From the University of Virginia's Miller Center. Learn about all the aspects of Grant's life, from childhood up through his death. Also includes related articles, speeches, and video.

Concise biography on Civil War hero and 18th president Ulysses S. Grant.

The papers of Ulysses S. Grant contain approximately 50,000 items dating from 1819-1974, with the bulk falling in the period 1843-1885. They include general and family correspondence, speeches, writings, reports, messages, military records, financial and legal records, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, memorabilia, and other papers.

In the ratings game of U.S. presidents, Ulysses S. Grant usually ends up in the bottom tier. And this despite the fact that Grant was the Union general who finally brought the Confederate armies of the Civil War to their knees and the president who suppressed the menace of the Ku Klux Klan, and reduced both taxes and the national debt after the war.

Until recently, the consensus has been that Grant, so brilliant in warfare, was a failure as president. "Hopelessly naive," "passive," "subservient to Congress," are frequent descriptions. Recent scholarship shows instead that Grant was a good president; certainly a strong one.

As a civilian, the beloved American Civil War general and two-term president failed at every attempt to make money. Except for one.