Ulysses S. Grant

Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant; April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885) was the 18th President of the United States (1869–1877) following his highly successful role as a war general in the second half of the Civil War. Under Grant, the Union Army defeated the Confederate military; the war, and secession, ended with the surrender of Robert E. Lee's army at Appomattox. As president he led the Radical Republicans in their effort to eliminate all vestiges of Confederate nationalism and slavery. Upset over uncontrolled violence in the South and wanting to protect African American citizenship, President Grant effectively destroyed the Ku Klux Klan in 1871.^[2] Grant was the first President to establish Civil Service reform, creating a two-year federally funded Civil Service Commission in 1871.^[3] In terms of foreign policy, Grant revealed an "unexpected capacity for deliberation and consultation" that promoted the national interest.^[4] His reputation was marred by his repeated defense of corrupt appointees, and by America's first industrial age economic depression (called the "Panic of 1873") that dominated his second term.^[5] Although his Republican Party split in 1872 with reformers denouncing him, Grant was easily reelected. By 1875 the conservative white Southern opposition regained control of every state in the South and as he left the White House in March 1877 his policies were being undone.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses S. Grant
• Pages 7-10 - Philbrick, N., 2010, The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Big Horn: Viking, New York, 466p.