great White Fleet
Russians
Russo-Japanese War
U.S. Atlantic Fleet
grand strategy
Victor David Brenner
New York City
Lower East Side
American Civil War
Mathew Brady
Lincoln cent
March 6
2006
March 6
2006
simplified spelling
Brander Matthews
December 16
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
West Wing
federal style
Louis Comfort Tiffany
race relations
Booker T. Washington
White House
Oscar Straus (politician)
Hartford
Connecticut
submarine
USS Holland (SS-1)
Panama Canal
November 9
William McKinley
September 6
1901
Secret Service
Nobel Prize
Long Island
Lincoln cent
Maxwell House
Teddy bear
John Singer Sargent
President of the United States
Vice President of the United States
Charles W. Fairbanks
United States Secretary of State
John Hay
Elihu Root
Robert Bacon
United States Secretary of the Treasury
Lyman J. Gage
L. M. Shaw
George B. Cortelyou
United States Secretary of War
Elihu Root
William Howard Taft
Luke Edward Wright
Attorney General of the United States
Philander C. Knox
William Henry Moody
Charles Joseph Bonaparte
Postmaster General of the United States
Charles Emory Smith
Henry C. Payne
Robert Wynne
George B. Cortelyou
George von Lengerke Meyer
United States Secretary of the Navy
John Davis Long
William Henry Moody
Paul Morton
Charles Joseph Bonaparte
Victor H. Metcalf
Truman Handy Newberry
United States Secretary of the Interior
Ethan A. Hitchcock (Interior)
James Rudolph Garfield
United States Secretary of Agriculture
James Wilson (U.S. politician)
United States Secretary of Commerce and Labor
George B. Cortelyou
Victor H. Metcalf
Oscar Straus (politician)
Supreme Court of the United States
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
William R. Day
William Henry Moody
Oklahoma
safari
East Africa
central Africa
Mombasa
British East Africa
Kenya
Belgian Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Nile
Khartoum
Sudan
Andrew Carnegie
Smithsonian Institution
American Museum of Natural History
Frederick Selous
insect
Mole (animal)
hippopotamus
elephant
White Rhinoceros
Washington, D.C.
taxidermy
museum
National Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History
science
flora
fauna
William Howard Taft
U.S. presidential election, 1908
William Jennings Bryan
Payne-Aldrich tariff
Nelson Aldrich
William Loeb
Robert M. La Follette, Sr.
Wisconsin
Progressive Party (United States, 1924)
Gifford Pinchot
Richard Ballinger
Republican Convention
Chicago
Auditorium Building, Chicago
Pinchot
Albert Beveridge
Progressive Party 1912 (United States)
Bull Moose Party
Armageddon
statesmanship
Woodrow Wilson
monopoly
Trust (19th century)
U.S. Steel
Standard Oil
Howard Taft
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Wisconsin
October 14
1912
John Schrank
assassination
chest
steel
eyeglass
pleura
Pennsylvania
Eastern United States
Midwest
Michigan
Minnesota
South Dakota
Western United States
California
Washington
Martin Van Buren
Millard Fillmore
John Augustine Zahm
Cândido Rondon
Kermit Roosevelt
Brazil
Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition
Brazil
Cândido Rondon
John Augustine Zahm
American Museum of Natural History
River of Doubt
Amazon River
Rio Roosevelt
Cândido Rondon
American Museum of Natural History
Portuguese language
December 9
1913
February 27
1914
Rio Roosevelt
malaria
Rio Roosevelt
Oyster Bay
World War I
Allies of World War I
Germany
Charles Evans Hughes
hyphenated American
Quentin Roosevelt
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Scouting
Boy Scouts of America
March 6
2006
January 6
1919
embolism
Archibald Roosevelt
Thomas R. Marshall
Death (personification)
Quentin Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Archibald Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Kermit Roosevelt
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Madison Square Presbyterian Church
Episcopal Church in the United States of America
Grace Reformed Church
March 7
2006
separation of church and state
In God We Trust
March 7
2006
Freemason
March 12
2006
The Strenuous Life
jujutsu
skinny-dipping
Potomac River
March 7
2006
Sagamore Hill
singlestick
Harper's Weekly
Leonard Wood
Thomas Jefferson
Mt. Rushmore
Medal of Honor
Cuba
National Archives and Records Administration
January 16
2001
Bill Clinton
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Battle of Normandy
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
Mount Rushmore
United States Navy
USS Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600)
USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71)
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
Sagamore Hill
Henry Adams
March 7
2006
March 7
2006
Joseph Biden
Second Lebanon War
Israel
Ehud Olmert
Nicaragua
Rubén DarÃo
Robin Williams
Night at the Museum
John Milius
The Wind and the Lion
Brian Keith
Rough Riders (film)
Tom Berenger
teddy bears
American black bear
March 7
2006
June 26
2006
Time (magazine)
Washington Nationals
Presidents Race
Michigan State University
Megabyte
ogg
Theora
Theora
Megabyte
ogg
Theora
Theora
Arch Hoxsey
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
Martha Bulloch
Eleanor Roosevelt
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
Edith Carow Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Elliott Roosevelt I
Bamie Roosevelt
Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia
Reynier Tyson
Panama Canal
Great White Fleet
Russo-Japanese War
List of U.S. political appointments that crossed party lines
Progressivism
Library of America
Library of America
Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia
Edmund Morris (writer)
Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project
University of California, Santa Barbara
think tank
Arch Hoxsey
Frank S. Black
List of Governors of New York
Benjamin B. Odell, Jr.
Garret Hobart
Vice President of the United States
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
President of the United States
William Howard Taft
Garret Hobart
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1900
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1904
William Howard Taft
Progressive Party (United States, 1912)
U.S. presidential election, 1912
Grover Cleveland
Oldest living United States president
William Howard Taft
President of the United States
October 27
1858
New York, New York
January 6
1919
Oyster Bay, New York
|
Theodore_Roosevelt | Did Roosevelt support racial integration in schools? | He supported a bill allowing school desegregation in New York State. | data/set3/a7 | Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. ( ; October 27 1858 January 6 1919), also known as T.R., and to the public (but never to friends and intimates) as Teddy, was the twenty-sixth President of the United States, and a leader of the Republican Party and of the Progressive Movement. He became the youngest President in United States history at the age of 42. He served in many roles including Governor of New York, historian, naturalist, explorer, author, and soldier. Roosevelt is most famous for his personality: his energy, his vast range of interests and achievements, his model of masculinity, and his "cowboy" persona. His last name, often mispronounced, is, per Roosevelt, "pronounced as if it were spelled 'Rosavelt', in three syllables, the first syllable as if it was 'Rose.'"
As Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Navy, he prepared for and advocated war with Spain in 1898. He organized and helped command the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, the Rough Riders, during the Spanish-American War. Returning to New York as a war hero, he was elected Republican governor in 1899. He was a professional historian, a lawyer, a naturalist and explorer of the Amazon Basin; his 35 books include works on outdoor life, natural history, the American frontier, political history, naval history, and his autobiography.
In 1901, as Vice President, Roosevelt succeeded President William McKinley after McKinley's assassination. He is the youngest person ever to become President (John F. Kennedy is the youngest elected President). Roosevelt was a Progressive reformer who sought to move the dominant Republican Party into the Progressive camp. He distrusted wealthy businessmen and dissolved forty monopolistic corporations as a "trust buster". He was clear, however, to show he did not disagree with trusts and capitalism in principle but was only against corrupt, illegal practices. His "Square Deal" promised a fair shake for both the average citizen (through regulation of railroad rates and pure food and drugs) and the businessmen. As an outdoorsman, he promoted the conservation movement, emphasizing efficient use of natural resources. After 1906 he attacked big business and suggested the courts were biased against labor unions. In 1910, he broke with his friend and anointed successor William Howard Taft, but lost the Republican nomination to Taft and ran in the 1912 election on his own one-time Bull Moose ticket. Roosevelt beat Taft in the popular vote and pulled so many Progressives out of the Republican Party that Democrat Woodrow Wilson won in 1912, and the conservative faction took control of the Republican Party for the next two decades.
Roosevelt negotiated for the U.S. to take control of the Panama Canal and its construction in 1904; he felt the Canal's completion was his most important and historically significant international achievement. He was the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize, winning its Peace Prize in 1906, for negotiating the peace in the Russo-Japanese War.
Historian Thomas Bailey, who disagreed with Roosevelt's policies, nevertheless concluded, "Roosevelt was a great personality, a great activist, a great preacher of the moralities, a great controversialist, a great showman. He dominated his era as he dominated conversations....the masses loved him; he proved to be a great popular idol and a great vote getter." His image stands alongside Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln on Mount Rushmore. Surveys of scholars have consistently ranked him from #3 to #7 on the list of greatest American presidents.
Theodore Roosevelt at age 11
Theodore Roosevelt was born in a four-story brownstone at 28 East 20th Street, in the modern-day Gramercy section of New York City, the second of four children of Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. (1831â1877) and Mittie Bulloch (1834â1884). He had an elder sister Anna, nicknamed "Bamie" as a child and "Bye" as an adult for being always on the go; and two younger siblingsâhis brother Elliott (the father of Eleanor Roosevelt) and his sister Corinne, (grandmother of newspaper columnists, Joseph and Stewart Alsop).
The Roosevelts had been in New York since the mid 18th century and had grown with the emerging New York commerce class after the American Revolution. Unlike many of the earlier "log cabin Presidents," Roosevelt was born into a wealthy family. By the 19th century, the family had grown in wealth, power and influence from the profits of several businesses including hardware and plate-glass importing. The family was strongly Democratic in its political affiliation until the mid-1850s, then joined the new Republican Party. Theodore's father, known in the family as "Thee", was a New York City philanthropist, merchant, and partner in the family glass-importing firm Roosevelt and Son. He was a prominent supporter of Abraham Lincoln and the Union effort during the American Civil War. His mother Mittie Bulloch was a Southern belle from a slave-owning family in Savannah, Georgia and had quiet Confederate sympathies. Mittie's brother, Theodore's uncle, James Dunwoody Bulloch, was a U.S. Navy officer who became a Confederate admiral and naval procurement agent in Britain. Another uncle Irvine Bulloch was a midshipman on the Confederate raider, CSS Alabama; both remained in England after the war. . Pringle (1931) p. 11 From his grandparents' home, a young Roosevelt witnessed Abraham Lincoln's funeral procession in New York.
Sickly and asthmatic as a youngster, Roosevelt had to sleep propped up in bed or slouching in a chair during much of his early childhood, and had frequent ailments. Despite his illnesses, he was a hyperactive and often mischievous young man. His lifelong interest in zoology was formed at age seven upon seeing a dead seal at a local market. After obtaining the seal's head, the young Roosevelt and two of his cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Learning the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with many animals that he killed or caught, studied, and prepared for display. At age nine, he codified his observation of insects with a paper titled "The Natural History of Insects". "TR's LegacyâThe Environment". Retrieved March 6, 2006.
To combat his poor physical condition, his father compelled the young Roosevelt to take up exercise. To deal with bullies, Roosevelt started boxing lessons. Thayer, William Roscoe (1919). Theodore Roosevelt: An Intimate Biography, Chapter I, p. 20. Bartleby.com. Two trips abroad had a permanent impact: family tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and of the Middle East 1872 to 1873.
Theodore Sr. had a tremendous influence on his son. Of him Roosevelt wrote, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Roosevelt, Theodore (1913). Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography, Chapter I, p. 13. Roosevelt's sister later wrote, "He told me frequently that he never took any serious step or made any vital decision for his country without thinking first what position his father would have taken." "The Film & More: Program Transcript Part One". Retrieved March 9 2006.
Young "Teedie" , as he was nicknamed as a child, (the nickname "Teddy" was from his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee, and he later harbored an intense dislike for it) was mostly home schooled by tutors and his parents. A leading biographer says: "The most obvious drawback to the home schooling Roosevelt keely received was uneven coverage of the various areas of human knowledge." He was solid in geography (thanks to his careful observations on all his travels) and very well read in history, strong in biology, French and German, but deficient in mathematics, Latin and Greek. Brands T. R. p. 49â50 He matriculated at Harvard College in 1876, graduating magna cum laude. His father's death in 1878 was a tremendous blow, but Roosevelt redoubled his activities. He did well in science, philosophy and rhetoric courses but fared poorly in Latin and Greek. He studied biology with great interest and indeed was already an accomplished naturalist and published ornithologist. He had a photographic memory and developed a life-long habit of devouring books, memorizing every detail. Brands p. 62 He was an eloquent conversationalist who, throughout his life, sought out the company of the smartest people. He could multitask in extraordinary fashion, dictating letters to one secretary and memoranda to another, while browsing through a new book.
While at Harvard, Roosevelt was active in rowing, boxing and the Alpha Delta Phi and Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternities. He also edited a student magazine. He was runner-up in the Harvard boxing championship, losing to C.S. Hanks. The sportsmanship Roosevelt showed in that fight was long remembered. Upon graduating from Harvard, Roosevelt underwent a physical examination and his doctor advised him that due to serious heart problems, he should find a desk job and avoid strenuous activity. Roosevelt chose to embrace strenuous life instead. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris.
He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude (22nd of 177) from Harvard in 1880, and entered Columbia Law School. When offered a chance to run for New York Assemblyman in 1881, he dropped out of law school to pursue his new goal of entering public life. Brands, pp 123â29
Roosevelt as NY State Assemblyman 1883, photo
Roosevelt was a Republican activist during his years in the Assembly, writing more bills than any other New York state legislator. Already a major player in state politics, he attended the Republican National Convention in 1884 and fought alongside the Mugwump reformers; they lost to the Stalwart faction that nominated James G. Blaine. Refusing to join other Mugwumps in supporting Democrat Grover Cleveland, the Democratic nominee, he stayed loyal.
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt (July 29, 1861 in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts â February 14 1884 in Manhattan, New York) was the first wife of Theodore Roosevelt and mother of their only child together, Alice Lee Roosevelt. Alice Roosevelt died of an undiagnosed case of Bright's Disease two days after Alice Lee was born. Theodore Roosevelt's mother Mittie died of Typhoid fever in the same house on the same day, Feb. 14, 1884. After the simultaneous deaths of his mother and wife, Roosevelt left his daughter in the care of his sister in New York and moved out to Dakota Territory.
Theodore Roosevelt as Badlands hunter in 1885. New York studio photo. Note the engraved knife and rifle courtesy of Tiffany and Co.
Roosevelt built a second ranch he named Elk Horn thirty five miles (56 km) north of the boomtown, Medora, North Dakota. On the banks of the "Little Missouri," Roosevelt learned to ride, rope, and hunt.
Roosevelt rebuilt his life and began writing about frontier life for Eastern magazines. As a deputy sheriff, Roosevelt hunted down three outlaws who stole his river boat and were escaping north with it up the Little Missouri River. Capturing them, he decided against hanging them and sending his foreman back by boat, he took the thieves back overland for trial in Dickinson, guarding them forty hours without sleep and reading Tolstoy to keep himself awake. When he ran out of his own books he read a dime store western one of the thieves was carrying.
While working on a tough project aimed at hunting down a group of relentless horse thieves, Roosevelt came across the famous Deadwood, South Dakota Sheriff Seth Bullock. The two would remain friends for life. (Morris, Rise of, 241â245, 247â250)
After the uniquely severe U.S. winter of 1886-1887 wiped out his herd of cattle and his $60,000 investment (together with those of his competitors), he returned to the East, where in 1885, he had built Sagamore Hill in Oyster Bay, New York. It would be his home and estate until his death. Roosevelt ran as the Republican candidate for mayor of New York City in 1886 as "The Cowboy of the Dakotas." He came in third.
Following the election, he went to London in 1886 and married his childhood sweetheart, Edith Kermit Carow. Thayer, Chapter V, pp. 4, 6. They honeymooned in Europe, and Roosevelt led a party to the summit of Mont Blanc, a feat which resulted in his induction into the British Royal Society. Encyclopedia Britannica, 1910 Edition, Topic: Theodore Roosevelt They had five children: Theodore Jr., Kermit, Ethel Carow, Archibald Bulloch "Archie", and Quentin. Although Roosevelt's father was also named Theodore Roosevelt, he died while the future president was still childless and unmarried, so the future President Roosevelt took the suffix of Sr. and subsequently named his son Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. Because Roosevelt was still alive when his grandson and namesake was born, his grandson was named Theodore Roosevelt III, and the president's son retained the Jr. after his father's death.
Roosevelt's book The Naval War of 1812 (1882) was standard history for two generations. Roosevelt undertook extensive and original research going computing British and American man-of-war broadside throw weights. See The Naval War of 1812, via Project Gutenberg.
By comparison, however, his hastily-written biographies of Thomas Hart Benton (1887) and Gouverneur Morris (1888) are considered superficial. Pringle (1931) p 116 His major achievement was a four-volume history of the frontier, The Winning of the West (1889â1896), which had a notable impact on historiography as it presented a highly original version of the frontier thesis elaborated upon in 1893 by his friend Frederick Jackson Turner. Roosevelt argued that the harsh frontier conditions had created a new "race": the American people that replaced the "scattered savage tribes, whose life was but a few degrees less meaningless, squalid, and ferocious than that of the wild beasts with whom they held joint ownership". He believed that "the conquest and settlement by the whites of the Indian lands was necessary to the greatness of the race and to the well-being of civilized mankind". He was using an evolutionary model in which new environmental conditions allow a new species to form. His many articles in upscale magazines provided a much-needed income, as well as cementing a reputation as a major national intellectual. He was later chosen president of the
American Historical Association.
In the The Winning of the West (1889â1896), Roosevelt's frontier thesis stressed the racial struggle between "civilization" and "savagery." He supported Nordicism, the belief in the superiority of the "Nordic" race, along with social Darwinism and racialism. Excerpts:
# "The settler and pioneer have at bottom had justice on their side; this great continent could not have been kept as nothing but a game preserve for squalid savages".
# "The most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with savages".
# "American and Indian, Boer and Zulu, Cossack and Tartar, New Zealander and Maori, â in each case the victor, horrible though many of his deeds are, has laid deep the foundations for the future greatness of a mighty people".
# "..it is of incalculable importance that America, Australia, and Siberia should pass out of the hands of their red, black, and yellow aboriginal owners, and become the heritage of the dominant world races".
# "The world would have halted had it not been for the Teutonic conquests in alien lands; but the victories of Moslem over Christian have always proved a curse in the end. Nothing but sheer evil has come from the victories of Turk and Tartar".
What did not, however, conform to the views of Roosevelt's day was that race should never be the primary factor in someone of ability performing any job. Some notable events in Theodore Roosevelt's life included:
*Developing a close relationship with the Hidatsa Indians that is maintained today in the oral tradition of the tribe.
*Inviting reformer Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House, an action which caused outrage among many newpapers in the American South, which objected to "mixing of the races on social occassions."
*Openly supporting a bill in the New York State Assembly which allowed desegregation of schools in the state, personally noting that his children had been educated with other races and there was nothing wrong with it.
*Appointed the Collector of the Port of Charleston post to an African-American, Dr. William D. Crum, and when he was urged to withdraw the appointment, wrote the following:
:I do not intend to appoint any unfit man to office. So far as I legitimately can, I shall always endeavor to pay regard to the wishes and feelings of the people of each locality; but I cannot consent to take the position that the doorway of hope - the door of opportunity - is to be shut upon any man, no matter how worthy, purely upon the grounds of race or color. Such an attitude would, according to my contentions, be fundamentally wrong.
*Defended the Postmaster of Indianola, Mississippi, Minnie D. Cox. She was an African-American, and on that basis alone she was threatened with mob violence and was forced to resign. Roosevelt took action by closing the post office there, ignored her resignation, and still paid her what she was due as if nothing happened.
New York City Police Commissioner 1896
In the 1888 presidential election, Roosevelt campaigned in the Midwest for Benjamin Harrison. President Harrison appointed Roosevelt to the United States Civil Service Commission, where he served until 1895. Thayer, ch. VI, pp. 1â2. In his term, he vigorously fought the spoilsmen and demanded the enforcement of civil service laws. In spite of Roosevelt's support for Harrison's reelection bid in the presidential election of 1892, the eventual winner, Grover Cleveland (a Bourbon Democrat), re appointed him to the same post.
Roosevelt became president of the board of New York City Police Commissioners in 1895. During the two years he held this post, Roosevelt radically reformed the police department. The police force was reputed as one of the most corrupt in America. NYPD's history division records Roosevelt was, "an iron-willed leader of unimpeachable honesty, (who) brought a reforming zeal to the New York City Police Commission in 1895." Andrews, William, "The Early Years: The Challenge of Public Order - 1845 to 1870", - New York City Police Department History Site. Retrieved August 28 2006. Roosevelt and his fellow commissioners established new disciplinary rules, created a bicycle squad to police New York's traffic problems and standardized the use of pistols by officers. Editors, "Leadership of the City of New York Police Department 1845â1901", - The New York City Police Department Museum. Retrieved August 28 2006. Roosevelt implemented regular inspections of firearms, annual physical exams, appointed 1,600 new recruits based on their physical and mental qualifications and not on political affiliation, opened the department to ethnic minorities and women, established meritorious service medals, and shut down corrupt police hostelries. During his tenure a Municipal Lodging House was established by the Board of Charities and Roosevelt required officers to register with the Board. He also had telephones installed in station houses. Always an energetic man, he made a habit of walking officers' beats late at night and early in the morning to make sure they were on duty. Brands ch 11 He became caught up in public disagreements with commissioner Parker, who sought to negate or delay the promotion of many officers put forward by Roosevelt.
Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt (front center) at the Naval War College, c. 1897
Roosevelt had always been fascinated by naval history. Urged by Roosevelt's close friend, Congressman Henry Cabot Lodge, President William McKinley appointed a delighted Roosevelt to the post of Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897. (Because of the inactivity of Secretary of the Navy John D. Long at the time, this basically gave Roosevelt control over the department.) Roosevelt was instrumental in preparing the Navy for the Spanish-American War Brands ch 12 and was an enthusiastic proponent of testing the U.S. military in battle, at one point stating "I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one".
Roosevelt left his civilian Navy post to form the famous "Rough Riders" Regiment
Upon the declaration of war in 1898 that would be known as the Spanish-American War, Roosevelt resigned from the Navy Department and, with the aid of U.S. Army Colonel Leonard Wood, organized the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment from cowboys from the Western territories to Ivy League friends from New York. The newspapers called them the "Rough Riders." Originally Roosevelt held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and served under Colonel Wood, but after Wood was promoted to Brigadier General of Volunteer Forces, Roosevelt was promoted to Colonel and given command of the Regiment. . Even after his return to civilian life, Roosevelt preferred to be known as "Colonel Roosevelt" or "The Colonel." As a moniker, "Teddy" remained much more popular with the general public; however, political friends and others who worked closely with Roosevelt customarily addressed him by his rank.
Colonel Roosevelt and his "Rough Riders" after capturing San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War
Under his leadership, the Rough Riders became famous for dual charges up Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill in July 1898 (the battle was named after the latter hill). Out of all the Rough Riders, Roosevelt was the only one who had a horse, and was forced to walk up Kettle Hill on foot after his horse, Little Texas, became tired. For his actions, Roosevelt was nominated for the Medal of Honor which was subsequently disapproved. It has been widely speculated this disapproval was because of Roosevelt's outspoken comments of the handling of the War. In September 1997, Congressman Rick Lazio representing the 2nd District of New York sent two award recommendations to the U.S. Army Military Awards Branch. These recommendations addressed to Brigadier General Earl Simms, the Army's Adjutant General and one to Master Sergeant Gary Soots, Chief of Authorizations, would prove successful in garnering the much sought after award. Soots Letter Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 2001 for his actions. Brands ch 13 He was the first and, as of 2007, the only President of the United States to be awarded with America's highest military honor, and the only person in history to receive both his nation's highest honor for military valor and the world's foremost prize for peace. Chicago newspaper sees cowboy-TR campaigning for governor
On leaving the Army, Roosevelt re-entered New York state politics and was elected governor of New York in 1898 on the Republican ticket. He made such a concerted effort to root out corruption and "machine politics" Republican boss Thomas Collier Platt forced him on McKinley as a running mate in the 1900 election, against the wishes of McKinley's manager Senator Mark Hanna. Roosevelt was a powerful campaign asset for the Republican ticket, which defeated William Jennings Bryan in a landslide based on restoration of prosperity at home and a successful war and new prestige abroad. Bryan stumped for Free Silver again, but McKinley's promise of prosperity through the Gold Standard, high tariffs, and the restoration of business confidence enlarged his margin of victory. Bryan had strongly supported the war against Spain, but denounced the annexation of the Philippines as imperialism that would spoil America's innocence. Roosevelt countered with many speeches that argued it was best for the Filipinos to have stability, and the Americans to have a proud place in the world. Roosevelt's six months as Vice President (March to September, 1901) were uneventful. Brands ch 14â15 On September 2, 1901, at the Minnesota State Fair, Roosevelt first used in a public speech a saying that would later be universally associated with him: "Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far."
At the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York President McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz (Zol-gash), on September 6, 1901. Roosevelt had been giving a speech in Vermont when he heard of the shooting. He rushed to Buffalo but after being assured the President would recover, he went on a planned family camping and hiking trip to Mount Marcy. In the mountains a runner notified him McKinley was on his death bed. Roosevelt pondered with his wife, Edith, how best to respond, not wanting to show up in Buffalo and wait on McKinley's death. Roosevelt was rushed by a series of stagecoaches to North Creek train station. At the station, Roosevelt was handed a telegram that said President McKinley died at 2:30 AM that morning. Roosevelt continued by train from North Creek to Buffalo. He arrived in Buffalo later that day, accepting an invitation to stay at the home of Ansley Wilcox, a prominent lawyer and friend since the early 1880s when they had both worked closely with New York State Governor Grover Cleveland on civil service reform. Wilcox recalled, "the family and most of the household were in the country, but he Roosevelt was offered a quiet place to sleep and eat, and accepted it." Roosevelt was a successful president. He would achieve a lot of goals in life. Some of these goals were that he won the Spanish-American War, and the Nobel Peace Prize, and he also was the youngest president in United States history. "It is a dreadful thing to come into the Presidency this way." Retrieved February 2 2007.
Nashville Tennessee News sketch of Theodore Roosevelt inauguration minus the customary Bible. Inauguration photos were not allowed after a rival photographer unceremoniously knocked down another's camera. Roosevelt took the oath of office in the Ansley Wilcox House at Buffalo, New York borrowing Wilcox's morning coat. Roosevelt did not swear on a Bible , in contrast to the usual tradition of US presidents Bibles and Scripture Passages Used by Presidents in Taking the Oath of Office. Retrieved September 23, 2007. . Expressing the fears of many old line Republicans, Mark Hanna lamented "that damned cowboy is president now." Roosevelt was the youngest person to assume the presidency, at 42, and he promised to continue McKinley's cabinet and his basic policies. Roosevelt did so, but after winning election in 1904, he moved to the political left, stretching his ties to the Republican Party's conservative leaders. Brands ch 16
A national emergency was averted in 1902 when Roosevelt found a compromise to the anthracite coal strike by the United Mine Workers of America that threatened the heating supplies of most urban homes. Roosevelt called the mine owners and the labor leaders to the White House and negotiated a compromise. Miners were on strike for 163 days before it ended; they were granted a 10% pay increase and a 9-hour day (from the previous 10 hours), but the union was not officially recognized and the price of coal went up. Brands ch 17
Theodore Roosevelt promised to continue McKinley's program, and at first he worked closely with McKinley's men. His 20,000-word address to the Congress in December 1901, asked Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits." They did not act but Roosevelt did, issuing 44 lawsuits against major corporations; he was called the "trust-buster."
Roosevelt firmly believed: "The Government must in increasing degree supervise and regulate the workings of the railways engaged in interstate commerce." Inaction was a danger, he argued: "Such increased supervision is the only alternative to an increase of the present evils on the one hand or a still more radical policy on the other." Annual Message December 1904
His biggest success was passage of the Hepburn Act of 1906, the provisions of which were to be regulated by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). The most important provision of the Act gave the ICC the power to replace existing rates with "just-and-reasonable" maximum rates, with the ICC to define what was just and reasonable. Anti-rebate provisions were toughened, free passes were outlawed, and the penalties for violation were increased. Finally, the ICC gained the power to prescribe a uniform system of accounting, require standardized reports, and inspect railroad accounts. The Act made ICC orders binding; that is, the railroads had to either obey or contest the ICC orders in federal court. To speed the process, appeals from the district courts would go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In response to public clamor (and due to the uproar cause by Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle), Roosevelt pushed Congress to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, as well as the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. These laws provided for labeling of foods and drugs, inspection of livestock and mandated sanitary conditions at meatpacking plants. Congress replaced Roosevelt's proposals with a version supported by the major meatpackers who worried about the overseas markets, and did not want small unsanitary plants undercutting their domestic market. Blum 1980 pp 43â44
Democrats attack Roosevelt as militarist and ineffective in this 1904 election cartoon
Theodore Roosevelt was the fifth Vice President to succeed to the office of President, but the first to win election in his own right. (Millard Fillmore ran and lost on a third-party ticket four years after leaving office and Chester Arthur was denied nomination by his party in 1884). After Senator Mark Hanna, McKinley's old campaign manager, died in February 1904, there was no one in the Republican Party to oppose Roosevelt and he easily won the nomination. When an effort to draft former president Grover Cleveland failed, the Democrats were without a candidate and finally settled on obscure New York judge Alton B. Parker. The outcome was never in doubt. Roosevelt crushed Parker 56%-38% in the popular vote and 336-140 in the Electoral College, sweeping the country outside the perennially Democratic Solid South. Socialist Eugene Debs got 3%. The night of the election, after his victory was clear, Roosevelt promised not to run again in 1908. He later regretted that promise, as it compelled him to leave the White House at the age of only fifty, at the height of his popularity.
Roosevelt worked closely with early conservationists such as Gifford Pinchot, pictured above, with whom he organized the first National Governors Conservation Conference at the White House in 1908
Roosevelt was the first American president to consider the long-term needs for efficient conservation of national resources, winning the support of fellow hunters and fishermen to bolster his political base. Roosevelt was the last trained observer to ever see a passenger pigeon, and on March 14, 1903, Roosevelt created the first National Bird Preserve, (the beginning of the Wildlife Refuge system) on Pelican Island, Florida. Roosevelt worked with the major figures of the conservation movement, especially his chief adviser on the matter Gifford Pinchot. Roosevelt urged Congress to establish the United States Forest Service (1905), to manage government forest lands, and he appointed Gifford Pinchot to head the service. Roosevelt set aside more land for national parks and nature preserves than all of his predecessors combined, 194 million acres (785,000 km²). In all, by 1909, the Roosevelt administration had created an unprecedented 42 million acres (170,000 km²) of national forests, 53 national wildlife refuges and 18 areas of "special interest", including the Grand Canyon. The Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the Badlands commemorates his conservationist philosophy. Roosevelt and Muir In 1903, Roosevelt toured the Yosemite Valley with John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, but Roosevelt believed in the more efficient use of natural resources by corporations like lumber companies unlike Muir. In 1907, with Congress about to block him, Roosevelt hurried to designate 16 million acres (65,000 km²) of new national forests. In May 1908, he sponsored the Conference of Governors held in the White House, with a focus on the most efficient planning, analysis and use of water, forests and other natural resources. Roosevelt explained, "There is an intimate relation between our streams and the development and conservation of all the other great permanent sources of wealth." During his presidency, Roosevelt promoted the nascent conservation movement in essays for Outdoor Life magazine. To Roosevelt, conservation meant more and better usage and less waste, and a long-term perspective. In 2006, a group of American high school students developed a 10 minute video on Roosevelt's conservation legacy with the help of Roosevelt scholar Edward Renehan and Roosevelt descendant, Tweed Roosevelt. See Commented out because it's a YouTube link used as a ref, it's original research, and really it's not a reference. But maybe someone else will think differently. -->
Roosevelt's conservationist leanings also impelled him to preserve national sites of scientific, particularly archaeological, interest. The 1906 passage of the Antiquities Act gave him a tool for creating national monuments by presidential proclamation, without requiring Congressional approval for each monument on an item-by-item basis. The language of the Antiquities Act specifically called for the preservation of "historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest," and was primarily construed by its creator, Congressman James F. Lacey (assisted by the prominent archaeologist Edgar Lee Hewett), as targeting the prehistoric ruins of the American Southwest. Roosevelt, however, applied a typically broad interpretation to the Act, and the first national monument he proclaimed, Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming, was preserved for reasons tied more to geology than archaeology.
Roosevelt's conservationism caused him to forbid having a Christmas tree in the White House. He was reportedly upset when he found a small tree his son had been hiding. After learning about the commercial farming of Christmas trees, where no virgin forests were cut down to supply the demand during the Christmas holiday, he relented and allowed his family to have a tree each season.
In Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and the Panama Canal Zone, Roosevelt used the Army's medical service, under Walter Reed and William C. Gorgas, to eliminate the yellow fever menace and install a new regime of public health. In the new possessions the Roosevelt administration used the army to build railways, telegraph and telephone lines, and upgrade roads and port facilities.
The Philippines saw the U.S. Army for the first time using a systematic doctrine of counter-insurgency. Despite the ad hoc nature of the force deployed by Roosevelt the Army was able to end the insurgency by 1902. Over the course of the war the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built over 3000 miles of roads and worked to build an entire education system, even bringing in thousands of American teachers to spearhead the effort.
Roosevelt builds the canal and shovels dirt on Colombia
Roosevelt dramatically increased the size of the navy, forming the Great White Fleet, which toured the world in 1907. This display was designed to impress the Japanese. Yet, the ships were almost forced to return because of the inadequacy of American ports in the Pacific. See Edward S Miller,War Plan Orange (Annapolis, 1991) Roosevelt also added the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which stated that the United States could intervene in Latin American affairs when corruption of governments made it necessary.
Roosevelt gained international praise for helping negotiate the end of the Russo-Japanese War, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Roosevelt later arbitrated a dispute between France and Germany over the division of Morocco. Some historians have argued these latter two actions helped in a small way to avert a world war. The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (2005). "Theodore Roosevelt (1901â1909)". Retrieved March 6 2006.
Roosevelt's most famous foreign policy initiative, following the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, was the construction of the Panama Canal, which upon its completion shortened the route of freighters between San Francisco, California and New York City by 8,000 miles (13,000 km).
Colombia first proposed the canal in their country as opposed to rival Nicaragua, and Colombia signed a treaty for an agreed-upon sum. At the time, Panama was a province of Colombia. According to the treaty, in 1902, the U.S. was to buy out the equipment and excavations from France, which had been attempting to build a canal since 1881. While the Colombian negotiating team had signed the treaty, ratification by the Colombian Senate became problematic. The Colombian Senate balked at the price and asked for ten million dollars over the original agreed upon price. When the U.S. refused to re-negotiate the price, the Colombian politicians proposed cutting the original French company that started the project out of the deal and giving that difference to Colombia.
The original deal stipulated the French company was to be reasonably compensated. Realizing the Colombian Senate was no longer bargaining in good faith, Roosevelt tired of these last-minute attempts by the Colombians to cheat the French out of their entire investment, and ultimately decided, with the encouragement of Panamanian business interests, to help Panama declare independence from Colombia in 1903.
A brief Panamanian revolution of only a few hours followed the declaration, as Colombian soldiers were bribed $50 each to lay down their arms. On November 3, 1903, the Republic of Panama was created, with its constitution written in advance by the United States. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. signed a protection treaty with Panama. And after the signing of the treaty, a man named Nathan Johnson Forest assisted Panama with the initial planning phases for the canal. The U.S. then paid ten million to secure rights to build on, and control, the Canal Zone. Construction began in 1904 and was completed in 1914.
It took a long time to build the Panama Canal because of the rampant spread of tropical diseases. Over 200 workers died of yellow fever and malaria, spread by mosquitoes. Roosevelt initiated work on clearing swamps and other areas in which the insects bred. As the health threat finally receded, this greatly facilitated the construction of the Canal.
Roosevelt, (on the 12" gun turret at right), addresses the crew of USS Connecticut (BB18), in Hampton Roads, Virginia, upon her return from the Fleet's cruise
As Roosevelt's administration drew to a close, the president dispatched a fleet consisting of four US Navy battleship squadrons and their escorts, on a world-wide voyage of circumnavigation from December 16, 1907, to February 22, 1909. With their hulls painted white (except for the beautiful gilded scrollwork) and red, white, and blue banners on their bows, these ships would come to be known as The Great White Fleet. Roosevelt wanted to demonstrate to his country and the world that the US Navy was capable of operating in a global theater, particularly in the Pacific. This was extraordinarily important at a time when tensions were slowly growing between the United States and Japan. The latter had recently shown its navy's competence in defeating the Russians in the Russo-Japanese War, and the US Navy fleet in the west was relatively small. As a mark of the mission's success, the Atlantic Fleet battleships only later came to be known as the "Great White Fleet."
When the real Great White Fleet sailed into Yokahama, Japan, the Japanese went to extraordinary lengths to show that their country desired peace with the US. Thousands of Japanese school children waved American flags, purchased by the government, as they greeted the Navy brass coming ashore. In February 1909, the fleet returned home to Hampton Roads, Virginia, and Roosevelt was there to witness the triumphant return. His appearance indicated that he saw the fleet's long voyage as a fitting finish for his administration. Roosevelt said to the officers of the Fleet, "Other nations may do what you have done, but they'll have to follow you." This parting act of grand strategy by Roosevelt greatly expanded the respect for, as well as the role of, the United States in the international arena. However, the visit of the Great White Fleet to Tokyo also encouraged Japanese militarists. They had always argued for an even more aggressive Japanese ship building and naval expansion program, and the recent show of force by the U.S. convinced enough of their countrymen that they were right. In a real sense, this set in motion the chain of events leading to the U.S. & Japan confronting each other 30 years later - during WWII.
A Lincoln cent
Roosevelt thought American coins and currency were common and uninspiring. Roosevelt had the opportunity to pose for a young Lithuanian-born sculptor, Victor David Brenner, who, since arriving nineteen years earlier in the United States had become one of the nationâs premier medalists. Roosevelt had learned of Brenner's talents in a settlement house on New York City's Lower East Side and was immediately impressed with a bas-relief that Brenner had made of Lincoln, based on the early Civil War era photographer, Mathew Brady's photograph. Roosevelt, who considered Lincoln the savior of the Union and the greatest Republican President and who also considered himself Lincolnâs political heir, ordered the new Lincoln penny to be based on Brenner's work and that it go just in time to commemorate Lincolnâs 100th birthday in 1909. The likeness of President Lincoln on the obverse of the coin is an adaptation of a plaque Brenner executed several years earlier and which had come to the attention of President Roosevelt in New York. /ref>
Roosevelt took Cabinet members and friends on long, fast-paced hikes, boxed in the state rooms of the White House, romped with his children, and read voraciously. Hanson, David C. (2005). "Theodore Roosevelt: Lion in the White House". Retrieved March 6 2006. In 1908, he was permanently blinded in his left eye during one of his boxing bouts, but this injury was kept from the public at the time. Smith, Ira R. T.; Morris, Joe Alex (1949). "Dear Mr. President": The Story of Fifty Years in the White House Mail Room, p. 52. Julian Messner. His many enthusiastic interests and limitless energy led one ambassador to wryly explain, "You must always remember that the President is about six." Kennedy, Robert C. (2005). "'I hear there are some kids in the White House this year'". Retrieved March 6 2006.
Roosevelt shoots holes in the dictionary as the ghosts of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dr Johnson moan.
During his presidency, Roosevelt tried but did not succeed to advance the cause of simplified spelling. He tried to force government to adopt the system, sending an order to the Public Printer to use the system in all public documents. The order was obeyed, and among the documents thus printed was the President's special message regarding the Panama Canal. The New York World translated the Thanksgiving Day proclamation:
The reform annoyed the public, forcing him to rescind the order. Roosevelt's friend, literary critic Brander Matthews, one of the chief advocates of the reform, remonstrated with him for abandoning the effort. Roosevelt replied on December 16: "I could not by fighting have kept the new spelling in, and it was evidently worse than useless to go into an undignified contest when I was beaten. Do you know that the one word as to which I thought the new spelling was wrong thru was more responsible than anything else for our discomfiture?" Next summer Roosevelt was watching a naval review when a launch marked "Pres Bot" chugged ostentatiously by. The President waved and laughed with delight. Pringle 465â7
Roosevelt's oldest daughter, Alice, was a controversial character during Roosevelt's stay in the White House. When friends asked if he could rein in his elder daughter, Roosevelt said, "I can be President of the United States, or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both." In turn, Alice said of him that he always wanted to be "the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral." (Some sources attribute this quote to one of Roosevelt's sons instead.) Thayer, Chapter XIII, p. 7.
Roosevelt's contribution to the White House was the construction of the original West Wing, which he had built to free up the second floor rooms in the residence that formerly housed the president's staff. He and Edith also had the entire house renovated and restored to the federal style, tearing out the Victorian furnishings and details (including Tiffany windows) that had been installed over the previous three decades.
1902 The Washington Post political cartoon that spawned the Teddy bear name.
#In the sphere of race relations, Booker T. Washington became the first black man to dine as a guest at the White House in 1901.
#Oscar S. Straus became the first Jewish person appointed as a Cabinet Secretary, under Roosevelt.
#In August, 1902, Roosevelt became the first U.S. president to take a public automobile ride. This occurred during a parade in Hartford, Connecticut
#In 1910 he became the first U.S. President to ride in an airplane.
#On August 25, 1905 he became the first U.S. President to ride in a military submarine when he boarded the USS Holland (SS-1) and ran submerged with her for 55 minutes.
#In 1906, he made the first trip, by a President, outside the United States, visiting Panama to inspect the construction progress of the Panama Canal on November 9.
#In 1902, in response to the assassination of President William McKinley on September 6 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became the first president to be under constant Secret Service protection.
# In 1906, Roosevelt became the first American to be awarded a Nobel Prize.
#In 2001, he became the first and only President up to date to receive a Medal of Honor, making him the only person to date to win the world's highest peace honor, as well as his nation's top military honor.
#He was the first and to date only president from Long Island, New York.
#He was the first President to officially refer to the White House as such, on his official stationery. This had been the common name (referring to the color of the building), but until then, the official name was "The Executive Mansion"
#He was the first President to wear a necktie for his official Presidential Portrait.
#He was the first President to approve a coin, the Lincoln cent, with a man's face on it, in 1909, just in time for the centennial of Lincoln's birth. Lincoln was Roosevelt's presidential hero.
#He was the first President to coin an internationally recognized trademark, although not deliberately. His offhand remark, "good to the last drop," about some coffee drunk at the Maxwell House hotel in Tennessee, see Maxwell House coffee.
#He is the only president to have a famous toy named after him (the Teddy bear, named after a bear he refused to shoot in a 1902 hunt in Mississipi).
John Singer Sargent, Theodore Roosevelt, 1903; click on painting for background story.
Roosevelt appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
*Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. 1902
*William Rufus Day 1903
*William Henry Moody 1906
*Oklahoma 1907
Roosevelt standing next to a dead elephant during a safari
In March 1909, shortly after the end of his second term, Roosevelt left New York for a safari in east and central Africa. Roosevelt's party landed in Mombasa, British East Africa (now Kenya), traveled to the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) before following the Nile up to Khartoum in modern Sudan. Financed by Andrew Carnegie and by his own proposed writings, Roosevelt hunted for specimens for the Smithsonian Institution and for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. His party, which included scientists from the Smithsonian and was led by Frederick Selous, the famous big game hunter and explorer, and they killed or trapped over 11,397 animals, from insects and moles to hippopotamuses and elephants. 512 of the animals were big game animals, including six rare white rhinos. 262 of these were consumed by the expedition. Tons of salted animals and their skins were shipped to Washington; the quantity was so large that it took years to mount them all, and the Smithsonian was able to share many duplicate animals with other museums.
Regarding the large number of animals taken, Roosevelt said, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned." O'Toole, Patricia (2005) When Trumpets Call, p. 67, Simon and Schuster, ISBN 0-684-86477-0 However, although the safari was ostensibly conducted in the name of science, there was another, quite large element to it as well. In addition to many native peoples and local leaders, interaction with renowned professional hunters and land owning families made the safari as much a political and social event, as it was a hunting excursion. Roosevelt wrote a detailed account of the adventure in the book "African Game Trails", where he describes the excitement of the chase, the people he met, and the flora and fauna he collected in the name of science.
Roosevelt certified William Howard Taft to be a genuine "progressive" in 1908, when Roosevelt pushed through the nomination of his Secretary of War for the Presidency. Taft easily defeated three-time candidate William Jennings Bryan. Taft had a different progressivism, one that stressed the rule of law and preferred that judges rather than administrators or politicians make the basic decisions about fairness. Taft usually proved a less adroit politician than Roosevelt and lacked the energy and personal magnetism, not to mention the publicity devices, the dedicated supporters, and the broad base of public support that made Roosevelt so formidable. When Roosevelt realized that lowering the tariff would risk severe tensions inside the Republican Party pitting producers (manufacturers and farmers) against merchants and consumers he stopped talking about the issue. Taft ignored the risks and tackled the tariff boldly, on the one hand encouraging reformers to fight for lower rates, and then cutting deals with conservative leaders that kept overall rates high. The resulting Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909 was too high for most reformers, but instead of blaming this on Senator Nelson Aldrich and big business, Taft took credit, calling it the best tariff ever. Again he had managed to alienate all sides. While the crisis was building inside the Party, Roosevelt was touring Africa and Europe, so as to allow Taft to be his own man. Thayer, Chapter XXI, p. 10.
1909 cartoon: TR hands his policies to the care of Taft while William Loeb carries the "Big Stick"
Unlike Roosevelt, Taft never attacked business or businessmen in his rhetoric. However, he was attentive to the law, so he launched 90 antitrust suits, including one against the largest corporation, U.S. Steel, for an acquisition that Roosevelt had personally approved. Consequently, Taft lost the support of antitrust reformers (who disliked his conservative rhetoric), of big business (which disliked his actions), and of Roosevelt, who felt humiliated by his protégé. The left wing of the Republican Party began agitating against Taft. Senator Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin created the National Progressive Republican League (precursor to the Progressive Party (United States, 1924)) to defeat the power of political bossism at the state level and to replace Taft at the national level. More trouble came when Taft fired Gifford Pinchot, a leading conservationist and close ally of Roosevelt. Pinchot alleged that Taft's Secretary of Interior Richard Ballinger was in league with big timber interests. Conservationists sided with Pinchot, and Taft alienated yet another vocal constituency.
Roosevelt, back from Europe, unexpectedly launched an attack on the federal courts, which deeply upset Taft. Not only had Roosevelt alienated big business, he was also attacking both the judiciary and the deep faith Republicans had in their judges (most of whom had been appointed by McKinley, Roosevelt or Taft.) In the 1910 Congressional elections, Democrats swept to power, and Taft's reelection in 1912 was increasingly in doubt. In 1911, Taft responded with a vigorous stumping tour that allowed him to sign up most of the party leaders long before Roosevelt announced.
The battle between Taft and Roosevelt bitterly split the Republican Party; Taft's people dominated the party until 1936.
Late in 1911, Roosevelt finally broke with Taft and LaFollette and announced himself as a candidate for the Republican nomination. But Roosevelt had delayed too long, and Taft had already won the support of most party leaders in the country. Because of LaFollette's nervous breakdown on the campaign trail before Roosevelt's entry, most of LaFollette's supporters went over to Roosevelt, the new progressive Republican candidate.
Roosevelt, stepping up his attack on judges, carried nine of the states with preferential primaries, LaFollette took two, and Taft only one. The 1912 Primaries represented the first extensive use of the Presidential Primary, a reform achievement of the progressive movement. However, these primary elections, while demonstrating Roosevelt's popularity with the electorate, were in no ways as important as primaries are today. First of all, there were fewer states where the common voter was given a forum to express himself, such as a primary. Many more states selected convention delegates either at party conventions, or in caucuses, which were not as open as today's caucuses. So while the man in the street still adored Roosevelt, most professional Republican politicians were supporting Taft, and they proved difficult to upset in non-primary states.
At the Republican Convention in Chicago, despite being the incumbent, Taft's victory was not immediately assured. But after two weeks, Roosevelt, realizing he would not be able to win the nomination outright, asked his followers to leave the convention hall. They moved to the Auditorium Theatre, and then Roosevelt, along with key allies such as Pinchot and Albert Beveridge created the Progressive Party, structuring it as a permanent organization that would field complete tickets at the presidential and state level. It was popularly known as the "Bull Moose Party," which got its name after Roosevelt told reporters, "I'm as fit as a bull moose." Carl M. Cannon, The Pursuit of Happiness in Times of War, Rowman & Littlefield: 2003, p. 142. ISBN 0742525929. At the convention Roosevelt cried out, "We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord." Roosevelt's platform echoed his 1907â08 proposals, calling for vigorous government intervention to protect the people from the selfish interests. Thayer, Chapter XXII, pp. 25 31.
The bullet-damaged speech and eyeglass case on display at the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace
While campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on October 14, 1912, a saloonkeeper named John Schrank failed in an assassination attempt on Roosevelt. Schrank did shoot the former President, but the bullet lodged in Roosevelt's chest only after penetrating both his steel eyeglass case and passing through a thick (50 pages) single-folded copy of the speech he was carrying in his jacket. Accessed Dec. 21, 2007 . Roosevelt, as a very experienced hunter and anatomist, decide the fact he wasn't coughing blood meant the bullet had not completely penetrated the chest wall to his lung (he was correct), and so declined suggestions he go to the hospital immediately. Instead, he delivered his scheduled speech with blood seeping into his shirt. He spoke for ninety minutes. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Afterwards, doctors determined by probe and X-ray the bullet had traversed three inches of tissue and lodged in Roosevelt's chest muscle but did not penetrate the pleura, and it would be more dangerous to attempt to remove the bullet than to leave it in place. Roosevelt carried it with him until he died. Roosevelt Timeline
Due to the bullet wound, Roosevelt was taken off the campaign trail in the final weeks of the race (which ended election day, November 5). Though the other two campaigners stopped their own campaigns in the week Roosevelt was in the hospital, they resumed it once he was released. The overall effect of the shooting was uncertain. Roosevelt for many reasons failed to move enough Republicans in his direction. He did win 4.1 million votes (27%), compared to Taft's 3.5 million (23%). However, Wilson's 6.3 million votes (42%) were enough to garner 435 electoral votes. Roosevelt had 88 electoral votes to Taft's 8 electoral votes. (This meant that Taft became the only incumbent President in history to actually come in third place in an attempt to be re-elected.) But Pennsylvania was Roosevelt's only Eastern state; in the Midwest he carried Michigan, Minnesota and South Dakota; in the West, California and Washington; he did not win any Southern states. Although he lost, he won more votes than former presidents Martin Van Buren and Millard Fillmore who also ran again and also lost. More important, he pulled so many progressives out of the Republican party that it took on a much more conservative cast for the next generation.
The initial party. From left to right (seated): Father Zahm, Rondon, Kermit, Cherrie, Miller, four Brazilians, Roosevelt, Fiala. Only Roosevelt, Kermit, Cherrie, Rondon and the Brazilians traveled down the River of Doubt.
Roosevelt's popular book Through the Brazilian Wilderness describes his expedition into the Brazilian jungle in 1913 as a member of the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition co-named after its leader, Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon. The book describes all of the scientific discovery, scenic tropical vistas and exotic flora, fauna and wild life experienced on the expedition. A friend, Father John Augustine Zahm, had searched for new adventures and found them in the forests of South America. After a briefing of several of his own expeditions, he convinced Roosevelt to commit to such an expedition in 1912. To finance the expedition, Roosevelt received support from the American Museum of Natural History, promising to bring back many new animal specimens. Once in South America, a new far more ambitious goal was added: to find the headwaters of the Rio da Duvida, the River of Doubt, and trace it north to the Madiera and thence to the Amazon River. It was later renamed Rio Roosevelt (Rio Teodoro today, 640 km long) in honor of the former President. Roosevelt's crew consisted of his 24-year-old son Kermit, Colonel Cândido Rondon, a naturalist sent by the American Museum of Natural History named George K. Cherrie, Brazilian Lieutenant Joao Lyra, team physician Dr. José Antonio Cajazeira, and sixteen highly skilled paddlers (called camaradas in Portuguese). The initial expedition started, probably unwisely, on December 9, 1913, at the height of the rainy season. The trip down the River of Doubt started on February 27, 1914.
Roosevelt, wearing sun helmet, barely survived an expedition in 1913 into the Amazonian rain forest to trace the River of Doubt later named the Rio Roosevelt.
During the trip down the river, Roosevelt contracted malaria and a serious infection resulting from a minor leg wound. These illnesses so weakened Roosevelt that, by six weeks into the expedition, he had to be attended day and night by the expedition's physician, Dr. Cajazeira, and his son, Kermit. By this time, Roosevelt considered his own condition a threat to the survival of the others. At one point, Kermit had to talk him out of his wish to be left behind so as not to slow down the expedition, now with only a few weeks rations left. Roosevelt was having chest pains when he tried to walk, his temperature soared to 103 °F (39 °C), and at times he was delirious. He had lost over fifty pounds (20 kg). Without the constant support of his son, Kermit, Dr. Cajazeira, and the continued leadership of Colonel Rondon, Roosevelt would likely have perished. Despite his concern for Roosevelt, Rondon had been slowing down the pace of the expedition by his dedication to his own map-making and other geographical goals that demanded regular stops to fix the expedition's position via sun-based survey.
Upon his return to New York, friends and family were startled by Roosevelt's physical appearance and fatigue. Roosevelt wrote to a friend that the trip had cut his life short by ten years. He might not have really known just how accurate that analysis would prove to be, because the effects of the South America expedition had so greatly weakened him that they significantly contributed to his declining health. For the rest of his life, he would be plagued by flareups of malaria and leg inflammations so severe that they would require hospitalization. Thayer, Chapter XXIII, pp. 4â7.
When Roosevelt had recovered enough of his strength, he found that he had a new battle on his hands. In professional circles, there was doubt about his claims of having discovered and navigated a completely uncharted river over 625 miles (1,000 km) long. Roosevelt would have to defend himself and win international recognition of the expedition's newly-named Rio Roosevelt. Toward this end, Roosevelt went to Washington, D.C., and spoke at a standing-room-only convention to defend his claims. His official report and its defense silenced the critics, and he was able to triumphantly return to his home in Oyster Bay.
Despite his weakened condition and slow recovery from his South America expedition, Roosevelt continued to write with passion on subjects ranging from foreign policy to the importance of the national park system. As an editor of Outlook magazine, he had weekly access to a large, educated national audience. In all, Roosevelt wrote about 18 books (each in several editions), including his Autobiography, Rough Riders and History of the Naval War of 1812, ranching, explorations, and wildlife. His most ambitious book was the 4 volume narrative The Winning of the West, which attempted to connect the origin of a new "race" of Americans (i.e. what he considered the present population of the United States to be) to the frontier conditions their ancestors endured in throughout the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries.
Roosevelt angrily complained about the foreign policy of President Wilson, calling it "weak." This caused him to develop an intense dislike for Woodrow Wilson. When World War I began in 1914, Roosevelt strongly supported the Allies of World War I and demanded a harsher policy against Germany, especially regarding submarine warfare. In 1916, he campaigned energetically for Charles Evans Hughes and repeatedly denounced Irish-Americans and German-Americans who Roosevelt said were unpatriotic because they put the interest of Ireland and Germany ahead of America's by supporting neutrality. He insisted one had to be 100% American, not a "hyphenated American" who juggled multiple loyalties. When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, Roosevelt sought to raise a volunteer infantry division, but Wilson refused. Brands 781â4; Cramer, C.H. Newton D. Baker (1961) 110â113
Roosevelt's attacks on Wilson helped the Republicans win control of Congress in the off-year elections of 1918. Roosevelt was popular enough to seriously contest the 1920 Republican nomination, but his health was broken by 1918, because of the lingering malaria. His son Quentin, a daring pilot with the American forces in France, was shot down behind German lines in 1918. Quentin was his youngest son and probably the most liked by him. It is said the death of his son distressed him so much that Roosevelt never recovered from his loss. Dalton, (2002)p 507
Theodore Roosevelt Grave in Youngs Memorial Cemetery Oyster Bay, New York
Twenty-six steps leading to Roosevelt's grave, commemorating his service as 26th President
Despite his debilitating diseases, Roosevelt remained active to the end of his life. He was an enthusiastic proponent of the Scouting movement. The Boy Scouts of America gave him the title of Chief Scout Citizen, the only person to hold such title. One early Scout leader said, "The two things that gave Scouting great impetus and made it very popular were the uniform and Teddy Roosevelt's jingoism." Larson, Keith (2006). "Theodore Roosevelt". Retrieved March 6 2006.
On January 6, 1919, Roosevelt died in his sleep of a coronary embolism at Oyster Bay, and was buried in nearby Youngs Memorial Cemetery. Upon receiving word of his death, his son, Archie, telegraphed his siblings simply, "The old lion is dead." Dalton, (2002) p. 507 Woodrow Wilson's vice president at the time Thomas R. Marshall said of his death "Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight." Manners, William. TR and Will: A Friendship that Split the Republican Party. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1969.
Roosevelt Family in 1903 with Quentin on the left, TR, Ted, Jr., "Archie", Alice, Kermit, Edith, and Ethel
Roosevelt intensely disliked being called "Teddy," and was quick to point out this fact to those who used the nickname, though it would become widely used by newspapers during his political career. He attended the Madison Square Presbyterian Church until the age of 16. Later in life, when Roosevelt lived at Oyster Bay he attended an Episcopal church with his wife. While in Washington he attended services at Grace Reformed Church. "The Religious Affiliation of Theodore Roosevelt U.S. President". Retrieved March 7 2006. As President he firmly believed in the separation of church and state and thought it unwise to have In God We Trust on currency, because he thought it sacrilegious to put the name of the Deity on something so common as money. Reynolds, Ralph C. (1999). "In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash". Retrieved March 7 2006. He was also a Freemason, and regularly attended the Matinecock Lodge's meetings. He once said that "One of the things that so greatly attracted me to Masonry that I hailed the chance of becoming a Mason was that it really did act up to what we, as a government, are pledged to namely to treat each man on his merit as a man." Matinecock Masonic Historical Society. "History". Retrieved March 12 2006.
Roosevelt had a lifelong interest in pursuing what he called, in an 1899 speech, "the strenuous life." To this end, he exercised regularly and took up boxing, tennis, hiking, rowing, polo, and horseback riding. As governor of New York, he boxed with sparring partners several times a week, a practice he regularly continued as President until one blow detached his left retina, leaving him blind in that eye (a fact not made public until many years later). Thereafter, he practiced jujutsu and continued his habit of skinny-dipping in the Potomac River during winter. Thayer, Chapter XVII, pp. 22 24. Shaw, K.B. & Maiden, David (2006). "Theodore Roosevelt".
Retrieved March 7 2006.
Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt's estate
He was an enthusiastic singlestick player and, according to Harper's Weekly, in 1905 showed up at a White House reception with his arm bandaged after a bout with General Leonard Wood. Amberger, J Christoph, Secret History of the Sword Adventures in Ancient Martial Arts 1998, ISBN 1-892515-04-0. Roosevelt was also an avid reader, reading tens of thousands of books, at a rate of several a day in multiple languages. Along with Thomas Jefferson Roosevelt is often considered the most well read of any American politician. David H. Burton, The Learned Presidency 1988, p 12.
Roosevelt's face on Mt. Rushmore
1910 cartoon shows Roosevelt's multiple roles to 1898
1910 cartoon shows Roosevelt's multiple roles from 1899 to 1910
For his gallantry at San Juan Hill, Roosevelt's commanders recommended him for the Medal of Honor, but his subsequent telegrams to the War Department complaining about the delays in returning American troops from Cuba doomed his chances. In the late 1990s, Roosevelt's supporters again took up the flag on his behalf and overcame opposition from elements within the U.S. Army and the National Archives. On January 16, 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded Theodore Roosevelt the Medal of Honor posthumously for his charge up San Juan Hill, Cuba, during the Spanish-American War. Roosevelt's eldest son, Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., received the Medal of Honor for heroism at the Battle of Normandy in 1944. The Roosevelts thus became one of only two father-son pairs to receive this honor.
Roosevelt's legacy includes several other important commemorations. Roosevelt was included with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln at the Mount Rushmore Memorial, designed in 1927. The United States Navy named two ships for Roosevelt: the USS Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600), a submarine was in commission from 1961 to 1982; and the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), an aircraft carrier that has been on active duty in the Atlantic Fleet since 1986.
The Roosevelt Memorial Association (later the Theodore Roosevelt Association) or "TRA", was founded in 1920 to preserve Roosevelt's legacy. The Association preserved TR's birthplace, "Sagamore Hill" home, papers, and video film.
Overall, historians credit Roosevelt for changing the nation's political system by permanently placing the presidency at center stage and making character as important as the issues. His notable accomplishments include trust-busting and conservationism. However, he has been criticized for his interventionist and imperialist approach to nations he considered "uncivilized". Even so, history and legend have been kind to him. His friend, historian Henry Adams, proclaimed, "Roosevelt, more than any other living man ....showed the singular primitive quality that belongs to ultimate matter the quality that mediaeval theology assigned to God he was pure act." Historians typically rank Roosevelt among the top five presidents. The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (2005). "Biography: Impact and Legacy". Retrieved March 7 2006. "Legacy". Retrieved March 7 2006.
Roosevelt has been quoted by virtually all the major Republican and Democratic candidates for the 2008 US Presidential Election. Political pundits have brought up Roosevelt's name in book after book. The degree of discussion ranges from a single sentence by democrat Bill Richardson talking about him as "BR" breaking Roosevelt's (or "TR") 1907 single handshaking record, John Edwards mentioning Roosevelt in a fall of 2007 speech to John McCain devoting an entire chapter to him in his main background book. Even the lone candidate that did not mention Roosevelt in an autobiographical book, democrat, Joe Biden, nevertheless, began mentioning Roosevelt's taking on of corporate interests speeches in New Hampshire in the summer of 2007.
Roosevelt's 1901 saying "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick" is still being occasionally quoted by politicians and columnists in different countries - not only in English but also in translation to various other languages. For example, following the Second Lebanon War of August 2006, opponents of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accused him of "Speaking loudly and carrying a small stick".
The well-known Nicaraguan poet Rubén DarÃo published in 1905 a poem entitled A Roosevelt (To Roosevelt) which was included in Cantos de Vida y Esperanza (Songs of Life and Hope)
As a charismatic President often considered larger than life, Roosevelt has appeared in numerous fiction books, television shows, films, and other media of popular culture. Roosvelt was played by Robin Williams in the box office hit Night at the Museum and its upcoming sequel.
"Drawing the Line in Mississippi," by Clifford Berryman, referring to Roosevelt's sparing the bear.
Filmmaker John Milius also directed two films in which Roosevelt was a central character: The Wind and the Lion (1975) in which he was played by Brian Keith; and Rough Riders (1997) in which he was played by Tom Berenger. Keith's performance is widely considered to be the definitive screen depiction of Roosevelt.
Roosevelt's lasting popular legacy, however, is the stuffed toy bearsâteddy bearsânamed after him following an incident on a hunting trip in 1902. Roosevelt famously refused to kill a captured black bear simply for the sake of making a kill. Bears and later bear cubs became closely associated with Roosevelt in political cartoons thereafter. "History of the Teddy Bear". Retrieved March 7 2006.
On June 26, 2006, Roosevelt, once again, made the cover of TIME magazine with the lead story, "The Making of AmericaâTheodore RooseveltâThe 20th Century Express": "At home and abroad, Theodore Roosevelt was the locomotive President, the man who drew his flourishing nation into the future."
The Washington Nationals major league baseball team has a fan tradition called the Presidents Race. In it four caricatures of presidents Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt race against each other. A running gag has been Theodore Roosevelt's inability to win a single Presidents Race.
In 2006 Roosevelt' likeness was used in "Night at the Museum (The movie).
Theodore Roosevelt was one of the first presidents whose voice was recorded for posterity. Several of his recorded speeches survive. Vincent Voice Library at Michigan State University. Retrieved September 23, 2007.
* Roosevelt goes for first aeroplane ride in Arch Hoxsey plane 1910
*Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. father
*Martha Bulloch mother
*Eleanor Roosevelt niece, First Lady of the United States (1933â1945)
*Alice Roosevelt first wife
*Edith Carow Roosevelt second wife
*Alice Roosevelt first daughter
*Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. first son
*Kermit Roosevelt second son
*Ethel Roosevelt second daughter
*Archibald Roosevelt third son
*Quentin Roosevelt fourth son
*Elliott Roosevelt brother
*Anna Cowles sister
*Corinne Robinson sister
*Franklin D. Roosevelt, cousin, 32nd President of the United States
*Theodore Roosevelt Association 1920 organization founded to preserve Roosevelt's historical legacy
*Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia 1940 compendium of Roosevelt's key writings, sayings and conversations
*Reynier Tyson 4th great-grandfather, early German-American settler
*Panama Canal
*Great White Fleet
*Russo-Japanese War
*List of U.S. political appointments that crossed party lines
*Progressivism
*
*Auchincloss, Louis, ed. Theodore Roosevelt, The Rough Riders and an Autobiography (Library of America, 2004) ISBN 978-1-93108265-5
*Auchincloss, Louis, ed. Theodore Roosevelt, Letters and Speeches (Library of America, 2004) ISBN 978-1-93108266-2
*Brands, H.W. ed. The Selected Letters of Theodore Roosevelt. (2001)
*Harbaugh, William ed. The Writings Of Theodore Roosevelt (1967). A one-volume selection of Roosevelt's speeches and essays.
*Hart, Albert Bushnell and Herbert Ronald Ferleger, eds. Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia (1941), Roosevelt's opinions on many issues; online version at
*Morison, Elting E., John Morton Blum, and Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., eds., The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 8 vols. (1951â1954). Very large, annotated edition of letters from TR.
*Roosevelt, Theodore (1999). Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography. online at Bartleby.com.
*Roosevelt, Theodore. The Works of Theodore Roosevelt (National edition, 20 vol. 1926); 18,000 pages containing most of TR's speeches, books and essays, but not his letters; a CD-ROM edition is available; some of TR's books are available online through Project Bartleby
* Theodore Roosevelt books and speeches on Project Gutenberg
*Blum, John Morton The Republican Roosevelt. (1954). Series of essays that examine how TR did politics
*Brands, H.W. Theodore Roosevelt (2001), full biography
* Chace, James. 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft, and Debs - The Election That Changed the Country. (2004). 323 pp.
*Cooper, John Milton The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. (1983) a dual scholarly biography
*Dalton, Kathleen. Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life. (2002), full scholarly biography
* Fehn, Bruce. "Theodore Roosevelt and American Masculinity." Magazine of History (2005) 19(2): 52â59. Issn: 0882-228x Fulltext online at Ebsco. Provides a lesson plan on TR as the historical figure who most exemplifies the quality of masculinity.
*Gluck, Sherwin. "T.R.'s Summer White House, Oyster Bay." (1999) Chronicles the events of TR's presidency during the summers of his two terms.
*Gould, Lewis L. The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. (1991), standard history of his domestic and foreign policy as president
*Harbaugh, William Henry. The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt. (1963), full scholarly biography
*Keller, Morton, ed., Theodore Roosevelt: A Profile (1967) excerpts from TR and from historians.
* Kohn, Edward. "Crossing the Rubicon: Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and the 1884 Republican National Convention." Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2006 5(1): 18â45. Issn: 1537-7814 Fulltext: in History Cooperative
*Millard, Candice. River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey. (2005)
*McCullough, David. Mornings on Horseback, The Story of an Extraordinary Family. a Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt. (2001) popular biography to 1884
*Morris, Edmund The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, to 1901 (1979); vol 2: Theodore Rex 1901â1909. (2001); Pulitzer prize for Volume 1. Biography.
* Mowry, George. The Era of Theodore Roosevelt and the Birth of Modern America, 1900â1912. (1954) general survey of era; online
*Mowry, George E. Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement. (2001) focus on 1912
* O'Toole, Patricia. When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt after the White House. (2005). 494 pp.
*Powell, Jim. Bully Boy: The Truth About Theodore Roosevelt's Legacy (Crown Forum, 2006). Denounces TR policies from conservative/libertarian perspective
*Pringle, Henry F. Theodore Roosevelt (1932; 2nd ed. 1956), full scholarly biography
*Putnam, Carleton Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography, Volume I: The Formative Years (1958), only volume published, to age 28.
*Renehan, Edward J. The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War. (Oxford University Press, 1998), examines TR and his family during the World War I period
*Strock, James M. Theodore Roosevelt on Leadership. Random House, 2003.
* Watts, Sarah. Rough Rider in the White House: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of Desire. 2003. 289 pp.
*Beale Howard K. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power. (1956). standard history of his foreign policy
* Holmes, James R. Theodore Roosevelt and World Order: Police Power in International Relations. 2006. 328 pp.
* Marks III, Frederick W. Velvet on Iron: The Diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt (1979)
* David McCullough. The Path between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870â1914 (1977).
* Ricard, Serge. "The Roosevelt Corollary." Presidential Studies Quarterly 2006 36(1): 17â26. Issn: 0360-4918 Fulltext: in Swetswise and Ingenta
* Tilchin, William N. and Neu, Charles E., ed. Artists of Power: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Their Enduring Impact on U.S. Foreign Policy. Praeger, 2006. 196 pp.
* Tilchin, William N. Theodore Roosevelt and the British Empire: A Study in Presidential Statecraft (1997)
* Theodore Roosevelt Association - Founded in 1920 by Roosevelt's friends and admirers to preserve his legacy. Extensive online resources and bibliography
* Extensive essay on Theodore Roosevelt and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* NY Times Headline, January 6, 1919, Theodore Roosevelt Dies Suddenly at Oyster Bay Home; Nation Shocked, Pays Tribute to Former President; Our Flag on All Seas and in All Lands at Half Mast
* "The Early Years: The Challenge of Public Order - 1845 to 1870", by William Andrews, New York City Police Department History Site
* "Leadership of the City of New York Police Department 1845â1901", - The New York City Police Department Museum
* PBS "American Experience" Theodore Roosevelt
* My Brother Theodore Roosevelt, 1921 By Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, a bestseller with a woman's and sister's point of view on TR. Full text and Full text Search, Free to Read and Search.
* Almanac of Theodore Roosevelt
* Downloadable audio recordings of Roosevelt in MP3 format
* Audio clips of Roosevelt's speeches
* Roosevelt podcasts Audio Recording of Roosevelt's Progressive Party Acceptance Speech, "Progressive Covenant with the People" with text included.
* Quotes
* Theodore Roosevelt Works - Bartleby's Online Books
* Presidential Biography by Stanley L. Klos
*
* Index of T. Roosevelt Etexts
* Detailed biography of Theodore Roosevelt from the 1911 version of Encyclopedia Britannica
* Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Address
* State of the Union addresses for 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, and 1908
* Nobel Peace Prize 1906: Theodore Roosevelt
* Theodore Roosevelt Papers at the Library of Congress
* Theodore Roosevelt: His Life & Times on Film (LOC)
* Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
* Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site
* Sagamore Hill National Historic Site
* NobelPrize.org's entry on Theodore Roosevelt
* Congressional Medal of Honor's entry on Theodore Roosevelt; including citation and pictures
* Medal of Honor Recipients on Film
* White House biography
* Vice Presidents Dot Com
* Family and Descendants of Theodore Roosevelt
* Ron Schuler's Parlour Tricks: Teddy
* Theodore Roosevelt Links
* Theodore Roosevelt Quotes, Pictures and Biography at TeddyRoosevelt.com
* Theodore Roosevelt cylinder recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.
* On Theodore Roosevelt's progressive vision from the Roosevelt Institution, a student think tank inspired in part by Theodore Roosevelt.
* Boone and Crockett Club, founded by Theodore Roosevelt
* How to pronounce Theodore Roosevelt
* Yesterday's News blog 1901 newspaper account of Roosevelt's "Big Stick" speech at the Minnesota State Fair
* Archive of Theodore Roosevelt Pictures
* still of Theodore Roosevelt going on first aeroplane flight
* different view of Theodore Roosevelt & Arch Hoxsey in Wright aeroplane St Louis October 1910
*
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
September 14
1901
March 4
1909
Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
William Howard Taft
Vice President of the United States
March 4
1901
September 14
1901
William McKinley
Garret Hobart
Charles W. Fairbanks
List of Governors of New York
January 1
1899
December 31
1900
Timothy L. Woodruff
Frank S. Black
Benjamin Barker Odell, Jr.
New York City
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
Edith Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Bulloch Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Polymath
author
historian
conservationist
Civil servant
History of United States Republican Party
Dutch Reformed
October 27
1858
January 6
1919
President of the United States
History of the United States Republican Party
Progressivism
List of Governors of New York
United States Navy
Rough Riders
Rough Riders
Spanish-American War
Amazon Basin
William McKinley
John F. Kennedy
Progressive Era
trust-busting
trust (law)
capitalism
Square Deal
conservation
labor union
William Howard Taft
U.S. presidential election, 1912
Progressive Party (United States, 1912)
Woodrow Wilson
conservative
Panama Canal
Nobel Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
Russo-Japanese War
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
Mount Rushmore
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
Gramercy, New York
New York City
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
Martha Bulloch
Bamie Roosevelt
Elliott Roosevelt I
Eleanor Roosevelt
Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
newspaper
Joseph Alsop
Stewart Alsop
American Revolution
History of the United States Democratic Party
History of the United States Republican Party
philanthropy
Abraham Lincoln
American Civil War
slavery
Savannah, Georgia
Confederate
James Dunwoody Bulloch
U.S. Navy
Irvine Bulloch
CSS Alabama
asthma
zoology
Pinniped
taxidermy
March 6
2006
boxing
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
March 9
2006
biology
French language
German language
mathematics
Latin
Greek language
Harvard College
magna cum laude
science
philosophy
rhetoric
ornithology
eidetic memory
Alpha Delta Phi
Delta Kappa Epsilon
C.S. Hanks
Phi Beta Kappa
Columbia Law School
New York Assembly
History of the United States Republican Party
Mugwump
James G. Blaine
Grover Cleveland
History of the United States Democratic Party
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
July 29
1861
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
February 14
1884
Manhattan, New York
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Bright's disease
Typhoid fever
Dakota Territory
Badlands
Tiffany and Co.
Medora, North Dakota
Little Missouri River (North Dakota)
Dickinson
Deadwood, South Dakota
South Dakota
Sheriff
Seth Bullock
winter of 1886-1887
Sagamore Hill
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Edith Roosevelt
Mont Blanc
British Royal Society
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt III
man-of-war
broadside
Thomas Hart Benton (senator)
Gouverneur Morris
historiography
frontier thesis
Frederick Jackson Turner
American Historical Association
Nordicism
social Darwinism
racialism
Booker T. Washington
New York
Charleston
Postmaster
Indianola, Mississippi
U.S. presidential election, 1888
Benjamin Harrison
United States Civil Service Commission
spoils system
U.S. presidential election, 1892
Grover Cleveland
Bourbon Democrat
New York City Police Commissioner
August 28
2006
August 28
2006
Henry Cabot Lodge
William McKinley
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Secretary of the Navy
John D. Long
Spanish-American War
Rough Riders
Leonard Wood
Rough Riders
cowboy
Ivy League
Lieutenant Colonel
Brigadier General
Rough Riders
Rough Riders
Kettle Hill
Battle of San Juan Hill
Medal of Honor
as of 2007
machine politics
Thomas C. Platt
United States presidential election, 1900
Mark Hanna
William Jennings Bryan
Minnesota State Fair
Big stick Diplomacy
Pan-American Exposition
Buffalo, New York
William McKinley
Leon Czolgosz
September 6
1901
Mount Marcy
Ansley Wilcox
Grover Cleveland
February 2
2007
Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site
Buffalo, New York
New York
Bible
Mark Hanna
United Mine Workers of America
trust (19th century)
Trust Buster
Hepburn Act
Interstate Commerce Commission
Upton Sinclair
The Jungle
Pure Food and Drug Act
Meat Inspection Act
Millard Fillmore
Chester Arthur
Mark Hanna
Grover Cleveland
Alton B. Parker
Electoral College
Solid South
Eugene Debs
Gifford Pinchot
passenger pigeon
March 14
1903
Florida
conservation
Gifford Pinchot
United States Forest Service
national park
nature preserve
national forest
national wildlife refuge
Grand Canyon
Theodore Roosevelt National Park
Badlands
John Muir
Conference of Governors
Outdoor Life
Edward Renehan
Tweed Roosevelt
YouTube
April 23
2006
archaeology
Antiquities Act
U.S. National Monument
James F. Lacey
Edgar Lee Hewett
Devils Tower National Monument
Wyoming
geology
Christmas tree
White House
virgin forests
Cuba
Philippines
Puerto Rico
Panama Canal Zone
Walter Reed
William C. Gorgas
yellow fever
Great White Fleet
Roosevelt Corollary
Monroe Doctrine
Latin American
Russo-Japanese War
Nobel Peace Prize
France
Germany
Morocco
world war
March 6
2006
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty
Panama Canal
San Francisco, California
California
New York City
Colombia
Nicaragua
Panama
November 3
1903
Nathan Johnson Forest
US Navy
battleship
circumnavigation
December 16
1907
February 22
1909
Great White Fleet
Russians
Russo-Japanese War
U.S. Atlantic Fleet
grand strategy
Victor David Brenner
New York City
Lower East Side
American Civil War
Mathew Brady
Lincoln cent
March 6
2006
March 6
2006
simplified spelling
Brander Matthews
December 16
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
West Wing
federal style
Louis Comfort Tiffany
race relations
Booker T. Washington
White House
Oscar Straus (politician)
Hartford
Connecticut
submarine
USS Holland (SS-1)
Panama Canal
November 9
William McKinley
September 6
1901
Secret Service
Nobel Prize
Long Island
Lincoln cent
Maxwell House
Teddy bear
John Singer Sargent
President of the United States
Vice President of the United States
Charles W. Fairbanks
United States Secretary of State
John Hay
Elihu Root
Robert Bacon
United States Secretary of the Treasury
Lyman J. Gage
L. M. Shaw
George B. Cortelyou
United States Secretary of War
Elihu Root
William Howard Taft
Luke Edward Wright
Attorney General of the United States
Philander C. Knox
William Henry Moody
Charles Joseph Bonaparte
Postmaster General of the United States
Charles Emory Smith
Henry C. Payne
Robert Wynne
George B. Cortelyou
George von Lengerke Meyer
United States Secretary of the Navy
John Davis Long
William Henry Moody
Paul Morton
Charles Joseph Bonaparte
Victor H. Metcalf
Truman Handy Newberry
United States Secretary of the Interior
Ethan A. Hitchcock (Interior)
James Rudolph Garfield
United States Secretary of Agriculture
James Wilson (U.S. politician)
United States Secretary of Commerce and Labor
George B. Cortelyou
Victor H. Metcalf
Oscar Straus (politician)
Supreme Court of the United States
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
William R. Day
William Henry Moody
Oklahoma
safari
East Africa
central Africa
Mombasa
British East Africa
Kenya
Belgian Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Nile
Khartoum
Sudan
Andrew Carnegie
Smithsonian Institution
American Museum of Natural History
Frederick Selous
insect
Mole (animal)
hippopotamus
elephant
White Rhinoceros
Washington, D.C.
taxidermy
museum
National Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History
science
flora
fauna
William Howard Taft
U.S. presidential election, 1908
William Jennings Bryan
Payne-Aldrich tariff
Nelson Aldrich
William Loeb
Robert M. La Follette, Sr.
Wisconsin
Progressive Party (United States, 1924)
Gifford Pinchot
Richard Ballinger
Republican Convention
Chicago
Auditorium Building, Chicago
Pinchot
Albert Beveridge
Progressive Party 1912 (United States)
Bull Moose Party
Armageddon
statesmanship
Woodrow Wilson
monopoly
Trust (19th century)
U.S. Steel
Standard Oil
Howard Taft
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Wisconsin
October 14
1912
John Schrank
assassination
chest
steel
eyeglass
pleura
Pennsylvania
Eastern United States
Midwest
Michigan
Minnesota
South Dakota
Western United States
California
Washington
Martin Van Buren
Millard Fillmore
John Augustine Zahm
Cândido Rondon
Kermit Roosevelt
Brazil
Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition
Brazil
Cândido Rondon
John Augustine Zahm
American Museum of Natural History
River of Doubt
Amazon River
Rio Roosevelt
Cândido Rondon
American Museum of Natural History
Portuguese language
December 9
1913
February 27
1914
Rio Roosevelt
malaria
Rio Roosevelt
Oyster Bay
World War I
Allies of World War I
Germany
Charles Evans Hughes
hyphenated American
Quentin Roosevelt
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Scouting
Boy Scouts of America
March 6
2006
January 6
1919
embolism
Archibald Roosevelt
Thomas R. Marshall
Death (personification)
Quentin Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Archibald Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Kermit Roosevelt
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Madison Square Presbyterian Church
Episcopal Church in the United States of America
Grace Reformed Church
March 7
2006
separation of church and state
In God We Trust
March 7
2006
Freemason
March 12
2006
The Strenuous Life
jujutsu
skinny-dipping
Potomac River
March 7
2006
Sagamore Hill
singlestick
Harper's Weekly
Leonard Wood
Thomas Jefferson
Mt. Rushmore
Medal of Honor
Cuba
National Archives and Records Administration
January 16
2001
Bill Clinton
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Battle of Normandy
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
Mount Rushmore
United States Navy
USS Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600)
USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71)
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
Sagamore Hill
Henry Adams
March 7
2006
March 7
2006
Joseph Biden
Second Lebanon War
Israel
Ehud Olmert
Nicaragua
Rubén DarÃo
Robin Williams
Night at the Museum
John Milius
The Wind and the Lion
Brian Keith
Rough Riders (film)
Tom Berenger
teddy bears
American black bear
March 7
2006
June 26
2006
Time (magazine)
Washington Nationals
Presidents Race
Michigan State University
Megabyte
ogg
Theora
Theora
Megabyte
ogg
Theora
Theora
Arch Hoxsey
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
Martha Bulloch
Eleanor Roosevelt
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
Edith Carow Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Elliott Roosevelt I
Bamie Roosevelt
Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia
Reynier Tyson
Panama Canal
Great White Fleet
Russo-Japanese War
List of U.S. political appointments that crossed party lines
Progressivism
Library of America
Library of America
Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia
Edmund Morris (writer)
Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project
University of California, Santa Barbara
think tank
Arch Hoxsey
Frank S. Black
List of Governors of New York
Benjamin B. Odell, Jr.
Garret Hobart
Vice President of the United States
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
President of the United States
William Howard Taft
Garret Hobart
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1900
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1904
William Howard Taft
Progressive Party (United States, 1912)
U.S. presidential election, 1912
Grover Cleveland
Oldest living United States president
William Howard Taft
President of the United States
October 27
1858
New York, New York
January 6
1919
Oyster Bay, New York
|
Theodore_Roosevelt | Was Roosevelt's family rich? | yes | data/set3/a7 | Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. ( ; October 27 1858 January 6 1919), also known as T.R., and to the public (but never to friends and intimates) as Teddy, was the twenty-sixth President of the United States, and a leader of the Republican Party and of the Progressive Movement. He became the youngest President in United States history at the age of 42. He served in many roles including Governor of New York, historian, naturalist, explorer, author, and soldier. Roosevelt is most famous for his personality: his energy, his vast range of interests and achievements, his model of masculinity, and his "cowboy" persona. His last name, often mispronounced, is, per Roosevelt, "pronounced as if it were spelled 'Rosavelt', in three syllables, the first syllable as if it was 'Rose.'"
As Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Navy, he prepared for and advocated war with Spain in 1898. He organized and helped command the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, the Rough Riders, during the Spanish-American War. Returning to New York as a war hero, he was elected Republican governor in 1899. He was a professional historian, a lawyer, a naturalist and explorer of the Amazon Basin; his 35 books include works on outdoor life, natural history, the American frontier, political history, naval history, and his autobiography.
In 1901, as Vice President, Roosevelt succeeded President William McKinley after McKinley's assassination. He is the youngest person ever to become President (John F. Kennedy is the youngest elected President). Roosevelt was a Progressive reformer who sought to move the dominant Republican Party into the Progressive camp. He distrusted wealthy businessmen and dissolved forty monopolistic corporations as a "trust buster". He was clear, however, to show he did not disagree with trusts and capitalism in principle but was only against corrupt, illegal practices. His "Square Deal" promised a fair shake for both the average citizen (through regulation of railroad rates and pure food and drugs) and the businessmen. As an outdoorsman, he promoted the conservation movement, emphasizing efficient use of natural resources. After 1906 he attacked big business and suggested the courts were biased against labor unions. In 1910, he broke with his friend and anointed successor William Howard Taft, but lost the Republican nomination to Taft and ran in the 1912 election on his own one-time Bull Moose ticket. Roosevelt beat Taft in the popular vote and pulled so many Progressives out of the Republican Party that Democrat Woodrow Wilson won in 1912, and the conservative faction took control of the Republican Party for the next two decades.
Roosevelt negotiated for the U.S. to take control of the Panama Canal and its construction in 1904; he felt the Canal's completion was his most important and historically significant international achievement. He was the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize, winning its Peace Prize in 1906, for negotiating the peace in the Russo-Japanese War.
Historian Thomas Bailey, who disagreed with Roosevelt's policies, nevertheless concluded, "Roosevelt was a great personality, a great activist, a great preacher of the moralities, a great controversialist, a great showman. He dominated his era as he dominated conversations....the masses loved him; he proved to be a great popular idol and a great vote getter." His image stands alongside Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln on Mount Rushmore. Surveys of scholars have consistently ranked him from #3 to #7 on the list of greatest American presidents.
Theodore Roosevelt at age 11
Theodore Roosevelt was born in a four-story brownstone at 28 East 20th Street, in the modern-day Gramercy section of New York City, the second of four children of Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. (1831â1877) and Mittie Bulloch (1834â1884). He had an elder sister Anna, nicknamed "Bamie" as a child and "Bye" as an adult for being always on the go; and two younger siblingsâhis brother Elliott (the father of Eleanor Roosevelt) and his sister Corinne, (grandmother of newspaper columnists, Joseph and Stewart Alsop).
The Roosevelts had been in New York since the mid 18th century and had grown with the emerging New York commerce class after the American Revolution. Unlike many of the earlier "log cabin Presidents," Roosevelt was born into a wealthy family. By the 19th century, the family had grown in wealth, power and influence from the profits of several businesses including hardware and plate-glass importing. The family was strongly Democratic in its political affiliation until the mid-1850s, then joined the new Republican Party. Theodore's father, known in the family as "Thee", was a New York City philanthropist, merchant, and partner in the family glass-importing firm Roosevelt and Son. He was a prominent supporter of Abraham Lincoln and the Union effort during the American Civil War. His mother Mittie Bulloch was a Southern belle from a slave-owning family in Savannah, Georgia and had quiet Confederate sympathies. Mittie's brother, Theodore's uncle, James Dunwoody Bulloch, was a U.S. Navy officer who became a Confederate admiral and naval procurement agent in Britain. Another uncle Irvine Bulloch was a midshipman on the Confederate raider, CSS Alabama; both remained in England after the war. . Pringle (1931) p. 11 From his grandparents' home, a young Roosevelt witnessed Abraham Lincoln's funeral procession in New York.
Sickly and asthmatic as a youngster, Roosevelt had to sleep propped up in bed or slouching in a chair during much of his early childhood, and had frequent ailments. Despite his illnesses, he was a hyperactive and often mischievous young man. His lifelong interest in zoology was formed at age seven upon seeing a dead seal at a local market. After obtaining the seal's head, the young Roosevelt and two of his cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Learning the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with many animals that he killed or caught, studied, and prepared for display. At age nine, he codified his observation of insects with a paper titled "The Natural History of Insects". "TR's LegacyâThe Environment". Retrieved March 6, 2006.
To combat his poor physical condition, his father compelled the young Roosevelt to take up exercise. To deal with bullies, Roosevelt started boxing lessons. Thayer, William Roscoe (1919). Theodore Roosevelt: An Intimate Biography, Chapter I, p. 20. Bartleby.com. Two trips abroad had a permanent impact: family tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and of the Middle East 1872 to 1873.
Theodore Sr. had a tremendous influence on his son. Of him Roosevelt wrote, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Roosevelt, Theodore (1913). Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography, Chapter I, p. 13. Roosevelt's sister later wrote, "He told me frequently that he never took any serious step or made any vital decision for his country without thinking first what position his father would have taken." "The Film & More: Program Transcript Part One". Retrieved March 9 2006.
Young "Teedie" , as he was nicknamed as a child, (the nickname "Teddy" was from his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee, and he later harbored an intense dislike for it) was mostly home schooled by tutors and his parents. A leading biographer says: "The most obvious drawback to the home schooling Roosevelt keely received was uneven coverage of the various areas of human knowledge." He was solid in geography (thanks to his careful observations on all his travels) and very well read in history, strong in biology, French and German, but deficient in mathematics, Latin and Greek. Brands T. R. p. 49â50 He matriculated at Harvard College in 1876, graduating magna cum laude. His father's death in 1878 was a tremendous blow, but Roosevelt redoubled his activities. He did well in science, philosophy and rhetoric courses but fared poorly in Latin and Greek. He studied biology with great interest and indeed was already an accomplished naturalist and published ornithologist. He had a photographic memory and developed a life-long habit of devouring books, memorizing every detail. Brands p. 62 He was an eloquent conversationalist who, throughout his life, sought out the company of the smartest people. He could multitask in extraordinary fashion, dictating letters to one secretary and memoranda to another, while browsing through a new book.
While at Harvard, Roosevelt was active in rowing, boxing and the Alpha Delta Phi and Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternities. He also edited a student magazine. He was runner-up in the Harvard boxing championship, losing to C.S. Hanks. The sportsmanship Roosevelt showed in that fight was long remembered. Upon graduating from Harvard, Roosevelt underwent a physical examination and his doctor advised him that due to serious heart problems, he should find a desk job and avoid strenuous activity. Roosevelt chose to embrace strenuous life instead. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris.
He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude (22nd of 177) from Harvard in 1880, and entered Columbia Law School. When offered a chance to run for New York Assemblyman in 1881, he dropped out of law school to pursue his new goal of entering public life. Brands, pp 123â29
Roosevelt as NY State Assemblyman 1883, photo
Roosevelt was a Republican activist during his years in the Assembly, writing more bills than any other New York state legislator. Already a major player in state politics, he attended the Republican National Convention in 1884 and fought alongside the Mugwump reformers; they lost to the Stalwart faction that nominated James G. Blaine. Refusing to join other Mugwumps in supporting Democrat Grover Cleveland, the Democratic nominee, he stayed loyal.
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt (July 29, 1861 in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts â February 14 1884 in Manhattan, New York) was the first wife of Theodore Roosevelt and mother of their only child together, Alice Lee Roosevelt. Alice Roosevelt died of an undiagnosed case of Bright's Disease two days after Alice Lee was born. Theodore Roosevelt's mother Mittie died of Typhoid fever in the same house on the same day, Feb. 14, 1884. After the simultaneous deaths of his mother and wife, Roosevelt left his daughter in the care of his sister in New York and moved out to Dakota Territory.
Theodore Roosevelt as Badlands hunter in 1885. New York studio photo. Note the engraved knife and rifle courtesy of Tiffany and Co.
Roosevelt built a second ranch he named Elk Horn thirty five miles (56 km) north of the boomtown, Medora, North Dakota. On the banks of the "Little Missouri," Roosevelt learned to ride, rope, and hunt.
Roosevelt rebuilt his life and began writing about frontier life for Eastern magazines. As a deputy sheriff, Roosevelt hunted down three outlaws who stole his river boat and were escaping north with it up the Little Missouri River. Capturing them, he decided against hanging them and sending his foreman back by boat, he took the thieves back overland for trial in Dickinson, guarding them forty hours without sleep and reading Tolstoy to keep himself awake. When he ran out of his own books he read a dime store western one of the thieves was carrying.
While working on a tough project aimed at hunting down a group of relentless horse thieves, Roosevelt came across the famous Deadwood, South Dakota Sheriff Seth Bullock. The two would remain friends for life. (Morris, Rise of, 241â245, 247â250)
After the uniquely severe U.S. winter of 1886-1887 wiped out his herd of cattle and his $60,000 investment (together with those of his competitors), he returned to the East, where in 1885, he had built Sagamore Hill in Oyster Bay, New York. It would be his home and estate until his death. Roosevelt ran as the Republican candidate for mayor of New York City in 1886 as "The Cowboy of the Dakotas." He came in third.
Following the election, he went to London in 1886 and married his childhood sweetheart, Edith Kermit Carow. Thayer, Chapter V, pp. 4, 6. They honeymooned in Europe, and Roosevelt led a party to the summit of Mont Blanc, a feat which resulted in his induction into the British Royal Society. Encyclopedia Britannica, 1910 Edition, Topic: Theodore Roosevelt They had five children: Theodore Jr., Kermit, Ethel Carow, Archibald Bulloch "Archie", and Quentin. Although Roosevelt's father was also named Theodore Roosevelt, he died while the future president was still childless and unmarried, so the future President Roosevelt took the suffix of Sr. and subsequently named his son Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. Because Roosevelt was still alive when his grandson and namesake was born, his grandson was named Theodore Roosevelt III, and the president's son retained the Jr. after his father's death.
Roosevelt's book The Naval War of 1812 (1882) was standard history for two generations. Roosevelt undertook extensive and original research going computing British and American man-of-war broadside throw weights. See The Naval War of 1812, via Project Gutenberg.
By comparison, however, his hastily-written biographies of Thomas Hart Benton (1887) and Gouverneur Morris (1888) are considered superficial. Pringle (1931) p 116 His major achievement was a four-volume history of the frontier, The Winning of the West (1889â1896), which had a notable impact on historiography as it presented a highly original version of the frontier thesis elaborated upon in 1893 by his friend Frederick Jackson Turner. Roosevelt argued that the harsh frontier conditions had created a new "race": the American people that replaced the "scattered savage tribes, whose life was but a few degrees less meaningless, squalid, and ferocious than that of the wild beasts with whom they held joint ownership". He believed that "the conquest and settlement by the whites of the Indian lands was necessary to the greatness of the race and to the well-being of civilized mankind". He was using an evolutionary model in which new environmental conditions allow a new species to form. His many articles in upscale magazines provided a much-needed income, as well as cementing a reputation as a major national intellectual. He was later chosen president of the
American Historical Association.
In the The Winning of the West (1889â1896), Roosevelt's frontier thesis stressed the racial struggle between "civilization" and "savagery." He supported Nordicism, the belief in the superiority of the "Nordic" race, along with social Darwinism and racialism. Excerpts:
# "The settler and pioneer have at bottom had justice on their side; this great continent could not have been kept as nothing but a game preserve for squalid savages".
# "The most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with savages".
# "American and Indian, Boer and Zulu, Cossack and Tartar, New Zealander and Maori, â in each case the victor, horrible though many of his deeds are, has laid deep the foundations for the future greatness of a mighty people".
# "..it is of incalculable importance that America, Australia, and Siberia should pass out of the hands of their red, black, and yellow aboriginal owners, and become the heritage of the dominant world races".
# "The world would have halted had it not been for the Teutonic conquests in alien lands; but the victories of Moslem over Christian have always proved a curse in the end. Nothing but sheer evil has come from the victories of Turk and Tartar".
What did not, however, conform to the views of Roosevelt's day was that race should never be the primary factor in someone of ability performing any job. Some notable events in Theodore Roosevelt's life included:
*Developing a close relationship with the Hidatsa Indians that is maintained today in the oral tradition of the tribe.
*Inviting reformer Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House, an action which caused outrage among many newpapers in the American South, which objected to "mixing of the races on social occassions."
*Openly supporting a bill in the New York State Assembly which allowed desegregation of schools in the state, personally noting that his children had been educated with other races and there was nothing wrong with it.
*Appointed the Collector of the Port of Charleston post to an African-American, Dr. William D. Crum, and when he was urged to withdraw the appointment, wrote the following:
:I do not intend to appoint any unfit man to office. So far as I legitimately can, I shall always endeavor to pay regard to the wishes and feelings of the people of each locality; but I cannot consent to take the position that the doorway of hope - the door of opportunity - is to be shut upon any man, no matter how worthy, purely upon the grounds of race or color. Such an attitude would, according to my contentions, be fundamentally wrong.
*Defended the Postmaster of Indianola, Mississippi, Minnie D. Cox. She was an African-American, and on that basis alone she was threatened with mob violence and was forced to resign. Roosevelt took action by closing the post office there, ignored her resignation, and still paid her what she was due as if nothing happened.
New York City Police Commissioner 1896
In the 1888 presidential election, Roosevelt campaigned in the Midwest for Benjamin Harrison. President Harrison appointed Roosevelt to the United States Civil Service Commission, where he served until 1895. Thayer, ch. VI, pp. 1â2. In his term, he vigorously fought the spoilsmen and demanded the enforcement of civil service laws. In spite of Roosevelt's support for Harrison's reelection bid in the presidential election of 1892, the eventual winner, Grover Cleveland (a Bourbon Democrat), re appointed him to the same post.
Roosevelt became president of the board of New York City Police Commissioners in 1895. During the two years he held this post, Roosevelt radically reformed the police department. The police force was reputed as one of the most corrupt in America. NYPD's history division records Roosevelt was, "an iron-willed leader of unimpeachable honesty, (who) brought a reforming zeal to the New York City Police Commission in 1895." Andrews, William, "The Early Years: The Challenge of Public Order - 1845 to 1870", - New York City Police Department History Site. Retrieved August 28 2006. Roosevelt and his fellow commissioners established new disciplinary rules, created a bicycle squad to police New York's traffic problems and standardized the use of pistols by officers. Editors, "Leadership of the City of New York Police Department 1845â1901", - The New York City Police Department Museum. Retrieved August 28 2006. Roosevelt implemented regular inspections of firearms, annual physical exams, appointed 1,600 new recruits based on their physical and mental qualifications and not on political affiliation, opened the department to ethnic minorities and women, established meritorious service medals, and shut down corrupt police hostelries. During his tenure a Municipal Lodging House was established by the Board of Charities and Roosevelt required officers to register with the Board. He also had telephones installed in station houses. Always an energetic man, he made a habit of walking officers' beats late at night and early in the morning to make sure they were on duty. Brands ch 11 He became caught up in public disagreements with commissioner Parker, who sought to negate or delay the promotion of many officers put forward by Roosevelt.
Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt (front center) at the Naval War College, c. 1897
Roosevelt had always been fascinated by naval history. Urged by Roosevelt's close friend, Congressman Henry Cabot Lodge, President William McKinley appointed a delighted Roosevelt to the post of Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897. (Because of the inactivity of Secretary of the Navy John D. Long at the time, this basically gave Roosevelt control over the department.) Roosevelt was instrumental in preparing the Navy for the Spanish-American War Brands ch 12 and was an enthusiastic proponent of testing the U.S. military in battle, at one point stating "I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one".
Roosevelt left his civilian Navy post to form the famous "Rough Riders" Regiment
Upon the declaration of war in 1898 that would be known as the Spanish-American War, Roosevelt resigned from the Navy Department and, with the aid of U.S. Army Colonel Leonard Wood, organized the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment from cowboys from the Western territories to Ivy League friends from New York. The newspapers called them the "Rough Riders." Originally Roosevelt held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and served under Colonel Wood, but after Wood was promoted to Brigadier General of Volunteer Forces, Roosevelt was promoted to Colonel and given command of the Regiment. . Even after his return to civilian life, Roosevelt preferred to be known as "Colonel Roosevelt" or "The Colonel." As a moniker, "Teddy" remained much more popular with the general public; however, political friends and others who worked closely with Roosevelt customarily addressed him by his rank.
Colonel Roosevelt and his "Rough Riders" after capturing San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War
Under his leadership, the Rough Riders became famous for dual charges up Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill in July 1898 (the battle was named after the latter hill). Out of all the Rough Riders, Roosevelt was the only one who had a horse, and was forced to walk up Kettle Hill on foot after his horse, Little Texas, became tired. For his actions, Roosevelt was nominated for the Medal of Honor which was subsequently disapproved. It has been widely speculated this disapproval was because of Roosevelt's outspoken comments of the handling of the War. In September 1997, Congressman Rick Lazio representing the 2nd District of New York sent two award recommendations to the U.S. Army Military Awards Branch. These recommendations addressed to Brigadier General Earl Simms, the Army's Adjutant General and one to Master Sergeant Gary Soots, Chief of Authorizations, would prove successful in garnering the much sought after award. Soots Letter Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 2001 for his actions. Brands ch 13 He was the first and, as of 2007, the only President of the United States to be awarded with America's highest military honor, and the only person in history to receive both his nation's highest honor for military valor and the world's foremost prize for peace. Chicago newspaper sees cowboy-TR campaigning for governor
On leaving the Army, Roosevelt re-entered New York state politics and was elected governor of New York in 1898 on the Republican ticket. He made such a concerted effort to root out corruption and "machine politics" Republican boss Thomas Collier Platt forced him on McKinley as a running mate in the 1900 election, against the wishes of McKinley's manager Senator Mark Hanna. Roosevelt was a powerful campaign asset for the Republican ticket, which defeated William Jennings Bryan in a landslide based on restoration of prosperity at home and a successful war and new prestige abroad. Bryan stumped for Free Silver again, but McKinley's promise of prosperity through the Gold Standard, high tariffs, and the restoration of business confidence enlarged his margin of victory. Bryan had strongly supported the war against Spain, but denounced the annexation of the Philippines as imperialism that would spoil America's innocence. Roosevelt countered with many speeches that argued it was best for the Filipinos to have stability, and the Americans to have a proud place in the world. Roosevelt's six months as Vice President (March to September, 1901) were uneventful. Brands ch 14â15 On September 2, 1901, at the Minnesota State Fair, Roosevelt first used in a public speech a saying that would later be universally associated with him: "Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far."
At the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York President McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz (Zol-gash), on September 6, 1901. Roosevelt had been giving a speech in Vermont when he heard of the shooting. He rushed to Buffalo but after being assured the President would recover, he went on a planned family camping and hiking trip to Mount Marcy. In the mountains a runner notified him McKinley was on his death bed. Roosevelt pondered with his wife, Edith, how best to respond, not wanting to show up in Buffalo and wait on McKinley's death. Roosevelt was rushed by a series of stagecoaches to North Creek train station. At the station, Roosevelt was handed a telegram that said President McKinley died at 2:30 AM that morning. Roosevelt continued by train from North Creek to Buffalo. He arrived in Buffalo later that day, accepting an invitation to stay at the home of Ansley Wilcox, a prominent lawyer and friend since the early 1880s when they had both worked closely with New York State Governor Grover Cleveland on civil service reform. Wilcox recalled, "the family and most of the household were in the country, but he Roosevelt was offered a quiet place to sleep and eat, and accepted it." Roosevelt was a successful president. He would achieve a lot of goals in life. Some of these goals were that he won the Spanish-American War, and the Nobel Peace Prize, and he also was the youngest president in United States history. "It is a dreadful thing to come into the Presidency this way." Retrieved February 2 2007.
Nashville Tennessee News sketch of Theodore Roosevelt inauguration minus the customary Bible. Inauguration photos were not allowed after a rival photographer unceremoniously knocked down another's camera. Roosevelt took the oath of office in the Ansley Wilcox House at Buffalo, New York borrowing Wilcox's morning coat. Roosevelt did not swear on a Bible , in contrast to the usual tradition of US presidents Bibles and Scripture Passages Used by Presidents in Taking the Oath of Office. Retrieved September 23, 2007. . Expressing the fears of many old line Republicans, Mark Hanna lamented "that damned cowboy is president now." Roosevelt was the youngest person to assume the presidency, at 42, and he promised to continue McKinley's cabinet and his basic policies. Roosevelt did so, but after winning election in 1904, he moved to the political left, stretching his ties to the Republican Party's conservative leaders. Brands ch 16
A national emergency was averted in 1902 when Roosevelt found a compromise to the anthracite coal strike by the United Mine Workers of America that threatened the heating supplies of most urban homes. Roosevelt called the mine owners and the labor leaders to the White House and negotiated a compromise. Miners were on strike for 163 days before it ended; they were granted a 10% pay increase and a 9-hour day (from the previous 10 hours), but the union was not officially recognized and the price of coal went up. Brands ch 17
Theodore Roosevelt promised to continue McKinley's program, and at first he worked closely with McKinley's men. His 20,000-word address to the Congress in December 1901, asked Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits." They did not act but Roosevelt did, issuing 44 lawsuits against major corporations; he was called the "trust-buster."
Roosevelt firmly believed: "The Government must in increasing degree supervise and regulate the workings of the railways engaged in interstate commerce." Inaction was a danger, he argued: "Such increased supervision is the only alternative to an increase of the present evils on the one hand or a still more radical policy on the other." Annual Message December 1904
His biggest success was passage of the Hepburn Act of 1906, the provisions of which were to be regulated by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). The most important provision of the Act gave the ICC the power to replace existing rates with "just-and-reasonable" maximum rates, with the ICC to define what was just and reasonable. Anti-rebate provisions were toughened, free passes were outlawed, and the penalties for violation were increased. Finally, the ICC gained the power to prescribe a uniform system of accounting, require standardized reports, and inspect railroad accounts. The Act made ICC orders binding; that is, the railroads had to either obey or contest the ICC orders in federal court. To speed the process, appeals from the district courts would go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In response to public clamor (and due to the uproar cause by Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle), Roosevelt pushed Congress to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, as well as the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. These laws provided for labeling of foods and drugs, inspection of livestock and mandated sanitary conditions at meatpacking plants. Congress replaced Roosevelt's proposals with a version supported by the major meatpackers who worried about the overseas markets, and did not want small unsanitary plants undercutting their domestic market. Blum 1980 pp 43â44
Democrats attack Roosevelt as militarist and ineffective in this 1904 election cartoon
Theodore Roosevelt was the fifth Vice President to succeed to the office of President, but the first to win election in his own right. (Millard Fillmore ran and lost on a third-party ticket four years after leaving office and Chester Arthur was denied nomination by his party in 1884). After Senator Mark Hanna, McKinley's old campaign manager, died in February 1904, there was no one in the Republican Party to oppose Roosevelt and he easily won the nomination. When an effort to draft former president Grover Cleveland failed, the Democrats were without a candidate and finally settled on obscure New York judge Alton B. Parker. The outcome was never in doubt. Roosevelt crushed Parker 56%-38% in the popular vote and 336-140 in the Electoral College, sweeping the country outside the perennially Democratic Solid South. Socialist Eugene Debs got 3%. The night of the election, after his victory was clear, Roosevelt promised not to run again in 1908. He later regretted that promise, as it compelled him to leave the White House at the age of only fifty, at the height of his popularity.
Roosevelt worked closely with early conservationists such as Gifford Pinchot, pictured above, with whom he organized the first National Governors Conservation Conference at the White House in 1908
Roosevelt was the first American president to consider the long-term needs for efficient conservation of national resources, winning the support of fellow hunters and fishermen to bolster his political base. Roosevelt was the last trained observer to ever see a passenger pigeon, and on March 14, 1903, Roosevelt created the first National Bird Preserve, (the beginning of the Wildlife Refuge system) on Pelican Island, Florida. Roosevelt worked with the major figures of the conservation movement, especially his chief adviser on the matter Gifford Pinchot. Roosevelt urged Congress to establish the United States Forest Service (1905), to manage government forest lands, and he appointed Gifford Pinchot to head the service. Roosevelt set aside more land for national parks and nature preserves than all of his predecessors combined, 194 million acres (785,000 km²). In all, by 1909, the Roosevelt administration had created an unprecedented 42 million acres (170,000 km²) of national forests, 53 national wildlife refuges and 18 areas of "special interest", including the Grand Canyon. The Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the Badlands commemorates his conservationist philosophy. Roosevelt and Muir In 1903, Roosevelt toured the Yosemite Valley with John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, but Roosevelt believed in the more efficient use of natural resources by corporations like lumber companies unlike Muir. In 1907, with Congress about to block him, Roosevelt hurried to designate 16 million acres (65,000 km²) of new national forests. In May 1908, he sponsored the Conference of Governors held in the White House, with a focus on the most efficient planning, analysis and use of water, forests and other natural resources. Roosevelt explained, "There is an intimate relation between our streams and the development and conservation of all the other great permanent sources of wealth." During his presidency, Roosevelt promoted the nascent conservation movement in essays for Outdoor Life magazine. To Roosevelt, conservation meant more and better usage and less waste, and a long-term perspective. In 2006, a group of American high school students developed a 10 minute video on Roosevelt's conservation legacy with the help of Roosevelt scholar Edward Renehan and Roosevelt descendant, Tweed Roosevelt. See Commented out because it's a YouTube link used as a ref, it's original research, and really it's not a reference. But maybe someone else will think differently. -->
Roosevelt's conservationist leanings also impelled him to preserve national sites of scientific, particularly archaeological, interest. The 1906 passage of the Antiquities Act gave him a tool for creating national monuments by presidential proclamation, without requiring Congressional approval for each monument on an item-by-item basis. The language of the Antiquities Act specifically called for the preservation of "historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest," and was primarily construed by its creator, Congressman James F. Lacey (assisted by the prominent archaeologist Edgar Lee Hewett), as targeting the prehistoric ruins of the American Southwest. Roosevelt, however, applied a typically broad interpretation to the Act, and the first national monument he proclaimed, Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming, was preserved for reasons tied more to geology than archaeology.
Roosevelt's conservationism caused him to forbid having a Christmas tree in the White House. He was reportedly upset when he found a small tree his son had been hiding. After learning about the commercial farming of Christmas trees, where no virgin forests were cut down to supply the demand during the Christmas holiday, he relented and allowed his family to have a tree each season.
In Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and the Panama Canal Zone, Roosevelt used the Army's medical service, under Walter Reed and William C. Gorgas, to eliminate the yellow fever menace and install a new regime of public health. In the new possessions the Roosevelt administration used the army to build railways, telegraph and telephone lines, and upgrade roads and port facilities.
The Philippines saw the U.S. Army for the first time using a systematic doctrine of counter-insurgency. Despite the ad hoc nature of the force deployed by Roosevelt the Army was able to end the insurgency by 1902. Over the course of the war the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built over 3000 miles of roads and worked to build an entire education system, even bringing in thousands of American teachers to spearhead the effort.
Roosevelt builds the canal and shovels dirt on Colombia
Roosevelt dramatically increased the size of the navy, forming the Great White Fleet, which toured the world in 1907. This display was designed to impress the Japanese. Yet, the ships were almost forced to return because of the inadequacy of American ports in the Pacific. See Edward S Miller,War Plan Orange (Annapolis, 1991) Roosevelt also added the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which stated that the United States could intervene in Latin American affairs when corruption of governments made it necessary.
Roosevelt gained international praise for helping negotiate the end of the Russo-Japanese War, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Roosevelt later arbitrated a dispute between France and Germany over the division of Morocco. Some historians have argued these latter two actions helped in a small way to avert a world war. The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (2005). "Theodore Roosevelt (1901â1909)". Retrieved March 6 2006.
Roosevelt's most famous foreign policy initiative, following the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, was the construction of the Panama Canal, which upon its completion shortened the route of freighters between San Francisco, California and New York City by 8,000 miles (13,000 km).
Colombia first proposed the canal in their country as opposed to rival Nicaragua, and Colombia signed a treaty for an agreed-upon sum. At the time, Panama was a province of Colombia. According to the treaty, in 1902, the U.S. was to buy out the equipment and excavations from France, which had been attempting to build a canal since 1881. While the Colombian negotiating team had signed the treaty, ratification by the Colombian Senate became problematic. The Colombian Senate balked at the price and asked for ten million dollars over the original agreed upon price. When the U.S. refused to re-negotiate the price, the Colombian politicians proposed cutting the original French company that started the project out of the deal and giving that difference to Colombia.
The original deal stipulated the French company was to be reasonably compensated. Realizing the Colombian Senate was no longer bargaining in good faith, Roosevelt tired of these last-minute attempts by the Colombians to cheat the French out of their entire investment, and ultimately decided, with the encouragement of Panamanian business interests, to help Panama declare independence from Colombia in 1903.
A brief Panamanian revolution of only a few hours followed the declaration, as Colombian soldiers were bribed $50 each to lay down their arms. On November 3, 1903, the Republic of Panama was created, with its constitution written in advance by the United States. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. signed a protection treaty with Panama. And after the signing of the treaty, a man named Nathan Johnson Forest assisted Panama with the initial planning phases for the canal. The U.S. then paid ten million to secure rights to build on, and control, the Canal Zone. Construction began in 1904 and was completed in 1914.
It took a long time to build the Panama Canal because of the rampant spread of tropical diseases. Over 200 workers died of yellow fever and malaria, spread by mosquitoes. Roosevelt initiated work on clearing swamps and other areas in which the insects bred. As the health threat finally receded, this greatly facilitated the construction of the Canal.
Roosevelt, (on the 12" gun turret at right), addresses the crew of USS Connecticut (BB18), in Hampton Roads, Virginia, upon her return from the Fleet's cruise
As Roosevelt's administration drew to a close, the president dispatched a fleet consisting of four US Navy battleship squadrons and their escorts, on a world-wide voyage of circumnavigation from December 16, 1907, to February 22, 1909. With their hulls painted white (except for the beautiful gilded scrollwork) and red, white, and blue banners on their bows, these ships would come to be known as The Great White Fleet. Roosevelt wanted to demonstrate to his country and the world that the US Navy was capable of operating in a global theater, particularly in the Pacific. This was extraordinarily important at a time when tensions were slowly growing between the United States and Japan. The latter had recently shown its navy's competence in defeating the Russians in the Russo-Japanese War, and the US Navy fleet in the west was relatively small. As a mark of the mission's success, the Atlantic Fleet battleships only later came to be known as the "Great White Fleet."
When the real Great White Fleet sailed into Yokahama, Japan, the Japanese went to extraordinary lengths to show that their country desired peace with the US. Thousands of Japanese school children waved American flags, purchased by the government, as they greeted the Navy brass coming ashore. In February 1909, the fleet returned home to Hampton Roads, Virginia, and Roosevelt was there to witness the triumphant return. His appearance indicated that he saw the fleet's long voyage as a fitting finish for his administration. Roosevelt said to the officers of the Fleet, "Other nations may do what you have done, but they'll have to follow you." This parting act of grand strategy by Roosevelt greatly expanded the respect for, as well as the role of, the United States in the international arena. However, the visit of the Great White Fleet to Tokyo also encouraged Japanese militarists. They had always argued for an even more aggressive Japanese ship building and naval expansion program, and the recent show of force by the U.S. convinced enough of their countrymen that they were right. In a real sense, this set in motion the chain of events leading to the U.S. & Japan confronting each other 30 years later - during WWII.
A Lincoln cent
Roosevelt thought American coins and currency were common and uninspiring. Roosevelt had the opportunity to pose for a young Lithuanian-born sculptor, Victor David Brenner, who, since arriving nineteen years earlier in the United States had become one of the nationâs premier medalists. Roosevelt had learned of Brenner's talents in a settlement house on New York City's Lower East Side and was immediately impressed with a bas-relief that Brenner had made of Lincoln, based on the early Civil War era photographer, Mathew Brady's photograph. Roosevelt, who considered Lincoln the savior of the Union and the greatest Republican President and who also considered himself Lincolnâs political heir, ordered the new Lincoln penny to be based on Brenner's work and that it go just in time to commemorate Lincolnâs 100th birthday in 1909. The likeness of President Lincoln on the obverse of the coin is an adaptation of a plaque Brenner executed several years earlier and which had come to the attention of President Roosevelt in New York. /ref>
Roosevelt took Cabinet members and friends on long, fast-paced hikes, boxed in the state rooms of the White House, romped with his children, and read voraciously. Hanson, David C. (2005). "Theodore Roosevelt: Lion in the White House". Retrieved March 6 2006. In 1908, he was permanently blinded in his left eye during one of his boxing bouts, but this injury was kept from the public at the time. Smith, Ira R. T.; Morris, Joe Alex (1949). "Dear Mr. President": The Story of Fifty Years in the White House Mail Room, p. 52. Julian Messner. His many enthusiastic interests and limitless energy led one ambassador to wryly explain, "You must always remember that the President is about six." Kennedy, Robert C. (2005). "'I hear there are some kids in the White House this year'". Retrieved March 6 2006.
Roosevelt shoots holes in the dictionary as the ghosts of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dr Johnson moan.
During his presidency, Roosevelt tried but did not succeed to advance the cause of simplified spelling. He tried to force government to adopt the system, sending an order to the Public Printer to use the system in all public documents. The order was obeyed, and among the documents thus printed was the President's special message regarding the Panama Canal. The New York World translated the Thanksgiving Day proclamation:
The reform annoyed the public, forcing him to rescind the order. Roosevelt's friend, literary critic Brander Matthews, one of the chief advocates of the reform, remonstrated with him for abandoning the effort. Roosevelt replied on December 16: "I could not by fighting have kept the new spelling in, and it was evidently worse than useless to go into an undignified contest when I was beaten. Do you know that the one word as to which I thought the new spelling was wrong thru was more responsible than anything else for our discomfiture?" Next summer Roosevelt was watching a naval review when a launch marked "Pres Bot" chugged ostentatiously by. The President waved and laughed with delight. Pringle 465â7
Roosevelt's oldest daughter, Alice, was a controversial character during Roosevelt's stay in the White House. When friends asked if he could rein in his elder daughter, Roosevelt said, "I can be President of the United States, or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both." In turn, Alice said of him that he always wanted to be "the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral." (Some sources attribute this quote to one of Roosevelt's sons instead.) Thayer, Chapter XIII, p. 7.
Roosevelt's contribution to the White House was the construction of the original West Wing, which he had built to free up the second floor rooms in the residence that formerly housed the president's staff. He and Edith also had the entire house renovated and restored to the federal style, tearing out the Victorian furnishings and details (including Tiffany windows) that had been installed over the previous three decades.
1902 The Washington Post political cartoon that spawned the Teddy bear name.
#In the sphere of race relations, Booker T. Washington became the first black man to dine as a guest at the White House in 1901.
#Oscar S. Straus became the first Jewish person appointed as a Cabinet Secretary, under Roosevelt.
#In August, 1902, Roosevelt became the first U.S. president to take a public automobile ride. This occurred during a parade in Hartford, Connecticut
#In 1910 he became the first U.S. President to ride in an airplane.
#On August 25, 1905 he became the first U.S. President to ride in a military submarine when he boarded the USS Holland (SS-1) and ran submerged with her for 55 minutes.
#In 1906, he made the first trip, by a President, outside the United States, visiting Panama to inspect the construction progress of the Panama Canal on November 9.
#In 1902, in response to the assassination of President William McKinley on September 6 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became the first president to be under constant Secret Service protection.
# In 1906, Roosevelt became the first American to be awarded a Nobel Prize.
#In 2001, he became the first and only President up to date to receive a Medal of Honor, making him the only person to date to win the world's highest peace honor, as well as his nation's top military honor.
#He was the first and to date only president from Long Island, New York.
#He was the first President to officially refer to the White House as such, on his official stationery. This had been the common name (referring to the color of the building), but until then, the official name was "The Executive Mansion"
#He was the first President to wear a necktie for his official Presidential Portrait.
#He was the first President to approve a coin, the Lincoln cent, with a man's face on it, in 1909, just in time for the centennial of Lincoln's birth. Lincoln was Roosevelt's presidential hero.
#He was the first President to coin an internationally recognized trademark, although not deliberately. His offhand remark, "good to the last drop," about some coffee drunk at the Maxwell House hotel in Tennessee, see Maxwell House coffee.
#He is the only president to have a famous toy named after him (the Teddy bear, named after a bear he refused to shoot in a 1902 hunt in Mississipi).
John Singer Sargent, Theodore Roosevelt, 1903; click on painting for background story.
Roosevelt appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
*Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. 1902
*William Rufus Day 1903
*William Henry Moody 1906
*Oklahoma 1907
Roosevelt standing next to a dead elephant during a safari
In March 1909, shortly after the end of his second term, Roosevelt left New York for a safari in east and central Africa. Roosevelt's party landed in Mombasa, British East Africa (now Kenya), traveled to the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) before following the Nile up to Khartoum in modern Sudan. Financed by Andrew Carnegie and by his own proposed writings, Roosevelt hunted for specimens for the Smithsonian Institution and for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. His party, which included scientists from the Smithsonian and was led by Frederick Selous, the famous big game hunter and explorer, and they killed or trapped over 11,397 animals, from insects and moles to hippopotamuses and elephants. 512 of the animals were big game animals, including six rare white rhinos. 262 of these were consumed by the expedition. Tons of salted animals and their skins were shipped to Washington; the quantity was so large that it took years to mount them all, and the Smithsonian was able to share many duplicate animals with other museums.
Regarding the large number of animals taken, Roosevelt said, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned." O'Toole, Patricia (2005) When Trumpets Call, p. 67, Simon and Schuster, ISBN 0-684-86477-0 However, although the safari was ostensibly conducted in the name of science, there was another, quite large element to it as well. In addition to many native peoples and local leaders, interaction with renowned professional hunters and land owning families made the safari as much a political and social event, as it was a hunting excursion. Roosevelt wrote a detailed account of the adventure in the book "African Game Trails", where he describes the excitement of the chase, the people he met, and the flora and fauna he collected in the name of science.
Roosevelt certified William Howard Taft to be a genuine "progressive" in 1908, when Roosevelt pushed through the nomination of his Secretary of War for the Presidency. Taft easily defeated three-time candidate William Jennings Bryan. Taft had a different progressivism, one that stressed the rule of law and preferred that judges rather than administrators or politicians make the basic decisions about fairness. Taft usually proved a less adroit politician than Roosevelt and lacked the energy and personal magnetism, not to mention the publicity devices, the dedicated supporters, and the broad base of public support that made Roosevelt so formidable. When Roosevelt realized that lowering the tariff would risk severe tensions inside the Republican Party pitting producers (manufacturers and farmers) against merchants and consumers he stopped talking about the issue. Taft ignored the risks and tackled the tariff boldly, on the one hand encouraging reformers to fight for lower rates, and then cutting deals with conservative leaders that kept overall rates high. The resulting Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909 was too high for most reformers, but instead of blaming this on Senator Nelson Aldrich and big business, Taft took credit, calling it the best tariff ever. Again he had managed to alienate all sides. While the crisis was building inside the Party, Roosevelt was touring Africa and Europe, so as to allow Taft to be his own man. Thayer, Chapter XXI, p. 10.
1909 cartoon: TR hands his policies to the care of Taft while William Loeb carries the "Big Stick"
Unlike Roosevelt, Taft never attacked business or businessmen in his rhetoric. However, he was attentive to the law, so he launched 90 antitrust suits, including one against the largest corporation, U.S. Steel, for an acquisition that Roosevelt had personally approved. Consequently, Taft lost the support of antitrust reformers (who disliked his conservative rhetoric), of big business (which disliked his actions), and of Roosevelt, who felt humiliated by his protégé. The left wing of the Republican Party began agitating against Taft. Senator Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin created the National Progressive Republican League (precursor to the Progressive Party (United States, 1924)) to defeat the power of political bossism at the state level and to replace Taft at the national level. More trouble came when Taft fired Gifford Pinchot, a leading conservationist and close ally of Roosevelt. Pinchot alleged that Taft's Secretary of Interior Richard Ballinger was in league with big timber interests. Conservationists sided with Pinchot, and Taft alienated yet another vocal constituency.
Roosevelt, back from Europe, unexpectedly launched an attack on the federal courts, which deeply upset Taft. Not only had Roosevelt alienated big business, he was also attacking both the judiciary and the deep faith Republicans had in their judges (most of whom had been appointed by McKinley, Roosevelt or Taft.) In the 1910 Congressional elections, Democrats swept to power, and Taft's reelection in 1912 was increasingly in doubt. In 1911, Taft responded with a vigorous stumping tour that allowed him to sign up most of the party leaders long before Roosevelt announced.
The battle between Taft and Roosevelt bitterly split the Republican Party; Taft's people dominated the party until 1936.
Late in 1911, Roosevelt finally broke with Taft and LaFollette and announced himself as a candidate for the Republican nomination. But Roosevelt had delayed too long, and Taft had already won the support of most party leaders in the country. Because of LaFollette's nervous breakdown on the campaign trail before Roosevelt's entry, most of LaFollette's supporters went over to Roosevelt, the new progressive Republican candidate.
Roosevelt, stepping up his attack on judges, carried nine of the states with preferential primaries, LaFollette took two, and Taft only one. The 1912 Primaries represented the first extensive use of the Presidential Primary, a reform achievement of the progressive movement. However, these primary elections, while demonstrating Roosevelt's popularity with the electorate, were in no ways as important as primaries are today. First of all, there were fewer states where the common voter was given a forum to express himself, such as a primary. Many more states selected convention delegates either at party conventions, or in caucuses, which were not as open as today's caucuses. So while the man in the street still adored Roosevelt, most professional Republican politicians were supporting Taft, and they proved difficult to upset in non-primary states.
At the Republican Convention in Chicago, despite being the incumbent, Taft's victory was not immediately assured. But after two weeks, Roosevelt, realizing he would not be able to win the nomination outright, asked his followers to leave the convention hall. They moved to the Auditorium Theatre, and then Roosevelt, along with key allies such as Pinchot and Albert Beveridge created the Progressive Party, structuring it as a permanent organization that would field complete tickets at the presidential and state level. It was popularly known as the "Bull Moose Party," which got its name after Roosevelt told reporters, "I'm as fit as a bull moose." Carl M. Cannon, The Pursuit of Happiness in Times of War, Rowman & Littlefield: 2003, p. 142. ISBN 0742525929. At the convention Roosevelt cried out, "We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord." Roosevelt's platform echoed his 1907â08 proposals, calling for vigorous government intervention to protect the people from the selfish interests. Thayer, Chapter XXII, pp. 25 31.
The bullet-damaged speech and eyeglass case on display at the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace
While campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on October 14, 1912, a saloonkeeper named John Schrank failed in an assassination attempt on Roosevelt. Schrank did shoot the former President, but the bullet lodged in Roosevelt's chest only after penetrating both his steel eyeglass case and passing through a thick (50 pages) single-folded copy of the speech he was carrying in his jacket. Accessed Dec. 21, 2007 . Roosevelt, as a very experienced hunter and anatomist, decide the fact he wasn't coughing blood meant the bullet had not completely penetrated the chest wall to his lung (he was correct), and so declined suggestions he go to the hospital immediately. Instead, he delivered his scheduled speech with blood seeping into his shirt. He spoke for ninety minutes. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Afterwards, doctors determined by probe and X-ray the bullet had traversed three inches of tissue and lodged in Roosevelt's chest muscle but did not penetrate the pleura, and it would be more dangerous to attempt to remove the bullet than to leave it in place. Roosevelt carried it with him until he died. Roosevelt Timeline
Due to the bullet wound, Roosevelt was taken off the campaign trail in the final weeks of the race (which ended election day, November 5). Though the other two campaigners stopped their own campaigns in the week Roosevelt was in the hospital, they resumed it once he was released. The overall effect of the shooting was uncertain. Roosevelt for many reasons failed to move enough Republicans in his direction. He did win 4.1 million votes (27%), compared to Taft's 3.5 million (23%). However, Wilson's 6.3 million votes (42%) were enough to garner 435 electoral votes. Roosevelt had 88 electoral votes to Taft's 8 electoral votes. (This meant that Taft became the only incumbent President in history to actually come in third place in an attempt to be re-elected.) But Pennsylvania was Roosevelt's only Eastern state; in the Midwest he carried Michigan, Minnesota and South Dakota; in the West, California and Washington; he did not win any Southern states. Although he lost, he won more votes than former presidents Martin Van Buren and Millard Fillmore who also ran again and also lost. More important, he pulled so many progressives out of the Republican party that it took on a much more conservative cast for the next generation.
The initial party. From left to right (seated): Father Zahm, Rondon, Kermit, Cherrie, Miller, four Brazilians, Roosevelt, Fiala. Only Roosevelt, Kermit, Cherrie, Rondon and the Brazilians traveled down the River of Doubt.
Roosevelt's popular book Through the Brazilian Wilderness describes his expedition into the Brazilian jungle in 1913 as a member of the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition co-named after its leader, Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon. The book describes all of the scientific discovery, scenic tropical vistas and exotic flora, fauna and wild life experienced on the expedition. A friend, Father John Augustine Zahm, had searched for new adventures and found them in the forests of South America. After a briefing of several of his own expeditions, he convinced Roosevelt to commit to such an expedition in 1912. To finance the expedition, Roosevelt received support from the American Museum of Natural History, promising to bring back many new animal specimens. Once in South America, a new far more ambitious goal was added: to find the headwaters of the Rio da Duvida, the River of Doubt, and trace it north to the Madiera and thence to the Amazon River. It was later renamed Rio Roosevelt (Rio Teodoro today, 640 km long) in honor of the former President. Roosevelt's crew consisted of his 24-year-old son Kermit, Colonel Cândido Rondon, a naturalist sent by the American Museum of Natural History named George K. Cherrie, Brazilian Lieutenant Joao Lyra, team physician Dr. José Antonio Cajazeira, and sixteen highly skilled paddlers (called camaradas in Portuguese). The initial expedition started, probably unwisely, on December 9, 1913, at the height of the rainy season. The trip down the River of Doubt started on February 27, 1914.
Roosevelt, wearing sun helmet, barely survived an expedition in 1913 into the Amazonian rain forest to trace the River of Doubt later named the Rio Roosevelt.
During the trip down the river, Roosevelt contracted malaria and a serious infection resulting from a minor leg wound. These illnesses so weakened Roosevelt that, by six weeks into the expedition, he had to be attended day and night by the expedition's physician, Dr. Cajazeira, and his son, Kermit. By this time, Roosevelt considered his own condition a threat to the survival of the others. At one point, Kermit had to talk him out of his wish to be left behind so as not to slow down the expedition, now with only a few weeks rations left. Roosevelt was having chest pains when he tried to walk, his temperature soared to 103 °F (39 °C), and at times he was delirious. He had lost over fifty pounds (20 kg). Without the constant support of his son, Kermit, Dr. Cajazeira, and the continued leadership of Colonel Rondon, Roosevelt would likely have perished. Despite his concern for Roosevelt, Rondon had been slowing down the pace of the expedition by his dedication to his own map-making and other geographical goals that demanded regular stops to fix the expedition's position via sun-based survey.
Upon his return to New York, friends and family were startled by Roosevelt's physical appearance and fatigue. Roosevelt wrote to a friend that the trip had cut his life short by ten years. He might not have really known just how accurate that analysis would prove to be, because the effects of the South America expedition had so greatly weakened him that they significantly contributed to his declining health. For the rest of his life, he would be plagued by flareups of malaria and leg inflammations so severe that they would require hospitalization. Thayer, Chapter XXIII, pp. 4â7.
When Roosevelt had recovered enough of his strength, he found that he had a new battle on his hands. In professional circles, there was doubt about his claims of having discovered and navigated a completely uncharted river over 625 miles (1,000 km) long. Roosevelt would have to defend himself and win international recognition of the expedition's newly-named Rio Roosevelt. Toward this end, Roosevelt went to Washington, D.C., and spoke at a standing-room-only convention to defend his claims. His official report and its defense silenced the critics, and he was able to triumphantly return to his home in Oyster Bay.
Despite his weakened condition and slow recovery from his South America expedition, Roosevelt continued to write with passion on subjects ranging from foreign policy to the importance of the national park system. As an editor of Outlook magazine, he had weekly access to a large, educated national audience. In all, Roosevelt wrote about 18 books (each in several editions), including his Autobiography, Rough Riders and History of the Naval War of 1812, ranching, explorations, and wildlife. His most ambitious book was the 4 volume narrative The Winning of the West, which attempted to connect the origin of a new "race" of Americans (i.e. what he considered the present population of the United States to be) to the frontier conditions their ancestors endured in throughout the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries.
Roosevelt angrily complained about the foreign policy of President Wilson, calling it "weak." This caused him to develop an intense dislike for Woodrow Wilson. When World War I began in 1914, Roosevelt strongly supported the Allies of World War I and demanded a harsher policy against Germany, especially regarding submarine warfare. In 1916, he campaigned energetically for Charles Evans Hughes and repeatedly denounced Irish-Americans and German-Americans who Roosevelt said were unpatriotic because they put the interest of Ireland and Germany ahead of America's by supporting neutrality. He insisted one had to be 100% American, not a "hyphenated American" who juggled multiple loyalties. When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, Roosevelt sought to raise a volunteer infantry division, but Wilson refused. Brands 781â4; Cramer, C.H. Newton D. Baker (1961) 110â113
Roosevelt's attacks on Wilson helped the Republicans win control of Congress in the off-year elections of 1918. Roosevelt was popular enough to seriously contest the 1920 Republican nomination, but his health was broken by 1918, because of the lingering malaria. His son Quentin, a daring pilot with the American forces in France, was shot down behind German lines in 1918. Quentin was his youngest son and probably the most liked by him. It is said the death of his son distressed him so much that Roosevelt never recovered from his loss. Dalton, (2002)p 507
Theodore Roosevelt Grave in Youngs Memorial Cemetery Oyster Bay, New York
Twenty-six steps leading to Roosevelt's grave, commemorating his service as 26th President
Despite his debilitating diseases, Roosevelt remained active to the end of his life. He was an enthusiastic proponent of the Scouting movement. The Boy Scouts of America gave him the title of Chief Scout Citizen, the only person to hold such title. One early Scout leader said, "The two things that gave Scouting great impetus and made it very popular were the uniform and Teddy Roosevelt's jingoism." Larson, Keith (2006). "Theodore Roosevelt". Retrieved March 6 2006.
On January 6, 1919, Roosevelt died in his sleep of a coronary embolism at Oyster Bay, and was buried in nearby Youngs Memorial Cemetery. Upon receiving word of his death, his son, Archie, telegraphed his siblings simply, "The old lion is dead." Dalton, (2002) p. 507 Woodrow Wilson's vice president at the time Thomas R. Marshall said of his death "Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight." Manners, William. TR and Will: A Friendship that Split the Republican Party. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1969.
Roosevelt Family in 1903 with Quentin on the left, TR, Ted, Jr., "Archie", Alice, Kermit, Edith, and Ethel
Roosevelt intensely disliked being called "Teddy," and was quick to point out this fact to those who used the nickname, though it would become widely used by newspapers during his political career. He attended the Madison Square Presbyterian Church until the age of 16. Later in life, when Roosevelt lived at Oyster Bay he attended an Episcopal church with his wife. While in Washington he attended services at Grace Reformed Church. "The Religious Affiliation of Theodore Roosevelt U.S. President". Retrieved March 7 2006. As President he firmly believed in the separation of church and state and thought it unwise to have In God We Trust on currency, because he thought it sacrilegious to put the name of the Deity on something so common as money. Reynolds, Ralph C. (1999). "In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash". Retrieved March 7 2006. He was also a Freemason, and regularly attended the Matinecock Lodge's meetings. He once said that "One of the things that so greatly attracted me to Masonry that I hailed the chance of becoming a Mason was that it really did act up to what we, as a government, are pledged to namely to treat each man on his merit as a man." Matinecock Masonic Historical Society. "History". Retrieved March 12 2006.
Roosevelt had a lifelong interest in pursuing what he called, in an 1899 speech, "the strenuous life." To this end, he exercised regularly and took up boxing, tennis, hiking, rowing, polo, and horseback riding. As governor of New York, he boxed with sparring partners several times a week, a practice he regularly continued as President until one blow detached his left retina, leaving him blind in that eye (a fact not made public until many years later). Thereafter, he practiced jujutsu and continued his habit of skinny-dipping in the Potomac River during winter. Thayer, Chapter XVII, pp. 22 24. Shaw, K.B. & Maiden, David (2006). "Theodore Roosevelt".
Retrieved March 7 2006.
Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt's estate
He was an enthusiastic singlestick player and, according to Harper's Weekly, in 1905 showed up at a White House reception with his arm bandaged after a bout with General Leonard Wood. Amberger, J Christoph, Secret History of the Sword Adventures in Ancient Martial Arts 1998, ISBN 1-892515-04-0. Roosevelt was also an avid reader, reading tens of thousands of books, at a rate of several a day in multiple languages. Along with Thomas Jefferson Roosevelt is often considered the most well read of any American politician. David H. Burton, The Learned Presidency 1988, p 12.
Roosevelt's face on Mt. Rushmore
1910 cartoon shows Roosevelt's multiple roles to 1898
1910 cartoon shows Roosevelt's multiple roles from 1899 to 1910
For his gallantry at San Juan Hill, Roosevelt's commanders recommended him for the Medal of Honor, but his subsequent telegrams to the War Department complaining about the delays in returning American troops from Cuba doomed his chances. In the late 1990s, Roosevelt's supporters again took up the flag on his behalf and overcame opposition from elements within the U.S. Army and the National Archives. On January 16, 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded Theodore Roosevelt the Medal of Honor posthumously for his charge up San Juan Hill, Cuba, during the Spanish-American War. Roosevelt's eldest son, Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., received the Medal of Honor for heroism at the Battle of Normandy in 1944. The Roosevelts thus became one of only two father-son pairs to receive this honor.
Roosevelt's legacy includes several other important commemorations. Roosevelt was included with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln at the Mount Rushmore Memorial, designed in 1927. The United States Navy named two ships for Roosevelt: the USS Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600), a submarine was in commission from 1961 to 1982; and the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), an aircraft carrier that has been on active duty in the Atlantic Fleet since 1986.
The Roosevelt Memorial Association (later the Theodore Roosevelt Association) or "TRA", was founded in 1920 to preserve Roosevelt's legacy. The Association preserved TR's birthplace, "Sagamore Hill" home, papers, and video film.
Overall, historians credit Roosevelt for changing the nation's political system by permanently placing the presidency at center stage and making character as important as the issues. His notable accomplishments include trust-busting and conservationism. However, he has been criticized for his interventionist and imperialist approach to nations he considered "uncivilized". Even so, history and legend have been kind to him. His friend, historian Henry Adams, proclaimed, "Roosevelt, more than any other living man ....showed the singular primitive quality that belongs to ultimate matter the quality that mediaeval theology assigned to God he was pure act." Historians typically rank Roosevelt among the top five presidents. The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (2005). "Biography: Impact and Legacy". Retrieved March 7 2006. "Legacy". Retrieved March 7 2006.
Roosevelt has been quoted by virtually all the major Republican and Democratic candidates for the 2008 US Presidential Election. Political pundits have brought up Roosevelt's name in book after book. The degree of discussion ranges from a single sentence by democrat Bill Richardson talking about him as "BR" breaking Roosevelt's (or "TR") 1907 single handshaking record, John Edwards mentioning Roosevelt in a fall of 2007 speech to John McCain devoting an entire chapter to him in his main background book. Even the lone candidate that did not mention Roosevelt in an autobiographical book, democrat, Joe Biden, nevertheless, began mentioning Roosevelt's taking on of corporate interests speeches in New Hampshire in the summer of 2007.
Roosevelt's 1901 saying "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick" is still being occasionally quoted by politicians and columnists in different countries - not only in English but also in translation to various other languages. For example, following the Second Lebanon War of August 2006, opponents of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accused him of "Speaking loudly and carrying a small stick".
The well-known Nicaraguan poet Rubén DarÃo published in 1905 a poem entitled A Roosevelt (To Roosevelt) which was included in Cantos de Vida y Esperanza (Songs of Life and Hope)
As a charismatic President often considered larger than life, Roosevelt has appeared in numerous fiction books, television shows, films, and other media of popular culture. Roosvelt was played by Robin Williams in the box office hit Night at the Museum and its upcoming sequel.
"Drawing the Line in Mississippi," by Clifford Berryman, referring to Roosevelt's sparing the bear.
Filmmaker John Milius also directed two films in which Roosevelt was a central character: The Wind and the Lion (1975) in which he was played by Brian Keith; and Rough Riders (1997) in which he was played by Tom Berenger. Keith's performance is widely considered to be the definitive screen depiction of Roosevelt.
Roosevelt's lasting popular legacy, however, is the stuffed toy bearsâteddy bearsânamed after him following an incident on a hunting trip in 1902. Roosevelt famously refused to kill a captured black bear simply for the sake of making a kill. Bears and later bear cubs became closely associated with Roosevelt in political cartoons thereafter. "History of the Teddy Bear". Retrieved March 7 2006.
On June 26, 2006, Roosevelt, once again, made the cover of TIME magazine with the lead story, "The Making of AmericaâTheodore RooseveltâThe 20th Century Express": "At home and abroad, Theodore Roosevelt was the locomotive President, the man who drew his flourishing nation into the future."
The Washington Nationals major league baseball team has a fan tradition called the Presidents Race. In it four caricatures of presidents Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt race against each other. A running gag has been Theodore Roosevelt's inability to win a single Presidents Race.
In 2006 Roosevelt' likeness was used in "Night at the Museum (The movie).
Theodore Roosevelt was one of the first presidents whose voice was recorded for posterity. Several of his recorded speeches survive. Vincent Voice Library at Michigan State University. Retrieved September 23, 2007.
* Roosevelt goes for first aeroplane ride in Arch Hoxsey plane 1910
*Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. father
*Martha Bulloch mother
*Eleanor Roosevelt niece, First Lady of the United States (1933â1945)
*Alice Roosevelt first wife
*Edith Carow Roosevelt second wife
*Alice Roosevelt first daughter
*Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. first son
*Kermit Roosevelt second son
*Ethel Roosevelt second daughter
*Archibald Roosevelt third son
*Quentin Roosevelt fourth son
*Elliott Roosevelt brother
*Anna Cowles sister
*Corinne Robinson sister
*Franklin D. Roosevelt, cousin, 32nd President of the United States
*Theodore Roosevelt Association 1920 organization founded to preserve Roosevelt's historical legacy
*Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia 1940 compendium of Roosevelt's key writings, sayings and conversations
*Reynier Tyson 4th great-grandfather, early German-American settler
*Panama Canal
*Great White Fleet
*Russo-Japanese War
*List of U.S. political appointments that crossed party lines
*Progressivism
*
*Auchincloss, Louis, ed. Theodore Roosevelt, The Rough Riders and an Autobiography (Library of America, 2004) ISBN 978-1-93108265-5
*Auchincloss, Louis, ed. Theodore Roosevelt, Letters and Speeches (Library of America, 2004) ISBN 978-1-93108266-2
*Brands, H.W. ed. The Selected Letters of Theodore Roosevelt. (2001)
*Harbaugh, William ed. The Writings Of Theodore Roosevelt (1967). A one-volume selection of Roosevelt's speeches and essays.
*Hart, Albert Bushnell and Herbert Ronald Ferleger, eds. Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia (1941), Roosevelt's opinions on many issues; online version at
*Morison, Elting E., John Morton Blum, and Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., eds., The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 8 vols. (1951â1954). Very large, annotated edition of letters from TR.
*Roosevelt, Theodore (1999). Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography. online at Bartleby.com.
*Roosevelt, Theodore. The Works of Theodore Roosevelt (National edition, 20 vol. 1926); 18,000 pages containing most of TR's speeches, books and essays, but not his letters; a CD-ROM edition is available; some of TR's books are available online through Project Bartleby
* Theodore Roosevelt books and speeches on Project Gutenberg
*Blum, John Morton The Republican Roosevelt. (1954). Series of essays that examine how TR did politics
*Brands, H.W. Theodore Roosevelt (2001), full biography
* Chace, James. 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft, and Debs - The Election That Changed the Country. (2004). 323 pp.
*Cooper, John Milton The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. (1983) a dual scholarly biography
*Dalton, Kathleen. Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life. (2002), full scholarly biography
* Fehn, Bruce. "Theodore Roosevelt and American Masculinity." Magazine of History (2005) 19(2): 52â59. Issn: 0882-228x Fulltext online at Ebsco. Provides a lesson plan on TR as the historical figure who most exemplifies the quality of masculinity.
*Gluck, Sherwin. "T.R.'s Summer White House, Oyster Bay." (1999) Chronicles the events of TR's presidency during the summers of his two terms.
*Gould, Lewis L. The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. (1991), standard history of his domestic and foreign policy as president
*Harbaugh, William Henry. The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt. (1963), full scholarly biography
*Keller, Morton, ed., Theodore Roosevelt: A Profile (1967) excerpts from TR and from historians.
* Kohn, Edward. "Crossing the Rubicon: Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and the 1884 Republican National Convention." Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2006 5(1): 18â45. Issn: 1537-7814 Fulltext: in History Cooperative
*Millard, Candice. River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey. (2005)
*McCullough, David. Mornings on Horseback, The Story of an Extraordinary Family. a Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt. (2001) popular biography to 1884
*Morris, Edmund The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, to 1901 (1979); vol 2: Theodore Rex 1901â1909. (2001); Pulitzer prize for Volume 1. Biography.
* Mowry, George. The Era of Theodore Roosevelt and the Birth of Modern America, 1900â1912. (1954) general survey of era; online
*Mowry, George E. Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement. (2001) focus on 1912
* O'Toole, Patricia. When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt after the White House. (2005). 494 pp.
*Powell, Jim. Bully Boy: The Truth About Theodore Roosevelt's Legacy (Crown Forum, 2006). Denounces TR policies from conservative/libertarian perspective
*Pringle, Henry F. Theodore Roosevelt (1932; 2nd ed. 1956), full scholarly biography
*Putnam, Carleton Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography, Volume I: The Formative Years (1958), only volume published, to age 28.
*Renehan, Edward J. The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War. (Oxford University Press, 1998), examines TR and his family during the World War I period
*Strock, James M. Theodore Roosevelt on Leadership. Random House, 2003.
* Watts, Sarah. Rough Rider in the White House: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of Desire. 2003. 289 pp.
*Beale Howard K. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power. (1956). standard history of his foreign policy
* Holmes, James R. Theodore Roosevelt and World Order: Police Power in International Relations. 2006. 328 pp.
* Marks III, Frederick W. Velvet on Iron: The Diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt (1979)
* David McCullough. The Path between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870â1914 (1977).
* Ricard, Serge. "The Roosevelt Corollary." Presidential Studies Quarterly 2006 36(1): 17â26. Issn: 0360-4918 Fulltext: in Swetswise and Ingenta
* Tilchin, William N. and Neu, Charles E., ed. Artists of Power: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Their Enduring Impact on U.S. Foreign Policy. Praeger, 2006. 196 pp.
* Tilchin, William N. Theodore Roosevelt and the British Empire: A Study in Presidential Statecraft (1997)
* Theodore Roosevelt Association - Founded in 1920 by Roosevelt's friends and admirers to preserve his legacy. Extensive online resources and bibliography
* Extensive essay on Theodore Roosevelt and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* NY Times Headline, January 6, 1919, Theodore Roosevelt Dies Suddenly at Oyster Bay Home; Nation Shocked, Pays Tribute to Former President; Our Flag on All Seas and in All Lands at Half Mast
* "The Early Years: The Challenge of Public Order - 1845 to 1870", by William Andrews, New York City Police Department History Site
* "Leadership of the City of New York Police Department 1845â1901", - The New York City Police Department Museum
* PBS "American Experience" Theodore Roosevelt
* My Brother Theodore Roosevelt, 1921 By Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, a bestseller with a woman's and sister's point of view on TR. Full text and Full text Search, Free to Read and Search.
* Almanac of Theodore Roosevelt
* Downloadable audio recordings of Roosevelt in MP3 format
* Audio clips of Roosevelt's speeches
* Roosevelt podcasts Audio Recording of Roosevelt's Progressive Party Acceptance Speech, "Progressive Covenant with the People" with text included.
* Quotes
* Theodore Roosevelt Works - Bartleby's Online Books
* Presidential Biography by Stanley L. Klos
*
* Index of T. Roosevelt Etexts
* Detailed biography of Theodore Roosevelt from the 1911 version of Encyclopedia Britannica
* Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Address
* State of the Union addresses for 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, and 1908
* Nobel Peace Prize 1906: Theodore Roosevelt
* Theodore Roosevelt Papers at the Library of Congress
* Theodore Roosevelt: His Life & Times on Film (LOC)
* Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
* Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site
* Sagamore Hill National Historic Site
* NobelPrize.org's entry on Theodore Roosevelt
* Congressional Medal of Honor's entry on Theodore Roosevelt; including citation and pictures
* Medal of Honor Recipients on Film
* White House biography
* Vice Presidents Dot Com
* Family and Descendants of Theodore Roosevelt
* Ron Schuler's Parlour Tricks: Teddy
* Theodore Roosevelt Links
* Theodore Roosevelt Quotes, Pictures and Biography at TeddyRoosevelt.com
* Theodore Roosevelt cylinder recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.
* On Theodore Roosevelt's progressive vision from the Roosevelt Institution, a student think tank inspired in part by Theodore Roosevelt.
* Boone and Crockett Club, founded by Theodore Roosevelt
* How to pronounce Theodore Roosevelt
* Yesterday's News blog 1901 newspaper account of Roosevelt's "Big Stick" speech at the Minnesota State Fair
* Archive of Theodore Roosevelt Pictures
* still of Theodore Roosevelt going on first aeroplane flight
* different view of Theodore Roosevelt & Arch Hoxsey in Wright aeroplane St Louis October 1910
*
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
September 14
1901
March 4
1909
Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
William Howard Taft
Vice President of the United States
March 4
1901
September 14
1901
William McKinley
Garret Hobart
Charles W. Fairbanks
List of Governors of New York
January 1
1899
December 31
1900
Timothy L. Woodruff
Frank S. Black
Benjamin Barker Odell, Jr.
New York City
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
Edith Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Bulloch Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Polymath
author
historian
conservationist
Civil servant
History of United States Republican Party
Dutch Reformed
October 27
1858
January 6
1919
President of the United States
History of the United States Republican Party
Progressivism
List of Governors of New York
United States Navy
Rough Riders
Rough Riders
Spanish-American War
Amazon Basin
William McKinley
John F. Kennedy
Progressive Era
trust-busting
trust (law)
capitalism
Square Deal
conservation
labor union
William Howard Taft
U.S. presidential election, 1912
Progressive Party (United States, 1912)
Woodrow Wilson
conservative
Panama Canal
Nobel Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
Russo-Japanese War
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
Mount Rushmore
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
Gramercy, New York
New York City
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
Martha Bulloch
Bamie Roosevelt
Elliott Roosevelt I
Eleanor Roosevelt
Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
newspaper
Joseph Alsop
Stewart Alsop
American Revolution
History of the United States Democratic Party
History of the United States Republican Party
philanthropy
Abraham Lincoln
American Civil War
slavery
Savannah, Georgia
Confederate
James Dunwoody Bulloch
U.S. Navy
Irvine Bulloch
CSS Alabama
asthma
zoology
Pinniped
taxidermy
March 6
2006
boxing
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
March 9
2006
biology
French language
German language
mathematics
Latin
Greek language
Harvard College
magna cum laude
science
philosophy
rhetoric
ornithology
eidetic memory
Alpha Delta Phi
Delta Kappa Epsilon
C.S. Hanks
Phi Beta Kappa
Columbia Law School
New York Assembly
History of the United States Republican Party
Mugwump
James G. Blaine
Grover Cleveland
History of the United States Democratic Party
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
July 29
1861
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
February 14
1884
Manhattan, New York
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Bright's disease
Typhoid fever
Dakota Territory
Badlands
Tiffany and Co.
Medora, North Dakota
Little Missouri River (North Dakota)
Dickinson
Deadwood, South Dakota
South Dakota
Sheriff
Seth Bullock
winter of 1886-1887
Sagamore Hill
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Edith Roosevelt
Mont Blanc
British Royal Society
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt III
man-of-war
broadside
Thomas Hart Benton (senator)
Gouverneur Morris
historiography
frontier thesis
Frederick Jackson Turner
American Historical Association
Nordicism
social Darwinism
racialism
Booker T. Washington
New York
Charleston
Postmaster
Indianola, Mississippi
U.S. presidential election, 1888
Benjamin Harrison
United States Civil Service Commission
spoils system
U.S. presidential election, 1892
Grover Cleveland
Bourbon Democrat
New York City Police Commissioner
August 28
2006
August 28
2006
Henry Cabot Lodge
William McKinley
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Secretary of the Navy
John D. Long
Spanish-American War
Rough Riders
Leonard Wood
Rough Riders
cowboy
Ivy League
Lieutenant Colonel
Brigadier General
Rough Riders
Rough Riders
Kettle Hill
Battle of San Juan Hill
Medal of Honor
as of 2007
machine politics
Thomas C. Platt
United States presidential election, 1900
Mark Hanna
William Jennings Bryan
Minnesota State Fair
Big stick Diplomacy
Pan-American Exposition
Buffalo, New York
William McKinley
Leon Czolgosz
September 6
1901
Mount Marcy
Ansley Wilcox
Grover Cleveland
February 2
2007
Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site
Buffalo, New York
New York
Bible
Mark Hanna
United Mine Workers of America
trust (19th century)
Trust Buster
Hepburn Act
Interstate Commerce Commission
Upton Sinclair
The Jungle
Pure Food and Drug Act
Meat Inspection Act
Millard Fillmore
Chester Arthur
Mark Hanna
Grover Cleveland
Alton B. Parker
Electoral College
Solid South
Eugene Debs
Gifford Pinchot
passenger pigeon
March 14
1903
Florida
conservation
Gifford Pinchot
United States Forest Service
national park
nature preserve
national forest
national wildlife refuge
Grand Canyon
Theodore Roosevelt National Park
Badlands
John Muir
Conference of Governors
Outdoor Life
Edward Renehan
Tweed Roosevelt
YouTube
April 23
2006
archaeology
Antiquities Act
U.S. National Monument
James F. Lacey
Edgar Lee Hewett
Devils Tower National Monument
Wyoming
geology
Christmas tree
White House
virgin forests
Cuba
Philippines
Puerto Rico
Panama Canal Zone
Walter Reed
William C. Gorgas
yellow fever
Great White Fleet
Roosevelt Corollary
Monroe Doctrine
Latin American
Russo-Japanese War
Nobel Peace Prize
France
Germany
Morocco
world war
March 6
2006
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty
Panama Canal
San Francisco, California
California
New York City
Colombia
Nicaragua
Panama
November 3
1903
Nathan Johnson Forest
US Navy
battleship
circumnavigation
December 16
1907
February 22
1909
Great White Fleet
Russians
Russo-Japanese War
U.S. Atlantic Fleet
grand strategy
Victor David Brenner
New York City
Lower East Side
American Civil War
Mathew Brady
Lincoln cent
March 6
2006
March 6
2006
simplified spelling
Brander Matthews
December 16
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
West Wing
federal style
Louis Comfort Tiffany
race relations
Booker T. Washington
White House
Oscar Straus (politician)
Hartford
Connecticut
submarine
USS Holland (SS-1)
Panama Canal
November 9
William McKinley
September 6
1901
Secret Service
Nobel Prize
Long Island
Lincoln cent
Maxwell House
Teddy bear
John Singer Sargent
President of the United States
Vice President of the United States
Charles W. Fairbanks
United States Secretary of State
John Hay
Elihu Root
Robert Bacon
United States Secretary of the Treasury
Lyman J. Gage
L. M. Shaw
George B. Cortelyou
United States Secretary of War
Elihu Root
William Howard Taft
Luke Edward Wright
Attorney General of the United States
Philander C. Knox
William Henry Moody
Charles Joseph Bonaparte
Postmaster General of the United States
Charles Emory Smith
Henry C. Payne
Robert Wynne
George B. Cortelyou
George von Lengerke Meyer
United States Secretary of the Navy
John Davis Long
William Henry Moody
Paul Morton
Charles Joseph Bonaparte
Victor H. Metcalf
Truman Handy Newberry
United States Secretary of the Interior
Ethan A. Hitchcock (Interior)
James Rudolph Garfield
United States Secretary of Agriculture
James Wilson (U.S. politician)
United States Secretary of Commerce and Labor
George B. Cortelyou
Victor H. Metcalf
Oscar Straus (politician)
Supreme Court of the United States
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
William R. Day
William Henry Moody
Oklahoma
safari
East Africa
central Africa
Mombasa
British East Africa
Kenya
Belgian Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Nile
Khartoum
Sudan
Andrew Carnegie
Smithsonian Institution
American Museum of Natural History
Frederick Selous
insect
Mole (animal)
hippopotamus
elephant
White Rhinoceros
Washington, D.C.
taxidermy
museum
National Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History
science
flora
fauna
William Howard Taft
U.S. presidential election, 1908
William Jennings Bryan
Payne-Aldrich tariff
Nelson Aldrich
William Loeb
Robert M. La Follette, Sr.
Wisconsin
Progressive Party (United States, 1924)
Gifford Pinchot
Richard Ballinger
Republican Convention
Chicago
Auditorium Building, Chicago
Pinchot
Albert Beveridge
Progressive Party 1912 (United States)
Bull Moose Party
Armageddon
statesmanship
Woodrow Wilson
monopoly
Trust (19th century)
U.S. Steel
Standard Oil
Howard Taft
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Wisconsin
October 14
1912
John Schrank
assassination
chest
steel
eyeglass
pleura
Pennsylvania
Eastern United States
Midwest
Michigan
Minnesota
South Dakota
Western United States
California
Washington
Martin Van Buren
Millard Fillmore
John Augustine Zahm
Cândido Rondon
Kermit Roosevelt
Brazil
Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition
Brazil
Cândido Rondon
John Augustine Zahm
American Museum of Natural History
River of Doubt
Amazon River
Rio Roosevelt
Cândido Rondon
American Museum of Natural History
Portuguese language
December 9
1913
February 27
1914
Rio Roosevelt
malaria
Rio Roosevelt
Oyster Bay
World War I
Allies of World War I
Germany
Charles Evans Hughes
hyphenated American
Quentin Roosevelt
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Scouting
Boy Scouts of America
March 6
2006
January 6
1919
embolism
Archibald Roosevelt
Thomas R. Marshall
Death (personification)
Quentin Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Archibald Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Kermit Roosevelt
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Madison Square Presbyterian Church
Episcopal Church in the United States of America
Grace Reformed Church
March 7
2006
separation of church and state
In God We Trust
March 7
2006
Freemason
March 12
2006
The Strenuous Life
jujutsu
skinny-dipping
Potomac River
March 7
2006
Sagamore Hill
singlestick
Harper's Weekly
Leonard Wood
Thomas Jefferson
Mt. Rushmore
Medal of Honor
Cuba
National Archives and Records Administration
January 16
2001
Bill Clinton
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Battle of Normandy
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
Mount Rushmore
United States Navy
USS Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600)
USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71)
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
Sagamore Hill
Henry Adams
March 7
2006
March 7
2006
Joseph Biden
Second Lebanon War
Israel
Ehud Olmert
Nicaragua
Rubén DarÃo
Robin Williams
Night at the Museum
John Milius
The Wind and the Lion
Brian Keith
Rough Riders (film)
Tom Berenger
teddy bears
American black bear
March 7
2006
June 26
2006
Time (magazine)
Washington Nationals
Presidents Race
Michigan State University
Megabyte
ogg
Theora
Theora
Megabyte
ogg
Theora
Theora
Arch Hoxsey
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
Martha Bulloch
Eleanor Roosevelt
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
Edith Carow Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Elliott Roosevelt I
Bamie Roosevelt
Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia
Reynier Tyson
Panama Canal
Great White Fleet
Russo-Japanese War
List of U.S. political appointments that crossed party lines
Progressivism
Library of America
Library of America
Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia
Edmund Morris (writer)
Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project
University of California, Santa Barbara
think tank
Arch Hoxsey
Frank S. Black
List of Governors of New York
Benjamin B. Odell, Jr.
Garret Hobart
Vice President of the United States
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
President of the United States
William Howard Taft
Garret Hobart
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1900
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1904
William Howard Taft
Progressive Party (United States, 1912)
U.S. presidential election, 1912
Grover Cleveland
Oldest living United States president
William Howard Taft
President of the United States
October 27
1858
New York, New York
January 6
1919
Oyster Bay, New York
|
Theodore_Roosevelt | Was Roosevelt's family rich? | null | data/set3/a7 | Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. ( ; October 27 1858 January 6 1919), also known as T.R., and to the public (but never to friends and intimates) as Teddy, was the twenty-sixth President of the United States, and a leader of the Republican Party and of the Progressive Movement. He became the youngest President in United States history at the age of 42. He served in many roles including Governor of New York, historian, naturalist, explorer, author, and soldier. Roosevelt is most famous for his personality: his energy, his vast range of interests and achievements, his model of masculinity, and his "cowboy" persona. His last name, often mispronounced, is, per Roosevelt, "pronounced as if it were spelled 'Rosavelt', in three syllables, the first syllable as if it was 'Rose.'"
As Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Navy, he prepared for and advocated war with Spain in 1898. He organized and helped command the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, the Rough Riders, during the Spanish-American War. Returning to New York as a war hero, he was elected Republican governor in 1899. He was a professional historian, a lawyer, a naturalist and explorer of the Amazon Basin; his 35 books include works on outdoor life, natural history, the American frontier, political history, naval history, and his autobiography.
In 1901, as Vice President, Roosevelt succeeded President William McKinley after McKinley's assassination. He is the youngest person ever to become President (John F. Kennedy is the youngest elected President). Roosevelt was a Progressive reformer who sought to move the dominant Republican Party into the Progressive camp. He distrusted wealthy businessmen and dissolved forty monopolistic corporations as a "trust buster". He was clear, however, to show he did not disagree with trusts and capitalism in principle but was only against corrupt, illegal practices. His "Square Deal" promised a fair shake for both the average citizen (through regulation of railroad rates and pure food and drugs) and the businessmen. As an outdoorsman, he promoted the conservation movement, emphasizing efficient use of natural resources. After 1906 he attacked big business and suggested the courts were biased against labor unions. In 1910, he broke with his friend and anointed successor William Howard Taft, but lost the Republican nomination to Taft and ran in the 1912 election on his own one-time Bull Moose ticket. Roosevelt beat Taft in the popular vote and pulled so many Progressives out of the Republican Party that Democrat Woodrow Wilson won in 1912, and the conservative faction took control of the Republican Party for the next two decades.
Roosevelt negotiated for the U.S. to take control of the Panama Canal and its construction in 1904; he felt the Canal's completion was his most important and historically significant international achievement. He was the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize, winning its Peace Prize in 1906, for negotiating the peace in the Russo-Japanese War.
Historian Thomas Bailey, who disagreed with Roosevelt's policies, nevertheless concluded, "Roosevelt was a great personality, a great activist, a great preacher of the moralities, a great controversialist, a great showman. He dominated his era as he dominated conversations....the masses loved him; he proved to be a great popular idol and a great vote getter." His image stands alongside Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln on Mount Rushmore. Surveys of scholars have consistently ranked him from #3 to #7 on the list of greatest American presidents.
Theodore Roosevelt at age 11
Theodore Roosevelt was born in a four-story brownstone at 28 East 20th Street, in the modern-day Gramercy section of New York City, the second of four children of Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. (1831â1877) and Mittie Bulloch (1834â1884). He had an elder sister Anna, nicknamed "Bamie" as a child and "Bye" as an adult for being always on the go; and two younger siblingsâhis brother Elliott (the father of Eleanor Roosevelt) and his sister Corinne, (grandmother of newspaper columnists, Joseph and Stewart Alsop).
The Roosevelts had been in New York since the mid 18th century and had grown with the emerging New York commerce class after the American Revolution. Unlike many of the earlier "log cabin Presidents," Roosevelt was born into a wealthy family. By the 19th century, the family had grown in wealth, power and influence from the profits of several businesses including hardware and plate-glass importing. The family was strongly Democratic in its political affiliation until the mid-1850s, then joined the new Republican Party. Theodore's father, known in the family as "Thee", was a New York City philanthropist, merchant, and partner in the family glass-importing firm Roosevelt and Son. He was a prominent supporter of Abraham Lincoln and the Union effort during the American Civil War. His mother Mittie Bulloch was a Southern belle from a slave-owning family in Savannah, Georgia and had quiet Confederate sympathies. Mittie's brother, Theodore's uncle, James Dunwoody Bulloch, was a U.S. Navy officer who became a Confederate admiral and naval procurement agent in Britain. Another uncle Irvine Bulloch was a midshipman on the Confederate raider, CSS Alabama; both remained in England after the war. . Pringle (1931) p. 11 From his grandparents' home, a young Roosevelt witnessed Abraham Lincoln's funeral procession in New York.
Sickly and asthmatic as a youngster, Roosevelt had to sleep propped up in bed or slouching in a chair during much of his early childhood, and had frequent ailments. Despite his illnesses, he was a hyperactive and often mischievous young man. His lifelong interest in zoology was formed at age seven upon seeing a dead seal at a local market. After obtaining the seal's head, the young Roosevelt and two of his cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Learning the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with many animals that he killed or caught, studied, and prepared for display. At age nine, he codified his observation of insects with a paper titled "The Natural History of Insects". "TR's LegacyâThe Environment". Retrieved March 6, 2006.
To combat his poor physical condition, his father compelled the young Roosevelt to take up exercise. To deal with bullies, Roosevelt started boxing lessons. Thayer, William Roscoe (1919). Theodore Roosevelt: An Intimate Biography, Chapter I, p. 20. Bartleby.com. Two trips abroad had a permanent impact: family tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and of the Middle East 1872 to 1873.
Theodore Sr. had a tremendous influence on his son. Of him Roosevelt wrote, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Roosevelt, Theodore (1913). Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography, Chapter I, p. 13. Roosevelt's sister later wrote, "He told me frequently that he never took any serious step or made any vital decision for his country without thinking first what position his father would have taken." "The Film & More: Program Transcript Part One". Retrieved March 9 2006.
Young "Teedie" , as he was nicknamed as a child, (the nickname "Teddy" was from his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee, and he later harbored an intense dislike for it) was mostly home schooled by tutors and his parents. A leading biographer says: "The most obvious drawback to the home schooling Roosevelt keely received was uneven coverage of the various areas of human knowledge." He was solid in geography (thanks to his careful observations on all his travels) and very well read in history, strong in biology, French and German, but deficient in mathematics, Latin and Greek. Brands T. R. p. 49â50 He matriculated at Harvard College in 1876, graduating magna cum laude. His father's death in 1878 was a tremendous blow, but Roosevelt redoubled his activities. He did well in science, philosophy and rhetoric courses but fared poorly in Latin and Greek. He studied biology with great interest and indeed was already an accomplished naturalist and published ornithologist. He had a photographic memory and developed a life-long habit of devouring books, memorizing every detail. Brands p. 62 He was an eloquent conversationalist who, throughout his life, sought out the company of the smartest people. He could multitask in extraordinary fashion, dictating letters to one secretary and memoranda to another, while browsing through a new book.
While at Harvard, Roosevelt was active in rowing, boxing and the Alpha Delta Phi and Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternities. He also edited a student magazine. He was runner-up in the Harvard boxing championship, losing to C.S. Hanks. The sportsmanship Roosevelt showed in that fight was long remembered. Upon graduating from Harvard, Roosevelt underwent a physical examination and his doctor advised him that due to serious heart problems, he should find a desk job and avoid strenuous activity. Roosevelt chose to embrace strenuous life instead. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris.
He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude (22nd of 177) from Harvard in 1880, and entered Columbia Law School. When offered a chance to run for New York Assemblyman in 1881, he dropped out of law school to pursue his new goal of entering public life. Brands, pp 123â29
Roosevelt as NY State Assemblyman 1883, photo
Roosevelt was a Republican activist during his years in the Assembly, writing more bills than any other New York state legislator. Already a major player in state politics, he attended the Republican National Convention in 1884 and fought alongside the Mugwump reformers; they lost to the Stalwart faction that nominated James G. Blaine. Refusing to join other Mugwumps in supporting Democrat Grover Cleveland, the Democratic nominee, he stayed loyal.
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt (July 29, 1861 in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts â February 14 1884 in Manhattan, New York) was the first wife of Theodore Roosevelt and mother of their only child together, Alice Lee Roosevelt. Alice Roosevelt died of an undiagnosed case of Bright's Disease two days after Alice Lee was born. Theodore Roosevelt's mother Mittie died of Typhoid fever in the same house on the same day, Feb. 14, 1884. After the simultaneous deaths of his mother and wife, Roosevelt left his daughter in the care of his sister in New York and moved out to Dakota Territory.
Theodore Roosevelt as Badlands hunter in 1885. New York studio photo. Note the engraved knife and rifle courtesy of Tiffany and Co.
Roosevelt built a second ranch he named Elk Horn thirty five miles (56 km) north of the boomtown, Medora, North Dakota. On the banks of the "Little Missouri," Roosevelt learned to ride, rope, and hunt.
Roosevelt rebuilt his life and began writing about frontier life for Eastern magazines. As a deputy sheriff, Roosevelt hunted down three outlaws who stole his river boat and were escaping north with it up the Little Missouri River. Capturing them, he decided against hanging them and sending his foreman back by boat, he took the thieves back overland for trial in Dickinson, guarding them forty hours without sleep and reading Tolstoy to keep himself awake. When he ran out of his own books he read a dime store western one of the thieves was carrying.
While working on a tough project aimed at hunting down a group of relentless horse thieves, Roosevelt came across the famous Deadwood, South Dakota Sheriff Seth Bullock. The two would remain friends for life. (Morris, Rise of, 241â245, 247â250)
After the uniquely severe U.S. winter of 1886-1887 wiped out his herd of cattle and his $60,000 investment (together with those of his competitors), he returned to the East, where in 1885, he had built Sagamore Hill in Oyster Bay, New York. It would be his home and estate until his death. Roosevelt ran as the Republican candidate for mayor of New York City in 1886 as "The Cowboy of the Dakotas." He came in third.
Following the election, he went to London in 1886 and married his childhood sweetheart, Edith Kermit Carow. Thayer, Chapter V, pp. 4, 6. They honeymooned in Europe, and Roosevelt led a party to the summit of Mont Blanc, a feat which resulted in his induction into the British Royal Society. Encyclopedia Britannica, 1910 Edition, Topic: Theodore Roosevelt They had five children: Theodore Jr., Kermit, Ethel Carow, Archibald Bulloch "Archie", and Quentin. Although Roosevelt's father was also named Theodore Roosevelt, he died while the future president was still childless and unmarried, so the future President Roosevelt took the suffix of Sr. and subsequently named his son Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. Because Roosevelt was still alive when his grandson and namesake was born, his grandson was named Theodore Roosevelt III, and the president's son retained the Jr. after his father's death.
Roosevelt's book The Naval War of 1812 (1882) was standard history for two generations. Roosevelt undertook extensive and original research going computing British and American man-of-war broadside throw weights. See The Naval War of 1812, via Project Gutenberg.
By comparison, however, his hastily-written biographies of Thomas Hart Benton (1887) and Gouverneur Morris (1888) are considered superficial. Pringle (1931) p 116 His major achievement was a four-volume history of the frontier, The Winning of the West (1889â1896), which had a notable impact on historiography as it presented a highly original version of the frontier thesis elaborated upon in 1893 by his friend Frederick Jackson Turner. Roosevelt argued that the harsh frontier conditions had created a new "race": the American people that replaced the "scattered savage tribes, whose life was but a few degrees less meaningless, squalid, and ferocious than that of the wild beasts with whom they held joint ownership". He believed that "the conquest and settlement by the whites of the Indian lands was necessary to the greatness of the race and to the well-being of civilized mankind". He was using an evolutionary model in which new environmental conditions allow a new species to form. His many articles in upscale magazines provided a much-needed income, as well as cementing a reputation as a major national intellectual. He was later chosen president of the
American Historical Association.
In the The Winning of the West (1889â1896), Roosevelt's frontier thesis stressed the racial struggle between "civilization" and "savagery." He supported Nordicism, the belief in the superiority of the "Nordic" race, along with social Darwinism and racialism. Excerpts:
# "The settler and pioneer have at bottom had justice on their side; this great continent could not have been kept as nothing but a game preserve for squalid savages".
# "The most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with savages".
# "American and Indian, Boer and Zulu, Cossack and Tartar, New Zealander and Maori, â in each case the victor, horrible though many of his deeds are, has laid deep the foundations for the future greatness of a mighty people".
# "..it is of incalculable importance that America, Australia, and Siberia should pass out of the hands of their red, black, and yellow aboriginal owners, and become the heritage of the dominant world races".
# "The world would have halted had it not been for the Teutonic conquests in alien lands; but the victories of Moslem over Christian have always proved a curse in the end. Nothing but sheer evil has come from the victories of Turk and Tartar".
What did not, however, conform to the views of Roosevelt's day was that race should never be the primary factor in someone of ability performing any job. Some notable events in Theodore Roosevelt's life included:
*Developing a close relationship with the Hidatsa Indians that is maintained today in the oral tradition of the tribe.
*Inviting reformer Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House, an action which caused outrage among many newpapers in the American South, which objected to "mixing of the races on social occassions."
*Openly supporting a bill in the New York State Assembly which allowed desegregation of schools in the state, personally noting that his children had been educated with other races and there was nothing wrong with it.
*Appointed the Collector of the Port of Charleston post to an African-American, Dr. William D. Crum, and when he was urged to withdraw the appointment, wrote the following:
:I do not intend to appoint any unfit man to office. So far as I legitimately can, I shall always endeavor to pay regard to the wishes and feelings of the people of each locality; but I cannot consent to take the position that the doorway of hope - the door of opportunity - is to be shut upon any man, no matter how worthy, purely upon the grounds of race or color. Such an attitude would, according to my contentions, be fundamentally wrong.
*Defended the Postmaster of Indianola, Mississippi, Minnie D. Cox. She was an African-American, and on that basis alone she was threatened with mob violence and was forced to resign. Roosevelt took action by closing the post office there, ignored her resignation, and still paid her what she was due as if nothing happened.
New York City Police Commissioner 1896
In the 1888 presidential election, Roosevelt campaigned in the Midwest for Benjamin Harrison. President Harrison appointed Roosevelt to the United States Civil Service Commission, where he served until 1895. Thayer, ch. VI, pp. 1â2. In his term, he vigorously fought the spoilsmen and demanded the enforcement of civil service laws. In spite of Roosevelt's support for Harrison's reelection bid in the presidential election of 1892, the eventual winner, Grover Cleveland (a Bourbon Democrat), re appointed him to the same post.
Roosevelt became president of the board of New York City Police Commissioners in 1895. During the two years he held this post, Roosevelt radically reformed the police department. The police force was reputed as one of the most corrupt in America. NYPD's history division records Roosevelt was, "an iron-willed leader of unimpeachable honesty, (who) brought a reforming zeal to the New York City Police Commission in 1895." Andrews, William, "The Early Years: The Challenge of Public Order - 1845 to 1870", - New York City Police Department History Site. Retrieved August 28 2006. Roosevelt and his fellow commissioners established new disciplinary rules, created a bicycle squad to police New York's traffic problems and standardized the use of pistols by officers. Editors, "Leadership of the City of New York Police Department 1845â1901", - The New York City Police Department Museum. Retrieved August 28 2006. Roosevelt implemented regular inspections of firearms, annual physical exams, appointed 1,600 new recruits based on their physical and mental qualifications and not on political affiliation, opened the department to ethnic minorities and women, established meritorious service medals, and shut down corrupt police hostelries. During his tenure a Municipal Lodging House was established by the Board of Charities and Roosevelt required officers to register with the Board. He also had telephones installed in station houses. Always an energetic man, he made a habit of walking officers' beats late at night and early in the morning to make sure they were on duty. Brands ch 11 He became caught up in public disagreements with commissioner Parker, who sought to negate or delay the promotion of many officers put forward by Roosevelt.
Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt (front center) at the Naval War College, c. 1897
Roosevelt had always been fascinated by naval history. Urged by Roosevelt's close friend, Congressman Henry Cabot Lodge, President William McKinley appointed a delighted Roosevelt to the post of Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897. (Because of the inactivity of Secretary of the Navy John D. Long at the time, this basically gave Roosevelt control over the department.) Roosevelt was instrumental in preparing the Navy for the Spanish-American War Brands ch 12 and was an enthusiastic proponent of testing the U.S. military in battle, at one point stating "I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one".
Roosevelt left his civilian Navy post to form the famous "Rough Riders" Regiment
Upon the declaration of war in 1898 that would be known as the Spanish-American War, Roosevelt resigned from the Navy Department and, with the aid of U.S. Army Colonel Leonard Wood, organized the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment from cowboys from the Western territories to Ivy League friends from New York. The newspapers called them the "Rough Riders." Originally Roosevelt held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and served under Colonel Wood, but after Wood was promoted to Brigadier General of Volunteer Forces, Roosevelt was promoted to Colonel and given command of the Regiment. . Even after his return to civilian life, Roosevelt preferred to be known as "Colonel Roosevelt" or "The Colonel." As a moniker, "Teddy" remained much more popular with the general public; however, political friends and others who worked closely with Roosevelt customarily addressed him by his rank.
Colonel Roosevelt and his "Rough Riders" after capturing San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War
Under his leadership, the Rough Riders became famous for dual charges up Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill in July 1898 (the battle was named after the latter hill). Out of all the Rough Riders, Roosevelt was the only one who had a horse, and was forced to walk up Kettle Hill on foot after his horse, Little Texas, became tired. For his actions, Roosevelt was nominated for the Medal of Honor which was subsequently disapproved. It has been widely speculated this disapproval was because of Roosevelt's outspoken comments of the handling of the War. In September 1997, Congressman Rick Lazio representing the 2nd District of New York sent two award recommendations to the U.S. Army Military Awards Branch. These recommendations addressed to Brigadier General Earl Simms, the Army's Adjutant General and one to Master Sergeant Gary Soots, Chief of Authorizations, would prove successful in garnering the much sought after award. Soots Letter Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 2001 for his actions. Brands ch 13 He was the first and, as of 2007, the only President of the United States to be awarded with America's highest military honor, and the only person in history to receive both his nation's highest honor for military valor and the world's foremost prize for peace. Chicago newspaper sees cowboy-TR campaigning for governor
On leaving the Army, Roosevelt re-entered New York state politics and was elected governor of New York in 1898 on the Republican ticket. He made such a concerted effort to root out corruption and "machine politics" Republican boss Thomas Collier Platt forced him on McKinley as a running mate in the 1900 election, against the wishes of McKinley's manager Senator Mark Hanna. Roosevelt was a powerful campaign asset for the Republican ticket, which defeated William Jennings Bryan in a landslide based on restoration of prosperity at home and a successful war and new prestige abroad. Bryan stumped for Free Silver again, but McKinley's promise of prosperity through the Gold Standard, high tariffs, and the restoration of business confidence enlarged his margin of victory. Bryan had strongly supported the war against Spain, but denounced the annexation of the Philippines as imperialism that would spoil America's innocence. Roosevelt countered with many speeches that argued it was best for the Filipinos to have stability, and the Americans to have a proud place in the world. Roosevelt's six months as Vice President (March to September, 1901) were uneventful. Brands ch 14â15 On September 2, 1901, at the Minnesota State Fair, Roosevelt first used in a public speech a saying that would later be universally associated with him: "Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far."
At the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York President McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz (Zol-gash), on September 6, 1901. Roosevelt had been giving a speech in Vermont when he heard of the shooting. He rushed to Buffalo but after being assured the President would recover, he went on a planned family camping and hiking trip to Mount Marcy. In the mountains a runner notified him McKinley was on his death bed. Roosevelt pondered with his wife, Edith, how best to respond, not wanting to show up in Buffalo and wait on McKinley's death. Roosevelt was rushed by a series of stagecoaches to North Creek train station. At the station, Roosevelt was handed a telegram that said President McKinley died at 2:30 AM that morning. Roosevelt continued by train from North Creek to Buffalo. He arrived in Buffalo later that day, accepting an invitation to stay at the home of Ansley Wilcox, a prominent lawyer and friend since the early 1880s when they had both worked closely with New York State Governor Grover Cleveland on civil service reform. Wilcox recalled, "the family and most of the household were in the country, but he Roosevelt was offered a quiet place to sleep and eat, and accepted it." Roosevelt was a successful president. He would achieve a lot of goals in life. Some of these goals were that he won the Spanish-American War, and the Nobel Peace Prize, and he also was the youngest president in United States history. "It is a dreadful thing to come into the Presidency this way." Retrieved February 2 2007.
Nashville Tennessee News sketch of Theodore Roosevelt inauguration minus the customary Bible. Inauguration photos were not allowed after a rival photographer unceremoniously knocked down another's camera. Roosevelt took the oath of office in the Ansley Wilcox House at Buffalo, New York borrowing Wilcox's morning coat. Roosevelt did not swear on a Bible , in contrast to the usual tradition of US presidents Bibles and Scripture Passages Used by Presidents in Taking the Oath of Office. Retrieved September 23, 2007. . Expressing the fears of many old line Republicans, Mark Hanna lamented "that damned cowboy is president now." Roosevelt was the youngest person to assume the presidency, at 42, and he promised to continue McKinley's cabinet and his basic policies. Roosevelt did so, but after winning election in 1904, he moved to the political left, stretching his ties to the Republican Party's conservative leaders. Brands ch 16
A national emergency was averted in 1902 when Roosevelt found a compromise to the anthracite coal strike by the United Mine Workers of America that threatened the heating supplies of most urban homes. Roosevelt called the mine owners and the labor leaders to the White House and negotiated a compromise. Miners were on strike for 163 days before it ended; they were granted a 10% pay increase and a 9-hour day (from the previous 10 hours), but the union was not officially recognized and the price of coal went up. Brands ch 17
Theodore Roosevelt promised to continue McKinley's program, and at first he worked closely with McKinley's men. His 20,000-word address to the Congress in December 1901, asked Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits." They did not act but Roosevelt did, issuing 44 lawsuits against major corporations; he was called the "trust-buster."
Roosevelt firmly believed: "The Government must in increasing degree supervise and regulate the workings of the railways engaged in interstate commerce." Inaction was a danger, he argued: "Such increased supervision is the only alternative to an increase of the present evils on the one hand or a still more radical policy on the other." Annual Message December 1904
His biggest success was passage of the Hepburn Act of 1906, the provisions of which were to be regulated by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). The most important provision of the Act gave the ICC the power to replace existing rates with "just-and-reasonable" maximum rates, with the ICC to define what was just and reasonable. Anti-rebate provisions were toughened, free passes were outlawed, and the penalties for violation were increased. Finally, the ICC gained the power to prescribe a uniform system of accounting, require standardized reports, and inspect railroad accounts. The Act made ICC orders binding; that is, the railroads had to either obey or contest the ICC orders in federal court. To speed the process, appeals from the district courts would go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In response to public clamor (and due to the uproar cause by Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle), Roosevelt pushed Congress to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, as well as the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. These laws provided for labeling of foods and drugs, inspection of livestock and mandated sanitary conditions at meatpacking plants. Congress replaced Roosevelt's proposals with a version supported by the major meatpackers who worried about the overseas markets, and did not want small unsanitary plants undercutting their domestic market. Blum 1980 pp 43â44
Democrats attack Roosevelt as militarist and ineffective in this 1904 election cartoon
Theodore Roosevelt was the fifth Vice President to succeed to the office of President, but the first to win election in his own right. (Millard Fillmore ran and lost on a third-party ticket four years after leaving office and Chester Arthur was denied nomination by his party in 1884). After Senator Mark Hanna, McKinley's old campaign manager, died in February 1904, there was no one in the Republican Party to oppose Roosevelt and he easily won the nomination. When an effort to draft former president Grover Cleveland failed, the Democrats were without a candidate and finally settled on obscure New York judge Alton B. Parker. The outcome was never in doubt. Roosevelt crushed Parker 56%-38% in the popular vote and 336-140 in the Electoral College, sweeping the country outside the perennially Democratic Solid South. Socialist Eugene Debs got 3%. The night of the election, after his victory was clear, Roosevelt promised not to run again in 1908. He later regretted that promise, as it compelled him to leave the White House at the age of only fifty, at the height of his popularity.
Roosevelt worked closely with early conservationists such as Gifford Pinchot, pictured above, with whom he organized the first National Governors Conservation Conference at the White House in 1908
Roosevelt was the first American president to consider the long-term needs for efficient conservation of national resources, winning the support of fellow hunters and fishermen to bolster his political base. Roosevelt was the last trained observer to ever see a passenger pigeon, and on March 14, 1903, Roosevelt created the first National Bird Preserve, (the beginning of the Wildlife Refuge system) on Pelican Island, Florida. Roosevelt worked with the major figures of the conservation movement, especially his chief adviser on the matter Gifford Pinchot. Roosevelt urged Congress to establish the United States Forest Service (1905), to manage government forest lands, and he appointed Gifford Pinchot to head the service. Roosevelt set aside more land for national parks and nature preserves than all of his predecessors combined, 194 million acres (785,000 km²). In all, by 1909, the Roosevelt administration had created an unprecedented 42 million acres (170,000 km²) of national forests, 53 national wildlife refuges and 18 areas of "special interest", including the Grand Canyon. The Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the Badlands commemorates his conservationist philosophy. Roosevelt and Muir In 1903, Roosevelt toured the Yosemite Valley with John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, but Roosevelt believed in the more efficient use of natural resources by corporations like lumber companies unlike Muir. In 1907, with Congress about to block him, Roosevelt hurried to designate 16 million acres (65,000 km²) of new national forests. In May 1908, he sponsored the Conference of Governors held in the White House, with a focus on the most efficient planning, analysis and use of water, forests and other natural resources. Roosevelt explained, "There is an intimate relation between our streams and the development and conservation of all the other great permanent sources of wealth." During his presidency, Roosevelt promoted the nascent conservation movement in essays for Outdoor Life magazine. To Roosevelt, conservation meant more and better usage and less waste, and a long-term perspective. In 2006, a group of American high school students developed a 10 minute video on Roosevelt's conservation legacy with the help of Roosevelt scholar Edward Renehan and Roosevelt descendant, Tweed Roosevelt. See Commented out because it's a YouTube link used as a ref, it's original research, and really it's not a reference. But maybe someone else will think differently. -->
Roosevelt's conservationist leanings also impelled him to preserve national sites of scientific, particularly archaeological, interest. The 1906 passage of the Antiquities Act gave him a tool for creating national monuments by presidential proclamation, without requiring Congressional approval for each monument on an item-by-item basis. The language of the Antiquities Act specifically called for the preservation of "historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest," and was primarily construed by its creator, Congressman James F. Lacey (assisted by the prominent archaeologist Edgar Lee Hewett), as targeting the prehistoric ruins of the American Southwest. Roosevelt, however, applied a typically broad interpretation to the Act, and the first national monument he proclaimed, Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming, was preserved for reasons tied more to geology than archaeology.
Roosevelt's conservationism caused him to forbid having a Christmas tree in the White House. He was reportedly upset when he found a small tree his son had been hiding. After learning about the commercial farming of Christmas trees, where no virgin forests were cut down to supply the demand during the Christmas holiday, he relented and allowed his family to have a tree each season.
In Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and the Panama Canal Zone, Roosevelt used the Army's medical service, under Walter Reed and William C. Gorgas, to eliminate the yellow fever menace and install a new regime of public health. In the new possessions the Roosevelt administration used the army to build railways, telegraph and telephone lines, and upgrade roads and port facilities.
The Philippines saw the U.S. Army for the first time using a systematic doctrine of counter-insurgency. Despite the ad hoc nature of the force deployed by Roosevelt the Army was able to end the insurgency by 1902. Over the course of the war the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built over 3000 miles of roads and worked to build an entire education system, even bringing in thousands of American teachers to spearhead the effort.
Roosevelt builds the canal and shovels dirt on Colombia
Roosevelt dramatically increased the size of the navy, forming the Great White Fleet, which toured the world in 1907. This display was designed to impress the Japanese. Yet, the ships were almost forced to return because of the inadequacy of American ports in the Pacific. See Edward S Miller,War Plan Orange (Annapolis, 1991) Roosevelt also added the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which stated that the United States could intervene in Latin American affairs when corruption of governments made it necessary.
Roosevelt gained international praise for helping negotiate the end of the Russo-Japanese War, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Roosevelt later arbitrated a dispute between France and Germany over the division of Morocco. Some historians have argued these latter two actions helped in a small way to avert a world war. The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (2005). "Theodore Roosevelt (1901â1909)". Retrieved March 6 2006.
Roosevelt's most famous foreign policy initiative, following the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, was the construction of the Panama Canal, which upon its completion shortened the route of freighters between San Francisco, California and New York City by 8,000 miles (13,000 km).
Colombia first proposed the canal in their country as opposed to rival Nicaragua, and Colombia signed a treaty for an agreed-upon sum. At the time, Panama was a province of Colombia. According to the treaty, in 1902, the U.S. was to buy out the equipment and excavations from France, which had been attempting to build a canal since 1881. While the Colombian negotiating team had signed the treaty, ratification by the Colombian Senate became problematic. The Colombian Senate balked at the price and asked for ten million dollars over the original agreed upon price. When the U.S. refused to re-negotiate the price, the Colombian politicians proposed cutting the original French company that started the project out of the deal and giving that difference to Colombia.
The original deal stipulated the French company was to be reasonably compensated. Realizing the Colombian Senate was no longer bargaining in good faith, Roosevelt tired of these last-minute attempts by the Colombians to cheat the French out of their entire investment, and ultimately decided, with the encouragement of Panamanian business interests, to help Panama declare independence from Colombia in 1903.
A brief Panamanian revolution of only a few hours followed the declaration, as Colombian soldiers were bribed $50 each to lay down their arms. On November 3, 1903, the Republic of Panama was created, with its constitution written in advance by the United States. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. signed a protection treaty with Panama. And after the signing of the treaty, a man named Nathan Johnson Forest assisted Panama with the initial planning phases for the canal. The U.S. then paid ten million to secure rights to build on, and control, the Canal Zone. Construction began in 1904 and was completed in 1914.
It took a long time to build the Panama Canal because of the rampant spread of tropical diseases. Over 200 workers died of yellow fever and malaria, spread by mosquitoes. Roosevelt initiated work on clearing swamps and other areas in which the insects bred. As the health threat finally receded, this greatly facilitated the construction of the Canal.
Roosevelt, (on the 12" gun turret at right), addresses the crew of USS Connecticut (BB18), in Hampton Roads, Virginia, upon her return from the Fleet's cruise
As Roosevelt's administration drew to a close, the president dispatched a fleet consisting of four US Navy battleship squadrons and their escorts, on a world-wide voyage of circumnavigation from December 16, 1907, to February 22, 1909. With their hulls painted white (except for the beautiful gilded scrollwork) and red, white, and blue banners on their bows, these ships would come to be known as The Great White Fleet. Roosevelt wanted to demonstrate to his country and the world that the US Navy was capable of operating in a global theater, particularly in the Pacific. This was extraordinarily important at a time when tensions were slowly growing between the United States and Japan. The latter had recently shown its navy's competence in defeating the Russians in the Russo-Japanese War, and the US Navy fleet in the west was relatively small. As a mark of the mission's success, the Atlantic Fleet battleships only later came to be known as the "Great White Fleet."
When the real Great White Fleet sailed into Yokahama, Japan, the Japanese went to extraordinary lengths to show that their country desired peace with the US. Thousands of Japanese school children waved American flags, purchased by the government, as they greeted the Navy brass coming ashore. In February 1909, the fleet returned home to Hampton Roads, Virginia, and Roosevelt was there to witness the triumphant return. His appearance indicated that he saw the fleet's long voyage as a fitting finish for his administration. Roosevelt said to the officers of the Fleet, "Other nations may do what you have done, but they'll have to follow you." This parting act of grand strategy by Roosevelt greatly expanded the respect for, as well as the role of, the United States in the international arena. However, the visit of the Great White Fleet to Tokyo also encouraged Japanese militarists. They had always argued for an even more aggressive Japanese ship building and naval expansion program, and the recent show of force by the U.S. convinced enough of their countrymen that they were right. In a real sense, this set in motion the chain of events leading to the U.S. & Japan confronting each other 30 years later - during WWII.
A Lincoln cent
Roosevelt thought American coins and currency were common and uninspiring. Roosevelt had the opportunity to pose for a young Lithuanian-born sculptor, Victor David Brenner, who, since arriving nineteen years earlier in the United States had become one of the nationâs premier medalists. Roosevelt had learned of Brenner's talents in a settlement house on New York City's Lower East Side and was immediately impressed with a bas-relief that Brenner had made of Lincoln, based on the early Civil War era photographer, Mathew Brady's photograph. Roosevelt, who considered Lincoln the savior of the Union and the greatest Republican President and who also considered himself Lincolnâs political heir, ordered the new Lincoln penny to be based on Brenner's work and that it go just in time to commemorate Lincolnâs 100th birthday in 1909. The likeness of President Lincoln on the obverse of the coin is an adaptation of a plaque Brenner executed several years earlier and which had come to the attention of President Roosevelt in New York. /ref>
Roosevelt took Cabinet members and friends on long, fast-paced hikes, boxed in the state rooms of the White House, romped with his children, and read voraciously. Hanson, David C. (2005). "Theodore Roosevelt: Lion in the White House". Retrieved March 6 2006. In 1908, he was permanently blinded in his left eye during one of his boxing bouts, but this injury was kept from the public at the time. Smith, Ira R. T.; Morris, Joe Alex (1949). "Dear Mr. President": The Story of Fifty Years in the White House Mail Room, p. 52. Julian Messner. His many enthusiastic interests and limitless energy led one ambassador to wryly explain, "You must always remember that the President is about six." Kennedy, Robert C. (2005). "'I hear there are some kids in the White House this year'". Retrieved March 6 2006.
Roosevelt shoots holes in the dictionary as the ghosts of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dr Johnson moan.
During his presidency, Roosevelt tried but did not succeed to advance the cause of simplified spelling. He tried to force government to adopt the system, sending an order to the Public Printer to use the system in all public documents. The order was obeyed, and among the documents thus printed was the President's special message regarding the Panama Canal. The New York World translated the Thanksgiving Day proclamation:
The reform annoyed the public, forcing him to rescind the order. Roosevelt's friend, literary critic Brander Matthews, one of the chief advocates of the reform, remonstrated with him for abandoning the effort. Roosevelt replied on December 16: "I could not by fighting have kept the new spelling in, and it was evidently worse than useless to go into an undignified contest when I was beaten. Do you know that the one word as to which I thought the new spelling was wrong thru was more responsible than anything else for our discomfiture?" Next summer Roosevelt was watching a naval review when a launch marked "Pres Bot" chugged ostentatiously by. The President waved and laughed with delight. Pringle 465â7
Roosevelt's oldest daughter, Alice, was a controversial character during Roosevelt's stay in the White House. When friends asked if he could rein in his elder daughter, Roosevelt said, "I can be President of the United States, or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both." In turn, Alice said of him that he always wanted to be "the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral." (Some sources attribute this quote to one of Roosevelt's sons instead.) Thayer, Chapter XIII, p. 7.
Roosevelt's contribution to the White House was the construction of the original West Wing, which he had built to free up the second floor rooms in the residence that formerly housed the president's staff. He and Edith also had the entire house renovated and restored to the federal style, tearing out the Victorian furnishings and details (including Tiffany windows) that had been installed over the previous three decades.
1902 The Washington Post political cartoon that spawned the Teddy bear name.
#In the sphere of race relations, Booker T. Washington became the first black man to dine as a guest at the White House in 1901.
#Oscar S. Straus became the first Jewish person appointed as a Cabinet Secretary, under Roosevelt.
#In August, 1902, Roosevelt became the first U.S. president to take a public automobile ride. This occurred during a parade in Hartford, Connecticut
#In 1910 he became the first U.S. President to ride in an airplane.
#On August 25, 1905 he became the first U.S. President to ride in a military submarine when he boarded the USS Holland (SS-1) and ran submerged with her for 55 minutes.
#In 1906, he made the first trip, by a President, outside the United States, visiting Panama to inspect the construction progress of the Panama Canal on November 9.
#In 1902, in response to the assassination of President William McKinley on September 6 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became the first president to be under constant Secret Service protection.
# In 1906, Roosevelt became the first American to be awarded a Nobel Prize.
#In 2001, he became the first and only President up to date to receive a Medal of Honor, making him the only person to date to win the world's highest peace honor, as well as his nation's top military honor.
#He was the first and to date only president from Long Island, New York.
#He was the first President to officially refer to the White House as such, on his official stationery. This had been the common name (referring to the color of the building), but until then, the official name was "The Executive Mansion"
#He was the first President to wear a necktie for his official Presidential Portrait.
#He was the first President to approve a coin, the Lincoln cent, with a man's face on it, in 1909, just in time for the centennial of Lincoln's birth. Lincoln was Roosevelt's presidential hero.
#He was the first President to coin an internationally recognized trademark, although not deliberately. His offhand remark, "good to the last drop," about some coffee drunk at the Maxwell House hotel in Tennessee, see Maxwell House coffee.
#He is the only president to have a famous toy named after him (the Teddy bear, named after a bear he refused to shoot in a 1902 hunt in Mississipi).
John Singer Sargent, Theodore Roosevelt, 1903; click on painting for background story.
Roosevelt appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
*Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. 1902
*William Rufus Day 1903
*William Henry Moody 1906
*Oklahoma 1907
Roosevelt standing next to a dead elephant during a safari
In March 1909, shortly after the end of his second term, Roosevelt left New York for a safari in east and central Africa. Roosevelt's party landed in Mombasa, British East Africa (now Kenya), traveled to the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) before following the Nile up to Khartoum in modern Sudan. Financed by Andrew Carnegie and by his own proposed writings, Roosevelt hunted for specimens for the Smithsonian Institution and for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. His party, which included scientists from the Smithsonian and was led by Frederick Selous, the famous big game hunter and explorer, and they killed or trapped over 11,397 animals, from insects and moles to hippopotamuses and elephants. 512 of the animals were big game animals, including six rare white rhinos. 262 of these were consumed by the expedition. Tons of salted animals and their skins were shipped to Washington; the quantity was so large that it took years to mount them all, and the Smithsonian was able to share many duplicate animals with other museums.
Regarding the large number of animals taken, Roosevelt said, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned." O'Toole, Patricia (2005) When Trumpets Call, p. 67, Simon and Schuster, ISBN 0-684-86477-0 However, although the safari was ostensibly conducted in the name of science, there was another, quite large element to it as well. In addition to many native peoples and local leaders, interaction with renowned professional hunters and land owning families made the safari as much a political and social event, as it was a hunting excursion. Roosevelt wrote a detailed account of the adventure in the book "African Game Trails", where he describes the excitement of the chase, the people he met, and the flora and fauna he collected in the name of science.
Roosevelt certified William Howard Taft to be a genuine "progressive" in 1908, when Roosevelt pushed through the nomination of his Secretary of War for the Presidency. Taft easily defeated three-time candidate William Jennings Bryan. Taft had a different progressivism, one that stressed the rule of law and preferred that judges rather than administrators or politicians make the basic decisions about fairness. Taft usually proved a less adroit politician than Roosevelt and lacked the energy and personal magnetism, not to mention the publicity devices, the dedicated supporters, and the broad base of public support that made Roosevelt so formidable. When Roosevelt realized that lowering the tariff would risk severe tensions inside the Republican Party pitting producers (manufacturers and farmers) against merchants and consumers he stopped talking about the issue. Taft ignored the risks and tackled the tariff boldly, on the one hand encouraging reformers to fight for lower rates, and then cutting deals with conservative leaders that kept overall rates high. The resulting Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909 was too high for most reformers, but instead of blaming this on Senator Nelson Aldrich and big business, Taft took credit, calling it the best tariff ever. Again he had managed to alienate all sides. While the crisis was building inside the Party, Roosevelt was touring Africa and Europe, so as to allow Taft to be his own man. Thayer, Chapter XXI, p. 10.
1909 cartoon: TR hands his policies to the care of Taft while William Loeb carries the "Big Stick"
Unlike Roosevelt, Taft never attacked business or businessmen in his rhetoric. However, he was attentive to the law, so he launched 90 antitrust suits, including one against the largest corporation, U.S. Steel, for an acquisition that Roosevelt had personally approved. Consequently, Taft lost the support of antitrust reformers (who disliked his conservative rhetoric), of big business (which disliked his actions), and of Roosevelt, who felt humiliated by his protégé. The left wing of the Republican Party began agitating against Taft. Senator Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin created the National Progressive Republican League (precursor to the Progressive Party (United States, 1924)) to defeat the power of political bossism at the state level and to replace Taft at the national level. More trouble came when Taft fired Gifford Pinchot, a leading conservationist and close ally of Roosevelt. Pinchot alleged that Taft's Secretary of Interior Richard Ballinger was in league with big timber interests. Conservationists sided with Pinchot, and Taft alienated yet another vocal constituency.
Roosevelt, back from Europe, unexpectedly launched an attack on the federal courts, which deeply upset Taft. Not only had Roosevelt alienated big business, he was also attacking both the judiciary and the deep faith Republicans had in their judges (most of whom had been appointed by McKinley, Roosevelt or Taft.) In the 1910 Congressional elections, Democrats swept to power, and Taft's reelection in 1912 was increasingly in doubt. In 1911, Taft responded with a vigorous stumping tour that allowed him to sign up most of the party leaders long before Roosevelt announced.
The battle between Taft and Roosevelt bitterly split the Republican Party; Taft's people dominated the party until 1936.
Late in 1911, Roosevelt finally broke with Taft and LaFollette and announced himself as a candidate for the Republican nomination. But Roosevelt had delayed too long, and Taft had already won the support of most party leaders in the country. Because of LaFollette's nervous breakdown on the campaign trail before Roosevelt's entry, most of LaFollette's supporters went over to Roosevelt, the new progressive Republican candidate.
Roosevelt, stepping up his attack on judges, carried nine of the states with preferential primaries, LaFollette took two, and Taft only one. The 1912 Primaries represented the first extensive use of the Presidential Primary, a reform achievement of the progressive movement. However, these primary elections, while demonstrating Roosevelt's popularity with the electorate, were in no ways as important as primaries are today. First of all, there were fewer states where the common voter was given a forum to express himself, such as a primary. Many more states selected convention delegates either at party conventions, or in caucuses, which were not as open as today's caucuses. So while the man in the street still adored Roosevelt, most professional Republican politicians were supporting Taft, and they proved difficult to upset in non-primary states.
At the Republican Convention in Chicago, despite being the incumbent, Taft's victory was not immediately assured. But after two weeks, Roosevelt, realizing he would not be able to win the nomination outright, asked his followers to leave the convention hall. They moved to the Auditorium Theatre, and then Roosevelt, along with key allies such as Pinchot and Albert Beveridge created the Progressive Party, structuring it as a permanent organization that would field complete tickets at the presidential and state level. It was popularly known as the "Bull Moose Party," which got its name after Roosevelt told reporters, "I'm as fit as a bull moose." Carl M. Cannon, The Pursuit of Happiness in Times of War, Rowman & Littlefield: 2003, p. 142. ISBN 0742525929. At the convention Roosevelt cried out, "We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord." Roosevelt's platform echoed his 1907â08 proposals, calling for vigorous government intervention to protect the people from the selfish interests. Thayer, Chapter XXII, pp. 25 31.
The bullet-damaged speech and eyeglass case on display at the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace
While campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on October 14, 1912, a saloonkeeper named John Schrank failed in an assassination attempt on Roosevelt. Schrank did shoot the former President, but the bullet lodged in Roosevelt's chest only after penetrating both his steel eyeglass case and passing through a thick (50 pages) single-folded copy of the speech he was carrying in his jacket. Accessed Dec. 21, 2007 . Roosevelt, as a very experienced hunter and anatomist, decide the fact he wasn't coughing blood meant the bullet had not completely penetrated the chest wall to his lung (he was correct), and so declined suggestions he go to the hospital immediately. Instead, he delivered his scheduled speech with blood seeping into his shirt. He spoke for ninety minutes. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Afterwards, doctors determined by probe and X-ray the bullet had traversed three inches of tissue and lodged in Roosevelt's chest muscle but did not penetrate the pleura, and it would be more dangerous to attempt to remove the bullet than to leave it in place. Roosevelt carried it with him until he died. Roosevelt Timeline
Due to the bullet wound, Roosevelt was taken off the campaign trail in the final weeks of the race (which ended election day, November 5). Though the other two campaigners stopped their own campaigns in the week Roosevelt was in the hospital, they resumed it once he was released. The overall effect of the shooting was uncertain. Roosevelt for many reasons failed to move enough Republicans in his direction. He did win 4.1 million votes (27%), compared to Taft's 3.5 million (23%). However, Wilson's 6.3 million votes (42%) were enough to garner 435 electoral votes. Roosevelt had 88 electoral votes to Taft's 8 electoral votes. (This meant that Taft became the only incumbent President in history to actually come in third place in an attempt to be re-elected.) But Pennsylvania was Roosevelt's only Eastern state; in the Midwest he carried Michigan, Minnesota and South Dakota; in the West, California and Washington; he did not win any Southern states. Although he lost, he won more votes than former presidents Martin Van Buren and Millard Fillmore who also ran again and also lost. More important, he pulled so many progressives out of the Republican party that it took on a much more conservative cast for the next generation.
The initial party. From left to right (seated): Father Zahm, Rondon, Kermit, Cherrie, Miller, four Brazilians, Roosevelt, Fiala. Only Roosevelt, Kermit, Cherrie, Rondon and the Brazilians traveled down the River of Doubt.
Roosevelt's popular book Through the Brazilian Wilderness describes his expedition into the Brazilian jungle in 1913 as a member of the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition co-named after its leader, Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon. The book describes all of the scientific discovery, scenic tropical vistas and exotic flora, fauna and wild life experienced on the expedition. A friend, Father John Augustine Zahm, had searched for new adventures and found them in the forests of South America. After a briefing of several of his own expeditions, he convinced Roosevelt to commit to such an expedition in 1912. To finance the expedition, Roosevelt received support from the American Museum of Natural History, promising to bring back many new animal specimens. Once in South America, a new far more ambitious goal was added: to find the headwaters of the Rio da Duvida, the River of Doubt, and trace it north to the Madiera and thence to the Amazon River. It was later renamed Rio Roosevelt (Rio Teodoro today, 640 km long) in honor of the former President. Roosevelt's crew consisted of his 24-year-old son Kermit, Colonel Cândido Rondon, a naturalist sent by the American Museum of Natural History named George K. Cherrie, Brazilian Lieutenant Joao Lyra, team physician Dr. José Antonio Cajazeira, and sixteen highly skilled paddlers (called camaradas in Portuguese). The initial expedition started, probably unwisely, on December 9, 1913, at the height of the rainy season. The trip down the River of Doubt started on February 27, 1914.
Roosevelt, wearing sun helmet, barely survived an expedition in 1913 into the Amazonian rain forest to trace the River of Doubt later named the Rio Roosevelt.
During the trip down the river, Roosevelt contracted malaria and a serious infection resulting from a minor leg wound. These illnesses so weakened Roosevelt that, by six weeks into the expedition, he had to be attended day and night by the expedition's physician, Dr. Cajazeira, and his son, Kermit. By this time, Roosevelt considered his own condition a threat to the survival of the others. At one point, Kermit had to talk him out of his wish to be left behind so as not to slow down the expedition, now with only a few weeks rations left. Roosevelt was having chest pains when he tried to walk, his temperature soared to 103 °F (39 °C), and at times he was delirious. He had lost over fifty pounds (20 kg). Without the constant support of his son, Kermit, Dr. Cajazeira, and the continued leadership of Colonel Rondon, Roosevelt would likely have perished. Despite his concern for Roosevelt, Rondon had been slowing down the pace of the expedition by his dedication to his own map-making and other geographical goals that demanded regular stops to fix the expedition's position via sun-based survey.
Upon his return to New York, friends and family were startled by Roosevelt's physical appearance and fatigue. Roosevelt wrote to a friend that the trip had cut his life short by ten years. He might not have really known just how accurate that analysis would prove to be, because the effects of the South America expedition had so greatly weakened him that they significantly contributed to his declining health. For the rest of his life, he would be plagued by flareups of malaria and leg inflammations so severe that they would require hospitalization. Thayer, Chapter XXIII, pp. 4â7.
When Roosevelt had recovered enough of his strength, he found that he had a new battle on his hands. In professional circles, there was doubt about his claims of having discovered and navigated a completely uncharted river over 625 miles (1,000 km) long. Roosevelt would have to defend himself and win international recognition of the expedition's newly-named Rio Roosevelt. Toward this end, Roosevelt went to Washington, D.C., and spoke at a standing-room-only convention to defend his claims. His official report and its defense silenced the critics, and he was able to triumphantly return to his home in Oyster Bay.
Despite his weakened condition and slow recovery from his South America expedition, Roosevelt continued to write with passion on subjects ranging from foreign policy to the importance of the national park system. As an editor of Outlook magazine, he had weekly access to a large, educated national audience. In all, Roosevelt wrote about 18 books (each in several editions), including his Autobiography, Rough Riders and History of the Naval War of 1812, ranching, explorations, and wildlife. His most ambitious book was the 4 volume narrative The Winning of the West, which attempted to connect the origin of a new "race" of Americans (i.e. what he considered the present population of the United States to be) to the frontier conditions their ancestors endured in throughout the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries.
Roosevelt angrily complained about the foreign policy of President Wilson, calling it "weak." This caused him to develop an intense dislike for Woodrow Wilson. When World War I began in 1914, Roosevelt strongly supported the Allies of World War I and demanded a harsher policy against Germany, especially regarding submarine warfare. In 1916, he campaigned energetically for Charles Evans Hughes and repeatedly denounced Irish-Americans and German-Americans who Roosevelt said were unpatriotic because they put the interest of Ireland and Germany ahead of America's by supporting neutrality. He insisted one had to be 100% American, not a "hyphenated American" who juggled multiple loyalties. When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, Roosevelt sought to raise a volunteer infantry division, but Wilson refused. Brands 781â4; Cramer, C.H. Newton D. Baker (1961) 110â113
Roosevelt's attacks on Wilson helped the Republicans win control of Congress in the off-year elections of 1918. Roosevelt was popular enough to seriously contest the 1920 Republican nomination, but his health was broken by 1918, because of the lingering malaria. His son Quentin, a daring pilot with the American forces in France, was shot down behind German lines in 1918. Quentin was his youngest son and probably the most liked by him. It is said the death of his son distressed him so much that Roosevelt never recovered from his loss. Dalton, (2002)p 507
Theodore Roosevelt Grave in Youngs Memorial Cemetery Oyster Bay, New York
Twenty-six steps leading to Roosevelt's grave, commemorating his service as 26th President
Despite his debilitating diseases, Roosevelt remained active to the end of his life. He was an enthusiastic proponent of the Scouting movement. The Boy Scouts of America gave him the title of Chief Scout Citizen, the only person to hold such title. One early Scout leader said, "The two things that gave Scouting great impetus and made it very popular were the uniform and Teddy Roosevelt's jingoism." Larson, Keith (2006). "Theodore Roosevelt". Retrieved March 6 2006.
On January 6, 1919, Roosevelt died in his sleep of a coronary embolism at Oyster Bay, and was buried in nearby Youngs Memorial Cemetery. Upon receiving word of his death, his son, Archie, telegraphed his siblings simply, "The old lion is dead." Dalton, (2002) p. 507 Woodrow Wilson's vice president at the time Thomas R. Marshall said of his death "Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight." Manners, William. TR and Will: A Friendship that Split the Republican Party. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1969.
Roosevelt Family in 1903 with Quentin on the left, TR, Ted, Jr., "Archie", Alice, Kermit, Edith, and Ethel
Roosevelt intensely disliked being called "Teddy," and was quick to point out this fact to those who used the nickname, though it would become widely used by newspapers during his political career. He attended the Madison Square Presbyterian Church until the age of 16. Later in life, when Roosevelt lived at Oyster Bay he attended an Episcopal church with his wife. While in Washington he attended services at Grace Reformed Church. "The Religious Affiliation of Theodore Roosevelt U.S. President". Retrieved March 7 2006. As President he firmly believed in the separation of church and state and thought it unwise to have In God We Trust on currency, because he thought it sacrilegious to put the name of the Deity on something so common as money. Reynolds, Ralph C. (1999). "In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash". Retrieved March 7 2006. He was also a Freemason, and regularly attended the Matinecock Lodge's meetings. He once said that "One of the things that so greatly attracted me to Masonry that I hailed the chance of becoming a Mason was that it really did act up to what we, as a government, are pledged to namely to treat each man on his merit as a man." Matinecock Masonic Historical Society. "History". Retrieved March 12 2006.
Roosevelt had a lifelong interest in pursuing what he called, in an 1899 speech, "the strenuous life." To this end, he exercised regularly and took up boxing, tennis, hiking, rowing, polo, and horseback riding. As governor of New York, he boxed with sparring partners several times a week, a practice he regularly continued as President until one blow detached his left retina, leaving him blind in that eye (a fact not made public until many years later). Thereafter, he practiced jujutsu and continued his habit of skinny-dipping in the Potomac River during winter. Thayer, Chapter XVII, pp. 22 24. Shaw, K.B. & Maiden, David (2006). "Theodore Roosevelt".
Retrieved March 7 2006.
Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt's estate
He was an enthusiastic singlestick player and, according to Harper's Weekly, in 1905 showed up at a White House reception with his arm bandaged after a bout with General Leonard Wood. Amberger, J Christoph, Secret History of the Sword Adventures in Ancient Martial Arts 1998, ISBN 1-892515-04-0. Roosevelt was also an avid reader, reading tens of thousands of books, at a rate of several a day in multiple languages. Along with Thomas Jefferson Roosevelt is often considered the most well read of any American politician. David H. Burton, The Learned Presidency 1988, p 12.
Roosevelt's face on Mt. Rushmore
1910 cartoon shows Roosevelt's multiple roles to 1898
1910 cartoon shows Roosevelt's multiple roles from 1899 to 1910
For his gallantry at San Juan Hill, Roosevelt's commanders recommended him for the Medal of Honor, but his subsequent telegrams to the War Department complaining about the delays in returning American troops from Cuba doomed his chances. In the late 1990s, Roosevelt's supporters again took up the flag on his behalf and overcame opposition from elements within the U.S. Army and the National Archives. On January 16, 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded Theodore Roosevelt the Medal of Honor posthumously for his charge up San Juan Hill, Cuba, during the Spanish-American War. Roosevelt's eldest son, Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., received the Medal of Honor for heroism at the Battle of Normandy in 1944. The Roosevelts thus became one of only two father-son pairs to receive this honor.
Roosevelt's legacy includes several other important commemorations. Roosevelt was included with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln at the Mount Rushmore Memorial, designed in 1927. The United States Navy named two ships for Roosevelt: the USS Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600), a submarine was in commission from 1961 to 1982; and the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), an aircraft carrier that has been on active duty in the Atlantic Fleet since 1986.
The Roosevelt Memorial Association (later the Theodore Roosevelt Association) or "TRA", was founded in 1920 to preserve Roosevelt's legacy. The Association preserved TR's birthplace, "Sagamore Hill" home, papers, and video film.
Overall, historians credit Roosevelt for changing the nation's political system by permanently placing the presidency at center stage and making character as important as the issues. His notable accomplishments include trust-busting and conservationism. However, he has been criticized for his interventionist and imperialist approach to nations he considered "uncivilized". Even so, history and legend have been kind to him. His friend, historian Henry Adams, proclaimed, "Roosevelt, more than any other living man ....showed the singular primitive quality that belongs to ultimate matter the quality that mediaeval theology assigned to God he was pure act." Historians typically rank Roosevelt among the top five presidents. The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (2005). "Biography: Impact and Legacy". Retrieved March 7 2006. "Legacy". Retrieved March 7 2006.
Roosevelt has been quoted by virtually all the major Republican and Democratic candidates for the 2008 US Presidential Election. Political pundits have brought up Roosevelt's name in book after book. The degree of discussion ranges from a single sentence by democrat Bill Richardson talking about him as "BR" breaking Roosevelt's (or "TR") 1907 single handshaking record, John Edwards mentioning Roosevelt in a fall of 2007 speech to John McCain devoting an entire chapter to him in his main background book. Even the lone candidate that did not mention Roosevelt in an autobiographical book, democrat, Joe Biden, nevertheless, began mentioning Roosevelt's taking on of corporate interests speeches in New Hampshire in the summer of 2007.
Roosevelt's 1901 saying "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick" is still being occasionally quoted by politicians and columnists in different countries - not only in English but also in translation to various other languages. For example, following the Second Lebanon War of August 2006, opponents of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accused him of "Speaking loudly and carrying a small stick".
The well-known Nicaraguan poet Rubén DarÃo published in 1905 a poem entitled A Roosevelt (To Roosevelt) which was included in Cantos de Vida y Esperanza (Songs of Life and Hope)
As a charismatic President often considered larger than life, Roosevelt has appeared in numerous fiction books, television shows, films, and other media of popular culture. Roosvelt was played by Robin Williams in the box office hit Night at the Museum and its upcoming sequel.
"Drawing the Line in Mississippi," by Clifford Berryman, referring to Roosevelt's sparing the bear.
Filmmaker John Milius also directed two films in which Roosevelt was a central character: The Wind and the Lion (1975) in which he was played by Brian Keith; and Rough Riders (1997) in which he was played by Tom Berenger. Keith's performance is widely considered to be the definitive screen depiction of Roosevelt.
Roosevelt's lasting popular legacy, however, is the stuffed toy bearsâteddy bearsânamed after him following an incident on a hunting trip in 1902. Roosevelt famously refused to kill a captured black bear simply for the sake of making a kill. Bears and later bear cubs became closely associated with Roosevelt in political cartoons thereafter. "History of the Teddy Bear". Retrieved March 7 2006.
On June 26, 2006, Roosevelt, once again, made the cover of TIME magazine with the lead story, "The Making of AmericaâTheodore RooseveltâThe 20th Century Express": "At home and abroad, Theodore Roosevelt was the locomotive President, the man who drew his flourishing nation into the future."
The Washington Nationals major league baseball team has a fan tradition called the Presidents Race. In it four caricatures of presidents Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt race against each other. A running gag has been Theodore Roosevelt's inability to win a single Presidents Race.
In 2006 Roosevelt' likeness was used in "Night at the Museum (The movie).
Theodore Roosevelt was one of the first presidents whose voice was recorded for posterity. Several of his recorded speeches survive. Vincent Voice Library at Michigan State University. Retrieved September 23, 2007.
* Roosevelt goes for first aeroplane ride in Arch Hoxsey plane 1910
*Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. father
*Martha Bulloch mother
*Eleanor Roosevelt niece, First Lady of the United States (1933â1945)
*Alice Roosevelt first wife
*Edith Carow Roosevelt second wife
*Alice Roosevelt first daughter
*Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. first son
*Kermit Roosevelt second son
*Ethel Roosevelt second daughter
*Archibald Roosevelt third son
*Quentin Roosevelt fourth son
*Elliott Roosevelt brother
*Anna Cowles sister
*Corinne Robinson sister
*Franklin D. Roosevelt, cousin, 32nd President of the United States
*Theodore Roosevelt Association 1920 organization founded to preserve Roosevelt's historical legacy
*Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia 1940 compendium of Roosevelt's key writings, sayings and conversations
*Reynier Tyson 4th great-grandfather, early German-American settler
*Panama Canal
*Great White Fleet
*Russo-Japanese War
*List of U.S. political appointments that crossed party lines
*Progressivism
*
*Auchincloss, Louis, ed. Theodore Roosevelt, The Rough Riders and an Autobiography (Library of America, 2004) ISBN 978-1-93108265-5
*Auchincloss, Louis, ed. Theodore Roosevelt, Letters and Speeches (Library of America, 2004) ISBN 978-1-93108266-2
*Brands, H.W. ed. The Selected Letters of Theodore Roosevelt. (2001)
*Harbaugh, William ed. The Writings Of Theodore Roosevelt (1967). A one-volume selection of Roosevelt's speeches and essays.
*Hart, Albert Bushnell and Herbert Ronald Ferleger, eds. Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia (1941), Roosevelt's opinions on many issues; online version at
*Morison, Elting E., John Morton Blum, and Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., eds., The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 8 vols. (1951â1954). Very large, annotated edition of letters from TR.
*Roosevelt, Theodore (1999). Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography. online at Bartleby.com.
*Roosevelt, Theodore. The Works of Theodore Roosevelt (National edition, 20 vol. 1926); 18,000 pages containing most of TR's speeches, books and essays, but not his letters; a CD-ROM edition is available; some of TR's books are available online through Project Bartleby
* Theodore Roosevelt books and speeches on Project Gutenberg
*Blum, John Morton The Republican Roosevelt. (1954). Series of essays that examine how TR did politics
*Brands, H.W. Theodore Roosevelt (2001), full biography
* Chace, James. 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft, and Debs - The Election That Changed the Country. (2004). 323 pp.
*Cooper, John Milton The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. (1983) a dual scholarly biography
*Dalton, Kathleen. Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life. (2002), full scholarly biography
* Fehn, Bruce. "Theodore Roosevelt and American Masculinity." Magazine of History (2005) 19(2): 52â59. Issn: 0882-228x Fulltext online at Ebsco. Provides a lesson plan on TR as the historical figure who most exemplifies the quality of masculinity.
*Gluck, Sherwin. "T.R.'s Summer White House, Oyster Bay." (1999) Chronicles the events of TR's presidency during the summers of his two terms.
*Gould, Lewis L. The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. (1991), standard history of his domestic and foreign policy as president
*Harbaugh, William Henry. The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt. (1963), full scholarly biography
*Keller, Morton, ed., Theodore Roosevelt: A Profile (1967) excerpts from TR and from historians.
* Kohn, Edward. "Crossing the Rubicon: Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and the 1884 Republican National Convention." Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2006 5(1): 18â45. Issn: 1537-7814 Fulltext: in History Cooperative
*Millard, Candice. River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey. (2005)
*McCullough, David. Mornings on Horseback, The Story of an Extraordinary Family. a Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt. (2001) popular biography to 1884
*Morris, Edmund The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, to 1901 (1979); vol 2: Theodore Rex 1901â1909. (2001); Pulitzer prize for Volume 1. Biography.
* Mowry, George. The Era of Theodore Roosevelt and the Birth of Modern America, 1900â1912. (1954) general survey of era; online
*Mowry, George E. Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement. (2001) focus on 1912
* O'Toole, Patricia. When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt after the White House. (2005). 494 pp.
*Powell, Jim. Bully Boy: The Truth About Theodore Roosevelt's Legacy (Crown Forum, 2006). Denounces TR policies from conservative/libertarian perspective
*Pringle, Henry F. Theodore Roosevelt (1932; 2nd ed. 1956), full scholarly biography
*Putnam, Carleton Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography, Volume I: The Formative Years (1958), only volume published, to age 28.
*Renehan, Edward J. The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War. (Oxford University Press, 1998), examines TR and his family during the World War I period
*Strock, James M. Theodore Roosevelt on Leadership. Random House, 2003.
* Watts, Sarah. Rough Rider in the White House: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of Desire. 2003. 289 pp.
*Beale Howard K. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power. (1956). standard history of his foreign policy
* Holmes, James R. Theodore Roosevelt and World Order: Police Power in International Relations. 2006. 328 pp.
* Marks III, Frederick W. Velvet on Iron: The Diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt (1979)
* David McCullough. The Path between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870â1914 (1977).
* Ricard, Serge. "The Roosevelt Corollary." Presidential Studies Quarterly 2006 36(1): 17â26. Issn: 0360-4918 Fulltext: in Swetswise and Ingenta
* Tilchin, William N. and Neu, Charles E., ed. Artists of Power: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Their Enduring Impact on U.S. Foreign Policy. Praeger, 2006. 196 pp.
* Tilchin, William N. Theodore Roosevelt and the British Empire: A Study in Presidential Statecraft (1997)
* Theodore Roosevelt Association - Founded in 1920 by Roosevelt's friends and admirers to preserve his legacy. Extensive online resources and bibliography
* Extensive essay on Theodore Roosevelt and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* NY Times Headline, January 6, 1919, Theodore Roosevelt Dies Suddenly at Oyster Bay Home; Nation Shocked, Pays Tribute to Former President; Our Flag on All Seas and in All Lands at Half Mast
* "The Early Years: The Challenge of Public Order - 1845 to 1870", by William Andrews, New York City Police Department History Site
* "Leadership of the City of New York Police Department 1845â1901", - The New York City Police Department Museum
* PBS "American Experience" Theodore Roosevelt
* My Brother Theodore Roosevelt, 1921 By Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, a bestseller with a woman's and sister's point of view on TR. Full text and Full text Search, Free to Read and Search.
* Almanac of Theodore Roosevelt
* Downloadable audio recordings of Roosevelt in MP3 format
* Audio clips of Roosevelt's speeches
* Roosevelt podcasts Audio Recording of Roosevelt's Progressive Party Acceptance Speech, "Progressive Covenant with the People" with text included.
* Quotes
* Theodore Roosevelt Works - Bartleby's Online Books
* Presidential Biography by Stanley L. Klos
*
* Index of T. Roosevelt Etexts
* Detailed biography of Theodore Roosevelt from the 1911 version of Encyclopedia Britannica
* Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Address
* State of the Union addresses for 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, and 1908
* Nobel Peace Prize 1906: Theodore Roosevelt
* Theodore Roosevelt Papers at the Library of Congress
* Theodore Roosevelt: His Life & Times on Film (LOC)
* Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
* Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site
* Sagamore Hill National Historic Site
* NobelPrize.org's entry on Theodore Roosevelt
* Congressional Medal of Honor's entry on Theodore Roosevelt; including citation and pictures
* Medal of Honor Recipients on Film
* White House biography
* Vice Presidents Dot Com
* Family and Descendants of Theodore Roosevelt
* Ron Schuler's Parlour Tricks: Teddy
* Theodore Roosevelt Links
* Theodore Roosevelt Quotes, Pictures and Biography at TeddyRoosevelt.com
* Theodore Roosevelt cylinder recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.
* On Theodore Roosevelt's progressive vision from the Roosevelt Institution, a student think tank inspired in part by Theodore Roosevelt.
* Boone and Crockett Club, founded by Theodore Roosevelt
* How to pronounce Theodore Roosevelt
* Yesterday's News blog 1901 newspaper account of Roosevelt's "Big Stick" speech at the Minnesota State Fair
* Archive of Theodore Roosevelt Pictures
* still of Theodore Roosevelt going on first aeroplane flight
* different view of Theodore Roosevelt & Arch Hoxsey in Wright aeroplane St Louis October 1910
*
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
September 14
1901
March 4
1909
Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
William Howard Taft
Vice President of the United States
March 4
1901
September 14
1901
William McKinley
Garret Hobart
Charles W. Fairbanks
List of Governors of New York
January 1
1899
December 31
1900
Timothy L. Woodruff
Frank S. Black
Benjamin Barker Odell, Jr.
New York City
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
Edith Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Bulloch Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Polymath
author
historian
conservationist
Civil servant
History of United States Republican Party
Dutch Reformed
October 27
1858
January 6
1919
President of the United States
History of the United States Republican Party
Progressivism
List of Governors of New York
United States Navy
Rough Riders
Rough Riders
Spanish-American War
Amazon Basin
William McKinley
John F. Kennedy
Progressive Era
trust-busting
trust (law)
capitalism
Square Deal
conservation
labor union
William Howard Taft
U.S. presidential election, 1912
Progressive Party (United States, 1912)
Woodrow Wilson
conservative
Panama Canal
Nobel Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
Russo-Japanese War
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
Mount Rushmore
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
Gramercy, New York
New York City
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
Martha Bulloch
Bamie Roosevelt
Elliott Roosevelt I
Eleanor Roosevelt
Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
newspaper
Joseph Alsop
Stewart Alsop
American Revolution
History of the United States Democratic Party
History of the United States Republican Party
philanthropy
Abraham Lincoln
American Civil War
slavery
Savannah, Georgia
Confederate
James Dunwoody Bulloch
U.S. Navy
Irvine Bulloch
CSS Alabama
asthma
zoology
Pinniped
taxidermy
March 6
2006
boxing
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
March 9
2006
biology
French language
German language
mathematics
Latin
Greek language
Harvard College
magna cum laude
science
philosophy
rhetoric
ornithology
eidetic memory
Alpha Delta Phi
Delta Kappa Epsilon
C.S. Hanks
Phi Beta Kappa
Columbia Law School
New York Assembly
History of the United States Republican Party
Mugwump
James G. Blaine
Grover Cleveland
History of the United States Democratic Party
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
July 29
1861
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
February 14
1884
Manhattan, New York
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Bright's disease
Typhoid fever
Dakota Territory
Badlands
Tiffany and Co.
Medora, North Dakota
Little Missouri River (North Dakota)
Dickinson
Deadwood, South Dakota
South Dakota
Sheriff
Seth Bullock
winter of 1886-1887
Sagamore Hill
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Edith Roosevelt
Mont Blanc
British Royal Society
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt III
man-of-war
broadside
Thomas Hart Benton (senator)
Gouverneur Morris
historiography
frontier thesis
Frederick Jackson Turner
American Historical Association
Nordicism
social Darwinism
racialism
Booker T. Washington
New York
Charleston
Postmaster
Indianola, Mississippi
U.S. presidential election, 1888
Benjamin Harrison
United States Civil Service Commission
spoils system
U.S. presidential election, 1892
Grover Cleveland
Bourbon Democrat
New York City Police Commissioner
August 28
2006
August 28
2006
Henry Cabot Lodge
William McKinley
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Secretary of the Navy
John D. Long
Spanish-American War
Rough Riders
Leonard Wood
Rough Riders
cowboy
Ivy League
Lieutenant Colonel
Brigadier General
Rough Riders
Rough Riders
Kettle Hill
Battle of San Juan Hill
Medal of Honor
as of 2007
machine politics
Thomas C. Platt
United States presidential election, 1900
Mark Hanna
William Jennings Bryan
Minnesota State Fair
Big stick Diplomacy
Pan-American Exposition
Buffalo, New York
William McKinley
Leon Czolgosz
September 6
1901
Mount Marcy
Ansley Wilcox
Grover Cleveland
February 2
2007
Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site
Buffalo, New York
New York
Bible
Mark Hanna
United Mine Workers of America
trust (19th century)
Trust Buster
Hepburn Act
Interstate Commerce Commission
Upton Sinclair
The Jungle
Pure Food and Drug Act
Meat Inspection Act
Millard Fillmore
Chester Arthur
Mark Hanna
Grover Cleveland
Alton B. Parker
Electoral College
Solid South
Eugene Debs
Gifford Pinchot
passenger pigeon
March 14
1903
Florida
conservation
Gifford Pinchot
United States Forest Service
national park
nature preserve
national forest
national wildlife refuge
Grand Canyon
Theodore Roosevelt National Park
Badlands
John Muir
Conference of Governors
Outdoor Life
Edward Renehan
Tweed Roosevelt
YouTube
April 23
2006
archaeology
Antiquities Act
U.S. National Monument
James F. Lacey
Edgar Lee Hewett
Devils Tower National Monument
Wyoming
geology
Christmas tree
White House
virgin forests
Cuba
Philippines
Puerto Rico
Panama Canal Zone
Walter Reed
William C. Gorgas
yellow fever
Great White Fleet
Roosevelt Corollary
Monroe Doctrine
Latin American
Russo-Japanese War
Nobel Peace Prize
France
Germany
Morocco
world war
March 6
2006
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty
Panama Canal
San Francisco, California
California
New York City
Colombia
Nicaragua
Panama
November 3
1903
Nathan Johnson Forest
US Navy
battleship
circumnavigation
December 16
1907
February 22
1909
Great White Fleet
Russians
Russo-Japanese War
U.S. Atlantic Fleet
grand strategy
Victor David Brenner
New York City
Lower East Side
American Civil War
Mathew Brady
Lincoln cent
March 6
2006
March 6
2006
simplified spelling
Brander Matthews
December 16
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
West Wing
federal style
Louis Comfort Tiffany
race relations
Booker T. Washington
White House
Oscar Straus (politician)
Hartford
Connecticut
submarine
USS Holland (SS-1)
Panama Canal
November 9
William McKinley
September 6
1901
Secret Service
Nobel Prize
Long Island
Lincoln cent
Maxwell House
Teddy bear
John Singer Sargent
President of the United States
Vice President of the United States
Charles W. Fairbanks
United States Secretary of State
John Hay
Elihu Root
Robert Bacon
United States Secretary of the Treasury
Lyman J. Gage
L. M. Shaw
George B. Cortelyou
United States Secretary of War
Elihu Root
William Howard Taft
Luke Edward Wright
Attorney General of the United States
Philander C. Knox
William Henry Moody
Charles Joseph Bonaparte
Postmaster General of the United States
Charles Emory Smith
Henry C. Payne
Robert Wynne
George B. Cortelyou
George von Lengerke Meyer
United States Secretary of the Navy
John Davis Long
William Henry Moody
Paul Morton
Charles Joseph Bonaparte
Victor H. Metcalf
Truman Handy Newberry
United States Secretary of the Interior
Ethan A. Hitchcock (Interior)
James Rudolph Garfield
United States Secretary of Agriculture
James Wilson (U.S. politician)
United States Secretary of Commerce and Labor
George B. Cortelyou
Victor H. Metcalf
Oscar Straus (politician)
Supreme Court of the United States
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
William R. Day
William Henry Moody
Oklahoma
safari
East Africa
central Africa
Mombasa
British East Africa
Kenya
Belgian Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Nile
Khartoum
Sudan
Andrew Carnegie
Smithsonian Institution
American Museum of Natural History
Frederick Selous
insect
Mole (animal)
hippopotamus
elephant
White Rhinoceros
Washington, D.C.
taxidermy
museum
National Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History
science
flora
fauna
William Howard Taft
U.S. presidential election, 1908
William Jennings Bryan
Payne-Aldrich tariff
Nelson Aldrich
William Loeb
Robert M. La Follette, Sr.
Wisconsin
Progressive Party (United States, 1924)
Gifford Pinchot
Richard Ballinger
Republican Convention
Chicago
Auditorium Building, Chicago
Pinchot
Albert Beveridge
Progressive Party 1912 (United States)
Bull Moose Party
Armageddon
statesmanship
Woodrow Wilson
monopoly
Trust (19th century)
U.S. Steel
Standard Oil
Howard Taft
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Wisconsin
October 14
1912
John Schrank
assassination
chest
steel
eyeglass
pleura
Pennsylvania
Eastern United States
Midwest
Michigan
Minnesota
South Dakota
Western United States
California
Washington
Martin Van Buren
Millard Fillmore
John Augustine Zahm
Cândido Rondon
Kermit Roosevelt
Brazil
Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition
Brazil
Cândido Rondon
John Augustine Zahm
American Museum of Natural History
River of Doubt
Amazon River
Rio Roosevelt
Cândido Rondon
American Museum of Natural History
Portuguese language
December 9
1913
February 27
1914
Rio Roosevelt
malaria
Rio Roosevelt
Oyster Bay
World War I
Allies of World War I
Germany
Charles Evans Hughes
hyphenated American
Quentin Roosevelt
Oyster Bay, New York
New York
Scouting
Boy Scouts of America
March 6
2006
January 6
1919
embolism
Archibald Roosevelt
Thomas R. Marshall
Death (personification)
Quentin Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Archibald Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Kermit Roosevelt
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Madison Square Presbyterian Church
Episcopal Church in the United States of America
Grace Reformed Church
March 7
2006
separation of church and state
In God We Trust
March 7
2006
Freemason
March 12
2006
The Strenuous Life
jujutsu
skinny-dipping
Potomac River
March 7
2006
Sagamore Hill
singlestick
Harper's Weekly
Leonard Wood
Thomas Jefferson
Mt. Rushmore
Medal of Honor
Cuba
National Archives and Records Administration
January 16
2001
Bill Clinton
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Battle of Normandy
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
Mount Rushmore
United States Navy
USS Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600)
USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71)
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
Sagamore Hill
Henry Adams
March 7
2006
March 7
2006
Joseph Biden
Second Lebanon War
Israel
Ehud Olmert
Nicaragua
Rubén DarÃo
Robin Williams
Night at the Museum
John Milius
The Wind and the Lion
Brian Keith
Rough Riders (film)
Tom Berenger
teddy bears
American black bear
March 7
2006
June 26
2006
Time (magazine)
Washington Nationals
Presidents Race
Michigan State University
Megabyte
ogg
Theora
Theora
Megabyte
ogg
Theora
Theora
Arch Hoxsey
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
Martha Bulloch
Eleanor Roosevelt
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
Edith Carow Roosevelt
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Archibald Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt
Elliott Roosevelt I
Bamie Roosevelt
Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia
Reynier Tyson
Panama Canal
Great White Fleet
Russo-Japanese War
List of U.S. political appointments that crossed party lines
Progressivism
Library of America
Library of America
Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia
Edmund Morris (writer)
Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project
University of California, Santa Barbara
think tank
Arch Hoxsey
Frank S. Black
List of Governors of New York
Benjamin B. Odell, Jr.
Garret Hobart
Vice President of the United States
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
President of the United States
William Howard Taft
Garret Hobart
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1900
Charles W. Fairbanks
William McKinley
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1904
William Howard Taft
Progressive Party (United States, 1912)
U.S. presidential election, 1912
Grover Cleveland
Oldest living United States president
William Howard Taft
President of the United States
October 27
1858
New York, New York
January 6
1919
Oyster Bay, New York
|
turtle | Are turtles ectothermic? | Yes | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Are turtles ectothermic? | yes | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Does the mother care for the young? | No | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Does the mother care for the young? | no | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Are turtles pets? | Yes | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Are turtles pets? | yes | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | What shape are the eggs of the larest species of turtle? | Spherical | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | What shape are the eggs of the larest species of turtle? | spherical | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | How often do turtles breed? | Every few years or more | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | What do all turtles and tortoises breathe? | air | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | What do all turtles and tortoises breathe? | air | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | How do turtles reproduce? | They lay eggs | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | How do turtles reproduce? | they lay eggs | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | What has been discovered about turtles organs? | They do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | What has been discovered about turtles organs? | they do not break down | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | What suborder of turtle draws its head into its shell? | Pleurodira | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | What suborder of turtle draws its head into its shell? | Pleurodira | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Do sea turtles lay eggs on dry sandy beaches? | Yes | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Do sea turtles lay eggs on dry sandy beaches? | yes | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Are Pleurodira known as side-necked turtles? | Yes | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Are Pleurodira known as side-necked turtles? | yes | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Are turtles a part of the Flying Spaghetti Monster? | *shrug* | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | How many suborders are turtles divided into? | Three. | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | How many suborders are turtles divided into? | three | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Name a turtle popularly kept as a pet. | Russian Tortoises | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Name a turtle popularly kept as a pet. | Russian Tortoises | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Name four related articles for the article on turtles. | Triassic, Ernst Haeckel, Kunstformen der Natur, Animal | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Name four related articles for the article on turtles. | Triassic, Ernst Haeckel, Kunstformen der Natur, Animal | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | If a turtle egg was kept warm, what would likely hatch? | A female turtle. | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | If a turtle egg was kept warm, what would likely hatch? | A female turtle | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | What do turles use to breathe in the water? | Papillae | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Why are side-necked turtles called side-necked turtles? | Because of the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Why are side-necked turtles called side-necked turtles? | The way they withdraw their heads into their shells. | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Do turtles lay eggs underwater? | No | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Do turtles lay eggs underwater? | no | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Are turtle eggs leathery and soft? | Yes | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Are turtle eggs leathery and soft? | yes | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Are turtles being examined for longevity genes? | Yes | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Are turtles being examined for longevity genes? | yes | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | What suborder of turtles is extinct? | Paracryptodira | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | What suborder of turtles is extinct? | Paracryptodira | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | What do turtle eggs preared to eat consist mainly of? | Yolk | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Where do sea turtles lay their eggs? | Holes Dug into the Mud or Sand | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Where do sea turtles lay their eggs? | holes dug into mud or sand | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | What is the smallest suborder of turtles? | Pleurodira | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | What is the smallest suborder of turtles? | Pleurodira | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | What are turtle eggs covered in when they incubate? | Mud or Sand | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | What are turtle eggs covered in when they incubate? | mud or sand | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | What type of creatures breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater? | Amniotes | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | What type of creatures breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater? | amnoites | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | What are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand? | eggs | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | What sort of turtles are ectothermic? | all of them | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Are turtles ectothermic? | yes | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Are the largest turtles aquatic? | yes | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Is aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles being studied? | yes | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | These projections , called papillae , have what? | a rich blood supply | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | The eggs of the largest species are what? | spherical | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Has this inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes ? | yes | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Can turtles take many years to reach breeding age ? | yes | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Are Immature sea turtles not cared for by the adults ? | yes | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Are the Pleurodira sometimes known as the side-necked turtles , a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells ? | yes | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
turtle | Does the Order Testudines not include both extant -LRB- living -RRB- and extinct species , the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago ? | yes | data/set1/a9 | turtle
Turtles are reptilians of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the crown group Chelonia), most of whose body is shielded by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs. The Order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species, the earliest known turtles being from around 215 million years ago, /ref> making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups, and a much more ancient group than lizards and snakes. About 300 species are alive today; some are highly endangered.
Like other reptiles, turtles are ectothermic (or "cold-blooded" Reptile blood isn't necessarily cold, as reptiles sun themselves and take other measures to stay warm. ). Like other amniotes (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals), they breathe air and don't lay eggs underwater, though many species live in or around water. The largest turtles are aquatic.
An American map turtle hatchling.
Even though many turtles spend large amounts of their lives underwater, all turtles and tortoises breathe air, and must surface at regular intervals to refill their lungs. They can also spend much of their lives on dry land. Aquatic respiration in Australian freshwater turtles is currently being studied. Some species have large cloacal cavities that are lined with many finger-like projections. These projections, called "papillae", have a rich blood supply, and serve to increase the surface area of the cloaca. The turtles can take up dissolved oxygen from the water using these papillae, in much the same way that fish use gills to respire.
Turtles lay eggs, like other reptiles, which are slightly soft and leathery. The eggs of the largest species are spherical, while the eggs of the rest are elongated. Their albumen is white and contains a different protein than bird eggs, such that it will not coagulate when cooked. Turtle eggs prepared to eat consist mainly of yolk. In some species, temperature determines whether an egg develops into a male or a female: a higher temperature causes a female, a lower temperature causes a male. Large numbers of eggs are deposited in holes dug into mud or sand. They are then covered and left to incubate by themselves. When the turtles hatch they squirm their way to the surface and make for the water. There are no known species wherein the mother cares for the young.
Sea turtles lay their eggs on dry sandy beaches. Immature sea turtles are not cared for by the adults. Most are endangered largely as a result of beach development and over hunting.
Turtles can take many years to reach breeding age. Often turtles only breed every few years or more.
Researchers have recently discovered a turtleâs organs do not gradually break down or become less efficient over time, unlike most other animals. It was found that the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its immature counterpart. This has inspired genetic researchers to begin examining the turtle genome for longevity genes. All but Ageless, Turtles Face Their Biggest Threat: Humans
Turtles are divided into three suborders, one of which, the Paracryptodira, is extinct. The two extant suborders are the Cryptodira and the Pleurodira. The Cryptodira is the larger of the two groups and includes all the marine turtles, the terrestrial tortoises, and many of the freshwater turtles. The Pleurodira are sometimes known as the side-necked turtles, a reference to the way they withdraw their heads into their shells. This smaller group consists primarily of various freshwater turtles.
Different animals are called turtles, tortoises, or terrapins in different varieties of English
Turtles, particularly small terrestrial and freshwater turtles, are commonly kept as pets. Among the most popular are Russian Tortoises, Greek spur-thighed tortoises and red-ear sliders (or terrapin). David Alderton (1986). An Interpet Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians, Salamander Books Ltd., London & New York.
*Addyaita: a giant turtle of Aldabra. It was reportedly 250-years old when it died at Kolkata Zoo on March 24, 2005.
*Araripemys arturi
*List of Testudines families
*Pet turtles
*Red-eared slider: most common pet turtle
*Sea Turtles
*Turtle racing
* Iskandar, DT (2000). Turtles and Crocodiles of Insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea. ITB, Bandung.
* Pritchard, Pether C H (1979). Encyclopedia of Turtles. T.F.H. Publications.
* UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
* Turtles of the World: Extensive information on all known turtles, tortoises and terrapins, including key and quiz.
* Chelonian studbook Collection and display of the weights/sizes of captive turtles
* John M. Legler & Arthur Georges, Biogeography and Phylogeny of the Chelonia (taxonomy, maps)
* Lake Jackson Ecopassage - Building an ecopassage on the world's worst turtle-killing highway
* Biology of the North American Wood Turtle Anatomy to Zoology
* Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle found in Mekong Delta
* - A website on all pet turtle species including a guide on caring for your turtles.
* - Gulf Coast Turtle & Tortoise Society, A group dedicated to education & proper captive husbandry of turtles and tortoises.
Related Wikipedia Articles
Triassic
Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur
Animal
Chordate
Sauropsida
Carolus Linnaeus
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
reptilian
Order (biology)
crown group
bone
cartilage
animal shell
rib
extinct
million
group
lizard
snake
species
endangered species
ectothermic
amniotes
Graptemys
cloacal
papillae
oxygen
gill
egg (biology)
suborder
Paracryptodira
extinct
Extant taxon
Cryptodira
Pleurodira
Agrionemys horsfieldii
Testudo graeca
Trachemys scripta
Addyaita
Aldabra
Kolkata
March 24
2005
Araripemys arturi
List of Testudines families
Pet turtles
Red-eared slider
Sea Turtles
Turtle racing
|
Ulysses_S._Grant | Was Ulysses Grant a general in the American Civil War? | Yes | data/set3/a5 | Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, See military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 July 23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869 1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
Grant first reached national prominence by taking Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862 in the first Union victories of the war. The following year, his brilliant campaign ending in the surrender of Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi andâwith the simultaneous Union victory at Gettysburgâturned the tide of the war in the North's favor. Named commanding general of the Federal armies in 1864, he implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's ability to carry on the war. In 1865, after conducting a costly war of attrition in the East, he accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. Grant has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.
In 1868, Grant was elected president as a Republican. Grant was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed.
Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans. See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.
Ulysses Grant Birthplace, Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home, Georgetown, Ohio
Grant was born in a log cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794 1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798 1883). His father, a tanner, was from Pennsylvania, and his mother was born in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio.
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826 1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (Buck), Ellen Wrenshall Grant (Nellie), and Jesse Root Grant.
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only. Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.
Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846â1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, later becoming his brother-in-law, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.
After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the 4th U.S. Infantry regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial. According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name." McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican War
A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys). His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. McFeely, ch. 5.
Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican. Hesseltine, chapter 6. .
The home of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Infantry in June 1861.
Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.
In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.
Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederates violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, an old friend of Grant's and a West Point classmate, and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers. Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.
Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased against him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.
General Grant at Cold Harbor, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864
In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.
The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in Corinth, Mississippi. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Corinth and Iuka that fall.
In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant spent the winter of 1862 1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.
However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and in a daring move that defied conventional military principles cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles A. Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George H. Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas' chief engineer, William F. "Baldy" Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.
Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas' men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.
Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet appointment), recently re-authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.
In March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.
Poster of "Grant from West Point to Appomattox."
Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.
The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River.
Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a siege.
As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas.
At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democrats who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius: Korda, (2004)
After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army. Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.''
As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.
The second president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In the 1872 election he won by a landslide against the breakaway Liberal Republican party that nominated Horace Greeley.
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed .
Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006. Grant also signed into law making Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application, CRS Report for Congress, 98-301 GOV, updated February 8, 1999, by Stephen W. Stathis
The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.
By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker. Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes: Nevins, Fish 2:811
In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson .
The Grant administration's first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Act to Strengthen the Public Credit which the GOP Congress had passed after Grant ` s inaugural in March 1869 . The act had the effect that the gold price on New York exchange fell to 310 dollar an ounce - the lowest point since the suspension of specie payment in 1862 .
As Jean Edward Smith notes in his 2002 biography on Grant, the presidential treasury secretary Boutwell reorganized the Treasury by discharging unnecessary employees, started sweeping changes in Bureau of Printing and Engraving to protect the currency from counterfeiters and revitalized tax collections to hasten the collection of revenue. This changes soon led the Tresury having a monthly surplus .
The Grant administration reduced the debt by appromixately 435 million dollar. That was achieved by selling the growing gold surplus at weekly auctions for greenbacks and buying back wartime bonds with the currency . With this Grant ` s treasury secretary Boutwell had established a policy if continued had payed of the national debt in a quarter of a century . Newspapers like the New York Tribune wanted that the Government buy more bonds and Greenbacks, the New York Times praised the the Grant administration `s debt policy .
On other economic fronts did the Grant administration have acomplishments . Under
Grant the nation `s credit was substantially raised. Taxes was reduced by 300 million dollar. Annual interest rates were reduced by approximately 30 million dollar . The U . S balance of trade was changed from 130 million dollar against the United States to 120 million dollar in favor of the United States . He also reduced inflation and to 1873 bolstered economic recovery . He also promoted economy in federal expenditures . His veto of the Inflation Bill in 1874 saved the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 to get worse and the veto was praised by the financial community and many newspapers .
The Resumption of Species Act of 1875 which was signed by Grant and helped to end the crisis in 1879 when the law came in to effect
He also pressed for internal improvements and increased shipbuilding and foreign trade. He also wanted to enhance and improve the commercial marine .
Grant/Wilson campaign poster
In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington, negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He also proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Santo Domingo. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia. Liberian-Grebo War of 1876
The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud. However, Grant eventually released large amounts of gold back onto the market, causing a large-scale financial crisis for many gold investors. Jay Gould had already prepared and quietly sold out while Fisk denied many agreements and hired thugs to intimidate his creditors.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.
Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first vice president, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.
President Grant with his wife, Julia, and son, Jesse, in 1872.
Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."
Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11, issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:
The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart â opportunistic traders who were Jewish. McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed [...] he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."
The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 presidential campaign, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.
Grant's second inauguration as President by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.
Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
* Edwin M. Stanton 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
* William Strong 1870
* Joseph P. Bradley 1870
* Ward Hunt 1873
* Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice) 1874
* Colorado August 1, 1876
* Department of Justice (1870)
* Office of the Solicitor General (1870)
* "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
* Office of the Surgeon General (1871)
* Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)
Ulysses S. Grant in his postbellum.
After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress ShÅken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.
In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.
That same year, Grant was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.
Grant writing his memoirs.
In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
Grant appears on the U.S. $50 bill.
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. It was not until 1958 that Congress, feeling it inappropriate that a former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting a pension to such individuals, a practice that continues to this day. Grant first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and Grant's memoirs are also regarded by such writers as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request, "Water." His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America.
Statue of Grant astride his favorite mount, "Cincinnati", at Vicksburg, Mississippi
*In World War II, the United States produced a tank known as the Grant tank (an upgrade of the American M3 "Lee").
*Grant's portrait appears on the U.S. fifty-dollar bill.
*The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., honors Grant.
*Grant Park in Chicago honors Grant.
*Grant Avenue, a nine block long, north-south street in the Bronx, New York, is named after Grant. It is parallel and adjacent to Sherman Avenue.
*Dupont Street, the main thoroughfare in San Francisco's Chinatown, was renamed Grant Avenue in his honor. The famous dragon gate at the entrance to the district is at the corner of Grant and Bush Street.
*Grant, depicted riding a horse, is honored by a statue at the intersection of Bedford Avenue, Rogers Avenue and Dean Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
*There is a U.S. Grant Bridge over the Ohio River at Portsmouth, Ohio.
*There is a U.S. Grant Memorial Highway (US 52) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
*Counties in twelve U.S. states are named after Grant: Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Grant Parish, Louisiana. Note: Grant Counties in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin were named after other Grants, not Ulysses Grant.
* Grant was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren
* Grant is also a descendant from John Lothropp, who is also an ancestor to Benjamin Franklin
Grant Memorial Statue in Grant Park, Galena, Illinois. Julia Grant remarked that it was the best likeness of her husband, as his hands were thrust into his pockets.
* As a young man, Grant's father, Jesse, taught him the trade of tanning. Jesse Grant had been taught how to tan by Owen Brown, the father of known abolitionist John Brown. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* When Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1864, he agreed to sit down for photographer Mathew Brady. As the sun had begun to set by the time Grant arrived, Brady instructed one of his assistants to open the shades of the skylight in Brady's studio. The assistant slipped and shattered the skylight, causing two-inch-thick shards of glass to rain down around Grant, who had taken his seat as requested. He was unharmed, and showed "the most remarkable display of nerve" that Brady had ever seen. O'Brien, Cormac (2007). "Secret Lives of the Civil War: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the War Between the States".
* Grant was known to visit the Willard Hotel to escape the stress of the White House. A long-standing story is that he referred to the people who approached him in the lobby as "those darn lobbyists," implying that he was the source for the term lobbyist. This story is unlikely to be true since there are examples of the term being used in U.S. and British magazines and newspapers before Grant's presidency. World Wide Words.
* While in California, Grant tried selling ice to San Francisco, but failed when it melted in the warm weather aboard the ship. Smith, Grant, p. 81. . This anecdote is disputed by Edward G. Longacre in "General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man" (2006) in which he says -- in a referenced statement -- that the ice venture had failed because of "an unexpected glut of [ice] imports from Alaska."
* In 1883, Grant was elected the eighth president of the National Rifle Association.
* Grant suffered from tone-deafness. He disliked music intensely and would go out of his way to avoid having to hear any other than patriotic songs. In Jeffrey Shaara's The Last Full Measure - which is set after the Battle of Gettysburg, the subject of his father Michael's 1974 bestseller The Killer Angels - Grant is portrayed as saying, "I know only two songs. One is 'Yankee Doodle'. The other isn't." Whether he actually said this is unclear. Shaara, Jeffrey M. (1998). "The Last Full Measure".
* Grant's wife, First Lady Julia Grant, was cross-eyed. When it was suggested to her that she have an operation to have it corrected, President Grant replied that he liked her that way. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* Grant's favorite brand of bourbon whiskey was Old Crow.
* Grant enjoyed eating cucumbers soaked in vinegar for breakfast.
* An apocryphal story about Grant's drinking has the general's critics going to President Lincoln, charging the military man with being a drunk. Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."
:* A similar story was told of General James Wolfe during the French and Indian Wars. When King George II was told that Wolfe was a "mad dog", he is said to have replied, "Then I'd wish he'd bite the other generals."
* The question "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" was used by Groucho Marx in his radio and TV quiz show, the correct answer to which resulted in a consolation prize to contestants who had won no money. Some contestants thought it was a trick question. Grant's grandson, Ulysses S. Grant IV (a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles) appeared on the program on March 12, 1953.
** This was also featured on an episode of the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, in which in a dream sequence Dorothy competes on Jeopardy against a scholar and her roommate Rose. When asked the question, Dorothy replies Ulysses and is wrong, while Rose replies Cary Grant and is correct.
* In the film Wild Wild West, President Grant is a minor character that must deal with the Loveless Alliance.
Once while in office he was arrested for speeding his horse and buggy and fined $20 and had to walk back to the white house. (www.pocanticohills.org/presidents/know.htm )
* A dispute between Grant and his commanding officer Henry Wager Halleck is the subject of a pivotal question in the film Quiz Show.
* United States presidential election, 1868
* United States presidential election, 1872
* History of the United States (1865â1918)
* Western Theater of the American Civil War
* Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
* U.S. Grant Home, Galena, Illinois
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command, Little, Brown and Company, 1968, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 69-12632.
*Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Garland, Hamlin, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character, Macmillan Company, 1898.
*Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885 86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
*Hesseltine, William B., Ulysses S. Grant: Politician 1935.
* Lewis, Lloyd, Captain Sam Grant, Little, Brown, and Co., 1950, ISBN 0-316-52348-8.
* McFeely, William S., Grant: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Co, 1981, ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
* McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
* Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-395-65994-9.
*Smith, Jean Edward, Grant, Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
*Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861 1865, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
* Official Ulysses Simpson Grant biography from the US Army Center for Military History
* Bunting III, Josiah. Ulysses S. Grant (2004) ISBN 0-8050-6949-6
* William Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 (1905), vol 22
* Hesseltine, William B. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (2001) ISBN 1-931313-85-7 online edition
* Mantell, Martin E., Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
* Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936) online edition
* Rhodes, James Ford., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6 and 7 (1920) vol 6
* Scaturro, Frank J., President Grant Reconsidered (1998).
* Schouler, James., History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
* Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
* Simpson, Brooks D., The Reconstruction Presidents (1998)
* Skidmore, Max J. "The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: a Reconsideration." White House Studies (2005) online
* Badeau, Adam. Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 vols. 1882.
*Ballard, Michael B., Vicksburg, The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-2893-9.
* Bearss, Edwin C., The Vicksburg Campaign, 3 volumes, Morningside Press, 1991, ISBN 0-89029-308-2.
* Carter, Samuel III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863 (1980)
* Catton, Bruce, Grant Moves South, 1960, ISBN 0-316-13207-1; Grant Takes Command, 1968, ISBN 0-316-13210-1; U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954)
* Cavanaugh, Michael A., and William Marvel, The Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of the Crater: "The Horrid Pit," June 25-August 6, 1864 (1989)
* Conger, A. L. The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931)
* Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg (1986).
* Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
* Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
* Korda, Michael. Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (2004) 161 pp
* McWhiney, Grady, Battle in the Wilderness: Grant Meets Lee (1995)
* McDonough, James Lee, Shiloh: In Hell before Night (1977).
* McDonough, James Lee, Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy (1984).
* Maney, R. Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor. Victory and Failure, 1864 (1994).
* Matter, William D., If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (1988)
* Miers, Earl Schenck., The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg. 1955.
* Mosier, John., "Grant", Palgrave MacMillan, 2006 ISBN 1-4039-7136-6.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5 6, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8071-1873-7.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7 12, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8071-2136-3.
* Rhea, Gordon C., To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13 25, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8071-2535-0.
* Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.
* Miller, J. Michael, The North Anna Campaign: "Even to Hell Itself," May 21-26, 1864 (1989).
* Simpson, Brooks D, "Continuous Hammering and Mere Attrition: Lost Cause Critics and the Military Reputation of Ulysses S. Grant," in Cad Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, (2000)
* Steere, Edward, The Wilderness Campaign (1960)
* Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April. 1974.
* Williams, T. Harry, McClellan, Sherman and Grant. 1962.
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs (1885) online edition
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters (Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely, eds.) ( The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-94045058-5
* Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) pp 131-73, on the Memoirs
* Johnson, R. U., and Buel, C. C., eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York, 1887-88; essays by leading generals of both sides; online edition
* Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant (1897, reprinted 2000)
* Sherman, William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. 2 vols. 1875.
* Simon, John Y., ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Southern Illinois University Press (1967- ) multivolume complete edition of letters to and from Grant. As of 2006, vol 1-28 covers through September 1878.
* Extensive essay on Ulysses S. Grant and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* First Inaugural Address
* Second Inaugural Address
* White House Biography
* Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
*Emerson, Col. John W., Grant's Life in the West and His Mississippi Valley Campaigns, U.S. Grant Association website.
* Ulysses S. Grant at Find A Grave
* Many rare General Grant photographs
* Complete Bibliography
* Military biography of Ulysses S. Grant from the Cullum biographies
*
* The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. (1918). "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.
* Collection of US Grant Letters
* Ulysses S. Grant: America's Second Three-Star General article by Ethan Rafuse
* Historic White Haven (Grant-Dent home)
*
|-
|-
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
Andrew Johnson
Rutherford B. Hayes
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Julia Grant
Jesse Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Nellie Grant
Frederick Grant
General-in-Chief
List of United States Presidential religious affiliations
Republican Party (United States)
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
#Military career
April 27
1822
July 23
1885
United States
President of the United States
Union (American Civil War)
American Civil War
Battle of Vicksburg
Confederate
Robert E. Lee
Appomattox Court House
J.F.C. Fuller
Vicksburg Campaign
History of the United States Republican Party
Andrew Jackson
Radical Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Civil Rights
African American history
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home
Georgetown, Ohio
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio River
Pennsylvania
Horsham Township, Pennsylvania
Georgetown, Ohio
Brown County, Ohio
August 22
1848
Julia Boggs Dent
Frederick Dent Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Ellen Wrenshall Grant
Jesse Root Grant
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Mathew Brady
United States Army
Army of the Tennessee
Military Division of the Mississippi
United States Army
United States Army
Mexican-American War
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
American Civil War
Battle of Fort Donelson
Battle of Shiloh
Battle of Vicksburg
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Overland Campaign
Battle of Petersburg
Appomattox Campaign
President of the United States
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
U.S. Congressman
Thomas L. Hamer
Academic administration
March 31
1853
cavalry
Mexican-American War
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
Fort Vancouver
Washington Territory
U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
July 31
1854
Robert C. Buchanan
John Eaton (General)
St. Louis, Missouri
Grant's Farm
Anheuser-Busch
Galena, Illinois
James Buchanan
John C. Frémont
Stephen A. Douglas
Elihu B. Washburne
April 28
2007
War Democrats
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Galena, Illinois
Fort Sumter
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
Illinois
Richard Yates (governor)
21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
Claiborne Jackson
John C. Frémont
Ohio River
Paducah, Kentucky
Confederate States Army
Columbus, Kentucky
Gideon J. Pillow
Battle of Belmont
Andrew H. Foote
Battle of Fort Henry
Tennessee River
Battle of Fort Donelson
Cumberland River
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Henry W. Halleck
Nashville, Tennessee
Don Carlos Buell
March 2
March 17
Battle of Cold Harbor
Mathew Brady
Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard
Battle of Shiloh
April 30
First Battle of Corinth
William T. Sherman
Army of West Tennessee
Army of the Tennessee
June 10
Second Battle of Corinth
Battle of Iuka
Mississippi River
Vicksburg Campaign
U.S. Navy
Charles Anderson Dana
hardtack
John C. Pemberton
Jackson, Mississippi
Battle of Champion Hill
Battle of Vicksburg
July 4
1863
Battle of Gettysburg
Turning point of the American Civil War
July 4
Battle of Chickamauga
William S. Rosecrans
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Braxton Bragg
Lookout Mountain
October 17
George Henry Thomas
William Farrar Smith
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Missionary Ridge
Atlanta, Georgia
Lieutenant General (United States)
George Washington
Winfield Scott
brevet (military)
Congress of the United States
March 2
1864
March 12
United States
William Tecumseh Sherman
Virginia
Army of Northern Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
George G. Meade
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Franz Sigel
Shenandoah Valley
Georgia (U.S. state)
Joseph E. Johnston
Atlanta
George Crook
William W. Averell
West Virginia
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Mobile, Alabama
total war
Overland Campaign
Robert E. Lee
May 4
1864
Army of the Potomac
Rapidan River
Army of Northern Virginia
Battle of the Wilderness
Spotsylvania, Virginia
May 8
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 11
May 12
Battle of Cold Harbor
June 3
James River (Virginia)
Petersburg, Virginia
June 18
Siege of Petersburg
William Tecumseh Sherman
Abraham Lincoln
Jubal A. Early
Shenandoah Valley
Washington, D.C.
Administration (government)
Philip Sheridan
Valley Campaigns of 1864
Sherman's March to the Sea
total war
Carolinas Campaign
Appomattox Court House
April 9
1865
Kirby Smith
Trans-Mississippi Department
June 2
1865
Copperheads
Democratic Party (United States)
July 25
1866
General of the Army of the United States
U.S. Army
Andrew Johnson
Edwin M. Stanton
Tenure of Office Act
History of the United States Republican Party
Republican National Convention
Chicago
U.S. presidential election, 1868
Horatio Seymour
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
United States presidential election, 1872
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Horace Greeley
Reconstruction
Redeemers
Ku Klux Klan
voting rights
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Dominican Republic
Yellowstone National Park
March 1
1872
March 29
2006
Christmas
February 8
1999
Panic of 1873
Robert Schenck
Rutherford B. Hayes
Samuel J. Tilden
U.S. presidential election, 1876
Henry Watterson
Treaty of Washington (1871)
Hamilton Fish
CSS Alabama
Dominican Republic
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Charles Sumner
Horace Greeley
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Liberian-Grebo War
USS Alaska (1868)
Liberia
James Milton Turner
Black Friday (1869)
Jay Gould
James Fisk (financier)
Whiskey Ring
Benjamin H. Bristow
Orville E. Babcock
United States Secretary of War
William W. Belknap
Native Americans in the United States
trading post
Sanborn Incident
William Adams Richardson
Cyrus I. Scofield
Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Vice President of the United States
Schuyler Colfax
United States presidential election, 1872
Henry Wilson
Julia Grant
Jesse Root Grant
anti-Semitism
General Order No. 11 (1862)
Oxford, Mississippi
December 17
1862
Vicksburg Campaign
Tennessee
Mississippi
Kentucky
James H. Wilson
Bertram Korn
U.S. presidential election, 1868
President of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
Salmon P. Chase
March 4
1873
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
Elihu B. Washburne
Hamilton Fish
John A. Rawlins
William T. Sherman
William W. Belknap
Alphonso Taft
J. Donald Cameron
George S. Boutwell
William Adams Richardson
Benjamin Bristow
Lot M. Morrill
Ebenezer R. Hoar
Amos T. Akerman
George Henry Williams
Edwards Pierrepont
Alphonso Taft
John A. J. Creswell
James William Marshall
Marshall Jewell
James N. Tyner
Adolph E. Borie
George M. Robeson
Jacob D. Cox
Columbus Delano
Zachariah Chandler
Supreme Court of the United States
Edwin M. Stanton
William Strong (judge)
Joseph P. Bradley
Ward Hunt
Morrison Remick Waite
Chief Justice of the United States
Colorado
August 1
1876
United States Department of Justice
United States Solicitor General
Chester A. Arthur
Office of Personnel Management
Surgeon General of the United States
National Weather Service
Queen Victoria
Windsor Castle
Prince Bismarck
Emperor Meiji
Empress ShÅken
Imperial Palace
Tokyo
Meiji period
Ryukyu Islands
China
Stalwart (politics)
Roscoe Conkling
Methodist
Republican National Convention
James A. Garfield
New York City
Ferdinand Ward
Wall Street
Grant & Ward
Esophageal cancer
pension
The Century Magazine
Mark Twain
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Julius Caesar
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
New York City
Riverside Park (Manhattan)
General Grant National Memorial
mausoleum
North America
World War II
tank
Grant tank
U.S. fifty-dollar bill
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Grant Park (Chicago)
Chicago
the Bronx
New York
San Francisco, California
Chinatown, San Francisco, California
Bedford Avenue
Crown Heights
Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. Grant Bridge
Ohio River
Portsmouth, Ohio
U.S. Route 52
Counties of the United States
U.S. state
Grant County, Arkansas
Grant County, Kansas
Grant County, Minnesota
Grant County, Nebraska
Grant County, New Mexico
Grant County, North Dakota
Grant County, Oklahoma
Grant County, Washington
Grant County, West Virginia
Grant Parish, Louisiana
Mayflower
Richard Warren
John Lothropp
Benjamin Franklin
abolitionist
John Brown (abolitionist)
Mathew Brady
Willard Hotel
lobbyist
San Francisco
National Rifle Association
Jeffrey Shaara
The Last Full Measure
Michael Shaara
The Killer Angels
First Lady of the United States
Julia Grant
Strabismus
bourbon whiskey
Old Crow
cucumbers
vinegar
breakfast
James Wolfe
French and Indian Wars
King George II
Groucho Marx
You Bet Your Life
Ulysses S. Grant IV
University of California, Los Angeles
The Golden Girls
Cary Grant
Wild Wild West
Henry Wager Halleck
Quiz Show
United States presidential election, 1868
United States presidential election, 1872
History of the United States (1865-1918)
Western Theater of the American Civil War
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
James M. McPherson
Jean Edward Smith
Allan Nevins
Ed Bearss
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
Find A Grave
West Point#Cullum Number
Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Rutherford B. Hayes
Abraham Lincoln
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1868
U.S. presidential election, 1872
Rutherford B. Hayes
Army of the Tennessee
William T. Sherman
Henry W. Halleck
Commanding General of the United States Army
Andrew Johnson
Oldest living United States president
Rutherford B. Hayes
United States
soldier
politician
President of the United States
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
|
Ulysses_S._Grant | Was Ulysses Grant a general in the American Civil War? | yes | data/set3/a5 | Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, See military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 July 23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869 1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
Grant first reached national prominence by taking Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862 in the first Union victories of the war. The following year, his brilliant campaign ending in the surrender of Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi andâwith the simultaneous Union victory at Gettysburgâturned the tide of the war in the North's favor. Named commanding general of the Federal armies in 1864, he implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's ability to carry on the war. In 1865, after conducting a costly war of attrition in the East, he accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. Grant has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.
In 1868, Grant was elected president as a Republican. Grant was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed.
Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans. See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.
Ulysses Grant Birthplace, Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home, Georgetown, Ohio
Grant was born in a log cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794 1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798 1883). His father, a tanner, was from Pennsylvania, and his mother was born in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio.
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826 1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (Buck), Ellen Wrenshall Grant (Nellie), and Jesse Root Grant.
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only. Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.
Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846â1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, later becoming his brother-in-law, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.
After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the 4th U.S. Infantry regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial. According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name." McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican War
A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys). His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. McFeely, ch. 5.
Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican. Hesseltine, chapter 6. .
The home of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Infantry in June 1861.
Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.
In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.
Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederates violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, an old friend of Grant's and a West Point classmate, and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers. Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.
Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased against him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.
General Grant at Cold Harbor, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864
In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.
The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in Corinth, Mississippi. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Corinth and Iuka that fall.
In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant spent the winter of 1862 1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.
However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and in a daring move that defied conventional military principles cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles A. Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George H. Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas' chief engineer, William F. "Baldy" Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.
Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas' men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.
Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet appointment), recently re-authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.
In March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.
Poster of "Grant from West Point to Appomattox."
Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.
The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River.
Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a siege.
As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas.
At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democrats who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius: Korda, (2004)
After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army. Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.''
As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.
The second president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In the 1872 election he won by a landslide against the breakaway Liberal Republican party that nominated Horace Greeley.
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed .
Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006. Grant also signed into law making Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application, CRS Report for Congress, 98-301 GOV, updated February 8, 1999, by Stephen W. Stathis
The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.
By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker. Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes: Nevins, Fish 2:811
In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson .
The Grant administration's first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Act to Strengthen the Public Credit which the GOP Congress had passed after Grant ` s inaugural in March 1869 . The act had the effect that the gold price on New York exchange fell to 310 dollar an ounce - the lowest point since the suspension of specie payment in 1862 .
As Jean Edward Smith notes in his 2002 biography on Grant, the presidential treasury secretary Boutwell reorganized the Treasury by discharging unnecessary employees, started sweeping changes in Bureau of Printing and Engraving to protect the currency from counterfeiters and revitalized tax collections to hasten the collection of revenue. This changes soon led the Tresury having a monthly surplus .
The Grant administration reduced the debt by appromixately 435 million dollar. That was achieved by selling the growing gold surplus at weekly auctions for greenbacks and buying back wartime bonds with the currency . With this Grant ` s treasury secretary Boutwell had established a policy if continued had payed of the national debt in a quarter of a century . Newspapers like the New York Tribune wanted that the Government buy more bonds and Greenbacks, the New York Times praised the the Grant administration `s debt policy .
On other economic fronts did the Grant administration have acomplishments . Under
Grant the nation `s credit was substantially raised. Taxes was reduced by 300 million dollar. Annual interest rates were reduced by approximately 30 million dollar . The U . S balance of trade was changed from 130 million dollar against the United States to 120 million dollar in favor of the United States . He also reduced inflation and to 1873 bolstered economic recovery . He also promoted economy in federal expenditures . His veto of the Inflation Bill in 1874 saved the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 to get worse and the veto was praised by the financial community and many newspapers .
The Resumption of Species Act of 1875 which was signed by Grant and helped to end the crisis in 1879 when the law came in to effect
He also pressed for internal improvements and increased shipbuilding and foreign trade. He also wanted to enhance and improve the commercial marine .
Grant/Wilson campaign poster
In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington, negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He also proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Santo Domingo. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia. Liberian-Grebo War of 1876
The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud. However, Grant eventually released large amounts of gold back onto the market, causing a large-scale financial crisis for many gold investors. Jay Gould had already prepared and quietly sold out while Fisk denied many agreements and hired thugs to intimidate his creditors.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.
Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first vice president, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.
President Grant with his wife, Julia, and son, Jesse, in 1872.
Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."
Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11, issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:
The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart â opportunistic traders who were Jewish. McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed [...] he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."
The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 presidential campaign, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.
Grant's second inauguration as President by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.
Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
* Edwin M. Stanton 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
* William Strong 1870
* Joseph P. Bradley 1870
* Ward Hunt 1873
* Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice) 1874
* Colorado August 1, 1876
* Department of Justice (1870)
* Office of the Solicitor General (1870)
* "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
* Office of the Surgeon General (1871)
* Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)
Ulysses S. Grant in his postbellum.
After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress ShÅken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.
In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.
That same year, Grant was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.
Grant writing his memoirs.
In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
Grant appears on the U.S. $50 bill.
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. It was not until 1958 that Congress, feeling it inappropriate that a former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting a pension to such individuals, a practice that continues to this day. Grant first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and Grant's memoirs are also regarded by such writers as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request, "Water." His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America.
Statue of Grant astride his favorite mount, "Cincinnati", at Vicksburg, Mississippi
*In World War II, the United States produced a tank known as the Grant tank (an upgrade of the American M3 "Lee").
*Grant's portrait appears on the U.S. fifty-dollar bill.
*The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., honors Grant.
*Grant Park in Chicago honors Grant.
*Grant Avenue, a nine block long, north-south street in the Bronx, New York, is named after Grant. It is parallel and adjacent to Sherman Avenue.
*Dupont Street, the main thoroughfare in San Francisco's Chinatown, was renamed Grant Avenue in his honor. The famous dragon gate at the entrance to the district is at the corner of Grant and Bush Street.
*Grant, depicted riding a horse, is honored by a statue at the intersection of Bedford Avenue, Rogers Avenue and Dean Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
*There is a U.S. Grant Bridge over the Ohio River at Portsmouth, Ohio.
*There is a U.S. Grant Memorial Highway (US 52) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
*Counties in twelve U.S. states are named after Grant: Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Grant Parish, Louisiana. Note: Grant Counties in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin were named after other Grants, not Ulysses Grant.
* Grant was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren
* Grant is also a descendant from John Lothropp, who is also an ancestor to Benjamin Franklin
Grant Memorial Statue in Grant Park, Galena, Illinois. Julia Grant remarked that it was the best likeness of her husband, as his hands were thrust into his pockets.
* As a young man, Grant's father, Jesse, taught him the trade of tanning. Jesse Grant had been taught how to tan by Owen Brown, the father of known abolitionist John Brown. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* When Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1864, he agreed to sit down for photographer Mathew Brady. As the sun had begun to set by the time Grant arrived, Brady instructed one of his assistants to open the shades of the skylight in Brady's studio. The assistant slipped and shattered the skylight, causing two-inch-thick shards of glass to rain down around Grant, who had taken his seat as requested. He was unharmed, and showed "the most remarkable display of nerve" that Brady had ever seen. O'Brien, Cormac (2007). "Secret Lives of the Civil War: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the War Between the States".
* Grant was known to visit the Willard Hotel to escape the stress of the White House. A long-standing story is that he referred to the people who approached him in the lobby as "those darn lobbyists," implying that he was the source for the term lobbyist. This story is unlikely to be true since there are examples of the term being used in U.S. and British magazines and newspapers before Grant's presidency. World Wide Words.
* While in California, Grant tried selling ice to San Francisco, but failed when it melted in the warm weather aboard the ship. Smith, Grant, p. 81. . This anecdote is disputed by Edward G. Longacre in "General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man" (2006) in which he says -- in a referenced statement -- that the ice venture had failed because of "an unexpected glut of [ice] imports from Alaska."
* In 1883, Grant was elected the eighth president of the National Rifle Association.
* Grant suffered from tone-deafness. He disliked music intensely and would go out of his way to avoid having to hear any other than patriotic songs. In Jeffrey Shaara's The Last Full Measure - which is set after the Battle of Gettysburg, the subject of his father Michael's 1974 bestseller The Killer Angels - Grant is portrayed as saying, "I know only two songs. One is 'Yankee Doodle'. The other isn't." Whether he actually said this is unclear. Shaara, Jeffrey M. (1998). "The Last Full Measure".
* Grant's wife, First Lady Julia Grant, was cross-eyed. When it was suggested to her that she have an operation to have it corrected, President Grant replied that he liked her that way. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* Grant's favorite brand of bourbon whiskey was Old Crow.
* Grant enjoyed eating cucumbers soaked in vinegar for breakfast.
* An apocryphal story about Grant's drinking has the general's critics going to President Lincoln, charging the military man with being a drunk. Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."
:* A similar story was told of General James Wolfe during the French and Indian Wars. When King George II was told that Wolfe was a "mad dog", he is said to have replied, "Then I'd wish he'd bite the other generals."
* The question "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" was used by Groucho Marx in his radio and TV quiz show, the correct answer to which resulted in a consolation prize to contestants who had won no money. Some contestants thought it was a trick question. Grant's grandson, Ulysses S. Grant IV (a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles) appeared on the program on March 12, 1953.
** This was also featured on an episode of the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, in which in a dream sequence Dorothy competes on Jeopardy against a scholar and her roommate Rose. When asked the question, Dorothy replies Ulysses and is wrong, while Rose replies Cary Grant and is correct.
* In the film Wild Wild West, President Grant is a minor character that must deal with the Loveless Alliance.
Once while in office he was arrested for speeding his horse and buggy and fined $20 and had to walk back to the white house. (www.pocanticohills.org/presidents/know.htm )
* A dispute between Grant and his commanding officer Henry Wager Halleck is the subject of a pivotal question in the film Quiz Show.
* United States presidential election, 1868
* United States presidential election, 1872
* History of the United States (1865â1918)
* Western Theater of the American Civil War
* Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
* U.S. Grant Home, Galena, Illinois
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command, Little, Brown and Company, 1968, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 69-12632.
*Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Garland, Hamlin, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character, Macmillan Company, 1898.
*Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885 86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
*Hesseltine, William B., Ulysses S. Grant: Politician 1935.
* Lewis, Lloyd, Captain Sam Grant, Little, Brown, and Co., 1950, ISBN 0-316-52348-8.
* McFeely, William S., Grant: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Co, 1981, ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
* McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
* Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-395-65994-9.
*Smith, Jean Edward, Grant, Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
*Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861 1865, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
* Official Ulysses Simpson Grant biography from the US Army Center for Military History
* Bunting III, Josiah. Ulysses S. Grant (2004) ISBN 0-8050-6949-6
* William Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 (1905), vol 22
* Hesseltine, William B. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (2001) ISBN 1-931313-85-7 online edition
* Mantell, Martin E., Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
* Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936) online edition
* Rhodes, James Ford., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6 and 7 (1920) vol 6
* Scaturro, Frank J., President Grant Reconsidered (1998).
* Schouler, James., History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
* Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
* Simpson, Brooks D., The Reconstruction Presidents (1998)
* Skidmore, Max J. "The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: a Reconsideration." White House Studies (2005) online
* Badeau, Adam. Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 vols. 1882.
*Ballard, Michael B., Vicksburg, The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-2893-9.
* Bearss, Edwin C., The Vicksburg Campaign, 3 volumes, Morningside Press, 1991, ISBN 0-89029-308-2.
* Carter, Samuel III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863 (1980)
* Catton, Bruce, Grant Moves South, 1960, ISBN 0-316-13207-1; Grant Takes Command, 1968, ISBN 0-316-13210-1; U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954)
* Cavanaugh, Michael A., and William Marvel, The Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of the Crater: "The Horrid Pit," June 25-August 6, 1864 (1989)
* Conger, A. L. The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931)
* Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg (1986).
* Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
* Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
* Korda, Michael. Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (2004) 161 pp
* McWhiney, Grady, Battle in the Wilderness: Grant Meets Lee (1995)
* McDonough, James Lee, Shiloh: In Hell before Night (1977).
* McDonough, James Lee, Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy (1984).
* Maney, R. Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor. Victory and Failure, 1864 (1994).
* Matter, William D., If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (1988)
* Miers, Earl Schenck., The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg. 1955.
* Mosier, John., "Grant", Palgrave MacMillan, 2006 ISBN 1-4039-7136-6.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5 6, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8071-1873-7.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7 12, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8071-2136-3.
* Rhea, Gordon C., To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13 25, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8071-2535-0.
* Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.
* Miller, J. Michael, The North Anna Campaign: "Even to Hell Itself," May 21-26, 1864 (1989).
* Simpson, Brooks D, "Continuous Hammering and Mere Attrition: Lost Cause Critics and the Military Reputation of Ulysses S. Grant," in Cad Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, (2000)
* Steere, Edward, The Wilderness Campaign (1960)
* Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April. 1974.
* Williams, T. Harry, McClellan, Sherman and Grant. 1962.
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs (1885) online edition
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters (Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely, eds.) ( The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-94045058-5
* Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) pp 131-73, on the Memoirs
* Johnson, R. U., and Buel, C. C., eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York, 1887-88; essays by leading generals of both sides; online edition
* Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant (1897, reprinted 2000)
* Sherman, William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. 2 vols. 1875.
* Simon, John Y., ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Southern Illinois University Press (1967- ) multivolume complete edition of letters to and from Grant. As of 2006, vol 1-28 covers through September 1878.
* Extensive essay on Ulysses S. Grant and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* First Inaugural Address
* Second Inaugural Address
* White House Biography
* Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
*Emerson, Col. John W., Grant's Life in the West and His Mississippi Valley Campaigns, U.S. Grant Association website.
* Ulysses S. Grant at Find A Grave
* Many rare General Grant photographs
* Complete Bibliography
* Military biography of Ulysses S. Grant from the Cullum biographies
*
* The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. (1918). "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.
* Collection of US Grant Letters
* Ulysses S. Grant: America's Second Three-Star General article by Ethan Rafuse
* Historic White Haven (Grant-Dent home)
*
|-
|-
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
Andrew Johnson
Rutherford B. Hayes
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Julia Grant
Jesse Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Nellie Grant
Frederick Grant
General-in-Chief
List of United States Presidential religious affiliations
Republican Party (United States)
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
#Military career
April 27
1822
July 23
1885
United States
President of the United States
Union (American Civil War)
American Civil War
Battle of Vicksburg
Confederate
Robert E. Lee
Appomattox Court House
J.F.C. Fuller
Vicksburg Campaign
History of the United States Republican Party
Andrew Jackson
Radical Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Civil Rights
African American history
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home
Georgetown, Ohio
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio River
Pennsylvania
Horsham Township, Pennsylvania
Georgetown, Ohio
Brown County, Ohio
August 22
1848
Julia Boggs Dent
Frederick Dent Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Ellen Wrenshall Grant
Jesse Root Grant
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Mathew Brady
United States Army
Army of the Tennessee
Military Division of the Mississippi
United States Army
United States Army
Mexican-American War
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
American Civil War
Battle of Fort Donelson
Battle of Shiloh
Battle of Vicksburg
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Overland Campaign
Battle of Petersburg
Appomattox Campaign
President of the United States
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
U.S. Congressman
Thomas L. Hamer
Academic administration
March 31
1853
cavalry
Mexican-American War
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
Fort Vancouver
Washington Territory
U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
July 31
1854
Robert C. Buchanan
John Eaton (General)
St. Louis, Missouri
Grant's Farm
Anheuser-Busch
Galena, Illinois
James Buchanan
John C. Frémont
Stephen A. Douglas
Elihu B. Washburne
April 28
2007
War Democrats
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Galena, Illinois
Fort Sumter
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
Illinois
Richard Yates (governor)
21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
Claiborne Jackson
John C. Frémont
Ohio River
Paducah, Kentucky
Confederate States Army
Columbus, Kentucky
Gideon J. Pillow
Battle of Belmont
Andrew H. Foote
Battle of Fort Henry
Tennessee River
Battle of Fort Donelson
Cumberland River
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Henry W. Halleck
Nashville, Tennessee
Don Carlos Buell
March 2
March 17
Battle of Cold Harbor
Mathew Brady
Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard
Battle of Shiloh
April 30
First Battle of Corinth
William T. Sherman
Army of West Tennessee
Army of the Tennessee
June 10
Second Battle of Corinth
Battle of Iuka
Mississippi River
Vicksburg Campaign
U.S. Navy
Charles Anderson Dana
hardtack
John C. Pemberton
Jackson, Mississippi
Battle of Champion Hill
Battle of Vicksburg
July 4
1863
Battle of Gettysburg
Turning point of the American Civil War
July 4
Battle of Chickamauga
William S. Rosecrans
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Braxton Bragg
Lookout Mountain
October 17
George Henry Thomas
William Farrar Smith
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Missionary Ridge
Atlanta, Georgia
Lieutenant General (United States)
George Washington
Winfield Scott
brevet (military)
Congress of the United States
March 2
1864
March 12
United States
William Tecumseh Sherman
Virginia
Army of Northern Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
George G. Meade
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Franz Sigel
Shenandoah Valley
Georgia (U.S. state)
Joseph E. Johnston
Atlanta
George Crook
William W. Averell
West Virginia
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Mobile, Alabama
total war
Overland Campaign
Robert E. Lee
May 4
1864
Army of the Potomac
Rapidan River
Army of Northern Virginia
Battle of the Wilderness
Spotsylvania, Virginia
May 8
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 11
May 12
Battle of Cold Harbor
June 3
James River (Virginia)
Petersburg, Virginia
June 18
Siege of Petersburg
William Tecumseh Sherman
Abraham Lincoln
Jubal A. Early
Shenandoah Valley
Washington, D.C.
Administration (government)
Philip Sheridan
Valley Campaigns of 1864
Sherman's March to the Sea
total war
Carolinas Campaign
Appomattox Court House
April 9
1865
Kirby Smith
Trans-Mississippi Department
June 2
1865
Copperheads
Democratic Party (United States)
July 25
1866
General of the Army of the United States
U.S. Army
Andrew Johnson
Edwin M. Stanton
Tenure of Office Act
History of the United States Republican Party
Republican National Convention
Chicago
U.S. presidential election, 1868
Horatio Seymour
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
United States presidential election, 1872
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Horace Greeley
Reconstruction
Redeemers
Ku Klux Klan
voting rights
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Dominican Republic
Yellowstone National Park
March 1
1872
March 29
2006
Christmas
February 8
1999
Panic of 1873
Robert Schenck
Rutherford B. Hayes
Samuel J. Tilden
U.S. presidential election, 1876
Henry Watterson
Treaty of Washington (1871)
Hamilton Fish
CSS Alabama
Dominican Republic
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Charles Sumner
Horace Greeley
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Liberian-Grebo War
USS Alaska (1868)
Liberia
James Milton Turner
Black Friday (1869)
Jay Gould
James Fisk (financier)
Whiskey Ring
Benjamin H. Bristow
Orville E. Babcock
United States Secretary of War
William W. Belknap
Native Americans in the United States
trading post
Sanborn Incident
William Adams Richardson
Cyrus I. Scofield
Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Vice President of the United States
Schuyler Colfax
United States presidential election, 1872
Henry Wilson
Julia Grant
Jesse Root Grant
anti-Semitism
General Order No. 11 (1862)
Oxford, Mississippi
December 17
1862
Vicksburg Campaign
Tennessee
Mississippi
Kentucky
James H. Wilson
Bertram Korn
U.S. presidential election, 1868
President of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
Salmon P. Chase
March 4
1873
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
Elihu B. Washburne
Hamilton Fish
John A. Rawlins
William T. Sherman
William W. Belknap
Alphonso Taft
J. Donald Cameron
George S. Boutwell
William Adams Richardson
Benjamin Bristow
Lot M. Morrill
Ebenezer R. Hoar
Amos T. Akerman
George Henry Williams
Edwards Pierrepont
Alphonso Taft
John A. J. Creswell
James William Marshall
Marshall Jewell
James N. Tyner
Adolph E. Borie
George M. Robeson
Jacob D. Cox
Columbus Delano
Zachariah Chandler
Supreme Court of the United States
Edwin M. Stanton
William Strong (judge)
Joseph P. Bradley
Ward Hunt
Morrison Remick Waite
Chief Justice of the United States
Colorado
August 1
1876
United States Department of Justice
United States Solicitor General
Chester A. Arthur
Office of Personnel Management
Surgeon General of the United States
National Weather Service
Queen Victoria
Windsor Castle
Prince Bismarck
Emperor Meiji
Empress ShÅken
Imperial Palace
Tokyo
Meiji period
Ryukyu Islands
China
Stalwart (politics)
Roscoe Conkling
Methodist
Republican National Convention
James A. Garfield
New York City
Ferdinand Ward
Wall Street
Grant & Ward
Esophageal cancer
pension
The Century Magazine
Mark Twain
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Julius Caesar
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
New York City
Riverside Park (Manhattan)
General Grant National Memorial
mausoleum
North America
World War II
tank
Grant tank
U.S. fifty-dollar bill
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Grant Park (Chicago)
Chicago
the Bronx
New York
San Francisco, California
Chinatown, San Francisco, California
Bedford Avenue
Crown Heights
Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. Grant Bridge
Ohio River
Portsmouth, Ohio
U.S. Route 52
Counties of the United States
U.S. state
Grant County, Arkansas
Grant County, Kansas
Grant County, Minnesota
Grant County, Nebraska
Grant County, New Mexico
Grant County, North Dakota
Grant County, Oklahoma
Grant County, Washington
Grant County, West Virginia
Grant Parish, Louisiana
Mayflower
Richard Warren
John Lothropp
Benjamin Franklin
abolitionist
John Brown (abolitionist)
Mathew Brady
Willard Hotel
lobbyist
San Francisco
National Rifle Association
Jeffrey Shaara
The Last Full Measure
Michael Shaara
The Killer Angels
First Lady of the United States
Julia Grant
Strabismus
bourbon whiskey
Old Crow
cucumbers
vinegar
breakfast
James Wolfe
French and Indian Wars
King George II
Groucho Marx
You Bet Your Life
Ulysses S. Grant IV
University of California, Los Angeles
The Golden Girls
Cary Grant
Wild Wild West
Henry Wager Halleck
Quiz Show
United States presidential election, 1868
United States presidential election, 1872
History of the United States (1865-1918)
Western Theater of the American Civil War
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
James M. McPherson
Jean Edward Smith
Allan Nevins
Ed Bearss
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
Find A Grave
West Point#Cullum Number
Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Rutherford B. Hayes
Abraham Lincoln
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1868
U.S. presidential election, 1872
Rutherford B. Hayes
Army of the Tennessee
William T. Sherman
Henry W. Halleck
Commanding General of the United States Army
Andrew Johnson
Oldest living United States president
Rutherford B. Hayes
United States
soldier
politician
President of the United States
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
|
Ulysses_S._Grant | Was Grant's father-in-law a Democrat? | Yes | data/set3/a5 | Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, See military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 July 23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869 1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
Grant first reached national prominence by taking Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862 in the first Union victories of the war. The following year, his brilliant campaign ending in the surrender of Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi andâwith the simultaneous Union victory at Gettysburgâturned the tide of the war in the North's favor. Named commanding general of the Federal armies in 1864, he implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's ability to carry on the war. In 1865, after conducting a costly war of attrition in the East, he accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. Grant has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.
In 1868, Grant was elected president as a Republican. Grant was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed.
Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans. See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.
Ulysses Grant Birthplace, Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home, Georgetown, Ohio
Grant was born in a log cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794 1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798 1883). His father, a tanner, was from Pennsylvania, and his mother was born in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio.
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826 1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (Buck), Ellen Wrenshall Grant (Nellie), and Jesse Root Grant.
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only. Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.
Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846â1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, later becoming his brother-in-law, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.
After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the 4th U.S. Infantry regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial. According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name." McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican War
A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys). His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. McFeely, ch. 5.
Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican. Hesseltine, chapter 6. .
The home of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Infantry in June 1861.
Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.
In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.
Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederates violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, an old friend of Grant's and a West Point classmate, and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers. Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.
Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased against him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.
General Grant at Cold Harbor, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864
In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.
The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in Corinth, Mississippi. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Corinth and Iuka that fall.
In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant spent the winter of 1862 1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.
However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and in a daring move that defied conventional military principles cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles A. Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George H. Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas' chief engineer, William F. "Baldy" Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.
Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas' men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.
Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet appointment), recently re-authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.
In March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.
Poster of "Grant from West Point to Appomattox."
Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.
The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River.
Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a siege.
As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas.
At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democrats who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius: Korda, (2004)
After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army. Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.''
As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.
The second president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In the 1872 election he won by a landslide against the breakaway Liberal Republican party that nominated Horace Greeley.
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed .
Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006. Grant also signed into law making Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application, CRS Report for Congress, 98-301 GOV, updated February 8, 1999, by Stephen W. Stathis
The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.
By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker. Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes: Nevins, Fish 2:811
In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson .
The Grant administration's first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Act to Strengthen the Public Credit which the GOP Congress had passed after Grant ` s inaugural in March 1869 . The act had the effect that the gold price on New York exchange fell to 310 dollar an ounce - the lowest point since the suspension of specie payment in 1862 .
As Jean Edward Smith notes in his 2002 biography on Grant, the presidential treasury secretary Boutwell reorganized the Treasury by discharging unnecessary employees, started sweeping changes in Bureau of Printing and Engraving to protect the currency from counterfeiters and revitalized tax collections to hasten the collection of revenue. This changes soon led the Tresury having a monthly surplus .
The Grant administration reduced the debt by appromixately 435 million dollar. That was achieved by selling the growing gold surplus at weekly auctions for greenbacks and buying back wartime bonds with the currency . With this Grant ` s treasury secretary Boutwell had established a policy if continued had payed of the national debt in a quarter of a century . Newspapers like the New York Tribune wanted that the Government buy more bonds and Greenbacks, the New York Times praised the the Grant administration `s debt policy .
On other economic fronts did the Grant administration have acomplishments . Under
Grant the nation `s credit was substantially raised. Taxes was reduced by 300 million dollar. Annual interest rates were reduced by approximately 30 million dollar . The U . S balance of trade was changed from 130 million dollar against the United States to 120 million dollar in favor of the United States . He also reduced inflation and to 1873 bolstered economic recovery . He also promoted economy in federal expenditures . His veto of the Inflation Bill in 1874 saved the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 to get worse and the veto was praised by the financial community and many newspapers .
The Resumption of Species Act of 1875 which was signed by Grant and helped to end the crisis in 1879 when the law came in to effect
He also pressed for internal improvements and increased shipbuilding and foreign trade. He also wanted to enhance and improve the commercial marine .
Grant/Wilson campaign poster
In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington, negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He also proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Santo Domingo. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia. Liberian-Grebo War of 1876
The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud. However, Grant eventually released large amounts of gold back onto the market, causing a large-scale financial crisis for many gold investors. Jay Gould had already prepared and quietly sold out while Fisk denied many agreements and hired thugs to intimidate his creditors.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.
Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first vice president, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.
President Grant with his wife, Julia, and son, Jesse, in 1872.
Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."
Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11, issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:
The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart â opportunistic traders who were Jewish. McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed [...] he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."
The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 presidential campaign, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.
Grant's second inauguration as President by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.
Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
* Edwin M. Stanton 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
* William Strong 1870
* Joseph P. Bradley 1870
* Ward Hunt 1873
* Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice) 1874
* Colorado August 1, 1876
* Department of Justice (1870)
* Office of the Solicitor General (1870)
* "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
* Office of the Surgeon General (1871)
* Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)
Ulysses S. Grant in his postbellum.
After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress ShÅken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.
In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.
That same year, Grant was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.
Grant writing his memoirs.
In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
Grant appears on the U.S. $50 bill.
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. It was not until 1958 that Congress, feeling it inappropriate that a former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting a pension to such individuals, a practice that continues to this day. Grant first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and Grant's memoirs are also regarded by such writers as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request, "Water." His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America.
Statue of Grant astride his favorite mount, "Cincinnati", at Vicksburg, Mississippi
*In World War II, the United States produced a tank known as the Grant tank (an upgrade of the American M3 "Lee").
*Grant's portrait appears on the U.S. fifty-dollar bill.
*The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., honors Grant.
*Grant Park in Chicago honors Grant.
*Grant Avenue, a nine block long, north-south street in the Bronx, New York, is named after Grant. It is parallel and adjacent to Sherman Avenue.
*Dupont Street, the main thoroughfare in San Francisco's Chinatown, was renamed Grant Avenue in his honor. The famous dragon gate at the entrance to the district is at the corner of Grant and Bush Street.
*Grant, depicted riding a horse, is honored by a statue at the intersection of Bedford Avenue, Rogers Avenue and Dean Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
*There is a U.S. Grant Bridge over the Ohio River at Portsmouth, Ohio.
*There is a U.S. Grant Memorial Highway (US 52) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
*Counties in twelve U.S. states are named after Grant: Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Grant Parish, Louisiana. Note: Grant Counties in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin were named after other Grants, not Ulysses Grant.
* Grant was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren
* Grant is also a descendant from John Lothropp, who is also an ancestor to Benjamin Franklin
Grant Memorial Statue in Grant Park, Galena, Illinois. Julia Grant remarked that it was the best likeness of her husband, as his hands were thrust into his pockets.
* As a young man, Grant's father, Jesse, taught him the trade of tanning. Jesse Grant had been taught how to tan by Owen Brown, the father of known abolitionist John Brown. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* When Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1864, he agreed to sit down for photographer Mathew Brady. As the sun had begun to set by the time Grant arrived, Brady instructed one of his assistants to open the shades of the skylight in Brady's studio. The assistant slipped and shattered the skylight, causing two-inch-thick shards of glass to rain down around Grant, who had taken his seat as requested. He was unharmed, and showed "the most remarkable display of nerve" that Brady had ever seen. O'Brien, Cormac (2007). "Secret Lives of the Civil War: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the War Between the States".
* Grant was known to visit the Willard Hotel to escape the stress of the White House. A long-standing story is that he referred to the people who approached him in the lobby as "those darn lobbyists," implying that he was the source for the term lobbyist. This story is unlikely to be true since there are examples of the term being used in U.S. and British magazines and newspapers before Grant's presidency. World Wide Words.
* While in California, Grant tried selling ice to San Francisco, but failed when it melted in the warm weather aboard the ship. Smith, Grant, p. 81. . This anecdote is disputed by Edward G. Longacre in "General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man" (2006) in which he says -- in a referenced statement -- that the ice venture had failed because of "an unexpected glut of [ice] imports from Alaska."
* In 1883, Grant was elected the eighth president of the National Rifle Association.
* Grant suffered from tone-deafness. He disliked music intensely and would go out of his way to avoid having to hear any other than patriotic songs. In Jeffrey Shaara's The Last Full Measure - which is set after the Battle of Gettysburg, the subject of his father Michael's 1974 bestseller The Killer Angels - Grant is portrayed as saying, "I know only two songs. One is 'Yankee Doodle'. The other isn't." Whether he actually said this is unclear. Shaara, Jeffrey M. (1998). "The Last Full Measure".
* Grant's wife, First Lady Julia Grant, was cross-eyed. When it was suggested to her that she have an operation to have it corrected, President Grant replied that he liked her that way. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* Grant's favorite brand of bourbon whiskey was Old Crow.
* Grant enjoyed eating cucumbers soaked in vinegar for breakfast.
* An apocryphal story about Grant's drinking has the general's critics going to President Lincoln, charging the military man with being a drunk. Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."
:* A similar story was told of General James Wolfe during the French and Indian Wars. When King George II was told that Wolfe was a "mad dog", he is said to have replied, "Then I'd wish he'd bite the other generals."
* The question "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" was used by Groucho Marx in his radio and TV quiz show, the correct answer to which resulted in a consolation prize to contestants who had won no money. Some contestants thought it was a trick question. Grant's grandson, Ulysses S. Grant IV (a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles) appeared on the program on March 12, 1953.
** This was also featured on an episode of the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, in which in a dream sequence Dorothy competes on Jeopardy against a scholar and her roommate Rose. When asked the question, Dorothy replies Ulysses and is wrong, while Rose replies Cary Grant and is correct.
* In the film Wild Wild West, President Grant is a minor character that must deal with the Loveless Alliance.
Once while in office he was arrested for speeding his horse and buggy and fined $20 and had to walk back to the white house. (www.pocanticohills.org/presidents/know.htm )
* A dispute between Grant and his commanding officer Henry Wager Halleck is the subject of a pivotal question in the film Quiz Show.
* United States presidential election, 1868
* United States presidential election, 1872
* History of the United States (1865â1918)
* Western Theater of the American Civil War
* Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
* U.S. Grant Home, Galena, Illinois
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command, Little, Brown and Company, 1968, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 69-12632.
*Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Garland, Hamlin, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character, Macmillan Company, 1898.
*Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885 86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
*Hesseltine, William B., Ulysses S. Grant: Politician 1935.
* Lewis, Lloyd, Captain Sam Grant, Little, Brown, and Co., 1950, ISBN 0-316-52348-8.
* McFeely, William S., Grant: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Co, 1981, ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
* McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
* Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-395-65994-9.
*Smith, Jean Edward, Grant, Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
*Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861 1865, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
* Official Ulysses Simpson Grant biography from the US Army Center for Military History
* Bunting III, Josiah. Ulysses S. Grant (2004) ISBN 0-8050-6949-6
* William Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 (1905), vol 22
* Hesseltine, William B. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (2001) ISBN 1-931313-85-7 online edition
* Mantell, Martin E., Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
* Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936) online edition
* Rhodes, James Ford., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6 and 7 (1920) vol 6
* Scaturro, Frank J., President Grant Reconsidered (1998).
* Schouler, James., History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
* Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
* Simpson, Brooks D., The Reconstruction Presidents (1998)
* Skidmore, Max J. "The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: a Reconsideration." White House Studies (2005) online
* Badeau, Adam. Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 vols. 1882.
*Ballard, Michael B., Vicksburg, The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-2893-9.
* Bearss, Edwin C., The Vicksburg Campaign, 3 volumes, Morningside Press, 1991, ISBN 0-89029-308-2.
* Carter, Samuel III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863 (1980)
* Catton, Bruce, Grant Moves South, 1960, ISBN 0-316-13207-1; Grant Takes Command, 1968, ISBN 0-316-13210-1; U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954)
* Cavanaugh, Michael A., and William Marvel, The Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of the Crater: "The Horrid Pit," June 25-August 6, 1864 (1989)
* Conger, A. L. The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931)
* Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg (1986).
* Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
* Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
* Korda, Michael. Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (2004) 161 pp
* McWhiney, Grady, Battle in the Wilderness: Grant Meets Lee (1995)
* McDonough, James Lee, Shiloh: In Hell before Night (1977).
* McDonough, James Lee, Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy (1984).
* Maney, R. Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor. Victory and Failure, 1864 (1994).
* Matter, William D., If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (1988)
* Miers, Earl Schenck., The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg. 1955.
* Mosier, John., "Grant", Palgrave MacMillan, 2006 ISBN 1-4039-7136-6.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5 6, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8071-1873-7.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7 12, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8071-2136-3.
* Rhea, Gordon C., To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13 25, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8071-2535-0.
* Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.
* Miller, J. Michael, The North Anna Campaign: "Even to Hell Itself," May 21-26, 1864 (1989).
* Simpson, Brooks D, "Continuous Hammering and Mere Attrition: Lost Cause Critics and the Military Reputation of Ulysses S. Grant," in Cad Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, (2000)
* Steere, Edward, The Wilderness Campaign (1960)
* Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April. 1974.
* Williams, T. Harry, McClellan, Sherman and Grant. 1962.
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs (1885) online edition
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters (Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely, eds.) ( The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-94045058-5
* Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) pp 131-73, on the Memoirs
* Johnson, R. U., and Buel, C. C., eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York, 1887-88; essays by leading generals of both sides; online edition
* Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant (1897, reprinted 2000)
* Sherman, William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. 2 vols. 1875.
* Simon, John Y., ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Southern Illinois University Press (1967- ) multivolume complete edition of letters to and from Grant. As of 2006, vol 1-28 covers through September 1878.
* Extensive essay on Ulysses S. Grant and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* First Inaugural Address
* Second Inaugural Address
* White House Biography
* Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
*Emerson, Col. John W., Grant's Life in the West and His Mississippi Valley Campaigns, U.S. Grant Association website.
* Ulysses S. Grant at Find A Grave
* Many rare General Grant photographs
* Complete Bibliography
* Military biography of Ulysses S. Grant from the Cullum biographies
*
* The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. (1918). "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.
* Collection of US Grant Letters
* Ulysses S. Grant: America's Second Three-Star General article by Ethan Rafuse
* Historic White Haven (Grant-Dent home)
*
|-
|-
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
Andrew Johnson
Rutherford B. Hayes
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Julia Grant
Jesse Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Nellie Grant
Frederick Grant
General-in-Chief
List of United States Presidential religious affiliations
Republican Party (United States)
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
#Military career
April 27
1822
July 23
1885
United States
President of the United States
Union (American Civil War)
American Civil War
Battle of Vicksburg
Confederate
Robert E. Lee
Appomattox Court House
J.F.C. Fuller
Vicksburg Campaign
History of the United States Republican Party
Andrew Jackson
Radical Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Civil Rights
African American history
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home
Georgetown, Ohio
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio River
Pennsylvania
Horsham Township, Pennsylvania
Georgetown, Ohio
Brown County, Ohio
August 22
1848
Julia Boggs Dent
Frederick Dent Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Ellen Wrenshall Grant
Jesse Root Grant
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Mathew Brady
United States Army
Army of the Tennessee
Military Division of the Mississippi
United States Army
United States Army
Mexican-American War
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
American Civil War
Battle of Fort Donelson
Battle of Shiloh
Battle of Vicksburg
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Overland Campaign
Battle of Petersburg
Appomattox Campaign
President of the United States
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
U.S. Congressman
Thomas L. Hamer
Academic administration
March 31
1853
cavalry
Mexican-American War
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
Fort Vancouver
Washington Territory
U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
July 31
1854
Robert C. Buchanan
John Eaton (General)
St. Louis, Missouri
Grant's Farm
Anheuser-Busch
Galena, Illinois
James Buchanan
John C. Frémont
Stephen A. Douglas
Elihu B. Washburne
April 28
2007
War Democrats
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Galena, Illinois
Fort Sumter
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
Illinois
Richard Yates (governor)
21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
Claiborne Jackson
John C. Frémont
Ohio River
Paducah, Kentucky
Confederate States Army
Columbus, Kentucky
Gideon J. Pillow
Battle of Belmont
Andrew H. Foote
Battle of Fort Henry
Tennessee River
Battle of Fort Donelson
Cumberland River
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Henry W. Halleck
Nashville, Tennessee
Don Carlos Buell
March 2
March 17
Battle of Cold Harbor
Mathew Brady
Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard
Battle of Shiloh
April 30
First Battle of Corinth
William T. Sherman
Army of West Tennessee
Army of the Tennessee
June 10
Second Battle of Corinth
Battle of Iuka
Mississippi River
Vicksburg Campaign
U.S. Navy
Charles Anderson Dana
hardtack
John C. Pemberton
Jackson, Mississippi
Battle of Champion Hill
Battle of Vicksburg
July 4
1863
Battle of Gettysburg
Turning point of the American Civil War
July 4
Battle of Chickamauga
William S. Rosecrans
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Braxton Bragg
Lookout Mountain
October 17
George Henry Thomas
William Farrar Smith
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Missionary Ridge
Atlanta, Georgia
Lieutenant General (United States)
George Washington
Winfield Scott
brevet (military)
Congress of the United States
March 2
1864
March 12
United States
William Tecumseh Sherman
Virginia
Army of Northern Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
George G. Meade
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Franz Sigel
Shenandoah Valley
Georgia (U.S. state)
Joseph E. Johnston
Atlanta
George Crook
William W. Averell
West Virginia
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Mobile, Alabama
total war
Overland Campaign
Robert E. Lee
May 4
1864
Army of the Potomac
Rapidan River
Army of Northern Virginia
Battle of the Wilderness
Spotsylvania, Virginia
May 8
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 11
May 12
Battle of Cold Harbor
June 3
James River (Virginia)
Petersburg, Virginia
June 18
Siege of Petersburg
William Tecumseh Sherman
Abraham Lincoln
Jubal A. Early
Shenandoah Valley
Washington, D.C.
Administration (government)
Philip Sheridan
Valley Campaigns of 1864
Sherman's March to the Sea
total war
Carolinas Campaign
Appomattox Court House
April 9
1865
Kirby Smith
Trans-Mississippi Department
June 2
1865
Copperheads
Democratic Party (United States)
July 25
1866
General of the Army of the United States
U.S. Army
Andrew Johnson
Edwin M. Stanton
Tenure of Office Act
History of the United States Republican Party
Republican National Convention
Chicago
U.S. presidential election, 1868
Horatio Seymour
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
United States presidential election, 1872
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Horace Greeley
Reconstruction
Redeemers
Ku Klux Klan
voting rights
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Dominican Republic
Yellowstone National Park
March 1
1872
March 29
2006
Christmas
February 8
1999
Panic of 1873
Robert Schenck
Rutherford B. Hayes
Samuel J. Tilden
U.S. presidential election, 1876
Henry Watterson
Treaty of Washington (1871)
Hamilton Fish
CSS Alabama
Dominican Republic
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Charles Sumner
Horace Greeley
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Liberian-Grebo War
USS Alaska (1868)
Liberia
James Milton Turner
Black Friday (1869)
Jay Gould
James Fisk (financier)
Whiskey Ring
Benjamin H. Bristow
Orville E. Babcock
United States Secretary of War
William W. Belknap
Native Americans in the United States
trading post
Sanborn Incident
William Adams Richardson
Cyrus I. Scofield
Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Vice President of the United States
Schuyler Colfax
United States presidential election, 1872
Henry Wilson
Julia Grant
Jesse Root Grant
anti-Semitism
General Order No. 11 (1862)
Oxford, Mississippi
December 17
1862
Vicksburg Campaign
Tennessee
Mississippi
Kentucky
James H. Wilson
Bertram Korn
U.S. presidential election, 1868
President of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
Salmon P. Chase
March 4
1873
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
Elihu B. Washburne
Hamilton Fish
John A. Rawlins
William T. Sherman
William W. Belknap
Alphonso Taft
J. Donald Cameron
George S. Boutwell
William Adams Richardson
Benjamin Bristow
Lot M. Morrill
Ebenezer R. Hoar
Amos T. Akerman
George Henry Williams
Edwards Pierrepont
Alphonso Taft
John A. J. Creswell
James William Marshall
Marshall Jewell
James N. Tyner
Adolph E. Borie
George M. Robeson
Jacob D. Cox
Columbus Delano
Zachariah Chandler
Supreme Court of the United States
Edwin M. Stanton
William Strong (judge)
Joseph P. Bradley
Ward Hunt
Morrison Remick Waite
Chief Justice of the United States
Colorado
August 1
1876
United States Department of Justice
United States Solicitor General
Chester A. Arthur
Office of Personnel Management
Surgeon General of the United States
National Weather Service
Queen Victoria
Windsor Castle
Prince Bismarck
Emperor Meiji
Empress ShÅken
Imperial Palace
Tokyo
Meiji period
Ryukyu Islands
China
Stalwart (politics)
Roscoe Conkling
Methodist
Republican National Convention
James A. Garfield
New York City
Ferdinand Ward
Wall Street
Grant & Ward
Esophageal cancer
pension
The Century Magazine
Mark Twain
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Julius Caesar
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
New York City
Riverside Park (Manhattan)
General Grant National Memorial
mausoleum
North America
World War II
tank
Grant tank
U.S. fifty-dollar bill
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Grant Park (Chicago)
Chicago
the Bronx
New York
San Francisco, California
Chinatown, San Francisco, California
Bedford Avenue
Crown Heights
Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. Grant Bridge
Ohio River
Portsmouth, Ohio
U.S. Route 52
Counties of the United States
U.S. state
Grant County, Arkansas
Grant County, Kansas
Grant County, Minnesota
Grant County, Nebraska
Grant County, New Mexico
Grant County, North Dakota
Grant County, Oklahoma
Grant County, Washington
Grant County, West Virginia
Grant Parish, Louisiana
Mayflower
Richard Warren
John Lothropp
Benjamin Franklin
abolitionist
John Brown (abolitionist)
Mathew Brady
Willard Hotel
lobbyist
San Francisco
National Rifle Association
Jeffrey Shaara
The Last Full Measure
Michael Shaara
The Killer Angels
First Lady of the United States
Julia Grant
Strabismus
bourbon whiskey
Old Crow
cucumbers
vinegar
breakfast
James Wolfe
French and Indian Wars
King George II
Groucho Marx
You Bet Your Life
Ulysses S. Grant IV
University of California, Los Angeles
The Golden Girls
Cary Grant
Wild Wild West
Henry Wager Halleck
Quiz Show
United States presidential election, 1868
United States presidential election, 1872
History of the United States (1865-1918)
Western Theater of the American Civil War
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
James M. McPherson
Jean Edward Smith
Allan Nevins
Ed Bearss
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
Find A Grave
West Point#Cullum Number
Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Rutherford B. Hayes
Abraham Lincoln
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1868
U.S. presidential election, 1872
Rutherford B. Hayes
Army of the Tennessee
William T. Sherman
Henry W. Halleck
Commanding General of the United States Army
Andrew Johnson
Oldest living United States president
Rutherford B. Hayes
United States
soldier
politician
President of the United States
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
|
Ulysses_S._Grant | Was Grant's father-in-law a Democrat? | yup | data/set3/a5 | Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, See military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 July 23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869 1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
Grant first reached national prominence by taking Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862 in the first Union victories of the war. The following year, his brilliant campaign ending in the surrender of Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi andâwith the simultaneous Union victory at Gettysburgâturned the tide of the war in the North's favor. Named commanding general of the Federal armies in 1864, he implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's ability to carry on the war. In 1865, after conducting a costly war of attrition in the East, he accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. Grant has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.
In 1868, Grant was elected president as a Republican. Grant was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed.
Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans. See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.
Ulysses Grant Birthplace, Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home, Georgetown, Ohio
Grant was born in a log cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794 1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798 1883). His father, a tanner, was from Pennsylvania, and his mother was born in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio.
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826 1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (Buck), Ellen Wrenshall Grant (Nellie), and Jesse Root Grant.
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only. Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.
Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846â1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, later becoming his brother-in-law, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.
After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the 4th U.S. Infantry regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial. According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name." McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican War
A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys). His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. McFeely, ch. 5.
Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican. Hesseltine, chapter 6. .
The home of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Infantry in June 1861.
Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.
In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.
Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederates violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, an old friend of Grant's and a West Point classmate, and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers. Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.
Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased against him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.
General Grant at Cold Harbor, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864
In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.
The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in Corinth, Mississippi. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Corinth and Iuka that fall.
In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant spent the winter of 1862 1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.
However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and in a daring move that defied conventional military principles cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles A. Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George H. Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas' chief engineer, William F. "Baldy" Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.
Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas' men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.
Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet appointment), recently re-authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.
In March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.
Poster of "Grant from West Point to Appomattox."
Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.
The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River.
Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a siege.
As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas.
At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democrats who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius: Korda, (2004)
After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army. Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.''
As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.
The second president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In the 1872 election he won by a landslide against the breakaway Liberal Republican party that nominated Horace Greeley.
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed .
Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006. Grant also signed into law making Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application, CRS Report for Congress, 98-301 GOV, updated February 8, 1999, by Stephen W. Stathis
The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.
By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker. Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes: Nevins, Fish 2:811
In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson .
The Grant administration's first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Act to Strengthen the Public Credit which the GOP Congress had passed after Grant ` s inaugural in March 1869 . The act had the effect that the gold price on New York exchange fell to 310 dollar an ounce - the lowest point since the suspension of specie payment in 1862 .
As Jean Edward Smith notes in his 2002 biography on Grant, the presidential treasury secretary Boutwell reorganized the Treasury by discharging unnecessary employees, started sweeping changes in Bureau of Printing and Engraving to protect the currency from counterfeiters and revitalized tax collections to hasten the collection of revenue. This changes soon led the Tresury having a monthly surplus .
The Grant administration reduced the debt by appromixately 435 million dollar. That was achieved by selling the growing gold surplus at weekly auctions for greenbacks and buying back wartime bonds with the currency . With this Grant ` s treasury secretary Boutwell had established a policy if continued had payed of the national debt in a quarter of a century . Newspapers like the New York Tribune wanted that the Government buy more bonds and Greenbacks, the New York Times praised the the Grant administration `s debt policy .
On other economic fronts did the Grant administration have acomplishments . Under
Grant the nation `s credit was substantially raised. Taxes was reduced by 300 million dollar. Annual interest rates were reduced by approximately 30 million dollar . The U . S balance of trade was changed from 130 million dollar against the United States to 120 million dollar in favor of the United States . He also reduced inflation and to 1873 bolstered economic recovery . He also promoted economy in federal expenditures . His veto of the Inflation Bill in 1874 saved the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 to get worse and the veto was praised by the financial community and many newspapers .
The Resumption of Species Act of 1875 which was signed by Grant and helped to end the crisis in 1879 when the law came in to effect
He also pressed for internal improvements and increased shipbuilding and foreign trade. He also wanted to enhance and improve the commercial marine .
Grant/Wilson campaign poster
In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington, negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He also proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Santo Domingo. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia. Liberian-Grebo War of 1876
The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud. However, Grant eventually released large amounts of gold back onto the market, causing a large-scale financial crisis for many gold investors. Jay Gould had already prepared and quietly sold out while Fisk denied many agreements and hired thugs to intimidate his creditors.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.
Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first vice president, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.
President Grant with his wife, Julia, and son, Jesse, in 1872.
Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."
Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11, issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:
The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart â opportunistic traders who were Jewish. McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed [...] he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."
The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 presidential campaign, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.
Grant's second inauguration as President by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.
Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
* Edwin M. Stanton 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
* William Strong 1870
* Joseph P. Bradley 1870
* Ward Hunt 1873
* Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice) 1874
* Colorado August 1, 1876
* Department of Justice (1870)
* Office of the Solicitor General (1870)
* "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
* Office of the Surgeon General (1871)
* Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)
Ulysses S. Grant in his postbellum.
After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress ShÅken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.
In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.
That same year, Grant was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.
Grant writing his memoirs.
In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
Grant appears on the U.S. $50 bill.
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. It was not until 1958 that Congress, feeling it inappropriate that a former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting a pension to such individuals, a practice that continues to this day. Grant first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and Grant's memoirs are also regarded by such writers as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request, "Water." His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America.
Statue of Grant astride his favorite mount, "Cincinnati", at Vicksburg, Mississippi
*In World War II, the United States produced a tank known as the Grant tank (an upgrade of the American M3 "Lee").
*Grant's portrait appears on the U.S. fifty-dollar bill.
*The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., honors Grant.
*Grant Park in Chicago honors Grant.
*Grant Avenue, a nine block long, north-south street in the Bronx, New York, is named after Grant. It is parallel and adjacent to Sherman Avenue.
*Dupont Street, the main thoroughfare in San Francisco's Chinatown, was renamed Grant Avenue in his honor. The famous dragon gate at the entrance to the district is at the corner of Grant and Bush Street.
*Grant, depicted riding a horse, is honored by a statue at the intersection of Bedford Avenue, Rogers Avenue and Dean Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
*There is a U.S. Grant Bridge over the Ohio River at Portsmouth, Ohio.
*There is a U.S. Grant Memorial Highway (US 52) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
*Counties in twelve U.S. states are named after Grant: Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Grant Parish, Louisiana. Note: Grant Counties in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin were named after other Grants, not Ulysses Grant.
* Grant was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren
* Grant is also a descendant from John Lothropp, who is also an ancestor to Benjamin Franklin
Grant Memorial Statue in Grant Park, Galena, Illinois. Julia Grant remarked that it was the best likeness of her husband, as his hands were thrust into his pockets.
* As a young man, Grant's father, Jesse, taught him the trade of tanning. Jesse Grant had been taught how to tan by Owen Brown, the father of known abolitionist John Brown. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* When Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1864, he agreed to sit down for photographer Mathew Brady. As the sun had begun to set by the time Grant arrived, Brady instructed one of his assistants to open the shades of the skylight in Brady's studio. The assistant slipped and shattered the skylight, causing two-inch-thick shards of glass to rain down around Grant, who had taken his seat as requested. He was unharmed, and showed "the most remarkable display of nerve" that Brady had ever seen. O'Brien, Cormac (2007). "Secret Lives of the Civil War: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the War Between the States".
* Grant was known to visit the Willard Hotel to escape the stress of the White House. A long-standing story is that he referred to the people who approached him in the lobby as "those darn lobbyists," implying that he was the source for the term lobbyist. This story is unlikely to be true since there are examples of the term being used in U.S. and British magazines and newspapers before Grant's presidency. World Wide Words.
* While in California, Grant tried selling ice to San Francisco, but failed when it melted in the warm weather aboard the ship. Smith, Grant, p. 81. . This anecdote is disputed by Edward G. Longacre in "General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man" (2006) in which he says -- in a referenced statement -- that the ice venture had failed because of "an unexpected glut of [ice] imports from Alaska."
* In 1883, Grant was elected the eighth president of the National Rifle Association.
* Grant suffered from tone-deafness. He disliked music intensely and would go out of his way to avoid having to hear any other than patriotic songs. In Jeffrey Shaara's The Last Full Measure - which is set after the Battle of Gettysburg, the subject of his father Michael's 1974 bestseller The Killer Angels - Grant is portrayed as saying, "I know only two songs. One is 'Yankee Doodle'. The other isn't." Whether he actually said this is unclear. Shaara, Jeffrey M. (1998). "The Last Full Measure".
* Grant's wife, First Lady Julia Grant, was cross-eyed. When it was suggested to her that she have an operation to have it corrected, President Grant replied that he liked her that way. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* Grant's favorite brand of bourbon whiskey was Old Crow.
* Grant enjoyed eating cucumbers soaked in vinegar for breakfast.
* An apocryphal story about Grant's drinking has the general's critics going to President Lincoln, charging the military man with being a drunk. Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."
:* A similar story was told of General James Wolfe during the French and Indian Wars. When King George II was told that Wolfe was a "mad dog", he is said to have replied, "Then I'd wish he'd bite the other generals."
* The question "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" was used by Groucho Marx in his radio and TV quiz show, the correct answer to which resulted in a consolation prize to contestants who had won no money. Some contestants thought it was a trick question. Grant's grandson, Ulysses S. Grant IV (a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles) appeared on the program on March 12, 1953.
** This was also featured on an episode of the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, in which in a dream sequence Dorothy competes on Jeopardy against a scholar and her roommate Rose. When asked the question, Dorothy replies Ulysses and is wrong, while Rose replies Cary Grant and is correct.
* In the film Wild Wild West, President Grant is a minor character that must deal with the Loveless Alliance.
Once while in office he was arrested for speeding his horse and buggy and fined $20 and had to walk back to the white house. (www.pocanticohills.org/presidents/know.htm )
* A dispute between Grant and his commanding officer Henry Wager Halleck is the subject of a pivotal question in the film Quiz Show.
* United States presidential election, 1868
* United States presidential election, 1872
* History of the United States (1865â1918)
* Western Theater of the American Civil War
* Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
* U.S. Grant Home, Galena, Illinois
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command, Little, Brown and Company, 1968, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 69-12632.
*Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Garland, Hamlin, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character, Macmillan Company, 1898.
*Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885 86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
*Hesseltine, William B., Ulysses S. Grant: Politician 1935.
* Lewis, Lloyd, Captain Sam Grant, Little, Brown, and Co., 1950, ISBN 0-316-52348-8.
* McFeely, William S., Grant: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Co, 1981, ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
* McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
* Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-395-65994-9.
*Smith, Jean Edward, Grant, Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
*Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861 1865, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
* Official Ulysses Simpson Grant biography from the US Army Center for Military History
* Bunting III, Josiah. Ulysses S. Grant (2004) ISBN 0-8050-6949-6
* William Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 (1905), vol 22
* Hesseltine, William B. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (2001) ISBN 1-931313-85-7 online edition
* Mantell, Martin E., Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
* Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936) online edition
* Rhodes, James Ford., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6 and 7 (1920) vol 6
* Scaturro, Frank J., President Grant Reconsidered (1998).
* Schouler, James., History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
* Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
* Simpson, Brooks D., The Reconstruction Presidents (1998)
* Skidmore, Max J. "The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: a Reconsideration." White House Studies (2005) online
* Badeau, Adam. Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 vols. 1882.
*Ballard, Michael B., Vicksburg, The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-2893-9.
* Bearss, Edwin C., The Vicksburg Campaign, 3 volumes, Morningside Press, 1991, ISBN 0-89029-308-2.
* Carter, Samuel III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863 (1980)
* Catton, Bruce, Grant Moves South, 1960, ISBN 0-316-13207-1; Grant Takes Command, 1968, ISBN 0-316-13210-1; U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954)
* Cavanaugh, Michael A., and William Marvel, The Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of the Crater: "The Horrid Pit," June 25-August 6, 1864 (1989)
* Conger, A. L. The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931)
* Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg (1986).
* Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
* Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
* Korda, Michael. Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (2004) 161 pp
* McWhiney, Grady, Battle in the Wilderness: Grant Meets Lee (1995)
* McDonough, James Lee, Shiloh: In Hell before Night (1977).
* McDonough, James Lee, Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy (1984).
* Maney, R. Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor. Victory and Failure, 1864 (1994).
* Matter, William D., If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (1988)
* Miers, Earl Schenck., The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg. 1955.
* Mosier, John., "Grant", Palgrave MacMillan, 2006 ISBN 1-4039-7136-6.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5 6, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8071-1873-7.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7 12, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8071-2136-3.
* Rhea, Gordon C., To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13 25, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8071-2535-0.
* Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.
* Miller, J. Michael, The North Anna Campaign: "Even to Hell Itself," May 21-26, 1864 (1989).
* Simpson, Brooks D, "Continuous Hammering and Mere Attrition: Lost Cause Critics and the Military Reputation of Ulysses S. Grant," in Cad Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, (2000)
* Steere, Edward, The Wilderness Campaign (1960)
* Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April. 1974.
* Williams, T. Harry, McClellan, Sherman and Grant. 1962.
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs (1885) online edition
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters (Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely, eds.) ( The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-94045058-5
* Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) pp 131-73, on the Memoirs
* Johnson, R. U., and Buel, C. C., eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York, 1887-88; essays by leading generals of both sides; online edition
* Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant (1897, reprinted 2000)
* Sherman, William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. 2 vols. 1875.
* Simon, John Y., ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Southern Illinois University Press (1967- ) multivolume complete edition of letters to and from Grant. As of 2006, vol 1-28 covers through September 1878.
* Extensive essay on Ulysses S. Grant and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* First Inaugural Address
* Second Inaugural Address
* White House Biography
* Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
*Emerson, Col. John W., Grant's Life in the West and His Mississippi Valley Campaigns, U.S. Grant Association website.
* Ulysses S. Grant at Find A Grave
* Many rare General Grant photographs
* Complete Bibliography
* Military biography of Ulysses S. Grant from the Cullum biographies
*
* The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. (1918). "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.
* Collection of US Grant Letters
* Ulysses S. Grant: America's Second Three-Star General article by Ethan Rafuse
* Historic White Haven (Grant-Dent home)
*
|-
|-
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
Andrew Johnson
Rutherford B. Hayes
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Julia Grant
Jesse Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Nellie Grant
Frederick Grant
General-in-Chief
List of United States Presidential religious affiliations
Republican Party (United States)
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
#Military career
April 27
1822
July 23
1885
United States
President of the United States
Union (American Civil War)
American Civil War
Battle of Vicksburg
Confederate
Robert E. Lee
Appomattox Court House
J.F.C. Fuller
Vicksburg Campaign
History of the United States Republican Party
Andrew Jackson
Radical Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Civil Rights
African American history
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home
Georgetown, Ohio
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio River
Pennsylvania
Horsham Township, Pennsylvania
Georgetown, Ohio
Brown County, Ohio
August 22
1848
Julia Boggs Dent
Frederick Dent Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Ellen Wrenshall Grant
Jesse Root Grant
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Mathew Brady
United States Army
Army of the Tennessee
Military Division of the Mississippi
United States Army
United States Army
Mexican-American War
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
American Civil War
Battle of Fort Donelson
Battle of Shiloh
Battle of Vicksburg
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Overland Campaign
Battle of Petersburg
Appomattox Campaign
President of the United States
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
U.S. Congressman
Thomas L. Hamer
Academic administration
March 31
1853
cavalry
Mexican-American War
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
Fort Vancouver
Washington Territory
U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
July 31
1854
Robert C. Buchanan
John Eaton (General)
St. Louis, Missouri
Grant's Farm
Anheuser-Busch
Galena, Illinois
James Buchanan
John C. Frémont
Stephen A. Douglas
Elihu B. Washburne
April 28
2007
War Democrats
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Galena, Illinois
Fort Sumter
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
Illinois
Richard Yates (governor)
21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
Claiborne Jackson
John C. Frémont
Ohio River
Paducah, Kentucky
Confederate States Army
Columbus, Kentucky
Gideon J. Pillow
Battle of Belmont
Andrew H. Foote
Battle of Fort Henry
Tennessee River
Battle of Fort Donelson
Cumberland River
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Henry W. Halleck
Nashville, Tennessee
Don Carlos Buell
March 2
March 17
Battle of Cold Harbor
Mathew Brady
Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard
Battle of Shiloh
April 30
First Battle of Corinth
William T. Sherman
Army of West Tennessee
Army of the Tennessee
June 10
Second Battle of Corinth
Battle of Iuka
Mississippi River
Vicksburg Campaign
U.S. Navy
Charles Anderson Dana
hardtack
John C. Pemberton
Jackson, Mississippi
Battle of Champion Hill
Battle of Vicksburg
July 4
1863
Battle of Gettysburg
Turning point of the American Civil War
July 4
Battle of Chickamauga
William S. Rosecrans
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Braxton Bragg
Lookout Mountain
October 17
George Henry Thomas
William Farrar Smith
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Missionary Ridge
Atlanta, Georgia
Lieutenant General (United States)
George Washington
Winfield Scott
brevet (military)
Congress of the United States
March 2
1864
March 12
United States
William Tecumseh Sherman
Virginia
Army of Northern Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
George G. Meade
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Franz Sigel
Shenandoah Valley
Georgia (U.S. state)
Joseph E. Johnston
Atlanta
George Crook
William W. Averell
West Virginia
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Mobile, Alabama
total war
Overland Campaign
Robert E. Lee
May 4
1864
Army of the Potomac
Rapidan River
Army of Northern Virginia
Battle of the Wilderness
Spotsylvania, Virginia
May 8
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 11
May 12
Battle of Cold Harbor
June 3
James River (Virginia)
Petersburg, Virginia
June 18
Siege of Petersburg
William Tecumseh Sherman
Abraham Lincoln
Jubal A. Early
Shenandoah Valley
Washington, D.C.
Administration (government)
Philip Sheridan
Valley Campaigns of 1864
Sherman's March to the Sea
total war
Carolinas Campaign
Appomattox Court House
April 9
1865
Kirby Smith
Trans-Mississippi Department
June 2
1865
Copperheads
Democratic Party (United States)
July 25
1866
General of the Army of the United States
U.S. Army
Andrew Johnson
Edwin M. Stanton
Tenure of Office Act
History of the United States Republican Party
Republican National Convention
Chicago
U.S. presidential election, 1868
Horatio Seymour
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
United States presidential election, 1872
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Horace Greeley
Reconstruction
Redeemers
Ku Klux Klan
voting rights
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Dominican Republic
Yellowstone National Park
March 1
1872
March 29
2006
Christmas
February 8
1999
Panic of 1873
Robert Schenck
Rutherford B. Hayes
Samuel J. Tilden
U.S. presidential election, 1876
Henry Watterson
Treaty of Washington (1871)
Hamilton Fish
CSS Alabama
Dominican Republic
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Charles Sumner
Horace Greeley
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Liberian-Grebo War
USS Alaska (1868)
Liberia
James Milton Turner
Black Friday (1869)
Jay Gould
James Fisk (financier)
Whiskey Ring
Benjamin H. Bristow
Orville E. Babcock
United States Secretary of War
William W. Belknap
Native Americans in the United States
trading post
Sanborn Incident
William Adams Richardson
Cyrus I. Scofield
Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Vice President of the United States
Schuyler Colfax
United States presidential election, 1872
Henry Wilson
Julia Grant
Jesse Root Grant
anti-Semitism
General Order No. 11 (1862)
Oxford, Mississippi
December 17
1862
Vicksburg Campaign
Tennessee
Mississippi
Kentucky
James H. Wilson
Bertram Korn
U.S. presidential election, 1868
President of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
Salmon P. Chase
March 4
1873
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
Elihu B. Washburne
Hamilton Fish
John A. Rawlins
William T. Sherman
William W. Belknap
Alphonso Taft
J. Donald Cameron
George S. Boutwell
William Adams Richardson
Benjamin Bristow
Lot M. Morrill
Ebenezer R. Hoar
Amos T. Akerman
George Henry Williams
Edwards Pierrepont
Alphonso Taft
John A. J. Creswell
James William Marshall
Marshall Jewell
James N. Tyner
Adolph E. Borie
George M. Robeson
Jacob D. Cox
Columbus Delano
Zachariah Chandler
Supreme Court of the United States
Edwin M. Stanton
William Strong (judge)
Joseph P. Bradley
Ward Hunt
Morrison Remick Waite
Chief Justice of the United States
Colorado
August 1
1876
United States Department of Justice
United States Solicitor General
Chester A. Arthur
Office of Personnel Management
Surgeon General of the United States
National Weather Service
Queen Victoria
Windsor Castle
Prince Bismarck
Emperor Meiji
Empress ShÅken
Imperial Palace
Tokyo
Meiji period
Ryukyu Islands
China
Stalwart (politics)
Roscoe Conkling
Methodist
Republican National Convention
James A. Garfield
New York City
Ferdinand Ward
Wall Street
Grant & Ward
Esophageal cancer
pension
The Century Magazine
Mark Twain
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Julius Caesar
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
New York City
Riverside Park (Manhattan)
General Grant National Memorial
mausoleum
North America
World War II
tank
Grant tank
U.S. fifty-dollar bill
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Grant Park (Chicago)
Chicago
the Bronx
New York
San Francisco, California
Chinatown, San Francisco, California
Bedford Avenue
Crown Heights
Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. Grant Bridge
Ohio River
Portsmouth, Ohio
U.S. Route 52
Counties of the United States
U.S. state
Grant County, Arkansas
Grant County, Kansas
Grant County, Minnesota
Grant County, Nebraska
Grant County, New Mexico
Grant County, North Dakota
Grant County, Oklahoma
Grant County, Washington
Grant County, West Virginia
Grant Parish, Louisiana
Mayflower
Richard Warren
John Lothropp
Benjamin Franklin
abolitionist
John Brown (abolitionist)
Mathew Brady
Willard Hotel
lobbyist
San Francisco
National Rifle Association
Jeffrey Shaara
The Last Full Measure
Michael Shaara
The Killer Angels
First Lady of the United States
Julia Grant
Strabismus
bourbon whiskey
Old Crow
cucumbers
vinegar
breakfast
James Wolfe
French and Indian Wars
King George II
Groucho Marx
You Bet Your Life
Ulysses S. Grant IV
University of California, Los Angeles
The Golden Girls
Cary Grant
Wild Wild West
Henry Wager Halleck
Quiz Show
United States presidential election, 1868
United States presidential election, 1872
History of the United States (1865-1918)
Western Theater of the American Civil War
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
James M. McPherson
Jean Edward Smith
Allan Nevins
Ed Bearss
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
Find A Grave
West Point#Cullum Number
Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Rutherford B. Hayes
Abraham Lincoln
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1868
U.S. presidential election, 1872
Rutherford B. Hayes
Army of the Tennessee
William T. Sherman
Henry W. Halleck
Commanding General of the United States Army
Andrew Johnson
Oldest living United States president
Rutherford B. Hayes
United States
soldier
politician
President of the United States
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
|
Ulysses_S._Grant | Did Ulysses win the Battle of Champion Hill? | Yes | data/set3/a5 | Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, See military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 July 23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869 1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
Grant first reached national prominence by taking Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862 in the first Union victories of the war. The following year, his brilliant campaign ending in the surrender of Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi andâwith the simultaneous Union victory at Gettysburgâturned the tide of the war in the North's favor. Named commanding general of the Federal armies in 1864, he implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's ability to carry on the war. In 1865, after conducting a costly war of attrition in the East, he accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. Grant has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.
In 1868, Grant was elected president as a Republican. Grant was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed.
Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans. See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.
Ulysses Grant Birthplace, Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home, Georgetown, Ohio
Grant was born in a log cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794 1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798 1883). His father, a tanner, was from Pennsylvania, and his mother was born in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio.
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826 1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (Buck), Ellen Wrenshall Grant (Nellie), and Jesse Root Grant.
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only. Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.
Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846â1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, later becoming his brother-in-law, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.
After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the 4th U.S. Infantry regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial. According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name." McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican War
A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys). His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. McFeely, ch. 5.
Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican. Hesseltine, chapter 6. .
The home of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Infantry in June 1861.
Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.
In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.
Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederates violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, an old friend of Grant's and a West Point classmate, and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers. Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.
Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased against him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.
General Grant at Cold Harbor, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864
In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.
The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in Corinth, Mississippi. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Corinth and Iuka that fall.
In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant spent the winter of 1862 1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.
However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and in a daring move that defied conventional military principles cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles A. Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George H. Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas' chief engineer, William F. "Baldy" Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.
Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas' men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.
Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet appointment), recently re-authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.
In March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.
Poster of "Grant from West Point to Appomattox."
Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.
The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River.
Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a siege.
As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas.
At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democrats who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius: Korda, (2004)
After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army. Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.''
As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.
The second president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In the 1872 election he won by a landslide against the breakaway Liberal Republican party that nominated Horace Greeley.
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed .
Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006. Grant also signed into law making Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application, CRS Report for Congress, 98-301 GOV, updated February 8, 1999, by Stephen W. Stathis
The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.
By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker. Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes: Nevins, Fish 2:811
In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson .
The Grant administration's first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Act to Strengthen the Public Credit which the GOP Congress had passed after Grant ` s inaugural in March 1869 . The act had the effect that the gold price on New York exchange fell to 310 dollar an ounce - the lowest point since the suspension of specie payment in 1862 .
As Jean Edward Smith notes in his 2002 biography on Grant, the presidential treasury secretary Boutwell reorganized the Treasury by discharging unnecessary employees, started sweeping changes in Bureau of Printing and Engraving to protect the currency from counterfeiters and revitalized tax collections to hasten the collection of revenue. This changes soon led the Tresury having a monthly surplus .
The Grant administration reduced the debt by appromixately 435 million dollar. That was achieved by selling the growing gold surplus at weekly auctions for greenbacks and buying back wartime bonds with the currency . With this Grant ` s treasury secretary Boutwell had established a policy if continued had payed of the national debt in a quarter of a century . Newspapers like the New York Tribune wanted that the Government buy more bonds and Greenbacks, the New York Times praised the the Grant administration `s debt policy .
On other economic fronts did the Grant administration have acomplishments . Under
Grant the nation `s credit was substantially raised. Taxes was reduced by 300 million dollar. Annual interest rates were reduced by approximately 30 million dollar . The U . S balance of trade was changed from 130 million dollar against the United States to 120 million dollar in favor of the United States . He also reduced inflation and to 1873 bolstered economic recovery . He also promoted economy in federal expenditures . His veto of the Inflation Bill in 1874 saved the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 to get worse and the veto was praised by the financial community and many newspapers .
The Resumption of Species Act of 1875 which was signed by Grant and helped to end the crisis in 1879 when the law came in to effect
He also pressed for internal improvements and increased shipbuilding and foreign trade. He also wanted to enhance and improve the commercial marine .
Grant/Wilson campaign poster
In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington, negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He also proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Santo Domingo. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia. Liberian-Grebo War of 1876
The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud. However, Grant eventually released large amounts of gold back onto the market, causing a large-scale financial crisis for many gold investors. Jay Gould had already prepared and quietly sold out while Fisk denied many agreements and hired thugs to intimidate his creditors.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.
Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first vice president, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.
President Grant with his wife, Julia, and son, Jesse, in 1872.
Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."
Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11, issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:
The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart â opportunistic traders who were Jewish. McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed [...] he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."
The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 presidential campaign, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.
Grant's second inauguration as President by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.
Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
* Edwin M. Stanton 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
* William Strong 1870
* Joseph P. Bradley 1870
* Ward Hunt 1873
* Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice) 1874
* Colorado August 1, 1876
* Department of Justice (1870)
* Office of the Solicitor General (1870)
* "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
* Office of the Surgeon General (1871)
* Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)
Ulysses S. Grant in his postbellum.
After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress ShÅken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.
In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.
That same year, Grant was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.
Grant writing his memoirs.
In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
Grant appears on the U.S. $50 bill.
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. It was not until 1958 that Congress, feeling it inappropriate that a former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting a pension to such individuals, a practice that continues to this day. Grant first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and Grant's memoirs are also regarded by such writers as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request, "Water." His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America.
Statue of Grant astride his favorite mount, "Cincinnati", at Vicksburg, Mississippi
*In World War II, the United States produced a tank known as the Grant tank (an upgrade of the American M3 "Lee").
*Grant's portrait appears on the U.S. fifty-dollar bill.
*The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., honors Grant.
*Grant Park in Chicago honors Grant.
*Grant Avenue, a nine block long, north-south street in the Bronx, New York, is named after Grant. It is parallel and adjacent to Sherman Avenue.
*Dupont Street, the main thoroughfare in San Francisco's Chinatown, was renamed Grant Avenue in his honor. The famous dragon gate at the entrance to the district is at the corner of Grant and Bush Street.
*Grant, depicted riding a horse, is honored by a statue at the intersection of Bedford Avenue, Rogers Avenue and Dean Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
*There is a U.S. Grant Bridge over the Ohio River at Portsmouth, Ohio.
*There is a U.S. Grant Memorial Highway (US 52) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
*Counties in twelve U.S. states are named after Grant: Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Grant Parish, Louisiana. Note: Grant Counties in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin were named after other Grants, not Ulysses Grant.
* Grant was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren
* Grant is also a descendant from John Lothropp, who is also an ancestor to Benjamin Franklin
Grant Memorial Statue in Grant Park, Galena, Illinois. Julia Grant remarked that it was the best likeness of her husband, as his hands were thrust into his pockets.
* As a young man, Grant's father, Jesse, taught him the trade of tanning. Jesse Grant had been taught how to tan by Owen Brown, the father of known abolitionist John Brown. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* When Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1864, he agreed to sit down for photographer Mathew Brady. As the sun had begun to set by the time Grant arrived, Brady instructed one of his assistants to open the shades of the skylight in Brady's studio. The assistant slipped and shattered the skylight, causing two-inch-thick shards of glass to rain down around Grant, who had taken his seat as requested. He was unharmed, and showed "the most remarkable display of nerve" that Brady had ever seen. O'Brien, Cormac (2007). "Secret Lives of the Civil War: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the War Between the States".
* Grant was known to visit the Willard Hotel to escape the stress of the White House. A long-standing story is that he referred to the people who approached him in the lobby as "those darn lobbyists," implying that he was the source for the term lobbyist. This story is unlikely to be true since there are examples of the term being used in U.S. and British magazines and newspapers before Grant's presidency. World Wide Words.
* While in California, Grant tried selling ice to San Francisco, but failed when it melted in the warm weather aboard the ship. Smith, Grant, p. 81. . This anecdote is disputed by Edward G. Longacre in "General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man" (2006) in which he says -- in a referenced statement -- that the ice venture had failed because of "an unexpected glut of [ice] imports from Alaska."
* In 1883, Grant was elected the eighth president of the National Rifle Association.
* Grant suffered from tone-deafness. He disliked music intensely and would go out of his way to avoid having to hear any other than patriotic songs. In Jeffrey Shaara's The Last Full Measure - which is set after the Battle of Gettysburg, the subject of his father Michael's 1974 bestseller The Killer Angels - Grant is portrayed as saying, "I know only two songs. One is 'Yankee Doodle'. The other isn't." Whether he actually said this is unclear. Shaara, Jeffrey M. (1998). "The Last Full Measure".
* Grant's wife, First Lady Julia Grant, was cross-eyed. When it was suggested to her that she have an operation to have it corrected, President Grant replied that he liked her that way. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* Grant's favorite brand of bourbon whiskey was Old Crow.
* Grant enjoyed eating cucumbers soaked in vinegar for breakfast.
* An apocryphal story about Grant's drinking has the general's critics going to President Lincoln, charging the military man with being a drunk. Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."
:* A similar story was told of General James Wolfe during the French and Indian Wars. When King George II was told that Wolfe was a "mad dog", he is said to have replied, "Then I'd wish he'd bite the other generals."
* The question "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" was used by Groucho Marx in his radio and TV quiz show, the correct answer to which resulted in a consolation prize to contestants who had won no money. Some contestants thought it was a trick question. Grant's grandson, Ulysses S. Grant IV (a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles) appeared on the program on March 12, 1953.
** This was also featured on an episode of the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, in which in a dream sequence Dorothy competes on Jeopardy against a scholar and her roommate Rose. When asked the question, Dorothy replies Ulysses and is wrong, while Rose replies Cary Grant and is correct.
* In the film Wild Wild West, President Grant is a minor character that must deal with the Loveless Alliance.
Once while in office he was arrested for speeding his horse and buggy and fined $20 and had to walk back to the white house. (www.pocanticohills.org/presidents/know.htm )
* A dispute between Grant and his commanding officer Henry Wager Halleck is the subject of a pivotal question in the film Quiz Show.
* United States presidential election, 1868
* United States presidential election, 1872
* History of the United States (1865â1918)
* Western Theater of the American Civil War
* Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
* U.S. Grant Home, Galena, Illinois
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command, Little, Brown and Company, 1968, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 69-12632.
*Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Garland, Hamlin, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character, Macmillan Company, 1898.
*Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885 86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
*Hesseltine, William B., Ulysses S. Grant: Politician 1935.
* Lewis, Lloyd, Captain Sam Grant, Little, Brown, and Co., 1950, ISBN 0-316-52348-8.
* McFeely, William S., Grant: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Co, 1981, ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
* McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
* Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-395-65994-9.
*Smith, Jean Edward, Grant, Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
*Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861 1865, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
* Official Ulysses Simpson Grant biography from the US Army Center for Military History
* Bunting III, Josiah. Ulysses S. Grant (2004) ISBN 0-8050-6949-6
* William Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 (1905), vol 22
* Hesseltine, William B. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (2001) ISBN 1-931313-85-7 online edition
* Mantell, Martin E., Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
* Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936) online edition
* Rhodes, James Ford., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6 and 7 (1920) vol 6
* Scaturro, Frank J., President Grant Reconsidered (1998).
* Schouler, James., History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
* Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
* Simpson, Brooks D., The Reconstruction Presidents (1998)
* Skidmore, Max J. "The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: a Reconsideration." White House Studies (2005) online
* Badeau, Adam. Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 vols. 1882.
*Ballard, Michael B., Vicksburg, The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-2893-9.
* Bearss, Edwin C., The Vicksburg Campaign, 3 volumes, Morningside Press, 1991, ISBN 0-89029-308-2.
* Carter, Samuel III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863 (1980)
* Catton, Bruce, Grant Moves South, 1960, ISBN 0-316-13207-1; Grant Takes Command, 1968, ISBN 0-316-13210-1; U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954)
* Cavanaugh, Michael A., and William Marvel, The Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of the Crater: "The Horrid Pit," June 25-August 6, 1864 (1989)
* Conger, A. L. The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931)
* Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg (1986).
* Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
* Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
* Korda, Michael. Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (2004) 161 pp
* McWhiney, Grady, Battle in the Wilderness: Grant Meets Lee (1995)
* McDonough, James Lee, Shiloh: In Hell before Night (1977).
* McDonough, James Lee, Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy (1984).
* Maney, R. Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor. Victory and Failure, 1864 (1994).
* Matter, William D., If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (1988)
* Miers, Earl Schenck., The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg. 1955.
* Mosier, John., "Grant", Palgrave MacMillan, 2006 ISBN 1-4039-7136-6.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5 6, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8071-1873-7.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7 12, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8071-2136-3.
* Rhea, Gordon C., To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13 25, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8071-2535-0.
* Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.
* Miller, J. Michael, The North Anna Campaign: "Even to Hell Itself," May 21-26, 1864 (1989).
* Simpson, Brooks D, "Continuous Hammering and Mere Attrition: Lost Cause Critics and the Military Reputation of Ulysses S. Grant," in Cad Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, (2000)
* Steere, Edward, The Wilderness Campaign (1960)
* Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April. 1974.
* Williams, T. Harry, McClellan, Sherman and Grant. 1962.
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs (1885) online edition
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters (Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely, eds.) ( The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-94045058-5
* Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) pp 131-73, on the Memoirs
* Johnson, R. U., and Buel, C. C., eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York, 1887-88; essays by leading generals of both sides; online edition
* Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant (1897, reprinted 2000)
* Sherman, William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. 2 vols. 1875.
* Simon, John Y., ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Southern Illinois University Press (1967- ) multivolume complete edition of letters to and from Grant. As of 2006, vol 1-28 covers through September 1878.
* Extensive essay on Ulysses S. Grant and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* First Inaugural Address
* Second Inaugural Address
* White House Biography
* Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
*Emerson, Col. John W., Grant's Life in the West and His Mississippi Valley Campaigns, U.S. Grant Association website.
* Ulysses S. Grant at Find A Grave
* Many rare General Grant photographs
* Complete Bibliography
* Military biography of Ulysses S. Grant from the Cullum biographies
*
* The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. (1918). "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.
* Collection of US Grant Letters
* Ulysses S. Grant: America's Second Three-Star General article by Ethan Rafuse
* Historic White Haven (Grant-Dent home)
*
|-
|-
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
Andrew Johnson
Rutherford B. Hayes
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Julia Grant
Jesse Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Nellie Grant
Frederick Grant
General-in-Chief
List of United States Presidential religious affiliations
Republican Party (United States)
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
#Military career
April 27
1822
July 23
1885
United States
President of the United States
Union (American Civil War)
American Civil War
Battle of Vicksburg
Confederate
Robert E. Lee
Appomattox Court House
J.F.C. Fuller
Vicksburg Campaign
History of the United States Republican Party
Andrew Jackson
Radical Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Civil Rights
African American history
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home
Georgetown, Ohio
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio River
Pennsylvania
Horsham Township, Pennsylvania
Georgetown, Ohio
Brown County, Ohio
August 22
1848
Julia Boggs Dent
Frederick Dent Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Ellen Wrenshall Grant
Jesse Root Grant
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Mathew Brady
United States Army
Army of the Tennessee
Military Division of the Mississippi
United States Army
United States Army
Mexican-American War
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
American Civil War
Battle of Fort Donelson
Battle of Shiloh
Battle of Vicksburg
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Overland Campaign
Battle of Petersburg
Appomattox Campaign
President of the United States
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
U.S. Congressman
Thomas L. Hamer
Academic administration
March 31
1853
cavalry
Mexican-American War
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
Fort Vancouver
Washington Territory
U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
July 31
1854
Robert C. Buchanan
John Eaton (General)
St. Louis, Missouri
Grant's Farm
Anheuser-Busch
Galena, Illinois
James Buchanan
John C. Frémont
Stephen A. Douglas
Elihu B. Washburne
April 28
2007
War Democrats
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Galena, Illinois
Fort Sumter
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
Illinois
Richard Yates (governor)
21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
Claiborne Jackson
John C. Frémont
Ohio River
Paducah, Kentucky
Confederate States Army
Columbus, Kentucky
Gideon J. Pillow
Battle of Belmont
Andrew H. Foote
Battle of Fort Henry
Tennessee River
Battle of Fort Donelson
Cumberland River
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Henry W. Halleck
Nashville, Tennessee
Don Carlos Buell
March 2
March 17
Battle of Cold Harbor
Mathew Brady
Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard
Battle of Shiloh
April 30
First Battle of Corinth
William T. Sherman
Army of West Tennessee
Army of the Tennessee
June 10
Second Battle of Corinth
Battle of Iuka
Mississippi River
Vicksburg Campaign
U.S. Navy
Charles Anderson Dana
hardtack
John C. Pemberton
Jackson, Mississippi
Battle of Champion Hill
Battle of Vicksburg
July 4
1863
Battle of Gettysburg
Turning point of the American Civil War
July 4
Battle of Chickamauga
William S. Rosecrans
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Braxton Bragg
Lookout Mountain
October 17
George Henry Thomas
William Farrar Smith
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Missionary Ridge
Atlanta, Georgia
Lieutenant General (United States)
George Washington
Winfield Scott
brevet (military)
Congress of the United States
March 2
1864
March 12
United States
William Tecumseh Sherman
Virginia
Army of Northern Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
George G. Meade
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Franz Sigel
Shenandoah Valley
Georgia (U.S. state)
Joseph E. Johnston
Atlanta
George Crook
William W. Averell
West Virginia
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Mobile, Alabama
total war
Overland Campaign
Robert E. Lee
May 4
1864
Army of the Potomac
Rapidan River
Army of Northern Virginia
Battle of the Wilderness
Spotsylvania, Virginia
May 8
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 11
May 12
Battle of Cold Harbor
June 3
James River (Virginia)
Petersburg, Virginia
June 18
Siege of Petersburg
William Tecumseh Sherman
Abraham Lincoln
Jubal A. Early
Shenandoah Valley
Washington, D.C.
Administration (government)
Philip Sheridan
Valley Campaigns of 1864
Sherman's March to the Sea
total war
Carolinas Campaign
Appomattox Court House
April 9
1865
Kirby Smith
Trans-Mississippi Department
June 2
1865
Copperheads
Democratic Party (United States)
July 25
1866
General of the Army of the United States
U.S. Army
Andrew Johnson
Edwin M. Stanton
Tenure of Office Act
History of the United States Republican Party
Republican National Convention
Chicago
U.S. presidential election, 1868
Horatio Seymour
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
United States presidential election, 1872
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Horace Greeley
Reconstruction
Redeemers
Ku Klux Klan
voting rights
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Dominican Republic
Yellowstone National Park
March 1
1872
March 29
2006
Christmas
February 8
1999
Panic of 1873
Robert Schenck
Rutherford B. Hayes
Samuel J. Tilden
U.S. presidential election, 1876
Henry Watterson
Treaty of Washington (1871)
Hamilton Fish
CSS Alabama
Dominican Republic
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Charles Sumner
Horace Greeley
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Liberian-Grebo War
USS Alaska (1868)
Liberia
James Milton Turner
Black Friday (1869)
Jay Gould
James Fisk (financier)
Whiskey Ring
Benjamin H. Bristow
Orville E. Babcock
United States Secretary of War
William W. Belknap
Native Americans in the United States
trading post
Sanborn Incident
William Adams Richardson
Cyrus I. Scofield
Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Vice President of the United States
Schuyler Colfax
United States presidential election, 1872
Henry Wilson
Julia Grant
Jesse Root Grant
anti-Semitism
General Order No. 11 (1862)
Oxford, Mississippi
December 17
1862
Vicksburg Campaign
Tennessee
Mississippi
Kentucky
James H. Wilson
Bertram Korn
U.S. presidential election, 1868
President of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
Salmon P. Chase
March 4
1873
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
Elihu B. Washburne
Hamilton Fish
John A. Rawlins
William T. Sherman
William W. Belknap
Alphonso Taft
J. Donald Cameron
George S. Boutwell
William Adams Richardson
Benjamin Bristow
Lot M. Morrill
Ebenezer R. Hoar
Amos T. Akerman
George Henry Williams
Edwards Pierrepont
Alphonso Taft
John A. J. Creswell
James William Marshall
Marshall Jewell
James N. Tyner
Adolph E. Borie
George M. Robeson
Jacob D. Cox
Columbus Delano
Zachariah Chandler
Supreme Court of the United States
Edwin M. Stanton
William Strong (judge)
Joseph P. Bradley
Ward Hunt
Morrison Remick Waite
Chief Justice of the United States
Colorado
August 1
1876
United States Department of Justice
United States Solicitor General
Chester A. Arthur
Office of Personnel Management
Surgeon General of the United States
National Weather Service
Queen Victoria
Windsor Castle
Prince Bismarck
Emperor Meiji
Empress ShÅken
Imperial Palace
Tokyo
Meiji period
Ryukyu Islands
China
Stalwart (politics)
Roscoe Conkling
Methodist
Republican National Convention
James A. Garfield
New York City
Ferdinand Ward
Wall Street
Grant & Ward
Esophageal cancer
pension
The Century Magazine
Mark Twain
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Julius Caesar
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
New York City
Riverside Park (Manhattan)
General Grant National Memorial
mausoleum
North America
World War II
tank
Grant tank
U.S. fifty-dollar bill
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Grant Park (Chicago)
Chicago
the Bronx
New York
San Francisco, California
Chinatown, San Francisco, California
Bedford Avenue
Crown Heights
Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. Grant Bridge
Ohio River
Portsmouth, Ohio
U.S. Route 52
Counties of the United States
U.S. state
Grant County, Arkansas
Grant County, Kansas
Grant County, Minnesota
Grant County, Nebraska
Grant County, New Mexico
Grant County, North Dakota
Grant County, Oklahoma
Grant County, Washington
Grant County, West Virginia
Grant Parish, Louisiana
Mayflower
Richard Warren
John Lothropp
Benjamin Franklin
abolitionist
John Brown (abolitionist)
Mathew Brady
Willard Hotel
lobbyist
San Francisco
National Rifle Association
Jeffrey Shaara
The Last Full Measure
Michael Shaara
The Killer Angels
First Lady of the United States
Julia Grant
Strabismus
bourbon whiskey
Old Crow
cucumbers
vinegar
breakfast
James Wolfe
French and Indian Wars
King George II
Groucho Marx
You Bet Your Life
Ulysses S. Grant IV
University of California, Los Angeles
The Golden Girls
Cary Grant
Wild Wild West
Henry Wager Halleck
Quiz Show
United States presidential election, 1868
United States presidential election, 1872
History of the United States (1865-1918)
Western Theater of the American Civil War
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
James M. McPherson
Jean Edward Smith
Allan Nevins
Ed Bearss
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
Find A Grave
West Point#Cullum Number
Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Rutherford B. Hayes
Abraham Lincoln
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1868
U.S. presidential election, 1872
Rutherford B. Hayes
Army of the Tennessee
William T. Sherman
Henry W. Halleck
Commanding General of the United States Army
Andrew Johnson
Oldest living United States president
Rutherford B. Hayes
United States
soldier
politician
President of the United States
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
|
Ulysses_S._Grant | Did Ulysses win the Battle of Champion Hill? | you betcha | data/set3/a5 | Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, See military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 July 23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869 1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
Grant first reached national prominence by taking Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862 in the first Union victories of the war. The following year, his brilliant campaign ending in the surrender of Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi andâwith the simultaneous Union victory at Gettysburgâturned the tide of the war in the North's favor. Named commanding general of the Federal armies in 1864, he implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's ability to carry on the war. In 1865, after conducting a costly war of attrition in the East, he accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. Grant has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.
In 1868, Grant was elected president as a Republican. Grant was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed.
Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans. See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.
Ulysses Grant Birthplace, Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home, Georgetown, Ohio
Grant was born in a log cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794 1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798 1883). His father, a tanner, was from Pennsylvania, and his mother was born in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio.
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826 1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (Buck), Ellen Wrenshall Grant (Nellie), and Jesse Root Grant.
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only. Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.
Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846â1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, later becoming his brother-in-law, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.
After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the 4th U.S. Infantry regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial. According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name." McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican War
A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys). His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. McFeely, ch. 5.
Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican. Hesseltine, chapter 6. .
The home of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Infantry in June 1861.
Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.
In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.
Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederates violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, an old friend of Grant's and a West Point classmate, and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers. Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.
Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased against him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.
General Grant at Cold Harbor, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864
In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.
The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in Corinth, Mississippi. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Corinth and Iuka that fall.
In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant spent the winter of 1862 1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.
However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and in a daring move that defied conventional military principles cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles A. Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George H. Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas' chief engineer, William F. "Baldy" Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.
Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas' men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.
Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet appointment), recently re-authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.
In March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.
Poster of "Grant from West Point to Appomattox."
Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.
The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River.
Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a siege.
As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas.
At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democrats who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius: Korda, (2004)
After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army. Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.''
As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.
The second president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In the 1872 election he won by a landslide against the breakaway Liberal Republican party that nominated Horace Greeley.
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed .
Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006. Grant also signed into law making Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application, CRS Report for Congress, 98-301 GOV, updated February 8, 1999, by Stephen W. Stathis
The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.
By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker. Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes: Nevins, Fish 2:811
In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson .
The Grant administration's first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Act to Strengthen the Public Credit which the GOP Congress had passed after Grant ` s inaugural in March 1869 . The act had the effect that the gold price on New York exchange fell to 310 dollar an ounce - the lowest point since the suspension of specie payment in 1862 .
As Jean Edward Smith notes in his 2002 biography on Grant, the presidential treasury secretary Boutwell reorganized the Treasury by discharging unnecessary employees, started sweeping changes in Bureau of Printing and Engraving to protect the currency from counterfeiters and revitalized tax collections to hasten the collection of revenue. This changes soon led the Tresury having a monthly surplus .
The Grant administration reduced the debt by appromixately 435 million dollar. That was achieved by selling the growing gold surplus at weekly auctions for greenbacks and buying back wartime bonds with the currency . With this Grant ` s treasury secretary Boutwell had established a policy if continued had payed of the national debt in a quarter of a century . Newspapers like the New York Tribune wanted that the Government buy more bonds and Greenbacks, the New York Times praised the the Grant administration `s debt policy .
On other economic fronts did the Grant administration have acomplishments . Under
Grant the nation `s credit was substantially raised. Taxes was reduced by 300 million dollar. Annual interest rates were reduced by approximately 30 million dollar . The U . S balance of trade was changed from 130 million dollar against the United States to 120 million dollar in favor of the United States . He also reduced inflation and to 1873 bolstered economic recovery . He also promoted economy in federal expenditures . His veto of the Inflation Bill in 1874 saved the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 to get worse and the veto was praised by the financial community and many newspapers .
The Resumption of Species Act of 1875 which was signed by Grant and helped to end the crisis in 1879 when the law came in to effect
He also pressed for internal improvements and increased shipbuilding and foreign trade. He also wanted to enhance and improve the commercial marine .
Grant/Wilson campaign poster
In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington, negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He also proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Santo Domingo. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia. Liberian-Grebo War of 1876
The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud. However, Grant eventually released large amounts of gold back onto the market, causing a large-scale financial crisis for many gold investors. Jay Gould had already prepared and quietly sold out while Fisk denied many agreements and hired thugs to intimidate his creditors.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.
Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first vice president, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.
President Grant with his wife, Julia, and son, Jesse, in 1872.
Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."
Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11, issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:
The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart â opportunistic traders who were Jewish. McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed [...] he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."
The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 presidential campaign, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.
Grant's second inauguration as President by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.
Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
* Edwin M. Stanton 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
* William Strong 1870
* Joseph P. Bradley 1870
* Ward Hunt 1873
* Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice) 1874
* Colorado August 1, 1876
* Department of Justice (1870)
* Office of the Solicitor General (1870)
* "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
* Office of the Surgeon General (1871)
* Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)
Ulysses S. Grant in his postbellum.
After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress ShÅken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.
In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.
That same year, Grant was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.
Grant writing his memoirs.
In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
Grant appears on the U.S. $50 bill.
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. It was not until 1958 that Congress, feeling it inappropriate that a former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting a pension to such individuals, a practice that continues to this day. Grant first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and Grant's memoirs are also regarded by such writers as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request, "Water." His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America.
Statue of Grant astride his favorite mount, "Cincinnati", at Vicksburg, Mississippi
*In World War II, the United States produced a tank known as the Grant tank (an upgrade of the American M3 "Lee").
*Grant's portrait appears on the U.S. fifty-dollar bill.
*The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., honors Grant.
*Grant Park in Chicago honors Grant.
*Grant Avenue, a nine block long, north-south street in the Bronx, New York, is named after Grant. It is parallel and adjacent to Sherman Avenue.
*Dupont Street, the main thoroughfare in San Francisco's Chinatown, was renamed Grant Avenue in his honor. The famous dragon gate at the entrance to the district is at the corner of Grant and Bush Street.
*Grant, depicted riding a horse, is honored by a statue at the intersection of Bedford Avenue, Rogers Avenue and Dean Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
*There is a U.S. Grant Bridge over the Ohio River at Portsmouth, Ohio.
*There is a U.S. Grant Memorial Highway (US 52) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
*Counties in twelve U.S. states are named after Grant: Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Grant Parish, Louisiana. Note: Grant Counties in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin were named after other Grants, not Ulysses Grant.
* Grant was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren
* Grant is also a descendant from John Lothropp, who is also an ancestor to Benjamin Franklin
Grant Memorial Statue in Grant Park, Galena, Illinois. Julia Grant remarked that it was the best likeness of her husband, as his hands were thrust into his pockets.
* As a young man, Grant's father, Jesse, taught him the trade of tanning. Jesse Grant had been taught how to tan by Owen Brown, the father of known abolitionist John Brown. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* When Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1864, he agreed to sit down for photographer Mathew Brady. As the sun had begun to set by the time Grant arrived, Brady instructed one of his assistants to open the shades of the skylight in Brady's studio. The assistant slipped and shattered the skylight, causing two-inch-thick shards of glass to rain down around Grant, who had taken his seat as requested. He was unharmed, and showed "the most remarkable display of nerve" that Brady had ever seen. O'Brien, Cormac (2007). "Secret Lives of the Civil War: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the War Between the States".
* Grant was known to visit the Willard Hotel to escape the stress of the White House. A long-standing story is that he referred to the people who approached him in the lobby as "those darn lobbyists," implying that he was the source for the term lobbyist. This story is unlikely to be true since there are examples of the term being used in U.S. and British magazines and newspapers before Grant's presidency. World Wide Words.
* While in California, Grant tried selling ice to San Francisco, but failed when it melted in the warm weather aboard the ship. Smith, Grant, p. 81. . This anecdote is disputed by Edward G. Longacre in "General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man" (2006) in which he says -- in a referenced statement -- that the ice venture had failed because of "an unexpected glut of [ice] imports from Alaska."
* In 1883, Grant was elected the eighth president of the National Rifle Association.
* Grant suffered from tone-deafness. He disliked music intensely and would go out of his way to avoid having to hear any other than patriotic songs. In Jeffrey Shaara's The Last Full Measure - which is set after the Battle of Gettysburg, the subject of his father Michael's 1974 bestseller The Killer Angels - Grant is portrayed as saying, "I know only two songs. One is 'Yankee Doodle'. The other isn't." Whether he actually said this is unclear. Shaara, Jeffrey M. (1998). "The Last Full Measure".
* Grant's wife, First Lady Julia Grant, was cross-eyed. When it was suggested to her that she have an operation to have it corrected, President Grant replied that he liked her that way. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* Grant's favorite brand of bourbon whiskey was Old Crow.
* Grant enjoyed eating cucumbers soaked in vinegar for breakfast.
* An apocryphal story about Grant's drinking has the general's critics going to President Lincoln, charging the military man with being a drunk. Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."
:* A similar story was told of General James Wolfe during the French and Indian Wars. When King George II was told that Wolfe was a "mad dog", he is said to have replied, "Then I'd wish he'd bite the other generals."
* The question "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" was used by Groucho Marx in his radio and TV quiz show, the correct answer to which resulted in a consolation prize to contestants who had won no money. Some contestants thought it was a trick question. Grant's grandson, Ulysses S. Grant IV (a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles) appeared on the program on March 12, 1953.
** This was also featured on an episode of the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, in which in a dream sequence Dorothy competes on Jeopardy against a scholar and her roommate Rose. When asked the question, Dorothy replies Ulysses and is wrong, while Rose replies Cary Grant and is correct.
* In the film Wild Wild West, President Grant is a minor character that must deal with the Loveless Alliance.
Once while in office he was arrested for speeding his horse and buggy and fined $20 and had to walk back to the white house. (www.pocanticohills.org/presidents/know.htm )
* A dispute between Grant and his commanding officer Henry Wager Halleck is the subject of a pivotal question in the film Quiz Show.
* United States presidential election, 1868
* United States presidential election, 1872
* History of the United States (1865â1918)
* Western Theater of the American Civil War
* Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
* U.S. Grant Home, Galena, Illinois
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command, Little, Brown and Company, 1968, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 69-12632.
*Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Garland, Hamlin, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character, Macmillan Company, 1898.
*Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885 86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
*Hesseltine, William B., Ulysses S. Grant: Politician 1935.
* Lewis, Lloyd, Captain Sam Grant, Little, Brown, and Co., 1950, ISBN 0-316-52348-8.
* McFeely, William S., Grant: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Co, 1981, ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
* McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
* Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-395-65994-9.
*Smith, Jean Edward, Grant, Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
*Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861 1865, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
* Official Ulysses Simpson Grant biography from the US Army Center for Military History
* Bunting III, Josiah. Ulysses S. Grant (2004) ISBN 0-8050-6949-6
* William Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 (1905), vol 22
* Hesseltine, William B. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (2001) ISBN 1-931313-85-7 online edition
* Mantell, Martin E., Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
* Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936) online edition
* Rhodes, James Ford., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6 and 7 (1920) vol 6
* Scaturro, Frank J., President Grant Reconsidered (1998).
* Schouler, James., History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
* Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
* Simpson, Brooks D., The Reconstruction Presidents (1998)
* Skidmore, Max J. "The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: a Reconsideration." White House Studies (2005) online
* Badeau, Adam. Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 vols. 1882.
*Ballard, Michael B., Vicksburg, The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-2893-9.
* Bearss, Edwin C., The Vicksburg Campaign, 3 volumes, Morningside Press, 1991, ISBN 0-89029-308-2.
* Carter, Samuel III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863 (1980)
* Catton, Bruce, Grant Moves South, 1960, ISBN 0-316-13207-1; Grant Takes Command, 1968, ISBN 0-316-13210-1; U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954)
* Cavanaugh, Michael A., and William Marvel, The Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of the Crater: "The Horrid Pit," June 25-August 6, 1864 (1989)
* Conger, A. L. The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931)
* Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg (1986).
* Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
* Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
* Korda, Michael. Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (2004) 161 pp
* McWhiney, Grady, Battle in the Wilderness: Grant Meets Lee (1995)
* McDonough, James Lee, Shiloh: In Hell before Night (1977).
* McDonough, James Lee, Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy (1984).
* Maney, R. Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor. Victory and Failure, 1864 (1994).
* Matter, William D., If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (1988)
* Miers, Earl Schenck., The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg. 1955.
* Mosier, John., "Grant", Palgrave MacMillan, 2006 ISBN 1-4039-7136-6.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5 6, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8071-1873-7.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7 12, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8071-2136-3.
* Rhea, Gordon C., To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13 25, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8071-2535-0.
* Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.
* Miller, J. Michael, The North Anna Campaign: "Even to Hell Itself," May 21-26, 1864 (1989).
* Simpson, Brooks D, "Continuous Hammering and Mere Attrition: Lost Cause Critics and the Military Reputation of Ulysses S. Grant," in Cad Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, (2000)
* Steere, Edward, The Wilderness Campaign (1960)
* Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April. 1974.
* Williams, T. Harry, McClellan, Sherman and Grant. 1962.
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs (1885) online edition
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters (Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely, eds.) ( The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-94045058-5
* Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) pp 131-73, on the Memoirs
* Johnson, R. U., and Buel, C. C., eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York, 1887-88; essays by leading generals of both sides; online edition
* Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant (1897, reprinted 2000)
* Sherman, William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. 2 vols. 1875.
* Simon, John Y., ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Southern Illinois University Press (1967- ) multivolume complete edition of letters to and from Grant. As of 2006, vol 1-28 covers through September 1878.
* Extensive essay on Ulysses S. Grant and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* First Inaugural Address
* Second Inaugural Address
* White House Biography
* Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
*Emerson, Col. John W., Grant's Life in the West and His Mississippi Valley Campaigns, U.S. Grant Association website.
* Ulysses S. Grant at Find A Grave
* Many rare General Grant photographs
* Complete Bibliography
* Military biography of Ulysses S. Grant from the Cullum biographies
*
* The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. (1918). "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.
* Collection of US Grant Letters
* Ulysses S. Grant: America's Second Three-Star General article by Ethan Rafuse
* Historic White Haven (Grant-Dent home)
*
|-
|-
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
Andrew Johnson
Rutherford B. Hayes
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Julia Grant
Jesse Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Nellie Grant
Frederick Grant
General-in-Chief
List of United States Presidential religious affiliations
Republican Party (United States)
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
#Military career
April 27
1822
July 23
1885
United States
President of the United States
Union (American Civil War)
American Civil War
Battle of Vicksburg
Confederate
Robert E. Lee
Appomattox Court House
J.F.C. Fuller
Vicksburg Campaign
History of the United States Republican Party
Andrew Jackson
Radical Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Civil Rights
African American history
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home
Georgetown, Ohio
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio River
Pennsylvania
Horsham Township, Pennsylvania
Georgetown, Ohio
Brown County, Ohio
August 22
1848
Julia Boggs Dent
Frederick Dent Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Ellen Wrenshall Grant
Jesse Root Grant
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Mathew Brady
United States Army
Army of the Tennessee
Military Division of the Mississippi
United States Army
United States Army
Mexican-American War
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
American Civil War
Battle of Fort Donelson
Battle of Shiloh
Battle of Vicksburg
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Overland Campaign
Battle of Petersburg
Appomattox Campaign
President of the United States
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
U.S. Congressman
Thomas L. Hamer
Academic administration
March 31
1853
cavalry
Mexican-American War
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
Fort Vancouver
Washington Territory
U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
July 31
1854
Robert C. Buchanan
John Eaton (General)
St. Louis, Missouri
Grant's Farm
Anheuser-Busch
Galena, Illinois
James Buchanan
John C. Frémont
Stephen A. Douglas
Elihu B. Washburne
April 28
2007
War Democrats
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Galena, Illinois
Fort Sumter
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
Illinois
Richard Yates (governor)
21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
Claiborne Jackson
John C. Frémont
Ohio River
Paducah, Kentucky
Confederate States Army
Columbus, Kentucky
Gideon J. Pillow
Battle of Belmont
Andrew H. Foote
Battle of Fort Henry
Tennessee River
Battle of Fort Donelson
Cumberland River
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Henry W. Halleck
Nashville, Tennessee
Don Carlos Buell
March 2
March 17
Battle of Cold Harbor
Mathew Brady
Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard
Battle of Shiloh
April 30
First Battle of Corinth
William T. Sherman
Army of West Tennessee
Army of the Tennessee
June 10
Second Battle of Corinth
Battle of Iuka
Mississippi River
Vicksburg Campaign
U.S. Navy
Charles Anderson Dana
hardtack
John C. Pemberton
Jackson, Mississippi
Battle of Champion Hill
Battle of Vicksburg
July 4
1863
Battle of Gettysburg
Turning point of the American Civil War
July 4
Battle of Chickamauga
William S. Rosecrans
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Braxton Bragg
Lookout Mountain
October 17
George Henry Thomas
William Farrar Smith
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Missionary Ridge
Atlanta, Georgia
Lieutenant General (United States)
George Washington
Winfield Scott
brevet (military)
Congress of the United States
March 2
1864
March 12
United States
William Tecumseh Sherman
Virginia
Army of Northern Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
George G. Meade
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Franz Sigel
Shenandoah Valley
Georgia (U.S. state)
Joseph E. Johnston
Atlanta
George Crook
William W. Averell
West Virginia
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Mobile, Alabama
total war
Overland Campaign
Robert E. Lee
May 4
1864
Army of the Potomac
Rapidan River
Army of Northern Virginia
Battle of the Wilderness
Spotsylvania, Virginia
May 8
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 11
May 12
Battle of Cold Harbor
June 3
James River (Virginia)
Petersburg, Virginia
June 18
Siege of Petersburg
William Tecumseh Sherman
Abraham Lincoln
Jubal A. Early
Shenandoah Valley
Washington, D.C.
Administration (government)
Philip Sheridan
Valley Campaigns of 1864
Sherman's March to the Sea
total war
Carolinas Campaign
Appomattox Court House
April 9
1865
Kirby Smith
Trans-Mississippi Department
June 2
1865
Copperheads
Democratic Party (United States)
July 25
1866
General of the Army of the United States
U.S. Army
Andrew Johnson
Edwin M. Stanton
Tenure of Office Act
History of the United States Republican Party
Republican National Convention
Chicago
U.S. presidential election, 1868
Horatio Seymour
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
United States presidential election, 1872
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Horace Greeley
Reconstruction
Redeemers
Ku Klux Klan
voting rights
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Dominican Republic
Yellowstone National Park
March 1
1872
March 29
2006
Christmas
February 8
1999
Panic of 1873
Robert Schenck
Rutherford B. Hayes
Samuel J. Tilden
U.S. presidential election, 1876
Henry Watterson
Treaty of Washington (1871)
Hamilton Fish
CSS Alabama
Dominican Republic
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Charles Sumner
Horace Greeley
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Liberian-Grebo War
USS Alaska (1868)
Liberia
James Milton Turner
Black Friday (1869)
Jay Gould
James Fisk (financier)
Whiskey Ring
Benjamin H. Bristow
Orville E. Babcock
United States Secretary of War
William W. Belknap
Native Americans in the United States
trading post
Sanborn Incident
William Adams Richardson
Cyrus I. Scofield
Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Vice President of the United States
Schuyler Colfax
United States presidential election, 1872
Henry Wilson
Julia Grant
Jesse Root Grant
anti-Semitism
General Order No. 11 (1862)
Oxford, Mississippi
December 17
1862
Vicksburg Campaign
Tennessee
Mississippi
Kentucky
James H. Wilson
Bertram Korn
U.S. presidential election, 1868
President of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
Salmon P. Chase
March 4
1873
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
Elihu B. Washburne
Hamilton Fish
John A. Rawlins
William T. Sherman
William W. Belknap
Alphonso Taft
J. Donald Cameron
George S. Boutwell
William Adams Richardson
Benjamin Bristow
Lot M. Morrill
Ebenezer R. Hoar
Amos T. Akerman
George Henry Williams
Edwards Pierrepont
Alphonso Taft
John A. J. Creswell
James William Marshall
Marshall Jewell
James N. Tyner
Adolph E. Borie
George M. Robeson
Jacob D. Cox
Columbus Delano
Zachariah Chandler
Supreme Court of the United States
Edwin M. Stanton
William Strong (judge)
Joseph P. Bradley
Ward Hunt
Morrison Remick Waite
Chief Justice of the United States
Colorado
August 1
1876
United States Department of Justice
United States Solicitor General
Chester A. Arthur
Office of Personnel Management
Surgeon General of the United States
National Weather Service
Queen Victoria
Windsor Castle
Prince Bismarck
Emperor Meiji
Empress ShÅken
Imperial Palace
Tokyo
Meiji period
Ryukyu Islands
China
Stalwart (politics)
Roscoe Conkling
Methodist
Republican National Convention
James A. Garfield
New York City
Ferdinand Ward
Wall Street
Grant & Ward
Esophageal cancer
pension
The Century Magazine
Mark Twain
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Julius Caesar
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
New York City
Riverside Park (Manhattan)
General Grant National Memorial
mausoleum
North America
World War II
tank
Grant tank
U.S. fifty-dollar bill
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Grant Park (Chicago)
Chicago
the Bronx
New York
San Francisco, California
Chinatown, San Francisco, California
Bedford Avenue
Crown Heights
Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. Grant Bridge
Ohio River
Portsmouth, Ohio
U.S. Route 52
Counties of the United States
U.S. state
Grant County, Arkansas
Grant County, Kansas
Grant County, Minnesota
Grant County, Nebraska
Grant County, New Mexico
Grant County, North Dakota
Grant County, Oklahoma
Grant County, Washington
Grant County, West Virginia
Grant Parish, Louisiana
Mayflower
Richard Warren
John Lothropp
Benjamin Franklin
abolitionist
John Brown (abolitionist)
Mathew Brady
Willard Hotel
lobbyist
San Francisco
National Rifle Association
Jeffrey Shaara
The Last Full Measure
Michael Shaara
The Killer Angels
First Lady of the United States
Julia Grant
Strabismus
bourbon whiskey
Old Crow
cucumbers
vinegar
breakfast
James Wolfe
French and Indian Wars
King George II
Groucho Marx
You Bet Your Life
Ulysses S. Grant IV
University of California, Los Angeles
The Golden Girls
Cary Grant
Wild Wild West
Henry Wager Halleck
Quiz Show
United States presidential election, 1868
United States presidential election, 1872
History of the United States (1865-1918)
Western Theater of the American Civil War
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
James M. McPherson
Jean Edward Smith
Allan Nevins
Ed Bearss
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
Find A Grave
West Point#Cullum Number
Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Rutherford B. Hayes
Abraham Lincoln
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1868
U.S. presidential election, 1872
Rutherford B. Hayes
Army of the Tennessee
William T. Sherman
Henry W. Halleck
Commanding General of the United States Army
Andrew Johnson
Oldest living United States president
Rutherford B. Hayes
United States
soldier
politician
President of the United States
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
|
Ulysses_S._Grant | Who was Grant's brother in law? | Fred Dent | data/set3/a5 | Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, See military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 July 23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869 1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
Grant first reached national prominence by taking Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862 in the first Union victories of the war. The following year, his brilliant campaign ending in the surrender of Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi andâwith the simultaneous Union victory at Gettysburgâturned the tide of the war in the North's favor. Named commanding general of the Federal armies in 1864, he implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's ability to carry on the war. In 1865, after conducting a costly war of attrition in the East, he accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. Grant has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.
In 1868, Grant was elected president as a Republican. Grant was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed.
Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans. See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.
Ulysses Grant Birthplace, Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home, Georgetown, Ohio
Grant was born in a log cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794 1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798 1883). His father, a tanner, was from Pennsylvania, and his mother was born in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio.
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826 1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (Buck), Ellen Wrenshall Grant (Nellie), and Jesse Root Grant.
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only. Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.
Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846â1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, later becoming his brother-in-law, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.
After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the 4th U.S. Infantry regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial. According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name." McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican War
A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys). His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. McFeely, ch. 5.
Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican. Hesseltine, chapter 6. .
The home of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Infantry in June 1861.
Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.
In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.
Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederates violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, an old friend of Grant's and a West Point classmate, and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers. Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.
Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased against him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.
General Grant at Cold Harbor, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864
In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.
The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in Corinth, Mississippi. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Corinth and Iuka that fall.
In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant spent the winter of 1862 1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.
However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and in a daring move that defied conventional military principles cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles A. Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George H. Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas' chief engineer, William F. "Baldy" Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.
Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas' men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.
Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet appointment), recently re-authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.
In March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.
Poster of "Grant from West Point to Appomattox."
Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.
The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River.
Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a siege.
As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas.
At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democrats who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius: Korda, (2004)
After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army. Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.''
As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.
The second president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In the 1872 election he won by a landslide against the breakaway Liberal Republican party that nominated Horace Greeley.
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed .
Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006. Grant also signed into law making Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application, CRS Report for Congress, 98-301 GOV, updated February 8, 1999, by Stephen W. Stathis
The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.
By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker. Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes: Nevins, Fish 2:811
In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson .
The Grant administration's first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Act to Strengthen the Public Credit which the GOP Congress had passed after Grant ` s inaugural in March 1869 . The act had the effect that the gold price on New York exchange fell to 310 dollar an ounce - the lowest point since the suspension of specie payment in 1862 .
As Jean Edward Smith notes in his 2002 biography on Grant, the presidential treasury secretary Boutwell reorganized the Treasury by discharging unnecessary employees, started sweeping changes in Bureau of Printing and Engraving to protect the currency from counterfeiters and revitalized tax collections to hasten the collection of revenue. This changes soon led the Tresury having a monthly surplus .
The Grant administration reduced the debt by appromixately 435 million dollar. That was achieved by selling the growing gold surplus at weekly auctions for greenbacks and buying back wartime bonds with the currency . With this Grant ` s treasury secretary Boutwell had established a policy if continued had payed of the national debt in a quarter of a century . Newspapers like the New York Tribune wanted that the Government buy more bonds and Greenbacks, the New York Times praised the the Grant administration `s debt policy .
On other economic fronts did the Grant administration have acomplishments . Under
Grant the nation `s credit was substantially raised. Taxes was reduced by 300 million dollar. Annual interest rates were reduced by approximately 30 million dollar . The U . S balance of trade was changed from 130 million dollar against the United States to 120 million dollar in favor of the United States . He also reduced inflation and to 1873 bolstered economic recovery . He also promoted economy in federal expenditures . His veto of the Inflation Bill in 1874 saved the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 to get worse and the veto was praised by the financial community and many newspapers .
The Resumption of Species Act of 1875 which was signed by Grant and helped to end the crisis in 1879 when the law came in to effect
He also pressed for internal improvements and increased shipbuilding and foreign trade. He also wanted to enhance and improve the commercial marine .
Grant/Wilson campaign poster
In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington, negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He also proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Santo Domingo. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia. Liberian-Grebo War of 1876
The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud. However, Grant eventually released large amounts of gold back onto the market, causing a large-scale financial crisis for many gold investors. Jay Gould had already prepared and quietly sold out while Fisk denied many agreements and hired thugs to intimidate his creditors.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.
Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first vice president, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.
President Grant with his wife, Julia, and son, Jesse, in 1872.
Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."
Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11, issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:
The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart â opportunistic traders who were Jewish. McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed [...] he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."
The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 presidential campaign, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.
Grant's second inauguration as President by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.
Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
* Edwin M. Stanton 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
* William Strong 1870
* Joseph P. Bradley 1870
* Ward Hunt 1873
* Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice) 1874
* Colorado August 1, 1876
* Department of Justice (1870)
* Office of the Solicitor General (1870)
* "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
* Office of the Surgeon General (1871)
* Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)
Ulysses S. Grant in his postbellum.
After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress ShÅken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.
In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.
That same year, Grant was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.
Grant writing his memoirs.
In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
Grant appears on the U.S. $50 bill.
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. It was not until 1958 that Congress, feeling it inappropriate that a former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting a pension to such individuals, a practice that continues to this day. Grant first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and Grant's memoirs are also regarded by such writers as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request, "Water." His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America.
Statue of Grant astride his favorite mount, "Cincinnati", at Vicksburg, Mississippi
*In World War II, the United States produced a tank known as the Grant tank (an upgrade of the American M3 "Lee").
*Grant's portrait appears on the U.S. fifty-dollar bill.
*The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., honors Grant.
*Grant Park in Chicago honors Grant.
*Grant Avenue, a nine block long, north-south street in the Bronx, New York, is named after Grant. It is parallel and adjacent to Sherman Avenue.
*Dupont Street, the main thoroughfare in San Francisco's Chinatown, was renamed Grant Avenue in his honor. The famous dragon gate at the entrance to the district is at the corner of Grant and Bush Street.
*Grant, depicted riding a horse, is honored by a statue at the intersection of Bedford Avenue, Rogers Avenue and Dean Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
*There is a U.S. Grant Bridge over the Ohio River at Portsmouth, Ohio.
*There is a U.S. Grant Memorial Highway (US 52) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
*Counties in twelve U.S. states are named after Grant: Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Grant Parish, Louisiana. Note: Grant Counties in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin were named after other Grants, not Ulysses Grant.
* Grant was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren
* Grant is also a descendant from John Lothropp, who is also an ancestor to Benjamin Franklin
Grant Memorial Statue in Grant Park, Galena, Illinois. Julia Grant remarked that it was the best likeness of her husband, as his hands were thrust into his pockets.
* As a young man, Grant's father, Jesse, taught him the trade of tanning. Jesse Grant had been taught how to tan by Owen Brown, the father of known abolitionist John Brown. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* When Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1864, he agreed to sit down for photographer Mathew Brady. As the sun had begun to set by the time Grant arrived, Brady instructed one of his assistants to open the shades of the skylight in Brady's studio. The assistant slipped and shattered the skylight, causing two-inch-thick shards of glass to rain down around Grant, who had taken his seat as requested. He was unharmed, and showed "the most remarkable display of nerve" that Brady had ever seen. O'Brien, Cormac (2007). "Secret Lives of the Civil War: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the War Between the States".
* Grant was known to visit the Willard Hotel to escape the stress of the White House. A long-standing story is that he referred to the people who approached him in the lobby as "those darn lobbyists," implying that he was the source for the term lobbyist. This story is unlikely to be true since there are examples of the term being used in U.S. and British magazines and newspapers before Grant's presidency. World Wide Words.
* While in California, Grant tried selling ice to San Francisco, but failed when it melted in the warm weather aboard the ship. Smith, Grant, p. 81. . This anecdote is disputed by Edward G. Longacre in "General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man" (2006) in which he says -- in a referenced statement -- that the ice venture had failed because of "an unexpected glut of [ice] imports from Alaska."
* In 1883, Grant was elected the eighth president of the National Rifle Association.
* Grant suffered from tone-deafness. He disliked music intensely and would go out of his way to avoid having to hear any other than patriotic songs. In Jeffrey Shaara's The Last Full Measure - which is set after the Battle of Gettysburg, the subject of his father Michael's 1974 bestseller The Killer Angels - Grant is portrayed as saying, "I know only two songs. One is 'Yankee Doodle'. The other isn't." Whether he actually said this is unclear. Shaara, Jeffrey M. (1998). "The Last Full Measure".
* Grant's wife, First Lady Julia Grant, was cross-eyed. When it was suggested to her that she have an operation to have it corrected, President Grant replied that he liked her that way. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* Grant's favorite brand of bourbon whiskey was Old Crow.
* Grant enjoyed eating cucumbers soaked in vinegar for breakfast.
* An apocryphal story about Grant's drinking has the general's critics going to President Lincoln, charging the military man with being a drunk. Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."
:* A similar story was told of General James Wolfe during the French and Indian Wars. When King George II was told that Wolfe was a "mad dog", he is said to have replied, "Then I'd wish he'd bite the other generals."
* The question "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" was used by Groucho Marx in his radio and TV quiz show, the correct answer to which resulted in a consolation prize to contestants who had won no money. Some contestants thought it was a trick question. Grant's grandson, Ulysses S. Grant IV (a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles) appeared on the program on March 12, 1953.
** This was also featured on an episode of the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, in which in a dream sequence Dorothy competes on Jeopardy against a scholar and her roommate Rose. When asked the question, Dorothy replies Ulysses and is wrong, while Rose replies Cary Grant and is correct.
* In the film Wild Wild West, President Grant is a minor character that must deal with the Loveless Alliance.
Once while in office he was arrested for speeding his horse and buggy and fined $20 and had to walk back to the white house. (www.pocanticohills.org/presidents/know.htm )
* A dispute between Grant and his commanding officer Henry Wager Halleck is the subject of a pivotal question in the film Quiz Show.
* United States presidential election, 1868
* United States presidential election, 1872
* History of the United States (1865â1918)
* Western Theater of the American Civil War
* Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
* U.S. Grant Home, Galena, Illinois
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command, Little, Brown and Company, 1968, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 69-12632.
*Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Garland, Hamlin, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character, Macmillan Company, 1898.
*Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885 86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
*Hesseltine, William B., Ulysses S. Grant: Politician 1935.
* Lewis, Lloyd, Captain Sam Grant, Little, Brown, and Co., 1950, ISBN 0-316-52348-8.
* McFeely, William S., Grant: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Co, 1981, ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
* McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
* Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-395-65994-9.
*Smith, Jean Edward, Grant, Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
*Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861 1865, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
* Official Ulysses Simpson Grant biography from the US Army Center for Military History
* Bunting III, Josiah. Ulysses S. Grant (2004) ISBN 0-8050-6949-6
* William Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 (1905), vol 22
* Hesseltine, William B. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (2001) ISBN 1-931313-85-7 online edition
* Mantell, Martin E., Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
* Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936) online edition
* Rhodes, James Ford., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6 and 7 (1920) vol 6
* Scaturro, Frank J., President Grant Reconsidered (1998).
* Schouler, James., History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
* Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
* Simpson, Brooks D., The Reconstruction Presidents (1998)
* Skidmore, Max J. "The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: a Reconsideration." White House Studies (2005) online
* Badeau, Adam. Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 vols. 1882.
*Ballard, Michael B., Vicksburg, The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-2893-9.
* Bearss, Edwin C., The Vicksburg Campaign, 3 volumes, Morningside Press, 1991, ISBN 0-89029-308-2.
* Carter, Samuel III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863 (1980)
* Catton, Bruce, Grant Moves South, 1960, ISBN 0-316-13207-1; Grant Takes Command, 1968, ISBN 0-316-13210-1; U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954)
* Cavanaugh, Michael A., and William Marvel, The Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of the Crater: "The Horrid Pit," June 25-August 6, 1864 (1989)
* Conger, A. L. The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931)
* Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg (1986).
* Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
* Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
* Korda, Michael. Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (2004) 161 pp
* McWhiney, Grady, Battle in the Wilderness: Grant Meets Lee (1995)
* McDonough, James Lee, Shiloh: In Hell before Night (1977).
* McDonough, James Lee, Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy (1984).
* Maney, R. Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor. Victory and Failure, 1864 (1994).
* Matter, William D., If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (1988)
* Miers, Earl Schenck., The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg. 1955.
* Mosier, John., "Grant", Palgrave MacMillan, 2006 ISBN 1-4039-7136-6.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5 6, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8071-1873-7.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7 12, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8071-2136-3.
* Rhea, Gordon C., To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13 25, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8071-2535-0.
* Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.
* Miller, J. Michael, The North Anna Campaign: "Even to Hell Itself," May 21-26, 1864 (1989).
* Simpson, Brooks D, "Continuous Hammering and Mere Attrition: Lost Cause Critics and the Military Reputation of Ulysses S. Grant," in Cad Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, (2000)
* Steere, Edward, The Wilderness Campaign (1960)
* Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April. 1974.
* Williams, T. Harry, McClellan, Sherman and Grant. 1962.
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs (1885) online edition
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters (Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely, eds.) ( The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-94045058-5
* Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) pp 131-73, on the Memoirs
* Johnson, R. U., and Buel, C. C., eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York, 1887-88; essays by leading generals of both sides; online edition
* Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant (1897, reprinted 2000)
* Sherman, William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. 2 vols. 1875.
* Simon, John Y., ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Southern Illinois University Press (1967- ) multivolume complete edition of letters to and from Grant. As of 2006, vol 1-28 covers through September 1878.
* Extensive essay on Ulysses S. Grant and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* First Inaugural Address
* Second Inaugural Address
* White House Biography
* Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
*Emerson, Col. John W., Grant's Life in the West and His Mississippi Valley Campaigns, U.S. Grant Association website.
* Ulysses S. Grant at Find A Grave
* Many rare General Grant photographs
* Complete Bibliography
* Military biography of Ulysses S. Grant from the Cullum biographies
*
* The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. (1918). "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.
* Collection of US Grant Letters
* Ulysses S. Grant: America's Second Three-Star General article by Ethan Rafuse
* Historic White Haven (Grant-Dent home)
*
|-
|-
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
Andrew Johnson
Rutherford B. Hayes
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Julia Grant
Jesse Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Nellie Grant
Frederick Grant
General-in-Chief
List of United States Presidential religious affiliations
Republican Party (United States)
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
#Military career
April 27
1822
July 23
1885
United States
President of the United States
Union (American Civil War)
American Civil War
Battle of Vicksburg
Confederate
Robert E. Lee
Appomattox Court House
J.F.C. Fuller
Vicksburg Campaign
History of the United States Republican Party
Andrew Jackson
Radical Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Civil Rights
African American history
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home
Georgetown, Ohio
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio River
Pennsylvania
Horsham Township, Pennsylvania
Georgetown, Ohio
Brown County, Ohio
August 22
1848
Julia Boggs Dent
Frederick Dent Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Ellen Wrenshall Grant
Jesse Root Grant
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Mathew Brady
United States Army
Army of the Tennessee
Military Division of the Mississippi
United States Army
United States Army
Mexican-American War
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
American Civil War
Battle of Fort Donelson
Battle of Shiloh
Battle of Vicksburg
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Overland Campaign
Battle of Petersburg
Appomattox Campaign
President of the United States
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
U.S. Congressman
Thomas L. Hamer
Academic administration
March 31
1853
cavalry
Mexican-American War
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
Fort Vancouver
Washington Territory
U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
July 31
1854
Robert C. Buchanan
John Eaton (General)
St. Louis, Missouri
Grant's Farm
Anheuser-Busch
Galena, Illinois
James Buchanan
John C. Frémont
Stephen A. Douglas
Elihu B. Washburne
April 28
2007
War Democrats
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Galena, Illinois
Fort Sumter
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
Illinois
Richard Yates (governor)
21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
Claiborne Jackson
John C. Frémont
Ohio River
Paducah, Kentucky
Confederate States Army
Columbus, Kentucky
Gideon J. Pillow
Battle of Belmont
Andrew H. Foote
Battle of Fort Henry
Tennessee River
Battle of Fort Donelson
Cumberland River
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Henry W. Halleck
Nashville, Tennessee
Don Carlos Buell
March 2
March 17
Battle of Cold Harbor
Mathew Brady
Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard
Battle of Shiloh
April 30
First Battle of Corinth
William T. Sherman
Army of West Tennessee
Army of the Tennessee
June 10
Second Battle of Corinth
Battle of Iuka
Mississippi River
Vicksburg Campaign
U.S. Navy
Charles Anderson Dana
hardtack
John C. Pemberton
Jackson, Mississippi
Battle of Champion Hill
Battle of Vicksburg
July 4
1863
Battle of Gettysburg
Turning point of the American Civil War
July 4
Battle of Chickamauga
William S. Rosecrans
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Braxton Bragg
Lookout Mountain
October 17
George Henry Thomas
William Farrar Smith
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Missionary Ridge
Atlanta, Georgia
Lieutenant General (United States)
George Washington
Winfield Scott
brevet (military)
Congress of the United States
March 2
1864
March 12
United States
William Tecumseh Sherman
Virginia
Army of Northern Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
George G. Meade
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Franz Sigel
Shenandoah Valley
Georgia (U.S. state)
Joseph E. Johnston
Atlanta
George Crook
William W. Averell
West Virginia
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Mobile, Alabama
total war
Overland Campaign
Robert E. Lee
May 4
1864
Army of the Potomac
Rapidan River
Army of Northern Virginia
Battle of the Wilderness
Spotsylvania, Virginia
May 8
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 11
May 12
Battle of Cold Harbor
June 3
James River (Virginia)
Petersburg, Virginia
June 18
Siege of Petersburg
William Tecumseh Sherman
Abraham Lincoln
Jubal A. Early
Shenandoah Valley
Washington, D.C.
Administration (government)
Philip Sheridan
Valley Campaigns of 1864
Sherman's March to the Sea
total war
Carolinas Campaign
Appomattox Court House
April 9
1865
Kirby Smith
Trans-Mississippi Department
June 2
1865
Copperheads
Democratic Party (United States)
July 25
1866
General of the Army of the United States
U.S. Army
Andrew Johnson
Edwin M. Stanton
Tenure of Office Act
History of the United States Republican Party
Republican National Convention
Chicago
U.S. presidential election, 1868
Horatio Seymour
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
United States presidential election, 1872
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Horace Greeley
Reconstruction
Redeemers
Ku Klux Klan
voting rights
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Dominican Republic
Yellowstone National Park
March 1
1872
March 29
2006
Christmas
February 8
1999
Panic of 1873
Robert Schenck
Rutherford B. Hayes
Samuel J. Tilden
U.S. presidential election, 1876
Henry Watterson
Treaty of Washington (1871)
Hamilton Fish
CSS Alabama
Dominican Republic
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Charles Sumner
Horace Greeley
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Liberian-Grebo War
USS Alaska (1868)
Liberia
James Milton Turner
Black Friday (1869)
Jay Gould
James Fisk (financier)
Whiskey Ring
Benjamin H. Bristow
Orville E. Babcock
United States Secretary of War
William W. Belknap
Native Americans in the United States
trading post
Sanborn Incident
William Adams Richardson
Cyrus I. Scofield
Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Vice President of the United States
Schuyler Colfax
United States presidential election, 1872
Henry Wilson
Julia Grant
Jesse Root Grant
anti-Semitism
General Order No. 11 (1862)
Oxford, Mississippi
December 17
1862
Vicksburg Campaign
Tennessee
Mississippi
Kentucky
James H. Wilson
Bertram Korn
U.S. presidential election, 1868
President of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
Salmon P. Chase
March 4
1873
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
Elihu B. Washburne
Hamilton Fish
John A. Rawlins
William T. Sherman
William W. Belknap
Alphonso Taft
J. Donald Cameron
George S. Boutwell
William Adams Richardson
Benjamin Bristow
Lot M. Morrill
Ebenezer R. Hoar
Amos T. Akerman
George Henry Williams
Edwards Pierrepont
Alphonso Taft
John A. J. Creswell
James William Marshall
Marshall Jewell
James N. Tyner
Adolph E. Borie
George M. Robeson
Jacob D. Cox
Columbus Delano
Zachariah Chandler
Supreme Court of the United States
Edwin M. Stanton
William Strong (judge)
Joseph P. Bradley
Ward Hunt
Morrison Remick Waite
Chief Justice of the United States
Colorado
August 1
1876
United States Department of Justice
United States Solicitor General
Chester A. Arthur
Office of Personnel Management
Surgeon General of the United States
National Weather Service
Queen Victoria
Windsor Castle
Prince Bismarck
Emperor Meiji
Empress ShÅken
Imperial Palace
Tokyo
Meiji period
Ryukyu Islands
China
Stalwart (politics)
Roscoe Conkling
Methodist
Republican National Convention
James A. Garfield
New York City
Ferdinand Ward
Wall Street
Grant & Ward
Esophageal cancer
pension
The Century Magazine
Mark Twain
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Julius Caesar
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
New York City
Riverside Park (Manhattan)
General Grant National Memorial
mausoleum
North America
World War II
tank
Grant tank
U.S. fifty-dollar bill
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Grant Park (Chicago)
Chicago
the Bronx
New York
San Francisco, California
Chinatown, San Francisco, California
Bedford Avenue
Crown Heights
Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. Grant Bridge
Ohio River
Portsmouth, Ohio
U.S. Route 52
Counties of the United States
U.S. state
Grant County, Arkansas
Grant County, Kansas
Grant County, Minnesota
Grant County, Nebraska
Grant County, New Mexico
Grant County, North Dakota
Grant County, Oklahoma
Grant County, Washington
Grant County, West Virginia
Grant Parish, Louisiana
Mayflower
Richard Warren
John Lothropp
Benjamin Franklin
abolitionist
John Brown (abolitionist)
Mathew Brady
Willard Hotel
lobbyist
San Francisco
National Rifle Association
Jeffrey Shaara
The Last Full Measure
Michael Shaara
The Killer Angels
First Lady of the United States
Julia Grant
Strabismus
bourbon whiskey
Old Crow
cucumbers
vinegar
breakfast
James Wolfe
French and Indian Wars
King George II
Groucho Marx
You Bet Your Life
Ulysses S. Grant IV
University of California, Los Angeles
The Golden Girls
Cary Grant
Wild Wild West
Henry Wager Halleck
Quiz Show
United States presidential election, 1868
United States presidential election, 1872
History of the United States (1865-1918)
Western Theater of the American Civil War
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
James M. McPherson
Jean Edward Smith
Allan Nevins
Ed Bearss
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
Find A Grave
West Point#Cullum Number
Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Rutherford B. Hayes
Abraham Lincoln
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1868
U.S. presidential election, 1872
Rutherford B. Hayes
Army of the Tennessee
William T. Sherman
Henry W. Halleck
Commanding General of the United States Army
Andrew Johnson
Oldest living United States president
Rutherford B. Hayes
United States
soldier
politician
President of the United States
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
|
Ulysses_S._Grant | Who was Grant's brother in law? | Fred Dent | data/set3/a5 | Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, See military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 July 23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869 1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
Grant first reached national prominence by taking Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862 in the first Union victories of the war. The following year, his brilliant campaign ending in the surrender of Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi andâwith the simultaneous Union victory at Gettysburgâturned the tide of the war in the North's favor. Named commanding general of the Federal armies in 1864, he implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's ability to carry on the war. In 1865, after conducting a costly war of attrition in the East, he accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. Grant has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.
In 1868, Grant was elected president as a Republican. Grant was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed.
Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans. See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.
Ulysses Grant Birthplace, Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home, Georgetown, Ohio
Grant was born in a log cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794 1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798 1883). His father, a tanner, was from Pennsylvania, and his mother was born in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio.
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826 1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (Buck), Ellen Wrenshall Grant (Nellie), and Jesse Root Grant.
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only. Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.
Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846â1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, later becoming his brother-in-law, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.
After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the 4th U.S. Infantry regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial. According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name." McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican War
A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys). His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. McFeely, ch. 5.
Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican. Hesseltine, chapter 6. .
The home of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Infantry in June 1861.
Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.
In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.
Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederates violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, an old friend of Grant's and a West Point classmate, and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers. Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.
Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased against him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.
General Grant at Cold Harbor, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864
In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.
The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in Corinth, Mississippi. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Corinth and Iuka that fall.
In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant spent the winter of 1862 1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.
However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and in a daring move that defied conventional military principles cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles A. Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George H. Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas' chief engineer, William F. "Baldy" Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.
Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas' men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.
Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet appointment), recently re-authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.
In March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.
Poster of "Grant from West Point to Appomattox."
Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.
The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River.
Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a siege.
As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas.
At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democrats who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius: Korda, (2004)
After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army. Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.''
As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.
The second president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In the 1872 election he won by a landslide against the breakaway Liberal Republican party that nominated Horace Greeley.
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed .
Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006. Grant also signed into law making Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application, CRS Report for Congress, 98-301 GOV, updated February 8, 1999, by Stephen W. Stathis
The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.
By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker. Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes: Nevins, Fish 2:811
In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson .
The Grant administration's first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Act to Strengthen the Public Credit which the GOP Congress had passed after Grant ` s inaugural in March 1869 . The act had the effect that the gold price on New York exchange fell to 310 dollar an ounce - the lowest point since the suspension of specie payment in 1862 .
As Jean Edward Smith notes in his 2002 biography on Grant, the presidential treasury secretary Boutwell reorganized the Treasury by discharging unnecessary employees, started sweeping changes in Bureau of Printing and Engraving to protect the currency from counterfeiters and revitalized tax collections to hasten the collection of revenue. This changes soon led the Tresury having a monthly surplus .
The Grant administration reduced the debt by appromixately 435 million dollar. That was achieved by selling the growing gold surplus at weekly auctions for greenbacks and buying back wartime bonds with the currency . With this Grant ` s treasury secretary Boutwell had established a policy if continued had payed of the national debt in a quarter of a century . Newspapers like the New York Tribune wanted that the Government buy more bonds and Greenbacks, the New York Times praised the the Grant administration `s debt policy .
On other economic fronts did the Grant administration have acomplishments . Under
Grant the nation `s credit was substantially raised. Taxes was reduced by 300 million dollar. Annual interest rates were reduced by approximately 30 million dollar . The U . S balance of trade was changed from 130 million dollar against the United States to 120 million dollar in favor of the United States . He also reduced inflation and to 1873 bolstered economic recovery . He also promoted economy in federal expenditures . His veto of the Inflation Bill in 1874 saved the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 to get worse and the veto was praised by the financial community and many newspapers .
The Resumption of Species Act of 1875 which was signed by Grant and helped to end the crisis in 1879 when the law came in to effect
He also pressed for internal improvements and increased shipbuilding and foreign trade. He also wanted to enhance and improve the commercial marine .
Grant/Wilson campaign poster
In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington, negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He also proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Santo Domingo. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia. Liberian-Grebo War of 1876
The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud. However, Grant eventually released large amounts of gold back onto the market, causing a large-scale financial crisis for many gold investors. Jay Gould had already prepared and quietly sold out while Fisk denied many agreements and hired thugs to intimidate his creditors.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.
Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first vice president, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.
President Grant with his wife, Julia, and son, Jesse, in 1872.
Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."
Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11, issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:
The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart â opportunistic traders who were Jewish. McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed [...] he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."
The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 presidential campaign, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.
Grant's second inauguration as President by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.
Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
* Edwin M. Stanton 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
* William Strong 1870
* Joseph P. Bradley 1870
* Ward Hunt 1873
* Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice) 1874
* Colorado August 1, 1876
* Department of Justice (1870)
* Office of the Solicitor General (1870)
* "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
* Office of the Surgeon General (1871)
* Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)
Ulysses S. Grant in his postbellum.
After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress ShÅken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.
In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.
That same year, Grant was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.
Grant writing his memoirs.
In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
Grant appears on the U.S. $50 bill.
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. It was not until 1958 that Congress, feeling it inappropriate that a former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting a pension to such individuals, a practice that continues to this day. Grant first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and Grant's memoirs are also regarded by such writers as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request, "Water." His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America.
Statue of Grant astride his favorite mount, "Cincinnati", at Vicksburg, Mississippi
*In World War II, the United States produced a tank known as the Grant tank (an upgrade of the American M3 "Lee").
*Grant's portrait appears on the U.S. fifty-dollar bill.
*The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., honors Grant.
*Grant Park in Chicago honors Grant.
*Grant Avenue, a nine block long, north-south street in the Bronx, New York, is named after Grant. It is parallel and adjacent to Sherman Avenue.
*Dupont Street, the main thoroughfare in San Francisco's Chinatown, was renamed Grant Avenue in his honor. The famous dragon gate at the entrance to the district is at the corner of Grant and Bush Street.
*Grant, depicted riding a horse, is honored by a statue at the intersection of Bedford Avenue, Rogers Avenue and Dean Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
*There is a U.S. Grant Bridge over the Ohio River at Portsmouth, Ohio.
*There is a U.S. Grant Memorial Highway (US 52) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
*Counties in twelve U.S. states are named after Grant: Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Grant Parish, Louisiana. Note: Grant Counties in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin were named after other Grants, not Ulysses Grant.
* Grant was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren
* Grant is also a descendant from John Lothropp, who is also an ancestor to Benjamin Franklin
Grant Memorial Statue in Grant Park, Galena, Illinois. Julia Grant remarked that it was the best likeness of her husband, as his hands were thrust into his pockets.
* As a young man, Grant's father, Jesse, taught him the trade of tanning. Jesse Grant had been taught how to tan by Owen Brown, the father of known abolitionist John Brown. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* When Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1864, he agreed to sit down for photographer Mathew Brady. As the sun had begun to set by the time Grant arrived, Brady instructed one of his assistants to open the shades of the skylight in Brady's studio. The assistant slipped and shattered the skylight, causing two-inch-thick shards of glass to rain down around Grant, who had taken his seat as requested. He was unharmed, and showed "the most remarkable display of nerve" that Brady had ever seen. O'Brien, Cormac (2007). "Secret Lives of the Civil War: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the War Between the States".
* Grant was known to visit the Willard Hotel to escape the stress of the White House. A long-standing story is that he referred to the people who approached him in the lobby as "those darn lobbyists," implying that he was the source for the term lobbyist. This story is unlikely to be true since there are examples of the term being used in U.S. and British magazines and newspapers before Grant's presidency. World Wide Words.
* While in California, Grant tried selling ice to San Francisco, but failed when it melted in the warm weather aboard the ship. Smith, Grant, p. 81. . This anecdote is disputed by Edward G. Longacre in "General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man" (2006) in which he says -- in a referenced statement -- that the ice venture had failed because of "an unexpected glut of [ice] imports from Alaska."
* In 1883, Grant was elected the eighth president of the National Rifle Association.
* Grant suffered from tone-deafness. He disliked music intensely and would go out of his way to avoid having to hear any other than patriotic songs. In Jeffrey Shaara's The Last Full Measure - which is set after the Battle of Gettysburg, the subject of his father Michael's 1974 bestseller The Killer Angels - Grant is portrayed as saying, "I know only two songs. One is 'Yankee Doodle'. The other isn't." Whether he actually said this is unclear. Shaara, Jeffrey M. (1998). "The Last Full Measure".
* Grant's wife, First Lady Julia Grant, was cross-eyed. When it was suggested to her that she have an operation to have it corrected, President Grant replied that he liked her that way. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* Grant's favorite brand of bourbon whiskey was Old Crow.
* Grant enjoyed eating cucumbers soaked in vinegar for breakfast.
* An apocryphal story about Grant's drinking has the general's critics going to President Lincoln, charging the military man with being a drunk. Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."
:* A similar story was told of General James Wolfe during the French and Indian Wars. When King George II was told that Wolfe was a "mad dog", he is said to have replied, "Then I'd wish he'd bite the other generals."
* The question "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" was used by Groucho Marx in his radio and TV quiz show, the correct answer to which resulted in a consolation prize to contestants who had won no money. Some contestants thought it was a trick question. Grant's grandson, Ulysses S. Grant IV (a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles) appeared on the program on March 12, 1953.
** This was also featured on an episode of the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, in which in a dream sequence Dorothy competes on Jeopardy against a scholar and her roommate Rose. When asked the question, Dorothy replies Ulysses and is wrong, while Rose replies Cary Grant and is correct.
* In the film Wild Wild West, President Grant is a minor character that must deal with the Loveless Alliance.
Once while in office he was arrested for speeding his horse and buggy and fined $20 and had to walk back to the white house. (www.pocanticohills.org/presidents/know.htm )
* A dispute between Grant and his commanding officer Henry Wager Halleck is the subject of a pivotal question in the film Quiz Show.
* United States presidential election, 1868
* United States presidential election, 1872
* History of the United States (1865â1918)
* Western Theater of the American Civil War
* Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
* U.S. Grant Home, Galena, Illinois
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command, Little, Brown and Company, 1968, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 69-12632.
*Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Garland, Hamlin, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character, Macmillan Company, 1898.
*Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885 86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
*Hesseltine, William B., Ulysses S. Grant: Politician 1935.
* Lewis, Lloyd, Captain Sam Grant, Little, Brown, and Co., 1950, ISBN 0-316-52348-8.
* McFeely, William S., Grant: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Co, 1981, ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
* McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
* Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-395-65994-9.
*Smith, Jean Edward, Grant, Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
*Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861 1865, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
* Official Ulysses Simpson Grant biography from the US Army Center for Military History
* Bunting III, Josiah. Ulysses S. Grant (2004) ISBN 0-8050-6949-6
* William Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 (1905), vol 22
* Hesseltine, William B. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (2001) ISBN 1-931313-85-7 online edition
* Mantell, Martin E., Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
* Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936) online edition
* Rhodes, James Ford., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6 and 7 (1920) vol 6
* Scaturro, Frank J., President Grant Reconsidered (1998).
* Schouler, James., History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
* Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
* Simpson, Brooks D., The Reconstruction Presidents (1998)
* Skidmore, Max J. "The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: a Reconsideration." White House Studies (2005) online
* Badeau, Adam. Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 vols. 1882.
*Ballard, Michael B., Vicksburg, The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-2893-9.
* Bearss, Edwin C., The Vicksburg Campaign, 3 volumes, Morningside Press, 1991, ISBN 0-89029-308-2.
* Carter, Samuel III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863 (1980)
* Catton, Bruce, Grant Moves South, 1960, ISBN 0-316-13207-1; Grant Takes Command, 1968, ISBN 0-316-13210-1; U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954)
* Cavanaugh, Michael A., and William Marvel, The Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of the Crater: "The Horrid Pit," June 25-August 6, 1864 (1989)
* Conger, A. L. The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931)
* Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg (1986).
* Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
* Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
* Korda, Michael. Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (2004) 161 pp
* McWhiney, Grady, Battle in the Wilderness: Grant Meets Lee (1995)
* McDonough, James Lee, Shiloh: In Hell before Night (1977).
* McDonough, James Lee, Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy (1984).
* Maney, R. Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor. Victory and Failure, 1864 (1994).
* Matter, William D., If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (1988)
* Miers, Earl Schenck., The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg. 1955.
* Mosier, John., "Grant", Palgrave MacMillan, 2006 ISBN 1-4039-7136-6.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5 6, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8071-1873-7.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7 12, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8071-2136-3.
* Rhea, Gordon C., To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13 25, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8071-2535-0.
* Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.
* Miller, J. Michael, The North Anna Campaign: "Even to Hell Itself," May 21-26, 1864 (1989).
* Simpson, Brooks D, "Continuous Hammering and Mere Attrition: Lost Cause Critics and the Military Reputation of Ulysses S. Grant," in Cad Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, (2000)
* Steere, Edward, The Wilderness Campaign (1960)
* Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April. 1974.
* Williams, T. Harry, McClellan, Sherman and Grant. 1962.
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs (1885) online edition
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters (Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely, eds.) ( The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-94045058-5
* Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) pp 131-73, on the Memoirs
* Johnson, R. U., and Buel, C. C., eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York, 1887-88; essays by leading generals of both sides; online edition
* Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant (1897, reprinted 2000)
* Sherman, William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. 2 vols. 1875.
* Simon, John Y., ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Southern Illinois University Press (1967- ) multivolume complete edition of letters to and from Grant. As of 2006, vol 1-28 covers through September 1878.
* Extensive essay on Ulysses S. Grant and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* First Inaugural Address
* Second Inaugural Address
* White House Biography
* Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
*Emerson, Col. John W., Grant's Life in the West and His Mississippi Valley Campaigns, U.S. Grant Association website.
* Ulysses S. Grant at Find A Grave
* Many rare General Grant photographs
* Complete Bibliography
* Military biography of Ulysses S. Grant from the Cullum biographies
*
* The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. (1918). "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.
* Collection of US Grant Letters
* Ulysses S. Grant: America's Second Three-Star General article by Ethan Rafuse
* Historic White Haven (Grant-Dent home)
*
|-
|-
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
Andrew Johnson
Rutherford B. Hayes
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Julia Grant
Jesse Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Nellie Grant
Frederick Grant
General-in-Chief
List of United States Presidential religious affiliations
Republican Party (United States)
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
#Military career
April 27
1822
July 23
1885
United States
President of the United States
Union (American Civil War)
American Civil War
Battle of Vicksburg
Confederate
Robert E. Lee
Appomattox Court House
J.F.C. Fuller
Vicksburg Campaign
History of the United States Republican Party
Andrew Jackson
Radical Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Civil Rights
African American history
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home
Georgetown, Ohio
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio River
Pennsylvania
Horsham Township, Pennsylvania
Georgetown, Ohio
Brown County, Ohio
August 22
1848
Julia Boggs Dent
Frederick Dent Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Ellen Wrenshall Grant
Jesse Root Grant
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Mathew Brady
United States Army
Army of the Tennessee
Military Division of the Mississippi
United States Army
United States Army
Mexican-American War
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
American Civil War
Battle of Fort Donelson
Battle of Shiloh
Battle of Vicksburg
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Overland Campaign
Battle of Petersburg
Appomattox Campaign
President of the United States
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
U.S. Congressman
Thomas L. Hamer
Academic administration
March 31
1853
cavalry
Mexican-American War
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
Fort Vancouver
Washington Territory
U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
July 31
1854
Robert C. Buchanan
John Eaton (General)
St. Louis, Missouri
Grant's Farm
Anheuser-Busch
Galena, Illinois
James Buchanan
John C. Frémont
Stephen A. Douglas
Elihu B. Washburne
April 28
2007
War Democrats
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Galena, Illinois
Fort Sumter
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
Illinois
Richard Yates (governor)
21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
Claiborne Jackson
John C. Frémont
Ohio River
Paducah, Kentucky
Confederate States Army
Columbus, Kentucky
Gideon J. Pillow
Battle of Belmont
Andrew H. Foote
Battle of Fort Henry
Tennessee River
Battle of Fort Donelson
Cumberland River
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Henry W. Halleck
Nashville, Tennessee
Don Carlos Buell
March 2
March 17
Battle of Cold Harbor
Mathew Brady
Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard
Battle of Shiloh
April 30
First Battle of Corinth
William T. Sherman
Army of West Tennessee
Army of the Tennessee
June 10
Second Battle of Corinth
Battle of Iuka
Mississippi River
Vicksburg Campaign
U.S. Navy
Charles Anderson Dana
hardtack
John C. Pemberton
Jackson, Mississippi
Battle of Champion Hill
Battle of Vicksburg
July 4
1863
Battle of Gettysburg
Turning point of the American Civil War
July 4
Battle of Chickamauga
William S. Rosecrans
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Braxton Bragg
Lookout Mountain
October 17
George Henry Thomas
William Farrar Smith
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Missionary Ridge
Atlanta, Georgia
Lieutenant General (United States)
George Washington
Winfield Scott
brevet (military)
Congress of the United States
March 2
1864
March 12
United States
William Tecumseh Sherman
Virginia
Army of Northern Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
George G. Meade
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Franz Sigel
Shenandoah Valley
Georgia (U.S. state)
Joseph E. Johnston
Atlanta
George Crook
William W. Averell
West Virginia
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Mobile, Alabama
total war
Overland Campaign
Robert E. Lee
May 4
1864
Army of the Potomac
Rapidan River
Army of Northern Virginia
Battle of the Wilderness
Spotsylvania, Virginia
May 8
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 11
May 12
Battle of Cold Harbor
June 3
James River (Virginia)
Petersburg, Virginia
June 18
Siege of Petersburg
William Tecumseh Sherman
Abraham Lincoln
Jubal A. Early
Shenandoah Valley
Washington, D.C.
Administration (government)
Philip Sheridan
Valley Campaigns of 1864
Sherman's March to the Sea
total war
Carolinas Campaign
Appomattox Court House
April 9
1865
Kirby Smith
Trans-Mississippi Department
June 2
1865
Copperheads
Democratic Party (United States)
July 25
1866
General of the Army of the United States
U.S. Army
Andrew Johnson
Edwin M. Stanton
Tenure of Office Act
History of the United States Republican Party
Republican National Convention
Chicago
U.S. presidential election, 1868
Horatio Seymour
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
United States presidential election, 1872
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Horace Greeley
Reconstruction
Redeemers
Ku Klux Klan
voting rights
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Dominican Republic
Yellowstone National Park
March 1
1872
March 29
2006
Christmas
February 8
1999
Panic of 1873
Robert Schenck
Rutherford B. Hayes
Samuel J. Tilden
U.S. presidential election, 1876
Henry Watterson
Treaty of Washington (1871)
Hamilton Fish
CSS Alabama
Dominican Republic
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Charles Sumner
Horace Greeley
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Liberian-Grebo War
USS Alaska (1868)
Liberia
James Milton Turner
Black Friday (1869)
Jay Gould
James Fisk (financier)
Whiskey Ring
Benjamin H. Bristow
Orville E. Babcock
United States Secretary of War
William W. Belknap
Native Americans in the United States
trading post
Sanborn Incident
William Adams Richardson
Cyrus I. Scofield
Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Vice President of the United States
Schuyler Colfax
United States presidential election, 1872
Henry Wilson
Julia Grant
Jesse Root Grant
anti-Semitism
General Order No. 11 (1862)
Oxford, Mississippi
December 17
1862
Vicksburg Campaign
Tennessee
Mississippi
Kentucky
James H. Wilson
Bertram Korn
U.S. presidential election, 1868
President of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
Salmon P. Chase
March 4
1873
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
Elihu B. Washburne
Hamilton Fish
John A. Rawlins
William T. Sherman
William W. Belknap
Alphonso Taft
J. Donald Cameron
George S. Boutwell
William Adams Richardson
Benjamin Bristow
Lot M. Morrill
Ebenezer R. Hoar
Amos T. Akerman
George Henry Williams
Edwards Pierrepont
Alphonso Taft
John A. J. Creswell
James William Marshall
Marshall Jewell
James N. Tyner
Adolph E. Borie
George M. Robeson
Jacob D. Cox
Columbus Delano
Zachariah Chandler
Supreme Court of the United States
Edwin M. Stanton
William Strong (judge)
Joseph P. Bradley
Ward Hunt
Morrison Remick Waite
Chief Justice of the United States
Colorado
August 1
1876
United States Department of Justice
United States Solicitor General
Chester A. Arthur
Office of Personnel Management
Surgeon General of the United States
National Weather Service
Queen Victoria
Windsor Castle
Prince Bismarck
Emperor Meiji
Empress ShÅken
Imperial Palace
Tokyo
Meiji period
Ryukyu Islands
China
Stalwart (politics)
Roscoe Conkling
Methodist
Republican National Convention
James A. Garfield
New York City
Ferdinand Ward
Wall Street
Grant & Ward
Esophageal cancer
pension
The Century Magazine
Mark Twain
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Julius Caesar
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
New York City
Riverside Park (Manhattan)
General Grant National Memorial
mausoleum
North America
World War II
tank
Grant tank
U.S. fifty-dollar bill
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Grant Park (Chicago)
Chicago
the Bronx
New York
San Francisco, California
Chinatown, San Francisco, California
Bedford Avenue
Crown Heights
Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. Grant Bridge
Ohio River
Portsmouth, Ohio
U.S. Route 52
Counties of the United States
U.S. state
Grant County, Arkansas
Grant County, Kansas
Grant County, Minnesota
Grant County, Nebraska
Grant County, New Mexico
Grant County, North Dakota
Grant County, Oklahoma
Grant County, Washington
Grant County, West Virginia
Grant Parish, Louisiana
Mayflower
Richard Warren
John Lothropp
Benjamin Franklin
abolitionist
John Brown (abolitionist)
Mathew Brady
Willard Hotel
lobbyist
San Francisco
National Rifle Association
Jeffrey Shaara
The Last Full Measure
Michael Shaara
The Killer Angels
First Lady of the United States
Julia Grant
Strabismus
bourbon whiskey
Old Crow
cucumbers
vinegar
breakfast
James Wolfe
French and Indian Wars
King George II
Groucho Marx
You Bet Your Life
Ulysses S. Grant IV
University of California, Los Angeles
The Golden Girls
Cary Grant
Wild Wild West
Henry Wager Halleck
Quiz Show
United States presidential election, 1868
United States presidential election, 1872
History of the United States (1865-1918)
Western Theater of the American Civil War
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
James M. McPherson
Jean Edward Smith
Allan Nevins
Ed Bearss
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
Find A Grave
West Point#Cullum Number
Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Rutherford B. Hayes
Abraham Lincoln
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1868
U.S. presidential election, 1872
Rutherford B. Hayes
Army of the Tennessee
William T. Sherman
Henry W. Halleck
Commanding General of the United States Army
Andrew Johnson
Oldest living United States president
Rutherford B. Hayes
United States
soldier
politician
President of the United States
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
|
Ulysses_S._Grant | Where was Grant born? | Point Pleasant, Ohio | data/set3/a5 | Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, See military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 July 23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869 1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
Grant first reached national prominence by taking Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862 in the first Union victories of the war. The following year, his brilliant campaign ending in the surrender of Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi andâwith the simultaneous Union victory at Gettysburgâturned the tide of the war in the North's favor. Named commanding general of the Federal armies in 1864, he implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's ability to carry on the war. In 1865, after conducting a costly war of attrition in the East, he accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. Grant has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.
In 1868, Grant was elected president as a Republican. Grant was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed.
Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans. See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.
Ulysses Grant Birthplace, Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home, Georgetown, Ohio
Grant was born in a log cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794 1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798 1883). His father, a tanner, was from Pennsylvania, and his mother was born in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio.
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826 1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (Buck), Ellen Wrenshall Grant (Nellie), and Jesse Root Grant.
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only. Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.
Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846â1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, later becoming his brother-in-law, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.
After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the 4th U.S. Infantry regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial. According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name." McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican War
A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys). His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. McFeely, ch. 5.
Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican. Hesseltine, chapter 6. .
The home of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Infantry in June 1861.
Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.
In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.
Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederates violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, an old friend of Grant's and a West Point classmate, and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers. Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.
Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased against him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.
General Grant at Cold Harbor, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864
In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.
The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in Corinth, Mississippi. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Corinth and Iuka that fall.
In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant spent the winter of 1862 1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.
However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and in a daring move that defied conventional military principles cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles A. Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George H. Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas' chief engineer, William F. "Baldy" Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.
Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas' men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.
Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet appointment), recently re-authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.
In March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.
Poster of "Grant from West Point to Appomattox."
Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.
The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River.
Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a siege.
As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas.
At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democrats who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius: Korda, (2004)
After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army. Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.''
As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.
The second president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In the 1872 election he won by a landslide against the breakaway Liberal Republican party that nominated Horace Greeley.
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed .
Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006. Grant also signed into law making Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application, CRS Report for Congress, 98-301 GOV, updated February 8, 1999, by Stephen W. Stathis
The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.
By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker. Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes: Nevins, Fish 2:811
In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson .
The Grant administration's first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Act to Strengthen the Public Credit which the GOP Congress had passed after Grant ` s inaugural in March 1869 . The act had the effect that the gold price on New York exchange fell to 310 dollar an ounce - the lowest point since the suspension of specie payment in 1862 .
As Jean Edward Smith notes in his 2002 biography on Grant, the presidential treasury secretary Boutwell reorganized the Treasury by discharging unnecessary employees, started sweeping changes in Bureau of Printing and Engraving to protect the currency from counterfeiters and revitalized tax collections to hasten the collection of revenue. This changes soon led the Tresury having a monthly surplus .
The Grant administration reduced the debt by appromixately 435 million dollar. That was achieved by selling the growing gold surplus at weekly auctions for greenbacks and buying back wartime bonds with the currency . With this Grant ` s treasury secretary Boutwell had established a policy if continued had payed of the national debt in a quarter of a century . Newspapers like the New York Tribune wanted that the Government buy more bonds and Greenbacks, the New York Times praised the the Grant administration `s debt policy .
On other economic fronts did the Grant administration have acomplishments . Under
Grant the nation `s credit was substantially raised. Taxes was reduced by 300 million dollar. Annual interest rates were reduced by approximately 30 million dollar . The U . S balance of trade was changed from 130 million dollar against the United States to 120 million dollar in favor of the United States . He also reduced inflation and to 1873 bolstered economic recovery . He also promoted economy in federal expenditures . His veto of the Inflation Bill in 1874 saved the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 to get worse and the veto was praised by the financial community and many newspapers .
The Resumption of Species Act of 1875 which was signed by Grant and helped to end the crisis in 1879 when the law came in to effect
He also pressed for internal improvements and increased shipbuilding and foreign trade. He also wanted to enhance and improve the commercial marine .
Grant/Wilson campaign poster
In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington, negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He also proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Santo Domingo. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia. Liberian-Grebo War of 1876
The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud. However, Grant eventually released large amounts of gold back onto the market, causing a large-scale financial crisis for many gold investors. Jay Gould had already prepared and quietly sold out while Fisk denied many agreements and hired thugs to intimidate his creditors.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.
Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first vice president, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.
President Grant with his wife, Julia, and son, Jesse, in 1872.
Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."
Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11, issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:
The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart â opportunistic traders who were Jewish. McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed [...] he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."
The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 presidential campaign, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.
Grant's second inauguration as President by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.
Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
* Edwin M. Stanton 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
* William Strong 1870
* Joseph P. Bradley 1870
* Ward Hunt 1873
* Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice) 1874
* Colorado August 1, 1876
* Department of Justice (1870)
* Office of the Solicitor General (1870)
* "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
* Office of the Surgeon General (1871)
* Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)
Ulysses S. Grant in his postbellum.
After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress ShÅken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.
In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.
That same year, Grant was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.
Grant writing his memoirs.
In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
Grant appears on the U.S. $50 bill.
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. It was not until 1958 that Congress, feeling it inappropriate that a former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting a pension to such individuals, a practice that continues to this day. Grant first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and Grant's memoirs are also regarded by such writers as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request, "Water." His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America.
Statue of Grant astride his favorite mount, "Cincinnati", at Vicksburg, Mississippi
*In World War II, the United States produced a tank known as the Grant tank (an upgrade of the American M3 "Lee").
*Grant's portrait appears on the U.S. fifty-dollar bill.
*The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., honors Grant.
*Grant Park in Chicago honors Grant.
*Grant Avenue, a nine block long, north-south street in the Bronx, New York, is named after Grant. It is parallel and adjacent to Sherman Avenue.
*Dupont Street, the main thoroughfare in San Francisco's Chinatown, was renamed Grant Avenue in his honor. The famous dragon gate at the entrance to the district is at the corner of Grant and Bush Street.
*Grant, depicted riding a horse, is honored by a statue at the intersection of Bedford Avenue, Rogers Avenue and Dean Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
*There is a U.S. Grant Bridge over the Ohio River at Portsmouth, Ohio.
*There is a U.S. Grant Memorial Highway (US 52) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
*Counties in twelve U.S. states are named after Grant: Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Grant Parish, Louisiana. Note: Grant Counties in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin were named after other Grants, not Ulysses Grant.
* Grant was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren
* Grant is also a descendant from John Lothropp, who is also an ancestor to Benjamin Franklin
Grant Memorial Statue in Grant Park, Galena, Illinois. Julia Grant remarked that it was the best likeness of her husband, as his hands were thrust into his pockets.
* As a young man, Grant's father, Jesse, taught him the trade of tanning. Jesse Grant had been taught how to tan by Owen Brown, the father of known abolitionist John Brown. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* When Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1864, he agreed to sit down for photographer Mathew Brady. As the sun had begun to set by the time Grant arrived, Brady instructed one of his assistants to open the shades of the skylight in Brady's studio. The assistant slipped and shattered the skylight, causing two-inch-thick shards of glass to rain down around Grant, who had taken his seat as requested. He was unharmed, and showed "the most remarkable display of nerve" that Brady had ever seen. O'Brien, Cormac (2007). "Secret Lives of the Civil War: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the War Between the States".
* Grant was known to visit the Willard Hotel to escape the stress of the White House. A long-standing story is that he referred to the people who approached him in the lobby as "those darn lobbyists," implying that he was the source for the term lobbyist. This story is unlikely to be true since there are examples of the term being used in U.S. and British magazines and newspapers before Grant's presidency. World Wide Words.
* While in California, Grant tried selling ice to San Francisco, but failed when it melted in the warm weather aboard the ship. Smith, Grant, p. 81. . This anecdote is disputed by Edward G. Longacre in "General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man" (2006) in which he says -- in a referenced statement -- that the ice venture had failed because of "an unexpected glut of [ice] imports from Alaska."
* In 1883, Grant was elected the eighth president of the National Rifle Association.
* Grant suffered from tone-deafness. He disliked music intensely and would go out of his way to avoid having to hear any other than patriotic songs. In Jeffrey Shaara's The Last Full Measure - which is set after the Battle of Gettysburg, the subject of his father Michael's 1974 bestseller The Killer Angels - Grant is portrayed as saying, "I know only two songs. One is 'Yankee Doodle'. The other isn't." Whether he actually said this is unclear. Shaara, Jeffrey M. (1998). "The Last Full Measure".
* Grant's wife, First Lady Julia Grant, was cross-eyed. When it was suggested to her that she have an operation to have it corrected, President Grant replied that he liked her that way. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* Grant's favorite brand of bourbon whiskey was Old Crow.
* Grant enjoyed eating cucumbers soaked in vinegar for breakfast.
* An apocryphal story about Grant's drinking has the general's critics going to President Lincoln, charging the military man with being a drunk. Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."
:* A similar story was told of General James Wolfe during the French and Indian Wars. When King George II was told that Wolfe was a "mad dog", he is said to have replied, "Then I'd wish he'd bite the other generals."
* The question "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" was used by Groucho Marx in his radio and TV quiz show, the correct answer to which resulted in a consolation prize to contestants who had won no money. Some contestants thought it was a trick question. Grant's grandson, Ulysses S. Grant IV (a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles) appeared on the program on March 12, 1953.
** This was also featured on an episode of the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, in which in a dream sequence Dorothy competes on Jeopardy against a scholar and her roommate Rose. When asked the question, Dorothy replies Ulysses and is wrong, while Rose replies Cary Grant and is correct.
* In the film Wild Wild West, President Grant is a minor character that must deal with the Loveless Alliance.
Once while in office he was arrested for speeding his horse and buggy and fined $20 and had to walk back to the white house. (www.pocanticohills.org/presidents/know.htm )
* A dispute between Grant and his commanding officer Henry Wager Halleck is the subject of a pivotal question in the film Quiz Show.
* United States presidential election, 1868
* United States presidential election, 1872
* History of the United States (1865â1918)
* Western Theater of the American Civil War
* Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
* U.S. Grant Home, Galena, Illinois
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command, Little, Brown and Company, 1968, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 69-12632.
*Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Garland, Hamlin, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character, Macmillan Company, 1898.
*Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885 86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
*Hesseltine, William B., Ulysses S. Grant: Politician 1935.
* Lewis, Lloyd, Captain Sam Grant, Little, Brown, and Co., 1950, ISBN 0-316-52348-8.
* McFeely, William S., Grant: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Co, 1981, ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
* McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
* Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-395-65994-9.
*Smith, Jean Edward, Grant, Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
*Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861 1865, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
* Official Ulysses Simpson Grant biography from the US Army Center for Military History
* Bunting III, Josiah. Ulysses S. Grant (2004) ISBN 0-8050-6949-6
* William Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 (1905), vol 22
* Hesseltine, William B. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (2001) ISBN 1-931313-85-7 online edition
* Mantell, Martin E., Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
* Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936) online edition
* Rhodes, James Ford., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6 and 7 (1920) vol 6
* Scaturro, Frank J., President Grant Reconsidered (1998).
* Schouler, James., History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
* Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
* Simpson, Brooks D., The Reconstruction Presidents (1998)
* Skidmore, Max J. "The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: a Reconsideration." White House Studies (2005) online
* Badeau, Adam. Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 vols. 1882.
*Ballard, Michael B., Vicksburg, The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-2893-9.
* Bearss, Edwin C., The Vicksburg Campaign, 3 volumes, Morningside Press, 1991, ISBN 0-89029-308-2.
* Carter, Samuel III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863 (1980)
* Catton, Bruce, Grant Moves South, 1960, ISBN 0-316-13207-1; Grant Takes Command, 1968, ISBN 0-316-13210-1; U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954)
* Cavanaugh, Michael A., and William Marvel, The Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of the Crater: "The Horrid Pit," June 25-August 6, 1864 (1989)
* Conger, A. L. The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931)
* Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg (1986).
* Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
* Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
* Korda, Michael. Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (2004) 161 pp
* McWhiney, Grady, Battle in the Wilderness: Grant Meets Lee (1995)
* McDonough, James Lee, Shiloh: In Hell before Night (1977).
* McDonough, James Lee, Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy (1984).
* Maney, R. Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor. Victory and Failure, 1864 (1994).
* Matter, William D., If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (1988)
* Miers, Earl Schenck., The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg. 1955.
* Mosier, John., "Grant", Palgrave MacMillan, 2006 ISBN 1-4039-7136-6.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5 6, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8071-1873-7.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7 12, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8071-2136-3.
* Rhea, Gordon C., To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13 25, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8071-2535-0.
* Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.
* Miller, J. Michael, The North Anna Campaign: "Even to Hell Itself," May 21-26, 1864 (1989).
* Simpson, Brooks D, "Continuous Hammering and Mere Attrition: Lost Cause Critics and the Military Reputation of Ulysses S. Grant," in Cad Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, (2000)
* Steere, Edward, The Wilderness Campaign (1960)
* Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April. 1974.
* Williams, T. Harry, McClellan, Sherman and Grant. 1962.
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs (1885) online edition
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters (Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely, eds.) ( The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-94045058-5
* Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) pp 131-73, on the Memoirs
* Johnson, R. U., and Buel, C. C., eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York, 1887-88; essays by leading generals of both sides; online edition
* Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant (1897, reprinted 2000)
* Sherman, William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. 2 vols. 1875.
* Simon, John Y., ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Southern Illinois University Press (1967- ) multivolume complete edition of letters to and from Grant. As of 2006, vol 1-28 covers through September 1878.
* Extensive essay on Ulysses S. Grant and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* First Inaugural Address
* Second Inaugural Address
* White House Biography
* Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
*Emerson, Col. John W., Grant's Life in the West and His Mississippi Valley Campaigns, U.S. Grant Association website.
* Ulysses S. Grant at Find A Grave
* Many rare General Grant photographs
* Complete Bibliography
* Military biography of Ulysses S. Grant from the Cullum biographies
*
* The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. (1918). "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.
* Collection of US Grant Letters
* Ulysses S. Grant: America's Second Three-Star General article by Ethan Rafuse
* Historic White Haven (Grant-Dent home)
*
|-
|-
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
Andrew Johnson
Rutherford B. Hayes
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Julia Grant
Jesse Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Nellie Grant
Frederick Grant
General-in-Chief
List of United States Presidential religious affiliations
Republican Party (United States)
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
#Military career
April 27
1822
July 23
1885
United States
President of the United States
Union (American Civil War)
American Civil War
Battle of Vicksburg
Confederate
Robert E. Lee
Appomattox Court House
J.F.C. Fuller
Vicksburg Campaign
History of the United States Republican Party
Andrew Jackson
Radical Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Civil Rights
African American history
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home
Georgetown, Ohio
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio River
Pennsylvania
Horsham Township, Pennsylvania
Georgetown, Ohio
Brown County, Ohio
August 22
1848
Julia Boggs Dent
Frederick Dent Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Ellen Wrenshall Grant
Jesse Root Grant
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Mathew Brady
United States Army
Army of the Tennessee
Military Division of the Mississippi
United States Army
United States Army
Mexican-American War
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
American Civil War
Battle of Fort Donelson
Battle of Shiloh
Battle of Vicksburg
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Overland Campaign
Battle of Petersburg
Appomattox Campaign
President of the United States
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
U.S. Congressman
Thomas L. Hamer
Academic administration
March 31
1853
cavalry
Mexican-American War
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
Fort Vancouver
Washington Territory
U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
July 31
1854
Robert C. Buchanan
John Eaton (General)
St. Louis, Missouri
Grant's Farm
Anheuser-Busch
Galena, Illinois
James Buchanan
John C. Frémont
Stephen A. Douglas
Elihu B. Washburne
April 28
2007
War Democrats
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Galena, Illinois
Fort Sumter
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
Illinois
Richard Yates (governor)
21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
Claiborne Jackson
John C. Frémont
Ohio River
Paducah, Kentucky
Confederate States Army
Columbus, Kentucky
Gideon J. Pillow
Battle of Belmont
Andrew H. Foote
Battle of Fort Henry
Tennessee River
Battle of Fort Donelson
Cumberland River
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Henry W. Halleck
Nashville, Tennessee
Don Carlos Buell
March 2
March 17
Battle of Cold Harbor
Mathew Brady
Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard
Battle of Shiloh
April 30
First Battle of Corinth
William T. Sherman
Army of West Tennessee
Army of the Tennessee
June 10
Second Battle of Corinth
Battle of Iuka
Mississippi River
Vicksburg Campaign
U.S. Navy
Charles Anderson Dana
hardtack
John C. Pemberton
Jackson, Mississippi
Battle of Champion Hill
Battle of Vicksburg
July 4
1863
Battle of Gettysburg
Turning point of the American Civil War
July 4
Battle of Chickamauga
William S. Rosecrans
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Braxton Bragg
Lookout Mountain
October 17
George Henry Thomas
William Farrar Smith
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Missionary Ridge
Atlanta, Georgia
Lieutenant General (United States)
George Washington
Winfield Scott
brevet (military)
Congress of the United States
March 2
1864
March 12
United States
William Tecumseh Sherman
Virginia
Army of Northern Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
George G. Meade
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Franz Sigel
Shenandoah Valley
Georgia (U.S. state)
Joseph E. Johnston
Atlanta
George Crook
William W. Averell
West Virginia
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Mobile, Alabama
total war
Overland Campaign
Robert E. Lee
May 4
1864
Army of the Potomac
Rapidan River
Army of Northern Virginia
Battle of the Wilderness
Spotsylvania, Virginia
May 8
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 11
May 12
Battle of Cold Harbor
June 3
James River (Virginia)
Petersburg, Virginia
June 18
Siege of Petersburg
William Tecumseh Sherman
Abraham Lincoln
Jubal A. Early
Shenandoah Valley
Washington, D.C.
Administration (government)
Philip Sheridan
Valley Campaigns of 1864
Sherman's March to the Sea
total war
Carolinas Campaign
Appomattox Court House
April 9
1865
Kirby Smith
Trans-Mississippi Department
June 2
1865
Copperheads
Democratic Party (United States)
July 25
1866
General of the Army of the United States
U.S. Army
Andrew Johnson
Edwin M. Stanton
Tenure of Office Act
History of the United States Republican Party
Republican National Convention
Chicago
U.S. presidential election, 1868
Horatio Seymour
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
United States presidential election, 1872
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Horace Greeley
Reconstruction
Redeemers
Ku Klux Klan
voting rights
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Dominican Republic
Yellowstone National Park
March 1
1872
March 29
2006
Christmas
February 8
1999
Panic of 1873
Robert Schenck
Rutherford B. Hayes
Samuel J. Tilden
U.S. presidential election, 1876
Henry Watterson
Treaty of Washington (1871)
Hamilton Fish
CSS Alabama
Dominican Republic
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Charles Sumner
Horace Greeley
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Liberian-Grebo War
USS Alaska (1868)
Liberia
James Milton Turner
Black Friday (1869)
Jay Gould
James Fisk (financier)
Whiskey Ring
Benjamin H. Bristow
Orville E. Babcock
United States Secretary of War
William W. Belknap
Native Americans in the United States
trading post
Sanborn Incident
William Adams Richardson
Cyrus I. Scofield
Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Vice President of the United States
Schuyler Colfax
United States presidential election, 1872
Henry Wilson
Julia Grant
Jesse Root Grant
anti-Semitism
General Order No. 11 (1862)
Oxford, Mississippi
December 17
1862
Vicksburg Campaign
Tennessee
Mississippi
Kentucky
James H. Wilson
Bertram Korn
U.S. presidential election, 1868
President of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
Salmon P. Chase
March 4
1873
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
Elihu B. Washburne
Hamilton Fish
John A. Rawlins
William T. Sherman
William W. Belknap
Alphonso Taft
J. Donald Cameron
George S. Boutwell
William Adams Richardson
Benjamin Bristow
Lot M. Morrill
Ebenezer R. Hoar
Amos T. Akerman
George Henry Williams
Edwards Pierrepont
Alphonso Taft
John A. J. Creswell
James William Marshall
Marshall Jewell
James N. Tyner
Adolph E. Borie
George M. Robeson
Jacob D. Cox
Columbus Delano
Zachariah Chandler
Supreme Court of the United States
Edwin M. Stanton
William Strong (judge)
Joseph P. Bradley
Ward Hunt
Morrison Remick Waite
Chief Justice of the United States
Colorado
August 1
1876
United States Department of Justice
United States Solicitor General
Chester A. Arthur
Office of Personnel Management
Surgeon General of the United States
National Weather Service
Queen Victoria
Windsor Castle
Prince Bismarck
Emperor Meiji
Empress ShÅken
Imperial Palace
Tokyo
Meiji period
Ryukyu Islands
China
Stalwart (politics)
Roscoe Conkling
Methodist
Republican National Convention
James A. Garfield
New York City
Ferdinand Ward
Wall Street
Grant & Ward
Esophageal cancer
pension
The Century Magazine
Mark Twain
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Julius Caesar
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
New York City
Riverside Park (Manhattan)
General Grant National Memorial
mausoleum
North America
World War II
tank
Grant tank
U.S. fifty-dollar bill
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Grant Park (Chicago)
Chicago
the Bronx
New York
San Francisco, California
Chinatown, San Francisco, California
Bedford Avenue
Crown Heights
Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. Grant Bridge
Ohio River
Portsmouth, Ohio
U.S. Route 52
Counties of the United States
U.S. state
Grant County, Arkansas
Grant County, Kansas
Grant County, Minnesota
Grant County, Nebraska
Grant County, New Mexico
Grant County, North Dakota
Grant County, Oklahoma
Grant County, Washington
Grant County, West Virginia
Grant Parish, Louisiana
Mayflower
Richard Warren
John Lothropp
Benjamin Franklin
abolitionist
John Brown (abolitionist)
Mathew Brady
Willard Hotel
lobbyist
San Francisco
National Rifle Association
Jeffrey Shaara
The Last Full Measure
Michael Shaara
The Killer Angels
First Lady of the United States
Julia Grant
Strabismus
bourbon whiskey
Old Crow
cucumbers
vinegar
breakfast
James Wolfe
French and Indian Wars
King George II
Groucho Marx
You Bet Your Life
Ulysses S. Grant IV
University of California, Los Angeles
The Golden Girls
Cary Grant
Wild Wild West
Henry Wager Halleck
Quiz Show
United States presidential election, 1868
United States presidential election, 1872
History of the United States (1865-1918)
Western Theater of the American Civil War
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
James M. McPherson
Jean Edward Smith
Allan Nevins
Ed Bearss
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
Find A Grave
West Point#Cullum Number
Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Rutherford B. Hayes
Abraham Lincoln
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1868
U.S. presidential election, 1872
Rutherford B. Hayes
Army of the Tennessee
William T. Sherman
Henry W. Halleck
Commanding General of the United States Army
Andrew Johnson
Oldest living United States president
Rutherford B. Hayes
United States
soldier
politician
President of the United States
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
|
Ulysses_S._Grant | Where was Grant born? | A log cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio | data/set3/a5 | Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, See military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 July 23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869 1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
Grant first reached national prominence by taking Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862 in the first Union victories of the war. The following year, his brilliant campaign ending in the surrender of Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi andâwith the simultaneous Union victory at Gettysburgâturned the tide of the war in the North's favor. Named commanding general of the Federal armies in 1864, he implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's ability to carry on the war. In 1865, after conducting a costly war of attrition in the East, he accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. Grant has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.
In 1868, Grant was elected president as a Republican. Grant was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed.
Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans. See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.
Ulysses Grant Birthplace, Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home, Georgetown, Ohio
Grant was born in a log cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794 1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798 1883). His father, a tanner, was from Pennsylvania, and his mother was born in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio.
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826 1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (Buck), Ellen Wrenshall Grant (Nellie), and Jesse Root Grant.
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only. Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.
Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846â1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, later becoming his brother-in-law, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.
After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the 4th U.S. Infantry regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial. According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name." McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican War
A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys). His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. McFeely, ch. 5.
Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican. Hesseltine, chapter 6. .
The home of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Infantry in June 1861.
Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.
In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.
Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederates violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, an old friend of Grant's and a West Point classmate, and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers. Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.
Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased against him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.
General Grant at Cold Harbor, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864
In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.
The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in Corinth, Mississippi. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Corinth and Iuka that fall.
In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant spent the winter of 1862 1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.
However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and in a daring move that defied conventional military principles cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles A. Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George H. Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas' chief engineer, William F. "Baldy" Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.
Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas' men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.
Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet appointment), recently re-authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.
In March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.
Poster of "Grant from West Point to Appomattox."
Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.
The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River.
Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a siege.
As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas.
At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democrats who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius: Korda, (2004)
After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army. Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.''
As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.
The second president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In the 1872 election he won by a landslide against the breakaway Liberal Republican party that nominated Horace Greeley.
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed .
Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006. Grant also signed into law making Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application, CRS Report for Congress, 98-301 GOV, updated February 8, 1999, by Stephen W. Stathis
The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.
By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker. Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes: Nevins, Fish 2:811
In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson .
The Grant administration's first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Act to Strengthen the Public Credit which the GOP Congress had passed after Grant ` s inaugural in March 1869 . The act had the effect that the gold price on New York exchange fell to 310 dollar an ounce - the lowest point since the suspension of specie payment in 1862 .
As Jean Edward Smith notes in his 2002 biography on Grant, the presidential treasury secretary Boutwell reorganized the Treasury by discharging unnecessary employees, started sweeping changes in Bureau of Printing and Engraving to protect the currency from counterfeiters and revitalized tax collections to hasten the collection of revenue. This changes soon led the Tresury having a monthly surplus .
The Grant administration reduced the debt by appromixately 435 million dollar. That was achieved by selling the growing gold surplus at weekly auctions for greenbacks and buying back wartime bonds with the currency . With this Grant ` s treasury secretary Boutwell had established a policy if continued had payed of the national debt in a quarter of a century . Newspapers like the New York Tribune wanted that the Government buy more bonds and Greenbacks, the New York Times praised the the Grant administration `s debt policy .
On other economic fronts did the Grant administration have acomplishments . Under
Grant the nation `s credit was substantially raised. Taxes was reduced by 300 million dollar. Annual interest rates were reduced by approximately 30 million dollar . The U . S balance of trade was changed from 130 million dollar against the United States to 120 million dollar in favor of the United States . He also reduced inflation and to 1873 bolstered economic recovery . He also promoted economy in federal expenditures . His veto of the Inflation Bill in 1874 saved the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 to get worse and the veto was praised by the financial community and many newspapers .
The Resumption of Species Act of 1875 which was signed by Grant and helped to end the crisis in 1879 when the law came in to effect
He also pressed for internal improvements and increased shipbuilding and foreign trade. He also wanted to enhance and improve the commercial marine .
Grant/Wilson campaign poster
In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington, negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He also proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Santo Domingo. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia. Liberian-Grebo War of 1876
The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud. However, Grant eventually released large amounts of gold back onto the market, causing a large-scale financial crisis for many gold investors. Jay Gould had already prepared and quietly sold out while Fisk denied many agreements and hired thugs to intimidate his creditors.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.
Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first vice president, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.
President Grant with his wife, Julia, and son, Jesse, in 1872.
Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."
Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11, issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:
The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart â opportunistic traders who were Jewish. McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed [...] he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."
The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 presidential campaign, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.
Grant's second inauguration as President by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.
Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
* Edwin M. Stanton 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
* William Strong 1870
* Joseph P. Bradley 1870
* Ward Hunt 1873
* Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice) 1874
* Colorado August 1, 1876
* Department of Justice (1870)
* Office of the Solicitor General (1870)
* "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
* Office of the Surgeon General (1871)
* Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)
Ulysses S. Grant in his postbellum.
After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress ShÅken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.
In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.
That same year, Grant was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.
Grant writing his memoirs.
In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
Grant appears on the U.S. $50 bill.
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. It was not until 1958 that Congress, feeling it inappropriate that a former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting a pension to such individuals, a practice that continues to this day. Grant first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and Grant's memoirs are also regarded by such writers as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request, "Water." His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America.
Statue of Grant astride his favorite mount, "Cincinnati", at Vicksburg, Mississippi
*In World War II, the United States produced a tank known as the Grant tank (an upgrade of the American M3 "Lee").
*Grant's portrait appears on the U.S. fifty-dollar bill.
*The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., honors Grant.
*Grant Park in Chicago honors Grant.
*Grant Avenue, a nine block long, north-south street in the Bronx, New York, is named after Grant. It is parallel and adjacent to Sherman Avenue.
*Dupont Street, the main thoroughfare in San Francisco's Chinatown, was renamed Grant Avenue in his honor. The famous dragon gate at the entrance to the district is at the corner of Grant and Bush Street.
*Grant, depicted riding a horse, is honored by a statue at the intersection of Bedford Avenue, Rogers Avenue and Dean Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
*There is a U.S. Grant Bridge over the Ohio River at Portsmouth, Ohio.
*There is a U.S. Grant Memorial Highway (US 52) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
*Counties in twelve U.S. states are named after Grant: Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Grant Parish, Louisiana. Note: Grant Counties in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin were named after other Grants, not Ulysses Grant.
* Grant was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren
* Grant is also a descendant from John Lothropp, who is also an ancestor to Benjamin Franklin
Grant Memorial Statue in Grant Park, Galena, Illinois. Julia Grant remarked that it was the best likeness of her husband, as his hands were thrust into his pockets.
* As a young man, Grant's father, Jesse, taught him the trade of tanning. Jesse Grant had been taught how to tan by Owen Brown, the father of known abolitionist John Brown. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* When Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1864, he agreed to sit down for photographer Mathew Brady. As the sun had begun to set by the time Grant arrived, Brady instructed one of his assistants to open the shades of the skylight in Brady's studio. The assistant slipped and shattered the skylight, causing two-inch-thick shards of glass to rain down around Grant, who had taken his seat as requested. He was unharmed, and showed "the most remarkable display of nerve" that Brady had ever seen. O'Brien, Cormac (2007). "Secret Lives of the Civil War: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the War Between the States".
* Grant was known to visit the Willard Hotel to escape the stress of the White House. A long-standing story is that he referred to the people who approached him in the lobby as "those darn lobbyists," implying that he was the source for the term lobbyist. This story is unlikely to be true since there are examples of the term being used in U.S. and British magazines and newspapers before Grant's presidency. World Wide Words.
* While in California, Grant tried selling ice to San Francisco, but failed when it melted in the warm weather aboard the ship. Smith, Grant, p. 81. . This anecdote is disputed by Edward G. Longacre in "General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man" (2006) in which he says -- in a referenced statement -- that the ice venture had failed because of "an unexpected glut of [ice] imports from Alaska."
* In 1883, Grant was elected the eighth president of the National Rifle Association.
* Grant suffered from tone-deafness. He disliked music intensely and would go out of his way to avoid having to hear any other than patriotic songs. In Jeffrey Shaara's The Last Full Measure - which is set after the Battle of Gettysburg, the subject of his father Michael's 1974 bestseller The Killer Angels - Grant is portrayed as saying, "I know only two songs. One is 'Yankee Doodle'. The other isn't." Whether he actually said this is unclear. Shaara, Jeffrey M. (1998). "The Last Full Measure".
* Grant's wife, First Lady Julia Grant, was cross-eyed. When it was suggested to her that she have an operation to have it corrected, President Grant replied that he liked her that way. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* Grant's favorite brand of bourbon whiskey was Old Crow.
* Grant enjoyed eating cucumbers soaked in vinegar for breakfast.
* An apocryphal story about Grant's drinking has the general's critics going to President Lincoln, charging the military man with being a drunk. Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."
:* A similar story was told of General James Wolfe during the French and Indian Wars. When King George II was told that Wolfe was a "mad dog", he is said to have replied, "Then I'd wish he'd bite the other generals."
* The question "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" was used by Groucho Marx in his radio and TV quiz show, the correct answer to which resulted in a consolation prize to contestants who had won no money. Some contestants thought it was a trick question. Grant's grandson, Ulysses S. Grant IV (a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles) appeared on the program on March 12, 1953.
** This was also featured on an episode of the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, in which in a dream sequence Dorothy competes on Jeopardy against a scholar and her roommate Rose. When asked the question, Dorothy replies Ulysses and is wrong, while Rose replies Cary Grant and is correct.
* In the film Wild Wild West, President Grant is a minor character that must deal with the Loveless Alliance.
Once while in office he was arrested for speeding his horse and buggy and fined $20 and had to walk back to the white house. (www.pocanticohills.org/presidents/know.htm )
* A dispute between Grant and his commanding officer Henry Wager Halleck is the subject of a pivotal question in the film Quiz Show.
* United States presidential election, 1868
* United States presidential election, 1872
* History of the United States (1865â1918)
* Western Theater of the American Civil War
* Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
* U.S. Grant Home, Galena, Illinois
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command, Little, Brown and Company, 1968, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 69-12632.
*Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Garland, Hamlin, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character, Macmillan Company, 1898.
*Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885 86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
*Hesseltine, William B., Ulysses S. Grant: Politician 1935.
* Lewis, Lloyd, Captain Sam Grant, Little, Brown, and Co., 1950, ISBN 0-316-52348-8.
* McFeely, William S., Grant: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Co, 1981, ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
* McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
* Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-395-65994-9.
*Smith, Jean Edward, Grant, Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
*Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861 1865, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
* Official Ulysses Simpson Grant biography from the US Army Center for Military History
* Bunting III, Josiah. Ulysses S. Grant (2004) ISBN 0-8050-6949-6
* William Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 (1905), vol 22
* Hesseltine, William B. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (2001) ISBN 1-931313-85-7 online edition
* Mantell, Martin E., Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
* Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936) online edition
* Rhodes, James Ford., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6 and 7 (1920) vol 6
* Scaturro, Frank J., President Grant Reconsidered (1998).
* Schouler, James., History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
* Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
* Simpson, Brooks D., The Reconstruction Presidents (1998)
* Skidmore, Max J. "The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: a Reconsideration." White House Studies (2005) online
* Badeau, Adam. Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 vols. 1882.
*Ballard, Michael B., Vicksburg, The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-2893-9.
* Bearss, Edwin C., The Vicksburg Campaign, 3 volumes, Morningside Press, 1991, ISBN 0-89029-308-2.
* Carter, Samuel III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863 (1980)
* Catton, Bruce, Grant Moves South, 1960, ISBN 0-316-13207-1; Grant Takes Command, 1968, ISBN 0-316-13210-1; U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954)
* Cavanaugh, Michael A., and William Marvel, The Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of the Crater: "The Horrid Pit," June 25-August 6, 1864 (1989)
* Conger, A. L. The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931)
* Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg (1986).
* Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
* Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
* Korda, Michael. Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (2004) 161 pp
* McWhiney, Grady, Battle in the Wilderness: Grant Meets Lee (1995)
* McDonough, James Lee, Shiloh: In Hell before Night (1977).
* McDonough, James Lee, Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy (1984).
* Maney, R. Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor. Victory and Failure, 1864 (1994).
* Matter, William D., If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (1988)
* Miers, Earl Schenck., The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg. 1955.
* Mosier, John., "Grant", Palgrave MacMillan, 2006 ISBN 1-4039-7136-6.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5 6, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8071-1873-7.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7 12, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8071-2136-3.
* Rhea, Gordon C., To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13 25, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8071-2535-0.
* Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.
* Miller, J. Michael, The North Anna Campaign: "Even to Hell Itself," May 21-26, 1864 (1989).
* Simpson, Brooks D, "Continuous Hammering and Mere Attrition: Lost Cause Critics and the Military Reputation of Ulysses S. Grant," in Cad Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, (2000)
* Steere, Edward, The Wilderness Campaign (1960)
* Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April. 1974.
* Williams, T. Harry, McClellan, Sherman and Grant. 1962.
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs (1885) online edition
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters (Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely, eds.) ( The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-94045058-5
* Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) pp 131-73, on the Memoirs
* Johnson, R. U., and Buel, C. C., eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York, 1887-88; essays by leading generals of both sides; online edition
* Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant (1897, reprinted 2000)
* Sherman, William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. 2 vols. 1875.
* Simon, John Y., ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Southern Illinois University Press (1967- ) multivolume complete edition of letters to and from Grant. As of 2006, vol 1-28 covers through September 1878.
* Extensive essay on Ulysses S. Grant and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* First Inaugural Address
* Second Inaugural Address
* White House Biography
* Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
*Emerson, Col. John W., Grant's Life in the West and His Mississippi Valley Campaigns, U.S. Grant Association website.
* Ulysses S. Grant at Find A Grave
* Many rare General Grant photographs
* Complete Bibliography
* Military biography of Ulysses S. Grant from the Cullum biographies
*
* The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. (1918). "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.
* Collection of US Grant Letters
* Ulysses S. Grant: America's Second Three-Star General article by Ethan Rafuse
* Historic White Haven (Grant-Dent home)
*
|-
|-
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
Andrew Johnson
Rutherford B. Hayes
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Julia Grant
Jesse Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Nellie Grant
Frederick Grant
General-in-Chief
List of United States Presidential religious affiliations
Republican Party (United States)
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
#Military career
April 27
1822
July 23
1885
United States
President of the United States
Union (American Civil War)
American Civil War
Battle of Vicksburg
Confederate
Robert E. Lee
Appomattox Court House
J.F.C. Fuller
Vicksburg Campaign
History of the United States Republican Party
Andrew Jackson
Radical Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Civil Rights
African American history
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home
Georgetown, Ohio
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio River
Pennsylvania
Horsham Township, Pennsylvania
Georgetown, Ohio
Brown County, Ohio
August 22
1848
Julia Boggs Dent
Frederick Dent Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Ellen Wrenshall Grant
Jesse Root Grant
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Mathew Brady
United States Army
Army of the Tennessee
Military Division of the Mississippi
United States Army
United States Army
Mexican-American War
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
American Civil War
Battle of Fort Donelson
Battle of Shiloh
Battle of Vicksburg
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Overland Campaign
Battle of Petersburg
Appomattox Campaign
President of the United States
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
U.S. Congressman
Thomas L. Hamer
Academic administration
March 31
1853
cavalry
Mexican-American War
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
Fort Vancouver
Washington Territory
U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
July 31
1854
Robert C. Buchanan
John Eaton (General)
St. Louis, Missouri
Grant's Farm
Anheuser-Busch
Galena, Illinois
James Buchanan
John C. Frémont
Stephen A. Douglas
Elihu B. Washburne
April 28
2007
War Democrats
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Galena, Illinois
Fort Sumter
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
Illinois
Richard Yates (governor)
21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
Claiborne Jackson
John C. Frémont
Ohio River
Paducah, Kentucky
Confederate States Army
Columbus, Kentucky
Gideon J. Pillow
Battle of Belmont
Andrew H. Foote
Battle of Fort Henry
Tennessee River
Battle of Fort Donelson
Cumberland River
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Henry W. Halleck
Nashville, Tennessee
Don Carlos Buell
March 2
March 17
Battle of Cold Harbor
Mathew Brady
Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard
Battle of Shiloh
April 30
First Battle of Corinth
William T. Sherman
Army of West Tennessee
Army of the Tennessee
June 10
Second Battle of Corinth
Battle of Iuka
Mississippi River
Vicksburg Campaign
U.S. Navy
Charles Anderson Dana
hardtack
John C. Pemberton
Jackson, Mississippi
Battle of Champion Hill
Battle of Vicksburg
July 4
1863
Battle of Gettysburg
Turning point of the American Civil War
July 4
Battle of Chickamauga
William S. Rosecrans
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Braxton Bragg
Lookout Mountain
October 17
George Henry Thomas
William Farrar Smith
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Missionary Ridge
Atlanta, Georgia
Lieutenant General (United States)
George Washington
Winfield Scott
brevet (military)
Congress of the United States
March 2
1864
March 12
United States
William Tecumseh Sherman
Virginia
Army of Northern Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
George G. Meade
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Franz Sigel
Shenandoah Valley
Georgia (U.S. state)
Joseph E. Johnston
Atlanta
George Crook
William W. Averell
West Virginia
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Mobile, Alabama
total war
Overland Campaign
Robert E. Lee
May 4
1864
Army of the Potomac
Rapidan River
Army of Northern Virginia
Battle of the Wilderness
Spotsylvania, Virginia
May 8
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 11
May 12
Battle of Cold Harbor
June 3
James River (Virginia)
Petersburg, Virginia
June 18
Siege of Petersburg
William Tecumseh Sherman
Abraham Lincoln
Jubal A. Early
Shenandoah Valley
Washington, D.C.
Administration (government)
Philip Sheridan
Valley Campaigns of 1864
Sherman's March to the Sea
total war
Carolinas Campaign
Appomattox Court House
April 9
1865
Kirby Smith
Trans-Mississippi Department
June 2
1865
Copperheads
Democratic Party (United States)
July 25
1866
General of the Army of the United States
U.S. Army
Andrew Johnson
Edwin M. Stanton
Tenure of Office Act
History of the United States Republican Party
Republican National Convention
Chicago
U.S. presidential election, 1868
Horatio Seymour
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
United States presidential election, 1872
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Horace Greeley
Reconstruction
Redeemers
Ku Klux Klan
voting rights
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Dominican Republic
Yellowstone National Park
March 1
1872
March 29
2006
Christmas
February 8
1999
Panic of 1873
Robert Schenck
Rutherford B. Hayes
Samuel J. Tilden
U.S. presidential election, 1876
Henry Watterson
Treaty of Washington (1871)
Hamilton Fish
CSS Alabama
Dominican Republic
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Charles Sumner
Horace Greeley
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Liberian-Grebo War
USS Alaska (1868)
Liberia
James Milton Turner
Black Friday (1869)
Jay Gould
James Fisk (financier)
Whiskey Ring
Benjamin H. Bristow
Orville E. Babcock
United States Secretary of War
William W. Belknap
Native Americans in the United States
trading post
Sanborn Incident
William Adams Richardson
Cyrus I. Scofield
Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Vice President of the United States
Schuyler Colfax
United States presidential election, 1872
Henry Wilson
Julia Grant
Jesse Root Grant
anti-Semitism
General Order No. 11 (1862)
Oxford, Mississippi
December 17
1862
Vicksburg Campaign
Tennessee
Mississippi
Kentucky
James H. Wilson
Bertram Korn
U.S. presidential election, 1868
President of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
Salmon P. Chase
March 4
1873
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
Elihu B. Washburne
Hamilton Fish
John A. Rawlins
William T. Sherman
William W. Belknap
Alphonso Taft
J. Donald Cameron
George S. Boutwell
William Adams Richardson
Benjamin Bristow
Lot M. Morrill
Ebenezer R. Hoar
Amos T. Akerman
George Henry Williams
Edwards Pierrepont
Alphonso Taft
John A. J. Creswell
James William Marshall
Marshall Jewell
James N. Tyner
Adolph E. Borie
George M. Robeson
Jacob D. Cox
Columbus Delano
Zachariah Chandler
Supreme Court of the United States
Edwin M. Stanton
William Strong (judge)
Joseph P. Bradley
Ward Hunt
Morrison Remick Waite
Chief Justice of the United States
Colorado
August 1
1876
United States Department of Justice
United States Solicitor General
Chester A. Arthur
Office of Personnel Management
Surgeon General of the United States
National Weather Service
Queen Victoria
Windsor Castle
Prince Bismarck
Emperor Meiji
Empress ShÅken
Imperial Palace
Tokyo
Meiji period
Ryukyu Islands
China
Stalwart (politics)
Roscoe Conkling
Methodist
Republican National Convention
James A. Garfield
New York City
Ferdinand Ward
Wall Street
Grant & Ward
Esophageal cancer
pension
The Century Magazine
Mark Twain
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Julius Caesar
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
New York City
Riverside Park (Manhattan)
General Grant National Memorial
mausoleum
North America
World War II
tank
Grant tank
U.S. fifty-dollar bill
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Grant Park (Chicago)
Chicago
the Bronx
New York
San Francisco, California
Chinatown, San Francisco, California
Bedford Avenue
Crown Heights
Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. Grant Bridge
Ohio River
Portsmouth, Ohio
U.S. Route 52
Counties of the United States
U.S. state
Grant County, Arkansas
Grant County, Kansas
Grant County, Minnesota
Grant County, Nebraska
Grant County, New Mexico
Grant County, North Dakota
Grant County, Oklahoma
Grant County, Washington
Grant County, West Virginia
Grant Parish, Louisiana
Mayflower
Richard Warren
John Lothropp
Benjamin Franklin
abolitionist
John Brown (abolitionist)
Mathew Brady
Willard Hotel
lobbyist
San Francisco
National Rifle Association
Jeffrey Shaara
The Last Full Measure
Michael Shaara
The Killer Angels
First Lady of the United States
Julia Grant
Strabismus
bourbon whiskey
Old Crow
cucumbers
vinegar
breakfast
James Wolfe
French and Indian Wars
King George II
Groucho Marx
You Bet Your Life
Ulysses S. Grant IV
University of California, Los Angeles
The Golden Girls
Cary Grant
Wild Wild West
Henry Wager Halleck
Quiz Show
United States presidential election, 1868
United States presidential election, 1872
History of the United States (1865-1918)
Western Theater of the American Civil War
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
James M. McPherson
Jean Edward Smith
Allan Nevins
Ed Bearss
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
Find A Grave
West Point#Cullum Number
Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Rutherford B. Hayes
Abraham Lincoln
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1868
U.S. presidential election, 1872
Rutherford B. Hayes
Army of the Tennessee
William T. Sherman
Henry W. Halleck
Commanding General of the United States Army
Andrew Johnson
Oldest living United States president
Rutherford B. Hayes
United States
soldier
politician
President of the United States
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
|
Ulysses_S._Grant | What was Grant's political affiliation? | Republican | data/set3/a5 | Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, See military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 July 23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869 1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
Grant first reached national prominence by taking Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862 in the first Union victories of the war. The following year, his brilliant campaign ending in the surrender of Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi andâwith the simultaneous Union victory at Gettysburgâturned the tide of the war in the North's favor. Named commanding general of the Federal armies in 1864, he implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's ability to carry on the war. In 1865, after conducting a costly war of attrition in the East, he accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. Grant has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.
In 1868, Grant was elected president as a Republican. Grant was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed.
Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans. See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.
Ulysses Grant Birthplace, Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home, Georgetown, Ohio
Grant was born in a log cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794 1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798 1883). His father, a tanner, was from Pennsylvania, and his mother was born in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio.
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826 1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (Buck), Ellen Wrenshall Grant (Nellie), and Jesse Root Grant.
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only. Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.
Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846â1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, later becoming his brother-in-law, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.
After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the 4th U.S. Infantry regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial. According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name." McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican War
A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys). His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. McFeely, ch. 5.
Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican. Hesseltine, chapter 6. .
The home of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Infantry in June 1861.
Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.
In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.
Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederates violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, an old friend of Grant's and a West Point classmate, and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers. Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.
Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased against him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.
General Grant at Cold Harbor, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864
In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.
The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in Corinth, Mississippi. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Corinth and Iuka that fall.
In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant spent the winter of 1862 1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.
However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and in a daring move that defied conventional military principles cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles A. Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George H. Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas' chief engineer, William F. "Baldy" Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.
Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas' men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.
Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet appointment), recently re-authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.
In March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.
Poster of "Grant from West Point to Appomattox."
Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.
The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River.
Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a siege.
As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas.
At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democrats who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius: Korda, (2004)
After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army. Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.''
As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.
The second president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In the 1872 election he won by a landslide against the breakaway Liberal Republican party that nominated Horace Greeley.
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed .
Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006. Grant also signed into law making Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application, CRS Report for Congress, 98-301 GOV, updated February 8, 1999, by Stephen W. Stathis
The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.
By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker. Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes: Nevins, Fish 2:811
In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson .
The Grant administration's first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Act to Strengthen the Public Credit which the GOP Congress had passed after Grant ` s inaugural in March 1869 . The act had the effect that the gold price on New York exchange fell to 310 dollar an ounce - the lowest point since the suspension of specie payment in 1862 .
As Jean Edward Smith notes in his 2002 biography on Grant, the presidential treasury secretary Boutwell reorganized the Treasury by discharging unnecessary employees, started sweeping changes in Bureau of Printing and Engraving to protect the currency from counterfeiters and revitalized tax collections to hasten the collection of revenue. This changes soon led the Tresury having a monthly surplus .
The Grant administration reduced the debt by appromixately 435 million dollar. That was achieved by selling the growing gold surplus at weekly auctions for greenbacks and buying back wartime bonds with the currency . With this Grant ` s treasury secretary Boutwell had established a policy if continued had payed of the national debt in a quarter of a century . Newspapers like the New York Tribune wanted that the Government buy more bonds and Greenbacks, the New York Times praised the the Grant administration `s debt policy .
On other economic fronts did the Grant administration have acomplishments . Under
Grant the nation `s credit was substantially raised. Taxes was reduced by 300 million dollar. Annual interest rates were reduced by approximately 30 million dollar . The U . S balance of trade was changed from 130 million dollar against the United States to 120 million dollar in favor of the United States . He also reduced inflation and to 1873 bolstered economic recovery . He also promoted economy in federal expenditures . His veto of the Inflation Bill in 1874 saved the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 to get worse and the veto was praised by the financial community and many newspapers .
The Resumption of Species Act of 1875 which was signed by Grant and helped to end the crisis in 1879 when the law came in to effect
He also pressed for internal improvements and increased shipbuilding and foreign trade. He also wanted to enhance and improve the commercial marine .
Grant/Wilson campaign poster
In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington, negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He also proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Santo Domingo. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia. Liberian-Grebo War of 1876
The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud. However, Grant eventually released large amounts of gold back onto the market, causing a large-scale financial crisis for many gold investors. Jay Gould had already prepared and quietly sold out while Fisk denied many agreements and hired thugs to intimidate his creditors.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.
Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first vice president, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.
President Grant with his wife, Julia, and son, Jesse, in 1872.
Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."
Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11, issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:
The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart â opportunistic traders who were Jewish. McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed [...] he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."
The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 presidential campaign, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.
Grant's second inauguration as President by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.
Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
* Edwin M. Stanton 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
* William Strong 1870
* Joseph P. Bradley 1870
* Ward Hunt 1873
* Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice) 1874
* Colorado August 1, 1876
* Department of Justice (1870)
* Office of the Solicitor General (1870)
* "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
* Office of the Surgeon General (1871)
* Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)
Ulysses S. Grant in his postbellum.
After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress ShÅken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.
In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.
That same year, Grant was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.
Grant writing his memoirs.
In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
Grant appears on the U.S. $50 bill.
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. It was not until 1958 that Congress, feeling it inappropriate that a former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting a pension to such individuals, a practice that continues to this day. Grant first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and Grant's memoirs are also regarded by such writers as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request, "Water." His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America.
Statue of Grant astride his favorite mount, "Cincinnati", at Vicksburg, Mississippi
*In World War II, the United States produced a tank known as the Grant tank (an upgrade of the American M3 "Lee").
*Grant's portrait appears on the U.S. fifty-dollar bill.
*The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., honors Grant.
*Grant Park in Chicago honors Grant.
*Grant Avenue, a nine block long, north-south street in the Bronx, New York, is named after Grant. It is parallel and adjacent to Sherman Avenue.
*Dupont Street, the main thoroughfare in San Francisco's Chinatown, was renamed Grant Avenue in his honor. The famous dragon gate at the entrance to the district is at the corner of Grant and Bush Street.
*Grant, depicted riding a horse, is honored by a statue at the intersection of Bedford Avenue, Rogers Avenue and Dean Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
*There is a U.S. Grant Bridge over the Ohio River at Portsmouth, Ohio.
*There is a U.S. Grant Memorial Highway (US 52) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
*Counties in twelve U.S. states are named after Grant: Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Grant Parish, Louisiana. Note: Grant Counties in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin were named after other Grants, not Ulysses Grant.
* Grant was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren
* Grant is also a descendant from John Lothropp, who is also an ancestor to Benjamin Franklin
Grant Memorial Statue in Grant Park, Galena, Illinois. Julia Grant remarked that it was the best likeness of her husband, as his hands were thrust into his pockets.
* As a young man, Grant's father, Jesse, taught him the trade of tanning. Jesse Grant had been taught how to tan by Owen Brown, the father of known abolitionist John Brown. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* When Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1864, he agreed to sit down for photographer Mathew Brady. As the sun had begun to set by the time Grant arrived, Brady instructed one of his assistants to open the shades of the skylight in Brady's studio. The assistant slipped and shattered the skylight, causing two-inch-thick shards of glass to rain down around Grant, who had taken his seat as requested. He was unharmed, and showed "the most remarkable display of nerve" that Brady had ever seen. O'Brien, Cormac (2007). "Secret Lives of the Civil War: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the War Between the States".
* Grant was known to visit the Willard Hotel to escape the stress of the White House. A long-standing story is that he referred to the people who approached him in the lobby as "those darn lobbyists," implying that he was the source for the term lobbyist. This story is unlikely to be true since there are examples of the term being used in U.S. and British magazines and newspapers before Grant's presidency. World Wide Words.
* While in California, Grant tried selling ice to San Francisco, but failed when it melted in the warm weather aboard the ship. Smith, Grant, p. 81. . This anecdote is disputed by Edward G. Longacre in "General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man" (2006) in which he says -- in a referenced statement -- that the ice venture had failed because of "an unexpected glut of [ice] imports from Alaska."
* In 1883, Grant was elected the eighth president of the National Rifle Association.
* Grant suffered from tone-deafness. He disliked music intensely and would go out of his way to avoid having to hear any other than patriotic songs. In Jeffrey Shaara's The Last Full Measure - which is set after the Battle of Gettysburg, the subject of his father Michael's 1974 bestseller The Killer Angels - Grant is portrayed as saying, "I know only two songs. One is 'Yankee Doodle'. The other isn't." Whether he actually said this is unclear. Shaara, Jeffrey M. (1998). "The Last Full Measure".
* Grant's wife, First Lady Julia Grant, was cross-eyed. When it was suggested to her that she have an operation to have it corrected, President Grant replied that he liked her that way. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* Grant's favorite brand of bourbon whiskey was Old Crow.
* Grant enjoyed eating cucumbers soaked in vinegar for breakfast.
* An apocryphal story about Grant's drinking has the general's critics going to President Lincoln, charging the military man with being a drunk. Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."
:* A similar story was told of General James Wolfe during the French and Indian Wars. When King George II was told that Wolfe was a "mad dog", he is said to have replied, "Then I'd wish he'd bite the other generals."
* The question "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" was used by Groucho Marx in his radio and TV quiz show, the correct answer to which resulted in a consolation prize to contestants who had won no money. Some contestants thought it was a trick question. Grant's grandson, Ulysses S. Grant IV (a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles) appeared on the program on March 12, 1953.
** This was also featured on an episode of the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, in which in a dream sequence Dorothy competes on Jeopardy against a scholar and her roommate Rose. When asked the question, Dorothy replies Ulysses and is wrong, while Rose replies Cary Grant and is correct.
* In the film Wild Wild West, President Grant is a minor character that must deal with the Loveless Alliance.
Once while in office he was arrested for speeding his horse and buggy and fined $20 and had to walk back to the white house. (www.pocanticohills.org/presidents/know.htm )
* A dispute between Grant and his commanding officer Henry Wager Halleck is the subject of a pivotal question in the film Quiz Show.
* United States presidential election, 1868
* United States presidential election, 1872
* History of the United States (1865â1918)
* Western Theater of the American Civil War
* Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
* U.S. Grant Home, Galena, Illinois
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command, Little, Brown and Company, 1968, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 69-12632.
*Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Garland, Hamlin, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character, Macmillan Company, 1898.
*Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885 86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
*Hesseltine, William B., Ulysses S. Grant: Politician 1935.
* Lewis, Lloyd, Captain Sam Grant, Little, Brown, and Co., 1950, ISBN 0-316-52348-8.
* McFeely, William S., Grant: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Co, 1981, ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
* McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
* Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-395-65994-9.
*Smith, Jean Edward, Grant, Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
*Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861 1865, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
* Official Ulysses Simpson Grant biography from the US Army Center for Military History
* Bunting III, Josiah. Ulysses S. Grant (2004) ISBN 0-8050-6949-6
* William Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 (1905), vol 22
* Hesseltine, William B. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (2001) ISBN 1-931313-85-7 online edition
* Mantell, Martin E., Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
* Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936) online edition
* Rhodes, James Ford., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6 and 7 (1920) vol 6
* Scaturro, Frank J., President Grant Reconsidered (1998).
* Schouler, James., History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
* Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
* Simpson, Brooks D., The Reconstruction Presidents (1998)
* Skidmore, Max J. "The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: a Reconsideration." White House Studies (2005) online
* Badeau, Adam. Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 vols. 1882.
*Ballard, Michael B., Vicksburg, The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-2893-9.
* Bearss, Edwin C., The Vicksburg Campaign, 3 volumes, Morningside Press, 1991, ISBN 0-89029-308-2.
* Carter, Samuel III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863 (1980)
* Catton, Bruce, Grant Moves South, 1960, ISBN 0-316-13207-1; Grant Takes Command, 1968, ISBN 0-316-13210-1; U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954)
* Cavanaugh, Michael A., and William Marvel, The Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of the Crater: "The Horrid Pit," June 25-August 6, 1864 (1989)
* Conger, A. L. The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931)
* Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg (1986).
* Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
* Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
* Korda, Michael. Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (2004) 161 pp
* McWhiney, Grady, Battle in the Wilderness: Grant Meets Lee (1995)
* McDonough, James Lee, Shiloh: In Hell before Night (1977).
* McDonough, James Lee, Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy (1984).
* Maney, R. Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor. Victory and Failure, 1864 (1994).
* Matter, William D., If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (1988)
* Miers, Earl Schenck., The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg. 1955.
* Mosier, John., "Grant", Palgrave MacMillan, 2006 ISBN 1-4039-7136-6.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5 6, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8071-1873-7.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7 12, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8071-2136-3.
* Rhea, Gordon C., To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13 25, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8071-2535-0.
* Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.
* Miller, J. Michael, The North Anna Campaign: "Even to Hell Itself," May 21-26, 1864 (1989).
* Simpson, Brooks D, "Continuous Hammering and Mere Attrition: Lost Cause Critics and the Military Reputation of Ulysses S. Grant," in Cad Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, (2000)
* Steere, Edward, The Wilderness Campaign (1960)
* Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April. 1974.
* Williams, T. Harry, McClellan, Sherman and Grant. 1962.
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs (1885) online edition
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters (Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely, eds.) ( The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-94045058-5
* Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) pp 131-73, on the Memoirs
* Johnson, R. U., and Buel, C. C., eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York, 1887-88; essays by leading generals of both sides; online edition
* Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant (1897, reprinted 2000)
* Sherman, William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. 2 vols. 1875.
* Simon, John Y., ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Southern Illinois University Press (1967- ) multivolume complete edition of letters to and from Grant. As of 2006, vol 1-28 covers through September 1878.
* Extensive essay on Ulysses S. Grant and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* First Inaugural Address
* Second Inaugural Address
* White House Biography
* Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
*Emerson, Col. John W., Grant's Life in the West and His Mississippi Valley Campaigns, U.S. Grant Association website.
* Ulysses S. Grant at Find A Grave
* Many rare General Grant photographs
* Complete Bibliography
* Military biography of Ulysses S. Grant from the Cullum biographies
*
* The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. (1918). "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.
* Collection of US Grant Letters
* Ulysses S. Grant: America's Second Three-Star General article by Ethan Rafuse
* Historic White Haven (Grant-Dent home)
*
|-
|-
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
Andrew Johnson
Rutherford B. Hayes
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Julia Grant
Jesse Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Nellie Grant
Frederick Grant
General-in-Chief
List of United States Presidential religious affiliations
Republican Party (United States)
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
#Military career
April 27
1822
July 23
1885
United States
President of the United States
Union (American Civil War)
American Civil War
Battle of Vicksburg
Confederate
Robert E. Lee
Appomattox Court House
J.F.C. Fuller
Vicksburg Campaign
History of the United States Republican Party
Andrew Jackson
Radical Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Civil Rights
African American history
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home
Georgetown, Ohio
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio River
Pennsylvania
Horsham Township, Pennsylvania
Georgetown, Ohio
Brown County, Ohio
August 22
1848
Julia Boggs Dent
Frederick Dent Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Ellen Wrenshall Grant
Jesse Root Grant
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Mathew Brady
United States Army
Army of the Tennessee
Military Division of the Mississippi
United States Army
United States Army
Mexican-American War
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
American Civil War
Battle of Fort Donelson
Battle of Shiloh
Battle of Vicksburg
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Overland Campaign
Battle of Petersburg
Appomattox Campaign
President of the United States
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
U.S. Congressman
Thomas L. Hamer
Academic administration
March 31
1853
cavalry
Mexican-American War
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
Fort Vancouver
Washington Territory
U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
July 31
1854
Robert C. Buchanan
John Eaton (General)
St. Louis, Missouri
Grant's Farm
Anheuser-Busch
Galena, Illinois
James Buchanan
John C. Frémont
Stephen A. Douglas
Elihu B. Washburne
April 28
2007
War Democrats
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Galena, Illinois
Fort Sumter
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
Illinois
Richard Yates (governor)
21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
Claiborne Jackson
John C. Frémont
Ohio River
Paducah, Kentucky
Confederate States Army
Columbus, Kentucky
Gideon J. Pillow
Battle of Belmont
Andrew H. Foote
Battle of Fort Henry
Tennessee River
Battle of Fort Donelson
Cumberland River
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Henry W. Halleck
Nashville, Tennessee
Don Carlos Buell
March 2
March 17
Battle of Cold Harbor
Mathew Brady
Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard
Battle of Shiloh
April 30
First Battle of Corinth
William T. Sherman
Army of West Tennessee
Army of the Tennessee
June 10
Second Battle of Corinth
Battle of Iuka
Mississippi River
Vicksburg Campaign
U.S. Navy
Charles Anderson Dana
hardtack
John C. Pemberton
Jackson, Mississippi
Battle of Champion Hill
Battle of Vicksburg
July 4
1863
Battle of Gettysburg
Turning point of the American Civil War
July 4
Battle of Chickamauga
William S. Rosecrans
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Braxton Bragg
Lookout Mountain
October 17
George Henry Thomas
William Farrar Smith
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Missionary Ridge
Atlanta, Georgia
Lieutenant General (United States)
George Washington
Winfield Scott
brevet (military)
Congress of the United States
March 2
1864
March 12
United States
William Tecumseh Sherman
Virginia
Army of Northern Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
George G. Meade
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Franz Sigel
Shenandoah Valley
Georgia (U.S. state)
Joseph E. Johnston
Atlanta
George Crook
William W. Averell
West Virginia
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Mobile, Alabama
total war
Overland Campaign
Robert E. Lee
May 4
1864
Army of the Potomac
Rapidan River
Army of Northern Virginia
Battle of the Wilderness
Spotsylvania, Virginia
May 8
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 11
May 12
Battle of Cold Harbor
June 3
James River (Virginia)
Petersburg, Virginia
June 18
Siege of Petersburg
William Tecumseh Sherman
Abraham Lincoln
Jubal A. Early
Shenandoah Valley
Washington, D.C.
Administration (government)
Philip Sheridan
Valley Campaigns of 1864
Sherman's March to the Sea
total war
Carolinas Campaign
Appomattox Court House
April 9
1865
Kirby Smith
Trans-Mississippi Department
June 2
1865
Copperheads
Democratic Party (United States)
July 25
1866
General of the Army of the United States
U.S. Army
Andrew Johnson
Edwin M. Stanton
Tenure of Office Act
History of the United States Republican Party
Republican National Convention
Chicago
U.S. presidential election, 1868
Horatio Seymour
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
United States presidential election, 1872
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Horace Greeley
Reconstruction
Redeemers
Ku Klux Klan
voting rights
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Dominican Republic
Yellowstone National Park
March 1
1872
March 29
2006
Christmas
February 8
1999
Panic of 1873
Robert Schenck
Rutherford B. Hayes
Samuel J. Tilden
U.S. presidential election, 1876
Henry Watterson
Treaty of Washington (1871)
Hamilton Fish
CSS Alabama
Dominican Republic
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Charles Sumner
Horace Greeley
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Liberian-Grebo War
USS Alaska (1868)
Liberia
James Milton Turner
Black Friday (1869)
Jay Gould
James Fisk (financier)
Whiskey Ring
Benjamin H. Bristow
Orville E. Babcock
United States Secretary of War
William W. Belknap
Native Americans in the United States
trading post
Sanborn Incident
William Adams Richardson
Cyrus I. Scofield
Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Vice President of the United States
Schuyler Colfax
United States presidential election, 1872
Henry Wilson
Julia Grant
Jesse Root Grant
anti-Semitism
General Order No. 11 (1862)
Oxford, Mississippi
December 17
1862
Vicksburg Campaign
Tennessee
Mississippi
Kentucky
James H. Wilson
Bertram Korn
U.S. presidential election, 1868
President of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
Salmon P. Chase
March 4
1873
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
Elihu B. Washburne
Hamilton Fish
John A. Rawlins
William T. Sherman
William W. Belknap
Alphonso Taft
J. Donald Cameron
George S. Boutwell
William Adams Richardson
Benjamin Bristow
Lot M. Morrill
Ebenezer R. Hoar
Amos T. Akerman
George Henry Williams
Edwards Pierrepont
Alphonso Taft
John A. J. Creswell
James William Marshall
Marshall Jewell
James N. Tyner
Adolph E. Borie
George M. Robeson
Jacob D. Cox
Columbus Delano
Zachariah Chandler
Supreme Court of the United States
Edwin M. Stanton
William Strong (judge)
Joseph P. Bradley
Ward Hunt
Morrison Remick Waite
Chief Justice of the United States
Colorado
August 1
1876
United States Department of Justice
United States Solicitor General
Chester A. Arthur
Office of Personnel Management
Surgeon General of the United States
National Weather Service
Queen Victoria
Windsor Castle
Prince Bismarck
Emperor Meiji
Empress ShÅken
Imperial Palace
Tokyo
Meiji period
Ryukyu Islands
China
Stalwart (politics)
Roscoe Conkling
Methodist
Republican National Convention
James A. Garfield
New York City
Ferdinand Ward
Wall Street
Grant & Ward
Esophageal cancer
pension
The Century Magazine
Mark Twain
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Julius Caesar
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
New York City
Riverside Park (Manhattan)
General Grant National Memorial
mausoleum
North America
World War II
tank
Grant tank
U.S. fifty-dollar bill
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Grant Park (Chicago)
Chicago
the Bronx
New York
San Francisco, California
Chinatown, San Francisco, California
Bedford Avenue
Crown Heights
Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. Grant Bridge
Ohio River
Portsmouth, Ohio
U.S. Route 52
Counties of the United States
U.S. state
Grant County, Arkansas
Grant County, Kansas
Grant County, Minnesota
Grant County, Nebraska
Grant County, New Mexico
Grant County, North Dakota
Grant County, Oklahoma
Grant County, Washington
Grant County, West Virginia
Grant Parish, Louisiana
Mayflower
Richard Warren
John Lothropp
Benjamin Franklin
abolitionist
John Brown (abolitionist)
Mathew Brady
Willard Hotel
lobbyist
San Francisco
National Rifle Association
Jeffrey Shaara
The Last Full Measure
Michael Shaara
The Killer Angels
First Lady of the United States
Julia Grant
Strabismus
bourbon whiskey
Old Crow
cucumbers
vinegar
breakfast
James Wolfe
French and Indian Wars
King George II
Groucho Marx
You Bet Your Life
Ulysses S. Grant IV
University of California, Los Angeles
The Golden Girls
Cary Grant
Wild Wild West
Henry Wager Halleck
Quiz Show
United States presidential election, 1868
United States presidential election, 1872
History of the United States (1865-1918)
Western Theater of the American Civil War
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
James M. McPherson
Jean Edward Smith
Allan Nevins
Ed Bearss
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
Find A Grave
West Point#Cullum Number
Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Rutherford B. Hayes
Abraham Lincoln
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1868
U.S. presidential election, 1872
Rutherford B. Hayes
Army of the Tennessee
William T. Sherman
Henry W. Halleck
Commanding General of the United States Army
Andrew Johnson
Oldest living United States president
Rutherford B. Hayes
United States
soldier
politician
President of the United States
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
|
Ulysses_S._Grant | What was Grant's political affiliation? | Republican | data/set3/a5 | Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, See military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 July 23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869 1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
Grant first reached national prominence by taking Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862 in the first Union victories of the war. The following year, his brilliant campaign ending in the surrender of Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi andâwith the simultaneous Union victory at Gettysburgâturned the tide of the war in the North's favor. Named commanding general of the Federal armies in 1864, he implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's ability to carry on the war. In 1865, after conducting a costly war of attrition in the East, he accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. Grant has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.
In 1868, Grant was elected president as a Republican. Grant was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed.
Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans. See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.
Ulysses Grant Birthplace, Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home, Georgetown, Ohio
Grant was born in a log cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794 1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798 1883). His father, a tanner, was from Pennsylvania, and his mother was born in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio.
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826 1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (Buck), Ellen Wrenshall Grant (Nellie), and Jesse Root Grant.
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only. Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.
Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846â1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, later becoming his brother-in-law, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.
After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the 4th U.S. Infantry regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial. According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name." McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican War
A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys). His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. McFeely, ch. 5.
Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican. Hesseltine, chapter 6. .
The home of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Infantry in June 1861.
Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.
In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.
Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederates violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, an old friend of Grant's and a West Point classmate, and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers. Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.
Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased against him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.
General Grant at Cold Harbor, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864
In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.
The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in Corinth, Mississippi. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Corinth and Iuka that fall.
In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant spent the winter of 1862 1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.
However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and in a daring move that defied conventional military principles cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles A. Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George H. Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas' chief engineer, William F. "Baldy" Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.
Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas' men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.
Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet appointment), recently re-authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.
In March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.
Poster of "Grant from West Point to Appomattox."
Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.
The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River.
Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a siege.
As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas.
At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democrats who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius: Korda, (2004)
After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army. Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.''
As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.
The second president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In the 1872 election he won by a landslide against the breakaway Liberal Republican party that nominated Horace Greeley.
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed .
Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006. Grant also signed into law making Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application, CRS Report for Congress, 98-301 GOV, updated February 8, 1999, by Stephen W. Stathis
The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.
By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker. Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes: Nevins, Fish 2:811
In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson .
The Grant administration's first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Act to Strengthen the Public Credit which the GOP Congress had passed after Grant ` s inaugural in March 1869 . The act had the effect that the gold price on New York exchange fell to 310 dollar an ounce - the lowest point since the suspension of specie payment in 1862 .
As Jean Edward Smith notes in his 2002 biography on Grant, the presidential treasury secretary Boutwell reorganized the Treasury by discharging unnecessary employees, started sweeping changes in Bureau of Printing and Engraving to protect the currency from counterfeiters and revitalized tax collections to hasten the collection of revenue. This changes soon led the Tresury having a monthly surplus .
The Grant administration reduced the debt by appromixately 435 million dollar. That was achieved by selling the growing gold surplus at weekly auctions for greenbacks and buying back wartime bonds with the currency . With this Grant ` s treasury secretary Boutwell had established a policy if continued had payed of the national debt in a quarter of a century . Newspapers like the New York Tribune wanted that the Government buy more bonds and Greenbacks, the New York Times praised the the Grant administration `s debt policy .
On other economic fronts did the Grant administration have acomplishments . Under
Grant the nation `s credit was substantially raised. Taxes was reduced by 300 million dollar. Annual interest rates were reduced by approximately 30 million dollar . The U . S balance of trade was changed from 130 million dollar against the United States to 120 million dollar in favor of the United States . He also reduced inflation and to 1873 bolstered economic recovery . He also promoted economy in federal expenditures . His veto of the Inflation Bill in 1874 saved the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 to get worse and the veto was praised by the financial community and many newspapers .
The Resumption of Species Act of 1875 which was signed by Grant and helped to end the crisis in 1879 when the law came in to effect
He also pressed for internal improvements and increased shipbuilding and foreign trade. He also wanted to enhance and improve the commercial marine .
Grant/Wilson campaign poster
In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington, negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He also proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Santo Domingo. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia. Liberian-Grebo War of 1876
The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud. However, Grant eventually released large amounts of gold back onto the market, causing a large-scale financial crisis for many gold investors. Jay Gould had already prepared and quietly sold out while Fisk denied many agreements and hired thugs to intimidate his creditors.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.
Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first vice president, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.
President Grant with his wife, Julia, and son, Jesse, in 1872.
Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."
Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11, issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:
The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart â opportunistic traders who were Jewish. McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed [...] he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."
The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 presidential campaign, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.
Grant's second inauguration as President by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.
Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
* Edwin M. Stanton 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
* William Strong 1870
* Joseph P. Bradley 1870
* Ward Hunt 1873
* Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice) 1874
* Colorado August 1, 1876
* Department of Justice (1870)
* Office of the Solicitor General (1870)
* "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
* Office of the Surgeon General (1871)
* Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)
Ulysses S. Grant in his postbellum.
After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress ShÅken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.
In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.
That same year, Grant was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.
Grant writing his memoirs.
In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
Grant appears on the U.S. $50 bill.
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. It was not until 1958 that Congress, feeling it inappropriate that a former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting a pension to such individuals, a practice that continues to this day. Grant first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and Grant's memoirs are also regarded by such writers as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request, "Water." His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America.
Statue of Grant astride his favorite mount, "Cincinnati", at Vicksburg, Mississippi
*In World War II, the United States produced a tank known as the Grant tank (an upgrade of the American M3 "Lee").
*Grant's portrait appears on the U.S. fifty-dollar bill.
*The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., honors Grant.
*Grant Park in Chicago honors Grant.
*Grant Avenue, a nine block long, north-south street in the Bronx, New York, is named after Grant. It is parallel and adjacent to Sherman Avenue.
*Dupont Street, the main thoroughfare in San Francisco's Chinatown, was renamed Grant Avenue in his honor. The famous dragon gate at the entrance to the district is at the corner of Grant and Bush Street.
*Grant, depicted riding a horse, is honored by a statue at the intersection of Bedford Avenue, Rogers Avenue and Dean Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
*There is a U.S. Grant Bridge over the Ohio River at Portsmouth, Ohio.
*There is a U.S. Grant Memorial Highway (US 52) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
*Counties in twelve U.S. states are named after Grant: Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Grant Parish, Louisiana. Note: Grant Counties in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin were named after other Grants, not Ulysses Grant.
* Grant was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren
* Grant is also a descendant from John Lothropp, who is also an ancestor to Benjamin Franklin
Grant Memorial Statue in Grant Park, Galena, Illinois. Julia Grant remarked that it was the best likeness of her husband, as his hands were thrust into his pockets.
* As a young man, Grant's father, Jesse, taught him the trade of tanning. Jesse Grant had been taught how to tan by Owen Brown, the father of known abolitionist John Brown. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* When Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1864, he agreed to sit down for photographer Mathew Brady. As the sun had begun to set by the time Grant arrived, Brady instructed one of his assistants to open the shades of the skylight in Brady's studio. The assistant slipped and shattered the skylight, causing two-inch-thick shards of glass to rain down around Grant, who had taken his seat as requested. He was unharmed, and showed "the most remarkable display of nerve" that Brady had ever seen. O'Brien, Cormac (2007). "Secret Lives of the Civil War: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the War Between the States".
* Grant was known to visit the Willard Hotel to escape the stress of the White House. A long-standing story is that he referred to the people who approached him in the lobby as "those darn lobbyists," implying that he was the source for the term lobbyist. This story is unlikely to be true since there are examples of the term being used in U.S. and British magazines and newspapers before Grant's presidency. World Wide Words.
* While in California, Grant tried selling ice to San Francisco, but failed when it melted in the warm weather aboard the ship. Smith, Grant, p. 81. . This anecdote is disputed by Edward G. Longacre in "General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man" (2006) in which he says -- in a referenced statement -- that the ice venture had failed because of "an unexpected glut of [ice] imports from Alaska."
* In 1883, Grant was elected the eighth president of the National Rifle Association.
* Grant suffered from tone-deafness. He disliked music intensely and would go out of his way to avoid having to hear any other than patriotic songs. In Jeffrey Shaara's The Last Full Measure - which is set after the Battle of Gettysburg, the subject of his father Michael's 1974 bestseller The Killer Angels - Grant is portrayed as saying, "I know only two songs. One is 'Yankee Doodle'. The other isn't." Whether he actually said this is unclear. Shaara, Jeffrey M. (1998). "The Last Full Measure".
* Grant's wife, First Lady Julia Grant, was cross-eyed. When it was suggested to her that she have an operation to have it corrected, President Grant replied that he liked her that way. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* Grant's favorite brand of bourbon whiskey was Old Crow.
* Grant enjoyed eating cucumbers soaked in vinegar for breakfast.
* An apocryphal story about Grant's drinking has the general's critics going to President Lincoln, charging the military man with being a drunk. Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."
:* A similar story was told of General James Wolfe during the French and Indian Wars. When King George II was told that Wolfe was a "mad dog", he is said to have replied, "Then I'd wish he'd bite the other generals."
* The question "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" was used by Groucho Marx in his radio and TV quiz show, the correct answer to which resulted in a consolation prize to contestants who had won no money. Some contestants thought it was a trick question. Grant's grandson, Ulysses S. Grant IV (a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles) appeared on the program on March 12, 1953.
** This was also featured on an episode of the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, in which in a dream sequence Dorothy competes on Jeopardy against a scholar and her roommate Rose. When asked the question, Dorothy replies Ulysses and is wrong, while Rose replies Cary Grant and is correct.
* In the film Wild Wild West, President Grant is a minor character that must deal with the Loveless Alliance.
Once while in office he was arrested for speeding his horse and buggy and fined $20 and had to walk back to the white house. (www.pocanticohills.org/presidents/know.htm )
* A dispute between Grant and his commanding officer Henry Wager Halleck is the subject of a pivotal question in the film Quiz Show.
* United States presidential election, 1868
* United States presidential election, 1872
* History of the United States (1865â1918)
* Western Theater of the American Civil War
* Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
* U.S. Grant Home, Galena, Illinois
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command, Little, Brown and Company, 1968, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 69-12632.
*Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Garland, Hamlin, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character, Macmillan Company, 1898.
*Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885 86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
*Hesseltine, William B., Ulysses S. Grant: Politician 1935.
* Lewis, Lloyd, Captain Sam Grant, Little, Brown, and Co., 1950, ISBN 0-316-52348-8.
* McFeely, William S., Grant: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Co, 1981, ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
* McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
* Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-395-65994-9.
*Smith, Jean Edward, Grant, Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
*Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861 1865, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
* Official Ulysses Simpson Grant biography from the US Army Center for Military History
* Bunting III, Josiah. Ulysses S. Grant (2004) ISBN 0-8050-6949-6
* William Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 (1905), vol 22
* Hesseltine, William B. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (2001) ISBN 1-931313-85-7 online edition
* Mantell, Martin E., Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
* Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936) online edition
* Rhodes, James Ford., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6 and 7 (1920) vol 6
* Scaturro, Frank J., President Grant Reconsidered (1998).
* Schouler, James., History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
* Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
* Simpson, Brooks D., The Reconstruction Presidents (1998)
* Skidmore, Max J. "The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: a Reconsideration." White House Studies (2005) online
* Badeau, Adam. Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 vols. 1882.
*Ballard, Michael B., Vicksburg, The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-2893-9.
* Bearss, Edwin C., The Vicksburg Campaign, 3 volumes, Morningside Press, 1991, ISBN 0-89029-308-2.
* Carter, Samuel III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863 (1980)
* Catton, Bruce, Grant Moves South, 1960, ISBN 0-316-13207-1; Grant Takes Command, 1968, ISBN 0-316-13210-1; U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954)
* Cavanaugh, Michael A., and William Marvel, The Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of the Crater: "The Horrid Pit," June 25-August 6, 1864 (1989)
* Conger, A. L. The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931)
* Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg (1986).
* Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
* Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
* Korda, Michael. Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (2004) 161 pp
* McWhiney, Grady, Battle in the Wilderness: Grant Meets Lee (1995)
* McDonough, James Lee, Shiloh: In Hell before Night (1977).
* McDonough, James Lee, Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy (1984).
* Maney, R. Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor. Victory and Failure, 1864 (1994).
* Matter, William D., If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (1988)
* Miers, Earl Schenck., The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg. 1955.
* Mosier, John., "Grant", Palgrave MacMillan, 2006 ISBN 1-4039-7136-6.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5 6, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8071-1873-7.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7 12, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8071-2136-3.
* Rhea, Gordon C., To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13 25, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8071-2535-0.
* Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.
* Miller, J. Michael, The North Anna Campaign: "Even to Hell Itself," May 21-26, 1864 (1989).
* Simpson, Brooks D, "Continuous Hammering and Mere Attrition: Lost Cause Critics and the Military Reputation of Ulysses S. Grant," in Cad Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, (2000)
* Steere, Edward, The Wilderness Campaign (1960)
* Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April. 1974.
* Williams, T. Harry, McClellan, Sherman and Grant. 1962.
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs (1885) online edition
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters (Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely, eds.) ( The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-94045058-5
* Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) pp 131-73, on the Memoirs
* Johnson, R. U., and Buel, C. C., eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York, 1887-88; essays by leading generals of both sides; online edition
* Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant (1897, reprinted 2000)
* Sherman, William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. 2 vols. 1875.
* Simon, John Y., ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Southern Illinois University Press (1967- ) multivolume complete edition of letters to and from Grant. As of 2006, vol 1-28 covers through September 1878.
* Extensive essay on Ulysses S. Grant and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* First Inaugural Address
* Second Inaugural Address
* White House Biography
* Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
*Emerson, Col. John W., Grant's Life in the West and His Mississippi Valley Campaigns, U.S. Grant Association website.
* Ulysses S. Grant at Find A Grave
* Many rare General Grant photographs
* Complete Bibliography
* Military biography of Ulysses S. Grant from the Cullum biographies
*
* The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. (1918). "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.
* Collection of US Grant Letters
* Ulysses S. Grant: America's Second Three-Star General article by Ethan Rafuse
* Historic White Haven (Grant-Dent home)
*
|-
|-
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
Andrew Johnson
Rutherford B. Hayes
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Julia Grant
Jesse Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Nellie Grant
Frederick Grant
General-in-Chief
List of United States Presidential religious affiliations
Republican Party (United States)
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
#Military career
April 27
1822
July 23
1885
United States
President of the United States
Union (American Civil War)
American Civil War
Battle of Vicksburg
Confederate
Robert E. Lee
Appomattox Court House
J.F.C. Fuller
Vicksburg Campaign
History of the United States Republican Party
Andrew Jackson
Radical Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Civil Rights
African American history
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home
Georgetown, Ohio
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio River
Pennsylvania
Horsham Township, Pennsylvania
Georgetown, Ohio
Brown County, Ohio
August 22
1848
Julia Boggs Dent
Frederick Dent Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Ellen Wrenshall Grant
Jesse Root Grant
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Mathew Brady
United States Army
Army of the Tennessee
Military Division of the Mississippi
United States Army
United States Army
Mexican-American War
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
American Civil War
Battle of Fort Donelson
Battle of Shiloh
Battle of Vicksburg
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Overland Campaign
Battle of Petersburg
Appomattox Campaign
President of the United States
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
U.S. Congressman
Thomas L. Hamer
Academic administration
March 31
1853
cavalry
Mexican-American War
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
Fort Vancouver
Washington Territory
U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
July 31
1854
Robert C. Buchanan
John Eaton (General)
St. Louis, Missouri
Grant's Farm
Anheuser-Busch
Galena, Illinois
James Buchanan
John C. Frémont
Stephen A. Douglas
Elihu B. Washburne
April 28
2007
War Democrats
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Galena, Illinois
Fort Sumter
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
Illinois
Richard Yates (governor)
21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
Claiborne Jackson
John C. Frémont
Ohio River
Paducah, Kentucky
Confederate States Army
Columbus, Kentucky
Gideon J. Pillow
Battle of Belmont
Andrew H. Foote
Battle of Fort Henry
Tennessee River
Battle of Fort Donelson
Cumberland River
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Henry W. Halleck
Nashville, Tennessee
Don Carlos Buell
March 2
March 17
Battle of Cold Harbor
Mathew Brady
Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard
Battle of Shiloh
April 30
First Battle of Corinth
William T. Sherman
Army of West Tennessee
Army of the Tennessee
June 10
Second Battle of Corinth
Battle of Iuka
Mississippi River
Vicksburg Campaign
U.S. Navy
Charles Anderson Dana
hardtack
John C. Pemberton
Jackson, Mississippi
Battle of Champion Hill
Battle of Vicksburg
July 4
1863
Battle of Gettysburg
Turning point of the American Civil War
July 4
Battle of Chickamauga
William S. Rosecrans
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Braxton Bragg
Lookout Mountain
October 17
George Henry Thomas
William Farrar Smith
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Missionary Ridge
Atlanta, Georgia
Lieutenant General (United States)
George Washington
Winfield Scott
brevet (military)
Congress of the United States
March 2
1864
March 12
United States
William Tecumseh Sherman
Virginia
Army of Northern Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
George G. Meade
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Franz Sigel
Shenandoah Valley
Georgia (U.S. state)
Joseph E. Johnston
Atlanta
George Crook
William W. Averell
West Virginia
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Mobile, Alabama
total war
Overland Campaign
Robert E. Lee
May 4
1864
Army of the Potomac
Rapidan River
Army of Northern Virginia
Battle of the Wilderness
Spotsylvania, Virginia
May 8
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 11
May 12
Battle of Cold Harbor
June 3
James River (Virginia)
Petersburg, Virginia
June 18
Siege of Petersburg
William Tecumseh Sherman
Abraham Lincoln
Jubal A. Early
Shenandoah Valley
Washington, D.C.
Administration (government)
Philip Sheridan
Valley Campaigns of 1864
Sherman's March to the Sea
total war
Carolinas Campaign
Appomattox Court House
April 9
1865
Kirby Smith
Trans-Mississippi Department
June 2
1865
Copperheads
Democratic Party (United States)
July 25
1866
General of the Army of the United States
U.S. Army
Andrew Johnson
Edwin M. Stanton
Tenure of Office Act
History of the United States Republican Party
Republican National Convention
Chicago
U.S. presidential election, 1868
Horatio Seymour
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
United States presidential election, 1872
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Horace Greeley
Reconstruction
Redeemers
Ku Klux Klan
voting rights
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Dominican Republic
Yellowstone National Park
March 1
1872
March 29
2006
Christmas
February 8
1999
Panic of 1873
Robert Schenck
Rutherford B. Hayes
Samuel J. Tilden
U.S. presidential election, 1876
Henry Watterson
Treaty of Washington (1871)
Hamilton Fish
CSS Alabama
Dominican Republic
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Charles Sumner
Horace Greeley
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Liberian-Grebo War
USS Alaska (1868)
Liberia
James Milton Turner
Black Friday (1869)
Jay Gould
James Fisk (financier)
Whiskey Ring
Benjamin H. Bristow
Orville E. Babcock
United States Secretary of War
William W. Belknap
Native Americans in the United States
trading post
Sanborn Incident
William Adams Richardson
Cyrus I. Scofield
Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Vice President of the United States
Schuyler Colfax
United States presidential election, 1872
Henry Wilson
Julia Grant
Jesse Root Grant
anti-Semitism
General Order No. 11 (1862)
Oxford, Mississippi
December 17
1862
Vicksburg Campaign
Tennessee
Mississippi
Kentucky
James H. Wilson
Bertram Korn
U.S. presidential election, 1868
President of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
Salmon P. Chase
March 4
1873
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
Elihu B. Washburne
Hamilton Fish
John A. Rawlins
William T. Sherman
William W. Belknap
Alphonso Taft
J. Donald Cameron
George S. Boutwell
William Adams Richardson
Benjamin Bristow
Lot M. Morrill
Ebenezer R. Hoar
Amos T. Akerman
George Henry Williams
Edwards Pierrepont
Alphonso Taft
John A. J. Creswell
James William Marshall
Marshall Jewell
James N. Tyner
Adolph E. Borie
George M. Robeson
Jacob D. Cox
Columbus Delano
Zachariah Chandler
Supreme Court of the United States
Edwin M. Stanton
William Strong (judge)
Joseph P. Bradley
Ward Hunt
Morrison Remick Waite
Chief Justice of the United States
Colorado
August 1
1876
United States Department of Justice
United States Solicitor General
Chester A. Arthur
Office of Personnel Management
Surgeon General of the United States
National Weather Service
Queen Victoria
Windsor Castle
Prince Bismarck
Emperor Meiji
Empress ShÅken
Imperial Palace
Tokyo
Meiji period
Ryukyu Islands
China
Stalwart (politics)
Roscoe Conkling
Methodist
Republican National Convention
James A. Garfield
New York City
Ferdinand Ward
Wall Street
Grant & Ward
Esophageal cancer
pension
The Century Magazine
Mark Twain
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Julius Caesar
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
New York City
Riverside Park (Manhattan)
General Grant National Memorial
mausoleum
North America
World War II
tank
Grant tank
U.S. fifty-dollar bill
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Grant Park (Chicago)
Chicago
the Bronx
New York
San Francisco, California
Chinatown, San Francisco, California
Bedford Avenue
Crown Heights
Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. Grant Bridge
Ohio River
Portsmouth, Ohio
U.S. Route 52
Counties of the United States
U.S. state
Grant County, Arkansas
Grant County, Kansas
Grant County, Minnesota
Grant County, Nebraska
Grant County, New Mexico
Grant County, North Dakota
Grant County, Oklahoma
Grant County, Washington
Grant County, West Virginia
Grant Parish, Louisiana
Mayflower
Richard Warren
John Lothropp
Benjamin Franklin
abolitionist
John Brown (abolitionist)
Mathew Brady
Willard Hotel
lobbyist
San Francisco
National Rifle Association
Jeffrey Shaara
The Last Full Measure
Michael Shaara
The Killer Angels
First Lady of the United States
Julia Grant
Strabismus
bourbon whiskey
Old Crow
cucumbers
vinegar
breakfast
James Wolfe
French and Indian Wars
King George II
Groucho Marx
You Bet Your Life
Ulysses S. Grant IV
University of California, Los Angeles
The Golden Girls
Cary Grant
Wild Wild West
Henry Wager Halleck
Quiz Show
United States presidential election, 1868
United States presidential election, 1872
History of the United States (1865-1918)
Western Theater of the American Civil War
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
James M. McPherson
Jean Edward Smith
Allan Nevins
Ed Bearss
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
Find A Grave
West Point#Cullum Number
Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Rutherford B. Hayes
Abraham Lincoln
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1868
U.S. presidential election, 1872
Rutherford B. Hayes
Army of the Tennessee
William T. Sherman
Henry W. Halleck
Commanding General of the United States Army
Andrew Johnson
Oldest living United States president
Rutherford B. Hayes
United States
soldier
politician
President of the United States
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
|
Ulysses_S._Grant | Why did Grant say "Damn, I had nothing to do with this batte."? | It went well. | data/set3/a5 | Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, See military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 July 23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869 1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
Grant first reached national prominence by taking Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862 in the first Union victories of the war. The following year, his brilliant campaign ending in the surrender of Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi andâwith the simultaneous Union victory at Gettysburgâturned the tide of the war in the North's favor. Named commanding general of the Federal armies in 1864, he implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's ability to carry on the war. In 1865, after conducting a costly war of attrition in the East, he accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. Grant has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.
In 1868, Grant was elected president as a Republican. Grant was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed.
Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans. See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.
Ulysses Grant Birthplace, Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home, Georgetown, Ohio
Grant was born in a log cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794 1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798 1883). His father, a tanner, was from Pennsylvania, and his mother was born in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio.
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826 1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (Buck), Ellen Wrenshall Grant (Nellie), and Jesse Root Grant.
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only. Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.
Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846â1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, later becoming his brother-in-law, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.
After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the 4th U.S. Infantry regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial. According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name." McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican War
A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys). His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. McFeely, ch. 5.
Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican. Hesseltine, chapter 6. .
The home of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Infantry in June 1861.
Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.
In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.
Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederates violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, an old friend of Grant's and a West Point classmate, and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers. Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.
Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased against him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.
General Grant at Cold Harbor, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864
In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.
The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in Corinth, Mississippi. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Corinth and Iuka that fall.
In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant spent the winter of 1862 1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.
However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and in a daring move that defied conventional military principles cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles A. Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George H. Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas' chief engineer, William F. "Baldy" Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.
Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas' men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.
Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet appointment), recently re-authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.
In March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.
Poster of "Grant from West Point to Appomattox."
Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.
The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River.
Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a siege.
As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas.
At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democrats who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius: Korda, (2004)
After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army. Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.''
As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.
The second president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In the 1872 election he won by a landslide against the breakaway Liberal Republican party that nominated Horace Greeley.
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed .
Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006. Grant also signed into law making Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application, CRS Report for Congress, 98-301 GOV, updated February 8, 1999, by Stephen W. Stathis
The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.
By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker. Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes: Nevins, Fish 2:811
In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson .
The Grant administration's first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Act to Strengthen the Public Credit which the GOP Congress had passed after Grant ` s inaugural in March 1869 . The act had the effect that the gold price on New York exchange fell to 310 dollar an ounce - the lowest point since the suspension of specie payment in 1862 .
As Jean Edward Smith notes in his 2002 biography on Grant, the presidential treasury secretary Boutwell reorganized the Treasury by discharging unnecessary employees, started sweeping changes in Bureau of Printing and Engraving to protect the currency from counterfeiters and revitalized tax collections to hasten the collection of revenue. This changes soon led the Tresury having a monthly surplus .
The Grant administration reduced the debt by appromixately 435 million dollar. That was achieved by selling the growing gold surplus at weekly auctions for greenbacks and buying back wartime bonds with the currency . With this Grant ` s treasury secretary Boutwell had established a policy if continued had payed of the national debt in a quarter of a century . Newspapers like the New York Tribune wanted that the Government buy more bonds and Greenbacks, the New York Times praised the the Grant administration `s debt policy .
On other economic fronts did the Grant administration have acomplishments . Under
Grant the nation `s credit was substantially raised. Taxes was reduced by 300 million dollar. Annual interest rates were reduced by approximately 30 million dollar . The U . S balance of trade was changed from 130 million dollar against the United States to 120 million dollar in favor of the United States . He also reduced inflation and to 1873 bolstered economic recovery . He also promoted economy in federal expenditures . His veto of the Inflation Bill in 1874 saved the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 to get worse and the veto was praised by the financial community and many newspapers .
The Resumption of Species Act of 1875 which was signed by Grant and helped to end the crisis in 1879 when the law came in to effect
He also pressed for internal improvements and increased shipbuilding and foreign trade. He also wanted to enhance and improve the commercial marine .
Grant/Wilson campaign poster
In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington, negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He also proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Santo Domingo. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia. Liberian-Grebo War of 1876
The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud. However, Grant eventually released large amounts of gold back onto the market, causing a large-scale financial crisis for many gold investors. Jay Gould had already prepared and quietly sold out while Fisk denied many agreements and hired thugs to intimidate his creditors.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.
Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first vice president, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.
President Grant with his wife, Julia, and son, Jesse, in 1872.
Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."
Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11, issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:
The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart â opportunistic traders who were Jewish. McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed [...] he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."
The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 presidential campaign, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.
Grant's second inauguration as President by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.
Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
* Edwin M. Stanton 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
* William Strong 1870
* Joseph P. Bradley 1870
* Ward Hunt 1873
* Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice) 1874
* Colorado August 1, 1876
* Department of Justice (1870)
* Office of the Solicitor General (1870)
* "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
* Office of the Surgeon General (1871)
* Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)
Ulysses S. Grant in his postbellum.
After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress ShÅken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.
In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.
That same year, Grant was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.
Grant writing his memoirs.
In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
Grant appears on the U.S. $50 bill.
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. It was not until 1958 that Congress, feeling it inappropriate that a former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting a pension to such individuals, a practice that continues to this day. Grant first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and Grant's memoirs are also regarded by such writers as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request, "Water." His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America.
Statue of Grant astride his favorite mount, "Cincinnati", at Vicksburg, Mississippi
*In World War II, the United States produced a tank known as the Grant tank (an upgrade of the American M3 "Lee").
*Grant's portrait appears on the U.S. fifty-dollar bill.
*The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., honors Grant.
*Grant Park in Chicago honors Grant.
*Grant Avenue, a nine block long, north-south street in the Bronx, New York, is named after Grant. It is parallel and adjacent to Sherman Avenue.
*Dupont Street, the main thoroughfare in San Francisco's Chinatown, was renamed Grant Avenue in his honor. The famous dragon gate at the entrance to the district is at the corner of Grant and Bush Street.
*Grant, depicted riding a horse, is honored by a statue at the intersection of Bedford Avenue, Rogers Avenue and Dean Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
*There is a U.S. Grant Bridge over the Ohio River at Portsmouth, Ohio.
*There is a U.S. Grant Memorial Highway (US 52) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
*Counties in twelve U.S. states are named after Grant: Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Grant Parish, Louisiana. Note: Grant Counties in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin were named after other Grants, not Ulysses Grant.
* Grant was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren
* Grant is also a descendant from John Lothropp, who is also an ancestor to Benjamin Franklin
Grant Memorial Statue in Grant Park, Galena, Illinois. Julia Grant remarked that it was the best likeness of her husband, as his hands were thrust into his pockets.
* As a young man, Grant's father, Jesse, taught him the trade of tanning. Jesse Grant had been taught how to tan by Owen Brown, the father of known abolitionist John Brown. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* When Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1864, he agreed to sit down for photographer Mathew Brady. As the sun had begun to set by the time Grant arrived, Brady instructed one of his assistants to open the shades of the skylight in Brady's studio. The assistant slipped and shattered the skylight, causing two-inch-thick shards of glass to rain down around Grant, who had taken his seat as requested. He was unharmed, and showed "the most remarkable display of nerve" that Brady had ever seen. O'Brien, Cormac (2007). "Secret Lives of the Civil War: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the War Between the States".
* Grant was known to visit the Willard Hotel to escape the stress of the White House. A long-standing story is that he referred to the people who approached him in the lobby as "those darn lobbyists," implying that he was the source for the term lobbyist. This story is unlikely to be true since there are examples of the term being used in U.S. and British magazines and newspapers before Grant's presidency. World Wide Words.
* While in California, Grant tried selling ice to San Francisco, but failed when it melted in the warm weather aboard the ship. Smith, Grant, p. 81. . This anecdote is disputed by Edward G. Longacre in "General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man" (2006) in which he says -- in a referenced statement -- that the ice venture had failed because of "an unexpected glut of [ice] imports from Alaska."
* In 1883, Grant was elected the eighth president of the National Rifle Association.
* Grant suffered from tone-deafness. He disliked music intensely and would go out of his way to avoid having to hear any other than patriotic songs. In Jeffrey Shaara's The Last Full Measure - which is set after the Battle of Gettysburg, the subject of his father Michael's 1974 bestseller The Killer Angels - Grant is portrayed as saying, "I know only two songs. One is 'Yankee Doodle'. The other isn't." Whether he actually said this is unclear. Shaara, Jeffrey M. (1998). "The Last Full Measure".
* Grant's wife, First Lady Julia Grant, was cross-eyed. When it was suggested to her that she have an operation to have it corrected, President Grant replied that he liked her that way. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* Grant's favorite brand of bourbon whiskey was Old Crow.
* Grant enjoyed eating cucumbers soaked in vinegar for breakfast.
* An apocryphal story about Grant's drinking has the general's critics going to President Lincoln, charging the military man with being a drunk. Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."
:* A similar story was told of General James Wolfe during the French and Indian Wars. When King George II was told that Wolfe was a "mad dog", he is said to have replied, "Then I'd wish he'd bite the other generals."
* The question "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" was used by Groucho Marx in his radio and TV quiz show, the correct answer to which resulted in a consolation prize to contestants who had won no money. Some contestants thought it was a trick question. Grant's grandson, Ulysses S. Grant IV (a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles) appeared on the program on March 12, 1953.
** This was also featured on an episode of the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, in which in a dream sequence Dorothy competes on Jeopardy against a scholar and her roommate Rose. When asked the question, Dorothy replies Ulysses and is wrong, while Rose replies Cary Grant and is correct.
* In the film Wild Wild West, President Grant is a minor character that must deal with the Loveless Alliance.
Once while in office he was arrested for speeding his horse and buggy and fined $20 and had to walk back to the white house. (www.pocanticohills.org/presidents/know.htm )
* A dispute between Grant and his commanding officer Henry Wager Halleck is the subject of a pivotal question in the film Quiz Show.
* United States presidential election, 1868
* United States presidential election, 1872
* History of the United States (1865â1918)
* Western Theater of the American Civil War
* Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
* U.S. Grant Home, Galena, Illinois
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command, Little, Brown and Company, 1968, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 69-12632.
*Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Garland, Hamlin, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character, Macmillan Company, 1898.
*Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885 86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
*Hesseltine, William B., Ulysses S. Grant: Politician 1935.
* Lewis, Lloyd, Captain Sam Grant, Little, Brown, and Co., 1950, ISBN 0-316-52348-8.
* McFeely, William S., Grant: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Co, 1981, ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
* McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
* Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-395-65994-9.
*Smith, Jean Edward, Grant, Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
*Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861 1865, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
* Official Ulysses Simpson Grant biography from the US Army Center for Military History
* Bunting III, Josiah. Ulysses S. Grant (2004) ISBN 0-8050-6949-6
* William Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 (1905), vol 22
* Hesseltine, William B. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (2001) ISBN 1-931313-85-7 online edition
* Mantell, Martin E., Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
* Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936) online edition
* Rhodes, James Ford., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6 and 7 (1920) vol 6
* Scaturro, Frank J., President Grant Reconsidered (1998).
* Schouler, James., History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
* Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
* Simpson, Brooks D., The Reconstruction Presidents (1998)
* Skidmore, Max J. "The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: a Reconsideration." White House Studies (2005) online
* Badeau, Adam. Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 vols. 1882.
*Ballard, Michael B., Vicksburg, The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-2893-9.
* Bearss, Edwin C., The Vicksburg Campaign, 3 volumes, Morningside Press, 1991, ISBN 0-89029-308-2.
* Carter, Samuel III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863 (1980)
* Catton, Bruce, Grant Moves South, 1960, ISBN 0-316-13207-1; Grant Takes Command, 1968, ISBN 0-316-13210-1; U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954)
* Cavanaugh, Michael A., and William Marvel, The Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of the Crater: "The Horrid Pit," June 25-August 6, 1864 (1989)
* Conger, A. L. The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931)
* Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg (1986).
* Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
* Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
* Korda, Michael. Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (2004) 161 pp
* McWhiney, Grady, Battle in the Wilderness: Grant Meets Lee (1995)
* McDonough, James Lee, Shiloh: In Hell before Night (1977).
* McDonough, James Lee, Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy (1984).
* Maney, R. Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor. Victory and Failure, 1864 (1994).
* Matter, William D., If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (1988)
* Miers, Earl Schenck., The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg. 1955.
* Mosier, John., "Grant", Palgrave MacMillan, 2006 ISBN 1-4039-7136-6.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5 6, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8071-1873-7.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7 12, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8071-2136-3.
* Rhea, Gordon C., To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13 25, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8071-2535-0.
* Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.
* Miller, J. Michael, The North Anna Campaign: "Even to Hell Itself," May 21-26, 1864 (1989).
* Simpson, Brooks D, "Continuous Hammering and Mere Attrition: Lost Cause Critics and the Military Reputation of Ulysses S. Grant," in Cad Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, (2000)
* Steere, Edward, The Wilderness Campaign (1960)
* Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April. 1974.
* Williams, T. Harry, McClellan, Sherman and Grant. 1962.
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs (1885) online edition
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters (Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely, eds.) ( The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-94045058-5
* Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) pp 131-73, on the Memoirs
* Johnson, R. U., and Buel, C. C., eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York, 1887-88; essays by leading generals of both sides; online edition
* Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant (1897, reprinted 2000)
* Sherman, William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. 2 vols. 1875.
* Simon, John Y., ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Southern Illinois University Press (1967- ) multivolume complete edition of letters to and from Grant. As of 2006, vol 1-28 covers through September 1878.
* Extensive essay on Ulysses S. Grant and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* First Inaugural Address
* Second Inaugural Address
* White House Biography
* Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
*Emerson, Col. John W., Grant's Life in the West and His Mississippi Valley Campaigns, U.S. Grant Association website.
* Ulysses S. Grant at Find A Grave
* Many rare General Grant photographs
* Complete Bibliography
* Military biography of Ulysses S. Grant from the Cullum biographies
*
* The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. (1918). "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.
* Collection of US Grant Letters
* Ulysses S. Grant: America's Second Three-Star General article by Ethan Rafuse
* Historic White Haven (Grant-Dent home)
*
|-
|-
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
Andrew Johnson
Rutherford B. Hayes
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Julia Grant
Jesse Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Nellie Grant
Frederick Grant
General-in-Chief
List of United States Presidential religious affiliations
Republican Party (United States)
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
#Military career
April 27
1822
July 23
1885
United States
President of the United States
Union (American Civil War)
American Civil War
Battle of Vicksburg
Confederate
Robert E. Lee
Appomattox Court House
J.F.C. Fuller
Vicksburg Campaign
History of the United States Republican Party
Andrew Jackson
Radical Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Civil Rights
African American history
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home
Georgetown, Ohio
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio River
Pennsylvania
Horsham Township, Pennsylvania
Georgetown, Ohio
Brown County, Ohio
August 22
1848
Julia Boggs Dent
Frederick Dent Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Ellen Wrenshall Grant
Jesse Root Grant
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Mathew Brady
United States Army
Army of the Tennessee
Military Division of the Mississippi
United States Army
United States Army
Mexican-American War
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
American Civil War
Battle of Fort Donelson
Battle of Shiloh
Battle of Vicksburg
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Overland Campaign
Battle of Petersburg
Appomattox Campaign
President of the United States
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
U.S. Congressman
Thomas L. Hamer
Academic administration
March 31
1853
cavalry
Mexican-American War
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
Fort Vancouver
Washington Territory
U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
July 31
1854
Robert C. Buchanan
John Eaton (General)
St. Louis, Missouri
Grant's Farm
Anheuser-Busch
Galena, Illinois
James Buchanan
John C. Frémont
Stephen A. Douglas
Elihu B. Washburne
April 28
2007
War Democrats
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Galena, Illinois
Fort Sumter
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
Illinois
Richard Yates (governor)
21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
Claiborne Jackson
John C. Frémont
Ohio River
Paducah, Kentucky
Confederate States Army
Columbus, Kentucky
Gideon J. Pillow
Battle of Belmont
Andrew H. Foote
Battle of Fort Henry
Tennessee River
Battle of Fort Donelson
Cumberland River
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Henry W. Halleck
Nashville, Tennessee
Don Carlos Buell
March 2
March 17
Battle of Cold Harbor
Mathew Brady
Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard
Battle of Shiloh
April 30
First Battle of Corinth
William T. Sherman
Army of West Tennessee
Army of the Tennessee
June 10
Second Battle of Corinth
Battle of Iuka
Mississippi River
Vicksburg Campaign
U.S. Navy
Charles Anderson Dana
hardtack
John C. Pemberton
Jackson, Mississippi
Battle of Champion Hill
Battle of Vicksburg
July 4
1863
Battle of Gettysburg
Turning point of the American Civil War
July 4
Battle of Chickamauga
William S. Rosecrans
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Braxton Bragg
Lookout Mountain
October 17
George Henry Thomas
William Farrar Smith
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Missionary Ridge
Atlanta, Georgia
Lieutenant General (United States)
George Washington
Winfield Scott
brevet (military)
Congress of the United States
March 2
1864
March 12
United States
William Tecumseh Sherman
Virginia
Army of Northern Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
George G. Meade
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Franz Sigel
Shenandoah Valley
Georgia (U.S. state)
Joseph E. Johnston
Atlanta
George Crook
William W. Averell
West Virginia
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Mobile, Alabama
total war
Overland Campaign
Robert E. Lee
May 4
1864
Army of the Potomac
Rapidan River
Army of Northern Virginia
Battle of the Wilderness
Spotsylvania, Virginia
May 8
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 11
May 12
Battle of Cold Harbor
June 3
James River (Virginia)
Petersburg, Virginia
June 18
Siege of Petersburg
William Tecumseh Sherman
Abraham Lincoln
Jubal A. Early
Shenandoah Valley
Washington, D.C.
Administration (government)
Philip Sheridan
Valley Campaigns of 1864
Sherman's March to the Sea
total war
Carolinas Campaign
Appomattox Court House
April 9
1865
Kirby Smith
Trans-Mississippi Department
June 2
1865
Copperheads
Democratic Party (United States)
July 25
1866
General of the Army of the United States
U.S. Army
Andrew Johnson
Edwin M. Stanton
Tenure of Office Act
History of the United States Republican Party
Republican National Convention
Chicago
U.S. presidential election, 1868
Horatio Seymour
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
United States presidential election, 1872
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Horace Greeley
Reconstruction
Redeemers
Ku Klux Klan
voting rights
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Dominican Republic
Yellowstone National Park
March 1
1872
March 29
2006
Christmas
February 8
1999
Panic of 1873
Robert Schenck
Rutherford B. Hayes
Samuel J. Tilden
U.S. presidential election, 1876
Henry Watterson
Treaty of Washington (1871)
Hamilton Fish
CSS Alabama
Dominican Republic
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Charles Sumner
Horace Greeley
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Liberian-Grebo War
USS Alaska (1868)
Liberia
James Milton Turner
Black Friday (1869)
Jay Gould
James Fisk (financier)
Whiskey Ring
Benjamin H. Bristow
Orville E. Babcock
United States Secretary of War
William W. Belknap
Native Americans in the United States
trading post
Sanborn Incident
William Adams Richardson
Cyrus I. Scofield
Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Vice President of the United States
Schuyler Colfax
United States presidential election, 1872
Henry Wilson
Julia Grant
Jesse Root Grant
anti-Semitism
General Order No. 11 (1862)
Oxford, Mississippi
December 17
1862
Vicksburg Campaign
Tennessee
Mississippi
Kentucky
James H. Wilson
Bertram Korn
U.S. presidential election, 1868
President of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
Salmon P. Chase
March 4
1873
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
Elihu B. Washburne
Hamilton Fish
John A. Rawlins
William T. Sherman
William W. Belknap
Alphonso Taft
J. Donald Cameron
George S. Boutwell
William Adams Richardson
Benjamin Bristow
Lot M. Morrill
Ebenezer R. Hoar
Amos T. Akerman
George Henry Williams
Edwards Pierrepont
Alphonso Taft
John A. J. Creswell
James William Marshall
Marshall Jewell
James N. Tyner
Adolph E. Borie
George M. Robeson
Jacob D. Cox
Columbus Delano
Zachariah Chandler
Supreme Court of the United States
Edwin M. Stanton
William Strong (judge)
Joseph P. Bradley
Ward Hunt
Morrison Remick Waite
Chief Justice of the United States
Colorado
August 1
1876
United States Department of Justice
United States Solicitor General
Chester A. Arthur
Office of Personnel Management
Surgeon General of the United States
National Weather Service
Queen Victoria
Windsor Castle
Prince Bismarck
Emperor Meiji
Empress ShÅken
Imperial Palace
Tokyo
Meiji period
Ryukyu Islands
China
Stalwart (politics)
Roscoe Conkling
Methodist
Republican National Convention
James A. Garfield
New York City
Ferdinand Ward
Wall Street
Grant & Ward
Esophageal cancer
pension
The Century Magazine
Mark Twain
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Julius Caesar
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
New York City
Riverside Park (Manhattan)
General Grant National Memorial
mausoleum
North America
World War II
tank
Grant tank
U.S. fifty-dollar bill
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Grant Park (Chicago)
Chicago
the Bronx
New York
San Francisco, California
Chinatown, San Francisco, California
Bedford Avenue
Crown Heights
Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. Grant Bridge
Ohio River
Portsmouth, Ohio
U.S. Route 52
Counties of the United States
U.S. state
Grant County, Arkansas
Grant County, Kansas
Grant County, Minnesota
Grant County, Nebraska
Grant County, New Mexico
Grant County, North Dakota
Grant County, Oklahoma
Grant County, Washington
Grant County, West Virginia
Grant Parish, Louisiana
Mayflower
Richard Warren
John Lothropp
Benjamin Franklin
abolitionist
John Brown (abolitionist)
Mathew Brady
Willard Hotel
lobbyist
San Francisco
National Rifle Association
Jeffrey Shaara
The Last Full Measure
Michael Shaara
The Killer Angels
First Lady of the United States
Julia Grant
Strabismus
bourbon whiskey
Old Crow
cucumbers
vinegar
breakfast
James Wolfe
French and Indian Wars
King George II
Groucho Marx
You Bet Your Life
Ulysses S. Grant IV
University of California, Los Angeles
The Golden Girls
Cary Grant
Wild Wild West
Henry Wager Halleck
Quiz Show
United States presidential election, 1868
United States presidential election, 1872
History of the United States (1865-1918)
Western Theater of the American Civil War
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
James M. McPherson
Jean Edward Smith
Allan Nevins
Ed Bearss
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
Find A Grave
West Point#Cullum Number
Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Rutherford B. Hayes
Abraham Lincoln
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1868
U.S. presidential election, 1872
Rutherford B. Hayes
Army of the Tennessee
William T. Sherman
Henry W. Halleck
Commanding General of the United States Army
Andrew Johnson
Oldest living United States president
Rutherford B. Hayes
United States
soldier
politician
President of the United States
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
|
Ulysses_S._Grant | Why did Grant say "Damn, I had nothing to do with this batte."? | Because the generals under him acted on their own. | data/set3/a5 | Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, See military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 July 23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869 1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
Grant first reached national prominence by taking Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862 in the first Union victories of the war. The following year, his brilliant campaign ending in the surrender of Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi andâwith the simultaneous Union victory at Gettysburgâturned the tide of the war in the North's favor. Named commanding general of the Federal armies in 1864, he implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's ability to carry on the war. In 1865, after conducting a costly war of attrition in the East, he accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. Grant has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.
In 1868, Grant was elected president as a Republican. Grant was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed.
Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans. See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.
Ulysses Grant Birthplace, Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home, Georgetown, Ohio
Grant was born in a log cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794 1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798 1883). His father, a tanner, was from Pennsylvania, and his mother was born in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio.
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826 1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (Buck), Ellen Wrenshall Grant (Nellie), and Jesse Root Grant.
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only. Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.
Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846â1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, later becoming his brother-in-law, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.
After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the 4th U.S. Infantry regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial. According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name." McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican War
A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys). His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. McFeely, ch. 5.
Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican. Hesseltine, chapter 6. .
The home of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Infantry in June 1861.
Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.
In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.
Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederates violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, an old friend of Grant's and a West Point classmate, and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers. Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.
Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased against him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.
General Grant at Cold Harbor, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864
In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.
The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in Corinth, Mississippi. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Corinth and Iuka that fall.
In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant spent the winter of 1862 1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.
However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and in a daring move that defied conventional military principles cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles A. Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George H. Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas' chief engineer, William F. "Baldy" Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.
Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas' men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.
Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet appointment), recently re-authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.
In March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.
Poster of "Grant from West Point to Appomattox."
Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.
The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River.
Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a siege.
As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas.
At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democrats who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius: Korda, (2004)
After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army. Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.''
As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.
The second president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In the 1872 election he won by a landslide against the breakaway Liberal Republican party that nominated Horace Greeley.
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed .
Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006. Grant also signed into law making Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application, CRS Report for Congress, 98-301 GOV, updated February 8, 1999, by Stephen W. Stathis
The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.
By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker. Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes: Nevins, Fish 2:811
In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson .
The Grant administration's first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Act to Strengthen the Public Credit which the GOP Congress had passed after Grant ` s inaugural in March 1869 . The act had the effect that the gold price on New York exchange fell to 310 dollar an ounce - the lowest point since the suspension of specie payment in 1862 .
As Jean Edward Smith notes in his 2002 biography on Grant, the presidential treasury secretary Boutwell reorganized the Treasury by discharging unnecessary employees, started sweeping changes in Bureau of Printing and Engraving to protect the currency from counterfeiters and revitalized tax collections to hasten the collection of revenue. This changes soon led the Tresury having a monthly surplus .
The Grant administration reduced the debt by appromixately 435 million dollar. That was achieved by selling the growing gold surplus at weekly auctions for greenbacks and buying back wartime bonds with the currency . With this Grant ` s treasury secretary Boutwell had established a policy if continued had payed of the national debt in a quarter of a century . Newspapers like the New York Tribune wanted that the Government buy more bonds and Greenbacks, the New York Times praised the the Grant administration `s debt policy .
On other economic fronts did the Grant administration have acomplishments . Under
Grant the nation `s credit was substantially raised. Taxes was reduced by 300 million dollar. Annual interest rates were reduced by approximately 30 million dollar . The U . S balance of trade was changed from 130 million dollar against the United States to 120 million dollar in favor of the United States . He also reduced inflation and to 1873 bolstered economic recovery . He also promoted economy in federal expenditures . His veto of the Inflation Bill in 1874 saved the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 to get worse and the veto was praised by the financial community and many newspapers .
The Resumption of Species Act of 1875 which was signed by Grant and helped to end the crisis in 1879 when the law came in to effect
He also pressed for internal improvements and increased shipbuilding and foreign trade. He also wanted to enhance and improve the commercial marine .
Grant/Wilson campaign poster
In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington, negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He also proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Santo Domingo. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia. Liberian-Grebo War of 1876
The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud. However, Grant eventually released large amounts of gold back onto the market, causing a large-scale financial crisis for many gold investors. Jay Gould had already prepared and quietly sold out while Fisk denied many agreements and hired thugs to intimidate his creditors.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.
Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first vice president, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.
President Grant with his wife, Julia, and son, Jesse, in 1872.
Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."
Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11, issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:
The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart â opportunistic traders who were Jewish. McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed [...] he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."
The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 presidential campaign, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.
Grant's second inauguration as President by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.
Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
* Edwin M. Stanton 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
* William Strong 1870
* Joseph P. Bradley 1870
* Ward Hunt 1873
* Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice) 1874
* Colorado August 1, 1876
* Department of Justice (1870)
* Office of the Solicitor General (1870)
* "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
* Office of the Surgeon General (1871)
* Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)
Ulysses S. Grant in his postbellum.
After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress ShÅken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.
In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.
That same year, Grant was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.
Grant writing his memoirs.
In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
Grant appears on the U.S. $50 bill.
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. It was not until 1958 that Congress, feeling it inappropriate that a former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting a pension to such individuals, a practice that continues to this day. Grant first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and Grant's memoirs are also regarded by such writers as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request, "Water." His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America.
Statue of Grant astride his favorite mount, "Cincinnati", at Vicksburg, Mississippi
*In World War II, the United States produced a tank known as the Grant tank (an upgrade of the American M3 "Lee").
*Grant's portrait appears on the U.S. fifty-dollar bill.
*The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., honors Grant.
*Grant Park in Chicago honors Grant.
*Grant Avenue, a nine block long, north-south street in the Bronx, New York, is named after Grant. It is parallel and adjacent to Sherman Avenue.
*Dupont Street, the main thoroughfare in San Francisco's Chinatown, was renamed Grant Avenue in his honor. The famous dragon gate at the entrance to the district is at the corner of Grant and Bush Street.
*Grant, depicted riding a horse, is honored by a statue at the intersection of Bedford Avenue, Rogers Avenue and Dean Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
*There is a U.S. Grant Bridge over the Ohio River at Portsmouth, Ohio.
*There is a U.S. Grant Memorial Highway (US 52) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
*Counties in twelve U.S. states are named after Grant: Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Grant Parish, Louisiana. Note: Grant Counties in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin were named after other Grants, not Ulysses Grant.
* Grant was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren
* Grant is also a descendant from John Lothropp, who is also an ancestor to Benjamin Franklin
Grant Memorial Statue in Grant Park, Galena, Illinois. Julia Grant remarked that it was the best likeness of her husband, as his hands were thrust into his pockets.
* As a young man, Grant's father, Jesse, taught him the trade of tanning. Jesse Grant had been taught how to tan by Owen Brown, the father of known abolitionist John Brown. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* When Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1864, he agreed to sit down for photographer Mathew Brady. As the sun had begun to set by the time Grant arrived, Brady instructed one of his assistants to open the shades of the skylight in Brady's studio. The assistant slipped and shattered the skylight, causing two-inch-thick shards of glass to rain down around Grant, who had taken his seat as requested. He was unharmed, and showed "the most remarkable display of nerve" that Brady had ever seen. O'Brien, Cormac (2007). "Secret Lives of the Civil War: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the War Between the States".
* Grant was known to visit the Willard Hotel to escape the stress of the White House. A long-standing story is that he referred to the people who approached him in the lobby as "those darn lobbyists," implying that he was the source for the term lobbyist. This story is unlikely to be true since there are examples of the term being used in U.S. and British magazines and newspapers before Grant's presidency. World Wide Words.
* While in California, Grant tried selling ice to San Francisco, but failed when it melted in the warm weather aboard the ship. Smith, Grant, p. 81. . This anecdote is disputed by Edward G. Longacre in "General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man" (2006) in which he says -- in a referenced statement -- that the ice venture had failed because of "an unexpected glut of [ice] imports from Alaska."
* In 1883, Grant was elected the eighth president of the National Rifle Association.
* Grant suffered from tone-deafness. He disliked music intensely and would go out of his way to avoid having to hear any other than patriotic songs. In Jeffrey Shaara's The Last Full Measure - which is set after the Battle of Gettysburg, the subject of his father Michael's 1974 bestseller The Killer Angels - Grant is portrayed as saying, "I know only two songs. One is 'Yankee Doodle'. The other isn't." Whether he actually said this is unclear. Shaara, Jeffrey M. (1998). "The Last Full Measure".
* Grant's wife, First Lady Julia Grant, was cross-eyed. When it was suggested to her that she have an operation to have it corrected, President Grant replied that he liked her that way. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* Grant's favorite brand of bourbon whiskey was Old Crow.
* Grant enjoyed eating cucumbers soaked in vinegar for breakfast.
* An apocryphal story about Grant's drinking has the general's critics going to President Lincoln, charging the military man with being a drunk. Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."
:* A similar story was told of General James Wolfe during the French and Indian Wars. When King George II was told that Wolfe was a "mad dog", he is said to have replied, "Then I'd wish he'd bite the other generals."
* The question "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" was used by Groucho Marx in his radio and TV quiz show, the correct answer to which resulted in a consolation prize to contestants who had won no money. Some contestants thought it was a trick question. Grant's grandson, Ulysses S. Grant IV (a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles) appeared on the program on March 12, 1953.
** This was also featured on an episode of the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, in which in a dream sequence Dorothy competes on Jeopardy against a scholar and her roommate Rose. When asked the question, Dorothy replies Ulysses and is wrong, while Rose replies Cary Grant and is correct.
* In the film Wild Wild West, President Grant is a minor character that must deal with the Loveless Alliance.
Once while in office he was arrested for speeding his horse and buggy and fined $20 and had to walk back to the white house. (www.pocanticohills.org/presidents/know.htm )
* A dispute between Grant and his commanding officer Henry Wager Halleck is the subject of a pivotal question in the film Quiz Show.
* United States presidential election, 1868
* United States presidential election, 1872
* History of the United States (1865â1918)
* Western Theater of the American Civil War
* Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
* U.S. Grant Home, Galena, Illinois
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command, Little, Brown and Company, 1968, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 69-12632.
*Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Garland, Hamlin, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character, Macmillan Company, 1898.
*Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885 86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
*Hesseltine, William B., Ulysses S. Grant: Politician 1935.
* Lewis, Lloyd, Captain Sam Grant, Little, Brown, and Co., 1950, ISBN 0-316-52348-8.
* McFeely, William S., Grant: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Co, 1981, ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
* McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
* Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-395-65994-9.
*Smith, Jean Edward, Grant, Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
*Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861 1865, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
* Official Ulysses Simpson Grant biography from the US Army Center for Military History
* Bunting III, Josiah. Ulysses S. Grant (2004) ISBN 0-8050-6949-6
* William Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 (1905), vol 22
* Hesseltine, William B. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (2001) ISBN 1-931313-85-7 online edition
* Mantell, Martin E., Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
* Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936) online edition
* Rhodes, James Ford., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6 and 7 (1920) vol 6
* Scaturro, Frank J., President Grant Reconsidered (1998).
* Schouler, James., History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
* Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
* Simpson, Brooks D., The Reconstruction Presidents (1998)
* Skidmore, Max J. "The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: a Reconsideration." White House Studies (2005) online
* Badeau, Adam. Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 vols. 1882.
*Ballard, Michael B., Vicksburg, The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-2893-9.
* Bearss, Edwin C., The Vicksburg Campaign, 3 volumes, Morningside Press, 1991, ISBN 0-89029-308-2.
* Carter, Samuel III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863 (1980)
* Catton, Bruce, Grant Moves South, 1960, ISBN 0-316-13207-1; Grant Takes Command, 1968, ISBN 0-316-13210-1; U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954)
* Cavanaugh, Michael A., and William Marvel, The Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of the Crater: "The Horrid Pit," June 25-August 6, 1864 (1989)
* Conger, A. L. The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931)
* Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg (1986).
* Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
* Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
* Korda, Michael. Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (2004) 161 pp
* McWhiney, Grady, Battle in the Wilderness: Grant Meets Lee (1995)
* McDonough, James Lee, Shiloh: In Hell before Night (1977).
* McDonough, James Lee, Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy (1984).
* Maney, R. Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor. Victory and Failure, 1864 (1994).
* Matter, William D., If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (1988)
* Miers, Earl Schenck., The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg. 1955.
* Mosier, John., "Grant", Palgrave MacMillan, 2006 ISBN 1-4039-7136-6.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5 6, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8071-1873-7.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7 12, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8071-2136-3.
* Rhea, Gordon C., To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13 25, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8071-2535-0.
* Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.
* Miller, J. Michael, The North Anna Campaign: "Even to Hell Itself," May 21-26, 1864 (1989).
* Simpson, Brooks D, "Continuous Hammering and Mere Attrition: Lost Cause Critics and the Military Reputation of Ulysses S. Grant," in Cad Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, (2000)
* Steere, Edward, The Wilderness Campaign (1960)
* Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April. 1974.
* Williams, T. Harry, McClellan, Sherman and Grant. 1962.
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs (1885) online edition
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters (Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely, eds.) ( The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-94045058-5
* Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) pp 131-73, on the Memoirs
* Johnson, R. U., and Buel, C. C., eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York, 1887-88; essays by leading generals of both sides; online edition
* Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant (1897, reprinted 2000)
* Sherman, William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. 2 vols. 1875.
* Simon, John Y., ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Southern Illinois University Press (1967- ) multivolume complete edition of letters to and from Grant. As of 2006, vol 1-28 covers through September 1878.
* Extensive essay on Ulysses S. Grant and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* First Inaugural Address
* Second Inaugural Address
* White House Biography
* Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
*Emerson, Col. John W., Grant's Life in the West and His Mississippi Valley Campaigns, U.S. Grant Association website.
* Ulysses S. Grant at Find A Grave
* Many rare General Grant photographs
* Complete Bibliography
* Military biography of Ulysses S. Grant from the Cullum biographies
*
* The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. (1918). "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.
* Collection of US Grant Letters
* Ulysses S. Grant: America's Second Three-Star General article by Ethan Rafuse
* Historic White Haven (Grant-Dent home)
*
|-
|-
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
Andrew Johnson
Rutherford B. Hayes
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Julia Grant
Jesse Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Nellie Grant
Frederick Grant
General-in-Chief
List of United States Presidential religious affiliations
Republican Party (United States)
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
#Military career
April 27
1822
July 23
1885
United States
President of the United States
Union (American Civil War)
American Civil War
Battle of Vicksburg
Confederate
Robert E. Lee
Appomattox Court House
J.F.C. Fuller
Vicksburg Campaign
History of the United States Republican Party
Andrew Jackson
Radical Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Civil Rights
African American history
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home
Georgetown, Ohio
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio River
Pennsylvania
Horsham Township, Pennsylvania
Georgetown, Ohio
Brown County, Ohio
August 22
1848
Julia Boggs Dent
Frederick Dent Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Ellen Wrenshall Grant
Jesse Root Grant
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Mathew Brady
United States Army
Army of the Tennessee
Military Division of the Mississippi
United States Army
United States Army
Mexican-American War
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
American Civil War
Battle of Fort Donelson
Battle of Shiloh
Battle of Vicksburg
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Overland Campaign
Battle of Petersburg
Appomattox Campaign
President of the United States
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
U.S. Congressman
Thomas L. Hamer
Academic administration
March 31
1853
cavalry
Mexican-American War
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
Fort Vancouver
Washington Territory
U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
July 31
1854
Robert C. Buchanan
John Eaton (General)
St. Louis, Missouri
Grant's Farm
Anheuser-Busch
Galena, Illinois
James Buchanan
John C. Frémont
Stephen A. Douglas
Elihu B. Washburne
April 28
2007
War Democrats
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Galena, Illinois
Fort Sumter
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
Illinois
Richard Yates (governor)
21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
Claiborne Jackson
John C. Frémont
Ohio River
Paducah, Kentucky
Confederate States Army
Columbus, Kentucky
Gideon J. Pillow
Battle of Belmont
Andrew H. Foote
Battle of Fort Henry
Tennessee River
Battle of Fort Donelson
Cumberland River
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Henry W. Halleck
Nashville, Tennessee
Don Carlos Buell
March 2
March 17
Battle of Cold Harbor
Mathew Brady
Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard
Battle of Shiloh
April 30
First Battle of Corinth
William T. Sherman
Army of West Tennessee
Army of the Tennessee
June 10
Second Battle of Corinth
Battle of Iuka
Mississippi River
Vicksburg Campaign
U.S. Navy
Charles Anderson Dana
hardtack
John C. Pemberton
Jackson, Mississippi
Battle of Champion Hill
Battle of Vicksburg
July 4
1863
Battle of Gettysburg
Turning point of the American Civil War
July 4
Battle of Chickamauga
William S. Rosecrans
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Braxton Bragg
Lookout Mountain
October 17
George Henry Thomas
William Farrar Smith
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Missionary Ridge
Atlanta, Georgia
Lieutenant General (United States)
George Washington
Winfield Scott
brevet (military)
Congress of the United States
March 2
1864
March 12
United States
William Tecumseh Sherman
Virginia
Army of Northern Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
George G. Meade
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Franz Sigel
Shenandoah Valley
Georgia (U.S. state)
Joseph E. Johnston
Atlanta
George Crook
William W. Averell
West Virginia
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Mobile, Alabama
total war
Overland Campaign
Robert E. Lee
May 4
1864
Army of the Potomac
Rapidan River
Army of Northern Virginia
Battle of the Wilderness
Spotsylvania, Virginia
May 8
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 11
May 12
Battle of Cold Harbor
June 3
James River (Virginia)
Petersburg, Virginia
June 18
Siege of Petersburg
William Tecumseh Sherman
Abraham Lincoln
Jubal A. Early
Shenandoah Valley
Washington, D.C.
Administration (government)
Philip Sheridan
Valley Campaigns of 1864
Sherman's March to the Sea
total war
Carolinas Campaign
Appomattox Court House
April 9
1865
Kirby Smith
Trans-Mississippi Department
June 2
1865
Copperheads
Democratic Party (United States)
July 25
1866
General of the Army of the United States
U.S. Army
Andrew Johnson
Edwin M. Stanton
Tenure of Office Act
History of the United States Republican Party
Republican National Convention
Chicago
U.S. presidential election, 1868
Horatio Seymour
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
United States presidential election, 1872
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Horace Greeley
Reconstruction
Redeemers
Ku Klux Klan
voting rights
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Dominican Republic
Yellowstone National Park
March 1
1872
March 29
2006
Christmas
February 8
1999
Panic of 1873
Robert Schenck
Rutherford B. Hayes
Samuel J. Tilden
U.S. presidential election, 1876
Henry Watterson
Treaty of Washington (1871)
Hamilton Fish
CSS Alabama
Dominican Republic
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Charles Sumner
Horace Greeley
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Liberian-Grebo War
USS Alaska (1868)
Liberia
James Milton Turner
Black Friday (1869)
Jay Gould
James Fisk (financier)
Whiskey Ring
Benjamin H. Bristow
Orville E. Babcock
United States Secretary of War
William W. Belknap
Native Americans in the United States
trading post
Sanborn Incident
William Adams Richardson
Cyrus I. Scofield
Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Vice President of the United States
Schuyler Colfax
United States presidential election, 1872
Henry Wilson
Julia Grant
Jesse Root Grant
anti-Semitism
General Order No. 11 (1862)
Oxford, Mississippi
December 17
1862
Vicksburg Campaign
Tennessee
Mississippi
Kentucky
James H. Wilson
Bertram Korn
U.S. presidential election, 1868
President of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
Salmon P. Chase
March 4
1873
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
Elihu B. Washburne
Hamilton Fish
John A. Rawlins
William T. Sherman
William W. Belknap
Alphonso Taft
J. Donald Cameron
George S. Boutwell
William Adams Richardson
Benjamin Bristow
Lot M. Morrill
Ebenezer R. Hoar
Amos T. Akerman
George Henry Williams
Edwards Pierrepont
Alphonso Taft
John A. J. Creswell
James William Marshall
Marshall Jewell
James N. Tyner
Adolph E. Borie
George M. Robeson
Jacob D. Cox
Columbus Delano
Zachariah Chandler
Supreme Court of the United States
Edwin M. Stanton
William Strong (judge)
Joseph P. Bradley
Ward Hunt
Morrison Remick Waite
Chief Justice of the United States
Colorado
August 1
1876
United States Department of Justice
United States Solicitor General
Chester A. Arthur
Office of Personnel Management
Surgeon General of the United States
National Weather Service
Queen Victoria
Windsor Castle
Prince Bismarck
Emperor Meiji
Empress ShÅken
Imperial Palace
Tokyo
Meiji period
Ryukyu Islands
China
Stalwart (politics)
Roscoe Conkling
Methodist
Republican National Convention
James A. Garfield
New York City
Ferdinand Ward
Wall Street
Grant & Ward
Esophageal cancer
pension
The Century Magazine
Mark Twain
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Julius Caesar
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
New York City
Riverside Park (Manhattan)
General Grant National Memorial
mausoleum
North America
World War II
tank
Grant tank
U.S. fifty-dollar bill
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Grant Park (Chicago)
Chicago
the Bronx
New York
San Francisco, California
Chinatown, San Francisco, California
Bedford Avenue
Crown Heights
Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. Grant Bridge
Ohio River
Portsmouth, Ohio
U.S. Route 52
Counties of the United States
U.S. state
Grant County, Arkansas
Grant County, Kansas
Grant County, Minnesota
Grant County, Nebraska
Grant County, New Mexico
Grant County, North Dakota
Grant County, Oklahoma
Grant County, Washington
Grant County, West Virginia
Grant Parish, Louisiana
Mayflower
Richard Warren
John Lothropp
Benjamin Franklin
abolitionist
John Brown (abolitionist)
Mathew Brady
Willard Hotel
lobbyist
San Francisco
National Rifle Association
Jeffrey Shaara
The Last Full Measure
Michael Shaara
The Killer Angels
First Lady of the United States
Julia Grant
Strabismus
bourbon whiskey
Old Crow
cucumbers
vinegar
breakfast
James Wolfe
French and Indian Wars
King George II
Groucho Marx
You Bet Your Life
Ulysses S. Grant IV
University of California, Los Angeles
The Golden Girls
Cary Grant
Wild Wild West
Henry Wager Halleck
Quiz Show
United States presidential election, 1868
United States presidential election, 1872
History of the United States (1865-1918)
Western Theater of the American Civil War
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
James M. McPherson
Jean Edward Smith
Allan Nevins
Ed Bearss
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
Find A Grave
West Point#Cullum Number
Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Rutherford B. Hayes
Abraham Lincoln
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1868
U.S. presidential election, 1872
Rutherford B. Hayes
Army of the Tennessee
William T. Sherman
Henry W. Halleck
Commanding General of the United States Army
Andrew Johnson
Oldest living United States president
Rutherford B. Hayes
United States
soldier
politician
President of the United States
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
|
Ulysses_S._Grant | Did Horace Greenley lose in the presidential elections of 1872? | Yes | data/set3/a5 | Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, See military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 July 23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869 1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
Grant first reached national prominence by taking Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862 in the first Union victories of the war. The following year, his brilliant campaign ending in the surrender of Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi andâwith the simultaneous Union victory at Gettysburgâturned the tide of the war in the North's favor. Named commanding general of the Federal armies in 1864, he implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's ability to carry on the war. In 1865, after conducting a costly war of attrition in the East, he accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. Grant has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.
In 1868, Grant was elected president as a Republican. Grant was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed.
Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans. See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.
Ulysses Grant Birthplace, Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home, Georgetown, Ohio
Grant was born in a log cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794 1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798 1883). His father, a tanner, was from Pennsylvania, and his mother was born in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio.
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826 1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (Buck), Ellen Wrenshall Grant (Nellie), and Jesse Root Grant.
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only. Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.
Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846â1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, later becoming his brother-in-law, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.
After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the 4th U.S. Infantry regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial. According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name." McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican War
A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys). His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. McFeely, ch. 5.
Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican. Hesseltine, chapter 6. .
The home of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Infantry in June 1861.
Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.
In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.
Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederates violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, an old friend of Grant's and a West Point classmate, and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers. Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.
Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased against him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.
General Grant at Cold Harbor, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864
In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.
The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in Corinth, Mississippi. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Corinth and Iuka that fall.
In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant spent the winter of 1862 1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.
However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and in a daring move that defied conventional military principles cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles A. Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George H. Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas' chief engineer, William F. "Baldy" Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.
Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas' men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.
Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet appointment), recently re-authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.
In March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.
Poster of "Grant from West Point to Appomattox."
Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.
The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River.
Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a siege.
As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas.
At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democrats who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius: Korda, (2004)
After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army. Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.''
As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.
The second president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In the 1872 election he won by a landslide against the breakaway Liberal Republican party that nominated Horace Greeley.
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed .
Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006. Grant also signed into law making Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application, CRS Report for Congress, 98-301 GOV, updated February 8, 1999, by Stephen W. Stathis
The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.
By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker. Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes: Nevins, Fish 2:811
In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson .
The Grant administration's first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Act to Strengthen the Public Credit which the GOP Congress had passed after Grant ` s inaugural in March 1869 . The act had the effect that the gold price on New York exchange fell to 310 dollar an ounce - the lowest point since the suspension of specie payment in 1862 .
As Jean Edward Smith notes in his 2002 biography on Grant, the presidential treasury secretary Boutwell reorganized the Treasury by discharging unnecessary employees, started sweeping changes in Bureau of Printing and Engraving to protect the currency from counterfeiters and revitalized tax collections to hasten the collection of revenue. This changes soon led the Tresury having a monthly surplus .
The Grant administration reduced the debt by appromixately 435 million dollar. That was achieved by selling the growing gold surplus at weekly auctions for greenbacks and buying back wartime bonds with the currency . With this Grant ` s treasury secretary Boutwell had established a policy if continued had payed of the national debt in a quarter of a century . Newspapers like the New York Tribune wanted that the Government buy more bonds and Greenbacks, the New York Times praised the the Grant administration `s debt policy .
On other economic fronts did the Grant administration have acomplishments . Under
Grant the nation `s credit was substantially raised. Taxes was reduced by 300 million dollar. Annual interest rates were reduced by approximately 30 million dollar . The U . S balance of trade was changed from 130 million dollar against the United States to 120 million dollar in favor of the United States . He also reduced inflation and to 1873 bolstered economic recovery . He also promoted economy in federal expenditures . His veto of the Inflation Bill in 1874 saved the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 to get worse and the veto was praised by the financial community and many newspapers .
The Resumption of Species Act of 1875 which was signed by Grant and helped to end the crisis in 1879 when the law came in to effect
He also pressed for internal improvements and increased shipbuilding and foreign trade. He also wanted to enhance and improve the commercial marine .
Grant/Wilson campaign poster
In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington, negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He also proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Santo Domingo. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia. Liberian-Grebo War of 1876
The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud. However, Grant eventually released large amounts of gold back onto the market, causing a large-scale financial crisis for many gold investors. Jay Gould had already prepared and quietly sold out while Fisk denied many agreements and hired thugs to intimidate his creditors.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.
Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first vice president, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.
President Grant with his wife, Julia, and son, Jesse, in 1872.
Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."
Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11, issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:
The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart â opportunistic traders who were Jewish. McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed [...] he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."
The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 presidential campaign, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.
Grant's second inauguration as President by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.
Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
* Edwin M. Stanton 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
* William Strong 1870
* Joseph P. Bradley 1870
* Ward Hunt 1873
* Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice) 1874
* Colorado August 1, 1876
* Department of Justice (1870)
* Office of the Solicitor General (1870)
* "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
* Office of the Surgeon General (1871)
* Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)
Ulysses S. Grant in his postbellum.
After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress ShÅken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.
In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.
That same year, Grant was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.
Grant writing his memoirs.
In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
Grant appears on the U.S. $50 bill.
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. It was not until 1958 that Congress, feeling it inappropriate that a former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting a pension to such individuals, a practice that continues to this day. Grant first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and Grant's memoirs are also regarded by such writers as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request, "Water." His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America.
Statue of Grant astride his favorite mount, "Cincinnati", at Vicksburg, Mississippi
*In World War II, the United States produced a tank known as the Grant tank (an upgrade of the American M3 "Lee").
*Grant's portrait appears on the U.S. fifty-dollar bill.
*The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., honors Grant.
*Grant Park in Chicago honors Grant.
*Grant Avenue, a nine block long, north-south street in the Bronx, New York, is named after Grant. It is parallel and adjacent to Sherman Avenue.
*Dupont Street, the main thoroughfare in San Francisco's Chinatown, was renamed Grant Avenue in his honor. The famous dragon gate at the entrance to the district is at the corner of Grant and Bush Street.
*Grant, depicted riding a horse, is honored by a statue at the intersection of Bedford Avenue, Rogers Avenue and Dean Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
*There is a U.S. Grant Bridge over the Ohio River at Portsmouth, Ohio.
*There is a U.S. Grant Memorial Highway (US 52) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
*Counties in twelve U.S. states are named after Grant: Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Grant Parish, Louisiana. Note: Grant Counties in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin were named after other Grants, not Ulysses Grant.
* Grant was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren
* Grant is also a descendant from John Lothropp, who is also an ancestor to Benjamin Franklin
Grant Memorial Statue in Grant Park, Galena, Illinois. Julia Grant remarked that it was the best likeness of her husband, as his hands were thrust into his pockets.
* As a young man, Grant's father, Jesse, taught him the trade of tanning. Jesse Grant had been taught how to tan by Owen Brown, the father of known abolitionist John Brown. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* When Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1864, he agreed to sit down for photographer Mathew Brady. As the sun had begun to set by the time Grant arrived, Brady instructed one of his assistants to open the shades of the skylight in Brady's studio. The assistant slipped and shattered the skylight, causing two-inch-thick shards of glass to rain down around Grant, who had taken his seat as requested. He was unharmed, and showed "the most remarkable display of nerve" that Brady had ever seen. O'Brien, Cormac (2007). "Secret Lives of the Civil War: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the War Between the States".
* Grant was known to visit the Willard Hotel to escape the stress of the White House. A long-standing story is that he referred to the people who approached him in the lobby as "those darn lobbyists," implying that he was the source for the term lobbyist. This story is unlikely to be true since there are examples of the term being used in U.S. and British magazines and newspapers before Grant's presidency. World Wide Words.
* While in California, Grant tried selling ice to San Francisco, but failed when it melted in the warm weather aboard the ship. Smith, Grant, p. 81. . This anecdote is disputed by Edward G. Longacre in "General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man" (2006) in which he says -- in a referenced statement -- that the ice venture had failed because of "an unexpected glut of [ice] imports from Alaska."
* In 1883, Grant was elected the eighth president of the National Rifle Association.
* Grant suffered from tone-deafness. He disliked music intensely and would go out of his way to avoid having to hear any other than patriotic songs. In Jeffrey Shaara's The Last Full Measure - which is set after the Battle of Gettysburg, the subject of his father Michael's 1974 bestseller The Killer Angels - Grant is portrayed as saying, "I know only two songs. One is 'Yankee Doodle'. The other isn't." Whether he actually said this is unclear. Shaara, Jeffrey M. (1998). "The Last Full Measure".
* Grant's wife, First Lady Julia Grant, was cross-eyed. When it was suggested to her that she have an operation to have it corrected, President Grant replied that he liked her that way. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* Grant's favorite brand of bourbon whiskey was Old Crow.
* Grant enjoyed eating cucumbers soaked in vinegar for breakfast.
* An apocryphal story about Grant's drinking has the general's critics going to President Lincoln, charging the military man with being a drunk. Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."
:* A similar story was told of General James Wolfe during the French and Indian Wars. When King George II was told that Wolfe was a "mad dog", he is said to have replied, "Then I'd wish he'd bite the other generals."
* The question "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" was used by Groucho Marx in his radio and TV quiz show, the correct answer to which resulted in a consolation prize to contestants who had won no money. Some contestants thought it was a trick question. Grant's grandson, Ulysses S. Grant IV (a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles) appeared on the program on March 12, 1953.
** This was also featured on an episode of the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, in which in a dream sequence Dorothy competes on Jeopardy against a scholar and her roommate Rose. When asked the question, Dorothy replies Ulysses and is wrong, while Rose replies Cary Grant and is correct.
* In the film Wild Wild West, President Grant is a minor character that must deal with the Loveless Alliance.
Once while in office he was arrested for speeding his horse and buggy and fined $20 and had to walk back to the white house. (www.pocanticohills.org/presidents/know.htm )
* A dispute between Grant and his commanding officer Henry Wager Halleck is the subject of a pivotal question in the film Quiz Show.
* United States presidential election, 1868
* United States presidential election, 1872
* History of the United States (1865â1918)
* Western Theater of the American Civil War
* Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
* U.S. Grant Home, Galena, Illinois
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command, Little, Brown and Company, 1968, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 69-12632.
*Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Garland, Hamlin, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character, Macmillan Company, 1898.
*Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885 86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
*Hesseltine, William B., Ulysses S. Grant: Politician 1935.
* Lewis, Lloyd, Captain Sam Grant, Little, Brown, and Co., 1950, ISBN 0-316-52348-8.
* McFeely, William S., Grant: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Co, 1981, ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
* McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
* Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-395-65994-9.
*Smith, Jean Edward, Grant, Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
*Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861 1865, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
* Official Ulysses Simpson Grant biography from the US Army Center for Military History
* Bunting III, Josiah. Ulysses S. Grant (2004) ISBN 0-8050-6949-6
* William Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 (1905), vol 22
* Hesseltine, William B. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (2001) ISBN 1-931313-85-7 online edition
* Mantell, Martin E., Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
* Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936) online edition
* Rhodes, James Ford., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6 and 7 (1920) vol 6
* Scaturro, Frank J., President Grant Reconsidered (1998).
* Schouler, James., History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
* Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
* Simpson, Brooks D., The Reconstruction Presidents (1998)
* Skidmore, Max J. "The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: a Reconsideration." White House Studies (2005) online
* Badeau, Adam. Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 vols. 1882.
*Ballard, Michael B., Vicksburg, The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-2893-9.
* Bearss, Edwin C., The Vicksburg Campaign, 3 volumes, Morningside Press, 1991, ISBN 0-89029-308-2.
* Carter, Samuel III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863 (1980)
* Catton, Bruce, Grant Moves South, 1960, ISBN 0-316-13207-1; Grant Takes Command, 1968, ISBN 0-316-13210-1; U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954)
* Cavanaugh, Michael A., and William Marvel, The Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of the Crater: "The Horrid Pit," June 25-August 6, 1864 (1989)
* Conger, A. L. The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931)
* Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg (1986).
* Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
* Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
* Korda, Michael. Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (2004) 161 pp
* McWhiney, Grady, Battle in the Wilderness: Grant Meets Lee (1995)
* McDonough, James Lee, Shiloh: In Hell before Night (1977).
* McDonough, James Lee, Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy (1984).
* Maney, R. Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor. Victory and Failure, 1864 (1994).
* Matter, William D., If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (1988)
* Miers, Earl Schenck., The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg. 1955.
* Mosier, John., "Grant", Palgrave MacMillan, 2006 ISBN 1-4039-7136-6.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5 6, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8071-1873-7.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7 12, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8071-2136-3.
* Rhea, Gordon C., To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13 25, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8071-2535-0.
* Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.
* Miller, J. Michael, The North Anna Campaign: "Even to Hell Itself," May 21-26, 1864 (1989).
* Simpson, Brooks D, "Continuous Hammering and Mere Attrition: Lost Cause Critics and the Military Reputation of Ulysses S. Grant," in Cad Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, (2000)
* Steere, Edward, The Wilderness Campaign (1960)
* Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April. 1974.
* Williams, T. Harry, McClellan, Sherman and Grant. 1962.
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs (1885) online edition
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters (Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely, eds.) ( The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-94045058-5
* Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) pp 131-73, on the Memoirs
* Johnson, R. U., and Buel, C. C., eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York, 1887-88; essays by leading generals of both sides; online edition
* Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant (1897, reprinted 2000)
* Sherman, William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. 2 vols. 1875.
* Simon, John Y., ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Southern Illinois University Press (1967- ) multivolume complete edition of letters to and from Grant. As of 2006, vol 1-28 covers through September 1878.
* Extensive essay on Ulysses S. Grant and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* First Inaugural Address
* Second Inaugural Address
* White House Biography
* Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
*Emerson, Col. John W., Grant's Life in the West and His Mississippi Valley Campaigns, U.S. Grant Association website.
* Ulysses S. Grant at Find A Grave
* Many rare General Grant photographs
* Complete Bibliography
* Military biography of Ulysses S. Grant from the Cullum biographies
*
* The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. (1918). "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.
* Collection of US Grant Letters
* Ulysses S. Grant: America's Second Three-Star General article by Ethan Rafuse
* Historic White Haven (Grant-Dent home)
*
|-
|-
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
Andrew Johnson
Rutherford B. Hayes
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Julia Grant
Jesse Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Nellie Grant
Frederick Grant
General-in-Chief
List of United States Presidential religious affiliations
Republican Party (United States)
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
#Military career
April 27
1822
July 23
1885
United States
President of the United States
Union (American Civil War)
American Civil War
Battle of Vicksburg
Confederate
Robert E. Lee
Appomattox Court House
J.F.C. Fuller
Vicksburg Campaign
History of the United States Republican Party
Andrew Jackson
Radical Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Civil Rights
African American history
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home
Georgetown, Ohio
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio River
Pennsylvania
Horsham Township, Pennsylvania
Georgetown, Ohio
Brown County, Ohio
August 22
1848
Julia Boggs Dent
Frederick Dent Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Ellen Wrenshall Grant
Jesse Root Grant
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Mathew Brady
United States Army
Army of the Tennessee
Military Division of the Mississippi
United States Army
United States Army
Mexican-American War
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
American Civil War
Battle of Fort Donelson
Battle of Shiloh
Battle of Vicksburg
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Overland Campaign
Battle of Petersburg
Appomattox Campaign
President of the United States
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
U.S. Congressman
Thomas L. Hamer
Academic administration
March 31
1853
cavalry
Mexican-American War
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
Fort Vancouver
Washington Territory
U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
July 31
1854
Robert C. Buchanan
John Eaton (General)
St. Louis, Missouri
Grant's Farm
Anheuser-Busch
Galena, Illinois
James Buchanan
John C. Frémont
Stephen A. Douglas
Elihu B. Washburne
April 28
2007
War Democrats
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Galena, Illinois
Fort Sumter
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
Illinois
Richard Yates (governor)
21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
Claiborne Jackson
John C. Frémont
Ohio River
Paducah, Kentucky
Confederate States Army
Columbus, Kentucky
Gideon J. Pillow
Battle of Belmont
Andrew H. Foote
Battle of Fort Henry
Tennessee River
Battle of Fort Donelson
Cumberland River
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Henry W. Halleck
Nashville, Tennessee
Don Carlos Buell
March 2
March 17
Battle of Cold Harbor
Mathew Brady
Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard
Battle of Shiloh
April 30
First Battle of Corinth
William T. Sherman
Army of West Tennessee
Army of the Tennessee
June 10
Second Battle of Corinth
Battle of Iuka
Mississippi River
Vicksburg Campaign
U.S. Navy
Charles Anderson Dana
hardtack
John C. Pemberton
Jackson, Mississippi
Battle of Champion Hill
Battle of Vicksburg
July 4
1863
Battle of Gettysburg
Turning point of the American Civil War
July 4
Battle of Chickamauga
William S. Rosecrans
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Braxton Bragg
Lookout Mountain
October 17
George Henry Thomas
William Farrar Smith
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Missionary Ridge
Atlanta, Georgia
Lieutenant General (United States)
George Washington
Winfield Scott
brevet (military)
Congress of the United States
March 2
1864
March 12
United States
William Tecumseh Sherman
Virginia
Army of Northern Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
George G. Meade
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Franz Sigel
Shenandoah Valley
Georgia (U.S. state)
Joseph E. Johnston
Atlanta
George Crook
William W. Averell
West Virginia
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Mobile, Alabama
total war
Overland Campaign
Robert E. Lee
May 4
1864
Army of the Potomac
Rapidan River
Army of Northern Virginia
Battle of the Wilderness
Spotsylvania, Virginia
May 8
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 11
May 12
Battle of Cold Harbor
June 3
James River (Virginia)
Petersburg, Virginia
June 18
Siege of Petersburg
William Tecumseh Sherman
Abraham Lincoln
Jubal A. Early
Shenandoah Valley
Washington, D.C.
Administration (government)
Philip Sheridan
Valley Campaigns of 1864
Sherman's March to the Sea
total war
Carolinas Campaign
Appomattox Court House
April 9
1865
Kirby Smith
Trans-Mississippi Department
June 2
1865
Copperheads
Democratic Party (United States)
July 25
1866
General of the Army of the United States
U.S. Army
Andrew Johnson
Edwin M. Stanton
Tenure of Office Act
History of the United States Republican Party
Republican National Convention
Chicago
U.S. presidential election, 1868
Horatio Seymour
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
United States presidential election, 1872
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Horace Greeley
Reconstruction
Redeemers
Ku Klux Klan
voting rights
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Dominican Republic
Yellowstone National Park
March 1
1872
March 29
2006
Christmas
February 8
1999
Panic of 1873
Robert Schenck
Rutherford B. Hayes
Samuel J. Tilden
U.S. presidential election, 1876
Henry Watterson
Treaty of Washington (1871)
Hamilton Fish
CSS Alabama
Dominican Republic
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Charles Sumner
Horace Greeley
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Liberian-Grebo War
USS Alaska (1868)
Liberia
James Milton Turner
Black Friday (1869)
Jay Gould
James Fisk (financier)
Whiskey Ring
Benjamin H. Bristow
Orville E. Babcock
United States Secretary of War
William W. Belknap
Native Americans in the United States
trading post
Sanborn Incident
William Adams Richardson
Cyrus I. Scofield
Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Vice President of the United States
Schuyler Colfax
United States presidential election, 1872
Henry Wilson
Julia Grant
Jesse Root Grant
anti-Semitism
General Order No. 11 (1862)
Oxford, Mississippi
December 17
1862
Vicksburg Campaign
Tennessee
Mississippi
Kentucky
James H. Wilson
Bertram Korn
U.S. presidential election, 1868
President of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
Salmon P. Chase
March 4
1873
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
Elihu B. Washburne
Hamilton Fish
John A. Rawlins
William T. Sherman
William W. Belknap
Alphonso Taft
J. Donald Cameron
George S. Boutwell
William Adams Richardson
Benjamin Bristow
Lot M. Morrill
Ebenezer R. Hoar
Amos T. Akerman
George Henry Williams
Edwards Pierrepont
Alphonso Taft
John A. J. Creswell
James William Marshall
Marshall Jewell
James N. Tyner
Adolph E. Borie
George M. Robeson
Jacob D. Cox
Columbus Delano
Zachariah Chandler
Supreme Court of the United States
Edwin M. Stanton
William Strong (judge)
Joseph P. Bradley
Ward Hunt
Morrison Remick Waite
Chief Justice of the United States
Colorado
August 1
1876
United States Department of Justice
United States Solicitor General
Chester A. Arthur
Office of Personnel Management
Surgeon General of the United States
National Weather Service
Queen Victoria
Windsor Castle
Prince Bismarck
Emperor Meiji
Empress ShÅken
Imperial Palace
Tokyo
Meiji period
Ryukyu Islands
China
Stalwart (politics)
Roscoe Conkling
Methodist
Republican National Convention
James A. Garfield
New York City
Ferdinand Ward
Wall Street
Grant & Ward
Esophageal cancer
pension
The Century Magazine
Mark Twain
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Julius Caesar
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
New York City
Riverside Park (Manhattan)
General Grant National Memorial
mausoleum
North America
World War II
tank
Grant tank
U.S. fifty-dollar bill
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Grant Park (Chicago)
Chicago
the Bronx
New York
San Francisco, California
Chinatown, San Francisco, California
Bedford Avenue
Crown Heights
Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. Grant Bridge
Ohio River
Portsmouth, Ohio
U.S. Route 52
Counties of the United States
U.S. state
Grant County, Arkansas
Grant County, Kansas
Grant County, Minnesota
Grant County, Nebraska
Grant County, New Mexico
Grant County, North Dakota
Grant County, Oklahoma
Grant County, Washington
Grant County, West Virginia
Grant Parish, Louisiana
Mayflower
Richard Warren
John Lothropp
Benjamin Franklin
abolitionist
John Brown (abolitionist)
Mathew Brady
Willard Hotel
lobbyist
San Francisco
National Rifle Association
Jeffrey Shaara
The Last Full Measure
Michael Shaara
The Killer Angels
First Lady of the United States
Julia Grant
Strabismus
bourbon whiskey
Old Crow
cucumbers
vinegar
breakfast
James Wolfe
French and Indian Wars
King George II
Groucho Marx
You Bet Your Life
Ulysses S. Grant IV
University of California, Los Angeles
The Golden Girls
Cary Grant
Wild Wild West
Henry Wager Halleck
Quiz Show
United States presidential election, 1868
United States presidential election, 1872
History of the United States (1865-1918)
Western Theater of the American Civil War
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
James M. McPherson
Jean Edward Smith
Allan Nevins
Ed Bearss
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
Find A Grave
West Point#Cullum Number
Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Rutherford B. Hayes
Abraham Lincoln
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1868
U.S. presidential election, 1872
Rutherford B. Hayes
Army of the Tennessee
William T. Sherman
Henry W. Halleck
Commanding General of the United States Army
Andrew Johnson
Oldest living United States president
Rutherford B. Hayes
United States
soldier
politician
President of the United States
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
|
Ulysses_S._Grant | Did Horace Greenley lose in the presidential elections of 1872? | si | data/set3/a5 | Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, See military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 July 23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869 1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
Grant first reached national prominence by taking Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862 in the first Union victories of the war. The following year, his brilliant campaign ending in the surrender of Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi andâwith the simultaneous Union victory at Gettysburgâturned the tide of the war in the North's favor. Named commanding general of the Federal armies in 1864, he implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's ability to carry on the war. In 1865, after conducting a costly war of attrition in the East, he accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. Grant has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.
In 1868, Grant was elected president as a Republican. Grant was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed.
Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans. See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.
Ulysses Grant Birthplace, Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home, Georgetown, Ohio
Grant was born in a log cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794 1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798 1883). His father, a tanner, was from Pennsylvania, and his mother was born in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio.
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826 1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (Buck), Ellen Wrenshall Grant (Nellie), and Jesse Root Grant.
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only. Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.
Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846â1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, later becoming his brother-in-law, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.
After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the 4th U.S. Infantry regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial. According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name." McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican War
A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys). His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. McFeely, ch. 5.
Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican. Hesseltine, chapter 6. .
The home of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Infantry in June 1861.
Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.
In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.
Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederates violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, an old friend of Grant's and a West Point classmate, and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers. Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.
Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased against him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.
General Grant at Cold Harbor, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864
In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.
The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in Corinth, Mississippi. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Corinth and Iuka that fall.
In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant spent the winter of 1862 1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.
However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and in a daring move that defied conventional military principles cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles A. Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George H. Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas' chief engineer, William F. "Baldy" Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.
Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas' men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.
Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet appointment), recently re-authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.
In March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.
Poster of "Grant from West Point to Appomattox."
Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.
The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River.
Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a siege.
As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas.
At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democrats who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius: Korda, (2004)
After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army. Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.''
As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.
The second president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In the 1872 election he won by a landslide against the breakaway Liberal Republican party that nominated Horace Greeley.
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed .
Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006. Grant also signed into law making Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application, CRS Report for Congress, 98-301 GOV, updated February 8, 1999, by Stephen W. Stathis
The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.
By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker. Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes: Nevins, Fish 2:811
In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson .
The Grant administration's first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Act to Strengthen the Public Credit which the GOP Congress had passed after Grant ` s inaugural in March 1869 . The act had the effect that the gold price on New York exchange fell to 310 dollar an ounce - the lowest point since the suspension of specie payment in 1862 .
As Jean Edward Smith notes in his 2002 biography on Grant, the presidential treasury secretary Boutwell reorganized the Treasury by discharging unnecessary employees, started sweeping changes in Bureau of Printing and Engraving to protect the currency from counterfeiters and revitalized tax collections to hasten the collection of revenue. This changes soon led the Tresury having a monthly surplus .
The Grant administration reduced the debt by appromixately 435 million dollar. That was achieved by selling the growing gold surplus at weekly auctions for greenbacks and buying back wartime bonds with the currency . With this Grant ` s treasury secretary Boutwell had established a policy if continued had payed of the national debt in a quarter of a century . Newspapers like the New York Tribune wanted that the Government buy more bonds and Greenbacks, the New York Times praised the the Grant administration `s debt policy .
On other economic fronts did the Grant administration have acomplishments . Under
Grant the nation `s credit was substantially raised. Taxes was reduced by 300 million dollar. Annual interest rates were reduced by approximately 30 million dollar . The U . S balance of trade was changed from 130 million dollar against the United States to 120 million dollar in favor of the United States . He also reduced inflation and to 1873 bolstered economic recovery . He also promoted economy in federal expenditures . His veto of the Inflation Bill in 1874 saved the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 to get worse and the veto was praised by the financial community and many newspapers .
The Resumption of Species Act of 1875 which was signed by Grant and helped to end the crisis in 1879 when the law came in to effect
He also pressed for internal improvements and increased shipbuilding and foreign trade. He also wanted to enhance and improve the commercial marine .
Grant/Wilson campaign poster
In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington, negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He also proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Santo Domingo. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia. Liberian-Grebo War of 1876
The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud. However, Grant eventually released large amounts of gold back onto the market, causing a large-scale financial crisis for many gold investors. Jay Gould had already prepared and quietly sold out while Fisk denied many agreements and hired thugs to intimidate his creditors.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.
Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first vice president, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.
President Grant with his wife, Julia, and son, Jesse, in 1872.
Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."
Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11, issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:
The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart â opportunistic traders who were Jewish. McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed [...] he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."
The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 presidential campaign, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.
Grant's second inauguration as President by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.
Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
* Edwin M. Stanton 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
* William Strong 1870
* Joseph P. Bradley 1870
* Ward Hunt 1873
* Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice) 1874
* Colorado August 1, 1876
* Department of Justice (1870)
* Office of the Solicitor General (1870)
* "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
* Office of the Surgeon General (1871)
* Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)
Ulysses S. Grant in his postbellum.
After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress ShÅken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.
In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.
That same year, Grant was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.
Grant writing his memoirs.
In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
Grant appears on the U.S. $50 bill.
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. It was not until 1958 that Congress, feeling it inappropriate that a former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting a pension to such individuals, a practice that continues to this day. Grant first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and Grant's memoirs are also regarded by such writers as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request, "Water." His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America.
Statue of Grant astride his favorite mount, "Cincinnati", at Vicksburg, Mississippi
*In World War II, the United States produced a tank known as the Grant tank (an upgrade of the American M3 "Lee").
*Grant's portrait appears on the U.S. fifty-dollar bill.
*The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., honors Grant.
*Grant Park in Chicago honors Grant.
*Grant Avenue, a nine block long, north-south street in the Bronx, New York, is named after Grant. It is parallel and adjacent to Sherman Avenue.
*Dupont Street, the main thoroughfare in San Francisco's Chinatown, was renamed Grant Avenue in his honor. The famous dragon gate at the entrance to the district is at the corner of Grant and Bush Street.
*Grant, depicted riding a horse, is honored by a statue at the intersection of Bedford Avenue, Rogers Avenue and Dean Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
*There is a U.S. Grant Bridge over the Ohio River at Portsmouth, Ohio.
*There is a U.S. Grant Memorial Highway (US 52) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
*Counties in twelve U.S. states are named after Grant: Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Grant Parish, Louisiana. Note: Grant Counties in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin were named after other Grants, not Ulysses Grant.
* Grant was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren
* Grant is also a descendant from John Lothropp, who is also an ancestor to Benjamin Franklin
Grant Memorial Statue in Grant Park, Galena, Illinois. Julia Grant remarked that it was the best likeness of her husband, as his hands were thrust into his pockets.
* As a young man, Grant's father, Jesse, taught him the trade of tanning. Jesse Grant had been taught how to tan by Owen Brown, the father of known abolitionist John Brown. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* When Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1864, he agreed to sit down for photographer Mathew Brady. As the sun had begun to set by the time Grant arrived, Brady instructed one of his assistants to open the shades of the skylight in Brady's studio. The assistant slipped and shattered the skylight, causing two-inch-thick shards of glass to rain down around Grant, who had taken his seat as requested. He was unharmed, and showed "the most remarkable display of nerve" that Brady had ever seen. O'Brien, Cormac (2007). "Secret Lives of the Civil War: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the War Between the States".
* Grant was known to visit the Willard Hotel to escape the stress of the White House. A long-standing story is that he referred to the people who approached him in the lobby as "those darn lobbyists," implying that he was the source for the term lobbyist. This story is unlikely to be true since there are examples of the term being used in U.S. and British magazines and newspapers before Grant's presidency. World Wide Words.
* While in California, Grant tried selling ice to San Francisco, but failed when it melted in the warm weather aboard the ship. Smith, Grant, p. 81. . This anecdote is disputed by Edward G. Longacre in "General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man" (2006) in which he says -- in a referenced statement -- that the ice venture had failed because of "an unexpected glut of [ice] imports from Alaska."
* In 1883, Grant was elected the eighth president of the National Rifle Association.
* Grant suffered from tone-deafness. He disliked music intensely and would go out of his way to avoid having to hear any other than patriotic songs. In Jeffrey Shaara's The Last Full Measure - which is set after the Battle of Gettysburg, the subject of his father Michael's 1974 bestseller The Killer Angels - Grant is portrayed as saying, "I know only two songs. One is 'Yankee Doodle'. The other isn't." Whether he actually said this is unclear. Shaara, Jeffrey M. (1998). "The Last Full Measure".
* Grant's wife, First Lady Julia Grant, was cross-eyed. When it was suggested to her that she have an operation to have it corrected, President Grant replied that he liked her that way. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* Grant's favorite brand of bourbon whiskey was Old Crow.
* Grant enjoyed eating cucumbers soaked in vinegar for breakfast.
* An apocryphal story about Grant's drinking has the general's critics going to President Lincoln, charging the military man with being a drunk. Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."
:* A similar story was told of General James Wolfe during the French and Indian Wars. When King George II was told that Wolfe was a "mad dog", he is said to have replied, "Then I'd wish he'd bite the other generals."
* The question "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" was used by Groucho Marx in his radio and TV quiz show, the correct answer to which resulted in a consolation prize to contestants who had won no money. Some contestants thought it was a trick question. Grant's grandson, Ulysses S. Grant IV (a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles) appeared on the program on March 12, 1953.
** This was also featured on an episode of the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, in which in a dream sequence Dorothy competes on Jeopardy against a scholar and her roommate Rose. When asked the question, Dorothy replies Ulysses and is wrong, while Rose replies Cary Grant and is correct.
* In the film Wild Wild West, President Grant is a minor character that must deal with the Loveless Alliance.
Once while in office he was arrested for speeding his horse and buggy and fined $20 and had to walk back to the white house. (www.pocanticohills.org/presidents/know.htm )
* A dispute between Grant and his commanding officer Henry Wager Halleck is the subject of a pivotal question in the film Quiz Show.
* United States presidential election, 1868
* United States presidential election, 1872
* History of the United States (1865â1918)
* Western Theater of the American Civil War
* Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
* U.S. Grant Home, Galena, Illinois
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command, Little, Brown and Company, 1968, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 69-12632.
*Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Garland, Hamlin, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character, Macmillan Company, 1898.
*Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885 86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
*Hesseltine, William B., Ulysses S. Grant: Politician 1935.
* Lewis, Lloyd, Captain Sam Grant, Little, Brown, and Co., 1950, ISBN 0-316-52348-8.
* McFeely, William S., Grant: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Co, 1981, ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
* McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
* Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-395-65994-9.
*Smith, Jean Edward, Grant, Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
*Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861 1865, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
* Official Ulysses Simpson Grant biography from the US Army Center for Military History
* Bunting III, Josiah. Ulysses S. Grant (2004) ISBN 0-8050-6949-6
* William Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 (1905), vol 22
* Hesseltine, William B. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (2001) ISBN 1-931313-85-7 online edition
* Mantell, Martin E., Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
* Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936) online edition
* Rhodes, James Ford., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6 and 7 (1920) vol 6
* Scaturro, Frank J., President Grant Reconsidered (1998).
* Schouler, James., History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
* Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
* Simpson, Brooks D., The Reconstruction Presidents (1998)
* Skidmore, Max J. "The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: a Reconsideration." White House Studies (2005) online
* Badeau, Adam. Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 vols. 1882.
*Ballard, Michael B., Vicksburg, The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-2893-9.
* Bearss, Edwin C., The Vicksburg Campaign, 3 volumes, Morningside Press, 1991, ISBN 0-89029-308-2.
* Carter, Samuel III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863 (1980)
* Catton, Bruce, Grant Moves South, 1960, ISBN 0-316-13207-1; Grant Takes Command, 1968, ISBN 0-316-13210-1; U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954)
* Cavanaugh, Michael A., and William Marvel, The Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of the Crater: "The Horrid Pit," June 25-August 6, 1864 (1989)
* Conger, A. L. The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931)
* Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg (1986).
* Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
* Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
* Korda, Michael. Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (2004) 161 pp
* McWhiney, Grady, Battle in the Wilderness: Grant Meets Lee (1995)
* McDonough, James Lee, Shiloh: In Hell before Night (1977).
* McDonough, James Lee, Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy (1984).
* Maney, R. Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor. Victory and Failure, 1864 (1994).
* Matter, William D., If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (1988)
* Miers, Earl Schenck., The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg. 1955.
* Mosier, John., "Grant", Palgrave MacMillan, 2006 ISBN 1-4039-7136-6.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5 6, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8071-1873-7.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7 12, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8071-2136-3.
* Rhea, Gordon C., To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13 25, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8071-2535-0.
* Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.
* Miller, J. Michael, The North Anna Campaign: "Even to Hell Itself," May 21-26, 1864 (1989).
* Simpson, Brooks D, "Continuous Hammering and Mere Attrition: Lost Cause Critics and the Military Reputation of Ulysses S. Grant," in Cad Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, (2000)
* Steere, Edward, The Wilderness Campaign (1960)
* Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April. 1974.
* Williams, T. Harry, McClellan, Sherman and Grant. 1962.
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs (1885) online edition
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters (Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely, eds.) ( The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-94045058-5
* Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) pp 131-73, on the Memoirs
* Johnson, R. U., and Buel, C. C., eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York, 1887-88; essays by leading generals of both sides; online edition
* Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant (1897, reprinted 2000)
* Sherman, William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. 2 vols. 1875.
* Simon, John Y., ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Southern Illinois University Press (1967- ) multivolume complete edition of letters to and from Grant. As of 2006, vol 1-28 covers through September 1878.
* Extensive essay on Ulysses S. Grant and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* First Inaugural Address
* Second Inaugural Address
* White House Biography
* Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
*Emerson, Col. John W., Grant's Life in the West and His Mississippi Valley Campaigns, U.S. Grant Association website.
* Ulysses S. Grant at Find A Grave
* Many rare General Grant photographs
* Complete Bibliography
* Military biography of Ulysses S. Grant from the Cullum biographies
*
* The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. (1918). "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.
* Collection of US Grant Letters
* Ulysses S. Grant: America's Second Three-Star General article by Ethan Rafuse
* Historic White Haven (Grant-Dent home)
*
|-
|-
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
Andrew Johnson
Rutherford B. Hayes
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Julia Grant
Jesse Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Nellie Grant
Frederick Grant
General-in-Chief
List of United States Presidential religious affiliations
Republican Party (United States)
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
#Military career
April 27
1822
July 23
1885
United States
President of the United States
Union (American Civil War)
American Civil War
Battle of Vicksburg
Confederate
Robert E. Lee
Appomattox Court House
J.F.C. Fuller
Vicksburg Campaign
History of the United States Republican Party
Andrew Jackson
Radical Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Civil Rights
African American history
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home
Georgetown, Ohio
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio River
Pennsylvania
Horsham Township, Pennsylvania
Georgetown, Ohio
Brown County, Ohio
August 22
1848
Julia Boggs Dent
Frederick Dent Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Ellen Wrenshall Grant
Jesse Root Grant
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Mathew Brady
United States Army
Army of the Tennessee
Military Division of the Mississippi
United States Army
United States Army
Mexican-American War
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
American Civil War
Battle of Fort Donelson
Battle of Shiloh
Battle of Vicksburg
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Overland Campaign
Battle of Petersburg
Appomattox Campaign
President of the United States
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
U.S. Congressman
Thomas L. Hamer
Academic administration
March 31
1853
cavalry
Mexican-American War
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
Fort Vancouver
Washington Territory
U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
July 31
1854
Robert C. Buchanan
John Eaton (General)
St. Louis, Missouri
Grant's Farm
Anheuser-Busch
Galena, Illinois
James Buchanan
John C. Frémont
Stephen A. Douglas
Elihu B. Washburne
April 28
2007
War Democrats
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Galena, Illinois
Fort Sumter
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
Illinois
Richard Yates (governor)
21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
Claiborne Jackson
John C. Frémont
Ohio River
Paducah, Kentucky
Confederate States Army
Columbus, Kentucky
Gideon J. Pillow
Battle of Belmont
Andrew H. Foote
Battle of Fort Henry
Tennessee River
Battle of Fort Donelson
Cumberland River
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Henry W. Halleck
Nashville, Tennessee
Don Carlos Buell
March 2
March 17
Battle of Cold Harbor
Mathew Brady
Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard
Battle of Shiloh
April 30
First Battle of Corinth
William T. Sherman
Army of West Tennessee
Army of the Tennessee
June 10
Second Battle of Corinth
Battle of Iuka
Mississippi River
Vicksburg Campaign
U.S. Navy
Charles Anderson Dana
hardtack
John C. Pemberton
Jackson, Mississippi
Battle of Champion Hill
Battle of Vicksburg
July 4
1863
Battle of Gettysburg
Turning point of the American Civil War
July 4
Battle of Chickamauga
William S. Rosecrans
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Braxton Bragg
Lookout Mountain
October 17
George Henry Thomas
William Farrar Smith
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Missionary Ridge
Atlanta, Georgia
Lieutenant General (United States)
George Washington
Winfield Scott
brevet (military)
Congress of the United States
March 2
1864
March 12
United States
William Tecumseh Sherman
Virginia
Army of Northern Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
George G. Meade
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Franz Sigel
Shenandoah Valley
Georgia (U.S. state)
Joseph E. Johnston
Atlanta
George Crook
William W. Averell
West Virginia
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Mobile, Alabama
total war
Overland Campaign
Robert E. Lee
May 4
1864
Army of the Potomac
Rapidan River
Army of Northern Virginia
Battle of the Wilderness
Spotsylvania, Virginia
May 8
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 11
May 12
Battle of Cold Harbor
June 3
James River (Virginia)
Petersburg, Virginia
June 18
Siege of Petersburg
William Tecumseh Sherman
Abraham Lincoln
Jubal A. Early
Shenandoah Valley
Washington, D.C.
Administration (government)
Philip Sheridan
Valley Campaigns of 1864
Sherman's March to the Sea
total war
Carolinas Campaign
Appomattox Court House
April 9
1865
Kirby Smith
Trans-Mississippi Department
June 2
1865
Copperheads
Democratic Party (United States)
July 25
1866
General of the Army of the United States
U.S. Army
Andrew Johnson
Edwin M. Stanton
Tenure of Office Act
History of the United States Republican Party
Republican National Convention
Chicago
U.S. presidential election, 1868
Horatio Seymour
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
United States presidential election, 1872
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Horace Greeley
Reconstruction
Redeemers
Ku Klux Klan
voting rights
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Dominican Republic
Yellowstone National Park
March 1
1872
March 29
2006
Christmas
February 8
1999
Panic of 1873
Robert Schenck
Rutherford B. Hayes
Samuel J. Tilden
U.S. presidential election, 1876
Henry Watterson
Treaty of Washington (1871)
Hamilton Fish
CSS Alabama
Dominican Republic
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Charles Sumner
Horace Greeley
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Liberian-Grebo War
USS Alaska (1868)
Liberia
James Milton Turner
Black Friday (1869)
Jay Gould
James Fisk (financier)
Whiskey Ring
Benjamin H. Bristow
Orville E. Babcock
United States Secretary of War
William W. Belknap
Native Americans in the United States
trading post
Sanborn Incident
William Adams Richardson
Cyrus I. Scofield
Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Vice President of the United States
Schuyler Colfax
United States presidential election, 1872
Henry Wilson
Julia Grant
Jesse Root Grant
anti-Semitism
General Order No. 11 (1862)
Oxford, Mississippi
December 17
1862
Vicksburg Campaign
Tennessee
Mississippi
Kentucky
James H. Wilson
Bertram Korn
U.S. presidential election, 1868
President of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
Salmon P. Chase
March 4
1873
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
Elihu B. Washburne
Hamilton Fish
John A. Rawlins
William T. Sherman
William W. Belknap
Alphonso Taft
J. Donald Cameron
George S. Boutwell
William Adams Richardson
Benjamin Bristow
Lot M. Morrill
Ebenezer R. Hoar
Amos T. Akerman
George Henry Williams
Edwards Pierrepont
Alphonso Taft
John A. J. Creswell
James William Marshall
Marshall Jewell
James N. Tyner
Adolph E. Borie
George M. Robeson
Jacob D. Cox
Columbus Delano
Zachariah Chandler
Supreme Court of the United States
Edwin M. Stanton
William Strong (judge)
Joseph P. Bradley
Ward Hunt
Morrison Remick Waite
Chief Justice of the United States
Colorado
August 1
1876
United States Department of Justice
United States Solicitor General
Chester A. Arthur
Office of Personnel Management
Surgeon General of the United States
National Weather Service
Queen Victoria
Windsor Castle
Prince Bismarck
Emperor Meiji
Empress ShÅken
Imperial Palace
Tokyo
Meiji period
Ryukyu Islands
China
Stalwart (politics)
Roscoe Conkling
Methodist
Republican National Convention
James A. Garfield
New York City
Ferdinand Ward
Wall Street
Grant & Ward
Esophageal cancer
pension
The Century Magazine
Mark Twain
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Julius Caesar
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
New York City
Riverside Park (Manhattan)
General Grant National Memorial
mausoleum
North America
World War II
tank
Grant tank
U.S. fifty-dollar bill
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Grant Park (Chicago)
Chicago
the Bronx
New York
San Francisco, California
Chinatown, San Francisco, California
Bedford Avenue
Crown Heights
Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. Grant Bridge
Ohio River
Portsmouth, Ohio
U.S. Route 52
Counties of the United States
U.S. state
Grant County, Arkansas
Grant County, Kansas
Grant County, Minnesota
Grant County, Nebraska
Grant County, New Mexico
Grant County, North Dakota
Grant County, Oklahoma
Grant County, Washington
Grant County, West Virginia
Grant Parish, Louisiana
Mayflower
Richard Warren
John Lothropp
Benjamin Franklin
abolitionist
John Brown (abolitionist)
Mathew Brady
Willard Hotel
lobbyist
San Francisco
National Rifle Association
Jeffrey Shaara
The Last Full Measure
Michael Shaara
The Killer Angels
First Lady of the United States
Julia Grant
Strabismus
bourbon whiskey
Old Crow
cucumbers
vinegar
breakfast
James Wolfe
French and Indian Wars
King George II
Groucho Marx
You Bet Your Life
Ulysses S. Grant IV
University of California, Los Angeles
The Golden Girls
Cary Grant
Wild Wild West
Henry Wager Halleck
Quiz Show
United States presidential election, 1868
United States presidential election, 1872
History of the United States (1865-1918)
Western Theater of the American Civil War
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
James M. McPherson
Jean Edward Smith
Allan Nevins
Ed Bearss
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
Find A Grave
West Point#Cullum Number
Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Rutherford B. Hayes
Abraham Lincoln
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1868
U.S. presidential election, 1872
Rutherford B. Hayes
Army of the Tennessee
William T. Sherman
Henry W. Halleck
Commanding General of the United States Army
Andrew Johnson
Oldest living United States president
Rutherford B. Hayes
United States
soldier
politician
President of the United States
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
|
Ulysses_S._Grant | Why did Grant think that war was unjust? | He thought it was designed to gain land open to slavery. | data/set3/a5 | Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, See military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 July 23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869 1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
Grant first reached national prominence by taking Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862 in the first Union victories of the war. The following year, his brilliant campaign ending in the surrender of Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi andâwith the simultaneous Union victory at Gettysburgâturned the tide of the war in the North's favor. Named commanding general of the Federal armies in 1864, he implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's ability to carry on the war. In 1865, after conducting a costly war of attrition in the East, he accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. Grant has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.
In 1868, Grant was elected president as a Republican. Grant was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed.
Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans. See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.
Ulysses Grant Birthplace, Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home, Georgetown, Ohio
Grant was born in a log cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794 1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798 1883). His father, a tanner, was from Pennsylvania, and his mother was born in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio.
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826 1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (Buck), Ellen Wrenshall Grant (Nellie), and Jesse Root Grant.
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only. Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.
Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846â1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, later becoming his brother-in-law, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.
After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the 4th U.S. Infantry regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial. According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name." McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican War
A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys). His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. McFeely, ch. 5.
Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican. Hesseltine, chapter 6. .
The home of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Infantry in June 1861.
Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.
In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.
Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederates violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, an old friend of Grant's and a West Point classmate, and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers. Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.
Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased against him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.
General Grant at Cold Harbor, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864
In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.
The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in Corinth, Mississippi. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Corinth and Iuka that fall.
In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant spent the winter of 1862 1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.
However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and in a daring move that defied conventional military principles cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles A. Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George H. Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas' chief engineer, William F. "Baldy" Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.
Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas' men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.
Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet appointment), recently re-authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.
In March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.
Poster of "Grant from West Point to Appomattox."
Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.
The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River.
Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a siege.
As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas.
At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democrats who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius: Korda, (2004)
After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army. Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.''
As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.
The second president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In the 1872 election he won by a landslide against the breakaway Liberal Republican party that nominated Horace Greeley.
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed .
Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006. Grant also signed into law making Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application, CRS Report for Congress, 98-301 GOV, updated February 8, 1999, by Stephen W. Stathis
The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.
By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker. Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes: Nevins, Fish 2:811
In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson .
The Grant administration's first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Act to Strengthen the Public Credit which the GOP Congress had passed after Grant ` s inaugural in March 1869 . The act had the effect that the gold price on New York exchange fell to 310 dollar an ounce - the lowest point since the suspension of specie payment in 1862 .
As Jean Edward Smith notes in his 2002 biography on Grant, the presidential treasury secretary Boutwell reorganized the Treasury by discharging unnecessary employees, started sweeping changes in Bureau of Printing and Engraving to protect the currency from counterfeiters and revitalized tax collections to hasten the collection of revenue. This changes soon led the Tresury having a monthly surplus .
The Grant administration reduced the debt by appromixately 435 million dollar. That was achieved by selling the growing gold surplus at weekly auctions for greenbacks and buying back wartime bonds with the currency . With this Grant ` s treasury secretary Boutwell had established a policy if continued had payed of the national debt in a quarter of a century . Newspapers like the New York Tribune wanted that the Government buy more bonds and Greenbacks, the New York Times praised the the Grant administration `s debt policy .
On other economic fronts did the Grant administration have acomplishments . Under
Grant the nation `s credit was substantially raised. Taxes was reduced by 300 million dollar. Annual interest rates were reduced by approximately 30 million dollar . The U . S balance of trade was changed from 130 million dollar against the United States to 120 million dollar in favor of the United States . He also reduced inflation and to 1873 bolstered economic recovery . He also promoted economy in federal expenditures . His veto of the Inflation Bill in 1874 saved the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 to get worse and the veto was praised by the financial community and many newspapers .
The Resumption of Species Act of 1875 which was signed by Grant and helped to end the crisis in 1879 when the law came in to effect
He also pressed for internal improvements and increased shipbuilding and foreign trade. He also wanted to enhance and improve the commercial marine .
Grant/Wilson campaign poster
In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington, negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He also proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Santo Domingo. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia. Liberian-Grebo War of 1876
The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud. However, Grant eventually released large amounts of gold back onto the market, causing a large-scale financial crisis for many gold investors. Jay Gould had already prepared and quietly sold out while Fisk denied many agreements and hired thugs to intimidate his creditors.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.
Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first vice president, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.
President Grant with his wife, Julia, and son, Jesse, in 1872.
Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."
Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11, issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:
The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart â opportunistic traders who were Jewish. McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed [...] he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."
The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 presidential campaign, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.
Grant's second inauguration as President by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.
Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
* Edwin M. Stanton 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
* William Strong 1870
* Joseph P. Bradley 1870
* Ward Hunt 1873
* Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice) 1874
* Colorado August 1, 1876
* Department of Justice (1870)
* Office of the Solicitor General (1870)
* "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
* Office of the Surgeon General (1871)
* Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)
Ulysses S. Grant in his postbellum.
After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress ShÅken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.
In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.
That same year, Grant was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.
Grant writing his memoirs.
In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
Grant appears on the U.S. $50 bill.
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. It was not until 1958 that Congress, feeling it inappropriate that a former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting a pension to such individuals, a practice that continues to this day. Grant first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and Grant's memoirs are also regarded by such writers as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request, "Water." His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America.
Statue of Grant astride his favorite mount, "Cincinnati", at Vicksburg, Mississippi
*In World War II, the United States produced a tank known as the Grant tank (an upgrade of the American M3 "Lee").
*Grant's portrait appears on the U.S. fifty-dollar bill.
*The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., honors Grant.
*Grant Park in Chicago honors Grant.
*Grant Avenue, a nine block long, north-south street in the Bronx, New York, is named after Grant. It is parallel and adjacent to Sherman Avenue.
*Dupont Street, the main thoroughfare in San Francisco's Chinatown, was renamed Grant Avenue in his honor. The famous dragon gate at the entrance to the district is at the corner of Grant and Bush Street.
*Grant, depicted riding a horse, is honored by a statue at the intersection of Bedford Avenue, Rogers Avenue and Dean Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
*There is a U.S. Grant Bridge over the Ohio River at Portsmouth, Ohio.
*There is a U.S. Grant Memorial Highway (US 52) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
*Counties in twelve U.S. states are named after Grant: Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Grant Parish, Louisiana. Note: Grant Counties in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin were named after other Grants, not Ulysses Grant.
* Grant was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren
* Grant is also a descendant from John Lothropp, who is also an ancestor to Benjamin Franklin
Grant Memorial Statue in Grant Park, Galena, Illinois. Julia Grant remarked that it was the best likeness of her husband, as his hands were thrust into his pockets.
* As a young man, Grant's father, Jesse, taught him the trade of tanning. Jesse Grant had been taught how to tan by Owen Brown, the father of known abolitionist John Brown. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* When Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1864, he agreed to sit down for photographer Mathew Brady. As the sun had begun to set by the time Grant arrived, Brady instructed one of his assistants to open the shades of the skylight in Brady's studio. The assistant slipped and shattered the skylight, causing two-inch-thick shards of glass to rain down around Grant, who had taken his seat as requested. He was unharmed, and showed "the most remarkable display of nerve" that Brady had ever seen. O'Brien, Cormac (2007). "Secret Lives of the Civil War: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the War Between the States".
* Grant was known to visit the Willard Hotel to escape the stress of the White House. A long-standing story is that he referred to the people who approached him in the lobby as "those darn lobbyists," implying that he was the source for the term lobbyist. This story is unlikely to be true since there are examples of the term being used in U.S. and British magazines and newspapers before Grant's presidency. World Wide Words.
* While in California, Grant tried selling ice to San Francisco, but failed when it melted in the warm weather aboard the ship. Smith, Grant, p. 81. . This anecdote is disputed by Edward G. Longacre in "General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man" (2006) in which he says -- in a referenced statement -- that the ice venture had failed because of "an unexpected glut of [ice] imports from Alaska."
* In 1883, Grant was elected the eighth president of the National Rifle Association.
* Grant suffered from tone-deafness. He disliked music intensely and would go out of his way to avoid having to hear any other than patriotic songs. In Jeffrey Shaara's The Last Full Measure - which is set after the Battle of Gettysburg, the subject of his father Michael's 1974 bestseller The Killer Angels - Grant is portrayed as saying, "I know only two songs. One is 'Yankee Doodle'. The other isn't." Whether he actually said this is unclear. Shaara, Jeffrey M. (1998). "The Last Full Measure".
* Grant's wife, First Lady Julia Grant, was cross-eyed. When it was suggested to her that she have an operation to have it corrected, President Grant replied that he liked her that way. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* Grant's favorite brand of bourbon whiskey was Old Crow.
* Grant enjoyed eating cucumbers soaked in vinegar for breakfast.
* An apocryphal story about Grant's drinking has the general's critics going to President Lincoln, charging the military man with being a drunk. Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."
:* A similar story was told of General James Wolfe during the French and Indian Wars. When King George II was told that Wolfe was a "mad dog", he is said to have replied, "Then I'd wish he'd bite the other generals."
* The question "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" was used by Groucho Marx in his radio and TV quiz show, the correct answer to which resulted in a consolation prize to contestants who had won no money. Some contestants thought it was a trick question. Grant's grandson, Ulysses S. Grant IV (a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles) appeared on the program on March 12, 1953.
** This was also featured on an episode of the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, in which in a dream sequence Dorothy competes on Jeopardy against a scholar and her roommate Rose. When asked the question, Dorothy replies Ulysses and is wrong, while Rose replies Cary Grant and is correct.
* In the film Wild Wild West, President Grant is a minor character that must deal with the Loveless Alliance.
Once while in office he was arrested for speeding his horse and buggy and fined $20 and had to walk back to the white house. (www.pocanticohills.org/presidents/know.htm )
* A dispute between Grant and his commanding officer Henry Wager Halleck is the subject of a pivotal question in the film Quiz Show.
* United States presidential election, 1868
* United States presidential election, 1872
* History of the United States (1865â1918)
* Western Theater of the American Civil War
* Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
* U.S. Grant Home, Galena, Illinois
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command, Little, Brown and Company, 1968, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 69-12632.
*Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Garland, Hamlin, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character, Macmillan Company, 1898.
*Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885 86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
*Hesseltine, William B., Ulysses S. Grant: Politician 1935.
* Lewis, Lloyd, Captain Sam Grant, Little, Brown, and Co., 1950, ISBN 0-316-52348-8.
* McFeely, William S., Grant: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Co, 1981, ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
* McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
* Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-395-65994-9.
*Smith, Jean Edward, Grant, Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
*Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861 1865, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
* Official Ulysses Simpson Grant biography from the US Army Center for Military History
* Bunting III, Josiah. Ulysses S. Grant (2004) ISBN 0-8050-6949-6
* William Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 (1905), vol 22
* Hesseltine, William B. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (2001) ISBN 1-931313-85-7 online edition
* Mantell, Martin E., Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
* Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936) online edition
* Rhodes, James Ford., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6 and 7 (1920) vol 6
* Scaturro, Frank J., President Grant Reconsidered (1998).
* Schouler, James., History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
* Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
* Simpson, Brooks D., The Reconstruction Presidents (1998)
* Skidmore, Max J. "The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: a Reconsideration." White House Studies (2005) online
* Badeau, Adam. Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 vols. 1882.
*Ballard, Michael B., Vicksburg, The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-2893-9.
* Bearss, Edwin C., The Vicksburg Campaign, 3 volumes, Morningside Press, 1991, ISBN 0-89029-308-2.
* Carter, Samuel III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863 (1980)
* Catton, Bruce, Grant Moves South, 1960, ISBN 0-316-13207-1; Grant Takes Command, 1968, ISBN 0-316-13210-1; U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954)
* Cavanaugh, Michael A., and William Marvel, The Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of the Crater: "The Horrid Pit," June 25-August 6, 1864 (1989)
* Conger, A. L. The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931)
* Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg (1986).
* Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
* Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
* Korda, Michael. Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (2004) 161 pp
* McWhiney, Grady, Battle in the Wilderness: Grant Meets Lee (1995)
* McDonough, James Lee, Shiloh: In Hell before Night (1977).
* McDonough, James Lee, Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy (1984).
* Maney, R. Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor. Victory and Failure, 1864 (1994).
* Matter, William D., If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (1988)
* Miers, Earl Schenck., The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg. 1955.
* Mosier, John., "Grant", Palgrave MacMillan, 2006 ISBN 1-4039-7136-6.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5 6, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8071-1873-7.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7 12, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8071-2136-3.
* Rhea, Gordon C., To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13 25, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8071-2535-0.
* Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.
* Miller, J. Michael, The North Anna Campaign: "Even to Hell Itself," May 21-26, 1864 (1989).
* Simpson, Brooks D, "Continuous Hammering and Mere Attrition: Lost Cause Critics and the Military Reputation of Ulysses S. Grant," in Cad Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, (2000)
* Steere, Edward, The Wilderness Campaign (1960)
* Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April. 1974.
* Williams, T. Harry, McClellan, Sherman and Grant. 1962.
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs (1885) online edition
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters (Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely, eds.) ( The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-94045058-5
* Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) pp 131-73, on the Memoirs
* Johnson, R. U., and Buel, C. C., eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York, 1887-88; essays by leading generals of both sides; online edition
* Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant (1897, reprinted 2000)
* Sherman, William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. 2 vols. 1875.
* Simon, John Y., ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Southern Illinois University Press (1967- ) multivolume complete edition of letters to and from Grant. As of 2006, vol 1-28 covers through September 1878.
* Extensive essay on Ulysses S. Grant and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* First Inaugural Address
* Second Inaugural Address
* White House Biography
* Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
*Emerson, Col. John W., Grant's Life in the West and His Mississippi Valley Campaigns, U.S. Grant Association website.
* Ulysses S. Grant at Find A Grave
* Many rare General Grant photographs
* Complete Bibliography
* Military biography of Ulysses S. Grant from the Cullum biographies
*
* The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. (1918). "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.
* Collection of US Grant Letters
* Ulysses S. Grant: America's Second Three-Star General article by Ethan Rafuse
* Historic White Haven (Grant-Dent home)
*
|-
|-
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
Andrew Johnson
Rutherford B. Hayes
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Julia Grant
Jesse Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Nellie Grant
Frederick Grant
General-in-Chief
List of United States Presidential religious affiliations
Republican Party (United States)
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
#Military career
April 27
1822
July 23
1885
United States
President of the United States
Union (American Civil War)
American Civil War
Battle of Vicksburg
Confederate
Robert E. Lee
Appomattox Court House
J.F.C. Fuller
Vicksburg Campaign
History of the United States Republican Party
Andrew Jackson
Radical Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Civil Rights
African American history
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home
Georgetown, Ohio
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio River
Pennsylvania
Horsham Township, Pennsylvania
Georgetown, Ohio
Brown County, Ohio
August 22
1848
Julia Boggs Dent
Frederick Dent Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Ellen Wrenshall Grant
Jesse Root Grant
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Mathew Brady
United States Army
Army of the Tennessee
Military Division of the Mississippi
United States Army
United States Army
Mexican-American War
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
American Civil War
Battle of Fort Donelson
Battle of Shiloh
Battle of Vicksburg
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Overland Campaign
Battle of Petersburg
Appomattox Campaign
President of the United States
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
U.S. Congressman
Thomas L. Hamer
Academic administration
March 31
1853
cavalry
Mexican-American War
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
Fort Vancouver
Washington Territory
U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
July 31
1854
Robert C. Buchanan
John Eaton (General)
St. Louis, Missouri
Grant's Farm
Anheuser-Busch
Galena, Illinois
James Buchanan
John C. Frémont
Stephen A. Douglas
Elihu B. Washburne
April 28
2007
War Democrats
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Galena, Illinois
Fort Sumter
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
Illinois
Richard Yates (governor)
21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
Claiborne Jackson
John C. Frémont
Ohio River
Paducah, Kentucky
Confederate States Army
Columbus, Kentucky
Gideon J. Pillow
Battle of Belmont
Andrew H. Foote
Battle of Fort Henry
Tennessee River
Battle of Fort Donelson
Cumberland River
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Henry W. Halleck
Nashville, Tennessee
Don Carlos Buell
March 2
March 17
Battle of Cold Harbor
Mathew Brady
Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard
Battle of Shiloh
April 30
First Battle of Corinth
William T. Sherman
Army of West Tennessee
Army of the Tennessee
June 10
Second Battle of Corinth
Battle of Iuka
Mississippi River
Vicksburg Campaign
U.S. Navy
Charles Anderson Dana
hardtack
John C. Pemberton
Jackson, Mississippi
Battle of Champion Hill
Battle of Vicksburg
July 4
1863
Battle of Gettysburg
Turning point of the American Civil War
July 4
Battle of Chickamauga
William S. Rosecrans
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Braxton Bragg
Lookout Mountain
October 17
George Henry Thomas
William Farrar Smith
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Missionary Ridge
Atlanta, Georgia
Lieutenant General (United States)
George Washington
Winfield Scott
brevet (military)
Congress of the United States
March 2
1864
March 12
United States
William Tecumseh Sherman
Virginia
Army of Northern Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
George G. Meade
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Franz Sigel
Shenandoah Valley
Georgia (U.S. state)
Joseph E. Johnston
Atlanta
George Crook
William W. Averell
West Virginia
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Mobile, Alabama
total war
Overland Campaign
Robert E. Lee
May 4
1864
Army of the Potomac
Rapidan River
Army of Northern Virginia
Battle of the Wilderness
Spotsylvania, Virginia
May 8
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 11
May 12
Battle of Cold Harbor
June 3
James River (Virginia)
Petersburg, Virginia
June 18
Siege of Petersburg
William Tecumseh Sherman
Abraham Lincoln
Jubal A. Early
Shenandoah Valley
Washington, D.C.
Administration (government)
Philip Sheridan
Valley Campaigns of 1864
Sherman's March to the Sea
total war
Carolinas Campaign
Appomattox Court House
April 9
1865
Kirby Smith
Trans-Mississippi Department
June 2
1865
Copperheads
Democratic Party (United States)
July 25
1866
General of the Army of the United States
U.S. Army
Andrew Johnson
Edwin M. Stanton
Tenure of Office Act
History of the United States Republican Party
Republican National Convention
Chicago
U.S. presidential election, 1868
Horatio Seymour
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
United States presidential election, 1872
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Horace Greeley
Reconstruction
Redeemers
Ku Klux Klan
voting rights
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Dominican Republic
Yellowstone National Park
March 1
1872
March 29
2006
Christmas
February 8
1999
Panic of 1873
Robert Schenck
Rutherford B. Hayes
Samuel J. Tilden
U.S. presidential election, 1876
Henry Watterson
Treaty of Washington (1871)
Hamilton Fish
CSS Alabama
Dominican Republic
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Charles Sumner
Horace Greeley
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Liberian-Grebo War
USS Alaska (1868)
Liberia
James Milton Turner
Black Friday (1869)
Jay Gould
James Fisk (financier)
Whiskey Ring
Benjamin H. Bristow
Orville E. Babcock
United States Secretary of War
William W. Belknap
Native Americans in the United States
trading post
Sanborn Incident
William Adams Richardson
Cyrus I. Scofield
Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Vice President of the United States
Schuyler Colfax
United States presidential election, 1872
Henry Wilson
Julia Grant
Jesse Root Grant
anti-Semitism
General Order No. 11 (1862)
Oxford, Mississippi
December 17
1862
Vicksburg Campaign
Tennessee
Mississippi
Kentucky
James H. Wilson
Bertram Korn
U.S. presidential election, 1868
President of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
Salmon P. Chase
March 4
1873
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
Elihu B. Washburne
Hamilton Fish
John A. Rawlins
William T. Sherman
William W. Belknap
Alphonso Taft
J. Donald Cameron
George S. Boutwell
William Adams Richardson
Benjamin Bristow
Lot M. Morrill
Ebenezer R. Hoar
Amos T. Akerman
George Henry Williams
Edwards Pierrepont
Alphonso Taft
John A. J. Creswell
James William Marshall
Marshall Jewell
James N. Tyner
Adolph E. Borie
George M. Robeson
Jacob D. Cox
Columbus Delano
Zachariah Chandler
Supreme Court of the United States
Edwin M. Stanton
William Strong (judge)
Joseph P. Bradley
Ward Hunt
Morrison Remick Waite
Chief Justice of the United States
Colorado
August 1
1876
United States Department of Justice
United States Solicitor General
Chester A. Arthur
Office of Personnel Management
Surgeon General of the United States
National Weather Service
Queen Victoria
Windsor Castle
Prince Bismarck
Emperor Meiji
Empress ShÅken
Imperial Palace
Tokyo
Meiji period
Ryukyu Islands
China
Stalwart (politics)
Roscoe Conkling
Methodist
Republican National Convention
James A. Garfield
New York City
Ferdinand Ward
Wall Street
Grant & Ward
Esophageal cancer
pension
The Century Magazine
Mark Twain
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Julius Caesar
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
New York City
Riverside Park (Manhattan)
General Grant National Memorial
mausoleum
North America
World War II
tank
Grant tank
U.S. fifty-dollar bill
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Grant Park (Chicago)
Chicago
the Bronx
New York
San Francisco, California
Chinatown, San Francisco, California
Bedford Avenue
Crown Heights
Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. Grant Bridge
Ohio River
Portsmouth, Ohio
U.S. Route 52
Counties of the United States
U.S. state
Grant County, Arkansas
Grant County, Kansas
Grant County, Minnesota
Grant County, Nebraska
Grant County, New Mexico
Grant County, North Dakota
Grant County, Oklahoma
Grant County, Washington
Grant County, West Virginia
Grant Parish, Louisiana
Mayflower
Richard Warren
John Lothropp
Benjamin Franklin
abolitionist
John Brown (abolitionist)
Mathew Brady
Willard Hotel
lobbyist
San Francisco
National Rifle Association
Jeffrey Shaara
The Last Full Measure
Michael Shaara
The Killer Angels
First Lady of the United States
Julia Grant
Strabismus
bourbon whiskey
Old Crow
cucumbers
vinegar
breakfast
James Wolfe
French and Indian Wars
King George II
Groucho Marx
You Bet Your Life
Ulysses S. Grant IV
University of California, Los Angeles
The Golden Girls
Cary Grant
Wild Wild West
Henry Wager Halleck
Quiz Show
United States presidential election, 1868
United States presidential election, 1872
History of the United States (1865-1918)
Western Theater of the American Civil War
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
James M. McPherson
Jean Edward Smith
Allan Nevins
Ed Bearss
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
Find A Grave
West Point#Cullum Number
Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Rutherford B. Hayes
Abraham Lincoln
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1868
U.S. presidential election, 1872
Rutherford B. Hayes
Army of the Tennessee
William T. Sherman
Henry W. Halleck
Commanding General of the United States Army
Andrew Johnson
Oldest living United States president
Rutherford B. Hayes
United States
soldier
politician
President of the United States
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
|
Ulysses_S._Grant | Why did Grant think that war was unjust? | He accepted the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery. | data/set3/a5 | Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, See military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 July 23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869 1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
Grant first reached national prominence by taking Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862 in the first Union victories of the war. The following year, his brilliant campaign ending in the surrender of Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi andâwith the simultaneous Union victory at Gettysburgâturned the tide of the war in the North's favor. Named commanding general of the Federal armies in 1864, he implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's ability to carry on the war. In 1865, after conducting a costly war of attrition in the East, he accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. Grant has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.
In 1868, Grant was elected president as a Republican. Grant was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed.
Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans. See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.
Ulysses Grant Birthplace, Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home, Georgetown, Ohio
Grant was born in a log cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794 1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798 1883). His father, a tanner, was from Pennsylvania, and his mother was born in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio.
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826 1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (Buck), Ellen Wrenshall Grant (Nellie), and Jesse Root Grant.
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only. Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.
Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846â1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, later becoming his brother-in-law, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.
After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the 4th U.S. Infantry regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial. According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name." McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican War
A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys). His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. McFeely, ch. 5.
Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican. Hesseltine, chapter 6. .
The home of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Infantry in June 1861.
Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.
In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.
Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederates violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, an old friend of Grant's and a West Point classmate, and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers. Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.
Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased against him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.
General Grant at Cold Harbor, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864
In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.
The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in Corinth, Mississippi. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Corinth and Iuka that fall.
In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant spent the winter of 1862 1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.
However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and in a daring move that defied conventional military principles cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles A. Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George H. Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas' chief engineer, William F. "Baldy" Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.
Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas' men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.
Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet appointment), recently re-authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.
In March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.
Poster of "Grant from West Point to Appomattox."
Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.
The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River.
Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a siege.
As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas.
At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democrats who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius: Korda, (2004)
After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army. Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.''
As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.
The second president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In the 1872 election he won by a landslide against the breakaway Liberal Republican party that nominated Horace Greeley.
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed .
Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006. Grant also signed into law making Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application, CRS Report for Congress, 98-301 GOV, updated February 8, 1999, by Stephen W. Stathis
The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.
By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker. Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes: Nevins, Fish 2:811
In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson .
The Grant administration's first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Act to Strengthen the Public Credit which the GOP Congress had passed after Grant ` s inaugural in March 1869 . The act had the effect that the gold price on New York exchange fell to 310 dollar an ounce - the lowest point since the suspension of specie payment in 1862 .
As Jean Edward Smith notes in his 2002 biography on Grant, the presidential treasury secretary Boutwell reorganized the Treasury by discharging unnecessary employees, started sweeping changes in Bureau of Printing and Engraving to protect the currency from counterfeiters and revitalized tax collections to hasten the collection of revenue. This changes soon led the Tresury having a monthly surplus .
The Grant administration reduced the debt by appromixately 435 million dollar. That was achieved by selling the growing gold surplus at weekly auctions for greenbacks and buying back wartime bonds with the currency . With this Grant ` s treasury secretary Boutwell had established a policy if continued had payed of the national debt in a quarter of a century . Newspapers like the New York Tribune wanted that the Government buy more bonds and Greenbacks, the New York Times praised the the Grant administration `s debt policy .
On other economic fronts did the Grant administration have acomplishments . Under
Grant the nation `s credit was substantially raised. Taxes was reduced by 300 million dollar. Annual interest rates were reduced by approximately 30 million dollar . The U . S balance of trade was changed from 130 million dollar against the United States to 120 million dollar in favor of the United States . He also reduced inflation and to 1873 bolstered economic recovery . He also promoted economy in federal expenditures . His veto of the Inflation Bill in 1874 saved the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 to get worse and the veto was praised by the financial community and many newspapers .
The Resumption of Species Act of 1875 which was signed by Grant and helped to end the crisis in 1879 when the law came in to effect
He also pressed for internal improvements and increased shipbuilding and foreign trade. He also wanted to enhance and improve the commercial marine .
Grant/Wilson campaign poster
In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington, negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He also proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Santo Domingo. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia. Liberian-Grebo War of 1876
The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud. However, Grant eventually released large amounts of gold back onto the market, causing a large-scale financial crisis for many gold investors. Jay Gould had already prepared and quietly sold out while Fisk denied many agreements and hired thugs to intimidate his creditors.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.
Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first vice president, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.
President Grant with his wife, Julia, and son, Jesse, in 1872.
Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."
Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11, issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:
The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart â opportunistic traders who were Jewish. McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed [...] he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."
The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 presidential campaign, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.
Grant's second inauguration as President by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.
Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
* Edwin M. Stanton 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
* William Strong 1870
* Joseph P. Bradley 1870
* Ward Hunt 1873
* Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice) 1874
* Colorado August 1, 1876
* Department of Justice (1870)
* Office of the Solicitor General (1870)
* "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
* Office of the Surgeon General (1871)
* Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)
Ulysses S. Grant in his postbellum.
After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress ShÅken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.
In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.
That same year, Grant was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.
Grant writing his memoirs.
In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
Grant appears on the U.S. $50 bill.
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. It was not until 1958 that Congress, feeling it inappropriate that a former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting a pension to such individuals, a practice that continues to this day. Grant first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and Grant's memoirs are also regarded by such writers as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request, "Water." His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America.
Statue of Grant astride his favorite mount, "Cincinnati", at Vicksburg, Mississippi
*In World War II, the United States produced a tank known as the Grant tank (an upgrade of the American M3 "Lee").
*Grant's portrait appears on the U.S. fifty-dollar bill.
*The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., honors Grant.
*Grant Park in Chicago honors Grant.
*Grant Avenue, a nine block long, north-south street in the Bronx, New York, is named after Grant. It is parallel and adjacent to Sherman Avenue.
*Dupont Street, the main thoroughfare in San Francisco's Chinatown, was renamed Grant Avenue in his honor. The famous dragon gate at the entrance to the district is at the corner of Grant and Bush Street.
*Grant, depicted riding a horse, is honored by a statue at the intersection of Bedford Avenue, Rogers Avenue and Dean Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
*There is a U.S. Grant Bridge over the Ohio River at Portsmouth, Ohio.
*There is a U.S. Grant Memorial Highway (US 52) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
*Counties in twelve U.S. states are named after Grant: Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Grant Parish, Louisiana. Note: Grant Counties in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin were named after other Grants, not Ulysses Grant.
* Grant was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren
* Grant is also a descendant from John Lothropp, who is also an ancestor to Benjamin Franklin
Grant Memorial Statue in Grant Park, Galena, Illinois. Julia Grant remarked that it was the best likeness of her husband, as his hands were thrust into his pockets.
* As a young man, Grant's father, Jesse, taught him the trade of tanning. Jesse Grant had been taught how to tan by Owen Brown, the father of known abolitionist John Brown. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* When Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1864, he agreed to sit down for photographer Mathew Brady. As the sun had begun to set by the time Grant arrived, Brady instructed one of his assistants to open the shades of the skylight in Brady's studio. The assistant slipped and shattered the skylight, causing two-inch-thick shards of glass to rain down around Grant, who had taken his seat as requested. He was unharmed, and showed "the most remarkable display of nerve" that Brady had ever seen. O'Brien, Cormac (2007). "Secret Lives of the Civil War: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the War Between the States".
* Grant was known to visit the Willard Hotel to escape the stress of the White House. A long-standing story is that he referred to the people who approached him in the lobby as "those darn lobbyists," implying that he was the source for the term lobbyist. This story is unlikely to be true since there are examples of the term being used in U.S. and British magazines and newspapers before Grant's presidency. World Wide Words.
* While in California, Grant tried selling ice to San Francisco, but failed when it melted in the warm weather aboard the ship. Smith, Grant, p. 81. . This anecdote is disputed by Edward G. Longacre in "General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man" (2006) in which he says -- in a referenced statement -- that the ice venture had failed because of "an unexpected glut of [ice] imports from Alaska."
* In 1883, Grant was elected the eighth president of the National Rifle Association.
* Grant suffered from tone-deafness. He disliked music intensely and would go out of his way to avoid having to hear any other than patriotic songs. In Jeffrey Shaara's The Last Full Measure - which is set after the Battle of Gettysburg, the subject of his father Michael's 1974 bestseller The Killer Angels - Grant is portrayed as saying, "I know only two songs. One is 'Yankee Doodle'. The other isn't." Whether he actually said this is unclear. Shaara, Jeffrey M. (1998). "The Last Full Measure".
* Grant's wife, First Lady Julia Grant, was cross-eyed. When it was suggested to her that she have an operation to have it corrected, President Grant replied that he liked her that way. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* Grant's favorite brand of bourbon whiskey was Old Crow.
* Grant enjoyed eating cucumbers soaked in vinegar for breakfast.
* An apocryphal story about Grant's drinking has the general's critics going to President Lincoln, charging the military man with being a drunk. Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."
:* A similar story was told of General James Wolfe during the French and Indian Wars. When King George II was told that Wolfe was a "mad dog", he is said to have replied, "Then I'd wish he'd bite the other generals."
* The question "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" was used by Groucho Marx in his radio and TV quiz show, the correct answer to which resulted in a consolation prize to contestants who had won no money. Some contestants thought it was a trick question. Grant's grandson, Ulysses S. Grant IV (a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles) appeared on the program on March 12, 1953.
** This was also featured on an episode of the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, in which in a dream sequence Dorothy competes on Jeopardy against a scholar and her roommate Rose. When asked the question, Dorothy replies Ulysses and is wrong, while Rose replies Cary Grant and is correct.
* In the film Wild Wild West, President Grant is a minor character that must deal with the Loveless Alliance.
Once while in office he was arrested for speeding his horse and buggy and fined $20 and had to walk back to the white house. (www.pocanticohills.org/presidents/know.htm )
* A dispute between Grant and his commanding officer Henry Wager Halleck is the subject of a pivotal question in the film Quiz Show.
* United States presidential election, 1868
* United States presidential election, 1872
* History of the United States (1865â1918)
* Western Theater of the American Civil War
* Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
* U.S. Grant Home, Galena, Illinois
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command, Little, Brown and Company, 1968, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 69-12632.
*Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Garland, Hamlin, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character, Macmillan Company, 1898.
*Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885 86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
*Hesseltine, William B., Ulysses S. Grant: Politician 1935.
* Lewis, Lloyd, Captain Sam Grant, Little, Brown, and Co., 1950, ISBN 0-316-52348-8.
* McFeely, William S., Grant: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Co, 1981, ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
* McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
* Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-395-65994-9.
*Smith, Jean Edward, Grant, Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
*Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861 1865, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
* Official Ulysses Simpson Grant biography from the US Army Center for Military History
* Bunting III, Josiah. Ulysses S. Grant (2004) ISBN 0-8050-6949-6
* William Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 (1905), vol 22
* Hesseltine, William B. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (2001) ISBN 1-931313-85-7 online edition
* Mantell, Martin E., Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
* Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936) online edition
* Rhodes, James Ford., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6 and 7 (1920) vol 6
* Scaturro, Frank J., President Grant Reconsidered (1998).
* Schouler, James., History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
* Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
* Simpson, Brooks D., The Reconstruction Presidents (1998)
* Skidmore, Max J. "The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: a Reconsideration." White House Studies (2005) online
* Badeau, Adam. Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 vols. 1882.
*Ballard, Michael B., Vicksburg, The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-2893-9.
* Bearss, Edwin C., The Vicksburg Campaign, 3 volumes, Morningside Press, 1991, ISBN 0-89029-308-2.
* Carter, Samuel III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863 (1980)
* Catton, Bruce, Grant Moves South, 1960, ISBN 0-316-13207-1; Grant Takes Command, 1968, ISBN 0-316-13210-1; U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954)
* Cavanaugh, Michael A., and William Marvel, The Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of the Crater: "The Horrid Pit," June 25-August 6, 1864 (1989)
* Conger, A. L. The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931)
* Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg (1986).
* Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
* Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
* Korda, Michael. Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (2004) 161 pp
* McWhiney, Grady, Battle in the Wilderness: Grant Meets Lee (1995)
* McDonough, James Lee, Shiloh: In Hell before Night (1977).
* McDonough, James Lee, Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy (1984).
* Maney, R. Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor. Victory and Failure, 1864 (1994).
* Matter, William D., If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (1988)
* Miers, Earl Schenck., The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg. 1955.
* Mosier, John., "Grant", Palgrave MacMillan, 2006 ISBN 1-4039-7136-6.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5 6, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8071-1873-7.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7 12, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8071-2136-3.
* Rhea, Gordon C., To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13 25, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8071-2535-0.
* Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.
* Miller, J. Michael, The North Anna Campaign: "Even to Hell Itself," May 21-26, 1864 (1989).
* Simpson, Brooks D, "Continuous Hammering and Mere Attrition: Lost Cause Critics and the Military Reputation of Ulysses S. Grant," in Cad Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, (2000)
* Steere, Edward, The Wilderness Campaign (1960)
* Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April. 1974.
* Williams, T. Harry, McClellan, Sherman and Grant. 1962.
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs (1885) online edition
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters (Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely, eds.) ( The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-94045058-5
* Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) pp 131-73, on the Memoirs
* Johnson, R. U., and Buel, C. C., eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York, 1887-88; essays by leading generals of both sides; online edition
* Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant (1897, reprinted 2000)
* Sherman, William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. 2 vols. 1875.
* Simon, John Y., ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Southern Illinois University Press (1967- ) multivolume complete edition of letters to and from Grant. As of 2006, vol 1-28 covers through September 1878.
* Extensive essay on Ulysses S. Grant and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* First Inaugural Address
* Second Inaugural Address
* White House Biography
* Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
*Emerson, Col. John W., Grant's Life in the West and His Mississippi Valley Campaigns, U.S. Grant Association website.
* Ulysses S. Grant at Find A Grave
* Many rare General Grant photographs
* Complete Bibliography
* Military biography of Ulysses S. Grant from the Cullum biographies
*
* The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. (1918). "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.
* Collection of US Grant Letters
* Ulysses S. Grant: America's Second Three-Star General article by Ethan Rafuse
* Historic White Haven (Grant-Dent home)
*
|-
|-
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
Andrew Johnson
Rutherford B. Hayes
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Julia Grant
Jesse Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Nellie Grant
Frederick Grant
General-in-Chief
List of United States Presidential religious affiliations
Republican Party (United States)
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
#Military career
April 27
1822
July 23
1885
United States
President of the United States
Union (American Civil War)
American Civil War
Battle of Vicksburg
Confederate
Robert E. Lee
Appomattox Court House
J.F.C. Fuller
Vicksburg Campaign
History of the United States Republican Party
Andrew Jackson
Radical Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Civil Rights
African American history
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home
Georgetown, Ohio
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio River
Pennsylvania
Horsham Township, Pennsylvania
Georgetown, Ohio
Brown County, Ohio
August 22
1848
Julia Boggs Dent
Frederick Dent Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Ellen Wrenshall Grant
Jesse Root Grant
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Mathew Brady
United States Army
Army of the Tennessee
Military Division of the Mississippi
United States Army
United States Army
Mexican-American War
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
American Civil War
Battle of Fort Donelson
Battle of Shiloh
Battle of Vicksburg
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Overland Campaign
Battle of Petersburg
Appomattox Campaign
President of the United States
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
U.S. Congressman
Thomas L. Hamer
Academic administration
March 31
1853
cavalry
Mexican-American War
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
Fort Vancouver
Washington Territory
U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
July 31
1854
Robert C. Buchanan
John Eaton (General)
St. Louis, Missouri
Grant's Farm
Anheuser-Busch
Galena, Illinois
James Buchanan
John C. Frémont
Stephen A. Douglas
Elihu B. Washburne
April 28
2007
War Democrats
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Galena, Illinois
Fort Sumter
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
Illinois
Richard Yates (governor)
21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
Claiborne Jackson
John C. Frémont
Ohio River
Paducah, Kentucky
Confederate States Army
Columbus, Kentucky
Gideon J. Pillow
Battle of Belmont
Andrew H. Foote
Battle of Fort Henry
Tennessee River
Battle of Fort Donelson
Cumberland River
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Henry W. Halleck
Nashville, Tennessee
Don Carlos Buell
March 2
March 17
Battle of Cold Harbor
Mathew Brady
Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard
Battle of Shiloh
April 30
First Battle of Corinth
William T. Sherman
Army of West Tennessee
Army of the Tennessee
June 10
Second Battle of Corinth
Battle of Iuka
Mississippi River
Vicksburg Campaign
U.S. Navy
Charles Anderson Dana
hardtack
John C. Pemberton
Jackson, Mississippi
Battle of Champion Hill
Battle of Vicksburg
July 4
1863
Battle of Gettysburg
Turning point of the American Civil War
July 4
Battle of Chickamauga
William S. Rosecrans
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Braxton Bragg
Lookout Mountain
October 17
George Henry Thomas
William Farrar Smith
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Missionary Ridge
Atlanta, Georgia
Lieutenant General (United States)
George Washington
Winfield Scott
brevet (military)
Congress of the United States
March 2
1864
March 12
United States
William Tecumseh Sherman
Virginia
Army of Northern Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
George G. Meade
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Franz Sigel
Shenandoah Valley
Georgia (U.S. state)
Joseph E. Johnston
Atlanta
George Crook
William W. Averell
West Virginia
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Mobile, Alabama
total war
Overland Campaign
Robert E. Lee
May 4
1864
Army of the Potomac
Rapidan River
Army of Northern Virginia
Battle of the Wilderness
Spotsylvania, Virginia
May 8
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 11
May 12
Battle of Cold Harbor
June 3
James River (Virginia)
Petersburg, Virginia
June 18
Siege of Petersburg
William Tecumseh Sherman
Abraham Lincoln
Jubal A. Early
Shenandoah Valley
Washington, D.C.
Administration (government)
Philip Sheridan
Valley Campaigns of 1864
Sherman's March to the Sea
total war
Carolinas Campaign
Appomattox Court House
April 9
1865
Kirby Smith
Trans-Mississippi Department
June 2
1865
Copperheads
Democratic Party (United States)
July 25
1866
General of the Army of the United States
U.S. Army
Andrew Johnson
Edwin M. Stanton
Tenure of Office Act
History of the United States Republican Party
Republican National Convention
Chicago
U.S. presidential election, 1868
Horatio Seymour
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
United States presidential election, 1872
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Horace Greeley
Reconstruction
Redeemers
Ku Klux Klan
voting rights
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Dominican Republic
Yellowstone National Park
March 1
1872
March 29
2006
Christmas
February 8
1999
Panic of 1873
Robert Schenck
Rutherford B. Hayes
Samuel J. Tilden
U.S. presidential election, 1876
Henry Watterson
Treaty of Washington (1871)
Hamilton Fish
CSS Alabama
Dominican Republic
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Charles Sumner
Horace Greeley
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Liberian-Grebo War
USS Alaska (1868)
Liberia
James Milton Turner
Black Friday (1869)
Jay Gould
James Fisk (financier)
Whiskey Ring
Benjamin H. Bristow
Orville E. Babcock
United States Secretary of War
William W. Belknap
Native Americans in the United States
trading post
Sanborn Incident
William Adams Richardson
Cyrus I. Scofield
Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Vice President of the United States
Schuyler Colfax
United States presidential election, 1872
Henry Wilson
Julia Grant
Jesse Root Grant
anti-Semitism
General Order No. 11 (1862)
Oxford, Mississippi
December 17
1862
Vicksburg Campaign
Tennessee
Mississippi
Kentucky
James H. Wilson
Bertram Korn
U.S. presidential election, 1868
President of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
Salmon P. Chase
March 4
1873
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
Elihu B. Washburne
Hamilton Fish
John A. Rawlins
William T. Sherman
William W. Belknap
Alphonso Taft
J. Donald Cameron
George S. Boutwell
William Adams Richardson
Benjamin Bristow
Lot M. Morrill
Ebenezer R. Hoar
Amos T. Akerman
George Henry Williams
Edwards Pierrepont
Alphonso Taft
John A. J. Creswell
James William Marshall
Marshall Jewell
James N. Tyner
Adolph E. Borie
George M. Robeson
Jacob D. Cox
Columbus Delano
Zachariah Chandler
Supreme Court of the United States
Edwin M. Stanton
William Strong (judge)
Joseph P. Bradley
Ward Hunt
Morrison Remick Waite
Chief Justice of the United States
Colorado
August 1
1876
United States Department of Justice
United States Solicitor General
Chester A. Arthur
Office of Personnel Management
Surgeon General of the United States
National Weather Service
Queen Victoria
Windsor Castle
Prince Bismarck
Emperor Meiji
Empress ShÅken
Imperial Palace
Tokyo
Meiji period
Ryukyu Islands
China
Stalwart (politics)
Roscoe Conkling
Methodist
Republican National Convention
James A. Garfield
New York City
Ferdinand Ward
Wall Street
Grant & Ward
Esophageal cancer
pension
The Century Magazine
Mark Twain
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Julius Caesar
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
New York City
Riverside Park (Manhattan)
General Grant National Memorial
mausoleum
North America
World War II
tank
Grant tank
U.S. fifty-dollar bill
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Grant Park (Chicago)
Chicago
the Bronx
New York
San Francisco, California
Chinatown, San Francisco, California
Bedford Avenue
Crown Heights
Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. Grant Bridge
Ohio River
Portsmouth, Ohio
U.S. Route 52
Counties of the United States
U.S. state
Grant County, Arkansas
Grant County, Kansas
Grant County, Minnesota
Grant County, Nebraska
Grant County, New Mexico
Grant County, North Dakota
Grant County, Oklahoma
Grant County, Washington
Grant County, West Virginia
Grant Parish, Louisiana
Mayflower
Richard Warren
John Lothropp
Benjamin Franklin
abolitionist
John Brown (abolitionist)
Mathew Brady
Willard Hotel
lobbyist
San Francisco
National Rifle Association
Jeffrey Shaara
The Last Full Measure
Michael Shaara
The Killer Angels
First Lady of the United States
Julia Grant
Strabismus
bourbon whiskey
Old Crow
cucumbers
vinegar
breakfast
James Wolfe
French and Indian Wars
King George II
Groucho Marx
You Bet Your Life
Ulysses S. Grant IV
University of California, Los Angeles
The Golden Girls
Cary Grant
Wild Wild West
Henry Wager Halleck
Quiz Show
United States presidential election, 1868
United States presidential election, 1872
History of the United States (1865-1918)
Western Theater of the American Civil War
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
James M. McPherson
Jean Edward Smith
Allan Nevins
Ed Bearss
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
Find A Grave
West Point#Cullum Number
Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Rutherford B. Hayes
Abraham Lincoln
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1868
U.S. presidential election, 1872
Rutherford B. Hayes
Army of the Tennessee
William T. Sherman
Henry W. Halleck
Commanding General of the United States Army
Andrew Johnson
Oldest living United States president
Rutherford B. Hayes
United States
soldier
politician
President of the United States
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
|
Ulysses_S._Grant | Who achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War? | Grant | data/set3/a5 | Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, See military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 July 23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869 1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
Grant first reached national prominence by taking Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862 in the first Union victories of the war. The following year, his brilliant campaign ending in the surrender of Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi andâwith the simultaneous Union victory at Gettysburgâturned the tide of the war in the North's favor. Named commanding general of the Federal armies in 1864, he implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's ability to carry on the war. In 1865, after conducting a costly war of attrition in the East, he accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. Grant has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.
In 1868, Grant was elected president as a Republican. Grant was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed.
Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans. See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.
Ulysses Grant Birthplace, Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home, Georgetown, Ohio
Grant was born in a log cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794 1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798 1883). His father, a tanner, was from Pennsylvania, and his mother was born in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio.
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826 1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (Buck), Ellen Wrenshall Grant (Nellie), and Jesse Root Grant.
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only. Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.
Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846â1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, later becoming his brother-in-law, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.
After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the 4th U.S. Infantry regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial. According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name." McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican War
A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys). His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. McFeely, ch. 5.
Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican. Hesseltine, chapter 6. .
The home of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Infantry in June 1861.
Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.
In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.
Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederates violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, an old friend of Grant's and a West Point classmate, and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers. Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.
Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased against him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.
General Grant at Cold Harbor, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864
In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.
The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in Corinth, Mississippi. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Corinth and Iuka that fall.
In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant spent the winter of 1862 1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.
However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and in a daring move that defied conventional military principles cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles A. Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George H. Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas' chief engineer, William F. "Baldy" Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.
Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas' men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.
Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet appointment), recently re-authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.
In March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.
Poster of "Grant from West Point to Appomattox."
Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.
The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River.
Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a siege.
As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas.
At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democrats who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius: Korda, (2004)
After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army. Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.''
As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.
The second president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In the 1872 election he won by a landslide against the breakaway Liberal Republican party that nominated Horace Greeley.
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed .
Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006. Grant also signed into law making Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application, CRS Report for Congress, 98-301 GOV, updated February 8, 1999, by Stephen W. Stathis
The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.
By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker. Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes: Nevins, Fish 2:811
In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson .
The Grant administration's first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Act to Strengthen the Public Credit which the GOP Congress had passed after Grant ` s inaugural in March 1869 . The act had the effect that the gold price on New York exchange fell to 310 dollar an ounce - the lowest point since the suspension of specie payment in 1862 .
As Jean Edward Smith notes in his 2002 biography on Grant, the presidential treasury secretary Boutwell reorganized the Treasury by discharging unnecessary employees, started sweeping changes in Bureau of Printing and Engraving to protect the currency from counterfeiters and revitalized tax collections to hasten the collection of revenue. This changes soon led the Tresury having a monthly surplus .
The Grant administration reduced the debt by appromixately 435 million dollar. That was achieved by selling the growing gold surplus at weekly auctions for greenbacks and buying back wartime bonds with the currency . With this Grant ` s treasury secretary Boutwell had established a policy if continued had payed of the national debt in a quarter of a century . Newspapers like the New York Tribune wanted that the Government buy more bonds and Greenbacks, the New York Times praised the the Grant administration `s debt policy .
On other economic fronts did the Grant administration have acomplishments . Under
Grant the nation `s credit was substantially raised. Taxes was reduced by 300 million dollar. Annual interest rates were reduced by approximately 30 million dollar . The U . S balance of trade was changed from 130 million dollar against the United States to 120 million dollar in favor of the United States . He also reduced inflation and to 1873 bolstered economic recovery . He also promoted economy in federal expenditures . His veto of the Inflation Bill in 1874 saved the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 to get worse and the veto was praised by the financial community and many newspapers .
The Resumption of Species Act of 1875 which was signed by Grant and helped to end the crisis in 1879 when the law came in to effect
He also pressed for internal improvements and increased shipbuilding and foreign trade. He also wanted to enhance and improve the commercial marine .
Grant/Wilson campaign poster
In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington, negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He also proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Santo Domingo. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia. Liberian-Grebo War of 1876
The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud. However, Grant eventually released large amounts of gold back onto the market, causing a large-scale financial crisis for many gold investors. Jay Gould had already prepared and quietly sold out while Fisk denied many agreements and hired thugs to intimidate his creditors.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.
Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first vice president, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.
President Grant with his wife, Julia, and son, Jesse, in 1872.
Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."
Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11, issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:
The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart â opportunistic traders who were Jewish. McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed [...] he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."
The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 presidential campaign, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.
Grant's second inauguration as President by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.
Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
* Edwin M. Stanton 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
* William Strong 1870
* Joseph P. Bradley 1870
* Ward Hunt 1873
* Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice) 1874
* Colorado August 1, 1876
* Department of Justice (1870)
* Office of the Solicitor General (1870)
* "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
* Office of the Surgeon General (1871)
* Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)
Ulysses S. Grant in his postbellum.
After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress ShÅken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.
In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.
That same year, Grant was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.
Grant writing his memoirs.
In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
Grant appears on the U.S. $50 bill.
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. It was not until 1958 that Congress, feeling it inappropriate that a former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting a pension to such individuals, a practice that continues to this day. Grant first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and Grant's memoirs are also regarded by such writers as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request, "Water." His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America.
Statue of Grant astride his favorite mount, "Cincinnati", at Vicksburg, Mississippi
*In World War II, the United States produced a tank known as the Grant tank (an upgrade of the American M3 "Lee").
*Grant's portrait appears on the U.S. fifty-dollar bill.
*The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., honors Grant.
*Grant Park in Chicago honors Grant.
*Grant Avenue, a nine block long, north-south street in the Bronx, New York, is named after Grant. It is parallel and adjacent to Sherman Avenue.
*Dupont Street, the main thoroughfare in San Francisco's Chinatown, was renamed Grant Avenue in his honor. The famous dragon gate at the entrance to the district is at the corner of Grant and Bush Street.
*Grant, depicted riding a horse, is honored by a statue at the intersection of Bedford Avenue, Rogers Avenue and Dean Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
*There is a U.S. Grant Bridge over the Ohio River at Portsmouth, Ohio.
*There is a U.S. Grant Memorial Highway (US 52) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
*Counties in twelve U.S. states are named after Grant: Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Grant Parish, Louisiana. Note: Grant Counties in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin were named after other Grants, not Ulysses Grant.
* Grant was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren
* Grant is also a descendant from John Lothropp, who is also an ancestor to Benjamin Franklin
Grant Memorial Statue in Grant Park, Galena, Illinois. Julia Grant remarked that it was the best likeness of her husband, as his hands were thrust into his pockets.
* As a young man, Grant's father, Jesse, taught him the trade of tanning. Jesse Grant had been taught how to tan by Owen Brown, the father of known abolitionist John Brown. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* When Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1864, he agreed to sit down for photographer Mathew Brady. As the sun had begun to set by the time Grant arrived, Brady instructed one of his assistants to open the shades of the skylight in Brady's studio. The assistant slipped and shattered the skylight, causing two-inch-thick shards of glass to rain down around Grant, who had taken his seat as requested. He was unharmed, and showed "the most remarkable display of nerve" that Brady had ever seen. O'Brien, Cormac (2007). "Secret Lives of the Civil War: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the War Between the States".
* Grant was known to visit the Willard Hotel to escape the stress of the White House. A long-standing story is that he referred to the people who approached him in the lobby as "those darn lobbyists," implying that he was the source for the term lobbyist. This story is unlikely to be true since there are examples of the term being used in U.S. and British magazines and newspapers before Grant's presidency. World Wide Words.
* While in California, Grant tried selling ice to San Francisco, but failed when it melted in the warm weather aboard the ship. Smith, Grant, p. 81. . This anecdote is disputed by Edward G. Longacre in "General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man" (2006) in which he says -- in a referenced statement -- that the ice venture had failed because of "an unexpected glut of [ice] imports from Alaska."
* In 1883, Grant was elected the eighth president of the National Rifle Association.
* Grant suffered from tone-deafness. He disliked music intensely and would go out of his way to avoid having to hear any other than patriotic songs. In Jeffrey Shaara's The Last Full Measure - which is set after the Battle of Gettysburg, the subject of his father Michael's 1974 bestseller The Killer Angels - Grant is portrayed as saying, "I know only two songs. One is 'Yankee Doodle'. The other isn't." Whether he actually said this is unclear. Shaara, Jeffrey M. (1998). "The Last Full Measure".
* Grant's wife, First Lady Julia Grant, was cross-eyed. When it was suggested to her that she have an operation to have it corrected, President Grant replied that he liked her that way. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* Grant's favorite brand of bourbon whiskey was Old Crow.
* Grant enjoyed eating cucumbers soaked in vinegar for breakfast.
* An apocryphal story about Grant's drinking has the general's critics going to President Lincoln, charging the military man with being a drunk. Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."
:* A similar story was told of General James Wolfe during the French and Indian Wars. When King George II was told that Wolfe was a "mad dog", he is said to have replied, "Then I'd wish he'd bite the other generals."
* The question "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" was used by Groucho Marx in his radio and TV quiz show, the correct answer to which resulted in a consolation prize to contestants who had won no money. Some contestants thought it was a trick question. Grant's grandson, Ulysses S. Grant IV (a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles) appeared on the program on March 12, 1953.
** This was also featured on an episode of the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, in which in a dream sequence Dorothy competes on Jeopardy against a scholar and her roommate Rose. When asked the question, Dorothy replies Ulysses and is wrong, while Rose replies Cary Grant and is correct.
* In the film Wild Wild West, President Grant is a minor character that must deal with the Loveless Alliance.
Once while in office he was arrested for speeding his horse and buggy and fined $20 and had to walk back to the white house. (www.pocanticohills.org/presidents/know.htm )
* A dispute between Grant and his commanding officer Henry Wager Halleck is the subject of a pivotal question in the film Quiz Show.
* United States presidential election, 1868
* United States presidential election, 1872
* History of the United States (1865â1918)
* Western Theater of the American Civil War
* Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
* U.S. Grant Home, Galena, Illinois
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command, Little, Brown and Company, 1968, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 69-12632.
*Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Garland, Hamlin, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character, Macmillan Company, 1898.
*Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885 86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
*Hesseltine, William B., Ulysses S. Grant: Politician 1935.
* Lewis, Lloyd, Captain Sam Grant, Little, Brown, and Co., 1950, ISBN 0-316-52348-8.
* McFeely, William S., Grant: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Co, 1981, ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
* McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
* Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-395-65994-9.
*Smith, Jean Edward, Grant, Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
*Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861 1865, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
* Official Ulysses Simpson Grant biography from the US Army Center for Military History
* Bunting III, Josiah. Ulysses S. Grant (2004) ISBN 0-8050-6949-6
* William Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 (1905), vol 22
* Hesseltine, William B. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (2001) ISBN 1-931313-85-7 online edition
* Mantell, Martin E., Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
* Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936) online edition
* Rhodes, James Ford., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6 and 7 (1920) vol 6
* Scaturro, Frank J., President Grant Reconsidered (1998).
* Schouler, James., History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
* Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
* Simpson, Brooks D., The Reconstruction Presidents (1998)
* Skidmore, Max J. "The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: a Reconsideration." White House Studies (2005) online
* Badeau, Adam. Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 vols. 1882.
*Ballard, Michael B., Vicksburg, The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-2893-9.
* Bearss, Edwin C., The Vicksburg Campaign, 3 volumes, Morningside Press, 1991, ISBN 0-89029-308-2.
* Carter, Samuel III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863 (1980)
* Catton, Bruce, Grant Moves South, 1960, ISBN 0-316-13207-1; Grant Takes Command, 1968, ISBN 0-316-13210-1; U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954)
* Cavanaugh, Michael A., and William Marvel, The Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of the Crater: "The Horrid Pit," June 25-August 6, 1864 (1989)
* Conger, A. L. The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931)
* Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg (1986).
* Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
* Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
* Korda, Michael. Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (2004) 161 pp
* McWhiney, Grady, Battle in the Wilderness: Grant Meets Lee (1995)
* McDonough, James Lee, Shiloh: In Hell before Night (1977).
* McDonough, James Lee, Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy (1984).
* Maney, R. Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor. Victory and Failure, 1864 (1994).
* Matter, William D., If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (1988)
* Miers, Earl Schenck., The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg. 1955.
* Mosier, John., "Grant", Palgrave MacMillan, 2006 ISBN 1-4039-7136-6.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5 6, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8071-1873-7.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7 12, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8071-2136-3.
* Rhea, Gordon C., To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13 25, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8071-2535-0.
* Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.
* Miller, J. Michael, The North Anna Campaign: "Even to Hell Itself," May 21-26, 1864 (1989).
* Simpson, Brooks D, "Continuous Hammering and Mere Attrition: Lost Cause Critics and the Military Reputation of Ulysses S. Grant," in Cad Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, (2000)
* Steere, Edward, The Wilderness Campaign (1960)
* Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April. 1974.
* Williams, T. Harry, McClellan, Sherman and Grant. 1962.
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs (1885) online edition
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters (Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely, eds.) ( The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-94045058-5
* Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) pp 131-73, on the Memoirs
* Johnson, R. U., and Buel, C. C., eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York, 1887-88; essays by leading generals of both sides; online edition
* Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant (1897, reprinted 2000)
* Sherman, William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. 2 vols. 1875.
* Simon, John Y., ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Southern Illinois University Press (1967- ) multivolume complete edition of letters to and from Grant. As of 2006, vol 1-28 covers through September 1878.
* Extensive essay on Ulysses S. Grant and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* First Inaugural Address
* Second Inaugural Address
* White House Biography
* Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
*Emerson, Col. John W., Grant's Life in the West and His Mississippi Valley Campaigns, U.S. Grant Association website.
* Ulysses S. Grant at Find A Grave
* Many rare General Grant photographs
* Complete Bibliography
* Military biography of Ulysses S. Grant from the Cullum biographies
*
* The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. (1918). "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.
* Collection of US Grant Letters
* Ulysses S. Grant: America's Second Three-Star General article by Ethan Rafuse
* Historic White Haven (Grant-Dent home)
*
|-
|-
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
Andrew Johnson
Rutherford B. Hayes
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Julia Grant
Jesse Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Nellie Grant
Frederick Grant
General-in-Chief
List of United States Presidential religious affiliations
Republican Party (United States)
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
#Military career
April 27
1822
July 23
1885
United States
President of the United States
Union (American Civil War)
American Civil War
Battle of Vicksburg
Confederate
Robert E. Lee
Appomattox Court House
J.F.C. Fuller
Vicksburg Campaign
History of the United States Republican Party
Andrew Jackson
Radical Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Civil Rights
African American history
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home
Georgetown, Ohio
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio River
Pennsylvania
Horsham Township, Pennsylvania
Georgetown, Ohio
Brown County, Ohio
August 22
1848
Julia Boggs Dent
Frederick Dent Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Ellen Wrenshall Grant
Jesse Root Grant
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Mathew Brady
United States Army
Army of the Tennessee
Military Division of the Mississippi
United States Army
United States Army
Mexican-American War
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
American Civil War
Battle of Fort Donelson
Battle of Shiloh
Battle of Vicksburg
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Overland Campaign
Battle of Petersburg
Appomattox Campaign
President of the United States
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
U.S. Congressman
Thomas L. Hamer
Academic administration
March 31
1853
cavalry
Mexican-American War
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
Fort Vancouver
Washington Territory
U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
July 31
1854
Robert C. Buchanan
John Eaton (General)
St. Louis, Missouri
Grant's Farm
Anheuser-Busch
Galena, Illinois
James Buchanan
John C. Frémont
Stephen A. Douglas
Elihu B. Washburne
April 28
2007
War Democrats
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Galena, Illinois
Fort Sumter
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
Illinois
Richard Yates (governor)
21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
Claiborne Jackson
John C. Frémont
Ohio River
Paducah, Kentucky
Confederate States Army
Columbus, Kentucky
Gideon J. Pillow
Battle of Belmont
Andrew H. Foote
Battle of Fort Henry
Tennessee River
Battle of Fort Donelson
Cumberland River
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Henry W. Halleck
Nashville, Tennessee
Don Carlos Buell
March 2
March 17
Battle of Cold Harbor
Mathew Brady
Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard
Battle of Shiloh
April 30
First Battle of Corinth
William T. Sherman
Army of West Tennessee
Army of the Tennessee
June 10
Second Battle of Corinth
Battle of Iuka
Mississippi River
Vicksburg Campaign
U.S. Navy
Charles Anderson Dana
hardtack
John C. Pemberton
Jackson, Mississippi
Battle of Champion Hill
Battle of Vicksburg
July 4
1863
Battle of Gettysburg
Turning point of the American Civil War
July 4
Battle of Chickamauga
William S. Rosecrans
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Braxton Bragg
Lookout Mountain
October 17
George Henry Thomas
William Farrar Smith
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Missionary Ridge
Atlanta, Georgia
Lieutenant General (United States)
George Washington
Winfield Scott
brevet (military)
Congress of the United States
March 2
1864
March 12
United States
William Tecumseh Sherman
Virginia
Army of Northern Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
George G. Meade
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Franz Sigel
Shenandoah Valley
Georgia (U.S. state)
Joseph E. Johnston
Atlanta
George Crook
William W. Averell
West Virginia
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Mobile, Alabama
total war
Overland Campaign
Robert E. Lee
May 4
1864
Army of the Potomac
Rapidan River
Army of Northern Virginia
Battle of the Wilderness
Spotsylvania, Virginia
May 8
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 11
May 12
Battle of Cold Harbor
June 3
James River (Virginia)
Petersburg, Virginia
June 18
Siege of Petersburg
William Tecumseh Sherman
Abraham Lincoln
Jubal A. Early
Shenandoah Valley
Washington, D.C.
Administration (government)
Philip Sheridan
Valley Campaigns of 1864
Sherman's March to the Sea
total war
Carolinas Campaign
Appomattox Court House
April 9
1865
Kirby Smith
Trans-Mississippi Department
June 2
1865
Copperheads
Democratic Party (United States)
July 25
1866
General of the Army of the United States
U.S. Army
Andrew Johnson
Edwin M. Stanton
Tenure of Office Act
History of the United States Republican Party
Republican National Convention
Chicago
U.S. presidential election, 1868
Horatio Seymour
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
United States presidential election, 1872
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Horace Greeley
Reconstruction
Redeemers
Ku Klux Klan
voting rights
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Dominican Republic
Yellowstone National Park
March 1
1872
March 29
2006
Christmas
February 8
1999
Panic of 1873
Robert Schenck
Rutherford B. Hayes
Samuel J. Tilden
U.S. presidential election, 1876
Henry Watterson
Treaty of Washington (1871)
Hamilton Fish
CSS Alabama
Dominican Republic
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Charles Sumner
Horace Greeley
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Liberian-Grebo War
USS Alaska (1868)
Liberia
James Milton Turner
Black Friday (1869)
Jay Gould
James Fisk (financier)
Whiskey Ring
Benjamin H. Bristow
Orville E. Babcock
United States Secretary of War
William W. Belknap
Native Americans in the United States
trading post
Sanborn Incident
William Adams Richardson
Cyrus I. Scofield
Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Vice President of the United States
Schuyler Colfax
United States presidential election, 1872
Henry Wilson
Julia Grant
Jesse Root Grant
anti-Semitism
General Order No. 11 (1862)
Oxford, Mississippi
December 17
1862
Vicksburg Campaign
Tennessee
Mississippi
Kentucky
James H. Wilson
Bertram Korn
U.S. presidential election, 1868
President of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
Salmon P. Chase
March 4
1873
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
Elihu B. Washburne
Hamilton Fish
John A. Rawlins
William T. Sherman
William W. Belknap
Alphonso Taft
J. Donald Cameron
George S. Boutwell
William Adams Richardson
Benjamin Bristow
Lot M. Morrill
Ebenezer R. Hoar
Amos T. Akerman
George Henry Williams
Edwards Pierrepont
Alphonso Taft
John A. J. Creswell
James William Marshall
Marshall Jewell
James N. Tyner
Adolph E. Borie
George M. Robeson
Jacob D. Cox
Columbus Delano
Zachariah Chandler
Supreme Court of the United States
Edwin M. Stanton
William Strong (judge)
Joseph P. Bradley
Ward Hunt
Morrison Remick Waite
Chief Justice of the United States
Colorado
August 1
1876
United States Department of Justice
United States Solicitor General
Chester A. Arthur
Office of Personnel Management
Surgeon General of the United States
National Weather Service
Queen Victoria
Windsor Castle
Prince Bismarck
Emperor Meiji
Empress ShÅken
Imperial Palace
Tokyo
Meiji period
Ryukyu Islands
China
Stalwart (politics)
Roscoe Conkling
Methodist
Republican National Convention
James A. Garfield
New York City
Ferdinand Ward
Wall Street
Grant & Ward
Esophageal cancer
pension
The Century Magazine
Mark Twain
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Julius Caesar
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
New York City
Riverside Park (Manhattan)
General Grant National Memorial
mausoleum
North America
World War II
tank
Grant tank
U.S. fifty-dollar bill
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Grant Park (Chicago)
Chicago
the Bronx
New York
San Francisco, California
Chinatown, San Francisco, California
Bedford Avenue
Crown Heights
Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. Grant Bridge
Ohio River
Portsmouth, Ohio
U.S. Route 52
Counties of the United States
U.S. state
Grant County, Arkansas
Grant County, Kansas
Grant County, Minnesota
Grant County, Nebraska
Grant County, New Mexico
Grant County, North Dakota
Grant County, Oklahoma
Grant County, Washington
Grant County, West Virginia
Grant Parish, Louisiana
Mayflower
Richard Warren
John Lothropp
Benjamin Franklin
abolitionist
John Brown (abolitionist)
Mathew Brady
Willard Hotel
lobbyist
San Francisco
National Rifle Association
Jeffrey Shaara
The Last Full Measure
Michael Shaara
The Killer Angels
First Lady of the United States
Julia Grant
Strabismus
bourbon whiskey
Old Crow
cucumbers
vinegar
breakfast
James Wolfe
French and Indian Wars
King George II
Groucho Marx
You Bet Your Life
Ulysses S. Grant IV
University of California, Los Angeles
The Golden Girls
Cary Grant
Wild Wild West
Henry Wager Halleck
Quiz Show
United States presidential election, 1868
United States presidential election, 1872
History of the United States (1865-1918)
Western Theater of the American Civil War
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
James M. McPherson
Jean Edward Smith
Allan Nevins
Ed Bearss
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
Find A Grave
West Point#Cullum Number
Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Rutherford B. Hayes
Abraham Lincoln
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1868
U.S. presidential election, 1872
Rutherford B. Hayes
Army of the Tennessee
William T. Sherman
Henry W. Halleck
Commanding General of the United States Army
Andrew Johnson
Oldest living United States president
Rutherford B. Hayes
United States
soldier
politician
President of the United States
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
|
Ulysses_S._Grant | Grant was elected president as a Republican in what year? | 1868 | data/set3/a5 | Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, See military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 July 23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869 1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
Grant first reached national prominence by taking Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862 in the first Union victories of the war. The following year, his brilliant campaign ending in the surrender of Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi andâwith the simultaneous Union victory at Gettysburgâturned the tide of the war in the North's favor. Named commanding general of the Federal armies in 1864, he implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's ability to carry on the war. In 1865, after conducting a costly war of attrition in the East, he accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. Grant has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.
In 1868, Grant was elected president as a Republican. Grant was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed.
Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans. See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.
Ulysses Grant Birthplace, Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home, Georgetown, Ohio
Grant was born in a log cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794 1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798 1883). His father, a tanner, was from Pennsylvania, and his mother was born in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio.
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826 1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (Buck), Ellen Wrenshall Grant (Nellie), and Jesse Root Grant.
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only. Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.
Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846â1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, later becoming his brother-in-law, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.
After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the 4th U.S. Infantry regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial. According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name." McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican War
A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys). His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. McFeely, ch. 5.
Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican. Hesseltine, chapter 6. .
The home of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Infantry in June 1861.
Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.
In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.
Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederates violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, an old friend of Grant's and a West Point classmate, and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers. Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.
Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased against him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.
General Grant at Cold Harbor, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864
In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.
The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in Corinth, Mississippi. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Corinth and Iuka that fall.
In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant spent the winter of 1862 1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.
However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and in a daring move that defied conventional military principles cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles A. Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George H. Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas' chief engineer, William F. "Baldy" Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.
Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas' men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.
Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet appointment), recently re-authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.
In March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.
Poster of "Grant from West Point to Appomattox."
Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.
The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River.
Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a siege.
As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas.
At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democrats who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius: Korda, (2004)
After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army. Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.''
As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.
The second president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In the 1872 election he won by a landslide against the breakaway Liberal Republican party that nominated Horace Greeley.
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed .
Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006. Grant also signed into law making Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application, CRS Report for Congress, 98-301 GOV, updated February 8, 1999, by Stephen W. Stathis
The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.
By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker. Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes: Nevins, Fish 2:811
In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson .
The Grant administration's first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Act to Strengthen the Public Credit which the GOP Congress had passed after Grant ` s inaugural in March 1869 . The act had the effect that the gold price on New York exchange fell to 310 dollar an ounce - the lowest point since the suspension of specie payment in 1862 .
As Jean Edward Smith notes in his 2002 biography on Grant, the presidential treasury secretary Boutwell reorganized the Treasury by discharging unnecessary employees, started sweeping changes in Bureau of Printing and Engraving to protect the currency from counterfeiters and revitalized tax collections to hasten the collection of revenue. This changes soon led the Tresury having a monthly surplus .
The Grant administration reduced the debt by appromixately 435 million dollar. That was achieved by selling the growing gold surplus at weekly auctions for greenbacks and buying back wartime bonds with the currency . With this Grant ` s treasury secretary Boutwell had established a policy if continued had payed of the national debt in a quarter of a century . Newspapers like the New York Tribune wanted that the Government buy more bonds and Greenbacks, the New York Times praised the the Grant administration `s debt policy .
On other economic fronts did the Grant administration have acomplishments . Under
Grant the nation `s credit was substantially raised. Taxes was reduced by 300 million dollar. Annual interest rates were reduced by approximately 30 million dollar . The U . S balance of trade was changed from 130 million dollar against the United States to 120 million dollar in favor of the United States . He also reduced inflation and to 1873 bolstered economic recovery . He also promoted economy in federal expenditures . His veto of the Inflation Bill in 1874 saved the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 to get worse and the veto was praised by the financial community and many newspapers .
The Resumption of Species Act of 1875 which was signed by Grant and helped to end the crisis in 1879 when the law came in to effect
He also pressed for internal improvements and increased shipbuilding and foreign trade. He also wanted to enhance and improve the commercial marine .
Grant/Wilson campaign poster
In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington, negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He also proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Santo Domingo. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia. Liberian-Grebo War of 1876
The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud. However, Grant eventually released large amounts of gold back onto the market, causing a large-scale financial crisis for many gold investors. Jay Gould had already prepared and quietly sold out while Fisk denied many agreements and hired thugs to intimidate his creditors.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.
Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first vice president, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.
President Grant with his wife, Julia, and son, Jesse, in 1872.
Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."
Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11, issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:
The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart â opportunistic traders who were Jewish. McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed [...] he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."
The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 presidential campaign, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.
Grant's second inauguration as President by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.
Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
* Edwin M. Stanton 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
* William Strong 1870
* Joseph P. Bradley 1870
* Ward Hunt 1873
* Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice) 1874
* Colorado August 1, 1876
* Department of Justice (1870)
* Office of the Solicitor General (1870)
* "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
* Office of the Surgeon General (1871)
* Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)
Ulysses S. Grant in his postbellum.
After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress ShÅken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.
In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.
That same year, Grant was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.
Grant writing his memoirs.
In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
Grant appears on the U.S. $50 bill.
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. It was not until 1958 that Congress, feeling it inappropriate that a former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting a pension to such individuals, a practice that continues to this day. Grant first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and Grant's memoirs are also regarded by such writers as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request, "Water." His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America.
Statue of Grant astride his favorite mount, "Cincinnati", at Vicksburg, Mississippi
*In World War II, the United States produced a tank known as the Grant tank (an upgrade of the American M3 "Lee").
*Grant's portrait appears on the U.S. fifty-dollar bill.
*The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., honors Grant.
*Grant Park in Chicago honors Grant.
*Grant Avenue, a nine block long, north-south street in the Bronx, New York, is named after Grant. It is parallel and adjacent to Sherman Avenue.
*Dupont Street, the main thoroughfare in San Francisco's Chinatown, was renamed Grant Avenue in his honor. The famous dragon gate at the entrance to the district is at the corner of Grant and Bush Street.
*Grant, depicted riding a horse, is honored by a statue at the intersection of Bedford Avenue, Rogers Avenue and Dean Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
*There is a U.S. Grant Bridge over the Ohio River at Portsmouth, Ohio.
*There is a U.S. Grant Memorial Highway (US 52) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
*Counties in twelve U.S. states are named after Grant: Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Grant Parish, Louisiana. Note: Grant Counties in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin were named after other Grants, not Ulysses Grant.
* Grant was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren
* Grant is also a descendant from John Lothropp, who is also an ancestor to Benjamin Franklin
Grant Memorial Statue in Grant Park, Galena, Illinois. Julia Grant remarked that it was the best likeness of her husband, as his hands were thrust into his pockets.
* As a young man, Grant's father, Jesse, taught him the trade of tanning. Jesse Grant had been taught how to tan by Owen Brown, the father of known abolitionist John Brown. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* When Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1864, he agreed to sit down for photographer Mathew Brady. As the sun had begun to set by the time Grant arrived, Brady instructed one of his assistants to open the shades of the skylight in Brady's studio. The assistant slipped and shattered the skylight, causing two-inch-thick shards of glass to rain down around Grant, who had taken his seat as requested. He was unharmed, and showed "the most remarkable display of nerve" that Brady had ever seen. O'Brien, Cormac (2007). "Secret Lives of the Civil War: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the War Between the States".
* Grant was known to visit the Willard Hotel to escape the stress of the White House. A long-standing story is that he referred to the people who approached him in the lobby as "those darn lobbyists," implying that he was the source for the term lobbyist. This story is unlikely to be true since there are examples of the term being used in U.S. and British magazines and newspapers before Grant's presidency. World Wide Words.
* While in California, Grant tried selling ice to San Francisco, but failed when it melted in the warm weather aboard the ship. Smith, Grant, p. 81. . This anecdote is disputed by Edward G. Longacre in "General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man" (2006) in which he says -- in a referenced statement -- that the ice venture had failed because of "an unexpected glut of [ice] imports from Alaska."
* In 1883, Grant was elected the eighth president of the National Rifle Association.
* Grant suffered from tone-deafness. He disliked music intensely and would go out of his way to avoid having to hear any other than patriotic songs. In Jeffrey Shaara's The Last Full Measure - which is set after the Battle of Gettysburg, the subject of his father Michael's 1974 bestseller The Killer Angels - Grant is portrayed as saying, "I know only two songs. One is 'Yankee Doodle'. The other isn't." Whether he actually said this is unclear. Shaara, Jeffrey M. (1998). "The Last Full Measure".
* Grant's wife, First Lady Julia Grant, was cross-eyed. When it was suggested to her that she have an operation to have it corrected, President Grant replied that he liked her that way. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* Grant's favorite brand of bourbon whiskey was Old Crow.
* Grant enjoyed eating cucumbers soaked in vinegar for breakfast.
* An apocryphal story about Grant's drinking has the general's critics going to President Lincoln, charging the military man with being a drunk. Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."
:* A similar story was told of General James Wolfe during the French and Indian Wars. When King George II was told that Wolfe was a "mad dog", he is said to have replied, "Then I'd wish he'd bite the other generals."
* The question "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" was used by Groucho Marx in his radio and TV quiz show, the correct answer to which resulted in a consolation prize to contestants who had won no money. Some contestants thought it was a trick question. Grant's grandson, Ulysses S. Grant IV (a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles) appeared on the program on March 12, 1953.
** This was also featured on an episode of the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, in which in a dream sequence Dorothy competes on Jeopardy against a scholar and her roommate Rose. When asked the question, Dorothy replies Ulysses and is wrong, while Rose replies Cary Grant and is correct.
* In the film Wild Wild West, President Grant is a minor character that must deal with the Loveless Alliance.
Once while in office he was arrested for speeding his horse and buggy and fined $20 and had to walk back to the white house. (www.pocanticohills.org/presidents/know.htm )
* A dispute between Grant and his commanding officer Henry Wager Halleck is the subject of a pivotal question in the film Quiz Show.
* United States presidential election, 1868
* United States presidential election, 1872
* History of the United States (1865â1918)
* Western Theater of the American Civil War
* Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
* U.S. Grant Home, Galena, Illinois
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command, Little, Brown and Company, 1968, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 69-12632.
*Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Garland, Hamlin, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character, Macmillan Company, 1898.
*Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885 86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
*Hesseltine, William B., Ulysses S. Grant: Politician 1935.
* Lewis, Lloyd, Captain Sam Grant, Little, Brown, and Co., 1950, ISBN 0-316-52348-8.
* McFeely, William S., Grant: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Co, 1981, ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
* McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
* Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-395-65994-9.
*Smith, Jean Edward, Grant, Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
*Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861 1865, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
* Official Ulysses Simpson Grant biography from the US Army Center for Military History
* Bunting III, Josiah. Ulysses S. Grant (2004) ISBN 0-8050-6949-6
* William Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 (1905), vol 22
* Hesseltine, William B. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (2001) ISBN 1-931313-85-7 online edition
* Mantell, Martin E., Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
* Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936) online edition
* Rhodes, James Ford., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6 and 7 (1920) vol 6
* Scaturro, Frank J., President Grant Reconsidered (1998).
* Schouler, James., History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
* Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
* Simpson, Brooks D., The Reconstruction Presidents (1998)
* Skidmore, Max J. "The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: a Reconsideration." White House Studies (2005) online
* Badeau, Adam. Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 vols. 1882.
*Ballard, Michael B., Vicksburg, The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-2893-9.
* Bearss, Edwin C., The Vicksburg Campaign, 3 volumes, Morningside Press, 1991, ISBN 0-89029-308-2.
* Carter, Samuel III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863 (1980)
* Catton, Bruce, Grant Moves South, 1960, ISBN 0-316-13207-1; Grant Takes Command, 1968, ISBN 0-316-13210-1; U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954)
* Cavanaugh, Michael A., and William Marvel, The Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of the Crater: "The Horrid Pit," June 25-August 6, 1864 (1989)
* Conger, A. L. The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931)
* Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg (1986).
* Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
* Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
* Korda, Michael. Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (2004) 161 pp
* McWhiney, Grady, Battle in the Wilderness: Grant Meets Lee (1995)
* McDonough, James Lee, Shiloh: In Hell before Night (1977).
* McDonough, James Lee, Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy (1984).
* Maney, R. Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor. Victory and Failure, 1864 (1994).
* Matter, William D., If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (1988)
* Miers, Earl Schenck., The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg. 1955.
* Mosier, John., "Grant", Palgrave MacMillan, 2006 ISBN 1-4039-7136-6.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5 6, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8071-1873-7.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7 12, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8071-2136-3.
* Rhea, Gordon C., To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13 25, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8071-2535-0.
* Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.
* Miller, J. Michael, The North Anna Campaign: "Even to Hell Itself," May 21-26, 1864 (1989).
* Simpson, Brooks D, "Continuous Hammering and Mere Attrition: Lost Cause Critics and the Military Reputation of Ulysses S. Grant," in Cad Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, (2000)
* Steere, Edward, The Wilderness Campaign (1960)
* Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April. 1974.
* Williams, T. Harry, McClellan, Sherman and Grant. 1962.
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs (1885) online edition
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters (Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely, eds.) ( The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-94045058-5
* Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) pp 131-73, on the Memoirs
* Johnson, R. U., and Buel, C. C., eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York, 1887-88; essays by leading generals of both sides; online edition
* Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant (1897, reprinted 2000)
* Sherman, William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. 2 vols. 1875.
* Simon, John Y., ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Southern Illinois University Press (1967- ) multivolume complete edition of letters to and from Grant. As of 2006, vol 1-28 covers through September 1878.
* Extensive essay on Ulysses S. Grant and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* First Inaugural Address
* Second Inaugural Address
* White House Biography
* Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
*Emerson, Col. John W., Grant's Life in the West and His Mississippi Valley Campaigns, U.S. Grant Association website.
* Ulysses S. Grant at Find A Grave
* Many rare General Grant photographs
* Complete Bibliography
* Military biography of Ulysses S. Grant from the Cullum biographies
*
* The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. (1918). "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.
* Collection of US Grant Letters
* Ulysses S. Grant: America's Second Three-Star General article by Ethan Rafuse
* Historic White Haven (Grant-Dent home)
*
|-
|-
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
Andrew Johnson
Rutherford B. Hayes
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Julia Grant
Jesse Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Nellie Grant
Frederick Grant
General-in-Chief
List of United States Presidential religious affiliations
Republican Party (United States)
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
#Military career
April 27
1822
July 23
1885
United States
President of the United States
Union (American Civil War)
American Civil War
Battle of Vicksburg
Confederate
Robert E. Lee
Appomattox Court House
J.F.C. Fuller
Vicksburg Campaign
History of the United States Republican Party
Andrew Jackson
Radical Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Civil Rights
African American history
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home
Georgetown, Ohio
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio River
Pennsylvania
Horsham Township, Pennsylvania
Georgetown, Ohio
Brown County, Ohio
August 22
1848
Julia Boggs Dent
Frederick Dent Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Ellen Wrenshall Grant
Jesse Root Grant
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Mathew Brady
United States Army
Army of the Tennessee
Military Division of the Mississippi
United States Army
United States Army
Mexican-American War
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
American Civil War
Battle of Fort Donelson
Battle of Shiloh
Battle of Vicksburg
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Overland Campaign
Battle of Petersburg
Appomattox Campaign
President of the United States
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
U.S. Congressman
Thomas L. Hamer
Academic administration
March 31
1853
cavalry
Mexican-American War
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
Fort Vancouver
Washington Territory
U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
July 31
1854
Robert C. Buchanan
John Eaton (General)
St. Louis, Missouri
Grant's Farm
Anheuser-Busch
Galena, Illinois
James Buchanan
John C. Frémont
Stephen A. Douglas
Elihu B. Washburne
April 28
2007
War Democrats
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Galena, Illinois
Fort Sumter
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
Illinois
Richard Yates (governor)
21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
Claiborne Jackson
John C. Frémont
Ohio River
Paducah, Kentucky
Confederate States Army
Columbus, Kentucky
Gideon J. Pillow
Battle of Belmont
Andrew H. Foote
Battle of Fort Henry
Tennessee River
Battle of Fort Donelson
Cumberland River
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Henry W. Halleck
Nashville, Tennessee
Don Carlos Buell
March 2
March 17
Battle of Cold Harbor
Mathew Brady
Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard
Battle of Shiloh
April 30
First Battle of Corinth
William T. Sherman
Army of West Tennessee
Army of the Tennessee
June 10
Second Battle of Corinth
Battle of Iuka
Mississippi River
Vicksburg Campaign
U.S. Navy
Charles Anderson Dana
hardtack
John C. Pemberton
Jackson, Mississippi
Battle of Champion Hill
Battle of Vicksburg
July 4
1863
Battle of Gettysburg
Turning point of the American Civil War
July 4
Battle of Chickamauga
William S. Rosecrans
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Braxton Bragg
Lookout Mountain
October 17
George Henry Thomas
William Farrar Smith
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Missionary Ridge
Atlanta, Georgia
Lieutenant General (United States)
George Washington
Winfield Scott
brevet (military)
Congress of the United States
March 2
1864
March 12
United States
William Tecumseh Sherman
Virginia
Army of Northern Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
George G. Meade
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Franz Sigel
Shenandoah Valley
Georgia (U.S. state)
Joseph E. Johnston
Atlanta
George Crook
William W. Averell
West Virginia
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Mobile, Alabama
total war
Overland Campaign
Robert E. Lee
May 4
1864
Army of the Potomac
Rapidan River
Army of Northern Virginia
Battle of the Wilderness
Spotsylvania, Virginia
May 8
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 11
May 12
Battle of Cold Harbor
June 3
James River (Virginia)
Petersburg, Virginia
June 18
Siege of Petersburg
William Tecumseh Sherman
Abraham Lincoln
Jubal A. Early
Shenandoah Valley
Washington, D.C.
Administration (government)
Philip Sheridan
Valley Campaigns of 1864
Sherman's March to the Sea
total war
Carolinas Campaign
Appomattox Court House
April 9
1865
Kirby Smith
Trans-Mississippi Department
June 2
1865
Copperheads
Democratic Party (United States)
July 25
1866
General of the Army of the United States
U.S. Army
Andrew Johnson
Edwin M. Stanton
Tenure of Office Act
History of the United States Republican Party
Republican National Convention
Chicago
U.S. presidential election, 1868
Horatio Seymour
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
United States presidential election, 1872
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Horace Greeley
Reconstruction
Redeemers
Ku Klux Klan
voting rights
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Dominican Republic
Yellowstone National Park
March 1
1872
March 29
2006
Christmas
February 8
1999
Panic of 1873
Robert Schenck
Rutherford B. Hayes
Samuel J. Tilden
U.S. presidential election, 1876
Henry Watterson
Treaty of Washington (1871)
Hamilton Fish
CSS Alabama
Dominican Republic
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Charles Sumner
Horace Greeley
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Liberian-Grebo War
USS Alaska (1868)
Liberia
James Milton Turner
Black Friday (1869)
Jay Gould
James Fisk (financier)
Whiskey Ring
Benjamin H. Bristow
Orville E. Babcock
United States Secretary of War
William W. Belknap
Native Americans in the United States
trading post
Sanborn Incident
William Adams Richardson
Cyrus I. Scofield
Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Vice President of the United States
Schuyler Colfax
United States presidential election, 1872
Henry Wilson
Julia Grant
Jesse Root Grant
anti-Semitism
General Order No. 11 (1862)
Oxford, Mississippi
December 17
1862
Vicksburg Campaign
Tennessee
Mississippi
Kentucky
James H. Wilson
Bertram Korn
U.S. presidential election, 1868
President of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
Salmon P. Chase
March 4
1873
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
Elihu B. Washburne
Hamilton Fish
John A. Rawlins
William T. Sherman
William W. Belknap
Alphonso Taft
J. Donald Cameron
George S. Boutwell
William Adams Richardson
Benjamin Bristow
Lot M. Morrill
Ebenezer R. Hoar
Amos T. Akerman
George Henry Williams
Edwards Pierrepont
Alphonso Taft
John A. J. Creswell
James William Marshall
Marshall Jewell
James N. Tyner
Adolph E. Borie
George M. Robeson
Jacob D. Cox
Columbus Delano
Zachariah Chandler
Supreme Court of the United States
Edwin M. Stanton
William Strong (judge)
Joseph P. Bradley
Ward Hunt
Morrison Remick Waite
Chief Justice of the United States
Colorado
August 1
1876
United States Department of Justice
United States Solicitor General
Chester A. Arthur
Office of Personnel Management
Surgeon General of the United States
National Weather Service
Queen Victoria
Windsor Castle
Prince Bismarck
Emperor Meiji
Empress ShÅken
Imperial Palace
Tokyo
Meiji period
Ryukyu Islands
China
Stalwart (politics)
Roscoe Conkling
Methodist
Republican National Convention
James A. Garfield
New York City
Ferdinand Ward
Wall Street
Grant & Ward
Esophageal cancer
pension
The Century Magazine
Mark Twain
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Julius Caesar
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
New York City
Riverside Park (Manhattan)
General Grant National Memorial
mausoleum
North America
World War II
tank
Grant tank
U.S. fifty-dollar bill
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Grant Park (Chicago)
Chicago
the Bronx
New York
San Francisco, California
Chinatown, San Francisco, California
Bedford Avenue
Crown Heights
Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. Grant Bridge
Ohio River
Portsmouth, Ohio
U.S. Route 52
Counties of the United States
U.S. state
Grant County, Arkansas
Grant County, Kansas
Grant County, Minnesota
Grant County, Nebraska
Grant County, New Mexico
Grant County, North Dakota
Grant County, Oklahoma
Grant County, Washington
Grant County, West Virginia
Grant Parish, Louisiana
Mayflower
Richard Warren
John Lothropp
Benjamin Franklin
abolitionist
John Brown (abolitionist)
Mathew Brady
Willard Hotel
lobbyist
San Francisco
National Rifle Association
Jeffrey Shaara
The Last Full Measure
Michael Shaara
The Killer Angels
First Lady of the United States
Julia Grant
Strabismus
bourbon whiskey
Old Crow
cucumbers
vinegar
breakfast
James Wolfe
French and Indian Wars
King George II
Groucho Marx
You Bet Your Life
Ulysses S. Grant IV
University of California, Los Angeles
The Golden Girls
Cary Grant
Wild Wild West
Henry Wager Halleck
Quiz Show
United States presidential election, 1868
United States presidential election, 1872
History of the United States (1865-1918)
Western Theater of the American Civil War
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
James M. McPherson
Jean Edward Smith
Allan Nevins
Ed Bearss
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
Find A Grave
West Point#Cullum Number
Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Rutherford B. Hayes
Abraham Lincoln
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1868
U.S. presidential election, 1872
Rutherford B. Hayes
Army of the Tennessee
William T. Sherman
Henry W. Halleck
Commanding General of the United States Army
Andrew Johnson
Oldest living United States president
Rutherford B. Hayes
United States
soldier
politician
President of the United States
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
|
Ulysses_S._Grant | Who took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan? | Grant | data/set3/a5 | Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, See military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 July 23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869 1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
Grant first reached national prominence by taking Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862 in the first Union victories of the war. The following year, his brilliant campaign ending in the surrender of Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi andâwith the simultaneous Union victory at Gettysburgâturned the tide of the war in the North's favor. Named commanding general of the Federal armies in 1864, he implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's ability to carry on the war. In 1865, after conducting a costly war of attrition in the East, he accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. Grant has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.
In 1868, Grant was elected president as a Republican. Grant was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed.
Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans. See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.
Ulysses Grant Birthplace, Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home, Georgetown, Ohio
Grant was born in a log cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794 1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798 1883). His father, a tanner, was from Pennsylvania, and his mother was born in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio.
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826 1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (Buck), Ellen Wrenshall Grant (Nellie), and Jesse Root Grant.
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only. Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.
Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846â1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, later becoming his brother-in-law, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.
After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the 4th U.S. Infantry regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial. According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name." McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican War
A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys). His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. McFeely, ch. 5.
Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican. Hesseltine, chapter 6. .
The home of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Infantry in June 1861.
Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.
In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.
Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederates violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, an old friend of Grant's and a West Point classmate, and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers. Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.
Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased against him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.
General Grant at Cold Harbor, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864
In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.
The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in Corinth, Mississippi. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Corinth and Iuka that fall.
In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant spent the winter of 1862 1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.
However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and in a daring move that defied conventional military principles cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles A. Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George H. Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas' chief engineer, William F. "Baldy" Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.
Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas' men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.
Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet appointment), recently re-authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.
In March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.
Poster of "Grant from West Point to Appomattox."
Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.
The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River.
Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a siege.
As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas.
At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democrats who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius: Korda, (2004)
After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army. Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.''
As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.
The second president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In the 1872 election he won by a landslide against the breakaway Liberal Republican party that nominated Horace Greeley.
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed .
Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006. Grant also signed into law making Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application, CRS Report for Congress, 98-301 GOV, updated February 8, 1999, by Stephen W. Stathis
The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.
By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker. Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes: Nevins, Fish 2:811
In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson .
The Grant administration's first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Act to Strengthen the Public Credit which the GOP Congress had passed after Grant ` s inaugural in March 1869 . The act had the effect that the gold price on New York exchange fell to 310 dollar an ounce - the lowest point since the suspension of specie payment in 1862 .
As Jean Edward Smith notes in his 2002 biography on Grant, the presidential treasury secretary Boutwell reorganized the Treasury by discharging unnecessary employees, started sweeping changes in Bureau of Printing and Engraving to protect the currency from counterfeiters and revitalized tax collections to hasten the collection of revenue. This changes soon led the Tresury having a monthly surplus .
The Grant administration reduced the debt by appromixately 435 million dollar. That was achieved by selling the growing gold surplus at weekly auctions for greenbacks and buying back wartime bonds with the currency . With this Grant ` s treasury secretary Boutwell had established a policy if continued had payed of the national debt in a quarter of a century . Newspapers like the New York Tribune wanted that the Government buy more bonds and Greenbacks, the New York Times praised the the Grant administration `s debt policy .
On other economic fronts did the Grant administration have acomplishments . Under
Grant the nation `s credit was substantially raised. Taxes was reduced by 300 million dollar. Annual interest rates were reduced by approximately 30 million dollar . The U . S balance of trade was changed from 130 million dollar against the United States to 120 million dollar in favor of the United States . He also reduced inflation and to 1873 bolstered economic recovery . He also promoted economy in federal expenditures . His veto of the Inflation Bill in 1874 saved the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 to get worse and the veto was praised by the financial community and many newspapers .
The Resumption of Species Act of 1875 which was signed by Grant and helped to end the crisis in 1879 when the law came in to effect
He also pressed for internal improvements and increased shipbuilding and foreign trade. He also wanted to enhance and improve the commercial marine .
Grant/Wilson campaign poster
In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington, negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He also proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Santo Domingo. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia. Liberian-Grebo War of 1876
The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud. However, Grant eventually released large amounts of gold back onto the market, causing a large-scale financial crisis for many gold investors. Jay Gould had already prepared and quietly sold out while Fisk denied many agreements and hired thugs to intimidate his creditors.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.
Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first vice president, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.
President Grant with his wife, Julia, and son, Jesse, in 1872.
Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."
Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11, issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:
The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart â opportunistic traders who were Jewish. McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed [...] he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."
The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 presidential campaign, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.
Grant's second inauguration as President by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.
Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
* Edwin M. Stanton 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
* William Strong 1870
* Joseph P. Bradley 1870
* Ward Hunt 1873
* Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice) 1874
* Colorado August 1, 1876
* Department of Justice (1870)
* Office of the Solicitor General (1870)
* "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
* Office of the Surgeon General (1871)
* Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)
Ulysses S. Grant in his postbellum.
After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress ShÅken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.
In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.
That same year, Grant was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.
Grant writing his memoirs.
In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
Grant appears on the U.S. $50 bill.
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. It was not until 1958 that Congress, feeling it inappropriate that a former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting a pension to such individuals, a practice that continues to this day. Grant first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and Grant's memoirs are also regarded by such writers as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request, "Water." His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America.
Statue of Grant astride his favorite mount, "Cincinnati", at Vicksburg, Mississippi
*In World War II, the United States produced a tank known as the Grant tank (an upgrade of the American M3 "Lee").
*Grant's portrait appears on the U.S. fifty-dollar bill.
*The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., honors Grant.
*Grant Park in Chicago honors Grant.
*Grant Avenue, a nine block long, north-south street in the Bronx, New York, is named after Grant. It is parallel and adjacent to Sherman Avenue.
*Dupont Street, the main thoroughfare in San Francisco's Chinatown, was renamed Grant Avenue in his honor. The famous dragon gate at the entrance to the district is at the corner of Grant and Bush Street.
*Grant, depicted riding a horse, is honored by a statue at the intersection of Bedford Avenue, Rogers Avenue and Dean Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
*There is a U.S. Grant Bridge over the Ohio River at Portsmouth, Ohio.
*There is a U.S. Grant Memorial Highway (US 52) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
*Counties in twelve U.S. states are named after Grant: Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Grant Parish, Louisiana. Note: Grant Counties in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin were named after other Grants, not Ulysses Grant.
* Grant was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren
* Grant is also a descendant from John Lothropp, who is also an ancestor to Benjamin Franklin
Grant Memorial Statue in Grant Park, Galena, Illinois. Julia Grant remarked that it was the best likeness of her husband, as his hands were thrust into his pockets.
* As a young man, Grant's father, Jesse, taught him the trade of tanning. Jesse Grant had been taught how to tan by Owen Brown, the father of known abolitionist John Brown. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* When Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1864, he agreed to sit down for photographer Mathew Brady. As the sun had begun to set by the time Grant arrived, Brady instructed one of his assistants to open the shades of the skylight in Brady's studio. The assistant slipped and shattered the skylight, causing two-inch-thick shards of glass to rain down around Grant, who had taken his seat as requested. He was unharmed, and showed "the most remarkable display of nerve" that Brady had ever seen. O'Brien, Cormac (2007). "Secret Lives of the Civil War: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the War Between the States".
* Grant was known to visit the Willard Hotel to escape the stress of the White House. A long-standing story is that he referred to the people who approached him in the lobby as "those darn lobbyists," implying that he was the source for the term lobbyist. This story is unlikely to be true since there are examples of the term being used in U.S. and British magazines and newspapers before Grant's presidency. World Wide Words.
* While in California, Grant tried selling ice to San Francisco, but failed when it melted in the warm weather aboard the ship. Smith, Grant, p. 81. . This anecdote is disputed by Edward G. Longacre in "General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man" (2006) in which he says -- in a referenced statement -- that the ice venture had failed because of "an unexpected glut of [ice] imports from Alaska."
* In 1883, Grant was elected the eighth president of the National Rifle Association.
* Grant suffered from tone-deafness. He disliked music intensely and would go out of his way to avoid having to hear any other than patriotic songs. In Jeffrey Shaara's The Last Full Measure - which is set after the Battle of Gettysburg, the subject of his father Michael's 1974 bestseller The Killer Angels - Grant is portrayed as saying, "I know only two songs. One is 'Yankee Doodle'. The other isn't." Whether he actually said this is unclear. Shaara, Jeffrey M. (1998). "The Last Full Measure".
* Grant's wife, First Lady Julia Grant, was cross-eyed. When it was suggested to her that she have an operation to have it corrected, President Grant replied that he liked her that way. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* Grant's favorite brand of bourbon whiskey was Old Crow.
* Grant enjoyed eating cucumbers soaked in vinegar for breakfast.
* An apocryphal story about Grant's drinking has the general's critics going to President Lincoln, charging the military man with being a drunk. Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."
:* A similar story was told of General James Wolfe during the French and Indian Wars. When King George II was told that Wolfe was a "mad dog", he is said to have replied, "Then I'd wish he'd bite the other generals."
* The question "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" was used by Groucho Marx in his radio and TV quiz show, the correct answer to which resulted in a consolation prize to contestants who had won no money. Some contestants thought it was a trick question. Grant's grandson, Ulysses S. Grant IV (a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles) appeared on the program on March 12, 1953.
** This was also featured on an episode of the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, in which in a dream sequence Dorothy competes on Jeopardy against a scholar and her roommate Rose. When asked the question, Dorothy replies Ulysses and is wrong, while Rose replies Cary Grant and is correct.
* In the film Wild Wild West, President Grant is a minor character that must deal with the Loveless Alliance.
Once while in office he was arrested for speeding his horse and buggy and fined $20 and had to walk back to the white house. (www.pocanticohills.org/presidents/know.htm )
* A dispute between Grant and his commanding officer Henry Wager Halleck is the subject of a pivotal question in the film Quiz Show.
* United States presidential election, 1868
* United States presidential election, 1872
* History of the United States (1865â1918)
* Western Theater of the American Civil War
* Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
* U.S. Grant Home, Galena, Illinois
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command, Little, Brown and Company, 1968, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 69-12632.
*Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Garland, Hamlin, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character, Macmillan Company, 1898.
*Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885 86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
*Hesseltine, William B., Ulysses S. Grant: Politician 1935.
* Lewis, Lloyd, Captain Sam Grant, Little, Brown, and Co., 1950, ISBN 0-316-52348-8.
* McFeely, William S., Grant: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Co, 1981, ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
* McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
* Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-395-65994-9.
*Smith, Jean Edward, Grant, Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
*Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861 1865, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
* Official Ulysses Simpson Grant biography from the US Army Center for Military History
* Bunting III, Josiah. Ulysses S. Grant (2004) ISBN 0-8050-6949-6
* William Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 (1905), vol 22
* Hesseltine, William B. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (2001) ISBN 1-931313-85-7 online edition
* Mantell, Martin E., Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
* Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936) online edition
* Rhodes, James Ford., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6 and 7 (1920) vol 6
* Scaturro, Frank J., President Grant Reconsidered (1998).
* Schouler, James., History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
* Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
* Simpson, Brooks D., The Reconstruction Presidents (1998)
* Skidmore, Max J. "The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: a Reconsideration." White House Studies (2005) online
* Badeau, Adam. Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 vols. 1882.
*Ballard, Michael B., Vicksburg, The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-2893-9.
* Bearss, Edwin C., The Vicksburg Campaign, 3 volumes, Morningside Press, 1991, ISBN 0-89029-308-2.
* Carter, Samuel III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863 (1980)
* Catton, Bruce, Grant Moves South, 1960, ISBN 0-316-13207-1; Grant Takes Command, 1968, ISBN 0-316-13210-1; U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954)
* Cavanaugh, Michael A., and William Marvel, The Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of the Crater: "The Horrid Pit," June 25-August 6, 1864 (1989)
* Conger, A. L. The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931)
* Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg (1986).
* Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
* Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
* Korda, Michael. Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (2004) 161 pp
* McWhiney, Grady, Battle in the Wilderness: Grant Meets Lee (1995)
* McDonough, James Lee, Shiloh: In Hell before Night (1977).
* McDonough, James Lee, Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy (1984).
* Maney, R. Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor. Victory and Failure, 1864 (1994).
* Matter, William D., If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (1988)
* Miers, Earl Schenck., The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg. 1955.
* Mosier, John., "Grant", Palgrave MacMillan, 2006 ISBN 1-4039-7136-6.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5 6, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8071-1873-7.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7 12, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8071-2136-3.
* Rhea, Gordon C., To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13 25, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8071-2535-0.
* Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.
* Miller, J. Michael, The North Anna Campaign: "Even to Hell Itself," May 21-26, 1864 (1989).
* Simpson, Brooks D, "Continuous Hammering and Mere Attrition: Lost Cause Critics and the Military Reputation of Ulysses S. Grant," in Cad Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, (2000)
* Steere, Edward, The Wilderness Campaign (1960)
* Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April. 1974.
* Williams, T. Harry, McClellan, Sherman and Grant. 1962.
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs (1885) online edition
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters (Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely, eds.) ( The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-94045058-5
* Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) pp 131-73, on the Memoirs
* Johnson, R. U., and Buel, C. C., eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York, 1887-88; essays by leading generals of both sides; online edition
* Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant (1897, reprinted 2000)
* Sherman, William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. 2 vols. 1875.
* Simon, John Y., ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Southern Illinois University Press (1967- ) multivolume complete edition of letters to and from Grant. As of 2006, vol 1-28 covers through September 1878.
* Extensive essay on Ulysses S. Grant and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* First Inaugural Address
* Second Inaugural Address
* White House Biography
* Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
*Emerson, Col. John W., Grant's Life in the West and His Mississippi Valley Campaigns, U.S. Grant Association website.
* Ulysses S. Grant at Find A Grave
* Many rare General Grant photographs
* Complete Bibliography
* Military biography of Ulysses S. Grant from the Cullum biographies
*
* The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. (1918). "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.
* Collection of US Grant Letters
* Ulysses S. Grant: America's Second Three-Star General article by Ethan Rafuse
* Historic White Haven (Grant-Dent home)
*
|-
|-
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
Andrew Johnson
Rutherford B. Hayes
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Julia Grant
Jesse Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Nellie Grant
Frederick Grant
General-in-Chief
List of United States Presidential religious affiliations
Republican Party (United States)
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
#Military career
April 27
1822
July 23
1885
United States
President of the United States
Union (American Civil War)
American Civil War
Battle of Vicksburg
Confederate
Robert E. Lee
Appomattox Court House
J.F.C. Fuller
Vicksburg Campaign
History of the United States Republican Party
Andrew Jackson
Radical Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Civil Rights
African American history
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home
Georgetown, Ohio
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio River
Pennsylvania
Horsham Township, Pennsylvania
Georgetown, Ohio
Brown County, Ohio
August 22
1848
Julia Boggs Dent
Frederick Dent Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Ellen Wrenshall Grant
Jesse Root Grant
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Mathew Brady
United States Army
Army of the Tennessee
Military Division of the Mississippi
United States Army
United States Army
Mexican-American War
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
American Civil War
Battle of Fort Donelson
Battle of Shiloh
Battle of Vicksburg
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Overland Campaign
Battle of Petersburg
Appomattox Campaign
President of the United States
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
U.S. Congressman
Thomas L. Hamer
Academic administration
March 31
1853
cavalry
Mexican-American War
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
Fort Vancouver
Washington Territory
U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
July 31
1854
Robert C. Buchanan
John Eaton (General)
St. Louis, Missouri
Grant's Farm
Anheuser-Busch
Galena, Illinois
James Buchanan
John C. Frémont
Stephen A. Douglas
Elihu B. Washburne
April 28
2007
War Democrats
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Galena, Illinois
Fort Sumter
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
Illinois
Richard Yates (governor)
21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
Claiborne Jackson
John C. Frémont
Ohio River
Paducah, Kentucky
Confederate States Army
Columbus, Kentucky
Gideon J. Pillow
Battle of Belmont
Andrew H. Foote
Battle of Fort Henry
Tennessee River
Battle of Fort Donelson
Cumberland River
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Henry W. Halleck
Nashville, Tennessee
Don Carlos Buell
March 2
March 17
Battle of Cold Harbor
Mathew Brady
Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard
Battle of Shiloh
April 30
First Battle of Corinth
William T. Sherman
Army of West Tennessee
Army of the Tennessee
June 10
Second Battle of Corinth
Battle of Iuka
Mississippi River
Vicksburg Campaign
U.S. Navy
Charles Anderson Dana
hardtack
John C. Pemberton
Jackson, Mississippi
Battle of Champion Hill
Battle of Vicksburg
July 4
1863
Battle of Gettysburg
Turning point of the American Civil War
July 4
Battle of Chickamauga
William S. Rosecrans
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Braxton Bragg
Lookout Mountain
October 17
George Henry Thomas
William Farrar Smith
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Missionary Ridge
Atlanta, Georgia
Lieutenant General (United States)
George Washington
Winfield Scott
brevet (military)
Congress of the United States
March 2
1864
March 12
United States
William Tecumseh Sherman
Virginia
Army of Northern Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
George G. Meade
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Franz Sigel
Shenandoah Valley
Georgia (U.S. state)
Joseph E. Johnston
Atlanta
George Crook
William W. Averell
West Virginia
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Mobile, Alabama
total war
Overland Campaign
Robert E. Lee
May 4
1864
Army of the Potomac
Rapidan River
Army of Northern Virginia
Battle of the Wilderness
Spotsylvania, Virginia
May 8
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 11
May 12
Battle of Cold Harbor
June 3
James River (Virginia)
Petersburg, Virginia
June 18
Siege of Petersburg
William Tecumseh Sherman
Abraham Lincoln
Jubal A. Early
Shenandoah Valley
Washington, D.C.
Administration (government)
Philip Sheridan
Valley Campaigns of 1864
Sherman's March to the Sea
total war
Carolinas Campaign
Appomattox Court House
April 9
1865
Kirby Smith
Trans-Mississippi Department
June 2
1865
Copperheads
Democratic Party (United States)
July 25
1866
General of the Army of the United States
U.S. Army
Andrew Johnson
Edwin M. Stanton
Tenure of Office Act
History of the United States Republican Party
Republican National Convention
Chicago
U.S. presidential election, 1868
Horatio Seymour
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
United States presidential election, 1872
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Horace Greeley
Reconstruction
Redeemers
Ku Klux Klan
voting rights
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Dominican Republic
Yellowstone National Park
March 1
1872
March 29
2006
Christmas
February 8
1999
Panic of 1873
Robert Schenck
Rutherford B. Hayes
Samuel J. Tilden
U.S. presidential election, 1876
Henry Watterson
Treaty of Washington (1871)
Hamilton Fish
CSS Alabama
Dominican Republic
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Charles Sumner
Horace Greeley
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Liberian-Grebo War
USS Alaska (1868)
Liberia
James Milton Turner
Black Friday (1869)
Jay Gould
James Fisk (financier)
Whiskey Ring
Benjamin H. Bristow
Orville E. Babcock
United States Secretary of War
William W. Belknap
Native Americans in the United States
trading post
Sanborn Incident
William Adams Richardson
Cyrus I. Scofield
Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Vice President of the United States
Schuyler Colfax
United States presidential election, 1872
Henry Wilson
Julia Grant
Jesse Root Grant
anti-Semitism
General Order No. 11 (1862)
Oxford, Mississippi
December 17
1862
Vicksburg Campaign
Tennessee
Mississippi
Kentucky
James H. Wilson
Bertram Korn
U.S. presidential election, 1868
President of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
Salmon P. Chase
March 4
1873
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
Elihu B. Washburne
Hamilton Fish
John A. Rawlins
William T. Sherman
William W. Belknap
Alphonso Taft
J. Donald Cameron
George S. Boutwell
William Adams Richardson
Benjamin Bristow
Lot M. Morrill
Ebenezer R. Hoar
Amos T. Akerman
George Henry Williams
Edwards Pierrepont
Alphonso Taft
John A. J. Creswell
James William Marshall
Marshall Jewell
James N. Tyner
Adolph E. Borie
George M. Robeson
Jacob D. Cox
Columbus Delano
Zachariah Chandler
Supreme Court of the United States
Edwin M. Stanton
William Strong (judge)
Joseph P. Bradley
Ward Hunt
Morrison Remick Waite
Chief Justice of the United States
Colorado
August 1
1876
United States Department of Justice
United States Solicitor General
Chester A. Arthur
Office of Personnel Management
Surgeon General of the United States
National Weather Service
Queen Victoria
Windsor Castle
Prince Bismarck
Emperor Meiji
Empress ShÅken
Imperial Palace
Tokyo
Meiji period
Ryukyu Islands
China
Stalwart (politics)
Roscoe Conkling
Methodist
Republican National Convention
James A. Garfield
New York City
Ferdinand Ward
Wall Street
Grant & Ward
Esophageal cancer
pension
The Century Magazine
Mark Twain
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Julius Caesar
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
New York City
Riverside Park (Manhattan)
General Grant National Memorial
mausoleum
North America
World War II
tank
Grant tank
U.S. fifty-dollar bill
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Grant Park (Chicago)
Chicago
the Bronx
New York
San Francisco, California
Chinatown, San Francisco, California
Bedford Avenue
Crown Heights
Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. Grant Bridge
Ohio River
Portsmouth, Ohio
U.S. Route 52
Counties of the United States
U.S. state
Grant County, Arkansas
Grant County, Kansas
Grant County, Minnesota
Grant County, Nebraska
Grant County, New Mexico
Grant County, North Dakota
Grant County, Oklahoma
Grant County, Washington
Grant County, West Virginia
Grant Parish, Louisiana
Mayflower
Richard Warren
John Lothropp
Benjamin Franklin
abolitionist
John Brown (abolitionist)
Mathew Brady
Willard Hotel
lobbyist
San Francisco
National Rifle Association
Jeffrey Shaara
The Last Full Measure
Michael Shaara
The Killer Angels
First Lady of the United States
Julia Grant
Strabismus
bourbon whiskey
Old Crow
cucumbers
vinegar
breakfast
James Wolfe
French and Indian Wars
King George II
Groucho Marx
You Bet Your Life
Ulysses S. Grant IV
University of California, Los Angeles
The Golden Girls
Cary Grant
Wild Wild West
Henry Wager Halleck
Quiz Show
United States presidential election, 1868
United States presidential election, 1872
History of the United States (1865-1918)
Western Theater of the American Civil War
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
James M. McPherson
Jean Edward Smith
Allan Nevins
Ed Bearss
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
Find A Grave
West Point#Cullum Number
Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Rutherford B. Hayes
Abraham Lincoln
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1868
U.S. presidential election, 1872
Rutherford B. Hayes
Army of the Tennessee
William T. Sherman
Henry W. Halleck
Commanding General of the United States Army
Andrew Johnson
Oldest living United States president
Rutherford B. Hayes
United States
soldier
politician
President of the United States
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
|
Ulysses_S._Grant | When did he vote for democrat james buchanan? | 1856 | data/set3/a5 | Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, See military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 July 23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869 1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
Grant first reached national prominence by taking Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862 in the first Union victories of the war. The following year, his brilliant campaign ending in the surrender of Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi andâwith the simultaneous Union victory at Gettysburgâturned the tide of the war in the North's favor. Named commanding general of the Federal armies in 1864, he implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's ability to carry on the war. In 1865, after conducting a costly war of attrition in the East, he accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. Grant has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.
In 1868, Grant was elected president as a Republican. Grant was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed.
Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans. See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.
Ulysses Grant Birthplace, Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home, Georgetown, Ohio
Grant was born in a log cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794 1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798 1883). His father, a tanner, was from Pennsylvania, and his mother was born in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio.
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826 1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (Buck), Ellen Wrenshall Grant (Nellie), and Jesse Root Grant.
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only. Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.
Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846â1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, later becoming his brother-in-law, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.
After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the 4th U.S. Infantry regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial. According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name." McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican War
A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys). His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. McFeely, ch. 5.
Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican. Hesseltine, chapter 6. .
The home of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Infantry in June 1861.
Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.
In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.
Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederates violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, an old friend of Grant's and a West Point classmate, and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers. Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.
Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased against him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.
General Grant at Cold Harbor, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864
In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.
The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in Corinth, Mississippi. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Corinth and Iuka that fall.
In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant spent the winter of 1862 1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.
However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and in a daring move that defied conventional military principles cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles A. Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George H. Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas' chief engineer, William F. "Baldy" Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.
Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas' men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.
Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet appointment), recently re-authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.
In March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.
Poster of "Grant from West Point to Appomattox."
Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.
The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River.
Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a siege.
As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas.
At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democrats who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius: Korda, (2004)
After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army. Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.''
As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.
The second president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In the 1872 election he won by a landslide against the breakaway Liberal Republican party that nominated Horace Greeley.
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed .
Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006. Grant also signed into law making Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application, CRS Report for Congress, 98-301 GOV, updated February 8, 1999, by Stephen W. Stathis
The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.
By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker. Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes: Nevins, Fish 2:811
In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson .
The Grant administration's first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Act to Strengthen the Public Credit which the GOP Congress had passed after Grant ` s inaugural in March 1869 . The act had the effect that the gold price on New York exchange fell to 310 dollar an ounce - the lowest point since the suspension of specie payment in 1862 .
As Jean Edward Smith notes in his 2002 biography on Grant, the presidential treasury secretary Boutwell reorganized the Treasury by discharging unnecessary employees, started sweeping changes in Bureau of Printing and Engraving to protect the currency from counterfeiters and revitalized tax collections to hasten the collection of revenue. This changes soon led the Tresury having a monthly surplus .
The Grant administration reduced the debt by appromixately 435 million dollar. That was achieved by selling the growing gold surplus at weekly auctions for greenbacks and buying back wartime bonds with the currency . With this Grant ` s treasury secretary Boutwell had established a policy if continued had payed of the national debt in a quarter of a century . Newspapers like the New York Tribune wanted that the Government buy more bonds and Greenbacks, the New York Times praised the the Grant administration `s debt policy .
On other economic fronts did the Grant administration have acomplishments . Under
Grant the nation `s credit was substantially raised. Taxes was reduced by 300 million dollar. Annual interest rates were reduced by approximately 30 million dollar . The U . S balance of trade was changed from 130 million dollar against the United States to 120 million dollar in favor of the United States . He also reduced inflation and to 1873 bolstered economic recovery . He also promoted economy in federal expenditures . His veto of the Inflation Bill in 1874 saved the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 to get worse and the veto was praised by the financial community and many newspapers .
The Resumption of Species Act of 1875 which was signed by Grant and helped to end the crisis in 1879 when the law came in to effect
He also pressed for internal improvements and increased shipbuilding and foreign trade. He also wanted to enhance and improve the commercial marine .
Grant/Wilson campaign poster
In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington, negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He also proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Santo Domingo. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia. Liberian-Grebo War of 1876
The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud. However, Grant eventually released large amounts of gold back onto the market, causing a large-scale financial crisis for many gold investors. Jay Gould had already prepared and quietly sold out while Fisk denied many agreements and hired thugs to intimidate his creditors.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.
Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first vice president, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.
President Grant with his wife, Julia, and son, Jesse, in 1872.
Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."
Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11, issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:
The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart â opportunistic traders who were Jewish. McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed [...] he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."
The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 presidential campaign, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.
Grant's second inauguration as President by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.
Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
* Edwin M. Stanton 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
* William Strong 1870
* Joseph P. Bradley 1870
* Ward Hunt 1873
* Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice) 1874
* Colorado August 1, 1876
* Department of Justice (1870)
* Office of the Solicitor General (1870)
* "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
* Office of the Surgeon General (1871)
* Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)
Ulysses S. Grant in his postbellum.
After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress ShÅken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.
In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.
That same year, Grant was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.
Grant writing his memoirs.
In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
Grant appears on the U.S. $50 bill.
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. It was not until 1958 that Congress, feeling it inappropriate that a former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting a pension to such individuals, a practice that continues to this day. Grant first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and Grant's memoirs are also regarded by such writers as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request, "Water." His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America.
Statue of Grant astride his favorite mount, "Cincinnati", at Vicksburg, Mississippi
*In World War II, the United States produced a tank known as the Grant tank (an upgrade of the American M3 "Lee").
*Grant's portrait appears on the U.S. fifty-dollar bill.
*The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., honors Grant.
*Grant Park in Chicago honors Grant.
*Grant Avenue, a nine block long, north-south street in the Bronx, New York, is named after Grant. It is parallel and adjacent to Sherman Avenue.
*Dupont Street, the main thoroughfare in San Francisco's Chinatown, was renamed Grant Avenue in his honor. The famous dragon gate at the entrance to the district is at the corner of Grant and Bush Street.
*Grant, depicted riding a horse, is honored by a statue at the intersection of Bedford Avenue, Rogers Avenue and Dean Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
*There is a U.S. Grant Bridge over the Ohio River at Portsmouth, Ohio.
*There is a U.S. Grant Memorial Highway (US 52) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
*Counties in twelve U.S. states are named after Grant: Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Grant Parish, Louisiana. Note: Grant Counties in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin were named after other Grants, not Ulysses Grant.
* Grant was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren
* Grant is also a descendant from John Lothropp, who is also an ancestor to Benjamin Franklin
Grant Memorial Statue in Grant Park, Galena, Illinois. Julia Grant remarked that it was the best likeness of her husband, as his hands were thrust into his pockets.
* As a young man, Grant's father, Jesse, taught him the trade of tanning. Jesse Grant had been taught how to tan by Owen Brown, the father of known abolitionist John Brown. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* When Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1864, he agreed to sit down for photographer Mathew Brady. As the sun had begun to set by the time Grant arrived, Brady instructed one of his assistants to open the shades of the skylight in Brady's studio. The assistant slipped and shattered the skylight, causing two-inch-thick shards of glass to rain down around Grant, who had taken his seat as requested. He was unharmed, and showed "the most remarkable display of nerve" that Brady had ever seen. O'Brien, Cormac (2007). "Secret Lives of the Civil War: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the War Between the States".
* Grant was known to visit the Willard Hotel to escape the stress of the White House. A long-standing story is that he referred to the people who approached him in the lobby as "those darn lobbyists," implying that he was the source for the term lobbyist. This story is unlikely to be true since there are examples of the term being used in U.S. and British magazines and newspapers before Grant's presidency. World Wide Words.
* While in California, Grant tried selling ice to San Francisco, but failed when it melted in the warm weather aboard the ship. Smith, Grant, p. 81. . This anecdote is disputed by Edward G. Longacre in "General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man" (2006) in which he says -- in a referenced statement -- that the ice venture had failed because of "an unexpected glut of [ice] imports from Alaska."
* In 1883, Grant was elected the eighth president of the National Rifle Association.
* Grant suffered from tone-deafness. He disliked music intensely and would go out of his way to avoid having to hear any other than patriotic songs. In Jeffrey Shaara's The Last Full Measure - which is set after the Battle of Gettysburg, the subject of his father Michael's 1974 bestseller The Killer Angels - Grant is portrayed as saying, "I know only two songs. One is 'Yankee Doodle'. The other isn't." Whether he actually said this is unclear. Shaara, Jeffrey M. (1998). "The Last Full Measure".
* Grant's wife, First Lady Julia Grant, was cross-eyed. When it was suggested to her that she have an operation to have it corrected, President Grant replied that he liked her that way. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* Grant's favorite brand of bourbon whiskey was Old Crow.
* Grant enjoyed eating cucumbers soaked in vinegar for breakfast.
* An apocryphal story about Grant's drinking has the general's critics going to President Lincoln, charging the military man with being a drunk. Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."
:* A similar story was told of General James Wolfe during the French and Indian Wars. When King George II was told that Wolfe was a "mad dog", he is said to have replied, "Then I'd wish he'd bite the other generals."
* The question "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" was used by Groucho Marx in his radio and TV quiz show, the correct answer to which resulted in a consolation prize to contestants who had won no money. Some contestants thought it was a trick question. Grant's grandson, Ulysses S. Grant IV (a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles) appeared on the program on March 12, 1953.
** This was also featured on an episode of the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, in which in a dream sequence Dorothy competes on Jeopardy against a scholar and her roommate Rose. When asked the question, Dorothy replies Ulysses and is wrong, while Rose replies Cary Grant and is correct.
* In the film Wild Wild West, President Grant is a minor character that must deal with the Loveless Alliance.
Once while in office he was arrested for speeding his horse and buggy and fined $20 and had to walk back to the white house. (www.pocanticohills.org/presidents/know.htm )
* A dispute between Grant and his commanding officer Henry Wager Halleck is the subject of a pivotal question in the film Quiz Show.
* United States presidential election, 1868
* United States presidential election, 1872
* History of the United States (1865â1918)
* Western Theater of the American Civil War
* Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
* U.S. Grant Home, Galena, Illinois
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command, Little, Brown and Company, 1968, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 69-12632.
*Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Garland, Hamlin, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character, Macmillan Company, 1898.
*Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885 86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
*Hesseltine, William B., Ulysses S. Grant: Politician 1935.
* Lewis, Lloyd, Captain Sam Grant, Little, Brown, and Co., 1950, ISBN 0-316-52348-8.
* McFeely, William S., Grant: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Co, 1981, ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
* McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
* Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-395-65994-9.
*Smith, Jean Edward, Grant, Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
*Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861 1865, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
* Official Ulysses Simpson Grant biography from the US Army Center for Military History
* Bunting III, Josiah. Ulysses S. Grant (2004) ISBN 0-8050-6949-6
* William Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 (1905), vol 22
* Hesseltine, William B. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (2001) ISBN 1-931313-85-7 online edition
* Mantell, Martin E., Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
* Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936) online edition
* Rhodes, James Ford., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6 and 7 (1920) vol 6
* Scaturro, Frank J., President Grant Reconsidered (1998).
* Schouler, James., History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
* Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
* Simpson, Brooks D., The Reconstruction Presidents (1998)
* Skidmore, Max J. "The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: a Reconsideration." White House Studies (2005) online
* Badeau, Adam. Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 vols. 1882.
*Ballard, Michael B., Vicksburg, The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-2893-9.
* Bearss, Edwin C., The Vicksburg Campaign, 3 volumes, Morningside Press, 1991, ISBN 0-89029-308-2.
* Carter, Samuel III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863 (1980)
* Catton, Bruce, Grant Moves South, 1960, ISBN 0-316-13207-1; Grant Takes Command, 1968, ISBN 0-316-13210-1; U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954)
* Cavanaugh, Michael A., and William Marvel, The Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of the Crater: "The Horrid Pit," June 25-August 6, 1864 (1989)
* Conger, A. L. The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931)
* Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg (1986).
* Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
* Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
* Korda, Michael. Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (2004) 161 pp
* McWhiney, Grady, Battle in the Wilderness: Grant Meets Lee (1995)
* McDonough, James Lee, Shiloh: In Hell before Night (1977).
* McDonough, James Lee, Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy (1984).
* Maney, R. Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor. Victory and Failure, 1864 (1994).
* Matter, William D., If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (1988)
* Miers, Earl Schenck., The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg. 1955.
* Mosier, John., "Grant", Palgrave MacMillan, 2006 ISBN 1-4039-7136-6.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5 6, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8071-1873-7.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7 12, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8071-2136-3.
* Rhea, Gordon C., To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13 25, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8071-2535-0.
* Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.
* Miller, J. Michael, The North Anna Campaign: "Even to Hell Itself," May 21-26, 1864 (1989).
* Simpson, Brooks D, "Continuous Hammering and Mere Attrition: Lost Cause Critics and the Military Reputation of Ulysses S. Grant," in Cad Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, (2000)
* Steere, Edward, The Wilderness Campaign (1960)
* Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April. 1974.
* Williams, T. Harry, McClellan, Sherman and Grant. 1962.
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs (1885) online edition
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters (Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely, eds.) ( The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-94045058-5
* Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) pp 131-73, on the Memoirs
* Johnson, R. U., and Buel, C. C., eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York, 1887-88; essays by leading generals of both sides; online edition
* Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant (1897, reprinted 2000)
* Sherman, William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. 2 vols. 1875.
* Simon, John Y., ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Southern Illinois University Press (1967- ) multivolume complete edition of letters to and from Grant. As of 2006, vol 1-28 covers through September 1878.
* Extensive essay on Ulysses S. Grant and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* First Inaugural Address
* Second Inaugural Address
* White House Biography
* Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
*Emerson, Col. John W., Grant's Life in the West and His Mississippi Valley Campaigns, U.S. Grant Association website.
* Ulysses S. Grant at Find A Grave
* Many rare General Grant photographs
* Complete Bibliography
* Military biography of Ulysses S. Grant from the Cullum biographies
*
* The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. (1918). "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.
* Collection of US Grant Letters
* Ulysses S. Grant: America's Second Three-Star General article by Ethan Rafuse
* Historic White Haven (Grant-Dent home)
*
|-
|-
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
Andrew Johnson
Rutherford B. Hayes
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Julia Grant
Jesse Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Nellie Grant
Frederick Grant
General-in-Chief
List of United States Presidential religious affiliations
Republican Party (United States)
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
#Military career
April 27
1822
July 23
1885
United States
President of the United States
Union (American Civil War)
American Civil War
Battle of Vicksburg
Confederate
Robert E. Lee
Appomattox Court House
J.F.C. Fuller
Vicksburg Campaign
History of the United States Republican Party
Andrew Jackson
Radical Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Civil Rights
African American history
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home
Georgetown, Ohio
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio River
Pennsylvania
Horsham Township, Pennsylvania
Georgetown, Ohio
Brown County, Ohio
August 22
1848
Julia Boggs Dent
Frederick Dent Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Ellen Wrenshall Grant
Jesse Root Grant
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Mathew Brady
United States Army
Army of the Tennessee
Military Division of the Mississippi
United States Army
United States Army
Mexican-American War
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
American Civil War
Battle of Fort Donelson
Battle of Shiloh
Battle of Vicksburg
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Overland Campaign
Battle of Petersburg
Appomattox Campaign
President of the United States
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
U.S. Congressman
Thomas L. Hamer
Academic administration
March 31
1853
cavalry
Mexican-American War
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
Fort Vancouver
Washington Territory
U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
July 31
1854
Robert C. Buchanan
John Eaton (General)
St. Louis, Missouri
Grant's Farm
Anheuser-Busch
Galena, Illinois
James Buchanan
John C. Frémont
Stephen A. Douglas
Elihu B. Washburne
April 28
2007
War Democrats
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Galena, Illinois
Fort Sumter
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
Illinois
Richard Yates (governor)
21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
Claiborne Jackson
John C. Frémont
Ohio River
Paducah, Kentucky
Confederate States Army
Columbus, Kentucky
Gideon J. Pillow
Battle of Belmont
Andrew H. Foote
Battle of Fort Henry
Tennessee River
Battle of Fort Donelson
Cumberland River
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Henry W. Halleck
Nashville, Tennessee
Don Carlos Buell
March 2
March 17
Battle of Cold Harbor
Mathew Brady
Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard
Battle of Shiloh
April 30
First Battle of Corinth
William T. Sherman
Army of West Tennessee
Army of the Tennessee
June 10
Second Battle of Corinth
Battle of Iuka
Mississippi River
Vicksburg Campaign
U.S. Navy
Charles Anderson Dana
hardtack
John C. Pemberton
Jackson, Mississippi
Battle of Champion Hill
Battle of Vicksburg
July 4
1863
Battle of Gettysburg
Turning point of the American Civil War
July 4
Battle of Chickamauga
William S. Rosecrans
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Braxton Bragg
Lookout Mountain
October 17
George Henry Thomas
William Farrar Smith
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Missionary Ridge
Atlanta, Georgia
Lieutenant General (United States)
George Washington
Winfield Scott
brevet (military)
Congress of the United States
March 2
1864
March 12
United States
William Tecumseh Sherman
Virginia
Army of Northern Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
George G. Meade
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Franz Sigel
Shenandoah Valley
Georgia (U.S. state)
Joseph E. Johnston
Atlanta
George Crook
William W. Averell
West Virginia
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Mobile, Alabama
total war
Overland Campaign
Robert E. Lee
May 4
1864
Army of the Potomac
Rapidan River
Army of Northern Virginia
Battle of the Wilderness
Spotsylvania, Virginia
May 8
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 11
May 12
Battle of Cold Harbor
June 3
James River (Virginia)
Petersburg, Virginia
June 18
Siege of Petersburg
William Tecumseh Sherman
Abraham Lincoln
Jubal A. Early
Shenandoah Valley
Washington, D.C.
Administration (government)
Philip Sheridan
Valley Campaigns of 1864
Sherman's March to the Sea
total war
Carolinas Campaign
Appomattox Court House
April 9
1865
Kirby Smith
Trans-Mississippi Department
June 2
1865
Copperheads
Democratic Party (United States)
July 25
1866
General of the Army of the United States
U.S. Army
Andrew Johnson
Edwin M. Stanton
Tenure of Office Act
History of the United States Republican Party
Republican National Convention
Chicago
U.S. presidential election, 1868
Horatio Seymour
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
United States presidential election, 1872
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Horace Greeley
Reconstruction
Redeemers
Ku Klux Klan
voting rights
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Dominican Republic
Yellowstone National Park
March 1
1872
March 29
2006
Christmas
February 8
1999
Panic of 1873
Robert Schenck
Rutherford B. Hayes
Samuel J. Tilden
U.S. presidential election, 1876
Henry Watterson
Treaty of Washington (1871)
Hamilton Fish
CSS Alabama
Dominican Republic
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Charles Sumner
Horace Greeley
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Liberian-Grebo War
USS Alaska (1868)
Liberia
James Milton Turner
Black Friday (1869)
Jay Gould
James Fisk (financier)
Whiskey Ring
Benjamin H. Bristow
Orville E. Babcock
United States Secretary of War
William W. Belknap
Native Americans in the United States
trading post
Sanborn Incident
William Adams Richardson
Cyrus I. Scofield
Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Vice President of the United States
Schuyler Colfax
United States presidential election, 1872
Henry Wilson
Julia Grant
Jesse Root Grant
anti-Semitism
General Order No. 11 (1862)
Oxford, Mississippi
December 17
1862
Vicksburg Campaign
Tennessee
Mississippi
Kentucky
James H. Wilson
Bertram Korn
U.S. presidential election, 1868
President of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
Salmon P. Chase
March 4
1873
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
Elihu B. Washburne
Hamilton Fish
John A. Rawlins
William T. Sherman
William W. Belknap
Alphonso Taft
J. Donald Cameron
George S. Boutwell
William Adams Richardson
Benjamin Bristow
Lot M. Morrill
Ebenezer R. Hoar
Amos T. Akerman
George Henry Williams
Edwards Pierrepont
Alphonso Taft
John A. J. Creswell
James William Marshall
Marshall Jewell
James N. Tyner
Adolph E. Borie
George M. Robeson
Jacob D. Cox
Columbus Delano
Zachariah Chandler
Supreme Court of the United States
Edwin M. Stanton
William Strong (judge)
Joseph P. Bradley
Ward Hunt
Morrison Remick Waite
Chief Justice of the United States
Colorado
August 1
1876
United States Department of Justice
United States Solicitor General
Chester A. Arthur
Office of Personnel Management
Surgeon General of the United States
National Weather Service
Queen Victoria
Windsor Castle
Prince Bismarck
Emperor Meiji
Empress ShÅken
Imperial Palace
Tokyo
Meiji period
Ryukyu Islands
China
Stalwart (politics)
Roscoe Conkling
Methodist
Republican National Convention
James A. Garfield
New York City
Ferdinand Ward
Wall Street
Grant & Ward
Esophageal cancer
pension
The Century Magazine
Mark Twain
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Julius Caesar
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
New York City
Riverside Park (Manhattan)
General Grant National Memorial
mausoleum
North America
World War II
tank
Grant tank
U.S. fifty-dollar bill
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Grant Park (Chicago)
Chicago
the Bronx
New York
San Francisco, California
Chinatown, San Francisco, California
Bedford Avenue
Crown Heights
Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. Grant Bridge
Ohio River
Portsmouth, Ohio
U.S. Route 52
Counties of the United States
U.S. state
Grant County, Arkansas
Grant County, Kansas
Grant County, Minnesota
Grant County, Nebraska
Grant County, New Mexico
Grant County, North Dakota
Grant County, Oklahoma
Grant County, Washington
Grant County, West Virginia
Grant Parish, Louisiana
Mayflower
Richard Warren
John Lothropp
Benjamin Franklin
abolitionist
John Brown (abolitionist)
Mathew Brady
Willard Hotel
lobbyist
San Francisco
National Rifle Association
Jeffrey Shaara
The Last Full Measure
Michael Shaara
The Killer Angels
First Lady of the United States
Julia Grant
Strabismus
bourbon whiskey
Old Crow
cucumbers
vinegar
breakfast
James Wolfe
French and Indian Wars
King George II
Groucho Marx
You Bet Your Life
Ulysses S. Grant IV
University of California, Los Angeles
The Golden Girls
Cary Grant
Wild Wild West
Henry Wager Halleck
Quiz Show
United States presidential election, 1868
United States presidential election, 1872
History of the United States (1865-1918)
Western Theater of the American Civil War
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
James M. McPherson
Jean Edward Smith
Allan Nevins
Ed Bearss
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
Find A Grave
West Point#Cullum Number
Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Rutherford B. Hayes
Abraham Lincoln
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1868
U.S. presidential election, 1872
Rutherford B. Hayes
Army of the Tennessee
William T. Sherman
Henry W. Halleck
Commanding General of the United States Army
Andrew Johnson
Oldest living United States president
Rutherford B. Hayes
United States
soldier
politician
President of the United States
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
|
Ulysses_S._Grant | Who did President Lincoln promote of major general in the regular army, effective July 4? | Grant | data/set3/a5 | Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, See military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 July 23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869 1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
Grant first reached national prominence by taking Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862 in the first Union victories of the war. The following year, his brilliant campaign ending in the surrender of Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi andâwith the simultaneous Union victory at Gettysburgâturned the tide of the war in the North's favor. Named commanding general of the Federal armies in 1864, he implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's ability to carry on the war. In 1865, after conducting a costly war of attrition in the East, he accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. Grant has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.
In 1868, Grant was elected president as a Republican. Grant was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed.
Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans. See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.
Ulysses Grant Birthplace, Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home, Georgetown, Ohio
Grant was born in a log cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794 1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798 1883). His father, a tanner, was from Pennsylvania, and his mother was born in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio.
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826 1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (Buck), Ellen Wrenshall Grant (Nellie), and Jesse Root Grant.
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only. Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.
Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846â1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, later becoming his brother-in-law, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.
After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the 4th U.S. Infantry regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial. According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name." McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican War
A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys). His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. McFeely, ch. 5.
Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican. Hesseltine, chapter 6. .
The home of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Infantry in June 1861.
Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.
In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.
Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederates violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, an old friend of Grant's and a West Point classmate, and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers. Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.
Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased against him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.
General Grant at Cold Harbor, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864
In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.
The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in Corinth, Mississippi. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Corinth and Iuka that fall.
In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant spent the winter of 1862 1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.
However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and in a daring move that defied conventional military principles cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles A. Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George H. Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas' chief engineer, William F. "Baldy" Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.
Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas' men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.
Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet appointment), recently re-authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.
In March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.
Poster of "Grant from West Point to Appomattox."
Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.
The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River.
Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a siege.
As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas.
At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democrats who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius: Korda, (2004)
After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army. Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.''
As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.
The second president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In the 1872 election he won by a landslide against the breakaway Liberal Republican party that nominated Horace Greeley.
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed .
Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006. Grant also signed into law making Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application, CRS Report for Congress, 98-301 GOV, updated February 8, 1999, by Stephen W. Stathis
The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.
By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker. Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes: Nevins, Fish 2:811
In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson .
The Grant administration's first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Act to Strengthen the Public Credit which the GOP Congress had passed after Grant ` s inaugural in March 1869 . The act had the effect that the gold price on New York exchange fell to 310 dollar an ounce - the lowest point since the suspension of specie payment in 1862 .
As Jean Edward Smith notes in his 2002 biography on Grant, the presidential treasury secretary Boutwell reorganized the Treasury by discharging unnecessary employees, started sweeping changes in Bureau of Printing and Engraving to protect the currency from counterfeiters and revitalized tax collections to hasten the collection of revenue. This changes soon led the Tresury having a monthly surplus .
The Grant administration reduced the debt by appromixately 435 million dollar. That was achieved by selling the growing gold surplus at weekly auctions for greenbacks and buying back wartime bonds with the currency . With this Grant ` s treasury secretary Boutwell had established a policy if continued had payed of the national debt in a quarter of a century . Newspapers like the New York Tribune wanted that the Government buy more bonds and Greenbacks, the New York Times praised the the Grant administration `s debt policy .
On other economic fronts did the Grant administration have acomplishments . Under
Grant the nation `s credit was substantially raised. Taxes was reduced by 300 million dollar. Annual interest rates were reduced by approximately 30 million dollar . The U . S balance of trade was changed from 130 million dollar against the United States to 120 million dollar in favor of the United States . He also reduced inflation and to 1873 bolstered economic recovery . He also promoted economy in federal expenditures . His veto of the Inflation Bill in 1874 saved the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 to get worse and the veto was praised by the financial community and many newspapers .
The Resumption of Species Act of 1875 which was signed by Grant and helped to end the crisis in 1879 when the law came in to effect
He also pressed for internal improvements and increased shipbuilding and foreign trade. He also wanted to enhance and improve the commercial marine .
Grant/Wilson campaign poster
In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington, negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He also proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Santo Domingo. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia. Liberian-Grebo War of 1876
The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud. However, Grant eventually released large amounts of gold back onto the market, causing a large-scale financial crisis for many gold investors. Jay Gould had already prepared and quietly sold out while Fisk denied many agreements and hired thugs to intimidate his creditors.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.
Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first vice president, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.
President Grant with his wife, Julia, and son, Jesse, in 1872.
Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."
Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11, issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:
The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart â opportunistic traders who were Jewish. McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed [...] he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."
The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 presidential campaign, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.
Grant's second inauguration as President by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.
Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
* Edwin M. Stanton 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
* William Strong 1870
* Joseph P. Bradley 1870
* Ward Hunt 1873
* Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice) 1874
* Colorado August 1, 1876
* Department of Justice (1870)
* Office of the Solicitor General (1870)
* "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
* Office of the Surgeon General (1871)
* Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)
Ulysses S. Grant in his postbellum.
After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress ShÅken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.
In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.
That same year, Grant was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.
Grant writing his memoirs.
In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
Grant appears on the U.S. $50 bill.
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. It was not until 1958 that Congress, feeling it inappropriate that a former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting a pension to such individuals, a practice that continues to this day. Grant first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and Grant's memoirs are also regarded by such writers as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request, "Water." His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America.
Statue of Grant astride his favorite mount, "Cincinnati", at Vicksburg, Mississippi
*In World War II, the United States produced a tank known as the Grant tank (an upgrade of the American M3 "Lee").
*Grant's portrait appears on the U.S. fifty-dollar bill.
*The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., honors Grant.
*Grant Park in Chicago honors Grant.
*Grant Avenue, a nine block long, north-south street in the Bronx, New York, is named after Grant. It is parallel and adjacent to Sherman Avenue.
*Dupont Street, the main thoroughfare in San Francisco's Chinatown, was renamed Grant Avenue in his honor. The famous dragon gate at the entrance to the district is at the corner of Grant and Bush Street.
*Grant, depicted riding a horse, is honored by a statue at the intersection of Bedford Avenue, Rogers Avenue and Dean Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
*There is a U.S. Grant Bridge over the Ohio River at Portsmouth, Ohio.
*There is a U.S. Grant Memorial Highway (US 52) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
*Counties in twelve U.S. states are named after Grant: Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Grant Parish, Louisiana. Note: Grant Counties in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin were named after other Grants, not Ulysses Grant.
* Grant was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren
* Grant is also a descendant from John Lothropp, who is also an ancestor to Benjamin Franklin
Grant Memorial Statue in Grant Park, Galena, Illinois. Julia Grant remarked that it was the best likeness of her husband, as his hands were thrust into his pockets.
* As a young man, Grant's father, Jesse, taught him the trade of tanning. Jesse Grant had been taught how to tan by Owen Brown, the father of known abolitionist John Brown. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* When Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1864, he agreed to sit down for photographer Mathew Brady. As the sun had begun to set by the time Grant arrived, Brady instructed one of his assistants to open the shades of the skylight in Brady's studio. The assistant slipped and shattered the skylight, causing two-inch-thick shards of glass to rain down around Grant, who had taken his seat as requested. He was unharmed, and showed "the most remarkable display of nerve" that Brady had ever seen. O'Brien, Cormac (2007). "Secret Lives of the Civil War: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the War Between the States".
* Grant was known to visit the Willard Hotel to escape the stress of the White House. A long-standing story is that he referred to the people who approached him in the lobby as "those darn lobbyists," implying that he was the source for the term lobbyist. This story is unlikely to be true since there are examples of the term being used in U.S. and British magazines and newspapers before Grant's presidency. World Wide Words.
* While in California, Grant tried selling ice to San Francisco, but failed when it melted in the warm weather aboard the ship. Smith, Grant, p. 81. . This anecdote is disputed by Edward G. Longacre in "General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man" (2006) in which he says -- in a referenced statement -- that the ice venture had failed because of "an unexpected glut of [ice] imports from Alaska."
* In 1883, Grant was elected the eighth president of the National Rifle Association.
* Grant suffered from tone-deafness. He disliked music intensely and would go out of his way to avoid having to hear any other than patriotic songs. In Jeffrey Shaara's The Last Full Measure - which is set after the Battle of Gettysburg, the subject of his father Michael's 1974 bestseller The Killer Angels - Grant is portrayed as saying, "I know only two songs. One is 'Yankee Doodle'. The other isn't." Whether he actually said this is unclear. Shaara, Jeffrey M. (1998). "The Last Full Measure".
* Grant's wife, First Lady Julia Grant, was cross-eyed. When it was suggested to her that she have an operation to have it corrected, President Grant replied that he liked her that way. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* Grant's favorite brand of bourbon whiskey was Old Crow.
* Grant enjoyed eating cucumbers soaked in vinegar for breakfast.
* An apocryphal story about Grant's drinking has the general's critics going to President Lincoln, charging the military man with being a drunk. Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."
:* A similar story was told of General James Wolfe during the French and Indian Wars. When King George II was told that Wolfe was a "mad dog", he is said to have replied, "Then I'd wish he'd bite the other generals."
* The question "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" was used by Groucho Marx in his radio and TV quiz show, the correct answer to which resulted in a consolation prize to contestants who had won no money. Some contestants thought it was a trick question. Grant's grandson, Ulysses S. Grant IV (a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles) appeared on the program on March 12, 1953.
** This was also featured on an episode of the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, in which in a dream sequence Dorothy competes on Jeopardy against a scholar and her roommate Rose. When asked the question, Dorothy replies Ulysses and is wrong, while Rose replies Cary Grant and is correct.
* In the film Wild Wild West, President Grant is a minor character that must deal with the Loveless Alliance.
Once while in office he was arrested for speeding his horse and buggy and fined $20 and had to walk back to the white house. (www.pocanticohills.org/presidents/know.htm )
* A dispute between Grant and his commanding officer Henry Wager Halleck is the subject of a pivotal question in the film Quiz Show.
* United States presidential election, 1868
* United States presidential election, 1872
* History of the United States (1865â1918)
* Western Theater of the American Civil War
* Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
* U.S. Grant Home, Galena, Illinois
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command, Little, Brown and Company, 1968, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 69-12632.
*Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Garland, Hamlin, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character, Macmillan Company, 1898.
*Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885 86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
*Hesseltine, William B., Ulysses S. Grant: Politician 1935.
* Lewis, Lloyd, Captain Sam Grant, Little, Brown, and Co., 1950, ISBN 0-316-52348-8.
* McFeely, William S., Grant: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Co, 1981, ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
* McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
* Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-395-65994-9.
*Smith, Jean Edward, Grant, Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
*Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861 1865, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
* Official Ulysses Simpson Grant biography from the US Army Center for Military History
* Bunting III, Josiah. Ulysses S. Grant (2004) ISBN 0-8050-6949-6
* William Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 (1905), vol 22
* Hesseltine, William B. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (2001) ISBN 1-931313-85-7 online edition
* Mantell, Martin E., Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
* Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936) online edition
* Rhodes, James Ford., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6 and 7 (1920) vol 6
* Scaturro, Frank J., President Grant Reconsidered (1998).
* Schouler, James., History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
* Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
* Simpson, Brooks D., The Reconstruction Presidents (1998)
* Skidmore, Max J. "The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: a Reconsideration." White House Studies (2005) online
* Badeau, Adam. Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 vols. 1882.
*Ballard, Michael B., Vicksburg, The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-2893-9.
* Bearss, Edwin C., The Vicksburg Campaign, 3 volumes, Morningside Press, 1991, ISBN 0-89029-308-2.
* Carter, Samuel III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863 (1980)
* Catton, Bruce, Grant Moves South, 1960, ISBN 0-316-13207-1; Grant Takes Command, 1968, ISBN 0-316-13210-1; U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954)
* Cavanaugh, Michael A., and William Marvel, The Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of the Crater: "The Horrid Pit," June 25-August 6, 1864 (1989)
* Conger, A. L. The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931)
* Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg (1986).
* Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
* Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
* Korda, Michael. Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (2004) 161 pp
* McWhiney, Grady, Battle in the Wilderness: Grant Meets Lee (1995)
* McDonough, James Lee, Shiloh: In Hell before Night (1977).
* McDonough, James Lee, Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy (1984).
* Maney, R. Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor. Victory and Failure, 1864 (1994).
* Matter, William D., If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (1988)
* Miers, Earl Schenck., The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg. 1955.
* Mosier, John., "Grant", Palgrave MacMillan, 2006 ISBN 1-4039-7136-6.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5 6, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8071-1873-7.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7 12, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8071-2136-3.
* Rhea, Gordon C., To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13 25, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8071-2535-0.
* Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.
* Miller, J. Michael, The North Anna Campaign: "Even to Hell Itself," May 21-26, 1864 (1989).
* Simpson, Brooks D, "Continuous Hammering and Mere Attrition: Lost Cause Critics and the Military Reputation of Ulysses S. Grant," in Cad Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, (2000)
* Steere, Edward, The Wilderness Campaign (1960)
* Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April. 1974.
* Williams, T. Harry, McClellan, Sherman and Grant. 1962.
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs (1885) online edition
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters (Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely, eds.) ( The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-94045058-5
* Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) pp 131-73, on the Memoirs
* Johnson, R. U., and Buel, C. C., eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York, 1887-88; essays by leading generals of both sides; online edition
* Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant (1897, reprinted 2000)
* Sherman, William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. 2 vols. 1875.
* Simon, John Y., ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Southern Illinois University Press (1967- ) multivolume complete edition of letters to and from Grant. As of 2006, vol 1-28 covers through September 1878.
* Extensive essay on Ulysses S. Grant and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* First Inaugural Address
* Second Inaugural Address
* White House Biography
* Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
*Emerson, Col. John W., Grant's Life in the West and His Mississippi Valley Campaigns, U.S. Grant Association website.
* Ulysses S. Grant at Find A Grave
* Many rare General Grant photographs
* Complete Bibliography
* Military biography of Ulysses S. Grant from the Cullum biographies
*
* The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. (1918). "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.
* Collection of US Grant Letters
* Ulysses S. Grant: America's Second Three-Star General article by Ethan Rafuse
* Historic White Haven (Grant-Dent home)
*
|-
|-
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
Andrew Johnson
Rutherford B. Hayes
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Julia Grant
Jesse Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Nellie Grant
Frederick Grant
General-in-Chief
List of United States Presidential religious affiliations
Republican Party (United States)
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
#Military career
April 27
1822
July 23
1885
United States
President of the United States
Union (American Civil War)
American Civil War
Battle of Vicksburg
Confederate
Robert E. Lee
Appomattox Court House
J.F.C. Fuller
Vicksburg Campaign
History of the United States Republican Party
Andrew Jackson
Radical Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Civil Rights
African American history
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home
Georgetown, Ohio
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio River
Pennsylvania
Horsham Township, Pennsylvania
Georgetown, Ohio
Brown County, Ohio
August 22
1848
Julia Boggs Dent
Frederick Dent Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Ellen Wrenshall Grant
Jesse Root Grant
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Mathew Brady
United States Army
Army of the Tennessee
Military Division of the Mississippi
United States Army
United States Army
Mexican-American War
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
American Civil War
Battle of Fort Donelson
Battle of Shiloh
Battle of Vicksburg
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Overland Campaign
Battle of Petersburg
Appomattox Campaign
President of the United States
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
U.S. Congressman
Thomas L. Hamer
Academic administration
March 31
1853
cavalry
Mexican-American War
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
Fort Vancouver
Washington Territory
U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
July 31
1854
Robert C. Buchanan
John Eaton (General)
St. Louis, Missouri
Grant's Farm
Anheuser-Busch
Galena, Illinois
James Buchanan
John C. Frémont
Stephen A. Douglas
Elihu B. Washburne
April 28
2007
War Democrats
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Galena, Illinois
Fort Sumter
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
Illinois
Richard Yates (governor)
21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
Claiborne Jackson
John C. Frémont
Ohio River
Paducah, Kentucky
Confederate States Army
Columbus, Kentucky
Gideon J. Pillow
Battle of Belmont
Andrew H. Foote
Battle of Fort Henry
Tennessee River
Battle of Fort Donelson
Cumberland River
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Henry W. Halleck
Nashville, Tennessee
Don Carlos Buell
March 2
March 17
Battle of Cold Harbor
Mathew Brady
Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard
Battle of Shiloh
April 30
First Battle of Corinth
William T. Sherman
Army of West Tennessee
Army of the Tennessee
June 10
Second Battle of Corinth
Battle of Iuka
Mississippi River
Vicksburg Campaign
U.S. Navy
Charles Anderson Dana
hardtack
John C. Pemberton
Jackson, Mississippi
Battle of Champion Hill
Battle of Vicksburg
July 4
1863
Battle of Gettysburg
Turning point of the American Civil War
July 4
Battle of Chickamauga
William S. Rosecrans
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Braxton Bragg
Lookout Mountain
October 17
George Henry Thomas
William Farrar Smith
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Missionary Ridge
Atlanta, Georgia
Lieutenant General (United States)
George Washington
Winfield Scott
brevet (military)
Congress of the United States
March 2
1864
March 12
United States
William Tecumseh Sherman
Virginia
Army of Northern Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
George G. Meade
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Franz Sigel
Shenandoah Valley
Georgia (U.S. state)
Joseph E. Johnston
Atlanta
George Crook
William W. Averell
West Virginia
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Mobile, Alabama
total war
Overland Campaign
Robert E. Lee
May 4
1864
Army of the Potomac
Rapidan River
Army of Northern Virginia
Battle of the Wilderness
Spotsylvania, Virginia
May 8
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 11
May 12
Battle of Cold Harbor
June 3
James River (Virginia)
Petersburg, Virginia
June 18
Siege of Petersburg
William Tecumseh Sherman
Abraham Lincoln
Jubal A. Early
Shenandoah Valley
Washington, D.C.
Administration (government)
Philip Sheridan
Valley Campaigns of 1864
Sherman's March to the Sea
total war
Carolinas Campaign
Appomattox Court House
April 9
1865
Kirby Smith
Trans-Mississippi Department
June 2
1865
Copperheads
Democratic Party (United States)
July 25
1866
General of the Army of the United States
U.S. Army
Andrew Johnson
Edwin M. Stanton
Tenure of Office Act
History of the United States Republican Party
Republican National Convention
Chicago
U.S. presidential election, 1868
Horatio Seymour
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
United States presidential election, 1872
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Horace Greeley
Reconstruction
Redeemers
Ku Klux Klan
voting rights
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Dominican Republic
Yellowstone National Park
March 1
1872
March 29
2006
Christmas
February 8
1999
Panic of 1873
Robert Schenck
Rutherford B. Hayes
Samuel J. Tilden
U.S. presidential election, 1876
Henry Watterson
Treaty of Washington (1871)
Hamilton Fish
CSS Alabama
Dominican Republic
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Charles Sumner
Horace Greeley
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Liberian-Grebo War
USS Alaska (1868)
Liberia
James Milton Turner
Black Friday (1869)
Jay Gould
James Fisk (financier)
Whiskey Ring
Benjamin H. Bristow
Orville E. Babcock
United States Secretary of War
William W. Belknap
Native Americans in the United States
trading post
Sanborn Incident
William Adams Richardson
Cyrus I. Scofield
Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Vice President of the United States
Schuyler Colfax
United States presidential election, 1872
Henry Wilson
Julia Grant
Jesse Root Grant
anti-Semitism
General Order No. 11 (1862)
Oxford, Mississippi
December 17
1862
Vicksburg Campaign
Tennessee
Mississippi
Kentucky
James H. Wilson
Bertram Korn
U.S. presidential election, 1868
President of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
Salmon P. Chase
March 4
1873
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
Elihu B. Washburne
Hamilton Fish
John A. Rawlins
William T. Sherman
William W. Belknap
Alphonso Taft
J. Donald Cameron
George S. Boutwell
William Adams Richardson
Benjamin Bristow
Lot M. Morrill
Ebenezer R. Hoar
Amos T. Akerman
George Henry Williams
Edwards Pierrepont
Alphonso Taft
John A. J. Creswell
James William Marshall
Marshall Jewell
James N. Tyner
Adolph E. Borie
George M. Robeson
Jacob D. Cox
Columbus Delano
Zachariah Chandler
Supreme Court of the United States
Edwin M. Stanton
William Strong (judge)
Joseph P. Bradley
Ward Hunt
Morrison Remick Waite
Chief Justice of the United States
Colorado
August 1
1876
United States Department of Justice
United States Solicitor General
Chester A. Arthur
Office of Personnel Management
Surgeon General of the United States
National Weather Service
Queen Victoria
Windsor Castle
Prince Bismarck
Emperor Meiji
Empress ShÅken
Imperial Palace
Tokyo
Meiji period
Ryukyu Islands
China
Stalwart (politics)
Roscoe Conkling
Methodist
Republican National Convention
James A. Garfield
New York City
Ferdinand Ward
Wall Street
Grant & Ward
Esophageal cancer
pension
The Century Magazine
Mark Twain
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Julius Caesar
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
New York City
Riverside Park (Manhattan)
General Grant National Memorial
mausoleum
North America
World War II
tank
Grant tank
U.S. fifty-dollar bill
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Grant Park (Chicago)
Chicago
the Bronx
New York
San Francisco, California
Chinatown, San Francisco, California
Bedford Avenue
Crown Heights
Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. Grant Bridge
Ohio River
Portsmouth, Ohio
U.S. Route 52
Counties of the United States
U.S. state
Grant County, Arkansas
Grant County, Kansas
Grant County, Minnesota
Grant County, Nebraska
Grant County, New Mexico
Grant County, North Dakota
Grant County, Oklahoma
Grant County, Washington
Grant County, West Virginia
Grant Parish, Louisiana
Mayflower
Richard Warren
John Lothropp
Benjamin Franklin
abolitionist
John Brown (abolitionist)
Mathew Brady
Willard Hotel
lobbyist
San Francisco
National Rifle Association
Jeffrey Shaara
The Last Full Measure
Michael Shaara
The Killer Angels
First Lady of the United States
Julia Grant
Strabismus
bourbon whiskey
Old Crow
cucumbers
vinegar
breakfast
James Wolfe
French and Indian Wars
King George II
Groucho Marx
You Bet Your Life
Ulysses S. Grant IV
University of California, Los Angeles
The Golden Girls
Cary Grant
Wild Wild West
Henry Wager Halleck
Quiz Show
United States presidential election, 1868
United States presidential election, 1872
History of the United States (1865-1918)
Western Theater of the American Civil War
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
James M. McPherson
Jean Edward Smith
Allan Nevins
Ed Bearss
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
Find A Grave
West Point#Cullum Number
Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Rutherford B. Hayes
Abraham Lincoln
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1868
U.S. presidential election, 1872
Rutherford B. Hayes
Army of the Tennessee
William T. Sherman
Henry W. Halleck
Commanding General of the United States Army
Andrew Johnson
Oldest living United States president
Rutherford B. Hayes
United States
soldier
politician
President of the United States
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
|
Ulysses_S._Grant | Was Grant elected president as a Republican? | yes | data/set3/a5 | Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, See military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 July 23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869 1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
Grant first reached national prominence by taking Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862 in the first Union victories of the war. The following year, his brilliant campaign ending in the surrender of Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi andâwith the simultaneous Union victory at Gettysburgâturned the tide of the war in the North's favor. Named commanding general of the Federal armies in 1864, he implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's ability to carry on the war. In 1865, after conducting a costly war of attrition in the East, he accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. Grant has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.
In 1868, Grant was elected president as a Republican. Grant was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed.
Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans. See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.
Ulysses Grant Birthplace, Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home, Georgetown, Ohio
Grant was born in a log cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794 1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798 1883). His father, a tanner, was from Pennsylvania, and his mother was born in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio.
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826 1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (Buck), Ellen Wrenshall Grant (Nellie), and Jesse Root Grant.
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only. Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.
Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846â1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, later becoming his brother-in-law, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.
After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the 4th U.S. Infantry regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial. According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name." McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican War
A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys). His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. McFeely, ch. 5.
Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican. Hesseltine, chapter 6. .
The home of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Infantry in June 1861.
Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.
In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.
Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederates violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, an old friend of Grant's and a West Point classmate, and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers. Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.
Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased against him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.
General Grant at Cold Harbor, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864
In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.
The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in Corinth, Mississippi. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Corinth and Iuka that fall.
In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant spent the winter of 1862 1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.
However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and in a daring move that defied conventional military principles cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles A. Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George H. Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas' chief engineer, William F. "Baldy" Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.
Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas' men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.
Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet appointment), recently re-authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.
In March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.
Poster of "Grant from West Point to Appomattox."
Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.
The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River.
Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a siege.
As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas.
At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democrats who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius: Korda, (2004)
After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army. Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.''
As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.
The second president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In the 1872 election he won by a landslide against the breakaway Liberal Republican party that nominated Horace Greeley.
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed .
Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006. Grant also signed into law making Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application, CRS Report for Congress, 98-301 GOV, updated February 8, 1999, by Stephen W. Stathis
The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.
By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker. Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes: Nevins, Fish 2:811
In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson .
The Grant administration's first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Act to Strengthen the Public Credit which the GOP Congress had passed after Grant ` s inaugural in March 1869 . The act had the effect that the gold price on New York exchange fell to 310 dollar an ounce - the lowest point since the suspension of specie payment in 1862 .
As Jean Edward Smith notes in his 2002 biography on Grant, the presidential treasury secretary Boutwell reorganized the Treasury by discharging unnecessary employees, started sweeping changes in Bureau of Printing and Engraving to protect the currency from counterfeiters and revitalized tax collections to hasten the collection of revenue. This changes soon led the Tresury having a monthly surplus .
The Grant administration reduced the debt by appromixately 435 million dollar. That was achieved by selling the growing gold surplus at weekly auctions for greenbacks and buying back wartime bonds with the currency . With this Grant ` s treasury secretary Boutwell had established a policy if continued had payed of the national debt in a quarter of a century . Newspapers like the New York Tribune wanted that the Government buy more bonds and Greenbacks, the New York Times praised the the Grant administration `s debt policy .
On other economic fronts did the Grant administration have acomplishments . Under
Grant the nation `s credit was substantially raised. Taxes was reduced by 300 million dollar. Annual interest rates were reduced by approximately 30 million dollar . The U . S balance of trade was changed from 130 million dollar against the United States to 120 million dollar in favor of the United States . He also reduced inflation and to 1873 bolstered economic recovery . He also promoted economy in federal expenditures . His veto of the Inflation Bill in 1874 saved the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 to get worse and the veto was praised by the financial community and many newspapers .
The Resumption of Species Act of 1875 which was signed by Grant and helped to end the crisis in 1879 when the law came in to effect
He also pressed for internal improvements and increased shipbuilding and foreign trade. He also wanted to enhance and improve the commercial marine .
Grant/Wilson campaign poster
In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington, negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He also proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Santo Domingo. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia. Liberian-Grebo War of 1876
The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud. However, Grant eventually released large amounts of gold back onto the market, causing a large-scale financial crisis for many gold investors. Jay Gould had already prepared and quietly sold out while Fisk denied many agreements and hired thugs to intimidate his creditors.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.
Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first vice president, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.
President Grant with his wife, Julia, and son, Jesse, in 1872.
Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."
Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11, issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:
The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart â opportunistic traders who were Jewish. McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed [...] he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."
The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 presidential campaign, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.
Grant's second inauguration as President by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.
Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
* Edwin M. Stanton 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
* William Strong 1870
* Joseph P. Bradley 1870
* Ward Hunt 1873
* Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice) 1874
* Colorado August 1, 1876
* Department of Justice (1870)
* Office of the Solicitor General (1870)
* "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
* Office of the Surgeon General (1871)
* Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)
Ulysses S. Grant in his postbellum.
After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress ShÅken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.
In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.
That same year, Grant was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.
Grant writing his memoirs.
In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
Grant appears on the U.S. $50 bill.
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. It was not until 1958 that Congress, feeling it inappropriate that a former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting a pension to such individuals, a practice that continues to this day. Grant first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and Grant's memoirs are also regarded by such writers as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request, "Water." His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America.
Statue of Grant astride his favorite mount, "Cincinnati", at Vicksburg, Mississippi
*In World War II, the United States produced a tank known as the Grant tank (an upgrade of the American M3 "Lee").
*Grant's portrait appears on the U.S. fifty-dollar bill.
*The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., honors Grant.
*Grant Park in Chicago honors Grant.
*Grant Avenue, a nine block long, north-south street in the Bronx, New York, is named after Grant. It is parallel and adjacent to Sherman Avenue.
*Dupont Street, the main thoroughfare in San Francisco's Chinatown, was renamed Grant Avenue in his honor. The famous dragon gate at the entrance to the district is at the corner of Grant and Bush Street.
*Grant, depicted riding a horse, is honored by a statue at the intersection of Bedford Avenue, Rogers Avenue and Dean Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
*There is a U.S. Grant Bridge over the Ohio River at Portsmouth, Ohio.
*There is a U.S. Grant Memorial Highway (US 52) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
*Counties in twelve U.S. states are named after Grant: Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Grant Parish, Louisiana. Note: Grant Counties in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin were named after other Grants, not Ulysses Grant.
* Grant was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren
* Grant is also a descendant from John Lothropp, who is also an ancestor to Benjamin Franklin
Grant Memorial Statue in Grant Park, Galena, Illinois. Julia Grant remarked that it was the best likeness of her husband, as his hands were thrust into his pockets.
* As a young man, Grant's father, Jesse, taught him the trade of tanning. Jesse Grant had been taught how to tan by Owen Brown, the father of known abolitionist John Brown. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* When Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1864, he agreed to sit down for photographer Mathew Brady. As the sun had begun to set by the time Grant arrived, Brady instructed one of his assistants to open the shades of the skylight in Brady's studio. The assistant slipped and shattered the skylight, causing two-inch-thick shards of glass to rain down around Grant, who had taken his seat as requested. He was unharmed, and showed "the most remarkable display of nerve" that Brady had ever seen. O'Brien, Cormac (2007). "Secret Lives of the Civil War: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the War Between the States".
* Grant was known to visit the Willard Hotel to escape the stress of the White House. A long-standing story is that he referred to the people who approached him in the lobby as "those darn lobbyists," implying that he was the source for the term lobbyist. This story is unlikely to be true since there are examples of the term being used in U.S. and British magazines and newspapers before Grant's presidency. World Wide Words.
* While in California, Grant tried selling ice to San Francisco, but failed when it melted in the warm weather aboard the ship. Smith, Grant, p. 81. . This anecdote is disputed by Edward G. Longacre in "General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man" (2006) in which he says -- in a referenced statement -- that the ice venture had failed because of "an unexpected glut of [ice] imports from Alaska."
* In 1883, Grant was elected the eighth president of the National Rifle Association.
* Grant suffered from tone-deafness. He disliked music intensely and would go out of his way to avoid having to hear any other than patriotic songs. In Jeffrey Shaara's The Last Full Measure - which is set after the Battle of Gettysburg, the subject of his father Michael's 1974 bestseller The Killer Angels - Grant is portrayed as saying, "I know only two songs. One is 'Yankee Doodle'. The other isn't." Whether he actually said this is unclear. Shaara, Jeffrey M. (1998). "The Last Full Measure".
* Grant's wife, First Lady Julia Grant, was cross-eyed. When it was suggested to her that she have an operation to have it corrected, President Grant replied that he liked her that way. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* Grant's favorite brand of bourbon whiskey was Old Crow.
* Grant enjoyed eating cucumbers soaked in vinegar for breakfast.
* An apocryphal story about Grant's drinking has the general's critics going to President Lincoln, charging the military man with being a drunk. Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."
:* A similar story was told of General James Wolfe during the French and Indian Wars. When King George II was told that Wolfe was a "mad dog", he is said to have replied, "Then I'd wish he'd bite the other generals."
* The question "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" was used by Groucho Marx in his radio and TV quiz show, the correct answer to which resulted in a consolation prize to contestants who had won no money. Some contestants thought it was a trick question. Grant's grandson, Ulysses S. Grant IV (a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles) appeared on the program on March 12, 1953.
** This was also featured on an episode of the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, in which in a dream sequence Dorothy competes on Jeopardy against a scholar and her roommate Rose. When asked the question, Dorothy replies Ulysses and is wrong, while Rose replies Cary Grant and is correct.
* In the film Wild Wild West, President Grant is a minor character that must deal with the Loveless Alliance.
Once while in office he was arrested for speeding his horse and buggy and fined $20 and had to walk back to the white house. (www.pocanticohills.org/presidents/know.htm )
* A dispute between Grant and his commanding officer Henry Wager Halleck is the subject of a pivotal question in the film Quiz Show.
* United States presidential election, 1868
* United States presidential election, 1872
* History of the United States (1865â1918)
* Western Theater of the American Civil War
* Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
* U.S. Grant Home, Galena, Illinois
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command, Little, Brown and Company, 1968, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 69-12632.
*Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Garland, Hamlin, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character, Macmillan Company, 1898.
*Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885 86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
*Hesseltine, William B., Ulysses S. Grant: Politician 1935.
* Lewis, Lloyd, Captain Sam Grant, Little, Brown, and Co., 1950, ISBN 0-316-52348-8.
* McFeely, William S., Grant: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Co, 1981, ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
* McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
* Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-395-65994-9.
*Smith, Jean Edward, Grant, Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
*Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861 1865, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
* Official Ulysses Simpson Grant biography from the US Army Center for Military History
* Bunting III, Josiah. Ulysses S. Grant (2004) ISBN 0-8050-6949-6
* William Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 (1905), vol 22
* Hesseltine, William B. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (2001) ISBN 1-931313-85-7 online edition
* Mantell, Martin E., Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
* Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936) online edition
* Rhodes, James Ford., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6 and 7 (1920) vol 6
* Scaturro, Frank J., President Grant Reconsidered (1998).
* Schouler, James., History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
* Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
* Simpson, Brooks D., The Reconstruction Presidents (1998)
* Skidmore, Max J. "The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: a Reconsideration." White House Studies (2005) online
* Badeau, Adam. Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 vols. 1882.
*Ballard, Michael B., Vicksburg, The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-2893-9.
* Bearss, Edwin C., The Vicksburg Campaign, 3 volumes, Morningside Press, 1991, ISBN 0-89029-308-2.
* Carter, Samuel III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863 (1980)
* Catton, Bruce, Grant Moves South, 1960, ISBN 0-316-13207-1; Grant Takes Command, 1968, ISBN 0-316-13210-1; U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954)
* Cavanaugh, Michael A., and William Marvel, The Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of the Crater: "The Horrid Pit," June 25-August 6, 1864 (1989)
* Conger, A. L. The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931)
* Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg (1986).
* Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
* Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
* Korda, Michael. Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (2004) 161 pp
* McWhiney, Grady, Battle in the Wilderness: Grant Meets Lee (1995)
* McDonough, James Lee, Shiloh: In Hell before Night (1977).
* McDonough, James Lee, Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy (1984).
* Maney, R. Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor. Victory and Failure, 1864 (1994).
* Matter, William D., If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (1988)
* Miers, Earl Schenck., The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg. 1955.
* Mosier, John., "Grant", Palgrave MacMillan, 2006 ISBN 1-4039-7136-6.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5 6, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8071-1873-7.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7 12, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8071-2136-3.
* Rhea, Gordon C., To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13 25, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8071-2535-0.
* Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.
* Miller, J. Michael, The North Anna Campaign: "Even to Hell Itself," May 21-26, 1864 (1989).
* Simpson, Brooks D, "Continuous Hammering and Mere Attrition: Lost Cause Critics and the Military Reputation of Ulysses S. Grant," in Cad Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, (2000)
* Steere, Edward, The Wilderness Campaign (1960)
* Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April. 1974.
* Williams, T. Harry, McClellan, Sherman and Grant. 1962.
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs (1885) online edition
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters (Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely, eds.) ( The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-94045058-5
* Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) pp 131-73, on the Memoirs
* Johnson, R. U., and Buel, C. C., eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York, 1887-88; essays by leading generals of both sides; online edition
* Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant (1897, reprinted 2000)
* Sherman, William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. 2 vols. 1875.
* Simon, John Y., ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Southern Illinois University Press (1967- ) multivolume complete edition of letters to and from Grant. As of 2006, vol 1-28 covers through September 1878.
* Extensive essay on Ulysses S. Grant and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* First Inaugural Address
* Second Inaugural Address
* White House Biography
* Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
*Emerson, Col. John W., Grant's Life in the West and His Mississippi Valley Campaigns, U.S. Grant Association website.
* Ulysses S. Grant at Find A Grave
* Many rare General Grant photographs
* Complete Bibliography
* Military biography of Ulysses S. Grant from the Cullum biographies
*
* The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. (1918). "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.
* Collection of US Grant Letters
* Ulysses S. Grant: America's Second Three-Star General article by Ethan Rafuse
* Historic White Haven (Grant-Dent home)
*
|-
|-
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
Andrew Johnson
Rutherford B. Hayes
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Julia Grant
Jesse Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Nellie Grant
Frederick Grant
General-in-Chief
List of United States Presidential religious affiliations
Republican Party (United States)
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
#Military career
April 27
1822
July 23
1885
United States
President of the United States
Union (American Civil War)
American Civil War
Battle of Vicksburg
Confederate
Robert E. Lee
Appomattox Court House
J.F.C. Fuller
Vicksburg Campaign
History of the United States Republican Party
Andrew Jackson
Radical Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Civil Rights
African American history
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home
Georgetown, Ohio
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio River
Pennsylvania
Horsham Township, Pennsylvania
Georgetown, Ohio
Brown County, Ohio
August 22
1848
Julia Boggs Dent
Frederick Dent Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Ellen Wrenshall Grant
Jesse Root Grant
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Mathew Brady
United States Army
Army of the Tennessee
Military Division of the Mississippi
United States Army
United States Army
Mexican-American War
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
American Civil War
Battle of Fort Donelson
Battle of Shiloh
Battle of Vicksburg
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Overland Campaign
Battle of Petersburg
Appomattox Campaign
President of the United States
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
U.S. Congressman
Thomas L. Hamer
Academic administration
March 31
1853
cavalry
Mexican-American War
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
Fort Vancouver
Washington Territory
U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
July 31
1854
Robert C. Buchanan
John Eaton (General)
St. Louis, Missouri
Grant's Farm
Anheuser-Busch
Galena, Illinois
James Buchanan
John C. Frémont
Stephen A. Douglas
Elihu B. Washburne
April 28
2007
War Democrats
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Galena, Illinois
Fort Sumter
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
Illinois
Richard Yates (governor)
21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
Claiborne Jackson
John C. Frémont
Ohio River
Paducah, Kentucky
Confederate States Army
Columbus, Kentucky
Gideon J. Pillow
Battle of Belmont
Andrew H. Foote
Battle of Fort Henry
Tennessee River
Battle of Fort Donelson
Cumberland River
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Henry W. Halleck
Nashville, Tennessee
Don Carlos Buell
March 2
March 17
Battle of Cold Harbor
Mathew Brady
Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard
Battle of Shiloh
April 30
First Battle of Corinth
William T. Sherman
Army of West Tennessee
Army of the Tennessee
June 10
Second Battle of Corinth
Battle of Iuka
Mississippi River
Vicksburg Campaign
U.S. Navy
Charles Anderson Dana
hardtack
John C. Pemberton
Jackson, Mississippi
Battle of Champion Hill
Battle of Vicksburg
July 4
1863
Battle of Gettysburg
Turning point of the American Civil War
July 4
Battle of Chickamauga
William S. Rosecrans
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Braxton Bragg
Lookout Mountain
October 17
George Henry Thomas
William Farrar Smith
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Missionary Ridge
Atlanta, Georgia
Lieutenant General (United States)
George Washington
Winfield Scott
brevet (military)
Congress of the United States
March 2
1864
March 12
United States
William Tecumseh Sherman
Virginia
Army of Northern Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
George G. Meade
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Franz Sigel
Shenandoah Valley
Georgia (U.S. state)
Joseph E. Johnston
Atlanta
George Crook
William W. Averell
West Virginia
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Mobile, Alabama
total war
Overland Campaign
Robert E. Lee
May 4
1864
Army of the Potomac
Rapidan River
Army of Northern Virginia
Battle of the Wilderness
Spotsylvania, Virginia
May 8
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 11
May 12
Battle of Cold Harbor
June 3
James River (Virginia)
Petersburg, Virginia
June 18
Siege of Petersburg
William Tecumseh Sherman
Abraham Lincoln
Jubal A. Early
Shenandoah Valley
Washington, D.C.
Administration (government)
Philip Sheridan
Valley Campaigns of 1864
Sherman's March to the Sea
total war
Carolinas Campaign
Appomattox Court House
April 9
1865
Kirby Smith
Trans-Mississippi Department
June 2
1865
Copperheads
Democratic Party (United States)
July 25
1866
General of the Army of the United States
U.S. Army
Andrew Johnson
Edwin M. Stanton
Tenure of Office Act
History of the United States Republican Party
Republican National Convention
Chicago
U.S. presidential election, 1868
Horatio Seymour
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
United States presidential election, 1872
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Horace Greeley
Reconstruction
Redeemers
Ku Klux Klan
voting rights
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Dominican Republic
Yellowstone National Park
March 1
1872
March 29
2006
Christmas
February 8
1999
Panic of 1873
Robert Schenck
Rutherford B. Hayes
Samuel J. Tilden
U.S. presidential election, 1876
Henry Watterson
Treaty of Washington (1871)
Hamilton Fish
CSS Alabama
Dominican Republic
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Charles Sumner
Horace Greeley
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Liberian-Grebo War
USS Alaska (1868)
Liberia
James Milton Turner
Black Friday (1869)
Jay Gould
James Fisk (financier)
Whiskey Ring
Benjamin H. Bristow
Orville E. Babcock
United States Secretary of War
William W. Belknap
Native Americans in the United States
trading post
Sanborn Incident
William Adams Richardson
Cyrus I. Scofield
Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Vice President of the United States
Schuyler Colfax
United States presidential election, 1872
Henry Wilson
Julia Grant
Jesse Root Grant
anti-Semitism
General Order No. 11 (1862)
Oxford, Mississippi
December 17
1862
Vicksburg Campaign
Tennessee
Mississippi
Kentucky
James H. Wilson
Bertram Korn
U.S. presidential election, 1868
President of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
Salmon P. Chase
March 4
1873
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
Elihu B. Washburne
Hamilton Fish
John A. Rawlins
William T. Sherman
William W. Belknap
Alphonso Taft
J. Donald Cameron
George S. Boutwell
William Adams Richardson
Benjamin Bristow
Lot M. Morrill
Ebenezer R. Hoar
Amos T. Akerman
George Henry Williams
Edwards Pierrepont
Alphonso Taft
John A. J. Creswell
James William Marshall
Marshall Jewell
James N. Tyner
Adolph E. Borie
George M. Robeson
Jacob D. Cox
Columbus Delano
Zachariah Chandler
Supreme Court of the United States
Edwin M. Stanton
William Strong (judge)
Joseph P. Bradley
Ward Hunt
Morrison Remick Waite
Chief Justice of the United States
Colorado
August 1
1876
United States Department of Justice
United States Solicitor General
Chester A. Arthur
Office of Personnel Management
Surgeon General of the United States
National Weather Service
Queen Victoria
Windsor Castle
Prince Bismarck
Emperor Meiji
Empress ShÅken
Imperial Palace
Tokyo
Meiji period
Ryukyu Islands
China
Stalwart (politics)
Roscoe Conkling
Methodist
Republican National Convention
James A. Garfield
New York City
Ferdinand Ward
Wall Street
Grant & Ward
Esophageal cancer
pension
The Century Magazine
Mark Twain
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Julius Caesar
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
New York City
Riverside Park (Manhattan)
General Grant National Memorial
mausoleum
North America
World War II
tank
Grant tank
U.S. fifty-dollar bill
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Grant Park (Chicago)
Chicago
the Bronx
New York
San Francisco, California
Chinatown, San Francisco, California
Bedford Avenue
Crown Heights
Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. Grant Bridge
Ohio River
Portsmouth, Ohio
U.S. Route 52
Counties of the United States
U.S. state
Grant County, Arkansas
Grant County, Kansas
Grant County, Minnesota
Grant County, Nebraska
Grant County, New Mexico
Grant County, North Dakota
Grant County, Oklahoma
Grant County, Washington
Grant County, West Virginia
Grant Parish, Louisiana
Mayflower
Richard Warren
John Lothropp
Benjamin Franklin
abolitionist
John Brown (abolitionist)
Mathew Brady
Willard Hotel
lobbyist
San Francisco
National Rifle Association
Jeffrey Shaara
The Last Full Measure
Michael Shaara
The Killer Angels
First Lady of the United States
Julia Grant
Strabismus
bourbon whiskey
Old Crow
cucumbers
vinegar
breakfast
James Wolfe
French and Indian Wars
King George II
Groucho Marx
You Bet Your Life
Ulysses S. Grant IV
University of California, Los Angeles
The Golden Girls
Cary Grant
Wild Wild West
Henry Wager Halleck
Quiz Show
United States presidential election, 1868
United States presidential election, 1872
History of the United States (1865-1918)
Western Theater of the American Civil War
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
James M. McPherson
Jean Edward Smith
Allan Nevins
Ed Bearss
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
Find A Grave
West Point#Cullum Number
Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Rutherford B. Hayes
Abraham Lincoln
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1868
U.S. presidential election, 1872
Rutherford B. Hayes
Army of the Tennessee
William T. Sherman
Henry W. Halleck
Commanding General of the United States Army
Andrew Johnson
Oldest living United States president
Rutherford B. Hayes
United States
soldier
politician
President of the United States
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
|
Ulysses_S._Grant | What was from Pennsylvania? | His father | data/set3/a5 | Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, See military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 July 23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869 1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
Grant first reached national prominence by taking Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862 in the first Union victories of the war. The following year, his brilliant campaign ending in the surrender of Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi andâwith the simultaneous Union victory at Gettysburgâturned the tide of the war in the North's favor. Named commanding general of the Federal armies in 1864, he implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's ability to carry on the war. In 1865, after conducting a costly war of attrition in the East, he accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. Grant has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.
In 1868, Grant was elected president as a Republican. Grant was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed.
Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans. See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.
Ulysses Grant Birthplace, Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home, Georgetown, Ohio
Grant was born in a log cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794 1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798 1883). His father, a tanner, was from Pennsylvania, and his mother was born in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio.
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826 1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (Buck), Ellen Wrenshall Grant (Nellie), and Jesse Root Grant.
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only. Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.
Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846â1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, later becoming his brother-in-law, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.
After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the 4th U.S. Infantry regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial. According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name." McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican War
A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys). His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. McFeely, ch. 5.
Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican. Hesseltine, chapter 6. .
The home of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Infantry in June 1861.
Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.
In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.
Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederates violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, an old friend of Grant's and a West Point classmate, and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers. Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.
Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased against him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.
General Grant at Cold Harbor, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864
In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.
The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in Corinth, Mississippi. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Corinth and Iuka that fall.
In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant spent the winter of 1862 1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.
However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and in a daring move that defied conventional military principles cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles A. Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George H. Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas' chief engineer, William F. "Baldy" Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.
Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas' men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.
Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet appointment), recently re-authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.
In March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.
Poster of "Grant from West Point to Appomattox."
Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.
The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River.
Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a siege.
As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas.
At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democrats who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius: Korda, (2004)
After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army. Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.''
As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.
The second president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In the 1872 election he won by a landslide against the breakaway Liberal Republican party that nominated Horace Greeley.
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed .
Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006. Grant also signed into law making Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application, CRS Report for Congress, 98-301 GOV, updated February 8, 1999, by Stephen W. Stathis
The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.
By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker. Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes: Nevins, Fish 2:811
In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson .
The Grant administration's first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Act to Strengthen the Public Credit which the GOP Congress had passed after Grant ` s inaugural in March 1869 . The act had the effect that the gold price on New York exchange fell to 310 dollar an ounce - the lowest point since the suspension of specie payment in 1862 .
As Jean Edward Smith notes in his 2002 biography on Grant, the presidential treasury secretary Boutwell reorganized the Treasury by discharging unnecessary employees, started sweeping changes in Bureau of Printing and Engraving to protect the currency from counterfeiters and revitalized tax collections to hasten the collection of revenue. This changes soon led the Tresury having a monthly surplus .
The Grant administration reduced the debt by appromixately 435 million dollar. That was achieved by selling the growing gold surplus at weekly auctions for greenbacks and buying back wartime bonds with the currency . With this Grant ` s treasury secretary Boutwell had established a policy if continued had payed of the national debt in a quarter of a century . Newspapers like the New York Tribune wanted that the Government buy more bonds and Greenbacks, the New York Times praised the the Grant administration `s debt policy .
On other economic fronts did the Grant administration have acomplishments . Under
Grant the nation `s credit was substantially raised. Taxes was reduced by 300 million dollar. Annual interest rates were reduced by approximately 30 million dollar . The U . S balance of trade was changed from 130 million dollar against the United States to 120 million dollar in favor of the United States . He also reduced inflation and to 1873 bolstered economic recovery . He also promoted economy in federal expenditures . His veto of the Inflation Bill in 1874 saved the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 to get worse and the veto was praised by the financial community and many newspapers .
The Resumption of Species Act of 1875 which was signed by Grant and helped to end the crisis in 1879 when the law came in to effect
He also pressed for internal improvements and increased shipbuilding and foreign trade. He also wanted to enhance and improve the commercial marine .
Grant/Wilson campaign poster
In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington, negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He also proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Santo Domingo. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia. Liberian-Grebo War of 1876
The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud. However, Grant eventually released large amounts of gold back onto the market, causing a large-scale financial crisis for many gold investors. Jay Gould had already prepared and quietly sold out while Fisk denied many agreements and hired thugs to intimidate his creditors.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.
Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first vice president, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.
President Grant with his wife, Julia, and son, Jesse, in 1872.
Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."
Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11, issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:
The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart â opportunistic traders who were Jewish. McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed [...] he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."
The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 presidential campaign, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.
Grant's second inauguration as President by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.
Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
* Edwin M. Stanton 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
* William Strong 1870
* Joseph P. Bradley 1870
* Ward Hunt 1873
* Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice) 1874
* Colorado August 1, 1876
* Department of Justice (1870)
* Office of the Solicitor General (1870)
* "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
* Office of the Surgeon General (1871)
* Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)
Ulysses S. Grant in his postbellum.
After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress ShÅken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.
In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.
That same year, Grant was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.
Grant writing his memoirs.
In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
Grant appears on the U.S. $50 bill.
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. It was not until 1958 that Congress, feeling it inappropriate that a former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting a pension to such individuals, a practice that continues to this day. Grant first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and Grant's memoirs are also regarded by such writers as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request, "Water." His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America.
Statue of Grant astride his favorite mount, "Cincinnati", at Vicksburg, Mississippi
*In World War II, the United States produced a tank known as the Grant tank (an upgrade of the American M3 "Lee").
*Grant's portrait appears on the U.S. fifty-dollar bill.
*The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., honors Grant.
*Grant Park in Chicago honors Grant.
*Grant Avenue, a nine block long, north-south street in the Bronx, New York, is named after Grant. It is parallel and adjacent to Sherman Avenue.
*Dupont Street, the main thoroughfare in San Francisco's Chinatown, was renamed Grant Avenue in his honor. The famous dragon gate at the entrance to the district is at the corner of Grant and Bush Street.
*Grant, depicted riding a horse, is honored by a statue at the intersection of Bedford Avenue, Rogers Avenue and Dean Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
*There is a U.S. Grant Bridge over the Ohio River at Portsmouth, Ohio.
*There is a U.S. Grant Memorial Highway (US 52) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
*Counties in twelve U.S. states are named after Grant: Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Grant Parish, Louisiana. Note: Grant Counties in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin were named after other Grants, not Ulysses Grant.
* Grant was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren
* Grant is also a descendant from John Lothropp, who is also an ancestor to Benjamin Franklin
Grant Memorial Statue in Grant Park, Galena, Illinois. Julia Grant remarked that it was the best likeness of her husband, as his hands were thrust into his pockets.
* As a young man, Grant's father, Jesse, taught him the trade of tanning. Jesse Grant had been taught how to tan by Owen Brown, the father of known abolitionist John Brown. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* When Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1864, he agreed to sit down for photographer Mathew Brady. As the sun had begun to set by the time Grant arrived, Brady instructed one of his assistants to open the shades of the skylight in Brady's studio. The assistant slipped and shattered the skylight, causing two-inch-thick shards of glass to rain down around Grant, who had taken his seat as requested. He was unharmed, and showed "the most remarkable display of nerve" that Brady had ever seen. O'Brien, Cormac (2007). "Secret Lives of the Civil War: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the War Between the States".
* Grant was known to visit the Willard Hotel to escape the stress of the White House. A long-standing story is that he referred to the people who approached him in the lobby as "those darn lobbyists," implying that he was the source for the term lobbyist. This story is unlikely to be true since there are examples of the term being used in U.S. and British magazines and newspapers before Grant's presidency. World Wide Words.
* While in California, Grant tried selling ice to San Francisco, but failed when it melted in the warm weather aboard the ship. Smith, Grant, p. 81. . This anecdote is disputed by Edward G. Longacre in "General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man" (2006) in which he says -- in a referenced statement -- that the ice venture had failed because of "an unexpected glut of [ice] imports from Alaska."
* In 1883, Grant was elected the eighth president of the National Rifle Association.
* Grant suffered from tone-deafness. He disliked music intensely and would go out of his way to avoid having to hear any other than patriotic songs. In Jeffrey Shaara's The Last Full Measure - which is set after the Battle of Gettysburg, the subject of his father Michael's 1974 bestseller The Killer Angels - Grant is portrayed as saying, "I know only two songs. One is 'Yankee Doodle'. The other isn't." Whether he actually said this is unclear. Shaara, Jeffrey M. (1998). "The Last Full Measure".
* Grant's wife, First Lady Julia Grant, was cross-eyed. When it was suggested to her that she have an operation to have it corrected, President Grant replied that he liked her that way. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* Grant's favorite brand of bourbon whiskey was Old Crow.
* Grant enjoyed eating cucumbers soaked in vinegar for breakfast.
* An apocryphal story about Grant's drinking has the general's critics going to President Lincoln, charging the military man with being a drunk. Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."
:* A similar story was told of General James Wolfe during the French and Indian Wars. When King George II was told that Wolfe was a "mad dog", he is said to have replied, "Then I'd wish he'd bite the other generals."
* The question "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" was used by Groucho Marx in his radio and TV quiz show, the correct answer to which resulted in a consolation prize to contestants who had won no money. Some contestants thought it was a trick question. Grant's grandson, Ulysses S. Grant IV (a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles) appeared on the program on March 12, 1953.
** This was also featured on an episode of the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, in which in a dream sequence Dorothy competes on Jeopardy against a scholar and her roommate Rose. When asked the question, Dorothy replies Ulysses and is wrong, while Rose replies Cary Grant and is correct.
* In the film Wild Wild West, President Grant is a minor character that must deal with the Loveless Alliance.
Once while in office he was arrested for speeding his horse and buggy and fined $20 and had to walk back to the white house. (www.pocanticohills.org/presidents/know.htm )
* A dispute between Grant and his commanding officer Henry Wager Halleck is the subject of a pivotal question in the film Quiz Show.
* United States presidential election, 1868
* United States presidential election, 1872
* History of the United States (1865â1918)
* Western Theater of the American Civil War
* Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
* U.S. Grant Home, Galena, Illinois
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command, Little, Brown and Company, 1968, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 69-12632.
*Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Garland, Hamlin, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character, Macmillan Company, 1898.
*Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885 86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
*Hesseltine, William B., Ulysses S. Grant: Politician 1935.
* Lewis, Lloyd, Captain Sam Grant, Little, Brown, and Co., 1950, ISBN 0-316-52348-8.
* McFeely, William S., Grant: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Co, 1981, ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
* McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
* Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-395-65994-9.
*Smith, Jean Edward, Grant, Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
*Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861 1865, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
* Official Ulysses Simpson Grant biography from the US Army Center for Military History
* Bunting III, Josiah. Ulysses S. Grant (2004) ISBN 0-8050-6949-6
* William Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 (1905), vol 22
* Hesseltine, William B. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (2001) ISBN 1-931313-85-7 online edition
* Mantell, Martin E., Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
* Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936) online edition
* Rhodes, James Ford., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6 and 7 (1920) vol 6
* Scaturro, Frank J., President Grant Reconsidered (1998).
* Schouler, James., History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
* Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
* Simpson, Brooks D., The Reconstruction Presidents (1998)
* Skidmore, Max J. "The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: a Reconsideration." White House Studies (2005) online
* Badeau, Adam. Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 vols. 1882.
*Ballard, Michael B., Vicksburg, The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-2893-9.
* Bearss, Edwin C., The Vicksburg Campaign, 3 volumes, Morningside Press, 1991, ISBN 0-89029-308-2.
* Carter, Samuel III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863 (1980)
* Catton, Bruce, Grant Moves South, 1960, ISBN 0-316-13207-1; Grant Takes Command, 1968, ISBN 0-316-13210-1; U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954)
* Cavanaugh, Michael A., and William Marvel, The Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of the Crater: "The Horrid Pit," June 25-August 6, 1864 (1989)
* Conger, A. L. The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931)
* Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg (1986).
* Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
* Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
* Korda, Michael. Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (2004) 161 pp
* McWhiney, Grady, Battle in the Wilderness: Grant Meets Lee (1995)
* McDonough, James Lee, Shiloh: In Hell before Night (1977).
* McDonough, James Lee, Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy (1984).
* Maney, R. Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor. Victory and Failure, 1864 (1994).
* Matter, William D., If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (1988)
* Miers, Earl Schenck., The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg. 1955.
* Mosier, John., "Grant", Palgrave MacMillan, 2006 ISBN 1-4039-7136-6.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5 6, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8071-1873-7.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7 12, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8071-2136-3.
* Rhea, Gordon C., To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13 25, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8071-2535-0.
* Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.
* Miller, J. Michael, The North Anna Campaign: "Even to Hell Itself," May 21-26, 1864 (1989).
* Simpson, Brooks D, "Continuous Hammering and Mere Attrition: Lost Cause Critics and the Military Reputation of Ulysses S. Grant," in Cad Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, (2000)
* Steere, Edward, The Wilderness Campaign (1960)
* Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April. 1974.
* Williams, T. Harry, McClellan, Sherman and Grant. 1962.
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs (1885) online edition
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters (Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely, eds.) ( The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-94045058-5
* Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) pp 131-73, on the Memoirs
* Johnson, R. U., and Buel, C. C., eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York, 1887-88; essays by leading generals of both sides; online edition
* Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant (1897, reprinted 2000)
* Sherman, William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. 2 vols. 1875.
* Simon, John Y., ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Southern Illinois University Press (1967- ) multivolume complete edition of letters to and from Grant. As of 2006, vol 1-28 covers through September 1878.
* Extensive essay on Ulysses S. Grant and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* First Inaugural Address
* Second Inaugural Address
* White House Biography
* Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
*Emerson, Col. John W., Grant's Life in the West and His Mississippi Valley Campaigns, U.S. Grant Association website.
* Ulysses S. Grant at Find A Grave
* Many rare General Grant photographs
* Complete Bibliography
* Military biography of Ulysses S. Grant from the Cullum biographies
*
* The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. (1918). "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.
* Collection of US Grant Letters
* Ulysses S. Grant: America's Second Three-Star General article by Ethan Rafuse
* Historic White Haven (Grant-Dent home)
*
|-
|-
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
Andrew Johnson
Rutherford B. Hayes
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Julia Grant
Jesse Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Nellie Grant
Frederick Grant
General-in-Chief
List of United States Presidential religious affiliations
Republican Party (United States)
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
#Military career
April 27
1822
July 23
1885
United States
President of the United States
Union (American Civil War)
American Civil War
Battle of Vicksburg
Confederate
Robert E. Lee
Appomattox Court House
J.F.C. Fuller
Vicksburg Campaign
History of the United States Republican Party
Andrew Jackson
Radical Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Civil Rights
African American history
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home
Georgetown, Ohio
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio River
Pennsylvania
Horsham Township, Pennsylvania
Georgetown, Ohio
Brown County, Ohio
August 22
1848
Julia Boggs Dent
Frederick Dent Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Ellen Wrenshall Grant
Jesse Root Grant
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Mathew Brady
United States Army
Army of the Tennessee
Military Division of the Mississippi
United States Army
United States Army
Mexican-American War
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
American Civil War
Battle of Fort Donelson
Battle of Shiloh
Battle of Vicksburg
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Overland Campaign
Battle of Petersburg
Appomattox Campaign
President of the United States
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
U.S. Congressman
Thomas L. Hamer
Academic administration
March 31
1853
cavalry
Mexican-American War
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
Fort Vancouver
Washington Territory
U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
July 31
1854
Robert C. Buchanan
John Eaton (General)
St. Louis, Missouri
Grant's Farm
Anheuser-Busch
Galena, Illinois
James Buchanan
John C. Frémont
Stephen A. Douglas
Elihu B. Washburne
April 28
2007
War Democrats
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Galena, Illinois
Fort Sumter
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
Illinois
Richard Yates (governor)
21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
Claiborne Jackson
John C. Frémont
Ohio River
Paducah, Kentucky
Confederate States Army
Columbus, Kentucky
Gideon J. Pillow
Battle of Belmont
Andrew H. Foote
Battle of Fort Henry
Tennessee River
Battle of Fort Donelson
Cumberland River
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Henry W. Halleck
Nashville, Tennessee
Don Carlos Buell
March 2
March 17
Battle of Cold Harbor
Mathew Brady
Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard
Battle of Shiloh
April 30
First Battle of Corinth
William T. Sherman
Army of West Tennessee
Army of the Tennessee
June 10
Second Battle of Corinth
Battle of Iuka
Mississippi River
Vicksburg Campaign
U.S. Navy
Charles Anderson Dana
hardtack
John C. Pemberton
Jackson, Mississippi
Battle of Champion Hill
Battle of Vicksburg
July 4
1863
Battle of Gettysburg
Turning point of the American Civil War
July 4
Battle of Chickamauga
William S. Rosecrans
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Braxton Bragg
Lookout Mountain
October 17
George Henry Thomas
William Farrar Smith
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Missionary Ridge
Atlanta, Georgia
Lieutenant General (United States)
George Washington
Winfield Scott
brevet (military)
Congress of the United States
March 2
1864
March 12
United States
William Tecumseh Sherman
Virginia
Army of Northern Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
George G. Meade
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Franz Sigel
Shenandoah Valley
Georgia (U.S. state)
Joseph E. Johnston
Atlanta
George Crook
William W. Averell
West Virginia
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Mobile, Alabama
total war
Overland Campaign
Robert E. Lee
May 4
1864
Army of the Potomac
Rapidan River
Army of Northern Virginia
Battle of the Wilderness
Spotsylvania, Virginia
May 8
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 11
May 12
Battle of Cold Harbor
June 3
James River (Virginia)
Petersburg, Virginia
June 18
Siege of Petersburg
William Tecumseh Sherman
Abraham Lincoln
Jubal A. Early
Shenandoah Valley
Washington, D.C.
Administration (government)
Philip Sheridan
Valley Campaigns of 1864
Sherman's March to the Sea
total war
Carolinas Campaign
Appomattox Court House
April 9
1865
Kirby Smith
Trans-Mississippi Department
June 2
1865
Copperheads
Democratic Party (United States)
July 25
1866
General of the Army of the United States
U.S. Army
Andrew Johnson
Edwin M. Stanton
Tenure of Office Act
History of the United States Republican Party
Republican National Convention
Chicago
U.S. presidential election, 1868
Horatio Seymour
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
United States presidential election, 1872
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Horace Greeley
Reconstruction
Redeemers
Ku Klux Klan
voting rights
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Dominican Republic
Yellowstone National Park
March 1
1872
March 29
2006
Christmas
February 8
1999
Panic of 1873
Robert Schenck
Rutherford B. Hayes
Samuel J. Tilden
U.S. presidential election, 1876
Henry Watterson
Treaty of Washington (1871)
Hamilton Fish
CSS Alabama
Dominican Republic
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Charles Sumner
Horace Greeley
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Liberian-Grebo War
USS Alaska (1868)
Liberia
James Milton Turner
Black Friday (1869)
Jay Gould
James Fisk (financier)
Whiskey Ring
Benjamin H. Bristow
Orville E. Babcock
United States Secretary of War
William W. Belknap
Native Americans in the United States
trading post
Sanborn Incident
William Adams Richardson
Cyrus I. Scofield
Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Vice President of the United States
Schuyler Colfax
United States presidential election, 1872
Henry Wilson
Julia Grant
Jesse Root Grant
anti-Semitism
General Order No. 11 (1862)
Oxford, Mississippi
December 17
1862
Vicksburg Campaign
Tennessee
Mississippi
Kentucky
James H. Wilson
Bertram Korn
U.S. presidential election, 1868
President of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
Salmon P. Chase
March 4
1873
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
Elihu B. Washburne
Hamilton Fish
John A. Rawlins
William T. Sherman
William W. Belknap
Alphonso Taft
J. Donald Cameron
George S. Boutwell
William Adams Richardson
Benjamin Bristow
Lot M. Morrill
Ebenezer R. Hoar
Amos T. Akerman
George Henry Williams
Edwards Pierrepont
Alphonso Taft
John A. J. Creswell
James William Marshall
Marshall Jewell
James N. Tyner
Adolph E. Borie
George M. Robeson
Jacob D. Cox
Columbus Delano
Zachariah Chandler
Supreme Court of the United States
Edwin M. Stanton
William Strong (judge)
Joseph P. Bradley
Ward Hunt
Morrison Remick Waite
Chief Justice of the United States
Colorado
August 1
1876
United States Department of Justice
United States Solicitor General
Chester A. Arthur
Office of Personnel Management
Surgeon General of the United States
National Weather Service
Queen Victoria
Windsor Castle
Prince Bismarck
Emperor Meiji
Empress ShÅken
Imperial Palace
Tokyo
Meiji period
Ryukyu Islands
China
Stalwart (politics)
Roscoe Conkling
Methodist
Republican National Convention
James A. Garfield
New York City
Ferdinand Ward
Wall Street
Grant & Ward
Esophageal cancer
pension
The Century Magazine
Mark Twain
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Julius Caesar
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
New York City
Riverside Park (Manhattan)
General Grant National Memorial
mausoleum
North America
World War II
tank
Grant tank
U.S. fifty-dollar bill
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Grant Park (Chicago)
Chicago
the Bronx
New York
San Francisco, California
Chinatown, San Francisco, California
Bedford Avenue
Crown Heights
Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. Grant Bridge
Ohio River
Portsmouth, Ohio
U.S. Route 52
Counties of the United States
U.S. state
Grant County, Arkansas
Grant County, Kansas
Grant County, Minnesota
Grant County, Nebraska
Grant County, New Mexico
Grant County, North Dakota
Grant County, Oklahoma
Grant County, Washington
Grant County, West Virginia
Grant Parish, Louisiana
Mayflower
Richard Warren
John Lothropp
Benjamin Franklin
abolitionist
John Brown (abolitionist)
Mathew Brady
Willard Hotel
lobbyist
San Francisco
National Rifle Association
Jeffrey Shaara
The Last Full Measure
Michael Shaara
The Killer Angels
First Lady of the United States
Julia Grant
Strabismus
bourbon whiskey
Old Crow
cucumbers
vinegar
breakfast
James Wolfe
French and Indian Wars
King George II
Groucho Marx
You Bet Your Life
Ulysses S. Grant IV
University of California, Los Angeles
The Golden Girls
Cary Grant
Wild Wild West
Henry Wager Halleck
Quiz Show
United States presidential election, 1868
United States presidential election, 1872
History of the United States (1865-1918)
Western Theater of the American Civil War
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
James M. McPherson
Jean Edward Smith
Allan Nevins
Ed Bearss
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
Find A Grave
West Point#Cullum Number
Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Rutherford B. Hayes
Abraham Lincoln
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1868
U.S. presidential election, 1872
Rutherford B. Hayes
Army of the Tennessee
William T. Sherman
Henry W. Halleck
Commanding General of the United States Army
Andrew Johnson
Oldest living United States president
Rutherford B. Hayes
United States
soldier
politician
President of the United States
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
|
Ulysses_S._Grant | Was it a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant ? | yes | data/set3/a5 | Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, See military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 July 23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869 1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
Grant first reached national prominence by taking Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862 in the first Union victories of the war. The following year, his brilliant campaign ending in the surrender of Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi andâwith the simultaneous Union victory at Gettysburgâturned the tide of the war in the North's favor. Named commanding general of the Federal armies in 1864, he implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's ability to carry on the war. In 1865, after conducting a costly war of attrition in the East, he accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. Grant has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.
In 1868, Grant was elected president as a Republican. Grant was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed.
Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans. See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.
Ulysses Grant Birthplace, Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home, Georgetown, Ohio
Grant was born in a log cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794 1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798 1883). His father, a tanner, was from Pennsylvania, and his mother was born in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio.
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826 1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (Buck), Ellen Wrenshall Grant (Nellie), and Jesse Root Grant.
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only. Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.
Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846â1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, later becoming his brother-in-law, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.
After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the 4th U.S. Infantry regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial. According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name." McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican War
A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys). His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. McFeely, ch. 5.
Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican. Hesseltine, chapter 6. .
The home of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Infantry in June 1861.
Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.
In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.
Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederates violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, an old friend of Grant's and a West Point classmate, and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers. Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.
Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased against him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.
General Grant at Cold Harbor, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864
In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.
The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in Corinth, Mississippi. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Corinth and Iuka that fall.
In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant spent the winter of 1862 1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.
However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and in a daring move that defied conventional military principles cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles A. Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George H. Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas' chief engineer, William F. "Baldy" Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.
Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas' men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.
Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet appointment), recently re-authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.
In March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.
Poster of "Grant from West Point to Appomattox."
Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.
The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River.
Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a siege.
As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas.
At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democrats who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius: Korda, (2004)
After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army. Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.''
As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.
The second president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In the 1872 election he won by a landslide against the breakaway Liberal Republican party that nominated Horace Greeley.
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed .
Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006. Grant also signed into law making Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application, CRS Report for Congress, 98-301 GOV, updated February 8, 1999, by Stephen W. Stathis
The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.
By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker. Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes: Nevins, Fish 2:811
In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson .
The Grant administration's first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Act to Strengthen the Public Credit which the GOP Congress had passed after Grant ` s inaugural in March 1869 . The act had the effect that the gold price on New York exchange fell to 310 dollar an ounce - the lowest point since the suspension of specie payment in 1862 .
As Jean Edward Smith notes in his 2002 biography on Grant, the presidential treasury secretary Boutwell reorganized the Treasury by discharging unnecessary employees, started sweeping changes in Bureau of Printing and Engraving to protect the currency from counterfeiters and revitalized tax collections to hasten the collection of revenue. This changes soon led the Tresury having a monthly surplus .
The Grant administration reduced the debt by appromixately 435 million dollar. That was achieved by selling the growing gold surplus at weekly auctions for greenbacks and buying back wartime bonds with the currency . With this Grant ` s treasury secretary Boutwell had established a policy if continued had payed of the national debt in a quarter of a century . Newspapers like the New York Tribune wanted that the Government buy more bonds and Greenbacks, the New York Times praised the the Grant administration `s debt policy .
On other economic fronts did the Grant administration have acomplishments . Under
Grant the nation `s credit was substantially raised. Taxes was reduced by 300 million dollar. Annual interest rates were reduced by approximately 30 million dollar . The U . S balance of trade was changed from 130 million dollar against the United States to 120 million dollar in favor of the United States . He also reduced inflation and to 1873 bolstered economic recovery . He also promoted economy in federal expenditures . His veto of the Inflation Bill in 1874 saved the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 to get worse and the veto was praised by the financial community and many newspapers .
The Resumption of Species Act of 1875 which was signed by Grant and helped to end the crisis in 1879 when the law came in to effect
He also pressed for internal improvements and increased shipbuilding and foreign trade. He also wanted to enhance and improve the commercial marine .
Grant/Wilson campaign poster
In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington, negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He also proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Santo Domingo. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia. Liberian-Grebo War of 1876
The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud. However, Grant eventually released large amounts of gold back onto the market, causing a large-scale financial crisis for many gold investors. Jay Gould had already prepared and quietly sold out while Fisk denied many agreements and hired thugs to intimidate his creditors.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.
Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first vice president, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.
President Grant with his wife, Julia, and son, Jesse, in 1872.
Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."
Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11, issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:
The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart â opportunistic traders who were Jewish. McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed [...] he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."
The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 presidential campaign, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.
Grant's second inauguration as President by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.
Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
* Edwin M. Stanton 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
* William Strong 1870
* Joseph P. Bradley 1870
* Ward Hunt 1873
* Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice) 1874
* Colorado August 1, 1876
* Department of Justice (1870)
* Office of the Solicitor General (1870)
* "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
* Office of the Surgeon General (1871)
* Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)
Ulysses S. Grant in his postbellum.
After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress ShÅken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.
In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.
That same year, Grant was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.
Grant writing his memoirs.
In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
Grant appears on the U.S. $50 bill.
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. It was not until 1958 that Congress, feeling it inappropriate that a former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting a pension to such individuals, a practice that continues to this day. Grant first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and Grant's memoirs are also regarded by such writers as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request, "Water." His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America.
Statue of Grant astride his favorite mount, "Cincinnati", at Vicksburg, Mississippi
*In World War II, the United States produced a tank known as the Grant tank (an upgrade of the American M3 "Lee").
*Grant's portrait appears on the U.S. fifty-dollar bill.
*The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., honors Grant.
*Grant Park in Chicago honors Grant.
*Grant Avenue, a nine block long, north-south street in the Bronx, New York, is named after Grant. It is parallel and adjacent to Sherman Avenue.
*Dupont Street, the main thoroughfare in San Francisco's Chinatown, was renamed Grant Avenue in his honor. The famous dragon gate at the entrance to the district is at the corner of Grant and Bush Street.
*Grant, depicted riding a horse, is honored by a statue at the intersection of Bedford Avenue, Rogers Avenue and Dean Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
*There is a U.S. Grant Bridge over the Ohio River at Portsmouth, Ohio.
*There is a U.S. Grant Memorial Highway (US 52) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
*Counties in twelve U.S. states are named after Grant: Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Grant Parish, Louisiana. Note: Grant Counties in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin were named after other Grants, not Ulysses Grant.
* Grant was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren
* Grant is also a descendant from John Lothropp, who is also an ancestor to Benjamin Franklin
Grant Memorial Statue in Grant Park, Galena, Illinois. Julia Grant remarked that it was the best likeness of her husband, as his hands were thrust into his pockets.
* As a young man, Grant's father, Jesse, taught him the trade of tanning. Jesse Grant had been taught how to tan by Owen Brown, the father of known abolitionist John Brown. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* When Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1864, he agreed to sit down for photographer Mathew Brady. As the sun had begun to set by the time Grant arrived, Brady instructed one of his assistants to open the shades of the skylight in Brady's studio. The assistant slipped and shattered the skylight, causing two-inch-thick shards of glass to rain down around Grant, who had taken his seat as requested. He was unharmed, and showed "the most remarkable display of nerve" that Brady had ever seen. O'Brien, Cormac (2007). "Secret Lives of the Civil War: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the War Between the States".
* Grant was known to visit the Willard Hotel to escape the stress of the White House. A long-standing story is that he referred to the people who approached him in the lobby as "those darn lobbyists," implying that he was the source for the term lobbyist. This story is unlikely to be true since there are examples of the term being used in U.S. and British magazines and newspapers before Grant's presidency. World Wide Words.
* While in California, Grant tried selling ice to San Francisco, but failed when it melted in the warm weather aboard the ship. Smith, Grant, p. 81. . This anecdote is disputed by Edward G. Longacre in "General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man" (2006) in which he says -- in a referenced statement -- that the ice venture had failed because of "an unexpected glut of [ice] imports from Alaska."
* In 1883, Grant was elected the eighth president of the National Rifle Association.
* Grant suffered from tone-deafness. He disliked music intensely and would go out of his way to avoid having to hear any other than patriotic songs. In Jeffrey Shaara's The Last Full Measure - which is set after the Battle of Gettysburg, the subject of his father Michael's 1974 bestseller The Killer Angels - Grant is portrayed as saying, "I know only two songs. One is 'Yankee Doodle'. The other isn't." Whether he actually said this is unclear. Shaara, Jeffrey M. (1998). "The Last Full Measure".
* Grant's wife, First Lady Julia Grant, was cross-eyed. When it was suggested to her that she have an operation to have it corrected, President Grant replied that he liked her that way. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* Grant's favorite brand of bourbon whiskey was Old Crow.
* Grant enjoyed eating cucumbers soaked in vinegar for breakfast.
* An apocryphal story about Grant's drinking has the general's critics going to President Lincoln, charging the military man with being a drunk. Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."
:* A similar story was told of General James Wolfe during the French and Indian Wars. When King George II was told that Wolfe was a "mad dog", he is said to have replied, "Then I'd wish he'd bite the other generals."
* The question "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" was used by Groucho Marx in his radio and TV quiz show, the correct answer to which resulted in a consolation prize to contestants who had won no money. Some contestants thought it was a trick question. Grant's grandson, Ulysses S. Grant IV (a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles) appeared on the program on March 12, 1953.
** This was also featured on an episode of the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, in which in a dream sequence Dorothy competes on Jeopardy against a scholar and her roommate Rose. When asked the question, Dorothy replies Ulysses and is wrong, while Rose replies Cary Grant and is correct.
* In the film Wild Wild West, President Grant is a minor character that must deal with the Loveless Alliance.
Once while in office he was arrested for speeding his horse and buggy and fined $20 and had to walk back to the white house. (www.pocanticohills.org/presidents/know.htm )
* A dispute between Grant and his commanding officer Henry Wager Halleck is the subject of a pivotal question in the film Quiz Show.
* United States presidential election, 1868
* United States presidential election, 1872
* History of the United States (1865â1918)
* Western Theater of the American Civil War
* Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
* U.S. Grant Home, Galena, Illinois
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command, Little, Brown and Company, 1968, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 69-12632.
*Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Garland, Hamlin, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character, Macmillan Company, 1898.
*Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885 86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
*Hesseltine, William B., Ulysses S. Grant: Politician 1935.
* Lewis, Lloyd, Captain Sam Grant, Little, Brown, and Co., 1950, ISBN 0-316-52348-8.
* McFeely, William S., Grant: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Co, 1981, ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
* McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
* Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-395-65994-9.
*Smith, Jean Edward, Grant, Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
*Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861 1865, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
* Official Ulysses Simpson Grant biography from the US Army Center for Military History
* Bunting III, Josiah. Ulysses S. Grant (2004) ISBN 0-8050-6949-6
* William Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 (1905), vol 22
* Hesseltine, William B. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (2001) ISBN 1-931313-85-7 online edition
* Mantell, Martin E., Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
* Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936) online edition
* Rhodes, James Ford., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6 and 7 (1920) vol 6
* Scaturro, Frank J., President Grant Reconsidered (1998).
* Schouler, James., History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
* Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
* Simpson, Brooks D., The Reconstruction Presidents (1998)
* Skidmore, Max J. "The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: a Reconsideration." White House Studies (2005) online
* Badeau, Adam. Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 vols. 1882.
*Ballard, Michael B., Vicksburg, The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-2893-9.
* Bearss, Edwin C., The Vicksburg Campaign, 3 volumes, Morningside Press, 1991, ISBN 0-89029-308-2.
* Carter, Samuel III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863 (1980)
* Catton, Bruce, Grant Moves South, 1960, ISBN 0-316-13207-1; Grant Takes Command, 1968, ISBN 0-316-13210-1; U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954)
* Cavanaugh, Michael A., and William Marvel, The Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of the Crater: "The Horrid Pit," June 25-August 6, 1864 (1989)
* Conger, A. L. The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931)
* Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg (1986).
* Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
* Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
* Korda, Michael. Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (2004) 161 pp
* McWhiney, Grady, Battle in the Wilderness: Grant Meets Lee (1995)
* McDonough, James Lee, Shiloh: In Hell before Night (1977).
* McDonough, James Lee, Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy (1984).
* Maney, R. Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor. Victory and Failure, 1864 (1994).
* Matter, William D., If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (1988)
* Miers, Earl Schenck., The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg. 1955.
* Mosier, John., "Grant", Palgrave MacMillan, 2006 ISBN 1-4039-7136-6.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5 6, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8071-1873-7.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7 12, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8071-2136-3.
* Rhea, Gordon C., To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13 25, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8071-2535-0.
* Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.
* Miller, J. Michael, The North Anna Campaign: "Even to Hell Itself," May 21-26, 1864 (1989).
* Simpson, Brooks D, "Continuous Hammering and Mere Attrition: Lost Cause Critics and the Military Reputation of Ulysses S. Grant," in Cad Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, (2000)
* Steere, Edward, The Wilderness Campaign (1960)
* Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April. 1974.
* Williams, T. Harry, McClellan, Sherman and Grant. 1962.
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs (1885) online edition
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters (Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely, eds.) ( The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-94045058-5
* Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) pp 131-73, on the Memoirs
* Johnson, R. U., and Buel, C. C., eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York, 1887-88; essays by leading generals of both sides; online edition
* Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant (1897, reprinted 2000)
* Sherman, William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. 2 vols. 1875.
* Simon, John Y., ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Southern Illinois University Press (1967- ) multivolume complete edition of letters to and from Grant. As of 2006, vol 1-28 covers through September 1878.
* Extensive essay on Ulysses S. Grant and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* First Inaugural Address
* Second Inaugural Address
* White House Biography
* Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
*Emerson, Col. John W., Grant's Life in the West and His Mississippi Valley Campaigns, U.S. Grant Association website.
* Ulysses S. Grant at Find A Grave
* Many rare General Grant photographs
* Complete Bibliography
* Military biography of Ulysses S. Grant from the Cullum biographies
*
* The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. (1918). "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.
* Collection of US Grant Letters
* Ulysses S. Grant: America's Second Three-Star General article by Ethan Rafuse
* Historic White Haven (Grant-Dent home)
*
|-
|-
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
Andrew Johnson
Rutherford B. Hayes
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Julia Grant
Jesse Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Nellie Grant
Frederick Grant
General-in-Chief
List of United States Presidential religious affiliations
Republican Party (United States)
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
#Military career
April 27
1822
July 23
1885
United States
President of the United States
Union (American Civil War)
American Civil War
Battle of Vicksburg
Confederate
Robert E. Lee
Appomattox Court House
J.F.C. Fuller
Vicksburg Campaign
History of the United States Republican Party
Andrew Jackson
Radical Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Civil Rights
African American history
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home
Georgetown, Ohio
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio River
Pennsylvania
Horsham Township, Pennsylvania
Georgetown, Ohio
Brown County, Ohio
August 22
1848
Julia Boggs Dent
Frederick Dent Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Ellen Wrenshall Grant
Jesse Root Grant
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Mathew Brady
United States Army
Army of the Tennessee
Military Division of the Mississippi
United States Army
United States Army
Mexican-American War
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
American Civil War
Battle of Fort Donelson
Battle of Shiloh
Battle of Vicksburg
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Overland Campaign
Battle of Petersburg
Appomattox Campaign
President of the United States
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
U.S. Congressman
Thomas L. Hamer
Academic administration
March 31
1853
cavalry
Mexican-American War
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
Fort Vancouver
Washington Territory
U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
July 31
1854
Robert C. Buchanan
John Eaton (General)
St. Louis, Missouri
Grant's Farm
Anheuser-Busch
Galena, Illinois
James Buchanan
John C. Frémont
Stephen A. Douglas
Elihu B. Washburne
April 28
2007
War Democrats
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Galena, Illinois
Fort Sumter
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
Illinois
Richard Yates (governor)
21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
Claiborne Jackson
John C. Frémont
Ohio River
Paducah, Kentucky
Confederate States Army
Columbus, Kentucky
Gideon J. Pillow
Battle of Belmont
Andrew H. Foote
Battle of Fort Henry
Tennessee River
Battle of Fort Donelson
Cumberland River
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Henry W. Halleck
Nashville, Tennessee
Don Carlos Buell
March 2
March 17
Battle of Cold Harbor
Mathew Brady
Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard
Battle of Shiloh
April 30
First Battle of Corinth
William T. Sherman
Army of West Tennessee
Army of the Tennessee
June 10
Second Battle of Corinth
Battle of Iuka
Mississippi River
Vicksburg Campaign
U.S. Navy
Charles Anderson Dana
hardtack
John C. Pemberton
Jackson, Mississippi
Battle of Champion Hill
Battle of Vicksburg
July 4
1863
Battle of Gettysburg
Turning point of the American Civil War
July 4
Battle of Chickamauga
William S. Rosecrans
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Braxton Bragg
Lookout Mountain
October 17
George Henry Thomas
William Farrar Smith
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Missionary Ridge
Atlanta, Georgia
Lieutenant General (United States)
George Washington
Winfield Scott
brevet (military)
Congress of the United States
March 2
1864
March 12
United States
William Tecumseh Sherman
Virginia
Army of Northern Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
George G. Meade
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Franz Sigel
Shenandoah Valley
Georgia (U.S. state)
Joseph E. Johnston
Atlanta
George Crook
William W. Averell
West Virginia
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Mobile, Alabama
total war
Overland Campaign
Robert E. Lee
May 4
1864
Army of the Potomac
Rapidan River
Army of Northern Virginia
Battle of the Wilderness
Spotsylvania, Virginia
May 8
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 11
May 12
Battle of Cold Harbor
June 3
James River (Virginia)
Petersburg, Virginia
June 18
Siege of Petersburg
William Tecumseh Sherman
Abraham Lincoln
Jubal A. Early
Shenandoah Valley
Washington, D.C.
Administration (government)
Philip Sheridan
Valley Campaigns of 1864
Sherman's March to the Sea
total war
Carolinas Campaign
Appomattox Court House
April 9
1865
Kirby Smith
Trans-Mississippi Department
June 2
1865
Copperheads
Democratic Party (United States)
July 25
1866
General of the Army of the United States
U.S. Army
Andrew Johnson
Edwin M. Stanton
Tenure of Office Act
History of the United States Republican Party
Republican National Convention
Chicago
U.S. presidential election, 1868
Horatio Seymour
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
United States presidential election, 1872
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Horace Greeley
Reconstruction
Redeemers
Ku Klux Klan
voting rights
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Dominican Republic
Yellowstone National Park
March 1
1872
March 29
2006
Christmas
February 8
1999
Panic of 1873
Robert Schenck
Rutherford B. Hayes
Samuel J. Tilden
U.S. presidential election, 1876
Henry Watterson
Treaty of Washington (1871)
Hamilton Fish
CSS Alabama
Dominican Republic
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Charles Sumner
Horace Greeley
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Liberian-Grebo War
USS Alaska (1868)
Liberia
James Milton Turner
Black Friday (1869)
Jay Gould
James Fisk (financier)
Whiskey Ring
Benjamin H. Bristow
Orville E. Babcock
United States Secretary of War
William W. Belknap
Native Americans in the United States
trading post
Sanborn Incident
William Adams Richardson
Cyrus I. Scofield
Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Vice President of the United States
Schuyler Colfax
United States presidential election, 1872
Henry Wilson
Julia Grant
Jesse Root Grant
anti-Semitism
General Order No. 11 (1862)
Oxford, Mississippi
December 17
1862
Vicksburg Campaign
Tennessee
Mississippi
Kentucky
James H. Wilson
Bertram Korn
U.S. presidential election, 1868
President of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
Salmon P. Chase
March 4
1873
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
Elihu B. Washburne
Hamilton Fish
John A. Rawlins
William T. Sherman
William W. Belknap
Alphonso Taft
J. Donald Cameron
George S. Boutwell
William Adams Richardson
Benjamin Bristow
Lot M. Morrill
Ebenezer R. Hoar
Amos T. Akerman
George Henry Williams
Edwards Pierrepont
Alphonso Taft
John A. J. Creswell
James William Marshall
Marshall Jewell
James N. Tyner
Adolph E. Borie
George M. Robeson
Jacob D. Cox
Columbus Delano
Zachariah Chandler
Supreme Court of the United States
Edwin M. Stanton
William Strong (judge)
Joseph P. Bradley
Ward Hunt
Morrison Remick Waite
Chief Justice of the United States
Colorado
August 1
1876
United States Department of Justice
United States Solicitor General
Chester A. Arthur
Office of Personnel Management
Surgeon General of the United States
National Weather Service
Queen Victoria
Windsor Castle
Prince Bismarck
Emperor Meiji
Empress ShÅken
Imperial Palace
Tokyo
Meiji period
Ryukyu Islands
China
Stalwart (politics)
Roscoe Conkling
Methodist
Republican National Convention
James A. Garfield
New York City
Ferdinand Ward
Wall Street
Grant & Ward
Esophageal cancer
pension
The Century Magazine
Mark Twain
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Julius Caesar
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
New York City
Riverside Park (Manhattan)
General Grant National Memorial
mausoleum
North America
World War II
tank
Grant tank
U.S. fifty-dollar bill
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Grant Park (Chicago)
Chicago
the Bronx
New York
San Francisco, California
Chinatown, San Francisco, California
Bedford Avenue
Crown Heights
Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. Grant Bridge
Ohio River
Portsmouth, Ohio
U.S. Route 52
Counties of the United States
U.S. state
Grant County, Arkansas
Grant County, Kansas
Grant County, Minnesota
Grant County, Nebraska
Grant County, New Mexico
Grant County, North Dakota
Grant County, Oklahoma
Grant County, Washington
Grant County, West Virginia
Grant Parish, Louisiana
Mayflower
Richard Warren
John Lothropp
Benjamin Franklin
abolitionist
John Brown (abolitionist)
Mathew Brady
Willard Hotel
lobbyist
San Francisco
National Rifle Association
Jeffrey Shaara
The Last Full Measure
Michael Shaara
The Killer Angels
First Lady of the United States
Julia Grant
Strabismus
bourbon whiskey
Old Crow
cucumbers
vinegar
breakfast
James Wolfe
French and Indian Wars
King George II
Groucho Marx
You Bet Your Life
Ulysses S. Grant IV
University of California, Los Angeles
The Golden Girls
Cary Grant
Wild Wild West
Henry Wager Halleck
Quiz Show
United States presidential election, 1868
United States presidential election, 1872
History of the United States (1865-1918)
Western Theater of the American Civil War
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
James M. McPherson
Jean Edward Smith
Allan Nevins
Ed Bearss
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
Find A Grave
West Point#Cullum Number
Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Rutherford B. Hayes
Abraham Lincoln
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1868
U.S. presidential election, 1872
Rutherford B. Hayes
Army of the Tennessee
William T. Sherman
Henry W. Halleck
Commanding General of the United States Army
Andrew Johnson
Oldest living United States president
Rutherford B. Hayes
United States
soldier
politician
President of the United States
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
|
Ulysses_S._Grant | Was Grant 's favorite brand of bourbon whiskey Old Crow ? | yes | data/set3/a5 | Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, See military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 July 23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869 1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
Grant first reached national prominence by taking Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862 in the first Union victories of the war. The following year, his brilliant campaign ending in the surrender of Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi andâwith the simultaneous Union victory at Gettysburgâturned the tide of the war in the North's favor. Named commanding general of the Federal armies in 1864, he implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's ability to carry on the war. In 1865, after conducting a costly war of attrition in the East, he accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. Grant has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.
In 1868, Grant was elected president as a Republican. Grant was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed.
Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans. See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.
Ulysses Grant Birthplace, Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home, Georgetown, Ohio
Grant was born in a log cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794 1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798 1883). His father, a tanner, was from Pennsylvania, and his mother was born in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio.
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826 1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (Buck), Ellen Wrenshall Grant (Nellie), and Jesse Root Grant.
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only. Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.
Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846â1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, later becoming his brother-in-law, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.
After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the 4th U.S. Infantry regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial. According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name." McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican War
A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys). His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. McFeely, ch. 5.
Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican. Hesseltine, chapter 6. .
The home of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Infantry in June 1861.
Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.
In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.
Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederates violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, an old friend of Grant's and a West Point classmate, and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers. Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.
Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased against him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.
General Grant at Cold Harbor, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864
In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.
The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in Corinth, Mississippi. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Corinth and Iuka that fall.
In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant spent the winter of 1862 1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.
However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and in a daring move that defied conventional military principles cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles A. Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George H. Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas' chief engineer, William F. "Baldy" Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.
Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas' men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.
Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet appointment), recently re-authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.
In March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.
Poster of "Grant from West Point to Appomattox."
Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.
The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River.
Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a siege.
As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas.
At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democrats who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius: Korda, (2004)
After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army. Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.''
As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.
The second president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In the 1872 election he won by a landslide against the breakaway Liberal Republican party that nominated Horace Greeley.
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed .
Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006. Grant also signed into law making Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application, CRS Report for Congress, 98-301 GOV, updated February 8, 1999, by Stephen W. Stathis
The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.
By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker. Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes: Nevins, Fish 2:811
In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson .
The Grant administration's first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Act to Strengthen the Public Credit which the GOP Congress had passed after Grant ` s inaugural in March 1869 . The act had the effect that the gold price on New York exchange fell to 310 dollar an ounce - the lowest point since the suspension of specie payment in 1862 .
As Jean Edward Smith notes in his 2002 biography on Grant, the presidential treasury secretary Boutwell reorganized the Treasury by discharging unnecessary employees, started sweeping changes in Bureau of Printing and Engraving to protect the currency from counterfeiters and revitalized tax collections to hasten the collection of revenue. This changes soon led the Tresury having a monthly surplus .
The Grant administration reduced the debt by appromixately 435 million dollar. That was achieved by selling the growing gold surplus at weekly auctions for greenbacks and buying back wartime bonds with the currency . With this Grant ` s treasury secretary Boutwell had established a policy if continued had payed of the national debt in a quarter of a century . Newspapers like the New York Tribune wanted that the Government buy more bonds and Greenbacks, the New York Times praised the the Grant administration `s debt policy .
On other economic fronts did the Grant administration have acomplishments . Under
Grant the nation `s credit was substantially raised. Taxes was reduced by 300 million dollar. Annual interest rates were reduced by approximately 30 million dollar . The U . S balance of trade was changed from 130 million dollar against the United States to 120 million dollar in favor of the United States . He also reduced inflation and to 1873 bolstered economic recovery . He also promoted economy in federal expenditures . His veto of the Inflation Bill in 1874 saved the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 to get worse and the veto was praised by the financial community and many newspapers .
The Resumption of Species Act of 1875 which was signed by Grant and helped to end the crisis in 1879 when the law came in to effect
He also pressed for internal improvements and increased shipbuilding and foreign trade. He also wanted to enhance and improve the commercial marine .
Grant/Wilson campaign poster
In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington, negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He also proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Santo Domingo. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia. Liberian-Grebo War of 1876
The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud. However, Grant eventually released large amounts of gold back onto the market, causing a large-scale financial crisis for many gold investors. Jay Gould had already prepared and quietly sold out while Fisk denied many agreements and hired thugs to intimidate his creditors.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.
Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first vice president, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.
President Grant with his wife, Julia, and son, Jesse, in 1872.
Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."
Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11, issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:
The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart â opportunistic traders who were Jewish. McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed [...] he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."
The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 presidential campaign, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.
Grant's second inauguration as President by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.
Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
* Edwin M. Stanton 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
* William Strong 1870
* Joseph P. Bradley 1870
* Ward Hunt 1873
* Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice) 1874
* Colorado August 1, 1876
* Department of Justice (1870)
* Office of the Solicitor General (1870)
* "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
* Office of the Surgeon General (1871)
* Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)
Ulysses S. Grant in his postbellum.
After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress ShÅken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.
In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.
That same year, Grant was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.
Grant writing his memoirs.
In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
Grant appears on the U.S. $50 bill.
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. It was not until 1958 that Congress, feeling it inappropriate that a former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting a pension to such individuals, a practice that continues to this day. Grant first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and Grant's memoirs are also regarded by such writers as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request, "Water." His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America.
Statue of Grant astride his favorite mount, "Cincinnati", at Vicksburg, Mississippi
*In World War II, the United States produced a tank known as the Grant tank (an upgrade of the American M3 "Lee").
*Grant's portrait appears on the U.S. fifty-dollar bill.
*The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., honors Grant.
*Grant Park in Chicago honors Grant.
*Grant Avenue, a nine block long, north-south street in the Bronx, New York, is named after Grant. It is parallel and adjacent to Sherman Avenue.
*Dupont Street, the main thoroughfare in San Francisco's Chinatown, was renamed Grant Avenue in his honor. The famous dragon gate at the entrance to the district is at the corner of Grant and Bush Street.
*Grant, depicted riding a horse, is honored by a statue at the intersection of Bedford Avenue, Rogers Avenue and Dean Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
*There is a U.S. Grant Bridge over the Ohio River at Portsmouth, Ohio.
*There is a U.S. Grant Memorial Highway (US 52) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
*Counties in twelve U.S. states are named after Grant: Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Grant Parish, Louisiana. Note: Grant Counties in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin were named after other Grants, not Ulysses Grant.
* Grant was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren
* Grant is also a descendant from John Lothropp, who is also an ancestor to Benjamin Franklin
Grant Memorial Statue in Grant Park, Galena, Illinois. Julia Grant remarked that it was the best likeness of her husband, as his hands were thrust into his pockets.
* As a young man, Grant's father, Jesse, taught him the trade of tanning. Jesse Grant had been taught how to tan by Owen Brown, the father of known abolitionist John Brown. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* When Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1864, he agreed to sit down for photographer Mathew Brady. As the sun had begun to set by the time Grant arrived, Brady instructed one of his assistants to open the shades of the skylight in Brady's studio. The assistant slipped and shattered the skylight, causing two-inch-thick shards of glass to rain down around Grant, who had taken his seat as requested. He was unharmed, and showed "the most remarkable display of nerve" that Brady had ever seen. O'Brien, Cormac (2007). "Secret Lives of the Civil War: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the War Between the States".
* Grant was known to visit the Willard Hotel to escape the stress of the White House. A long-standing story is that he referred to the people who approached him in the lobby as "those darn lobbyists," implying that he was the source for the term lobbyist. This story is unlikely to be true since there are examples of the term being used in U.S. and British magazines and newspapers before Grant's presidency. World Wide Words.
* While in California, Grant tried selling ice to San Francisco, but failed when it melted in the warm weather aboard the ship. Smith, Grant, p. 81. . This anecdote is disputed by Edward G. Longacre in "General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man" (2006) in which he says -- in a referenced statement -- that the ice venture had failed because of "an unexpected glut of [ice] imports from Alaska."
* In 1883, Grant was elected the eighth president of the National Rifle Association.
* Grant suffered from tone-deafness. He disliked music intensely and would go out of his way to avoid having to hear any other than patriotic songs. In Jeffrey Shaara's The Last Full Measure - which is set after the Battle of Gettysburg, the subject of his father Michael's 1974 bestseller The Killer Angels - Grant is portrayed as saying, "I know only two songs. One is 'Yankee Doodle'. The other isn't." Whether he actually said this is unclear. Shaara, Jeffrey M. (1998). "The Last Full Measure".
* Grant's wife, First Lady Julia Grant, was cross-eyed. When it was suggested to her that she have an operation to have it corrected, President Grant replied that he liked her that way. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* Grant's favorite brand of bourbon whiskey was Old Crow.
* Grant enjoyed eating cucumbers soaked in vinegar for breakfast.
* An apocryphal story about Grant's drinking has the general's critics going to President Lincoln, charging the military man with being a drunk. Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."
:* A similar story was told of General James Wolfe during the French and Indian Wars. When King George II was told that Wolfe was a "mad dog", he is said to have replied, "Then I'd wish he'd bite the other generals."
* The question "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" was used by Groucho Marx in his radio and TV quiz show, the correct answer to which resulted in a consolation prize to contestants who had won no money. Some contestants thought it was a trick question. Grant's grandson, Ulysses S. Grant IV (a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles) appeared on the program on March 12, 1953.
** This was also featured on an episode of the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, in which in a dream sequence Dorothy competes on Jeopardy against a scholar and her roommate Rose. When asked the question, Dorothy replies Ulysses and is wrong, while Rose replies Cary Grant and is correct.
* In the film Wild Wild West, President Grant is a minor character that must deal with the Loveless Alliance.
Once while in office he was arrested for speeding his horse and buggy and fined $20 and had to walk back to the white house. (www.pocanticohills.org/presidents/know.htm )
* A dispute between Grant and his commanding officer Henry Wager Halleck is the subject of a pivotal question in the film Quiz Show.
* United States presidential election, 1868
* United States presidential election, 1872
* History of the United States (1865â1918)
* Western Theater of the American Civil War
* Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
* U.S. Grant Home, Galena, Illinois
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command, Little, Brown and Company, 1968, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 69-12632.
*Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Garland, Hamlin, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character, Macmillan Company, 1898.
*Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885 86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
*Hesseltine, William B., Ulysses S. Grant: Politician 1935.
* Lewis, Lloyd, Captain Sam Grant, Little, Brown, and Co., 1950, ISBN 0-316-52348-8.
* McFeely, William S., Grant: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Co, 1981, ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
* McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
* Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-395-65994-9.
*Smith, Jean Edward, Grant, Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
*Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861 1865, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
* Official Ulysses Simpson Grant biography from the US Army Center for Military History
* Bunting III, Josiah. Ulysses S. Grant (2004) ISBN 0-8050-6949-6
* William Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 (1905), vol 22
* Hesseltine, William B. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (2001) ISBN 1-931313-85-7 online edition
* Mantell, Martin E., Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
* Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936) online edition
* Rhodes, James Ford., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6 and 7 (1920) vol 6
* Scaturro, Frank J., President Grant Reconsidered (1998).
* Schouler, James., History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
* Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
* Simpson, Brooks D., The Reconstruction Presidents (1998)
* Skidmore, Max J. "The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: a Reconsideration." White House Studies (2005) online
* Badeau, Adam. Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 vols. 1882.
*Ballard, Michael B., Vicksburg, The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-2893-9.
* Bearss, Edwin C., The Vicksburg Campaign, 3 volumes, Morningside Press, 1991, ISBN 0-89029-308-2.
* Carter, Samuel III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863 (1980)
* Catton, Bruce, Grant Moves South, 1960, ISBN 0-316-13207-1; Grant Takes Command, 1968, ISBN 0-316-13210-1; U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954)
* Cavanaugh, Michael A., and William Marvel, The Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of the Crater: "The Horrid Pit," June 25-August 6, 1864 (1989)
* Conger, A. L. The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931)
* Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg (1986).
* Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
* Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
* Korda, Michael. Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (2004) 161 pp
* McWhiney, Grady, Battle in the Wilderness: Grant Meets Lee (1995)
* McDonough, James Lee, Shiloh: In Hell before Night (1977).
* McDonough, James Lee, Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy (1984).
* Maney, R. Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor. Victory and Failure, 1864 (1994).
* Matter, William D., If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (1988)
* Miers, Earl Schenck., The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg. 1955.
* Mosier, John., "Grant", Palgrave MacMillan, 2006 ISBN 1-4039-7136-6.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5 6, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8071-1873-7.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7 12, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8071-2136-3.
* Rhea, Gordon C., To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13 25, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8071-2535-0.
* Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.
* Miller, J. Michael, The North Anna Campaign: "Even to Hell Itself," May 21-26, 1864 (1989).
* Simpson, Brooks D, "Continuous Hammering and Mere Attrition: Lost Cause Critics and the Military Reputation of Ulysses S. Grant," in Cad Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, (2000)
* Steere, Edward, The Wilderness Campaign (1960)
* Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April. 1974.
* Williams, T. Harry, McClellan, Sherman and Grant. 1962.
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs (1885) online edition
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters (Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely, eds.) ( The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-94045058-5
* Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) pp 131-73, on the Memoirs
* Johnson, R. U., and Buel, C. C., eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York, 1887-88; essays by leading generals of both sides; online edition
* Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant (1897, reprinted 2000)
* Sherman, William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. 2 vols. 1875.
* Simon, John Y., ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Southern Illinois University Press (1967- ) multivolume complete edition of letters to and from Grant. As of 2006, vol 1-28 covers through September 1878.
* Extensive essay on Ulysses S. Grant and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* First Inaugural Address
* Second Inaugural Address
* White House Biography
* Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
*Emerson, Col. John W., Grant's Life in the West and His Mississippi Valley Campaigns, U.S. Grant Association website.
* Ulysses S. Grant at Find A Grave
* Many rare General Grant photographs
* Complete Bibliography
* Military biography of Ulysses S. Grant from the Cullum biographies
*
* The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. (1918). "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.
* Collection of US Grant Letters
* Ulysses S. Grant: America's Second Three-Star General article by Ethan Rafuse
* Historic White Haven (Grant-Dent home)
*
|-
|-
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
Andrew Johnson
Rutherford B. Hayes
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Julia Grant
Jesse Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Nellie Grant
Frederick Grant
General-in-Chief
List of United States Presidential religious affiliations
Republican Party (United States)
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
#Military career
April 27
1822
July 23
1885
United States
President of the United States
Union (American Civil War)
American Civil War
Battle of Vicksburg
Confederate
Robert E. Lee
Appomattox Court House
J.F.C. Fuller
Vicksburg Campaign
History of the United States Republican Party
Andrew Jackson
Radical Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Civil Rights
African American history
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home
Georgetown, Ohio
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio River
Pennsylvania
Horsham Township, Pennsylvania
Georgetown, Ohio
Brown County, Ohio
August 22
1848
Julia Boggs Dent
Frederick Dent Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Ellen Wrenshall Grant
Jesse Root Grant
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Mathew Brady
United States Army
Army of the Tennessee
Military Division of the Mississippi
United States Army
United States Army
Mexican-American War
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
American Civil War
Battle of Fort Donelson
Battle of Shiloh
Battle of Vicksburg
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Overland Campaign
Battle of Petersburg
Appomattox Campaign
President of the United States
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
U.S. Congressman
Thomas L. Hamer
Academic administration
March 31
1853
cavalry
Mexican-American War
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
Fort Vancouver
Washington Territory
U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
July 31
1854
Robert C. Buchanan
John Eaton (General)
St. Louis, Missouri
Grant's Farm
Anheuser-Busch
Galena, Illinois
James Buchanan
John C. Frémont
Stephen A. Douglas
Elihu B. Washburne
April 28
2007
War Democrats
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Galena, Illinois
Fort Sumter
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
Illinois
Richard Yates (governor)
21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
Claiborne Jackson
John C. Frémont
Ohio River
Paducah, Kentucky
Confederate States Army
Columbus, Kentucky
Gideon J. Pillow
Battle of Belmont
Andrew H. Foote
Battle of Fort Henry
Tennessee River
Battle of Fort Donelson
Cumberland River
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Henry W. Halleck
Nashville, Tennessee
Don Carlos Buell
March 2
March 17
Battle of Cold Harbor
Mathew Brady
Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard
Battle of Shiloh
April 30
First Battle of Corinth
William T. Sherman
Army of West Tennessee
Army of the Tennessee
June 10
Second Battle of Corinth
Battle of Iuka
Mississippi River
Vicksburg Campaign
U.S. Navy
Charles Anderson Dana
hardtack
John C. Pemberton
Jackson, Mississippi
Battle of Champion Hill
Battle of Vicksburg
July 4
1863
Battle of Gettysburg
Turning point of the American Civil War
July 4
Battle of Chickamauga
William S. Rosecrans
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Braxton Bragg
Lookout Mountain
October 17
George Henry Thomas
William Farrar Smith
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Missionary Ridge
Atlanta, Georgia
Lieutenant General (United States)
George Washington
Winfield Scott
brevet (military)
Congress of the United States
March 2
1864
March 12
United States
William Tecumseh Sherman
Virginia
Army of Northern Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
George G. Meade
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Franz Sigel
Shenandoah Valley
Georgia (U.S. state)
Joseph E. Johnston
Atlanta
George Crook
William W. Averell
West Virginia
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Mobile, Alabama
total war
Overland Campaign
Robert E. Lee
May 4
1864
Army of the Potomac
Rapidan River
Army of Northern Virginia
Battle of the Wilderness
Spotsylvania, Virginia
May 8
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 11
May 12
Battle of Cold Harbor
June 3
James River (Virginia)
Petersburg, Virginia
June 18
Siege of Petersburg
William Tecumseh Sherman
Abraham Lincoln
Jubal A. Early
Shenandoah Valley
Washington, D.C.
Administration (government)
Philip Sheridan
Valley Campaigns of 1864
Sherman's March to the Sea
total war
Carolinas Campaign
Appomattox Court House
April 9
1865
Kirby Smith
Trans-Mississippi Department
June 2
1865
Copperheads
Democratic Party (United States)
July 25
1866
General of the Army of the United States
U.S. Army
Andrew Johnson
Edwin M. Stanton
Tenure of Office Act
History of the United States Republican Party
Republican National Convention
Chicago
U.S. presidential election, 1868
Horatio Seymour
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
United States presidential election, 1872
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Horace Greeley
Reconstruction
Redeemers
Ku Klux Klan
voting rights
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Dominican Republic
Yellowstone National Park
March 1
1872
March 29
2006
Christmas
February 8
1999
Panic of 1873
Robert Schenck
Rutherford B. Hayes
Samuel J. Tilden
U.S. presidential election, 1876
Henry Watterson
Treaty of Washington (1871)
Hamilton Fish
CSS Alabama
Dominican Republic
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Charles Sumner
Horace Greeley
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Liberian-Grebo War
USS Alaska (1868)
Liberia
James Milton Turner
Black Friday (1869)
Jay Gould
James Fisk (financier)
Whiskey Ring
Benjamin H. Bristow
Orville E. Babcock
United States Secretary of War
William W. Belknap
Native Americans in the United States
trading post
Sanborn Incident
William Adams Richardson
Cyrus I. Scofield
Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Vice President of the United States
Schuyler Colfax
United States presidential election, 1872
Henry Wilson
Julia Grant
Jesse Root Grant
anti-Semitism
General Order No. 11 (1862)
Oxford, Mississippi
December 17
1862
Vicksburg Campaign
Tennessee
Mississippi
Kentucky
James H. Wilson
Bertram Korn
U.S. presidential election, 1868
President of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
Salmon P. Chase
March 4
1873
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
Elihu B. Washburne
Hamilton Fish
John A. Rawlins
William T. Sherman
William W. Belknap
Alphonso Taft
J. Donald Cameron
George S. Boutwell
William Adams Richardson
Benjamin Bristow
Lot M. Morrill
Ebenezer R. Hoar
Amos T. Akerman
George Henry Williams
Edwards Pierrepont
Alphonso Taft
John A. J. Creswell
James William Marshall
Marshall Jewell
James N. Tyner
Adolph E. Borie
George M. Robeson
Jacob D. Cox
Columbus Delano
Zachariah Chandler
Supreme Court of the United States
Edwin M. Stanton
William Strong (judge)
Joseph P. Bradley
Ward Hunt
Morrison Remick Waite
Chief Justice of the United States
Colorado
August 1
1876
United States Department of Justice
United States Solicitor General
Chester A. Arthur
Office of Personnel Management
Surgeon General of the United States
National Weather Service
Queen Victoria
Windsor Castle
Prince Bismarck
Emperor Meiji
Empress ShÅken
Imperial Palace
Tokyo
Meiji period
Ryukyu Islands
China
Stalwart (politics)
Roscoe Conkling
Methodist
Republican National Convention
James A. Garfield
New York City
Ferdinand Ward
Wall Street
Grant & Ward
Esophageal cancer
pension
The Century Magazine
Mark Twain
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Julius Caesar
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
New York City
Riverside Park (Manhattan)
General Grant National Memorial
mausoleum
North America
World War II
tank
Grant tank
U.S. fifty-dollar bill
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Grant Park (Chicago)
Chicago
the Bronx
New York
San Francisco, California
Chinatown, San Francisco, California
Bedford Avenue
Crown Heights
Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. Grant Bridge
Ohio River
Portsmouth, Ohio
U.S. Route 52
Counties of the United States
U.S. state
Grant County, Arkansas
Grant County, Kansas
Grant County, Minnesota
Grant County, Nebraska
Grant County, New Mexico
Grant County, North Dakota
Grant County, Oklahoma
Grant County, Washington
Grant County, West Virginia
Grant Parish, Louisiana
Mayflower
Richard Warren
John Lothropp
Benjamin Franklin
abolitionist
John Brown (abolitionist)
Mathew Brady
Willard Hotel
lobbyist
San Francisco
National Rifle Association
Jeffrey Shaara
The Last Full Measure
Michael Shaara
The Killer Angels
First Lady of the United States
Julia Grant
Strabismus
bourbon whiskey
Old Crow
cucumbers
vinegar
breakfast
James Wolfe
French and Indian Wars
King George II
Groucho Marx
You Bet Your Life
Ulysses S. Grant IV
University of California, Los Angeles
The Golden Girls
Cary Grant
Wild Wild West
Henry Wager Halleck
Quiz Show
United States presidential election, 1868
United States presidential election, 1872
History of the United States (1865-1918)
Western Theater of the American Civil War
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
James M. McPherson
Jean Edward Smith
Allan Nevins
Ed Bearss
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
Find A Grave
West Point#Cullum Number
Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Rutherford B. Hayes
Abraham Lincoln
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1868
U.S. presidential election, 1872
Rutherford B. Hayes
Army of the Tennessee
William T. Sherman
Henry W. Halleck
Commanding General of the United States Army
Andrew Johnson
Oldest living United States president
Rutherford B. Hayes
United States
soldier
politician
President of the United States
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
|
Ulysses_S._Grant | Had he smoked only sporadically ? | yes | data/set3/a5 | Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, See military career for a discussion of Grant's middle initial. born Hiram Ulysses Grant (April 27, 1822 July 23, 1885), was an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869 1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
Grant first reached national prominence by taking Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862 in the first Union victories of the war. The following year, his brilliant campaign ending in the surrender of Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi andâwith the simultaneous Union victory at Gettysburgâturned the tide of the war in the North's favor. Named commanding general of the Federal armies in 1864, he implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's ability to carry on the war. In 1865, after conducting a costly war of attrition in the East, he accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. Grant has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinized by military specialists around the world.
In 1868, Grant was elected president as a Republican. Grant was the first president to serve for two full terms since Andrew Jackson forty years before. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed.
Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans. See Skidmore (2005); Bunting (2004), Scaturro (1998), Smith (2001) and Simpson (1998) Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.
Ulysses Grant Birthplace, Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home, Georgetown, Ohio
Grant was born in a log cabin in Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, 25 miles (40 km) east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He was the eldest of the six children of Jesse Root Grant (1794 1873) and Hannah Simpson Grant (1798 1883). His father, a tanner, was from Pennsylvania, and his mother was born in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, they moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio.
On August 22, 1848, Grant married Julia Boggs Dent (1826 1902), the daughter of a slave owner. They had four children: Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (Buck), Ellen Wrenshall Grant (Nellie), and Jesse Root Grant.
At the age of 17, Grant entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, after securing a nomination through his U.S. Congressman, Thomas L. Hamer. Hamer erroneously nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," Smith, Grant, p. 24. knowing Grant's mother's maiden name was Simpson and forgetting that Grant was referred to in his youth as "H. Ulysses Grant" or "Lyss." Grant wrote his name in the entrance register as "Ulysses Hiram Grant" (concerned that he would otherwise become known by his initials, H.U.G.), but the school administration refused to accept any name other than the nominated form. Upon graduation, Grant adopted the form of his new name with middle initial only. Smith, Grant, p. 83. In a letter to his wife Julia dated March 31, 1853, Grant wrote, "Why did you not tell me more about our dear little boys ? ... What does Fred. call Ulys. ? What does the S stand for in Ulys.'s name? In mine you know it does not stand for anything!" McFeely, p. 524, n. 2: "Grant himself never used more than 'S.'; others converted the single letter to 'Simpson.' He graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. At the academy, he established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman. Although this made him seem a natural for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment.
Lieutenant Grant served in the Mexican-American War (1846â1848) under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, where, despite his assignment as a quartermaster, he got close enough to the front lines to see action, taking part in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey (where he volunteered to carry a dispatch on horseback through a sniper-lined street), and Veracruz. Once Grant saw his friend, Fred Dent, later becoming his brother-in-law, lying in the middle of the battlefield; he had been shot in the leg. Grant ran furiously into the open to rescue Dent; as they were making their way to safety, a Mexican was sneaking up behind Grant, but the Mexican was shot by a fellow U.S soldier. Grant was twice brevetted for bravery: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He was a remarkably close observer of the war, learning to judge the actions of colonels and generals. In the 1880s he wrote that the war was unjust, accepting the theory that it was designed to gain land open to slavery.
After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, Grant remained in the army and was moved to several different posts. He was sent to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory in 1853, where he served as quartermaster of the 4th U.S. Infantry regiment. His wife, eight months pregnant with their second child, could not accompany him because his salary could not support a family on the frontier. In 1854, Grant was promoted to captain (one of only 50 still on active duty) and assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt, California. However, he still could not afford to bring his family out West. He tried some business ventures, but they failed. Grant resigned from the Army with little advance notice on July 31, 1854, offering no explanation for his abrupt decision. Rumors persisted in the Army for years that his commanding officer, Bvt. Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan, found him drunk on duty as a pay officer and offered him the choice between resignation or court-martial. According to Smith, pp. 87-88, and Lewis, pp. 328-32, two of Grant's lieutenants corroborated this story and Buchanan himself confirmed it to another officer in a conversation during the Civil War. Years later, Grant told educator John Eaton, "the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign." Some biographers discount the rumors and suggest Grant's resignation, and his drinking, were both prompted by profound depression. According to this view, Buchanan hated Grant and concocted the drunkenness story years later to protect Buchanan's action in removing the man who became one of the most famous generals in history. The War Department stated, "Nothing stands against his good name." McFeely, p. 55-56; Simpson, Triumph, pp. 60-61. Buchanan tolerated drunkenness in other officers, and in Grant's successor, and surprised fellow officers by forcing Grant's resignation. Garland, p. 126, notes that at the time the War Department made clear that Grant did not leave under a cloud. He wrote in his memoirs about the war against Mexico: "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican War
A civilian at age 32, Grant struggled through seven lean years. From 1854 to 1858 he labored on a family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by his father-in-law, but it did not prosper. Grant owned one slave (whom he set free in 1859); his wife owned four slaves (two women servants and their two small boys). His wife's slaves were leased in St. Louis in 1860 after Grant gave up farming. The land and cabin where Grant lived is now an animal conservation reserve, Grant's Farm, owned and operated by the Anheuser-Busch Company. In 1858-59 he was a bill collector in St. Louis. Failing at everything, in humiliation he asked his father for a job, and in 1860 was made an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and run by his younger brother in Galena, Illinois. Grant & Perkins sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. McFeely, ch. 5.
Although Grant was essentially apolitical, his father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis (a fact that lost Grant the good job of county engineer in 1859). In 1856 he voted for Democrat James Buchanan for president to avert secession and because "I knew Frémont" (the Republican candidate). In 1860, he favored Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but did not vote. In 1864, he allowed his political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, to use his private letters as campaign literature for Abraham Lincoln The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Retrieved April 28, 2007. and the Union Party, which combined both Republicans and War Democrats. He refused to announce his political affiliation until 1868, when he finally declared himself a Republican. Hesseltine, chapter 6. .
The home of President Grant while he lived in Galena, Illinois.
Shortly after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Grant accepted a position offered by Illinois Governor Richard Yates to recruit and train volunteers, which he accomplished with efficiency. Grant pressed for a field command; Yates appointed him colonel of the undisciplined and rebellious 21st Illinois Infantry in June 1861.
Grant was deployed to Missouri to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Under pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson, Missouri had declared it was an armed neutral in the conflict and would attack troops from either side entering the state. By the first of August the Union army had forcibly removed Jackson and Missouri was controlled by Union forces, who had to deal with numerous southern sympathizers.
In August, Grant was appointed brigadier general of volunteers by Lincoln, who had been lobbied by Congressman Elihu Washburne. At the end of August, Grant was selected by Western Theater commander Major General John C. Frémont to command the critical District of Southeast Missouri.
Grant's first important strategic act of the war was to take the initiative to seize the Ohio River town of Paducah, Kentucky, immediately after the Confederates violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. He fought his first battle, an indecisive action against Confederate Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861. Three months later, aided by Andrew H. Foote's Navy gunboats, he captured two major Confederate fortresses, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. At Donelson, his army was hit by a surprise Confederate attack (once again by Pillow) while he was temporarily absent. Displaying the cool determination that would characterize his leadership in future battles, he organized counterattacks that carried the day. Both General Floyd and Pillow, the two senior Confederate commanders fled. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, an old friend of Grant's and a West Point classmate, and senior commander with Floyd and Pillow fleeing, yielded to Grant's hard conditions of "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Buckner's surrender of over 12,000 men made Grant a national figure almost overnight, and he was nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The captures of the two forts with over 12,000 prisoners were the first major Union victories of the war, gaining him national recognition. Desperate for generals who could fight and win, Lincoln promoted him to major general of volunteers. Although Grant's new-found fame did not seem to affect his temperament, it did have an impact on his personal life. At one point during the Civil War, a picture of Grant with a cigar in his mouth was published. He was then inundated with cigars from well wishers. Before that he had smoked only sporadically, but he could not give them all away, so he took up smoking them, a habit which may have contributed to the development of throat cancer later in his life; one story after the war claimed that he smoked over 10,000 in five years.
Despite his significant victories (or perhaps because of them), Grant fell out of favor with his superior, Major General Henry W. Halleck. Halleck had a particular distaste for drunks and, believing Grant was an alcoholic, was biased against him from the beginning. After Grant visited Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with Halleck's rival, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck used the visit as an excuse to relieve Grant of field command on March 2. Personal intervention from President Lincoln caused Halleck to restore Grant, who rejoined his army on March 17.
General Grant at Cold Harbor, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1864
In early April 1862, Grant was surprised by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard at the Battle of Shiloh. The sheer violence of the Confederate attack sent the Union forces reeling. Nevertheless, Grant refused to retreat. With grim determination, he stabilized his line. Then, on the second day, with the help of timely reinforcements, Grant counterattacked and turned a serious reverse into a victory.
The victory at Shiloh came at a high price; with over 23,000 casualties, it was the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States up to that time. Halleck responded to the surprise and the disorganized nature of the fighting by taking command of the army in the field himself on April 30, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command for the campaign in Corinth, Mississippi. Despondent over this reversal, Grant decided to resign. The intervention of his subordinate and good friend, William T. Sherman, caused him to remain. When Halleck was promoted to general-in-chief of the Union Army, Grant resumed his position as commander of the Army of West Tennessee (later more famously named the Army of the Tennessee) on June 10. He commanded the army for the battles of Corinth and Iuka that fall.
In an attempt to capture the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant spent the winter of 1862 1863 conducting a series of operations to gain access to the city through the region's bayous. These attempts failed.
However, his strategy to take Vicksburg in 1863 is considered one of the most masterful in military history. Grant marched his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossed the river by using U.S. Navy ships that had run the guns at Vicksburg. There, he moved inland and in a daring move that defied conventional military principles cut loose from most of his supply lines. One of the enduring myths about Grant is that he dispensed with all of his supply lines and lived entirely off the land. This story was first propagated by former journalist Charles A. Dana and years later, Grant wrote the same in his memoirs. However, supply requisitions show that, while the men and animals of the Army of the Tennessee foraged for much of their food, staples such as coffee, salt, hardtack, ammunition, and medical supplies kept a large fleet of wagons moving inland from Grand Gulf throughout the campaign. This supply train was a target of Pemberton until Champion Hill. Operating in enemy territory, Grant moved swiftly, never giving the Confederates, under the command of John C. Pemberton, an opportunity to concentrate their forces against him. Grant's army went eastward, captured the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and severed the rail line to Vicksburg.
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
A distinguished British historian has written that "we must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon to find equally brilliant results accomplished in the same space of time with such a small loss." Lincoln said after the capture of Vicksburg and after the lost opportunity after Gettysburg, "Grant is my man and I am his the rest of the War."
After the Battle of Chickamauga Union general William S. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Braxton Bragg followed to Lookout Mountain, surrounding the Federals on three sides. On October 17, Grant was placed in command of the Military Division of Mississippi, which included Chattanooga. He immediately relieved Rosecrans and replaced him with George H. Thomas. Devising a plan known as the "Cracker Line", Thomas' chief engineer, William F. "Baldy" Smith opened a new supply route to Chattanooga, helping to better supply the Army of the Cumberland.
Upon reprovisioning and reinforcing, the morale of Union troops lifted. In late November, they went on the offensive. The Battle of Chattanooga started out with Sherman's failed attack on the Confederate right. He not only attacked the wrong mountain but committed his troops piecemeal, allowing them to be defeated by one Confederate division. In response, Grant ordered Thomas to launch a demonstration on the center, which could draw defenders away from Sherman. Thomas waited until he was certain that Hooker, with reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, was engaged on the Confederate left before he launched the Army of the Cumberland at the center of the Confederate line. Hooker's men broke the Confederate left, while Thomas' men made an unexpected but spectacular charge straight up Missionary Ridge and broke the fortified center of the Confederate line. Grant was initially angry at Thomas that his orders for a demonstration were exceeded, but the assaulting wave sent the Confederates into a head-long retreat, opening the way for the Union to invade Atlanta, Georgia, and the heart of the Confederacy. Grant reportedly said afterward, "Damn, I had nothing to do with this battle," according to Hooker.
Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army a rank not awarded since George Washington (or Winfield Scott's brevet appointment), recently re-authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind on March 2, 1864. On March 12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.
In March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of all forces in the West and moved his headquarters to Virginia where he turned his attention to the long-frustrated Union effort to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia; his secondary objective was to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, George G. Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Grant was the first general to attempt such a coordinated strategy in the war and the first to understand the concepts of total war, in which the destruction of an enemy's economic infrastructure that supplied its armies was as important as tactical victories on the battlefield.
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth trees known as the Wilderness. It was such difficult terrain that the Army of Northern Virginia was able to use it to prevent Grant from fully exploiting his numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Wilderness was a stubborn, bloody two-day fight, resulting in advantage to neither side, but with heavy casualties on both. After similar battles in Virginia against Lee, all of Grant's predecessors had retreated from the field. Grant ignored the setback and ordered an advance around Lee's flank to the southeast, which lifted the morale of his army. Grant's strategy was not just to win individual battles, it was to fight constant battles in order to wear down and destroy Lee's army.
Poster of "Grant from West Point to Appomattox."
Sigel's Shenandoah campaign and Butler's James River campaign both failed. Lee was able to reinforce with troops used to defend against these assaults.
The campaign continued, but Lee, anticipating Grant's move, beat him to Spotsylvania, Virginia, where, on May 8, the fighting resumed. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House lasted 14 days. On May 11, Grant wrote a famous dispatch containing the line "I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer". These words summed up his attitude about the fighting, and the next day, May 12, he ordered a massive assault by Hancock's 2nd Corps that broke a portion of Lee's line, captured 30 artillery pieces, took 4,000 prisoners, and broke forever the famous Stonewall Division. In spite of mounting Union casualties, the contest's dynamics changed in Grant's favor. Most of Lee's great victories in earlier years had been won on the offensive, employing surprise movements and fierce assaults. Now, he was forced to continually fight on the defensive without a chance to regroup or replenish against an opponent that was well supplied and had superior numbers. The next major battle, however, demonstrated the power of a well-prepared defense. Cold Harbor was one of Grant's most controversial battles, in which he launched on June 3 a massive three-corps assault without adequate reconnaissance on a well-fortified defensive line, resulting in horrific casualties (3,000 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing in the first 40 minutes, although modern estimates have determined that the total was likely less than half of the famous figure of 7,000 that has been used in books for decades; as many as 12,000 for the day, far outnumbering the Confederate losses). Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22nd of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." But Grant moved on and kept up the pressure. He stole a march on Lee, slipping his troops across the James River.
Arriving at Petersburg, Virginia, first, Grant should have captured the rail junction city, but he failed because of the overly cautious actions of his subordinate William Smith. Over the next three days, a number of Union assaults to take the city were launched. But all failed, and finally on June 18, Lee's veterans arrived. Faced with fully manned trenches in his front, Grant was left with no alternative but to settle down to a siege.
As the summer drew on and with Grant's and Sherman's armies stalled, respectively in Virginia and Georgia, politics took center stage. There was a presidential election in the fall, and the citizens of the North had difficulty seeing any progress in the war effort. To make matters worse for Abraham Lincoln, Lee detached a small army under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, hoping it would force Grant to disengage forces to pursue him. Early invaded north through the Shenandoah Valley and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. Although unable to take the city, Early embarrassed the Administration simply by threatening its inhabitants, making Abraham Lincoln's re-election prospects even bleaker.
In early September, the efforts of Grant's coordinated strategy finally bore fruit. First, Sherman took Atlanta. Then, Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to deal with Early. It became clear to the people of the North that the war was being won, and Lincoln was re-elected by a wide margin. Later in November, Sherman began his March to the Sea. Sheridan and Sherman both followed Grant's strategy of total war by destroying the economic infrastructures of the Valley and a large swath of Georgia and the Carolinas.
At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant had the sad honor of serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of his greatest champion, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been quoted after the massive losses at Shiloh as saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." It was a two-sentence description that completely caught the essence of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's fighting style was what one fellow general called "that of a bulldog". The term accurately captures his tenacity, but it oversimplifies his considerable strategic and tactical capabilities. Although a master of combat by out-maneuvering his opponent (such as at Vicksburg and in the Overland Campaign against Lee), Grant was not afraid to order direct assaults, often when the Confederates were themselves launching offensives against him. Such tactics often resulted in heavy casualties for Grant's men, but they wore down the Confederate forces proportionately more and inflicted irreplaceable losses. Many in the North denounced Grant as a "butcher" in 1864, an accusation made both by Northern civilians appalled at the staggering number of casualties suffered by Union armies for what appeared to be negligible gains, and by Copperheads, Northern Democrats who either favored the Confederacy or simply wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of recognizing Southern independence. Grant persevered, refusing to withdraw as had his predecessors, and Lincoln, despite public outrage and pressure within the government, stuck by Grant, refusing to replace him. Although Grant lost battles in 1864, he won all his campaigns.
Historian Michael Korda explained his strategic genius: Korda, (2004)
After the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress authorized the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, the equivalent of a full (four-star) general in the modern U.S. Army. Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 264. Grant was appointed as such by President Andrew Johnson on the same day.''
As commanding general of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. Although he accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, he did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. Grant refused but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the Republican ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House, he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.
The second president from Ohio, Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. In the 1872 election he won by a landslide against the breakaway Liberal Republican party that nominated Horace Greeley.
Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent KKK organizations in the South, and a factional Republican party. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed .
Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872. General Grant National Memorial by the National Park Service. Retrieved March 29, 2006. Grant also signed into law making Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application, CRS Report for Congress, 98-301 GOV, updated February 8, 1999, by Stephen W. Stathis
The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869, established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874, he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.
By 1875 the Grant administration was in disarray and on the defensive on all fronts other than foreign policy. With the Democrats in control of the House, Grant was unable to pass legislation. The House discovered gross corruption in the Interior, War, and Navy Departments; they did much to discredit the Department of Justice, forced the resignation of Robert Schenck, the Minister to Britain, and cast suspicion upon Blaine's conduct while Speaker. Nevins, Hamilton Fish 2:811ff. Historian Allan Nevins concludes: Nevins, Fish 2:811
In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy; he made clear he would not tolerate any march on Washington, such as that proposed by Tilden supporter Henry Watterson .
The Grant administration's first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Act to Strengthen the Public Credit which the GOP Congress had passed after Grant ` s inaugural in March 1869 . The act had the effect that the gold price on New York exchange fell to 310 dollar an ounce - the lowest point since the suspension of specie payment in 1862 .
As Jean Edward Smith notes in his 2002 biography on Grant, the presidential treasury secretary Boutwell reorganized the Treasury by discharging unnecessary employees, started sweeping changes in Bureau of Printing and Engraving to protect the currency from counterfeiters and revitalized tax collections to hasten the collection of revenue. This changes soon led the Tresury having a monthly surplus .
The Grant administration reduced the debt by appromixately 435 million dollar. That was achieved by selling the growing gold surplus at weekly auctions for greenbacks and buying back wartime bonds with the currency . With this Grant ` s treasury secretary Boutwell had established a policy if continued had payed of the national debt in a quarter of a century . Newspapers like the New York Tribune wanted that the Government buy more bonds and Greenbacks, the New York Times praised the the Grant administration `s debt policy .
On other economic fronts did the Grant administration have acomplishments . Under
Grant the nation `s credit was substantially raised. Taxes was reduced by 300 million dollar. Annual interest rates were reduced by approximately 30 million dollar . The U . S balance of trade was changed from 130 million dollar against the United States to 120 million dollar in favor of the United States . He also reduced inflation and to 1873 bolstered economic recovery . He also promoted economy in federal expenditures . His veto of the Inflation Bill in 1874 saved the aftermath of the Panic of 1873 to get worse and the veto was praised by the financial community and many newspapers .
The Resumption of Species Act of 1875 which was signed by Grant and helped to end the crisis in 1879 when the law came in to effect
He also pressed for internal improvements and increased shipbuilding and foreign trade. He also wanted to enhance and improve the commercial marine .
Grant/Wilson campaign poster
In foreign affairs, a notable achievement of the Grant administration was the 1871 Treaty of Washington, negotiated by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. It settled American claims against Britain concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider CSS Alabama. He also proposed to annex the independent, largely black nation of Santo Domingo. Not only did he believe that the island would be of use to the navy tactically, but he sought to use it as a bargaining chip. By providing a safe haven for the freedmen, Grant believed that the exodus of black labor would force Southern whites to realize the necessity of such a significant workforce and accept their civil rights. At the same time he hoped that U.S. ownership of the island would urge nearby Cuba to abandon slavery. The Senate refused to ratify it because of (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872. Another notable foreign policy action under Grant was the settlement of the Liberian-Grebo War of 1876 through the dispatchment of the USS Alaska to Liberia where US envoy James Milton Turner negotiated the incorporation of Grebo people into Liberian society and the ousting of foreign traders from Liberia. Liberian-Grebo War of 1876
The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market and tricked Grant into preventing his treasury secretary from stopping the fraud. However, Grant eventually released large amounts of gold back onto the market, causing a large-scale financial crisis for many gold investors. Jay Gould had already prepared and quietly sold out while Fisk denied many agreements and hired thugs to intimidate his creditors.
The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over 3 million dollars in taxes were stolen from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring but escaped conviction because of a presidential pardon. Grant's earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape" rang hollow. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was discovered to have taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant's acceptance of the resignation of Belknap allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by Congress for his actions, to escape conviction, since he was no longer a government official.
Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident involving Treasury Secretary William Adams Richardson and his assistant John D. Sanborn. Another was a problem with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield. The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal also ruined the political career of his first vice president, Schuyler Colfax, who was replaced on the Republican ticket in the 1872 election with Henry Wilson, who was also involved in the scandal.
President Grant with his wife, Julia, and son, Jesse, in 1872.
Although Grant himself did not profit from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained, he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors rather than supporting the party's needs. His failure to establish working political alliances in Congress allowed the scandals to spin out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."
Grant's legacy has been marred by charges of anti-Semitism. The most frequently cited example is the infamous General Order No. 11, issued by Grant's headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, on December 17, 1862, during the early Vicksburg Campaign. The order stated in part:
The order was almost immediately rescinded by President Lincoln. Grant maintained that he was unaware that a staff officer issued it in his name. Grant's father Jesse Grant was involved; General James H. Wilson later explained, "There was a mean nasty streak in old Jesse Grant. He was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line." Grant, Wilson felt, could not strike back directly at the "lot of relatives who were always trying to use him" and perhaps struck instead at what he maliciously saw as their counterpart â opportunistic traders who were Jewish. McFeely, p 124. Although it was portrayed as being outside the normal inclinations and character of Grant, it has been suggested by Bertram Korn that the order was part of a consistent pattern. "This was not the first discriminatory order [Grant] had signed [...] he was firmly convinced of the Jews' guilt and was eager to use any means of ridding himself of them." Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, p. 143). Korn cites Grant's order of November 9 and 10, 1862, "Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out," and "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them."
The issue of anti-Semitism was raised during the 1868 presidential campaign, and Grant consulted with several Jewish community leaders, all of whom said they were convinced that Order 11 was an anomaly, and he was not an anti-Semite. He maintained good relations with the community throughout his administration, on both political and social levels.
Grant's second inauguration as President by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase on March 4, 1873.
Grant appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
* Edwin M. Stanton 1869 (sworn in but died before taking seat)
* William Strong 1870
* Joseph P. Bradley 1870
* Ward Hunt 1873
* Morrison Remick Waite (Chief Justice) 1874
* Colorado August 1, 1876
* Department of Justice (1870)
* Office of the Solicitor General (1870)
* "Advisory Board on Civil Service" (1871); after it expired in 1873, it became the role model for the "Civil Service Commission" instituted in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, a Grant faithful. (Today it is known as the Office of Personnel Management.)
* Office of the Surgeon General (1871)
* Army Weather Bureau (currently known as the National Weather Service) (1870)
Ulysses S. Grant in his postbellum.
After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. He visited Ireland, Scotland, and England; the crowds were huge. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and with Prince Bismarck in Germany. They also visited Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam, and Burma. In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress ShÅken at the Imperial Palace. Today in the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.
In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.
That same year, Grant was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. Hesseltine (2001) pp 432-39 His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a very narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.
Grant writing his memoirs.
In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled.
Grant appears on the U.S. $50 bill.
Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. It was not until 1958 that Congress, feeling it inappropriate that a former president or his wife might be poverty-stricken, passed a bill granting a pension to such individuals, a practice that continues to this day. Grant first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and Grant's memoirs are also regarded by such writers as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request, "Water." His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America.
Statue of Grant astride his favorite mount, "Cincinnati", at Vicksburg, Mississippi
*In World War II, the United States produced a tank known as the Grant tank (an upgrade of the American M3 "Lee").
*Grant's portrait appears on the U.S. fifty-dollar bill.
*The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., honors Grant.
*Grant Park in Chicago honors Grant.
*Grant Avenue, a nine block long, north-south street in the Bronx, New York, is named after Grant. It is parallel and adjacent to Sherman Avenue.
*Dupont Street, the main thoroughfare in San Francisco's Chinatown, was renamed Grant Avenue in his honor. The famous dragon gate at the entrance to the district is at the corner of Grant and Bush Street.
*Grant, depicted riding a horse, is honored by a statue at the intersection of Bedford Avenue, Rogers Avenue and Dean Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
*There is a U.S. Grant Bridge over the Ohio River at Portsmouth, Ohio.
*There is a U.S. Grant Memorial Highway (US 52) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
*Counties in twelve U.S. states are named after Grant: Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Grant Parish, Louisiana. Note: Grant Counties in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin were named after other Grants, not Ulysses Grant.
* Grant was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren
* Grant is also a descendant from John Lothropp, who is also an ancestor to Benjamin Franklin
Grant Memorial Statue in Grant Park, Galena, Illinois. Julia Grant remarked that it was the best likeness of her husband, as his hands were thrust into his pockets.
* As a young man, Grant's father, Jesse, taught him the trade of tanning. Jesse Grant had been taught how to tan by Owen Brown, the father of known abolitionist John Brown. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* When Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1864, he agreed to sit down for photographer Mathew Brady. As the sun had begun to set by the time Grant arrived, Brady instructed one of his assistants to open the shades of the skylight in Brady's studio. The assistant slipped and shattered the skylight, causing two-inch-thick shards of glass to rain down around Grant, who had taken his seat as requested. He was unharmed, and showed "the most remarkable display of nerve" that Brady had ever seen. O'Brien, Cormac (2007). "Secret Lives of the Civil War: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the War Between the States".
* Grant was known to visit the Willard Hotel to escape the stress of the White House. A long-standing story is that he referred to the people who approached him in the lobby as "those darn lobbyists," implying that he was the source for the term lobbyist. This story is unlikely to be true since there are examples of the term being used in U.S. and British magazines and newspapers before Grant's presidency. World Wide Words.
* While in California, Grant tried selling ice to San Francisco, but failed when it melted in the warm weather aboard the ship. Smith, Grant, p. 81. . This anecdote is disputed by Edward G. Longacre in "General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man" (2006) in which he says -- in a referenced statement -- that the ice venture had failed because of "an unexpected glut of [ice] imports from Alaska."
* In 1883, Grant was elected the eighth president of the National Rifle Association.
* Grant suffered from tone-deafness. He disliked music intensely and would go out of his way to avoid having to hear any other than patriotic songs. In Jeffrey Shaara's The Last Full Measure - which is set after the Battle of Gettysburg, the subject of his father Michael's 1974 bestseller The Killer Angels - Grant is portrayed as saying, "I know only two songs. One is 'Yankee Doodle'. The other isn't." Whether he actually said this is unclear. Shaara, Jeffrey M. (1998). "The Last Full Measure".
* Grant's wife, First Lady Julia Grant, was cross-eyed. When it was suggested to her that she have an operation to have it corrected, President Grant replied that he liked her that way. Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".
* Grant's favorite brand of bourbon whiskey was Old Crow.
* Grant enjoyed eating cucumbers soaked in vinegar for breakfast.
* An apocryphal story about Grant's drinking has the general's critics going to President Lincoln, charging the military man with being a drunk. Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."
:* A similar story was told of General James Wolfe during the French and Indian Wars. When King George II was told that Wolfe was a "mad dog", he is said to have replied, "Then I'd wish he'd bite the other generals."
* The question "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" was used by Groucho Marx in his radio and TV quiz show, the correct answer to which resulted in a consolation prize to contestants who had won no money. Some contestants thought it was a trick question. Grant's grandson, Ulysses S. Grant IV (a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles) appeared on the program on March 12, 1953.
** This was also featured on an episode of the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, in which in a dream sequence Dorothy competes on Jeopardy against a scholar and her roommate Rose. When asked the question, Dorothy replies Ulysses and is wrong, while Rose replies Cary Grant and is correct.
* In the film Wild Wild West, President Grant is a minor character that must deal with the Loveless Alliance.
Once while in office he was arrested for speeding his horse and buggy and fined $20 and had to walk back to the white house. (www.pocanticohills.org/presidents/know.htm )
* A dispute between Grant and his commanding officer Henry Wager Halleck is the subject of a pivotal question in the film Quiz Show.
* United States presidential election, 1868
* United States presidential election, 1872
* History of the United States (1865â1918)
* Western Theater of the American Civil War
* Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
* U.S. Grant Home, Galena, Illinois
*Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command, Little, Brown and Company, 1968, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 69-12632.
*Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
*Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
*Garland, Hamlin, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character, Macmillan Company, 1898.
*Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885 86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
*Hesseltine, William B., Ulysses S. Grant: Politician 1935.
* Lewis, Lloyd, Captain Sam Grant, Little, Brown, and Co., 1950, ISBN 0-316-52348-8.
* McFeely, William S., Grant: A Biography, W. W. Norton & Co, 1981, ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
* McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
* Simpson, Brooks D., Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-395-65994-9.
*Smith, Jean Edward, Grant, Simon and Shuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
*Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861 1865, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
* Official Ulysses Simpson Grant biography from the US Army Center for Military History
* Bunting III, Josiah. Ulysses S. Grant (2004) ISBN 0-8050-6949-6
* William Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 (1905), vol 22
* Hesseltine, William B. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (2001) ISBN 1-931313-85-7 online edition
* Mantell, Martin E., Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
* Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (1936) online edition
* Rhodes, James Ford., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6 and 7 (1920) vol 6
* Scaturro, Frank J., President Grant Reconsidered (1998).
* Schouler, James., History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
* Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
* Simpson, Brooks D., The Reconstruction Presidents (1998)
* Skidmore, Max J. "The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: a Reconsideration." White House Studies (2005) online
* Badeau, Adam. Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 vols. 1882.
*Ballard, Michael B., Vicksburg, The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-2893-9.
* Bearss, Edwin C., The Vicksburg Campaign, 3 volumes, Morningside Press, 1991, ISBN 0-89029-308-2.
* Carter, Samuel III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863 (1980)
* Catton, Bruce, Grant Moves South, 1960, ISBN 0-316-13207-1; Grant Takes Command, 1968, ISBN 0-316-13210-1; U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954)
* Cavanaugh, Michael A., and William Marvel, The Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of the Crater: "The Horrid Pit," June 25-August 6, 1864 (1989)
* Conger, A. L. The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931)
* Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg (1986).
* Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C., Grant and Lee, A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, 1957, ISBN 0-253-13400-5.
* Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
* Korda, Michael. Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (2004) 161 pp
* McWhiney, Grady, Battle in the Wilderness: Grant Meets Lee (1995)
* McDonough, James Lee, Shiloh: In Hell before Night (1977).
* McDonough, James Lee, Chattanooga: A Death Grip on the Confederacy (1984).
* Maney, R. Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor. Victory and Failure, 1864 (1994).
* Matter, William D., If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (1988)
* Miers, Earl Schenck., The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg. 1955.
* Mosier, John., "Grant", Palgrave MacMillan, 2006 ISBN 1-4039-7136-6.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5 6, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8071-1873-7.
* Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7 12, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8071-2136-3.
* Rhea, Gordon C., To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13 25, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8071-2535-0.
* Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.
* Miller, J. Michael, The North Anna Campaign: "Even to Hell Itself," May 21-26, 1864 (1989).
* Simpson, Brooks D, "Continuous Hammering and Mere Attrition: Lost Cause Critics and the Military Reputation of Ulysses S. Grant," in Cad Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, (2000)
* Steere, Edward, The Wilderness Campaign (1960)
* Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April. 1974.
* Williams, T. Harry, McClellan, Sherman and Grant. 1962.
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs (1885) online edition
* Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters (Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely, eds.) ( The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-94045058-5
* Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) pp 131-73, on the Memoirs
* Johnson, R. U., and Buel, C. C., eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York, 1887-88; essays by leading generals of both sides; online edition
* Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant (1897, reprinted 2000)
* Sherman, William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. 2 vols. 1875.
* Simon, John Y., ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Southern Illinois University Press (1967- ) multivolume complete edition of letters to and from Grant. As of 2006, vol 1-28 covers through September 1878.
* Extensive essay on Ulysses S. Grant and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
* First Inaugural Address
* Second Inaugural Address
* White House Biography
* Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
*Emerson, Col. John W., Grant's Life in the West and His Mississippi Valley Campaigns, U.S. Grant Association website.
* Ulysses S. Grant at Find A Grave
* Many rare General Grant photographs
* Complete Bibliography
* Military biography of Ulysses S. Grant from the Cullum biographies
*
* The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. (1918). "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.
* Collection of US Grant Letters
* Ulysses S. Grant: America's Second Three-Star General article by Ethan Rafuse
* Historic White Haven (Grant-Dent home)
*
|-
|-
Related Wikipedia Articles
President of the United States
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
Andrew Johnson
Rutherford B. Hayes
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Julia Grant
Jesse Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Nellie Grant
Frederick Grant
General-in-Chief
List of United States Presidential religious affiliations
Republican Party (United States)
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
#Military career
April 27
1822
July 23
1885
United States
President of the United States
Union (American Civil War)
American Civil War
Battle of Vicksburg
Confederate
Robert E. Lee
Appomattox Court House
J.F.C. Fuller
Vicksburg Campaign
History of the United States Republican Party
Andrew Jackson
Radical Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan
Historical rankings of United States Presidents
Civil Rights
African American history
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home
Georgetown, Ohio
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio River
Pennsylvania
Horsham Township, Pennsylvania
Georgetown, Ohio
Brown County, Ohio
August 22
1848
Julia Boggs Dent
Frederick Dent Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
Ellen Wrenshall Grant
Jesse Root Grant
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Wilton, New York
Mathew Brady
United States Army
Army of the Tennessee
Military Division of the Mississippi
United States Army
United States Army
Mexican-American War
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
American Civil War
Battle of Fort Donelson
Battle of Shiloh
Battle of Vicksburg
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Overland Campaign
Battle of Petersburg
Appomattox Campaign
President of the United States
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
U.S. Congressman
Thomas L. Hamer
Academic administration
March 31
1853
cavalry
Mexican-American War
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
Battle of Palo Alto
Battle of Monterrey
Battle of Veracruz
Battle of Molino del Rey
Battle of Chapultepec
Fort Vancouver
Washington Territory
U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
July 31
1854
Robert C. Buchanan
John Eaton (General)
St. Louis, Missouri
Grant's Farm
Anheuser-Busch
Galena, Illinois
James Buchanan
John C. Frémont
Stephen A. Douglas
Elihu B. Washburne
April 28
2007
War Democrats
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Galena, Illinois
Fort Sumter
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
Illinois
Richard Yates (governor)
21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
Claiborne Jackson
John C. Frémont
Ohio River
Paducah, Kentucky
Confederate States Army
Columbus, Kentucky
Gideon J. Pillow
Battle of Belmont
Andrew H. Foote
Battle of Fort Henry
Tennessee River
Battle of Fort Donelson
Cumberland River
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr.
Henry W. Halleck
Nashville, Tennessee
Don Carlos Buell
March 2
March 17
Battle of Cold Harbor
Mathew Brady
Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard
Battle of Shiloh
April 30
First Battle of Corinth
William T. Sherman
Army of West Tennessee
Army of the Tennessee
June 10
Second Battle of Corinth
Battle of Iuka
Mississippi River
Vicksburg Campaign
U.S. Navy
Charles Anderson Dana
hardtack
John C. Pemberton
Jackson, Mississippi
Battle of Champion Hill
Battle of Vicksburg
July 4
1863
Battle of Gettysburg
Turning point of the American Civil War
July 4
Battle of Chickamauga
William S. Rosecrans
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Braxton Bragg
Lookout Mountain
October 17
George Henry Thomas
William Farrar Smith
Third Battle of Chattanooga
Missionary Ridge
Atlanta, Georgia
Lieutenant General (United States)
George Washington
Winfield Scott
brevet (military)
Congress of the United States
March 2
1864
March 12
United States
William Tecumseh Sherman
Virginia
Army of Northern Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
George G. Meade
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Franz Sigel
Shenandoah Valley
Georgia (U.S. state)
Joseph E. Johnston
Atlanta
George Crook
William W. Averell
West Virginia
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Mobile, Alabama
total war
Overland Campaign
Robert E. Lee
May 4
1864
Army of the Potomac
Rapidan River
Army of Northern Virginia
Battle of the Wilderness
Spotsylvania, Virginia
May 8
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 11
May 12
Battle of Cold Harbor
June 3
James River (Virginia)
Petersburg, Virginia
June 18
Siege of Petersburg
William Tecumseh Sherman
Abraham Lincoln
Jubal A. Early
Shenandoah Valley
Washington, D.C.
Administration (government)
Philip Sheridan
Valley Campaigns of 1864
Sherman's March to the Sea
total war
Carolinas Campaign
Appomattox Court House
April 9
1865
Kirby Smith
Trans-Mississippi Department
June 2
1865
Copperheads
Democratic Party (United States)
July 25
1866
General of the Army of the United States
U.S. Army
Andrew Johnson
Edwin M. Stanton
Tenure of Office Act
History of the United States Republican Party
Republican National Convention
Chicago
U.S. presidential election, 1868
Horatio Seymour
March 4
1869
March 4
1877
United States presidential election, 1872
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Horace Greeley
Reconstruction
Redeemers
Ku Klux Klan
voting rights
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Dominican Republic
Yellowstone National Park
March 1
1872
March 29
2006
Christmas
February 8
1999
Panic of 1873
Robert Schenck
Rutherford B. Hayes
Samuel J. Tilden
U.S. presidential election, 1876
Henry Watterson
Treaty of Washington (1871)
Hamilton Fish
CSS Alabama
Dominican Republic
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Charles Sumner
Horace Greeley
Liberal Republican Party (United States)
Liberian-Grebo War
USS Alaska (1868)
Liberia
James Milton Turner
Black Friday (1869)
Jay Gould
James Fisk (financier)
Whiskey Ring
Benjamin H. Bristow
Orville E. Babcock
United States Secretary of War
William W. Belknap
Native Americans in the United States
trading post
Sanborn Incident
William Adams Richardson
Cyrus I. Scofield
Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Vice President of the United States
Schuyler Colfax
United States presidential election, 1872
Henry Wilson
Julia Grant
Jesse Root Grant
anti-Semitism
General Order No. 11 (1862)
Oxford, Mississippi
December 17
1862
Vicksburg Campaign
Tennessee
Mississippi
Kentucky
James H. Wilson
Bertram Korn
U.S. presidential election, 1868
President of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
Salmon P. Chase
March 4
1873
Schuyler Colfax
Henry Wilson
Elihu B. Washburne
Hamilton Fish
John A. Rawlins
William T. Sherman
William W. Belknap
Alphonso Taft
J. Donald Cameron
George S. Boutwell
William Adams Richardson
Benjamin Bristow
Lot M. Morrill
Ebenezer R. Hoar
Amos T. Akerman
George Henry Williams
Edwards Pierrepont
Alphonso Taft
John A. J. Creswell
James William Marshall
Marshall Jewell
James N. Tyner
Adolph E. Borie
George M. Robeson
Jacob D. Cox
Columbus Delano
Zachariah Chandler
Supreme Court of the United States
Edwin M. Stanton
William Strong (judge)
Joseph P. Bradley
Ward Hunt
Morrison Remick Waite
Chief Justice of the United States
Colorado
August 1
1876
United States Department of Justice
United States Solicitor General
Chester A. Arthur
Office of Personnel Management
Surgeon General of the United States
National Weather Service
Queen Victoria
Windsor Castle
Prince Bismarck
Emperor Meiji
Empress ShÅken
Imperial Palace
Tokyo
Meiji period
Ryukyu Islands
China
Stalwart (politics)
Roscoe Conkling
Methodist
Republican National Convention
James A. Garfield
New York City
Ferdinand Ward
Wall Street
Grant & Ward
Esophageal cancer
pension
The Century Magazine
Mark Twain
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Julius Caesar
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
New York City
Riverside Park (Manhattan)
General Grant National Memorial
mausoleum
North America
World War II
tank
Grant tank
U.S. fifty-dollar bill
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Grant Park (Chicago)
Chicago
the Bronx
New York
San Francisco, California
Chinatown, San Francisco, California
Bedford Avenue
Crown Heights
Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. Grant Bridge
Ohio River
Portsmouth, Ohio
U.S. Route 52
Counties of the United States
U.S. state
Grant County, Arkansas
Grant County, Kansas
Grant County, Minnesota
Grant County, Nebraska
Grant County, New Mexico
Grant County, North Dakota
Grant County, Oklahoma
Grant County, Washington
Grant County, West Virginia
Grant Parish, Louisiana
Mayflower
Richard Warren
John Lothropp
Benjamin Franklin
abolitionist
John Brown (abolitionist)
Mathew Brady
Willard Hotel
lobbyist
San Francisco
National Rifle Association
Jeffrey Shaara
The Last Full Measure
Michael Shaara
The Killer Angels
First Lady of the United States
Julia Grant
Strabismus
bourbon whiskey
Old Crow
cucumbers
vinegar
breakfast
James Wolfe
French and Indian Wars
King George II
Groucho Marx
You Bet Your Life
Ulysses S. Grant IV
University of California, Los Angeles
The Golden Girls
Cary Grant
Wild Wild West
Henry Wager Halleck
Quiz Show
United States presidential election, 1868
United States presidential election, 1872
History of the United States (1865-1918)
Western Theater of the American Civil War
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
Ulysses S. Grant Home
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
James M. McPherson
Jean Edward Smith
Allan Nevins
Ed Bearss
Bruce Catton
J. F. C. Fuller
Find A Grave
West Point#Cullum Number
Andrew Johnson
President of the United States
Rutherford B. Hayes
Abraham Lincoln
List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
U.S. presidential election, 1868
U.S. presidential election, 1872
Rutherford B. Hayes
Army of the Tennessee
William T. Sherman
Henry W. Halleck
Commanding General of the United States Army
Andrew Johnson
Oldest living United States president
Rutherford B. Hayes
United States
soldier
politician
President of the United States
April 27
1822
Point Pleasant, Ohio
Clermont County, Ohio
July 23
1885
Wilton, New York
Saratoga County, New York
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.