DID YOU KNOW?
Article by Michael Joseph Lynch
A Biography of General/
President
Ulysses S. Grant
Although he had no interest in military life, Ulysses accepted the appointment. He came to be known as U.S. Grant, and his classmates called him Sam. Standing only a little over five feet tall when he entered the academy, he grew more than six inches in the next four years.
Now, Grant ranked 21st in a class of 39 when he graduated from West Point in 1843, but he had distinguished himself in horsemanship. Upon graduation Grant was assigned as a Second Lieutenant to the 4th U.S. Infantry, stationed near St. Louis, Missouri, where he fell in love with Julia Boggs Dent, the sister of his roommate at West Point. They became secretly engaged before Grant left to serve in the Mexican-American War (1846–48) and married upon his return.
You will find that Ulysses S. Grant was born on April 27, 1822 in Point Pleasant, Ohio, and died July 23, 1885 in Wilton, New York, who was a U.S. General, Commander of the Union armies during the late years (1864–65) of the American Civil War, and the 18th president of the United States (1869–77).
Grant was the son of Jesse Root Grant, a tanner, and Hannah Simpson, and he grew up in Georgetown, Ohio. Detesting the work around the family tannery, Ulysses instead performed his share of chores on farmland owned by his father and developed considerable skills in handling horses. In 1839 Jesse secured for Ulysses an appointment to the United States Military Academyat West Point, New York, and pressured him to attend.