From Frontier Soldier To Peacemaking President

On March 4, 1869, a rather unlikely candidate took his oath of office as the eighteenth president of the United States.

- John P. Langellier

The image of Ulysses S. Grant as a cigar chomping, rumpled Union general whose dogged determination helped win the Civil War and gained him two turbulent terms as commander in chief has basis in fact.

But there was much more to Grant than this familiar portrait. He was a complex product of many experiences that helped forge the man who became one of the great leaders of 19th century America.

Above all Grant was a true Westerner. His introduction to the region came soon after his graduation from West Point. As a newly commissioned second lieutenant Grant reported to his first posting at Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis. After nearly three quiet years with the U.S. Army 4th Infantry, his regiment received orders for Mexico, where he would earn his spurs in battle.

Sam, as his fellow cadets knew him, abandoned his birth name Hiram Ulysses Grant (HUG) while on the storied Plain at West Point. He meant to live up to his reputation as the most proficient horseman at the United States Military Academy where it was claimed “rider and horse held together like the fabled centaur….” Now, in Mexico mounted on a barely broken mustang, Grant humbly admitted the recurring struggle to master his stubborn steed “as to which way we should go and sometimes whether we would go at all.”