Ulysses S. Grant Ulysses Simpson Grant, (1822-1885), American general and 18th President of the United States. Grant, the most capable of the Union generals during the Civil War, was a master strategist. He won the first major Union victories. President Abraham Lincoln staunchly defended him against critics and promoted him to command all Union forces. Grant accepted Gen. Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House. However, Grant had no disposition for political leadership, and as president (1869-1877) he scarcely attempted to control events. He made injudicious appointments to public office, and official corruption tainted his administration, although Grant himself was not involved in the peculations. Grant was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio, on April 27, 1822, and baptized Hiram Ulysses. The eldest son of Jesse Root Grant and Hannah Simpson Grant, he came from a family that, he proudly declared, had been American "for generations, in all its branches, direct and collateral." In 1823 his father moved his tanning business to Georgetown, Ohio, where "Lyss" spent his boyhood. His education at a grammar school in Georgetown, at Maysville Seminary in Maysville, Ky., and at the Presbyterian Academy of Ripley, Ohio, was superficial and repetitious, and the boy showed no scholarly bent. He became noted, however, for his sturdy self-reliance and for his ability to ride and control even the wildest horses. MILITARY LIFE In 1839, Jesse Grant secured for his son an appointment to the U. S. Military Academy. When he arrived at West Point he learned that he was on the muster roll as Ulysses Simpson Grant, through an error of the congressman who had nominated him. Finding it impossible to change this official listing, Grant accepted the inevitable and dropped Hiram from his name. "A military life had no charms for me," Grant said later, and his only purpose at the academy was "to get through the course, secure a detail for a few years as assistant professor of mathematics at the Academy, and afterwards obtain a permanent position as professor at some respectable college." Understandably, his West Point record was not spectacular. In 1843 he graduated in the middle of his class (21st in a class of 39), was commissioned brevet 2d lieutenant, assigned to the 4th U. S. Infantry, and sent to Jefferson Barracks, near St. Louis, Mo. There he began to learn his army duties and, even more important, met his future wife, Julia Dent, sister of a West Point classmate.
President Abraham Lincoln demanded a decisive victory. He was tired of his military leadership’s inability to decisively engage and defeat Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Allowing the war to drag on was to the Confederacies advantage. Lincoln was so frustrated that he relieved General George B. McClellan for failing to defeat Lee at Antietam, and replaced him with General Ambrose Burnside, who proved to be very conservative in battle against General Lee. Knowing that General Lee was a student of Napoleonic warfare, Burnside feared that Lee always had a large Corps in reserve waiting to flank should he be decisively engaged from the front.
During the Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant played a main part in the Union’s Victory. He did this by: Winning multiple battles, his expertise as a leader, and defeating Robert E. Lee. Grant started his career as an officer by going through the military academy called WestPoint. After graduating as a Second Lieutenant, he made his way through the ranks in the Mexican-American War. During the Civil War, he was promoted to Brigadier General, Major General and then to Lieutenant General by President Abraham Lincoln. As a General in the war, Grant won multiple battles including: Vicksburg, Shiloh, Chattanooga, and Petersburg. Vicksburg was one of his best battles. Although he was outnumbered, Grant still managed to lead his men to victory. Vicksburg was one of the main battles that turned the war around, giving the Union Army the upper hand. All of these major battles lead to the defeat and surrender of Robert E. Lee at the Appomattox Court House in 1865. General Grant’s military skills were gained throughout his life as a soldier. All of these skills were used as he defeated countless enemies and won major battles. His expertise’s lead him to victories throughout the whole war, which ultimately helped him play a main role in the Union victory.
...ew the war he was fighting was not an epic Napoleonic battle but a war of attrition. He proceeded with his plan to slowly shrink Confederate territory and destroy Lee's army to the point that the South could no longer mount a viable defense. Eventually Grant succeeded and Lee's men were all that remained of the Confederate army. Grant surrounded them in trenches at Richmond until Lee was forced to surrender.
Fort Donelson, Tennessee, guarding the Cumberland River, became the site of the first major Confederate defeat in the Civil War. Victory at Donelson started Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant on his road to Appomattox and the White House. His cool judgment under pressure saved the day after the Confederates threatened to break his troop lines, yet errors by his opponents handed him a victory that he did not fully earn on his own.
Andrew Jackson was born in a backwoods settlement in the Carolinas in 1776. His parents, who were Scotch-Irish people. They came to America two years before Andrew was born. His mother was widowed while pregnant with him. At age thirteen, Andrew joined the patriotic cause and volunteered to fight the British. He and his brother were both captured and imprisoned together by the British. Their mother got them released by a prisoner exchange, but his brother died on the long trip home from smallpox. During his independent days, he lived in a tavern with other students.
During the Mexican War, Grant served under both General Zachary Taylor and General Winfield Scott and distinguished himself, particularly at Molina del Rey and Chapultepec. After his return and tours of duty in the North, he was sent to the Far West. In 1854, while stationed at Fort Humboldt, California, “Grant resigned his commission because of loneliness and drinking problems, and in the following years he engaged in generally unsuccessful farming and business ventures in Missouri.”(Grant Moves South, 18) He moved to Galena, Illinois, in 1860, where he became a clerk in his father's leather store.
Powell's next overseas assignment was in South Vietnam, where he was wounded in action. He then studied at the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, finishing second in a class of more than twelve hundred officers. During a second tour in Vietnam he received the Soldier's Medal for pulling several men from a burning helicopter.
Andrew Jackson was born on March 15, 1767, in the Waxhaw settlement, a community of Scotch-Irish immigrants along the border between north and south Carolina. As far as I know they are still disputing his place of origin. he claimed that his place of origin was actually south Carolina though in my opinion if he said he was from there he was from that location. His father had died before his birth Andrew’s mother had three sons and was living with her Crawford relatives. Jackson was attending local schools and received an elementary education.
James Garfield was born on November 19, 1831, in Orange, Ohio, in a log cabin. His father died only two years after his birth, so his mother raised him along with his older siblings while still managing the family farm. During his teen years, he towed barges up the Ohio Canal in order to support his impoverished family. He was nicknamed “The Canal Boy”. He later attended the former Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, which is now currently Hiram College in Hiram, Ohio, from 1851 to 1853. He then proved himself to be a skilled public speaker and an excellent student at Williams College. He attended Williams College for two years before graduating in 1856.
Lee had determined he was going to follow the path of his father and be in the Army. So in 1825 he started his school term at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Four years later in 1829 Lee graduated, without a demerit against his name, 2nd in his class, a class of 46. He served as the cadet corps’ adjutant. He was later commissioned a brevet 2nd Lieutenant of Engineers.
A few years after that he was accepted to West Point and graduated in 1846 thus starting his military career. He entered the Mexican-American war from 1846-1848 as a second Lieutenant First Artillery Regiment, this is where he first met Robert E. Lee. Throughout his tour he was promoted to Major, however he resigned to pursue a very different career.
Lee’s first formal education took place on a plantation school and succeeded by a private tutor, and he then attended Alexandria Academy. Lee saw himself as an extension of his family’s greatness and proceeded to enroll at West Point Military Academy. He was appointed by President James Monroe at the age of eighteen due to his intelligence, quick decision-making, and his family name and educational background. West Point was considered to be the best military academy in the Americas due to its institution of discipline and outstanding character. At West Point, Lee learned about marching customs, battlefield formations, and principles of war. Lee also became competent in the construction of forts, bridges, and canals. He became was one of six cadets in his graduating class to finish without a single detriment. Lee also scored perfect scores in artillery, cavalry, and infantry.
In 2003, Roy Blount Jr. published the book Robert E. Lee through the Penguin Group Inc. This book is different then other books published about Lee due to the fact that this book looks behind the man in uniform, and shows how Lee became the legend that we know today. Blount brings an element of humor that some would not expect to find when writing about Lee. Through this type of writing, Lee transforms into the everyday person who we all can relate to.
father died in 1833, when Garfield was only two years old and so his mother
When Colt got back to land he went to a man named Mr. Anson Chase who was a gunsmith