The 19th - century historiographer Henry Adams once say of Ulysses S. Grant — belovedCivil Wargeneral , eighteenth president of the United States , and a frequent target of Adams ' potshots — that Grant made for a " great " soldier , but a " sister " politician .
historian have been argue his place in the presidential pantheon ever since .
In his time , Grant was an hugely pop public figure , the leader of the Union Army , the poor boy who won the war for the north . He was the man who saved the commonwealth . As President of the United States , he dish out two terms and could have been reelect to more ( as was allowed then ) . When he died in 1885 , more than 1.5 million people attended his funeral in New York .
But his presidency , to many , was indelibly marred by political infighting , dirt , Grant ’s well - get it on crapulence trouble , and the overwhelming burden of bring post - war America together through Reconstruction . Only in the past few 10 have historians begun to look more kindly on the reluctant politico . In a completely arbitrary but well - know ranking of chairwoman , C - SPAN ’s Presidential Historians Survey , Grant ’s jump 11 spot since 2000 , more than any other chief administrator . C - SPAN ’s control panel of 91 historians now site him 22nd overall , just belowJohn Quincy Adams(historian Henry ’s great - gramps ) .
" I would look at him as the general that save up the uniting and the United States President that managed to preserve the union . He was an essential chair , " say current - day historiographer Joan Waugh , the author of " U.S. Grant : American Hero , American Myth , " a 2009 life history . " This is a man who we should place with today . He had his ups and down in sprightliness , for sure … and yet every obstruction he encountered , he found a way of life to get through it . And that in itself is admirable . "
From Battlefield to Oval Office
Many presidents have been former soldiers , though few have been as successful as Grant . In fact , George Washingtonand Dwight D. Eisenhower are maybe the only presidents who would outrank him . The three are often lumped together as the premier examples of commanders - rick - presidents .
Each of them struggle in be active from the structured , straightforward ways of the military to the often back - slapping and back - stabbing ways of Washington . " soldier who go into political relation ordinarily get deeply defeated , " say historian H.W. Brands , the source of " The valet de chambre Who write the Union : Ulysses Grant in War and Peace , " a 2012 biography . " warfare is an arena of coercion … In government , in pacification , you have to apply the creature of persuasion . The significant multitude , in a president ’s universe , are people he ca n’t order around . "
Indeed , in his first endeavour at a post - war career , after the Mexican War , Grant flopped . But he took the lessons instruct then , and from his blooming but victorious hitch through the Civil War , and apply them when he reached the White House .
" He was better as a civilian United States President than he had been as a civilian insurance salesman , surveyor , sodbuster or whatever during the 1850s . He had gained a great deal of authority during the Civil War . He realized that he had these abilities that he really did n’t appreciate before the Civil War , " Brands enunciate . " The other thing was , he was a national hero , and that does carry a lot of weight in political sympathies . So even if you ’re not the master of insurance policy item , when you know that people elect you — by a landslide in 1868 and again by a middling smaller margin in 1872 — you have the authority that come from being the only person in the United States to constitute all of the voters of America . "
As all presidents do , Grant face mint of opposition . His came mainly from states in the vanquished South , which balked at swallow former slave as compeer ( rights allow in the14thand15th amendments ) and bristled at Reconstruction .
Scandals pervaded his government , too . The worst was theWhiskey Ringof 1875 , in which a group of distillers was impeach of duck taxes . Grant ’s personal secretaire , Orville E. Babcock , was indicted in the political storm but acquitted when — inordinately — Grant attest against his own federal authorities on Babcock ’s behalf . It was theonly sentence in history that a seat chairman testified voluntarily as a defense witness in a criminal visitation . Babcock was exonerate , but more than 100 others were convict .
The most dogged literary criticism of Grant , something that followed him through much of his life story , was that he was a wino . Historians have found much to show that he had analcohol addiction . The wide held perception that he was a falling - down flock , though , is unelaborated . Abraham Lincoln , one of his many admirers , handle rumors about Grant , reportedly said , " [ I]f those accusing General Grant of get inebriated will tell mewhere he gets his whiskey , I will get a lot of it and broadcast it around to some of the other Generals , who are badly in need of something of the kind . "
Still , the electronegative image of Grant advanced by historian Adams — who wasenraged by Grant ’s storage locker pick — and other would - be leaders persisted throughout the twentieth one C .
" Reconstruction was regard a failure for many decennary because of Grant being portrayed as a military potentate , bringing troops against the incapacitated white south , " Waugh says . " You did n’t need to know anything else about him except he was a drunk , a military slaughterer , and an incompetent , corrupted Chief Executive . "
A New Look at President Grant
These criticisms that Grant endured , during and after his presidentship , often masked his successes . " The raw work on him shows quite well that he learned as he went along , " Waugh says , citing books by Brands , Ronald C. White , Charles Calhoun , Ron Chernow , and others . " He learned how to be a politician . "
Grant figure out for right for both African Americans and Native Americans , and pushed for theKu Klux Klan Act of 1871 . He declared martial natural law and direct troops into South Carolina to apply the act , which itself was mean to enforce the 14th Amendment . Thousands were indicted , and around600 Klansmen were jailed in tardy 1871for terrorizing African Americans .
His efforts at a everlasting Reconstruction Period may have fallen scant , for sure by 21st century criterion , though expecting a seamless reunion after a divisive and costly warfare probably was unrealistic . Many now recognize that preserving the union , in itself , was a remarkable achievement .
" The goal of the warfare , for most white northerners who were the majority of the universe , was reunion — the Union preserved , " Waugh says . " That was considered a great skill . For a country to engage in a Civil War in which 600,000 - plus were vote out , and the destruction that it wrought , and then come back together again was considered the best matter . "
Grant — a man small of stature , muted and modest — may not have been what Adams and others look . But , at that time , he may well have been exactly what the nation postulate .
