The Greatness of Grant: Six Lessons to Learn from the Man who Saved the Union
- Joseph Archino
- Apr 27
- 14 min read
Among the pantheon of immortal American heroes, Ulysses S. Grant ranks at the very top, standing beside only George Washington and Abraham Lincoln for his contributions to the United States. As his faithful friend and most trusted subordinate during the American Civil War, William Tecumseh Sherman put it, “. . . if the name of Washington is allied with the birth of our country, that of Grant is forever identified with its preservation, its perpetuation.” Not only did Grant save the nation that Washington founded, but he also did it in a way that the father of America would have admired. U.S. Grant epitomized Washington’s timeless belief that, “Perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages.” A humble and hardworking man from America’s heartland, Grant faced tremendous hardship and adversity throughout his life, but no matter how difficult the obstacles facing him were, he always confronted the challenges head-on and refused to be broken by them. As Grant wrote in his Personal Memoirs, one of his superstitions was that whenever he “started to go anywhere, or to do anything, not to turn back, or stop until the thing intended was accomplished.” Guided by that philosophy, he rose to greatness as the top Union commander who won the Civil War. His achievements in that conflict and later as the 18th president of the United States forever mark him as a hero for the ages. His story offers many valuable lessons that have the power to inspire and help us overcome adversity in our own lives.
I. Seize Opportunity and Run with it
An 1843 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, Ulysses S. Grant performed extremely well during the Mexican-American War from 1846-1848, displaying great courage under fire and a sharp mind in the chaos of battle. After the war with Mexico, life in the peacetime Army took a heavy toll on Grant. Bouncing from one remote military post to another, he grew very lonely. Desperately missing his family, he struggled with his drinking and ultimately resigned from the Army in 1854. Over the next seven years, Grant toiled tirelessly to support his beloved wife Julia and their four children. At one point, he was reduced to selling firewood on the streets of St. Louis in his quest to solve “the problem of poverty.”
The outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861 found Grant still down on his luck and working as a clerk at his father’s leather goods store in Galena, Illinois. When the call for volunteers to defend the Union came, he eagerly set out to do his duty. Despite his experience as a soldier, though, the rumors of Grant's drinking haunted him and he initially struggled to obtain a command. No matter how disheartening this situation was as his fellow Illini and others around the North mobilized for war, however, Grant remained ready. He soon got the chance to prove himself and seized each opportunity to the utmost. Displaying a clear talent for military leadership as he drilled and mustered in new recruits, Grant earned an appointment as colonel of the Twenty-First Illinois Infantry in June 1861. One month later, he was promoted to brigadier general.
In early 1862, U.S. Grant emerged as the supreme soldier that President Abraham Lincoln and the Northern people desperately needed. With the Union war effort seemingly stalled and the leading Federal commanders frozen in inaction, Grant conquered Forts Henry and Donelson in western Tennessee, twin triumphs which helped erase a defeatist mentality that had begun to take hold over the Northern public. As William T. Sherman put it, in America’s hour of peril, Grant had “marched triumphant into Fort Donelson. After that none of us felt the least doubt as to the future of our country. . . .”
President Lincoln proceeded to reward Grant with a promotion to major general and Northerners anointed the victorious commander with the nickname, “Unconditional Surrender” Grant. The Union had found its hero.
By seizing his initial opportunities and then running with them, Grant won the trust of many throughout the North. The more he continued to fight and win, the clearer it became to Abraham Lincoln that U.S. Grant was the military champion that the Union needed to win the Civil War.
Like Ulysses S. Grant, we must also seize opportunities in life and run with them. If we make the most of our opportunities and go on to be our very best, we too can become champions in our own right.
II. Never Admit Defeat
On Sunday, April 6, 1862, Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston’s 44,000-man-strong Army of the Mississippi struck with all its might against Major General Ulysses S. Grant’s roughly 42,000 soldiers encamped around Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River. In a clash that reached a level of bloody intensity that the United States had never seen before, Grant’s army was thrown into a desperate fight for its very existence. No matter how grim circumstances looked for his troops that day, though, Grant never flinched and remained a tower of strength for his men. The late Civil War historian Bruce Catton concluded that the Union commander’s greatest contribution on this heated day was “the encouragement he gave to badly beaten troops, simply by his presence and his obstinate refusal to act as if things were going badly.”
Although driven all the way back to their final line of resistance, Grant and his soldiers survived the rebel onslaught on April 6. With his army badly bloodied and his remaining troops greatly demoralized, one of the commanding general’s subordinates asked if he should “make preparations for a retreat” that night. Grant fired right back. “Retreat? No! I propose to attack at daylight and whip them.” He spoke similarly to William T. Sherman, who found his boss standing by an oak tree in the pouring rain shortly after midnight. “Well Grant,” said Sherman, “we’ve had the devil’s own day, haven’t we?” “Yes,” answered a steely-eyed Grant. “Lick ‘em tomorrow though.”
Bolstered by reinforcements, General Grant took the initiative on the morning of April 7, launching a counteroffensive along the entire line of battle. After another day of savage fighting, Union forces recovered the ground that had previously been lost, and the Confederates were in full retreat. By standing by his men and refusing to panic in the face of relentless pressure and repeated setbacks, Grant had snatched victory from the jaws of defeat at the bloody Battle of Shiloh.
When we feel overwhelmed by setbacks and fear that failure is on the horizon, we must be like Ulysses S. Grant and never admit defeat. By standing strong and finding the courage to battle back, we too can overcome life’s greatest obstacles.
III. Adapt and Overcome
“. . . Vicksburg is the key,” declared President Abraham Lincoln early in the American Civil War. “The war can never be brought to a close until that key is in our pocket.” On Saturday, July 4, 1863, the Union finally had that key in hand, courtesy of Major General Ulysses S. Grant and his Army of the Tennessee. On what Grant’s trusted protégé William T. Sherman called, “the best Fourth of July since 1776,” Confederate Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton surrendered the rebel stronghold of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River and its garrison of nearly 30,000 soldiers. Grant’s triumph was one of the most momentous victories of the Civil War, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two and giving the Union unimpeded control of the entire Mississippi River. His operations against Vicksburg were hailed by men like Sherman as “one of the greatest campaigns in history. . . .” Above all else, Grant’s ultimate conquest of the city was a testament to his ability to adapt and overcome tremendous obstacles.
Vicksburg had nearly every advantage that a defender could hope for. Towering over a commanding bluff and overlooking a 180-degree bend in the Mississippi River, rebel artillery was perfectly positioned to guard against Union warships. On top of that, the fortress was surrounded by thick swamps and bayous, making it very difficult for Union troops to attempt a cross-country assault. With the land and water approaches to the city protected by heavy guns and stout fortifications, confident Southerners nicknamed their stronghold the “Gibraltar of the Confederacy,” an ode to the Rock of Gibraltar at the southern tip of Spain, a spot the Greeks believed was one of the Pillars of Hercules, which no one dared sail beyond. The job of taming this great gray beast fell to Ulysses S. Grant.
In December 1862 and through the early months of 1863, Grant tried and failed in his efforts to reach Vicksburg. His many “experiments” to find the best path forward included an attempt to dig a large canal, creating a new route to allow Union ships to bypass Vicksburg’s formidable defenses. Despite his ingenuity, however, this endeavor, like all of the others, came up empty. Some in the North grew impatient with the lack of progress in Grant’s campaign, but he remained as committed as ever and unleashed a bold new plan in the spring.
Under the cover of darkness on April 16, 1863, Union Admiral David Dixon Porter’s fleet daringly streamed past the mighty guns of Vicksburg. This bold move placed Federal naval power in the optimal position and allowed Grant and his army to cross the river below Vicksburg on April 30. Over the next three weeks, Grant and his army were simply unstoppable. As the great Civil War historian James M. McPherson explains, during that span, “Grant’s men marched 130 miles, fought and won five battles against separate forces that, if combined, would have been nearly as large as Grant’s own, and penned the Confederates up in the Vicksburg defenses.”
After nearly six months of frustration and failure, U.S. Grant and his soldiers finally had Vicksburg in their sights. Once the city was surrounded, Grant launched two heavy assaults on May 19 and 22, both of which were bloodily beaten back by the rebels. Adapting once again to the challenges before him, Grant made the decision to dispense with costly direct assaults against the strong Confederate defenses and ordered his army to dig in to besiege the city. After 47 days of siege, the rebels finally surrendered on the fourth of July, and the great prize of Vicksburg was at last in Union hands.
By continually brushing off failure and looking for new ways to adapt and overcome the obstacles before him on the road to Vicksburg, Ulysses S. Grant ultimately succeeded, achieving a victory that helped turn the tide of the Civil War in favor of the Union. As he later wrote in his Personal Memoirs, “The fate of the Confederacy was sealed when Vicksburg fell.”
Like Ulysses S. Grant, we too must be creative, perseverant, and tenacious to adapt and overcome roadblocks. If we always keep pushing forward and continue to look for new ways to approach our problems, we too will win whatever prize we are after.
IV. See the Big Picture
Following up his brilliance at Vicksburg, Major General Ulysses S. Grant was sent to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he rescued the besieged Union Army of the Cumberland and orchestrated the defeat of Confederate General Braxton Bragg’s Army of Tennessee in November 1863. After this latest triumph, President Abraham Lincoln elevated Grant to the sacred rank of lieutenant general in March 1864, making him the first officer to be promoted to that grade since America’s most revered soldier, George Washington. Lincoln had spent many agonizing days throughout the war searching for a military champion to guide the Union to ultimate victory. By naming Grant general-in-chief of the Armies of the United States, the president finally had his man. It was now up to U.S. Grant to finish off the Confederacy, once and for all.
As Union general-in-chief, Grant took the field with the Army of the Potomac, helping to guide it in some of the fiercest battles of the war against Confederate General Robert E. Lee and his vaunted Army of Northern Virginia. While he engaged Lee’s stout soldiers in his immediate front, Grant also saw far beyond the battlegrounds of Virginia. With overall command of all Union armies, he made the most of his manpower and resources, setting Federal forces in motion far and wide across the war-torn nation to apply maximum pressure against the Confederacy. As Grant kicked in the front door of the Confederacy by relentlessly battling Lee in Virginia, other men in blue like his faithful protégé William T. Sherman stormed the backdoor, ripping the heart out of the Southern heartland by marching with unmatched power through Georgia and the Carolinas.
By tying down Lee and his troops in the trenches of Petersburg, Virginia, which was the lifeline of the Confederate capital of Richmond, Grant’s unabated pressure over the course of a roughly 10-month siege ultimately drained the mighty Army of Northern Virginia of its strength. After collapsing under the weight of a renewed offensive push by the Army of the Potomac in the spring of 1865, Richmond was finally in Union hands on April 3. Just days later, Robert E. Lee surrendered what remained of his army to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, a pivotal event that helped spark the subsequent capitulation of other Confederate forces across the South, bringing the bloody Civil War to a close.
The intensity of the fighting and the challenges that arose during the final year of the Civil War were truly staggering. Through it all, though, Grant never allowed anything to steer him from his course to bring the struggle to a close. By fully comprehending the big picture of the war and harmonizing the many armies under his command so that they functioned as one grand war machine, he won the war and saved the Union from ruin.
Like Ulysses S. Grant, we must also do our very best to see the big picture when we are working toward a goal or trying to overcome adversity. If we always keep the big picture foremost in our minds and take step after measured step to achieve our objective, we too will succeed in the end.
V. Be a Leader for Everyone
After the four bloodiest years in American history, the job of rebuilding the war-scarred nation and reestablishing peace across the land fell to Ulysses S. Grant as the 18th President of the United States. The legendary poet Walt Whitman considered this task “more difficult than the war itself,” but Grant faced the challenges head-on, just as he had done on the battlefield and all throughout his life. Among the many highlights of his highly underrated presidency, perhaps the greatest was Grant’s commitment to being a true leader for each and every citizen of the United States.
Rather than being vengeful and looking to punish those who had recently taken up arms against the Stars and Stripes, U.S. Grant campaigned for the presidency in 1868 under the slogan, “Let us have peace.” As president, he stood as a unifier and worked tirelessly to maintain peace as the Southern states that had previously seceded were brought back into the Union. Despite intense opposition and violence directed toward Federal troops stationed in the South to enforce law and order, the larger prospect of keeping the peace between the North and the South was achieved. Because of his balance of magnanimous and firm leadership, there was no outbreak of a second Civil War under the watch of Ulysses S. Grant.
After the Civil War, former slaves faced innumerable challenges as they broke free from the chains of bondage and began their lives as freedmen in the South. President Grant became their champion and guardian. Over his two terms, he did everything in his power to safeguard the civil rights of African Americans. With Grant’s support, the freedmen were equipped with the right to vote after the ratification of the 15th Amendment in 1870. When groups like the Klu Klux Klan emerged to terrorize the former slaves and suppress their newly earned rights, U.S. Grant hunted them down. By 1872, the hero of the Civil War had vanquished the Klan. For all of his efforts to protect African Americans, the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass hailed Ulysses S. Grant as “the vigilant, firm, impartial, and wise protector of my race.”
In his farewell message to Congress in 1876, President Grant said, “I have acted in every instance from a conscientious desire to do what was right, constitutional, within the law, and for the very best interests of the whole people.” From his efforts to heal the nation and promote peace after the Civil War, his actions to protect the freed slaves, and also his struggles to secure fair treatment for Native Americans, Ulysses S. Grant was truly a leader for every American.
As we emerge as leaders in our own lives, we must be like Ulysses S. Grant and use the power we have been entrusted with to the benefit of everyone around us. Duty compels us to foster peace and to protect those most in need. As Grant teaches us, a true leader stands up for everyone.
VI. Persevere Until the Very End
After giving every ounce of devotion to his country in war and in peace, Ulysses S. Grant had earned the right to happily live out his days. In a cruel twist of fate, however, what should have been his glory days turned into perhaps the most crushing period of his life.
In May 1884, Grant and many of his family members lost their life savings as a result of the duplicity of Ferdinand Ward, a financier whom Grant had entered into a partnership with. As U.S. Grant biographer Ron Chernow puts it, “Ward turned out to be literally the Bernie Madoff of his day.” (Responsible for running the largest Ponzi scheme in history, American financier Bernie Madoff defrauded thousands of investors of an estimated $65 billion before his decades-long fraud unraveled. He later pled guilty and was sentenced to 150 years in prison in 2009.)
A month after his life savings had been wiped out, Grant began to experience burning pain whenever he swallowed anything. In October, he learned from his doctor that he was afflicted with throat cancer. Terrified that he would die and leave his beloved wife Julia destitute, the legendary general summoned all of his remaining strength to fight the last great battle of his life with the power of the pen.
After the Civil War was over, many of the prominent figures who had shaped the conflict could hardly wait to write their memoirs. Grant was not one of them. As Chernow writes, he “was content to march to his grave in dignified silence, letting his extraordinary wartime record speak for itself.” It was only after he was left broke and diagnosed with cancer that Grant finally agreed to pen his memoirs in order to ensure that his wife and family would have financial security after he was gone.
Enduring pain so severe that even something as simple as trying to swallow food or water left him in terrible agony, Grant sometimes toiled over his manuscript for up to six hours a day. It was a race against time for him, and as Chernow records, he “pumped out 336,000 words of superb prose in a year.” As Grant’s throat cancer continued to progress, he was eventually forced to dictate his words. After he lost his voice, he continued to relentlessly work, scribbling messages on thin strips of paper.
Perseverant until the very end, Ulysses S. Grant won his final battle, completing his manuscript on July 16, 1885, just one week before his death. The Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant went on to sell a record-breaking three hundred thousand copies in two-volume sets. Julia Grant eventually received around $450,000, which Chernow writes was “an astonishing sum for book royalties at the time.”
For a man who battled hardship all throughout his life, Ulysses S. Grant’s final act might have been his greatest triumph over adversity of all. Through the power of his unbreakable perseverance, he won his last battle, leaving his beloved wife with financial security for the remainder of her days.
Like Ulysses S. Grant, we too must persevere until the very end in everything that we do. If we operate with the same courage and fight with the same fire as Grant did, there is truly nothing that can stop us from winning life’s toughest battles.
Bibliography
“Campaign for Vicksburg.” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, www.nps.gov/vick/learn/historyculture/campaign-for-vicksburg.htm.
Chernow, Ron. Grant. Penguin Books, 2018.
Daugherty, Greg. “President Ulysses S. Grant: Known for Scandals, Overlooked for Achievements.” History.Com, A&E Television Networks, 30 June 2025, www.history.com/articles/ulysses-s-grant-president-accomplishments-scandals-15th-amendment.
Grant, Ulysses S. Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant: Volumes One and Two. Open Road Integrated Media, 2014.
McCullough, David. 1776. Simon & Schuster, 2005.
McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era . Oxford University Press, 2003.
McPherson, James M. Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief. Penguin Books, 2014.
Young, John Russell. Around the World With General Grant . Vol. 1, The American News Company, 1879.
Comments