Ulysses S. Grant (April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885) is best remembered as the 18th President of the United States, serving from 1869–77. Born Hiram Ulysses Grant in Point Pleasant, Ohio, he adopted the name “Ulysses S.” when he was nominated by that name to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He graduated in 1843 and served in the Mexican-American War, after which he retired to private life. He rejoined the Army at the outset of the Civil War and proceeded to control Kentucky and Tennessee, win the Battle of Shiloh and then take Vicksburg, controlling the Mississippi River and dividing the Confederacy.  Lincoln appointed him Commanding General of the United States and he battled with Robert E. Lee, culminating in Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. After the war he supervised Reconstruction before election to the presidency in 1868.  During his term he stabilized the nation, enforced civil and voting rights, prosecuted the Ku Klux Klan, and built a coalition to strengthen the Republican Party in the South.  His administration was plagued by corruption, struggled with native American uprisings, and was unable to prevent conservative whites from regaining power in the South. The author H.B. Brands summarizes his legacy well:

“As commanding general in the Civil War, he had defeated secession and destroyed slavery, secession's cause. As President during Reconstruction he had guided the South back into the Union. By the end of his public life the Union was more secure than at any previous time in the history of the nation. And no one had done more to produce the result than he.”