How did Ulysses S. Grant respond to the mistakes he made in battle?
Union General Ulysses S. Grant makes what he later recognizes to be his greatest mistake by ordering a frontal assault on entrenched Confederates at Cold Harbor, Virginia.
What was Ulysses S. Grant scared of?
Ulysses S. Grant once said he detested war and had an aversion to guns.
What did Ulysses S. Grant say about the Civil War?
Grant's first major victory came in February 1862, when his troops captured Fort Donelson in Tennessee. When the Confederate general in charge of the fort asked about terms of surrender for the Battle of Fort Donelson, Grant famously replied, “No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted.”
What was general Ulysses S. Grant best known for?
In 1865, as commanding general, Ulysses S. Grant led the Union Armies to victory over the Confederacy in the American Civil War. As an American hero, Grant was later elected the 18th President of the United States (1869–1877), working to implement Congressional Reconstruction and to remove the vestiges of slavery.
What did Grant's voice sound like?
Grant was described as having a “soft, kindly voice” that “had a clear, carrying quality which was agreeable to hear.” Staff member Horace Porter recalled that Grant's “voice was exceedingly musical, and one of the clearest in sound and most distinct in utterance that I have ever heard.
Did Ulysses S. Grant say if we are to have another contest?
During his speech, Grant remarked that "if we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason & Dixon . . . but between patriotism & intelligence on the one side & superstition, ambition & ignorance on the other." He went on to say, "Encourage ...
What was Ulysses S. Grant's strategy to win the Civil War?
Accordingly, he adopted an aggressive strategy that relied on corralling the enemy by cutting its forces off from the territory needed to maneuver, the resources needed to fight, and one another. And then, after mustering the largest force possible, Grant attacked to destroy or capture the enemy armies.
What was a result of general Ulysses S. Grant's campaign in Virginia in the spring and summer of 1864?
What was a result of General Ulysses S. Grant's campaign in Virginia in the spring and summer of 1864? It caused severe casualties for both armies but did not end the war. Which southern city did U.S. Admiral David Farragut capture in 1862?
What was Grant's total war strategy?
Grant hoped that “so far as practicable all the armies are to move together and towards one common [center].” Earlier in the war, Grant observed how “various [Union] armies had acted separately and independently of each other, giving the enemy an opportunity often of depleting one command, not pressed, to reinforce ...
What are some fun facts about Ulysses S. Grant?
10 Facts About Ulysses S. GrantHis name was picked out of a hat. ... He was especially gifted with horses. ... Grant was an accomplished artist. ... He hadn't wanted to be a soldier. ... He has a reputation as a drunk. ... Grant briefly owned a slave before freeing him. ... He accepted Robert E. Lee's surrender to end the American Civil War.More items...•
Was Lee and Grant friends?
General Grant, following orders of President Lincoln, put a stop to the idea. The two friends would finally meet again following the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Court House. It was Longstreet, according to various accounts, who persuaded Lee that Grant would offer generous terms there.
What was Grant's nickname?
"Unconditional Surrender" GrantHero of AppomattoxSamUncle SamUlysses S. Grant/Nicknames
How many cadets did Ulysses Grant have?
Ulysses S. Grant graduates from the U.S. Military Academy 21st of 39 cadets (nearly half of the class that started in 1839 dropped out before graduation).
Why did Ulysses Grant resign from the army?
Ulysses Grant resigns from the army in order to be reunited with his wife and two children. He begins farming the White Haven estate for his father-in-law.
What was the slogan of Ulysses Grant's campaign?
May 24 - Ulysses Grant accepts the nomination by the Republican Party for President of the United States. His campaign slogan becomes "Let Us Have Peace.". November 3 - Grant is elected President of the United States.
What is the middle name of Ulysses Grant?
Hamer makes the nomination, but mistakenly uses the name Ulysses S. Grant, believing that Ulysses was his first name, and his middle name is Simpson after his mother's maiden name.
Where do Julia and Ulysses move to?
October - Ulysses & Julia are stationed at Detroit, then move to Sacketts Harbor in New York.
What war did Grant serve in?
Grant serves in the Mexican-American War. Despite being assigned as quartermaster, he faces battle numerous times, including Palo Alto, Churabusco and Chapultepec.
Why did Grant start the Grand Campaign?
May - Grant begins the Grand Campaign to have all Union armies working in unison on all fronts to keep Confederate armies from moving to support one another depending on where a battle was occurring.
What was Grant's main army?
Grant's main army was located at Pittsburg Landing, while 40,000 Confederate troops converged at Corinth, Mississippi. Brigadier General William Tecumseh Sherman assured Grant that his green troops were ready for an attack. Grant agreed and wired Halleck with their assessment. Grant wanted to attack the Confederates at Corinth, but Halleck ordered him not to attack until Major General Don Carlos Buell arrived with his division of 25,000. Meanwhile, Grant prepared for an attack on the Confederate army of roughly equal strength. Instead of preparing defensive fortifications between the Tennessee River and Owl Creek, and clearing fields of fire, they spent most of their time drilling the largely inexperienced troops while Sherman dismissed reports of nearby Confederates.
How did Hamilton Fish and Grant settle the Alabama claims?
Secretary of State Hamilton Fish and Grant successfully settled the Alabama Claims by treaty and arbitration.
What did Lincoln do at the Battle of Belmont?
On November 2, 1861, Lincoln removed Frémont from command, freeing Grant to attack Confederate soldiers encamped in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. On November 5, Grant, along with Brigadier General John A. McClernand, landed 2,500 men at Hunter's Point, and on November 7 engaged the Confederates at the Battle of Belmont. The Union army took the camp, but the reinforced Confederates under Brigadier Generals Frank Cheatham and Gideon J. Pillow forced a chaotic Union retreat. Grant had wanted to destroy Confederate strongholds at both Belmont, Missouri and Columbus, Kentucky, but was not given enough troops and was only able to disrupt their positions. Grant's troops fought their way back to their Union boats and escaped back to Cairo under fire from the fortified stronghold at Columbus. Although Grant and his army retreated, the battle gave his volunteers much-needed confidence and experience. It also showed Lincoln that Grant was a general willing to fight.
How did Grant get along with Johnson?
Despite differing styles, Grant got along cordially with Johnson and attended cabinet meetings concerning Reconstruction. By February 1866, the relationship began to break down. Johnson opposed Grant's closure of the Richmond Examiner for disloyal editorials and his enforcement of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, passed over Johnson's veto. Needing Grant's popularity, Johnson took Grant on his " Swing Around the Circle " tour, a failed attempt to gain national support for lenient policies toward the South. Grant privately called Johnson's speeches a "national disgrace" and he left the tour early. On March 2, 1867, overriding Johnson's veto, Congress passed the first of three Reconstruction Acts, using military officers to enforce the policy. Protecting Grant, Congress passed the Command of the Army Act, preventing his removal or relocation, and forcing Johnson to pass orders through Grant.
What was Grant's life like in 1854?
It was the beginning of seven years of financial struggles, poverty, and instability. Grant's father offered him a place in the Galena, Illinois, branch of the family's leather business, but demanded Julia and the children stay in Missouri, with the Dents, or with the Grants in Kentucky. Grant and Julia declined the offer. Grant farmed (for the next four years ), using Julia's slave Dan, on his brother-in-law's property, Wish-ton-wish, near St. Louis. The farm was not successful and to earn an alternate living he sold firewood on St. Louis street corners.
How did Grant strike at Lee?
To strike at Lee in a timely capacity Grant was forced to use what resources were immediately available, and they were diminished by the day. Grant had to commit badly needed troops to check Confederate General Jubal Early 's raids in the Shenandoah Valley and who was getting dangerously close to the Potomac River, and Washington. By late July, at Petersburg, Grant reluctantly approved a plan to blow up part of the enemy trenches from a tunnel filled with many tons of gunpowder. The massive explosion created a crater, 170 feet across and 30 feet deep, killing an entire Confederate regiment in an instant. The poorly led Union troops under Major General Burnside and Brigadier General Ledlie, rather than encircling the crater, rushed forward and poured directly into it, which was widely deemed a mistake. Recovering from the surprise, Confederates, led by Major General William Mahone, surrounded the crater and easily picked off Union troops within it. The Union's 3,500 casualties outnumbered the Confederates' by three-to-one. The battle marked the first time that Union-colored troops, who endured a large proportion of the casualties, engaged in any major battle in the east. Grant admitted that the overall mining tactic had been a "stupendous failure".
What did Grant believe about the Pacific Northwest Indians?
Grant believed Pacific Northwest Indians were a peaceful people and not a threat to settlers.
What was the Ku Klux Klan Act?
Also known as the third Enforcement Act, the bill was a controversial expansion of federal authority designed to give the federal government additional power to protect voters.
What did Gould and Fisk argue about gold?
Gould and Fisk, along with President Grant's brother-in-law, frame their argument by claiming that if the government refrains from selling gold, its value will increase and improve depressed farm prices. A suspicious Grant finally orders a large sale of $4 million in gold, ruining many speculators.
How many electoral votes did Grant get?
Grant is reelected in the largest popular-majority victory for a Republican in the nineteenth century. He wins 55.6 percent of the popular vote and 214 electoral votes to Greeley's 80. The result is more an expression of dislike for Greeley than support for Grant.
What was the Civil Rights Act of 1875?
Grant signs the Civil Rights Act of 1875, guaranteeing black Americans equal rights in public places and prohibiting their exclusion from jury duty. The act includes no enforcement provisions and will be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1883.
What did Grant do in Louisiana?
Grant issues a presidential proclamation calling for the dispersal of the rebellious “White League” in Louisiana. Grant sends five thousand troops and three gunboats to New Orleans; the resistance ends two days later. Grant and the Republicans are criticized severely for the intervention.
What was the purpose of the Interoceanic Canal Commission?
Grant appoints a special Interoceanic Canal Commission to determine the best of three proposed canal plans connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific. In February 1876, the commission reports in favor of a route through Nicaragua.
What was the first scandal to take place during the Grant years?
The gold plot is the first of several scandals to take place during the Grant years. September 24, 1869, became known as "Black Friday" when a financial panic began in New York City after the price of gold crashed and caused financial ruin for many investors.
What was the purpose of the peace agreement between Grant and the Mexicans?
A negotiated peace allowed the Mexicans to retreat from the city with their weapons, much to Taylor's chagrin.
What did Scott do in 1847?
When Scott finally got the go-ahead in March 1847, he moved his army to Veracruz and marched on Mexico City. Grant's unit went to Veracruz to assist. Scott, outnumbered by the Mexican army, left Veracruz without waiting for a supply line and marched for the capital city–a tactic that Grant would later use at Vicksburg.
What was Grant's problem with the pack animals?
In August 1846, Taylor made a move towards Monterrey, the largest city in the area. The heat forced the army to travel at night and contributed to a general lethargy among the pack animals–which became Grant's problem as quartermaster. His treatment of the situation underscored one of his character traits, that he never is known to have uttered an expletive: "I am not aware of ever having used a profane expletive in my life; but I would have the charity to excuse those who have done so, if they were in charge of a train of Mexican pack animals at the time." As with everything else, Grant approached the pack animals as detached and emotionless, not allowing himself to get worked up enough to curse.
What did Grant learn from the Civil War?
While Grant's own role in the war was remarkably uneventful, his first experience taught him much about leadership, command, and military tactics. He would ultimately follow some of Scott's tactics and later adopted Taylor's unpretentious dress during the Civil War. Grant remained in Mexico for several months, enjoying the sights, ...
What did Grant do at San Cosme?
At San Cosme, Grant earned his own note of the battle when he led a group of troops to capture a church and mount a cannon in the belfry where it could fire on distant Mexican troops–the incident even earned a brief mention in the dispatches to Washington.
What was Grant's first experience in battle?
As he returned to the beleaguered force, he and the rest of Taylor's army met a large Mexican force–Grant's first experience in battle. The Mexicans, although superior in number, found themselves hopelessly outgunned by the American howitzers, which tore large holes in the Mexican ranks. Grant escaped from the encounter unharmed, ...
What did Taylor do in the Rio Grande?
The battle ultimately drove the Mexicans back across the Rio Grande, and the next day Taylor crossed the river with his own army and seized Matamoros.
What did Grant lack in knowledge of military art and science?
What he lacked in knowledge of military art and science, he made up for with tenacity and grit. In March 1864, Ulysses S. Grant went to Washington, D.C., to receive his commission from Abraham Lincoln as lieutenant-general in command of all the Union armies. After several years of frustration with a parade of unsuitable commanders, ...
Why did William Rosecrans refuse to advance?
In 1863, Union General William Rosecrans refused an order to advance to meet an enemy force while Grant was laying siege to Vicksburg, the key to controlling the Mississippi River, because Rosecrans claimed that doing so would violate the “military maxim ‘not to fight two decisive battles at the same time.’”.
What did Grant learn about the Civil War?
It was in Mexico, while serving as regimental quartermaster and involving himself in as many battles as he could, that Grant had learned the decidedly unromantic aspects of war: the ingenuity required to feed and supply an army, the hazards of poor camp sanitation, the value of different kinds of expertise and the unequivocal brutality of combat. In the last year of the Civil War, as casualties mounted and the horrors of trench warfare accumulated in the Battles of Cold Harbor and Petersburg, Grant remained fixed in his purpose to destroy Lee’s army.
What did Lincoln say to Grant?
When, in the summer of 1864, Grant informed the cautious Halleck, back in Washington, of his refusal to disengage Lee and withdraw troops to quell draft resistance in the North, Lincoln responded in language that encapsulated Grant’s tenacious approach: “I have seen your despatch expressing your unwillingness to break your hold where you are.
What did Sherman say about Grant?
What Sherman called Grant’s “simple faith in success” proved infectious. His confidence and determination made others believe in themselves as well: “when you have completed your best preparations, you go into battle without hesitation...no doubts, no reserve,” Sherman wrote to Grant. “I tell you that it was this that made us act with confidence. I knew wherever I was that you thought of me, and if I got in a tight place you would come—if alive.”
How long did Grant study in the Eastern Theater?
In the Eastern Theater, which he studied for only eight weeks, Grant revealed a thorough grasp of the strategic situation.
What was Grant's memory?
One staff officer observed that after one hard look at a map, “he could follow its features without referring to it again. Besides, he possessed an almost intuitive knowledge of topography, and never became confused as to the points of the compass.” This gift was complemented by superb horsemanship, which allowed Grant to see for himself as much of the battlefield as possible.