Ulysses S. Grant (#18)

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) was the 18th President of the United States and one of the most paradoxical figures in American history. As commanding general of the Union Army, he accepted Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865 — the moment that effectively ended the Civil War. His nickname 'Unconditional Surrender' Grant, earned at Fort Donelson in 1862, captured his relentless military style.

Grant's presidency (1869–1877) is remembered largely for spectacular corruption: the Crédit Mobilier scandal, the Whiskey Ring (in which Treasury officials defrauded the government of millions in tax revenue), and Black Friday (1869), when financiers Jay Gould and James Fisk attempted to corner the gold market using White House connections. Grant himself was not personally corrupt, but his loyalty to dishonest associates made his administration one of the most corrupt in American history. His later rehabilitation by historians has recognized his genuine commitment to Black civil rights during Reconstruction and his successful suppression of the Ku Klux Klan. His autobiography, written while dying of throat cancer, is considered one of the finest military memoirs in American literature.