Ulysses S. Grant Was A Victor, Not a Butcher (2004)

Hiram Ulysses Grant was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio, on April 27, 1822, to Jesse Root Grant, a tanner and merchant, and Hannah Grant (née Simpson). About the book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00462RV5K/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00462RV5K&linkCode=as2&tag=ub066-20&linkId=2f52ac14b4bc7c246ea441ffdd0c977e

His ancestors Matthew and Priscilla Grant arrived aboard the Mary and John at Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. Grant's great-grandfather fought in the French and Indian War, and his grandfather, Noah, served in the American Revolution at Bunker Hill. Afterward, Noah settled in Pennsylvania and married Rachel Kelley, the daughter of an Irish pioneer. Their son Jesse (Ulysses's father) was a Whig Party supporter and abolitionist.

Jesse Grant moved to Point Pleasant in 1820 and found work as a foreman in a tannery. He soon met his future wife, Hannah, and the two were married on June 24, 1821. Ten months later Hannah gave birth to their first child, a son. At a family gathering several weeks later the boy's name, Ulysses, was drawn from ballots placed in a hat. Wanting to honor his father-in-law, Jesse declared the boy to be Hiram Ulysses, though he would always refer to him as Ulysses.

In 1823, the family moved to the village of Georgetown, Ohio, where five more siblings were born: Simpson, Clara, Orvil, Jennie, and Mary. At the age of five, young Grant began his formal education, starting at a subscription school and later was enrolled in two private schools. In the winter of 1836–1837, Grant was a student at Maysville Seminary, and in the autumn of 1838 he attended John Rankin's academy. In his youth, Grant developed an unusual ability to ride, work with, and control horses. Expressing a strong dislike for the tannery, Grant's father instead put this ability to use giving Ulysses work driving wagon loads of supplies and transporting people. Unlike his siblings, Grant was not forced to attend church by his Methodist parents. For the rest of his life, he prayed privately and never officially joined any denomination. To others, including late in life, his own son, Grant appeared to be an agnostic. He inherited some of Hannah's Methodist piety and quiet nature while adopting his father's Whig political inclinations.

When Grant had returned to America from his costly world tour, he had depleted most of his savings and needed to earn money and find a new home. Wealthy friends bought him a home on Manhattan's Upper East Side, and to make an income, Grant, Jay Gould, and former Mexican Finance Secretary Matías Romero chartered the Mexican Southern Railroad, with plans to build a railroad from Oaxaca to Mexico City. Grant urged Chester A. Arthur, who had succeeded Garfield as president in 1881, to negotiate a free trade treaty with Mexico. Arthur and the Mexican government agreed, but the United States Senate rejected the treaty in 1883. The railroad was similarly unsuccessful, falling into bankruptcy the following year.

At the same time, Grant's son Ulysses Jr. had opened a Wall Street brokerage house with Ferdinand Ward. Ward was regarded as a rising star and the firm, Grant & Ward, was initially successful. In 1883, Grant joined the firm and invested $100,000 of his own money. To encourage investment, Ward paid investors abnormally high interest, by pledging the company's securities on multiple loans in a process called rehypothecation. Ward, in collusion with banker James D. Fish, kept secret from bank examiners, retrieved the firm's securities from the company's bank vault. When the trades went bad, multiple loans came due, all backed up by the same collateral. Historians agree that Grant was likely unaware of Ward's intentions, but it is unclear how much Buck Grant knew. In May 1884, enough investments went bad to convince Ward that the firm would soon be bankrupt. Ward told Grant of the impending failure, but assured Grant that this was a temporary shortfall. Grant approached businessman William Henry Vanderbilt, who gave him a personal loan of $150,000. Grant invested the money in the firm, but it was not enough to save it from failure. Essentially penniless, but compelled by a sense of personal honor, he repaid what he could with his Civil War mementos and the sale or transfer of all other assets. Vanderbilt took title to Grant's home, although he allowed the Grants to continue to reside there, and pledged to donate the souvenirs to the federal government and insisted the debt had been paid in full. Grant was distraught over Ward's deception and asked privately how he could ever "trust any human being again." In March 1885, as his health was failing, he testified against both Ward and Fish. Ward was convicted of fraud in October 1885, months after Grant's death, and served six and a half years in prison.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_S._Grant

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