Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885), born Hiram Ulysses Grant at Point Pleasant, Ohio, graduated from West Point in 1843 and served as a quartermaster and line officer in the Mexican War. He resigned from the army in 1854 and struggled as a farmer and clerk. In the Civil War he rose from colonel of the 21st Illinois to general-in-chief, winning at Fort Donelson, Vicksburg and Chattanooga and receiving Lee's surrender at Appomattox in 1865. He served two terms as president (1869–1877). Ruined in 1884 by the fraud of his partner Ferdinand Ward and diagnosed with throat cancer that year, he wrote his memoirs to provide for his family and died days after finishing them.
The Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant were written in a race against death. In the spring of 1884 the brokerage firm of Grant & Ward collapsed through his partner's fraud, leaving the former president living on borrowed money.
