Saturday marks the 202nd birthday of Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant). He was a brilliant American military officer, while honest and forthright a not so good businessman and politician, and the 18th president of the United States. Grant was born to an abolitionist family in Ohio and graduated from West Point in 1843. He served with distinction in the Mexican–American War, but resigned from the army in 1854 and returned to civilian life impoverished. In 1861, shortly after the onset of the Civil War, Grant joined the Union Army and rose to prominence after securing Union victories in the western theater. In 1863, he led the Vicksburg campaign that gave Union forces control of the Mississippi River and dealt a major strategic blow to the Confederacy. President Abraham Lincoln promoted Grant to lieutenant general after his victory at Chattanooga. For thirteen months, Grant fought Robert E. Lee during the high-casualty Overland Campaign which ended with the capture of Lee's army at Appomattox, where he formally surrendered to Grant. A war hero, drawn in by his sense of duty, Grant was unanimously nominated by the Republican Party and then elected president in 1868. An effective civil rights executive, Grant signed a bill to create the Justice Department and worked to protect African Americans during Reconstruction.
