President Ulysses S. Grant
Record of the Week for the Week of July 4, 2021
The General Land Office wishes you a happy Independence Day! This Record of the Week is a military warrant issued to none other than President and Union Army General, Ulysses S. Grant.
From 1775 to 1855, the United States granted bounty-land warrants for military service, primarily to encourage volunteer enlistments, but also to reward veterans for service during the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and a variety of Indian wars and other military actions during the 1850s. Early warrants could only be used in military districts, principally in Ohio and several other public land states in the former Northwest Territory.
Eventually, Congress expanded eligibility to include service in the Regular Army and the Navy, as well as volunteer militias. Bounty-land warrant files can contain supporting documents such as statements and signatures of witnesses. Bounty-land warrants generally do not contain as much personal information as would be found in pensions. The government ceased issuing bounty-land warrants after 1855.
According to this warrant issued September 1, 1853, Grant's service in the Mexican War earned him 160 acres of land in Michigan.
Grant was given the land highlighted in yellow: the northeast quarter of Section 20 in Township 59 North, Range 29 West in the Michigan-Toledo Strip Principal Meridian. To see several more military warrants awarded to veterans of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Mexican War, view our Memorial Day 2019 ROTW Story Map.
Early Life
Ulysses S. Grant was born April 27, 1822, as Hiram Ulysses Grant in Point Pleasant, Ohio, and moved to Georgetown, Ohio, less than a year later. His father owned a tannery, but Grant had no interest in taking over the family business because he could not handle the stench produced by the labor. Grant reluctantly went to the U.S. Military Academy at the age of 17, and it was there that he took the name we all know him by today. An error in the catalog of new cadets at West Point listed his name as U. S. Grant. To avoid the possibility of getting refused over a technicality, Hiram Ulysses Grant took the name Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant was unremarkable at West Point, with the notable exception of his great talent for horsemanship. In spite of this talent, he graduated in the bottom half of his class, planning to resign from the military after his first tour.
His first assignment was in St. Louis, Missouri. It is here that he met Julia Dent, his eventual wife. Before they could marry he was sent to fight in the Mexican War.
Birthplace of Ulysses S. Grant, Point Pleasant, Ohio
Mexican War
Grant was morally opposed to the Mexican War, calling it "one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation." Despite this belief, he fought to the best of his abilities as a matter of duty.
Posted in Texas, he served for one of the most famous American generals of all time, a leader he would replicate as a role model, Maj. Gen. Zachary Taylor, who would later become president of the United States. Grant gained a great deal of combat experience throughout the war, having fought in every major battle except Buena Vista in February 1847.
Grant gained some notoriety in the Battle of Monterrey when he used his equestrian talent to race through the dense urban battlefield under intense fire to request help and retrieve ammunition for the forward companies. He returned unharmed.
He went on to serve under General Winnfield Scott for the remainder of the war. Grant was involved in the key victories from Vera Cruz on the coast, Puebla and Cerro Gordo on the advance to the interior, and then the battles in the Valley of Mexico. In the final assault on Mexico City, Grant directed his men to drag a disassembled howitzer into a church steeple, then reassembled it and bombarded nearby Mexican troops.
During the war, Grant received two brevet, honorary, promotions for gallantry from second lieutenant to captain. He would always use both Generals Scott and Taylor as role models for leadership.
In the years following the war, Grant faced professional and financial hardship, resigning from the Army in 1854 and struggling to take up life as a farmer in Missouri. After the failure of the farm and several other business pursuits, Grant moved his family to Galena, Illinois, where he took a job as a clerk in his father's leather goods shop.
Battle of Monterrey
Civil War
Shortly after the Civil War started in 1861, Grant once again became a soldier. Back on the battlefield, he excelled as a military commander. He won the Union's first major victory, capturing Fort Donelson in Tennessee and demanding the rebels' unconditional surrender. He successfully turned back a surprise Confederate attack at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee. His capture of the city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, on July 4, 1863, after a drawn-out siege, broke the Confederate stranglehold on the Mississippi.
Grant was appointed commander of all U.S. armies by Abraham Lincoln in 1864. He was promoted to lieutenant general. No soldier since George Washington had held the rank. As commander, Grant went on to win the war.
Battle of Shiloh
Presidency and Final Years
In 1868, Grant accepted the Republican presidential nomination, and due to being a celebrated war hero, defeated Democrat Horatio Seymour in the election.
During two terms in office, Grant worked hard to bring the North and the South together again, contending with an emerging white supremacist group called the Ku Klux Klan, and violent uprisings against blacks and Republicans. He met with Native American leaders, including Red Cloud, trying to develop a peace policy in the West. He also took steps to repair the damaged economy. But his two terms as president are best remembered for financial scandals among members of his party and his administration.
After leaving office in 1877, Grant and his wife Julia took a tour around the world visiting leaders of several nations. Upon return, the Grants moved to New York. Ulysses began investing in his son Buck's Wall Street investment firm but went bankrupt with the firm because Buck's partner had been stealing the invested funds.
To escape poverty, Grant began writing and selling memoirs. This led to a two-volume book release of his memoirs that went on to become a classic work of American literature. He died on July 23, 1885, just two months after the book went to press, and was honored with an enormous funeral procession in New York City.
Grant's funeral train passing West Point