Ulysses S. Grant"Unconditional Surrender Grant"

Ulysses S. Grant was born Hiram Ulysses Grant on April 27, 1822 (a clerical error at West Point permanently changed his name). After a mixed early career including struggles in business and farming, he returned to military service at the outbreak of the Civil War and rose rapidly through the ranks, eventually becoming Commanding General of the entire Union Army under Lincoln. His relentless, high-casualty but ultimately successful campaigns wore down the Confederacy, and he accepted General Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House in 1865, effectively ending the war. Riding on his immense wartime popularity, he won the presidency in 1868 and served two terms (1869–1877), during which he worked to protect the rights of newly freed Black Americans and combat the Ku Klux Klan, though his administration was also plagued by numerous corruption scandals among his appointees, even as Grant himself was widely regarded as personally honest.