Ulysses S. Grant was the victorious commanding general of the U.S. Army during the American Civil War (1861–1865) and the 18th president president of the United States, serving two terms (1869–1877).
He was born in 1822 in Ohio. His family named him Hiram Ulysses Grant. He died in 1885 in Upstate New York.
For much of his life after 1865, he was quite likely the most famous living American in the world.
Nearly 1.5 million people came to the streets of New York City to witness his funeral procession on August 8, 1885, the largest public gathering in American history up to that time.
Until after World War I, his tomb, the General Grant National Memorial, in New York City’s Riverside Park, received more annual visitors than the Statue of Liberty.
Grant’s military campaigns during the Civil War, especially his campaign to capture the city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, are still studied in military academies today.
Grant was the youngest U.S. president ever elected (age 46 in 1868) until John F. Kennedy (age 43 in 1960).
While president, the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing the right to vote for all adult American men including former slaves (freedmen). Also, the Enforcement Act of 1871 (also called the Civil Rights Act of 1871 or the “Ku Klux Klan Act”) was passed at Grant’s insistence. It allowed him to use the U.S. military, the new Department of Justice, and federal judges to combat intimidation and violence against Blacks in the South.
