2011 (D) Presidential $1 Coin - Ulysses S Grant

Presidential $1 Coin — Ulysses S. Grant,  18^th President, 1869 - 1877

Born in 1822, Ulysses S. Grant was the son of an Ohio tanner.  He went to West Point and fought in the Mexican War under General Zachary Taylor.  At the outbreak of the Civil War, Grant was appointed to command an unruly volunteer regiment.  By September 1861, he had risen to the rank of brigadier general of volunteers.  President Lincoln later promoted him to major general of volunteers.  After he won battles at Vicksburg, Miss., and Chattanooga, Tenn., Lincoln appointed him general-in-chief in March 1864.  Finally, on April 9, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered.

As the symbol of Union victory during the Civil War, General Ulysses S. Grant was the Republican Party’s logical candidate for President in 1868.  As President, he allowed radical Reconstruction to run its course in the south, bolstering it at times with military force.  Under his administration, Yellowstone was established as the first national park and Congress passed a bill calling for equal pay for women and men holding similar jobs in federal government agencies.  The happiest day of the Grant presidency was May 21, 1874, when his daughter Nellie was married in an extravagant White House wedding.  After retiring from the presidency, Grant learned that he had cancer of the throat.  At the suggestion of author Mark Twain, he started writing his memoirs to help pay off his debts and provide for his family; Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant became a best-seller.  The book is today considered one of the finest military autobiographies ever written.  Soon after completing the last page, he died on July 23, 1885.