...Grant was born in large family owner of a tannery in Ohio. Graduated in 1842 military school at West Point and was commissioned as a lieutenant in an infantry regiment stationed in Missouri. By that time, he had changed his name from Hiram Ulysses to Ulysses Simpson to avoid the embarrassing initials "HUG", which in English meant "embrace, grasp, grab."

He served in the US War against Mexico 1846-1848. He distinguished himself in the battle with the Mexicans near the city of Monterrey, receiving the praise of the commander. His infantry regiment then took part in the landing operation in the port of Veracruz on the coast. Gulf of Mexico, which became a turning point in the Mexican-American War.

Grant then successfully commanded his infantrymen in battles against the Mexicans at Cerro Gordo, Molino del Rey, and Chapultepec. After the capture of Mexico City by the American army (September 14, 1847), Ulysses Grant, who had excellent characteristics during the war, was promoted ahead of schedule to captain with the salary of a senior lieutenant.

After the war, Grant married and continued to serve in various garrisons - in Mississippi and New York, on Lake Michigan and on the Pacific coast of the United States. His last place of service was the Californian Fort Humboldt, after which Ulysses Grant resigned. Returning to his home state, he studied agriculture worked as a clerk in his father's leather business. However, the thought of continuing military career did not leave the retired army officer.

With the outbreak of the Civil War in the United States of 1861-1865, as a military officer who distinguished himself in the war against Mexico, it was not without difficulty that he was appointed commander of the Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment. Ulysses Grant acted so successfully that within two months he received the rank of brigadier general and command of the northern military forces in the southeastern district of Missouri.

In February 1862, Brigadier General Grant captured the heavily fortified Confederate forts Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. The commander of the northerners led a combined land-river expedition of 25 thousand people. Its goal was to destroy the Confederate defensive line created by General Joseph Johnson. The river squadron of armored gunboats on the Tennessee was commanded by Admiral Andrew Foote.

During these two major operations, General Ulysses Grant skillfully organized the interaction of the forces of the army and the river naval flotilla on Tennessee. This allowed him to present the commander of Fort Donelson, Major General John Floyd, with an ultimatum of unconditional surrender: “There can be no conditions short of immediate and unconditional surrender.” Southern proposals for a truce were rejected.

The new commander of the Donelson garrison (instead of Major General Simon Buckner, who fled on the boat Floyd), after some deliberation, had to agree to such conditions, although the fort garrison (15 thousand people) had good opportunities fight under siege conditions. The besieged successfully withstood the attacks of the northerners' armored river gunboats and made a sortie from the fort, almost breaking through the siege ring. The losses of the southerners, including prisoners, amounted to 16 thousand 623 people, the northerners - 2 thousand 832 people. These two great victories made Brigadier General Ulysses Simpson Grant famous in the Northern army at the very beginning of the Civil War.

In the spring of the same year, Grant received the rank of major general for victories over the southerners. He now enjoyed the favor of President Abraham Lincoln and was appointed commander of the Army of the Tennessee, one of the strongest in the Northern military. In April 1862, his troops successfully repulsed the Confederate army under the command of General Joseph Johnson, which launched a surprise attack on the Northern positions at Shilow in Tennessee. Grant managed to unravel Johnson's intentions and impose his will on him in the battle.

After the victory at Shilow, the Army of the Tennessee launched an offensive along the Mississippi River Valley. Although the Confederate troops here had numerical superiority and positions convenient for defense, the northerners defeated them in several battles.

The Army of the Tennessee moved steadily south toward the city of Vicksburg, working closely with the Northern river flotilla on the Mississippi. The Federalists had to contend with the daring raids of General Nathan Forrest's Confederate cavalry division. Large enemy forces were concentrated in Vicksburg under the command of General John Pemberton. In June 1863, the city was besieged by northerners from both land and river. Blockade fighting and artillery shelling of the Vicksburg fortifications began. The northern river flotilla gained dominance in the middle reaches of the Mississippi.

The commander of the army of the northerners built a blockade ring in such a way that the southerners found themselves isolated from their main forces, which were never able to come to the aid of the almost 30,000-strong blocked garrison. Constant artillery shelling from land and from the river demoralized him, since the besieged lost the counter-battery battle at the very beginning of the siege. Upon learning that General Grant was preparing for a decisive assault, General Pemberton capitulated.

During the Vicksburg operation, the northern army covered 330 kilometers in 19 days of fighting, providing itself with food through requisitions. She won victories in five battles, not counting large number minor skirmishes with the Confederates.

After the surrender of the Vicksburg garrison, the northerners established complete control over the vast Mississippi River valley with its communications and river port cities. The Confederation of Southern American States was actually divided territorially into two parts, communication between which was interrupted by hostilities. This alone threatened the very existence of the Confederacy and its ability to continue the war.

The Vicksburg victory glorified General Grant in the camp of the northerners and provided him with good prospects for career growth. He received command of the so-called Mississippi Division and achieved another success in the Civil War, lifting the siege of the city of Chattanooga with decisive offensive actions. The Confederate troops besieging him hastily retreated without getting involved in a major field battle, and Ulysses Grant began pursuing the enemy, preventing the Southerners from gaining a foothold in new positions.

The civil war was approaching its logical conclusion. The South, in its economic, military and political potential, could not defeat the North, which was developed in all respects. President Abraham Lincoln spent three years trying to find among his many generals a commander who could victoriously end the protracted war.

In the end, the choice of head of state fell on the successful and decisive General Ulysses Grant. In March 1864, President Lincoln appointed him commander in chief of all government armies fighting the Confederate forces and promoted him to lieutenant general. All federal military forces between the Mississippi and the Allegheny Mountains were now under his command. “I need this man. He knows how to fight,” President Lincoln said about Grant.

The new Federalist commander-in-chief in the West immediately assumed overall leadership of the war effort. President Abraham Lincoln gave him enormous powers, demanding only one thing from Grant - the complete victory of the North in the Civil War. Realizing that the combat effectiveness of the southerners was decreasing day by day, Ulysses Grant waged a frankly protracted war, well thought out and organized. In fact, he put into practice the Anaconda plan, proposed at one time to the American government by General Scott. Then, for various reasons, this plan was not accepted in Washington, but the idea itself was approved by the high command of the Northern army.

The commander-in-chief ordered the troops under the command of General William Sherman to attack one of the largest cities of the Confederacy, Atlanta, and General Philip Sheridan to neutralize through active actions the large forces of the Confederates concentrated in the Shenandoah River valley. Thus, the forces of the southern army were disunited. Not only were they deprived of interaction, but they were also unable to come to each other’s rescue.

Grant's first major operation as commander in chief was the Battle of Lookout Mountain (Battle of Chattanooga), which took place in November 1863. Under the command of General Grant there were approximately 60 thousand people, and his army outnumbered the southerners here by one and a half times. The first day of the battle did not bring noticeable successes to the northerners, but on the second day they completely defeated the army of the southerners of General Braxton Bragg. He lost almost 13 thousand people (most of them captured and missing - deserters), 40 artillery pieces and 7 thousand guns. The losses of the winners amounted to about 8 thousand people. Victory at the Battle of Chattanooga allowed the Federalist army to launch new offensives in the South.

Ulysses Grant himself, along with the army of General George Meade, moved to the city of Richmond against the Army of Virginia of General Lee, the best commander of the Confederate southern states. If they defeated him, the northerners could count on a quick end to the civil war.

Several bloody battles - at Wilderness, Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor - did not give a decisive advantage to government troops. The Confederates fought defensive battles and successfully resisted the army of the northerners. Thanks to the military skill of General Robert Edward Lee, the life of the Southern Confederacy was extended.

However, Lee's army, as well as Grant's, suffered heavy losses that were not replenished. The northerners regularly received reinforcements, since the North had incomparably greater human reserves. In addition, they did not experience great difficulties with ammunition and weapons, which could not be said about their enemy.

Although the Army of Virginia, led by General Lee, fought on equal terms with the Northerners, it gradually began to lose the initiative in the fighting. The general strategic line of the command of Washington's armed forces now boiled down to persistent offensive actions in the South, to the disunity of the Confederate military forces. Soon the Confederates were busy repelling enemy attacks, and the maneuvering of the Southern army began to look more like a retreat.

In July 1864, General Grant's troops surrounded Lee's army near Petersburg, Georgia. Before this, the Federalists won the Battle of Travel Station and successfully crossed the James River. The engineers of the Army of the Potomac built a pontoon bridge across it in 8 hours, and the southerners did not have time to stop it. Grant misled the enemy about the location of the crossing of the water barrier.

On June 15-18, 1864, the Battle of Petersburg took place in Georgia. The northerners were unable to immediately capture this fortified town with a small garrison. In the path of General Ulysses Grant's 65,000-strong Army of the Potomac stood 40,000 Confederate veterans of the Civil War. They occupied well-fortified field defensive positions. The three-day battle cost the northerners the loss of more than 8 thousand people, while the losses of the southerners amounted to about 5 thousand people.

Then Grant decided to begin a systematic siege of the city of Petersburg and take possession of the railroad south of the city. During the siege, the sides waged trench warfare with sorties and maneuvers. On the last day of June, the northerners blew up a tunnel under the fortifications of Pietersberg. The explosion of 4 tons of gunpowder created a huge crater through which one of the corps of the Army of the Potomac was supposed to burst into the city. However, due to the uncoordinated actions of the Northern commanders, a huge mass of soldiers accumulated in the crater, and the Confederates, quickly coming to their senses, opened heavy rifle and cannon fire on the crowd. The assault on the city failed, and the attackers lost about 4 thousand people, while the defenders lost a little more than one thousand (including the victims of the underground explosion).

The siege lasted until April 1 of the following 1865. That day, the Northern victory at Five Forks forced General Lee to retreat from Petersburg. Moreover, it cost him great effort to fight his way out of the encirclement. However, General Grant could not stop him, although by that time there were two northern armies in the blockade ring around Petersburg - the Potomac and the James, with a total number of about 90 thousand people.

The Army of Virginia began to retreat westward - northern troops under the command of Ulysses Grant persistently pursued it. The commander-in-chief ordered General Philip Henry Sheridan to cut off the Confederates' retreat, and he successfully completed the task, gaining a foothold in new positions. Now the southerners’ ability to maneuver, as well as to make up for losses, was reduced to a minimum. Federalist cavalry constantly harassed retreating Confederate troops.

The Civil War in the United States was drawing to a close. While staying at Appomattox Court House (Virginia), General Lee finally realized that his greatly thinned last battles the army is no longer able to resist a stronger enemy. On April 9, 1865, he announced the surrender of the Army of Virginia and thereby avoided even greater, now unjustified, losses of life. 28 thousand 356 people surrendered.

For the southerners, this news turned out to be a fatal blow. Their Confederation was deprived of its main military force and, in fact, ceased to exist as public education. Thus, the unity of the United States, which had been disrupted during the Civil War, was restored. However, US President Abraham Lincoln did not have to fully enjoy the victory - on April 14, he was mortally wounded in the theater by a pistol shot by actor John Booth, a supporter of the southerners.

Military operations in the southern United States after the surrender of General Lee's Army of Virginia ended within a few weeks - by May 26. The US Congress solemnly awarded the commander-in-chief of government forces, Ulysses Simpson Grant, the rank of full general (the second time this has been awarded military rank in the history of the country; it was first assigned in 1799).

In 1867, Ulysses Grant received the post of Secretary of War in the Johnson government. He successfully started his political career and was subsequently twice elected from the Republican Party to the presidency of the United States. However, the third presidential election campaign ended unsuccessfully for Grant, and he left the political arena, deciding to try his hand at another field.

Having moved from Washington to New York, the retired general became actively involved in the banking business and quickly went bankrupt after several unsuccessful financial transactions. Recent years He devoted his life to writing memoirs about the American Civil War. They were a great success among the American public and provided some material well-being the Grant family.

IN military history Ulysses Simpson Grant is known for playing a pivotal role in the Federalist victory over the Confederates in the Civil War. At the same time, he showed himself to be a talented strategist and tactician, a reliable ally of the American President Abraham Lincoln, one of the most outstanding statesmen in American history.