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LESSER-KNOWN FACTS ABOUT OUR PRESIDENTS Or PRESIDENTIAL PARAGRAPHS - #18 Mort Fox No! Ulysses S. Grant was not a crook! Our 18th president was an honest man. Either by stupidity, naiveté or the influence of others, he managed to become surrounded by a conglomeration of scheming, corruptible and unscrupulous advantage takers. Grant’s administration was plagued with scandals, one right after the other. Like many other military heroes who became president, as a “reward” for services rendered, Grant had never held any political office before becoming the President of the United States. To illustrate how far this hero worship goes, he was reelected by an even larger margin. He was born in 1822 in Ohio, Hiram Ulysses Grant. Self-conscious of his initials, H. U. G. he sometimes called himself Ulysses H. Grant. And then a fortunate mistake by the congressman responsible for his appointment to the West Point Military Academy, spared cadet Grant a great deal of ribbing. Grant’s name was entered as Ulysses Simpson (his mother’s maiden name) Grant, with the initials U. S. G. All cadet trunks were marked with their initials. Now he was Uncle Sam Grant to some classmates. Friends began calling him just Sam. Years later, after the Union’s victorious Civil War battle of Fort Donelson, Confederate General Buckner asked what Grant’s terms of surrender were. The reply, "No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted." From this point on, Grant had the additional sobriquet of Unconditional Surrender Grant. When he graduated from West Point in 1843, due to his poor scholastic and deportment standing, he was only commissioned as a brevet (acting) second lieutenant, the rank not made permanent for two years. His military career prior to the Civil War was difficult and lonely for him. Families were not always easily accommodated at some posts. He would sometimes turn to the bottle to combat his longing for them. Grant served in the Mexican War although he was personally opposed to it. After various postings he attained the rank of captain. He resigned in 1854 to pursue a career in farming, which failed four years later. Other civilian failures followed, including real estate. Grant was then living in Galena, Illinois and working in his father’s leather goods store and struggling to make ends meet. When the Civil War began he had requested to be re-commissioned into the army. He never received a response from the War Department. But he did work with the Illinois Adjutant General to form a volunteer group. He was the mustering officer. A few months later, Grant was appointed colonel in command of the 21st Illinois Infantry located in Missouri. Not long after he was promoted to brigadier general. His victory at Fort Donelson, mentioned above, was the beginning of his national reputation. After Vicksburg and other victories, he was promoted to the coveted rank of lieutenant general and made commander of the Union Army. In April of 1865 he accepted the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox. A shoo-in for the Republican nomination in 1868, he was the unanimous choice in the first ballot at the convention. In the election of that year, he received 214 of 294 electoral votes. As stated before, his two administrations were riddled with corruption. There were actually five major scandals. None was directly connected to the president. He glided to an easy election victory in 1872. Grant called it quits at that point, not wanting to exceed the traditional two presidential terms. Another civilian financial business arrangement failed. All those cigars he smoked almost constantly apparently caught up with him. He was diagnosed with throat cancer. He labored to complete his two volume autobiography, doing so, just prior to his death. His life was an example of extreme contrasts. The man, who commanded hundreds of thousands of men and saw tens of thousands die, couldn’t look at a raw or rare-cooked steak without getting nauseated.