Does anyone know about general ulysses grant?

Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant; April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885) was the 18th President of the United States (1869–1877). In 1865, as commanding general, Grant led the Union Armies to victory over the Confederacy in the American Civil War. He then implemented Congressional Reconstruction, often at odds with President Andrew Johnson. Twice elected president, Grant led the Republicans in their effort to remove the vestiges of Confederate nationalism and slavery, protect African-American citizenship, and defeat the Ku Klux Klan.

Grant graduated in 1843 from the United States Military Academy at West Point and served in the Mexican–American War. When the Civil War began in 1861, he rejoined the U.S. Army. In 1862, Grant took control of Kentucky and most of Tennessee, and led Union forces to victory in the Battle of Shiloh, earning a reputation as an aggressive commander. He incorporated displaced African American slaves into the Union war effort. In July 1863, after a series of coordinated battles, Grant defeated Confederate armies and seized Vicksburg, giving the Union control of the Mississippi River and dividing the Confederacy in two. After his victory in the Chattanooga Campaign, President Abraham Lincoln promoted him to lieutenant general and commander of all the Union Armies. Grant confronted Robert E. Lee in a series of bloody battles in 1864, trapping Lee's army at Petersburg, Virginia. During the siege, Grant coordinated a series of devastating campaigns in other theaters. The war ended shortly after Lee's surrender at Appomattox. Historians have hailed Grant's military genius, and his strategies are featured in the military history textbooks, but a minority contend that he won by brute force rather than superior strategy.[1]

After the Civil War, Grant led the Army's supervision of Reconstruction in the former Confederate states. He was elected president in 1868 and reelected in 1872. Grant stabilized the nation during the turbulent Reconstruction period, enforced civil and voting rights laws, and prosecuted the first Ku Klux Klan. He used the army to build the Republican Party in the South, based on black voters, Northern newcomers ("Carpetbaggers"), and native Southern white supporters ("Scalawags"); combined with the disenfranchisement of some former Confederates, this led to Republican rule and the election of African-Americans to Congress and high state offices. In his second term, the Republican coalitions in the South fell apart as conservative white Democrats regained control of Southern states through terror and disenfranchisement of black Southerners. Grant's Indian peace policy initially reduced frontier violence, but after the discovery of gold in the Black Hills, the Great Sioux War culminated in George Custer's defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Throughout his presidency, Grant faced Congressional investigations into federal corruption, including bribery charges against two of his Cabinet members. Grant's economic policy sought to pursue a strong dollar, including implementation of a gold standard. The Panic of 1873, during his second term led to deflation and a lengthy economic contraction.

In foreign policy, Grant sought to increase American trade and influence, while remaining at peace with the world; his administration successfully resolved the Alabama Claims with Great Britain ending bitter wartime tensions. Grant avoided war with Spain over the Virginius Affair, but his attempted annexation of the Dominican Republic was rejected by Congress. His response to the Panic of 1873 gave some financial relief to New York banking houses, but was ineffective in halting the five-year economic depression that produced high unemployment, low prices, low profits, and bankruptcies. Leaving office in 1877, Grant embarked on a widely praised world tour lasting over two years. In 1880 Grant was unsuccessful at obtaining a third-term Republican nomination. Destitute, Grant completed his memoirs while dying of throat cancer; they proved a major critical and financial success. His death in 1885 prompted an outpouring of national unity and mourning. Few presidential reputations have fluctuated as dramatically as Grant's. Historians' evaluations were negative regarding the presidency, before recovering somewhat beginning in the 1980s. The consensus among them remains that his presidency was below average. Grant's critics note the misadventure of his failed Dominican Republic annexation, his economic mismanagement, and his failure to root out corruption, while admirers emphasize his commitment to civil rights, prosecution of the Ku Klux Klan, enforcement of voting rights, and personal integrity.[2]

Hiram Ulysses Grant was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio, on April 27, 1822, to Jesse Root Grant, a tanner and businessman, and Hannah (Simpson) Grant.[3] Jesse Grant was a Whig with abolitionist sentiments.[4] In the fall of 1823, the family moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio. Unlike his younger siblings, Grant was neither baptized nor forced to attend church by his Methodist parents; for the rest of his life, he prayed privately and never officially joined any denomination.[5] In his youth, Grant developed an unusual ability to work with and control horses and became known as a capable horseman.[6]

At 17, Congressman Thomas L. Hamer nominated Grant for admission to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. Hamer mistakenly wrote down the name as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio", and this became his adopted name. (According to Grant, the S. did not stand for anything, though Hamer had used it to abbreviate his mother's maiden name.)[7] His nickname became "Sam" among army colleagues at the academy since the initials "U.S." also stood for "Uncle Sam". He stood 5 feet 1 inch (1.55 m) and weighed 117 pounds (53 kg) when he entered West Point.[8] Grant later recalled "a military life had no charms for me" and that he had been lax in his studies, but he achieved above-average grades in mathematics and geology.[9] Although he had a quiet nature, he established a few intimate friends at West Point, including Frederick Tracy Dent and Rufus Ingalls.[10] Grant studied under Romantic artist Robert Walter Weir and produced nine surviving artworks. He also established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman, setting an equestrian high-jump record that stood for almost 25 years. He graduated in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. Grant was glad to leave the Academy and planned to resign his commission after serving the minimum four-year term of duty.[11] Despite his excellent horsemanship, he was not assigned to the cavalry (assignments were determined by class rank, not aptitude), but to the 4th Infantry Regiment. He was made regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment, with the rank of brevet second lieutenant.[12]

Military career, 1843–54

2nd Lt U.S. Grant in 1843
Grant's first assignment after graduation took him to the Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis, Missouri, in September 1843.[13] It was the nation's largest military base in the west, commanded by Colonel Stephen W. Kearny. Grant was happy with his new commander, but looked forward to the end of his military service and a possible teaching career.[14] He spent some of his time in Missouri visiting the family of his West Point classmate, Frederick Dent; he became engaged to Dent's sister, Julia, in 1844.[14]

Amid rising tensions with Mexico, Grant's unit shifted to Louisiana as part of the Army of Observation under Major General Zachary Taylor.[15] When the Mexican–American War broke out in 1846, the Army entered Mexico. Although a quartermaster, and not in charge of any company, Grant participated in leading a cavalry charge at the Battle of Resaca de la Palma.[16] At Monterrey, he demonstrated his equestrian ability, carrying a dispatch through sniper-lined streets while hanging off the side of his horse, keeping the animal between him and the enemy.Template:SfnSmith President James K. Polk, wary of Taylor's growing popularity, divided his forces, sending some troops (including Grant's unit) to form a new army under Major General Winfield Scott.[17] Scott's army landed at Veracruz and advanced toward Mexico City. The army met the Mexican forces at the battles of Molino del Rey and Chapultepec outside Mexico City. At Chapultepec, Grant dragged a howitzer into a church steeple to bombard nearby Mexican troops.[18] Scott's army entered the city, and the Mexicans agreed to peace soon afterward.[19]

In his Memoirs, Grant wrote that he had learned about military leadership by observing the decisions and actions of his commanding officers, and in retrospect he identified his leadership style with Taylor's. At the time, he believed that the war was a wrongful one and that the territorial gains from the war were designed to expand slavery. Reflecting on the Mexican-American War, Grant wrote in 1883, "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." He also opined that the Civil War was punishment inflicted on the nation for its aggression in Mexico.[20]

Grant's mandatory service had expired during the war, but he chose to remain in the Army. Four years after becoming engaged, he married Julia on August 22, 1848.[21] They had four children: Frederick, Ulysses Jr., Ellen (Nellie), and Jesse.[22] Grant received assignments to several posts over the ensuing six years. His first post-war assignments took him and Julia to Detroit and then to Sackets Harbor, New York, the place where they were happiest.[23] In the spring of 1852, he traveled to Washington, D.C., in a failed attempt to persuade Congress to absolve him of a $1,000 debt to the Army for goods gone astray while in his custody.[24] Later that year, his next assignment sent him west to Fort Vancouver in the Oregon Territory, initially landing him in San Francisco during the height of the California Gold Rush. Julia could not go with him as she was eight months pregnant with Ulysses Jr.[25] An outbreak of cholera while traveling overland through Panama caused 150 fatalities among the entourage. Grant arranged makeshift transportation and hospital facilities to care for the sick.[26]

Grant's time in the Pacific Northwest followed the Cayuse War; the army was stationed there to keep peace between settlers and Indians. To supplement a military salary inadequate to support his family, Grant attempted but failed at several business ventures.[27] The failures confirmed Jesse Grant's belief that his son had no head for business, frustrating both father and son. In one case, Grant naïvely trusted a business partner who swindled him out of money.[28] He grew unhappy separated from his family, and rumors circulated that he was drinking to excess.[a][28]

Promoted to captain in the summer of 1853, Grant was assigned to command Company F, 4th Infantry, at Fort Humboldt in California. The commanding officer at Fort Humboldt, brevet Lieutenant Colonel Robert C. Buchanan, received reports that Grant became intoxicated off-duty while seated at the pay officer's table. In lieu of a court-martial, Buchanan gave Grant an ultimatum to sign a drafted resignation letter, and he resigned effective July 31, 1854, without explanation and returned to St. Louis.[30] The War Department stated on his record, "Nothing stands against his good name."[31] After Grant's retirement, rumors persisted in the regular army of his drinking.[29] Years later, he said, "the vice of intemperance (drunkenness) had not a little to do with my decision to resign."[32] His father, again believing his son's only potential for success would be in the military, tried to get the Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, to refuse the resignation, to no avail.[33]

Civilian life

"Hardscrabble", the home Grant built in Missouri for his family
At age 32, with no civilian vocation, Grant struggled through seven financially lean years. His father initially offered Grant a place in the Galena, Illinois, branch of the tannery business, on condition that Julia and the children stay with her parents in Missouri or with the Grants in Kentucky. Ulysses and Julia opposed another separation and declined the offer.[34] In 1854, he farmed on his brother-in-law's property near St. Louis, using slaves owned by Julia's father; the farm failed.[34] Two years later, he and his family moved to land on his father-in-law's farm, and built a family home he called "Hardscrabble".[34] Julia hated the rustic house, which she described as an "unattractive cabin".[34] During this time, he acquired a slave from Julia's father, a thirty-five-year-old man named William Jones.[35]

Having met with no success farming, the Grants left the farm when their fourth and final child was born in 1858. Grant freed his slave in 1859 instead of selling him, at a time when slaves commanded a high price and Grant needed money badly.[35] For the next year, the family took a small house in St. Louis where he worked with Julia's cousin Harry Boggs as a bill collector, again without success.[36] In 1860, Jesse offered him the tannery job in Galena without conditions, and Grant accepted. The leather shop, "Grant & Perkins", sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods, and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. Grant and family moved to a rental house that year.[37]

Grant was not politically active nor did he publicly endorse any candidate before the Civil War.[38] His father-in-law was a prominent Missouri Democrat, which hurt Grant's bid to become county engineer in 1859, while his father was an outspoken Republican in Galena.[39] In the 1856 election, Grant cast his first presidential vote for the Democrat, James Buchanan, later saying he was really voting against John C. Frémont, the first Republican candidate.[38] In 1860, he favored the Democratic presidential candidate Stephen A. Douglas over Abraham Lincoln, and Lincoln over the Southern Democrat, John C. Breckinridge. Lacking the residency requirements in Illinois at the time, he could not vote.

Civil War
Main article: Ulysses S. Grant and the American Civil War
On April 12, 1861, the American Civil War began as Confederate troops attacked Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. Two days later, President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers and a mass meeting was held in Galena to encourage recruitment. Recognized as a military professional, Grant was asked to lead the ensuing effort. Without any formal rank in the army, Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied the regiment to Springfield, the state capital.[40] During this time, Grant quickly perceived that the war would be fought for the most part by volunteers and not professional soldiers.[41] Governor Richard Yates offered Grant a position recruiting and training volunteer units, which he accepted, but he still wanted a field command in the regular Army. He made several efforts with contacts (including Major General George B. McClellan) to acquire such a position. McClellan flatly refused to meet Grant having remembered Grant's earlier reputation for drinking while stationed in California. [42] Meanwhile, he continued serving at the training camps and made a positive impression on the volunteer Union recruits.

With the aid of his advocate in Washington, Illinois congressman Elihu B. Washburne, Grant was formally promoted to Colonel on June 14, 1861, and put in charge of disciplining the unruly 21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment. To restore discipline Grant had one troublemaker bound and gagged to a post for being drunk and disorderly.[43] Transferred to northern Missouri, Lincoln promoted Grant to Brigadier General, backdated to May 17, 1861, again with Washburne's support.[44] Believing Grant was a general of "dogged persistence" and "iron will", Major General John C. Frémont assigned Grant command of troops near Cairo, Illinois by the end of August 1861.[45] Under Frémont's authority Grant advanced into Paducah and took the town without a fight.[46]

Before the attack on Fort Sumter, Grant had not reacted strongly to Southern secession.[47] The news of the attack came as a shock in Galena, and Grant shared his neighbors' mounting concern about the onset of war.[47] After hearing a speech by his father's attorney, John Aaron Rawlins, Grant found renewed energy in the Union cause.[48] Rawlins later became Grant's aide-de-camp and close friend during the war. Grant recalled with satisfaction that after that first recruitment meeting in Galena, "I never went into our leather store again."[49]

Belmont, Forts Henry and Donelson
Further information: Battle of Belmont, Battle of Fort Henry and Battle of Fort Donelson

Battle of Fort Donelson
On November 7, 1861 Grant and his troops crossed the Mississippi to attack Confederates encamped in Belmont, Missouri.[50] Grant and his troops took the camp, but the reinforced Confederates under Brigadier General Gideon J. Pillow forced a retreat to Cairo. A tactical defeat, the battle nonetheless gave Grant and his volunteers confidence and experience.[51] After Belmont, Grant asked his new commander, Henry Halleck (Lincoln had relieved Frémont of command) for permission to move against Fort Henry in Tennessee; Halleck agreed on condition that the attack be conducted with oversight by Union Navy Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote. Grant's troops, in close cooperation with Foote's naval forces, defeated General Lloyd Tilghman and captured Fort Henry on February 6, 1862.[52] Emboldened by Lincoln's call for a general advance of all Union forces, Grant ordered an immediate advance on nearby Fort Donelson, this time without Halleck's permission.[53] On February 15, Grant and Foote met stiff resistance from the Confederate forces under Pillow. Reinforced by 10,000 troops, Grant's army totaled 25,000 troops against 12,000 Confederates. Foote's first approach was repulsed, and the Confederates attempted a breakout, pushing Grant's right flank into disorganized retreat.[54] Grant rallied his troops, resumed the offensive, retook the Union right, and attacked Pillow's left. Pillow ordered Confederate troops back into the fort and relinquished command to Brigadier General Simon Bolivar Buckner, who surrendered to Grant the next day. Lincoln promoted Grant to major-general of volunteers while the Northern press treated Grant as a hero repeating his words "No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender."[55]

Shiloh

The Battle of Shiloh
Further information: Battle of Shiloh
Encamped on the western bank of the Tennessee River, Grant's army, known as the Army of the Tennessee, now numbered 48,894 troops. Grant met with Brigadier General William T. Sherman, and the two readied their troops to attack a Confederate army of roughly equal strength at Corinth, Mississippi.[56] The Confederates, led by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard, struck first on April 6, 1862, attacking the five divisions of Grant's army bivouacked nine miles south at Pittsburg Landing near Shiloh.[56] Grant's troops challenged the Confederate onslaught, but were unable to halt it.[57] At day's end, the Confederates captured one Union division. The remaining Union army was vulnerable and might have been destroyed, but the Confederates halted due to exhaustion and a lack of reinforcements.[58] At dawn, Grant counterattacked, adding 20,000 fresh troops from Major General Don Carlos Buell and Lew Wallace's divisions.[59] The Confederates were forced to retreat back to Corinth.[60] Grant was criticized for failing to entrench and for high casualties on the first day of battle; as a result, Halleck removed Grant from active command of his army. The battle was the costliest in American history to that point, with total casualties of 23,746, but Lincoln dismissed Grant's critics, saying "I can't spare this man; he fights."[61] Discouraged and disappointed, Grant considered resigning his commission, but Sherman convinced him to stay. Seven weeks later, Halleck's forces took Corinth and Grant was reinstated as field commander of the Army of the Tennessee.[62] On September 19, 1862 Grant's Union forces defeated Confederates at the Battle of Iuka, and on October 4 successfully defended Corinth; inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy.[63]

Grant was in charge of the cotton trade in his military district and, on December 17, 1862, he issued General Order No. 11, expelling Jews, as a class, from the district. Grant believed Jewish merchants were profiteering from an illicit cotton exchange through enemy lines while Union soldiers died in the fields.[64] After the Jewish community and Northern press criticized Grant over his order Lincoln demanded it be revoked.[65] Grant rescinded the order and the controversy subsided. Biographer Jean Edward Smith, wrote that Grant's order was "one of the most blatant examples of state-sponsored anti-Semitism in American history."[66]

Vicksburg
Further information: Vicksburg Campaign and General Order No. 11 (1862)

Grant's gamble: Porter's gunboats running the Confederate gauntlet at Vicksburg
Located on the high bluffs of the Mississippi River, Vicksburg, Mississippi was the key to Union victory in the West; both Lincoln and Grant were determined to take the central Confederate stronghold.[67] Lincoln authorized Major General John A. McClernand to raise an army in his home state of Illinois for the purpose.[68] Grant, believing one commander was best for the campaign, was aggravated to learn by newspaper rumors of Lincoln's appointment of McClernand.[69] In November 1862 Grant showed his support for Lincoln's preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, by giving specific orders to incorporate contraband African American slaves into the Union war effort, giving them clothes, shelter, and wages for their services.[70]

The Battle of Jackson, fought on May 14, 1863, was part of the Vicksburg Campaign.
Halleck ordered McClernand to Memphis, Grant's new headquarters.[71] Lincoln, convinced by Halleck, told McClernand that he was to be satisfied with leading an army division under Grant's authority.[71] In December 1862, Grant moved to take Vicksburg by an overland route, with a joint water expedition on the Mississippi led by Sherman. Confederate cavalry raiders stalled the advance by capturing his Union supply depot, while the Confederate army led by Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton concentrated and repulsed Sherman's direct approach to Vicksburg at Chickasaw Bayou.[72] McClernand's attempt to advance was equally unsuccessful.[73] Grant then attempted a series of maneuvers through the water-logged terrain to bypass Vicksburg's guns; these proved ineffective.[74] On April 16, 1863, Grant ordered Admiral David Porter's Union gunboats south under direct fire of the Vicksburg batteries to meet up with his Union troops who had marched south down the west side of the Mississippi River.[75] Grant ordered diversionary battles, confusing Pemberton and allowing Grant's army to cross east over the Mississippi landing Union troops at Bruinsburg.[76] Continuing east he captured Jackson, the state capital and a railroad supply center.[77] At the Battle of Champion Hill, Pemberton's army was defeated, and forced to retreat into Vicksburg.[78] After Grant's men assaulted the Vicksburg entrenchments twice, suffering severe losses, they settled in for a siege lasting seven weeks. As the siege began, Grant lapsed into a two-day drinking episode for which he was later criticized.[79] Pemberton surrendered Vicksburg to Grant on July 4, 1863.[80]

The fall of Vicksburg gave the Union Army control over the Mississippi River and split the Confederacy in two. By that time, Grant's political sympathies fully coincided with the Radical Republicans' aggressive prosecution of the war and emancipation of the slaves.[81] Although the success at Vicksburg was a great morale boost for the Union war effort, Grant received criticism for his decisions and his reported drunkenness.[82] The personal rivalry between McClernand and Grant continued after Vicksburg, until Grant removed McClernand from command when he contravened Grant by publishing a military order without permission.[83] When Stanton suggested Grant be brought back east to run the Army of the Potomac, Grant refused, writing to Washington that he knew the geography and resources of the West better and he did not want to upset the chain of command in the East.[84]

Chattanooga and promotion

Union troops swarm Missionary Ridge and defeat Bragg's army.
Lincoln commissioned Grant a major general in the Regular Army and assigned him command of the newly formed Division of the Mississippi in October 1863, including the Armies of the Ohio, Tennessee, and Cumberland.[85] After the Battle of Chickamauga, the Union Army of the Cumberland retreated into Chattanooga, a besieged city desperate for relief.[86] When informed of the situation, Grant put Major General George H. Thomas in charge of the army.[87] Taking command, Grant arrived in Chattanooga by horseback, implementing plans to relieve the siege and resume the offensive.[88] Lincoln also sent Major General Joseph Hooker and two divisions of the Army of the Potomac to assist.[89] Union forces captured Brown's Ferry and opened a supply line to Bridgeport.[90] On November 23, 1863, Grant organized three armies to attack at Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain.[91] Two days later in the early morning, Hooker's forces successfully attacked and overtook Lookout Mountain.[92] Grant ordered Thomas and the Army of the Cumberland to advance when Sherman's army failed to take Missionary Ridge from the northeast.[93] The Army of the Cumberland, led by Major General Philip Sheridan and Brigadier General Thomas J. Wood, charged uphill and captured the Confederate entrenchments on top of the ridge, forcing the rebels into disorganized retreat.[94] The decisive battle gave the Union control of Tennessee and opened Georgia, the heartland of the Confederacy, to Union invasion.

Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant
On March 3, 1864 Lincoln promoted Grant to Lieutenant General, giving him command of all Union Armies. [95] Grant assigned Sherman the Division of the Mississippi and traveled east to Washington D.C., meeting with Lincoln to devise a strategy of total war against the Confederacy. After settling Julia into a house in Georgetown, Grant established his headquarters with Meade's army in Culpeper, Virginia.[96] Grant and Lincoln devised a strategy of coordinated Union offensives, attacking the rebel armies at the same time to keep the Confederates from shifting reinforcements within their interior lines. Sherman would attack Atlanta, while Meade would lead the Army of the Potomac, with Grant in camp, to attack Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Major General Benjamin Butler was to advance towards Richmond from the south, by way of the James River.[97] Depending on Lee's actions, Grant would join forces with Butler's armies and be fed supplies from the James. Major General Franz Sigel was to capture the railroad line at Lynchburg, move east, and attack from the Blue Ridge Mountains.[98] Grant knew that Lee had limited manpower and that a war of attrition fought on a battlefield without entrenchments would lead to Lee's defeat. Grant was riding a rising tide of popularity, and there was talk that a Union victory early in the year could lead to his candidacy for the presidency. Grant was aware of the rumors, but had ruled out a political candidacy; the possibility would soon vanish with delays on the battlefield.[99]

Overland Campaign and victory

Battle of the Wilderness
Sigel's and Butler's efforts sputtered, and Grant was left alone to fight Lee in a series of bloody battles known as the Overland Campaign. Grant crossed the Rapidan River on May 4, 1864, and attacked Lee in the Battle of the Wilderness, a hard-fought three-day battle with many casualties. Rather than retreat as his predecessors had done, Grant flanked Lee's army to the southeast and attempted to wedge the Union Army between Lee and Richmond at Spotsylvania.[100] Lee's army got to Spotsylvania first, and a costly battle ensued, lasting thirteen days. During the battle, Grant attempted to break through Lee's line of defense, resulting in one of the bloodiest assaults of the Civil War, known as the Battle of the Bloody Angle. Unable to break Lee's defenses after repeated attempts, Grant flanked the Confederate army to the southeast again at North Anna, a battle that lasted three days.[101] This time the Confederates had a defensive advantage on Grant. Grant then maneuvered his army to Cold Harbor, a vital railroad hub that linked to Richmond, but Lee's men were again able to entrench against the Union assault. During the third day of the thirteen-day battle, Grant led a costly assault on Lee's trenches. As casualty reports became known in the North, heavy criticism fell on Grant, who was castigated as "the Butcher" by the Northern press after taking 52,788 casualties in the thirty days since crossing the Rapidan. Lee's army suffered only 32,907 casualties, but he was less able to replace them.[102] The costly assault at Cold Harbor was the second of two battles in the war that Grant later said he regretted. Unknown to Lee, Grant pulled out of Cold Harbor and moved his army south of the James River, freed Butler from the Bermuda Hundred (where the rebels had surrounded his army), and attacked Petersburg, Richmond's central railroad hub.[103]

After crossing the James River undetected, Grant and the Army of the Potomac advanced southward to capture Petersburg. Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard was able to defend the city, and Lee's veteran reinforcements soon arrived. The result was a nine-month-long siege of Petersburg, stalling the advance. Northern resentment grew as the war dragged on, but an indirect benefit of the Petersburg siege was that Lee was unable to reinforce armies opposing Sherman and Sheridan. During the siege, Sherman took Atlanta, a victory that advanced President Lincoln's reelection. Sheridan was assigned command of the Union Army of the Shenandoah and Grant directed him to "follow the enemy to their death". Lee had sent General Jubal Early up the Shenandoah Valley to attack the federal capital and draw troops away from the Army of the Potomac, but Sheridan defeated Early, ensuring that Washington would not be endangered. Grant then ordered Sheridan's cavalry to destroy vital Confederate supplies in the Shenandoah Valley. When Sheridan reported suffering attacks by irregular Confederate cavalry under John S. Mosby, Grant recommended rounding up their families for imprisonment as hostages at Fort McHenry.[104]

Grant, his forces reduced in number after sending troops north to fend off Early's attack, approved of a plan to blow up part of the enemy trenches from an underground tunnel. The explosion created a crater from which Confederates could easily pick off Union troops below. The Union's 3500 casualties outnumbered the Confederates' by three-to-one; although the plan could have been successful if implemented correctly, Grant admitted the tactic had been a "stupendous failure".[105] On August 9, 1864, Grant, who had just arrived at his headquarters in City Point, narrowly escaped death when Confederate spies blew up an ammunition barge in the James River.[106] Rather than fight Lee on a full frontal attack as he had done at Cold Harbor, Grant continued to extend Lee's defenses south and west of Petersburg, to capture vital railroad links.[107] As Grant continued to push the Union advance westward, Lee's lines became overstretched and undermanned. After the Federal army rebuilt the City Point Railroad, Grant was able to use mortars to attack Lee's entrenchments.[108]

Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant at McLean House in the village of Appomattox Court House.
Once Sherman reached the East Coast and Thomas dispatched Hood in Tennessee, Union victory appeared certain, and Lincoln attempted to negotiate an end to the war with the Confederates. He enlisted Francis Preston Blair to carry a message to Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Davis and Lincoln each appointed commissioners, but the conference soon stalled. Grant contacted Lincoln, who agreed to personally meet with the commissioners at Fort Monroe. The peace conference that took place near Union-controlled Fort Monroe was ultimately fruitless, but represented Grant's first foray into diplomacy.[109]

In March 1865, while Lincoln met at City Point with Grant, Sherman, and Porter, Union forces finally took Petersburg. They captured Richmond that April. Lee's troops began deserting in large numbers; disease and lack of supplies also diminished the remaining Confederate armies. Lee attempted to link up with the remnants of Joseph E. Johnston's defeated army, but Union cavalry forces led by Sheridan were able to stop the two armies from converging. Lee and his army surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. Grant gave generous terms; Confederate troops surrendered their weapons and were allowed to return to their homes with their mounts, on the condition that they would not take up arms against the United States. Within a few weeks, the Civil War was over.[110]

Lincoln's assassination
Main article: Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

Grant (center left) next to Lincoln with General Sherman (far left) and Admiral Porter (right) — The Peacemakers
On April 14, five days after Grant's victory at Appomattox, he attended a cabinet meeting in Washington. Lincoln invited him and his wife to Ford's Theater, but they declined as they had plans to travel to Philadelphia. In a conspiracy that targeted a number of government leaders, Lincoln was fatally shot by John Wilkes Booth at the theater, and died the next morning.[111] Many, including Grant himself, thought that Grant had been a target in the plot.[112] Secretary of War Stanton notified him of the President's death and summoned him back to Washington. Attending Lincoln's funeral on April 19, Grant stood alone and wept openly. He said of Lincoln, "He was incontestably the greatest man I have ever known."[113] Regarding the new President, Andrew Johnson, Grant told Julia that he dreaded the change in administrations; he judged Johnson's attitude toward white southerners as one that would "make them unwilling citizens", and initially thought that with President Johnson, "Reconstruction has been set back no telling how far."[114]

Later in April, Sherman, without consulting Washington, concluded an armistice agreement with Confederate General Joseph Johnston that allowed the existing Confederate state government in North Carolina to remain in power. Sherman also affirmed citizens' rights to property – including their slaves. He believed the agreement was consistent with Lincoln's recent statements to him at City Point, but Stanton and Grant quickly surmised that the terms were much too lenient. Stanton even declared so publicly with scorn for Sherman; Grant, determined not to mishandle his lead commander's mistake, requested a cabinet meeting to discuss the problem. Grant personally conveyed the rebuke to Sherman and ultimately gained his consent to renegotiate the agreement in accord with the terms set at Appomattox.[114]

Commanding general
Main article: Ulysses S. Grant as commanding general, 1865–1869
Celebrations and honors

The post-Civil War home of Ulysses S. Grant, in Galena, Illinois
At the war's end, Grant remained commander of the army, with duties that included enforcement of Reconstruction in the former Confederate states and supervision of Indian wars on the western Plains.[115] In May 1865, the Union League of Philadelphia purchased a house for the Grants in that city, but Grant's military work was in Washington. He attempted to commute and return on the weekends, but by October he and Julia had moved to Washington.[116] They secured a house in Georgetown Heights, but Grant instructed Elihu Washburne that for political purposes his legal residence remained in Galena, Illinois.[117] That same year, Grant appeared at Cooper Union in New York where the New York Times reported that "... the enhanced and bewildered multitude trembled with extraordinary delight." Further travels that summer took the Grants to Albany, back to Galena, and throughout Illinois and Ohio, with enthusiastic receptions.[118]

Report on condition of South
In November 1865, President Johnson sent Grant on a fact-finding mission to the South. Afterwards, Grant filed a report recommending continuation of a reformed Freedmen's Bureau, which Johnson opposed, but advising against the use of black troops in garrisons, which he believed encouraged an alternative to farm labor.[119] Grant did not believe the people of the devastated South were ready for civilian self-rule, and that both whites and blacks in the South required protection by the federal government.[120] He also warned of threats by disaffected poor people, black and white, and recommended that local decision-making be entrusted only to "thinking men of the South" (i.e., men of property).[121] In this respect, Grant's opinion on Reconstruction aligned with Johnson's policy of pardoning established southern leaders and restoring them to their positions of power.[122] He joined Johnson in arguing that Congress should allow representatives from the South to take their seats.[123] On July 25, 1866, Congress promoted Grant to the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States.[124]

Breach with Johnson

Clockwise from lower left: Graduated at West Point 1843; Chapultepec 1847; Drilling his Volunteers 1861; Fort Donelson 1862; Shiloh 1862; Vicksburg 1863; Chattanooga 1863; Commander-in-Chief 1864; Lee's Surrender 1865
Johnson favored a more lenient approach to Reconstruction, calling for an immediate return of the former Confederate states into the Union without any guarantee of African-American citizenship.[125] The Radical Republican-controlled Congress opposed the idea and refused to admit Congressmen from the former Confederate states.[126] Over Johnson's vetoes, Congress renewed the Freedmen's Bureau and passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866. During the congressional election campaign later that year, Johnson took his case to the people in his "Swing Around the Circle" speaking tour.[127] Johnson pressured Grant, by then the most popular man in the country, to go on the tour; Grant, wishing to appear loyal, agreed.[128] Grant believed that Johnson was purposefully agitating conservative opinion to defy Congressional Reconstruction.[125] Finding himself increasingly at odds with Johnson, Grant confided to his wife that he thought Johnson's speeches were a "national disgrace".[125] Publicly, Grant attempted to appear loyal to Johnson while not alienating Republican legislators essential to his future political career. Grant was concerned that Johnson's differences with Congress would cause renewed insurrection in the South, and ordered that Southern arsenals ship arms to the North to prevent their capture by Southern state governments.[129]

Conflict between Radicals and Conservatives continued after the 1866 elections. Rejecting Johnson's vision for quick reconciliation with former Confederates, Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts, which divided the southern states into five military districts to protect the freedmen's constitutional and congressional rights. Military district governors were to lead transitional state governments in each district. Grant, who was to select the general to govern each district from a group designated by Johnson, preferred Congress's plan for enforcement of Reconstruction.[130] Grant was optimistic that Reconstruction Acts would help pacify the South.[131] By complying with the Acts and instructing his subordinates to do likewise, Grant further alienated Johnson. When Sheridan removed public officials in Louisiana who impeded Reconstruction, Johnson was displeased and sought Sheridan's removal.[132] Grant recommended a rebuke, but not a dismissal.[133] Throughout the Reconstruction period, Grant and the military protected the rights of more than 1,500 African-Americans elected to political office and overturned the first black codes in 1867.[134]

Johnson's impeachment

The impeachment of Andrew Johnson
President Johnson wished to replace Secretary of War Stanton, a Lincoln appointee who sympathized with Congressional Reconstruction. To keep Grant under control as a potential political rival, Johnson asked him to take the post. Grant recommended against the move, in light of the Tenure of Office Act, which required Senate approval for cabinet removals. Johnson believed the Act did not apply to officers appointed by the previous president, and he subsequently forced the issue by making Grant an interim appointee during a Senate recess. Grant relented and agreed to accept the post temporarily. Stanton, believing he had Senate protection, vacated the office until the Senate reconvened.[135]

When the Senate reinstated Stanton, Johnson told Grant to refuse to surrender the office and let the courts resolve the matter. Grant told Johnson in private that violating the Tenure of Office Act was a federal offense, which could result in a fine or imprisonment. Believing he had no other legal alternatives, Grant returned the office to Stanton. This incurred Johnson's wrath; during a cabinet meeting immediately afterwards, Johnson accused Grant of breaking his promise to remain Secretary of War. Grant disputed that he had ever made such a promise although cabinet members later testified he had done so.[136] On January 14, 1868, newspapers friendly to Johnson published a series of articles to discredit Grant over returning the War Department to Stanton, stating that Grant had been deceptive in the matter.[136] This public insult infuriated Grant, and he defended himself in a written response to Johnson. When Grant's response became public, it increased his popularity among Radical Republicans and he emerged from the controversy unscathed.[136] Although Grant favored Johnson's impeachment, he took no active role in the impeachment proceedings against Johnson, which were fueled in part by Johnson's removal of Stanton. Johnson barely survived, and none of the other Republican leaders directly involved benefited politically in their unsuccessful attempt to remove the president.[137]

1868 presidential campaign

First inauguration of Ulysses S. Grant on the steps of the Capitol on March 4, 1869.
Main article: United States presidential election, 1868
Grant entered the 1868 campaign season with increased popularity among the Radical Republicans following his abandonment of Johnson. The Republicans chose Grant as their presidential candidate on the first ballot at the 1868 Republican National Convention in Chicago, where he faced no significant opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace", which became his campaign slogan.[138] For vice president, the delegates nominated House Speaker Schuyler Colfax. Grant's General Order No. 11 (ordering the expulsion of all Jews in his military district in 1862) became an issue during the presidential campaign. He sought to distance himself from the order, saying "I have no prejudice against sect or race, but want each individual to be judged by his own merit."[139] As was common at the time, Grant remained at his home in Galena during the campaign,[b] and left most of the active campaigning and speaking on his behalf to his campaign manager William E. Chandler and others.[142]

The Democrats nominated former New York Governor Horatio Seymour. Their campaign focused mainly on ending Reconstruction and returning control of the South to the white planter class, which alienated many War Democrats in the North.[143] The Democrats attacked Reconstruction and the Republican Party's support of African-American rights, while deriding Grant, calling him captain of the "Black Marines".[144] Grant won the election by 300,000 votes out of 5,716,082 votes cast, receiving an electoral college landslide, of 214 votes to Seymour's 80. Elected to public office for the first time, Grant at the age of 46 was, at the time, the youngest president ever elected. Both Democrats and Republicans believed Grant's election was a triumph of conservative principles that included sound money, efficient government, and the restoration of Southern reconstructed states. [145] Grant was the first president elected after the nation had outlawed slavery and granted citizenship to former slaves. Implementation of these new rights was slow to come; in the 1868 election, the black vote counted in only 16 of the 37 states, nearly all in the South.[146]

Presidency 1869–77
Main article: Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant

President Ulysses S. Grant, 1869
Grant's presidency began with a break from tradition, as he declined to invite Johnson to ride in his carriage or attend the inauguration at the Capitol.[147] In his inaugural address, Grant urged the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment and said he would approach Reconstruction "calmly, without prejudice, hate or sectional pride."[148] Grant took an unorthodox approach to his cabinet choices, declining to consult with the Senate and keeping his choices secret until he submitted them for confirmation. [149] In his effort to create national harmony, Grant purposely avoided choosing Republican Party leaders.[150] Out of personal loyalty to his friends, Grant appointed Elihu B. Washburne as Secretary of State and John A. Rawlins as Secretary of War. Washburne served only twelve days before resigning over claims of ill-health, in a plan designed to give him greater diplomatic clout when Grant appointed him Minister to France. Grant then appointed Hamilton Fish, a conservative New York statesman, as Secretary of State. Grant promoted Sherman to his own former post as Commanding General. Rawlins, however, issued orders that reduced Sherman's authority; after Grant refused to overturn Rawlins's orders, Grant's relationship with Sherman became strained. Rawlins died in office a few months later, and Grant appointed William W. Belknap as his replacement.[151] Belknap and Congress continued to restrict Sherman's military authority.[152]

Grant selected several non-politicians to his cabinet, including Adolph E. Borie and Alexander Turney Stewart, with limited success. Borie served briefly as Secretary of the Navy, later replaced by George M. Robeson, while Stewart was prevented from becoming Secretary of the Treasury by a 1789 statute that barred businessmen from the position (Senators Charles Sumner and Roscoe Conkling opposed amending the law.)[153] In place of Stewart, Grant appointed George S. Boutwell as Treasury Secretary. Grant's other cabinet appointments—Jacob D. Cox (Interior), John Creswell (Postmaster General), and Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar (Attorney General)—were well-received and uncontroversial.[154] That summer, at the invitation of wealthy backers, Grant and his family vacationed for the first time in what became known as the "summer capital" and "the resort of presidents", Long Branch, New Jersey.[155] To ensure his family's privacy, Grant barred the general public from entering the White House grounds.[156]

Later Reconstruction and civil rights

White Leaguers attacking the integrated police force and state militia, New Orleans, 1874
Reconstruction of the South continued when Grant took office in March 1869. He lobbied Congress to pass the Fifteenth Amendment, guaranteeing that no state could prevent someone from voting based on race, and believed that its passage would secure freedmen's rights. Grant asked Congress to admit representatives from the remaining unrepresented Southern states in conformity with Congressional Reconstruction.[157] Congress responded and drew up legislation that Grant signed, providing that Mississippi, Virginia, and Texas would be represented in Congress after they ratified the Fifteenth Amendment.[157] Grant pressured Congress to draw up legislation that would seat African American state legislators in Georgia, who had been ousted by white conservatives.[158] Congress responded to Grant's message through special legislation, the members were re-seated in the Georgia legislature, and Georgia had to adopt the Fifteenth Amendment to gain representation in Congress.[158] By July 1870, the four remaining states were readmitted.[158]

Grant relied on the army to enforce the new amendment, and soon also on the Justice Department, created in 1870 to ensure federal laws would be enforced in the South when state courts and prosecutors were reluctant to do so. Where the attorney general had once been only a legal adviser to the president, he now led a cabinet department dedicated to enforcing federal law, including a solicitor general to argue on the government's behalf in court.[159] Under Grant's first attorney general, Ebenezer R. Hoar, the administration was not especially aggressive in prosecuting white Southerners who terrorized their black neighbors, but Hoar's successor, Amos T. Akerman, was more zealous. Alarmed by a rise in terror by the Ku Klux Klan and other groups, Congress investigated. With Grant's encouragement, Congress passed the Enforcement Acts in 1870 and 1871 that expanded federal authority.[160] The Acts made depriving anyone of their civil rights a federal offense and authorized the president to use the military to enforce the laws. In May 1871, Grant ordered federal troops to help marshals in arresting Klansmen. That October, on Akerman's recommendation, Grant suspended habeas corpus in part of South Carolina and sent federal troops to enforce the law there. Through prosecutions by Akerman and his replacement, George Henry Williams, the Klan's power collapsed, and by 1872, elections in the South saw African-Americans voting in record numbers.[161]

That same year, Grant signed the Amnesty Act, which restored political rights to former Confederates. After the collapse of the Klan in 1872, conservative whites formed armed groups such as the Red Shirts in South Carolina and the White League. Unlike the Ku Klux Klan, they were not secret. They used violence and intimidation to take control of state governments away from Republicans.[162] The Panic of 1873 and the ensuing depression contributed to public fatigue, and the North grew less concerned with reconstructing the South.[163] Grant began to favor a more limited use of troops, lest they create the impression that he was acting as a military dictator; he was also concerned that increased military pressure in the South might cause conservative whites in the North to bolt the Republican Party. In 1874, Grant was able by proclamation to peaceably end the Brooks-Baxter War in Arkansas.[164] However, the same year, Grant sent troops and three warships to New Orleans in the wake of the Colfax Massacre and disputes over the election of Governor William Pitt Kellogg two years earlier.[165]

By 1875, Democratic "Redeemer" politicians retook control of all but three Southern states. As violence against black Southerners escalated once more, Edwards Pierrepont (Grant's fourth attorney general) told Governor Adelbert Ames of Mississippi that the people were "tired of the autumnal outbreaks in the South", and declined to directly intervene. Instead, Pierrepont sent an emissary to negotiate a peaceful election.[166] Grant signed an ambitious Civil Rights Act of 1875, which expanded federal law enforcement by prohibiting discrimination on account of race in public lodging, public transportation, and jury service.[167] The law was rarely enforced, however, and it did not stop the rise of white supremacist forces in the South.[168] In the election of 1876, the remaining three Republican governments in the South fell to Redeemers, and the ensuing Compromise of 1877 marked the end of Reconstruction.[169]

Indian peace policy

Ely S. Parker, appointed by Grant, was the first Native American to serve as Commissioner of Indian Affairs.
Grant's attempts to live peacefully with Native Americans marked a radical reversal of what had since the 1830s been the government's policy of Indian removal. He appointed Ely S. Parker, a Seneca Indian and member of Grant's wartime staff, as Commissioner of Indian Affairs. "My efforts in the future will be directed," Grant said in his second inaugural address, "by a humane course, to bring the aborigines of the country under the benign influences of education and civilization ... Wars of extermination ... are demoralizing and wicked." Grant's "Peace Policy" (also called the "Quaker Policy") aimed to replace entrepreneurs serving as Indian agents with missionaries.[170] In 1869, Grant signed a law establishing a Board of Indian Commissioners to oversee spending and reduce corruption in the Bureau of Indian Affairs.[171] Two years later, in 1871, Grant signed a bill ending the Indian treaty system; the law now treated individual Native Americans as wards of the federal government, and no longer dealt with the tribes as sovereign entities.[172] Grant wished for Indian tribes to be protected on reservations and educated in European-style farming and culture, abandoning their hunter-gatherer way of life.[170] Considered liberal-minded at the time but unpopular today, the policy would see fulfillment years later in the Dawes Act of 1887.

Grant's peace policy showed some success in reducing conflict with fewer battles between Indians and whites on the western frontier, but the increased slaughter of the buffalo, encouraged by Grant's subordinates, caused renewed conflict with the Plains Indians.[173] The Sioux and other Plains tribes accepted the reservation system, but encroachments by whites in search of gold in the Black Hills led to renewed war by the end of Grant's second term,[174] ending the understanding that had developed between Grant and Sioux Chief Red Cloud.[175] Under Major Generals Oliver Otis Howard and George Crook, Grant's policy had greater success in the Southwest. Howard, the former head of the Freedmen's Bureau, negotiated peace with the Apache in 1872, convincing their leader, Cochise, to move the tribe to a new reservation, and ending a war started the year before. In Oregon, relations were less peaceful, however, as war with the Modocs erupted in April 1873. The Modocs refused to move to a reservation and killed the local army commander, Major General Edward Canby. Although Grant was upset over Canby's death, he ordered restraint, disregarding Sherman's advice to seek revenge or exterminate the tribe. The army, led by Sherman, captured, tried, and executed the four Modoc warriors responsible for Canby's murder in October 1873. Grant ordered the rest of the Modoc tribe relocated to the Indian Territory.[176]

During the Great Sioux War, fueled by the discovery of gold in the Black Hills, Grant came into conflict with Colonel George Armstrong Custer after Custer testified in 1876 about corruption in the War Department under Secretary William W. Belknap. Grant ordered Custer arrested for breach of military protocol and barred him from leading an upcoming campaign against the Sioux. Grant later relented and let Custer fight under Brigadier General Alfred Terry.[177] Sioux warriors led by Crazy Horse killed Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, the army's most famous defeat in the Indian wars. Two months later, Grant castigated Custer in the press, saying "I regard Custer's massacre as a sacrifice of troops, brought on by Custer himself, that was wholly unnecessary – wholly unnecessary."[178] Custer's death shocked the nation, while the peace policy yielded to militarism; Congress appropriated funds for 2,500 more troops, the army constructed two more Western forts, and they took over the Indian agencies, barring Indians from purchasing rifles and ammunition.[177]

Foreign affairs

U.S. Secretary of State, Hamilton Fish

King Kalākaua of the Kingdom of Hawaii meets Grant at the White House, 1874
Even before Grant became president, expansionists in American politics desired control over Caribbean islands. William H. Seward, Secretary of State under Lincoln and Johnson, attempted to buy the Danish West Indies from Denmark.[179] Johnson had recommended annexation of the two former European colonies on the island of Hispaniola, the Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic and the French-speaking, western one-third, Haiti; however the early anti-imperialist Republicans in Congress rejected the plan.[180] Grant renewed negotiations to annex the Dominican Republic, led by Orville E. Babcock, a wartime confidant of Grant's.[181] Grant was initially skeptical, but at the urging of Admiral Porter, who wanted a naval base at Samaná Bay, and Joseph W. Fabens, a New England businessman employed by the Dominican government, Grant examined the matter and became convinced of its wisdom.[182] He sent Babcock to consult with Buenaventura Báez, the pro-annexation Dominican president, to see if the proposal was practical; Babcock returned with a draft treaty of annexation in December 1869.[182]

Grant believed in peaceful expansion of the nation's borders, and thought acquisition of the majority-black island nation would allow new economic opportunities for African Americans in the United States while increasing American naval power in the Caribbean.[183] Secretary of State Hamilton Fish dismissed the idea, seeing the island as politically unstable and troublesome.[182] Senator Sumner opposed annexation because it would eliminate the only nations run by Africans in the western hemisphere.[184] He and other senators also objected for another reason—they did not wish to add more blacks to the overall American population.[185] Grant personally lobbied Senators to pass the treaty, going so far as to visit Sumner at his home.[185] Fish added to the effort out of loyalty to the administration, but to no avail; the Senate refused to pass the treaty. Sumner's role in leading the opposition led to political enmity between him and Grant.[186] After the Dominican initiative failed, Grant convinced Fish to stay in the Cabinet and gave him greater authority to run the State Department.[187]

Grant and Fish were more successful in their satisfaction of the Alabama claims, a dispute between Great Britain and the United States. The dispute stemmed from the damage done to American shipping during the Civil War by the five warships and commerce raiders built for the Confederacy in British shipyards including, most famously, the CSS Alabama.[188] The Americans claimed that Britain had violated neutrality by building ships for the Confederate Navy.[189] When the war ended, the United States demanded retribution, which the British refused to pay. Negotiations continued fitfully, a sticking point being the claims of "indirect damages" as opposed to the discussion to the harm directly caused by the five ships.[190] Sumner opposed the Johnson administration's proposed settlement, which had been rejected by the Senate, believing that Britain should directly pay $2 billion in gold or, alternatively, cede Canada to the United States.[191] Fish convinced Grant that peaceful relations with Britain were more important than acquisition of more territory, and the two nations agreed to negotiate along those lines.[192] A commission in Washington produced a treaty whereby an international tribunal would settle the damage amounts; the British admitted regret, but not fault.[c] The Senate approved the Treaty of Washington, which also settled disputes over fishing rights and maritime boundaries, by a 50–12 vote in 1871.[194]

In 1873, a Spanish destroyer took captive a merchant ship, Virginius, flying the U.S. flag, carrying war materials and men to aid the Cuban insurrection. Cuban insurgents who owned the Virginius had secretly registered the ship in the United States through an American operative. The passengers and crew, including eight United States citizens, were illegally traveling to Cuba to help overthrow the government. Spanish authorities executed the prisoners, and many Americans called for war with Spain. Fish, with Grant's support, worked to reach a peaceful resolution. Spain's President, Emilio Castelar y Ripoll, expressed regret for the tragedy and agreed to decide reparations through arbitration; Spain surrendered the Virginius and paid a cash indemnity of $80,000 to the families of the executed Americans.[195] In June 1874, Grant's Secretary of Navy, George M. Robeson, commissioned the reconstruction of five redesigned double-turreted monitor warships to compete with the superior Spanish Navy. [196] The administration's diplomacy was also at work in the Pacific as, in December 1874, Grant held a state dinner at the White House for the King of Hawaii, David Kalakaua, who was seeking Hawaiian sugar importation duty-free to the United States.[197] Grant and Fish were able to produce a successful free trade treaty in 1875 with the Kingdom of Hawaii, incorporating the Pacific islands' sugar industry into the United States' economic sphere.[197]

Gold standard and the Gold Ring

Cartoon depicting Grant running from the Treasury to release gold into the market and defeat the Gold Ring
Soon after taking office, Grant took steps to return the nation's currency to a more secure footing. During the Civil War, Congress had authorized the Treasury to issue banknotes that, unlike the rest of the currency, were not backed by gold or silver. The "greenback" notes, as they were known, were necessary to pay the unprecedented bills the government racked up in fighting the war, but they also caused inflation and forced gold-backed money out of circulation; Grant determined to return the national economy to pre-war monetary standards.[198] Many in Congress agreed with Grant, and they passed the Public Credit Act of 1869, which guaranteed that bondholders would be repaid in gold, not greenbacks.[199] Grant charged Treasury Secretary George S. Boutwell with rationalizing the Treasury Department and improving tax collection. To strengthen the dollar, Boutwell, backed by Grant, sold gold from the Treasury each month and bought back high-interest Treasury bonds issued during the war; this had the effect of reducing the deficit, but deflating the currency.[200]

These actions had a large impact on the nation's small gold market.[201] Abel Corbin, Grant's brother-in-law, sought to use his connection with the president to gain inside information for himself and his associates, Jay Gould, a Wall Street trader and railroad magnate, and his partner Jim Fisk (the collaborators were later known as the "Gold Ring.")[202] Corbin convinced Grant to appoint a Gould associate as assistant Treasurer, where he could gather information for the Ring.[203] Meanwhile, Gould and Fisk quietly stockpiled gold. Gould convinced Corbin that a high gold price would be good for the nation's prosperity, and Corbin passed this theory on to Grant, who appeared to be convinced. After consulting with Alexander Stewart (his erstwhile nominee for Treasury Secretary) in early September, Grant stopped the sale of gold, believing a higher gold price would help Western farmers.[204] By mid-September, however, Grant became suspicious of Corbin. The gold price continued to rise as the conspirators bought ever more, and the rising price affected the wider economy.[205] Grant, seeing that the increase was unnatural, told Boutwell to sell gold, thereby reducing its price.[205] Boutwell did so the next day, on September 22, 1869, later known as Black Friday. The sale of gold from the Treasury defeated Gould's scheme as the gold price plummeted, relieving the growing economic tension.[206] Gould and Fisk managed to escape without much harm to themselves.[207] A New York bank collapsed, and trading dried up for months, but a general recession did not follow and the economy resumed its post-war recovery.[208]

Reelection
Main article: United States presidential election, 1872

Cartoon by Thomas Nast on Grant's opponents in the reelection campaign
Grant's personal reputation suffered from the continued scandals caused by his many corrupt appointees and personal associates. In addition to the Gold Ring, corruption in the New York Customs House added to reformers' negative impressions of the administration. The Crédit Mobilier scandal, where a railroad company bribed many members of Congress, did not involve Grant, but did ensnare Vice President Colfax and added to the general sense of dishonesty in Washington.[209] The Democrats, however, had their own Tammany Hall scandal in New York that politically helped Grant and the Republicans.[209] To placate reformers, Grant encouraged Congress to create the Civil Service Commission in 1871, chaired by reformer George William Curtis, which had the power to propose reforms.[210] Gr