Ulysses S. Grant Memorial

Ulysses S. Grant Memorial. National Mall and Memorial Parks. , “Although a soldier by profession, I have never felt any sort of fondness for war, and I have never advocated it, except as a means of peace,” , General Ulysses S. Grant., Hiram Ulysses Grant, mistakenly listed as Ulysses Simpson Grant on United States Military Academy cadet rosters, ascended from Midwestern obscurity to become the Union’s military savior and, later, the 18th President of the United States. U.S. Grant’s requirement for “unconditional surrender” in American Civil War battles and sieges helped define his adopted initials. , , After President Abraham Lincoln promoted him to lieutenant general, Grant designed the comprehensive strategy that doomed Confederacy and forced Gen. Robert E. Lee’s April 9, 1865, surrender at Appomattox, Virginia. Grant issued generous surrender terms and worked with Lee to decide the fate of this nation, not merely at that hour, but for future generations. , , [Caption describing background painting:] Grant (above, wearing a sky blue overcoat) stands atop Orchard Knob and observes through field glasses the Union attack against Missionary Ridge, during the battle for Chattanooga, Tennessee. , , [ Sidebar:] The Memorial , , Civil War General Grant confidently gazes westward toward the nation’s heartland–and the memorial to his great benefactor, Abraham Lincoln. The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial captures the General’s cool, military bearing while in command astride his favorite warhorse, Cincinnati. Around him swirl the chaos and confusion of the battlefield exhibited by the memorial’s onrushing cavalry and artillery groups. , , Dedicated on April 27, 1922, the centennial of Grant’s birth, the memorial blends the work of sculptor Henry Merwin Shrady and architect Edward Pearce Casey, the son of the engineer who completed the Washington Monument. Shrady, self-taught and relatively unknown, won the memorial competition and devoted the final twenty years of his life to the project. Tragically, he died just fifteen days before the dedication, but not before capturing his own likeness within the cavalry grouping as the face of a fallen trooper.