Grant

by Ron Chernow

pathos,

philistine,

wry

raconteur

deprecated

coda

Grant was an adept politician, the only president to serve two full consecutive terms between Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson.

In 1870 he oversaw creation of the Justice Department, its first duty to bring thousands of anti-Klan indictments.

Grant presided over the Fifteenth Amendment, which gave blacks the right to vote,

His next job came in an Ohio tannery owned by Owen Brown, father of militant abolitionist John Brown. Jesse resided in the Brown

household and came to admire John’s “purity of character” and “physical courage,” but later faulted him for being “a fanatic and extremist in whatever he advocated.”

cant,

ordinance

For all that, the small town would enrich the Union cause with no fewer than four generals.

Although the hot-blooded Jesse lacked the winning charms of a candidate, he ascended to town mayor in the late 1830s.

Whigs denounced what they saw as the overweening executive power of “King” Andrew Jackson, selecting the “Whig” name to liken their struggle to that against King George

refractory

quondam

As soon as fellow cadets, including William Tecumseh Sherman, spotted the name “U. S. Grant” on the bulletin board, they made great sport of it and promptly branded the newcomer Uncle Sam Grant,

or “Sam” Grant for short.

presentiment

rubicund

Among younger cadets the most impressive was the precocious George B. McClellan, who entered West Point at fifteen after two years at the University of Pennsylvania.

When Grant graduated in June 1843, his rank was middling, not miserable: twenty-first in a class of thirty-nine.

As he contemplated the military career to which he was now committed for several years, Grant coveted a cavalry assignment—an illustrious branch of service—and was crestfallen at being rejected.

When Fred was dispatched farther west into Indian country, he encouraged Grant to visit his family anyway; in the company of Longstreet, who was related to Fred’s mother,

Grant made a courtesy call there that autumn.

Although Julia eagerly awaited his letters and pored over them repeatedly, she never replied with the speed Grant wished, leaving him dangling on tenterhooks. At one point, he counted only eleven letters from her in a twenty-month period.

After suitable costumes were obtained from New Orleans, the decision was made to stage Othello. The first choice for Desdemona was James Longstreet, who stood six feet tall and would have towered over Othello, so the prudish Grant was drafted instead.

As it turned out, Theodoric Porter, playing Othello, couldn’t work up enough body heat around Grant. “Porter said it was

bad enough to play the part with a woman in the cast,” said Longstreet, “and he could not pump up any sentiment with Grant dressed up as Desdemona.”26 To put Porter out of his misery, Grant was cashiered and a professional actress imported from New Orleans.

“Taylor was apt to be a little absent-minded when absorbed in any perplexing problem, and the morning he received the discouraging news he sat down to breakfast in a brown study, poured out a cup of coffee, and instead of putting in the sugar, he reached out and got hold of the mustard-pot, and stirred half a dozen spoonfuls of its contents into the coffee. He didn’t realize what he had done till he took a mouthful, and then he broke out in a towering rage.”

no figure embodied the American military more splendidly than Winfield Scott, who was promoted to brevet major general by the War of 1812. Straddling two eras, he would serve under presidents as far apart as James Madison and Abraham Lincoln.

James Longstreet served as best man and two groomsmen, Cadmus M. Wilcox and Bernard Pratte, were to join him in the Confederate army; all three later surrendered to Grant at Appomattox.

survey was led by the twenty-six-year-old brevet captain George B. McClellan. Unlike Grant, McClellan had graduated near the top of his West Point class and showed little patience for slipshod performance. While his expedition was being outfitted at Fort Vancouver, said Henry C. Hodges, “Grant got on one of his little sprees, which annoyed and offended McClellan exceedingly, and in my opinion he never quite forgave Grant for it.”

In November 1856, Grant cast his first vote in a presidential election. After selling a load of firewood, he was galloping by a St. Louis polling station when he decided to stop, lash his horse to a tree, and vote.

To his later embarrassment, Grant voted for Democrat James Buchanan of Pennsylvania,

Although we have no contemporary observations by Grant on the case, he enjoyed a direct connection to it. After the decision, Dred Scott and his wife were purchased by Taylor Blow, who supported Scott’s lawsuit and then freed the couple. Blow, a close friend of Grant’s, would recommend him for a county job two years later.

It wasn’t just Union soldiers Colonel Dent ached to shoot. “After Capt. Grant took up the Northern side,” said Louisa Boggs, “Col.

Dent swore with a big oath that if his worthless son-in-law ever came on his land he would shoot him as he would a rabbit.”

Around this time, Mark Twain belonged to a small, irregular Confederate company

The battle of Bull Run (First Manassas) drew a vast flock of enraptured spectators from the federal capital, including six senators and at least ten congressmen,

early August, Crane handed Grant a copy of the Daily Missouri Democrat and remarked, “I see that you are made brigadier-general.” Taken unawares, Grant sat down to study the news item from Washington,

He was such a fresh celebrity that when the New-York Illustrated News ran a photo of him, it mistakenly showed a beef contractor from Illinois named William Grant.

Now admirers flooded him with “boxes of the choicest brands” of cigars “from everywhere in the North. As many as ten thousand were soon received.”

(An Old Testament name meaning “place of peace,” Shiloh was the place of Jewish worship before the First Temple.)

Among the generals who did not cover themselves with glory was Lew Wallace, a short, pale man with a dark beard, flowing mustache, and smoldering

gaze that betokened a latent romanticism. He had worked as a lawyer in Indiana and served in the state legislature; in after years he would distinguish himself as the author of Ben-Hur.

Shiloh’s casualties eclipsed the total of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Mexican War combined.

In a mood of mounting anger, Grant was not content to chastise Jewish traders: he wanted to banish all Jews. On December 17, he issued the most egregious decision of his career. “General Orders No. 11” stipulated that “the Jews, as a class, violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department, and also Department orders, are hereby expelled from the Department.