On July 23, 1885, Ulysses S. Grant died of throat cancer in Wilton, N.Y. In a recent biography, historian H.W. Brands presents a compelling case that Grant as both soldier and statesman was “the man who saved the Union.”
Historians have not always been so kind to Grant. He has been called a “butcher” for his strategy of attrition warfare during the Civil War, especially during the Overland Campaign against Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia in 1864. His two-term presidency is remembered most for scandals and corruption, none of which touched him personally. As a general, he has been overshadowed by Lee; as a political leader he has shrunk to insignificance in Lincoln's shadow. But, just as the soldier-statesman George Washington was the indispensable man of America's struggle for independence, the soldier-statesman Ulysses Grant was the indispensable man in saving the Union.
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