Civil War Project on Military leaders

Term 4 History

Branden Sheehan

U.S. Grant • Gen. Ulysses S. Grant argued with the President and

aligned himself with the Radical Republicans. He was, as the symbol of Union victory during the Civil War, their logical candidate for President in 1868.

• Born in 1822, Grant was the son of an Ohio tanner. He went to West Point rather against his will and graduated in the middle of his class. In the Mexican War he fought under Gen. Zachary Taylor.

• At the outbreak of the Civil War, Grant was working in his father's leather store in Galena, Illinois. He was appointed by the Governor to command an unruly volunteer regiment. Grant whipped it into shape and by September 1861 he had risen to the rank of brigadier general of volunteers.

U.S. Grant continued• Ulysses Grant (1822-1885) commanded

the victorious Union army during the American Civil War (1861-1865) and served as the 18th U.S. president from 1869 to 1877.

• He was known as a skilled horseman but an otherwise undistinguished student.

• He was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the 4th U.S. Infantry, which was stationed at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, near St. Louis.

U.S. Grant Ending• After seeing action in the Mexican-American War,

Grant returned to Missouri and married Julia in August 1848. The couple eventually had four children.

• The congressman who appointed Grant mistakenly believed his first name was Ulysses and his middle name was Simpson (his mother’s maiden name).

• In the early years of his marriage, Grant was assigned to a series of remote army posts, some of them on the West Coast, which kept him separated from his family. In 1854, he resigned from the military.

• http://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/ulysses-s-grant - (2:31)

Robert E. Lee • After graduating second in his class from

West Point in 1829, Lee was commissioned in the Corps of Engineers.

• Lee was superintendent at West Point from 1852 to 1855, when he was made lieutenant colonel of the 2d Cavalry and sent to W Texas.

• He commanded that regiment from 1857 to 1861. While at Arlington House on an extended leave, he was called to lead the company of U.S. marines that captured John Brown at Harpers Ferry in Oct., 1859.

Robert E. Lee continued • In March, 1862, Davis recalled him to Richmond.

Lee's plan to prevent reinforcements from reaching Gen. George B. McClellan, whose army was threatening Richmond, was brilliantly executed by T. J. (Stonewall) Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley.

• On April 23 he assumed command of the military and naval forces of Virginia, which he organized thoroughly before they were absorbed by the Confederacy.

• Lee then became military adviser to Confederate President Jefferson Davis and was made a Confederate general.

Confederate President Jefferson Davis• Jefferson Davis was elected President of the

Confederate States of America November 6, 1861. • Davis wrote a memoir entitled “The Rise and Fall of

the Confederate Government”, which he completed in 1881.

• Jefferson Davis (1808-1889) was the first and only president of the Confederate States of America.

• Jefferson Davis was a Civil War Confederate leader from West Point to the Southern secession.

Abe Lincoln • Abraham Lincoln is elected the 16th president of the

United States over a deeply divided Democratic Party, becoming the first Republican to win the presidency.

• Lincoln, Abraham (12 Feb. 1809-15 Apr. 1865), was the sixteenth president of the United States, he was born in Hardin County, Kentucky and the son of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks farmers.

• Abraham was born in a log cabin on "Sinking Spring Farm" three miles south of Hodgenville. When he was two years old the family moved to another farm on Knob Creek about seven miles northeast of Hodgenville.

Abe Lincoln Continued • The tradition that the Lincolns moved because of

dislike of slavery may have some truth; they belonged to a Baptist denomination that broke from the parent church on the slavery issue.

• However, the main reason for the move was Thomas's uncertainty of Kentucky land titles. Indiana offered secure titles surveyed under the Northwest Ordinance.

• After a year of rough homemaking, Thomas Lincoln returned to Kentucky, where on 2 December 1819 he wed the widow Sarah Bush Johnston and brought her and her three children to Pigeon Creek.

Sources • Bing.com (Pictures of the military leaders) • Google.com, American National Biography Online

(ANBO) • Youtube.com (U.S. Grant, R.E. Lee, Conf. Pres.

Jefferson Davis and Abe Lincoln. • URL’S • U.S. Grant- http://youtu.be/ezHnpb4LXes (4:46)• R.E. lee- http://youtu.be/aeGBpTFZhh4 (3:55) • Conf. Pres. Jefferson Davis-

http://youtu.be/vo26Ffnl4XU (6:45)• Abe Lincoln- http://youtu.be/L80_q2tPveo (3:54)