🇺🇸 Most Badass Presidents: Combat Veteran Edition #2 Ulysses S. Grant Ulysses S. Grant, our 18th President, was one badass President. He was reserved in speech but relentless in battle. He also saved the Union. Born April 27, 1822, in Point Pleasant, Ohio. He is widely considered the finest horseman to ever graduate from West Point. He was baptized in fire during the Mexican War. At the Battle of Palo Alto, he sat on his horse as a cannonball tore the head off a soldier in front of him and the jaw of the officer beside him. At the Battle of Monterrey, he rode his horse “Comanche style,” using its body as a shield against enemy snipers as it sped through city streets to get ammo to troops. At the Battle of San Cosme Gate, he hauled a disassembled howitzer up into a church steeple, reassembled it, and rained shells onto the enemy. Gen. Taylor personally recommended him for bravery. He received two brevet promotions in the war. Grant resigned from the Army in 1854 to be with his family. The Civil War called him back. He rejoined as colonel of the 21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry and quickly rose to brigadier general. In his first command at the Battle of Belmont, he had his horse shot out from under him while leading from the front. Later, he found himself alone in a cornfield, the absolute last Union man on that side of the riverbank as a column of Confederate forces closed in 50 yds away. He went back looking for a lost unit that wasn’t there. “There is a Yankee officer, boys,” Confederate General Polk reportedly shouted. “Try your rifles on him.” Grant spun his borrowed horse, slid down a steep riverbank, and trotted it across a narrow plank onto a moving steamship as bullets hissed around him. Exhausted, he laid down on a sofa in the captain’s cabin. Upon hearing gunfire, he stood up. Seconds later, a musket ball ripped through the ship’s wall and buried itself in the sofa where his head had been. In the North’s first major triumph of the war, he took Fort Donelson and earned the nickname “Unconditional Surrender Grant”. At Shiloh, fighting on a crushed ankle and crutches, he refused to retreat after a disastrous first day. When asked if he would pull back, he simply replied, “No. Lick ’em tomorrow, though.” He did. He captured Vicksburg after a brilliant campaign and forty-day siege splitting the Confederacy in two. Lincoln finally got his fighting general. During the Wilderness Campaign, he sat on a stump at Saunders Field, calmly whittling a stick and smoking a cigar while shells exploded around his headquarters, showering his uniform with dirt. When a panicked officer claimed Lee would cut them off, Grant removed his cigar and coolly replied: “I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to do…try to think what we are going to do ourselves.” He didn’t retreat. He turned south, the first Union general to stay locked in with Lee. He would “fight it out on this line if it took all summer.” Lee knew how to win the battle. Grant knew how to win a war. At Appomattox on April 9, 1865, Grant accepted Lee’s surrender. While Lee wore a pristine dress sword and sash, Grant arrived in a muddy private’s coat with tarnished shoulder straps. He remained a common soldier’s general to the end. He saved the Republic on the battlefields long before he ever set foot in the White House. Thank you, Mr. President! 🫡🇺🇸
