Identity:
Ulysses Simpson Grant was a professional soldier, and later US President.
Life:
A member of the West Point class of 1843, he served in Mexico, and resigned from the army in 1854. In 1861 he became colonel of volunteers, and rose in rank as he won a succession of victories in the West, at Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg and Chattanooga. He was then appointed General in Chief and confronted Lee in the Virginia campaigns of 1864-1865, finally accepting Lee's surrender at Appomattox.
He was President of the USA from 1869 to 1877. After disastrous financial losses, and facing death from cancer, he rapidly wrote his memoirs, which are regarded as the greatest to emerge from the Civil War.
Bibliography:
Grant, Ulysses Simpson, Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, New York, 1885-1886; Cullum Memorial Edition, Register of Graduates and former cadets, United States Military Academy, West Point, 1980, No. 1187.