Lincoln's tragic assassination at the end of the Civil War was followed by the ineffective leadership of President Andrew Johnson, a Democrat from Tennessee. At that point, General Grant was the most revered man in the Union. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia in Petersburg, a small city south of Richmond, Virginia, forcing its surrender in April 1865. Grant helped end the bloody Civil War when he directed the Union forces to lay siege to General Robert E. In the last year of the war, he was both praised and criticized for his willingness to fight and sustain a high number of casualties. He captured Fort Henry and Fort Donelson in Tennessee, forced the surrender of Vicksburg, Mississippi, and defeated a larger Southern force at Chattanooga, Tennessee. Grant garnered attention as he led his troops to fight and win battles in the Western Theater. The Army noted his efforts and promoted him to brigadier general. Lieutenant Colonel Grant drilled the men, instituted badly needed discipline, and soon earned the respect of the volunteers. The Illinois governor assigned him to make a disciplined fighting unit out of the rebellious Twenty-First Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment. When the American Civil War began in 1861, experienced officers like Grant were in short supply. The two were a devoted couple and adoring parents to their four children. Through these difficult times, he relied on his wife, Julia Dent Grant. Grant then attempted a variety of jobs, including farming and insurance sales, before finding work in his family's leather goods store in Galena, Illinois. He resigned suddenly from the Army in 1854 and returned to the Midwest to be with his family. After the war, Grant moved to various Army postings in Detroit, New York, and the Pacific Northwest. From 1846 to 1848, Grant fought in the Mexican War and was twice cited for bravery. His company soon moved south to prepare for the conflict brewing with Mexico over disputed Texas territory. After graduating, he was assigned to an infantry company in Missouri. He attended the United States Military Academy at West Point in New York and excelled in mathematics, writing, drawing, and horsemanship. He was small, sensitive, quiet, and well-known for his talent with horses. Ulysses Grant was born in Ohio, the first of six children. He also executed a successful foreign policy and was responsible for improving Anglo-American relations. Overall, Grant's intentions were honorable, and he made efforts that few had attempted before him, especially in the areas of African American rights, Native American policy, and civil service reform. A great supporter of the transcontinental railroads, Grant oversaw the completion of the one running from Sacramento, California, to Omaha, Nebraska, in 1869 in his first year in office. Grant presided over a powerful if unstable economy unleashing productive capacities only dreamed of before the Civil War. He was no great orator, but he possessed a coherent political philosophy mirrored in Lincoln's Republican Party that won the war, freed the enslaved people, and saved the Republic. He disdained politics but rose to the country's highest political office. He was an honorable man who was unable or unwilling to see dishonor in others. He was quiet and soft-spoken but able to inspire great bravery from his soldiers on the battlefield. Every President presents historians with some contradictions, but Grant might do so more than most. Recently, however, scholars have begun to reexamine and reassess his presidential tenure recent rankings have reflected a significant rise. As a two-term President, he is typically dismissed as weak and ineffective historians have often ranked Grant's presidency near the bottom in American history. Grant is best known as the Union general who led the United States to victory over the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War.
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