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Ulysses S. Grant was one the most important Union general in the Civil War and he was also the eighteenth president of the United States. Grant was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio in 1822. He graduated from West Point Academy in 1843, finishing number 21 in a class of 39. Consequently, he was appointed as a lieutenant in the Mexican War. Afterwards, in 1848, he married Julia Dent and moved to Detroit. After resigning from the military, Grant worked as a farmer, a clerk, and a real-estate salesman in Galena, Illinois. When the American Civil War began, however, he was commissioned as a colonel and fought many successful battles against the secessionists in Missouri. He was promoted as a brigadier general later on and forced the Confederates to retreat from Kentucky, Southern Missouri, and Arkansas. He was later promoted as a major general, and won a crucial victory on July 4th, 1863, by capturing Vicksburg, Mississippi, and bringing the Mississippi River under Union control. Grant was once again promoted to commander of all the Union troops in the west. Grant used a "two-pronged" strategy to bring the war to an end, which consisted of him attacking Richmond while Sherman swept the Confederates from Atlanta to the east coast. In Virginia, Grant was able to defeat Robert E. Lee's forces, and later accepted Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House in April, 1865. After the war, he served briefly as the Secretary of War under Andrew Johnson, and later as the 18th president between 1869 and 1877, serving two terms. |