ULYSSES S. GRANT: HIS KEY BATTLES

As the Civil War began, Ulysses S. Grant had been struggling financially for seven years after leaving the military under a cloud—and failing at every civilian endeavor he tried.

Scroll to start

After joining the Union Army in summer 1861, he was quickly promoted to brigadier general and given a command. His leadership in the war would not only radically change the course of his life—it would alter the course of the nation.

BATTLE OF BELMONT

Missouri

Nov 7, 1861

Confederate Victory

Seven months into the war, Grant and his equally green troops gain invaluable combat experience in their strike against a Confederate camp. Poor discipline dooms initial success, but Grant rallies his men to safety.

Battle of Belmont, Missouri, illustration from an issue of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Almanac. (Credit: Buyenlarge/Getty Images)

In one of Grant’s first Civil War battles, the newly minted brigadier general took more than 3,000 inexperienced soldiers by boat to attack a Confederate camp at Belmont, Missouri. Despite Grant having his horse shot from under him, his men drove the Confederates through their camp to the riverbank. But the undisciplined Union troops began plundering the camp, giving enemy reinforcements time to cross the river and block the Union forces’ access to their boats. Grant burned the camp to stop the looting and rallied his men to fight their way back to the transports. The 39-year-old general gained no ground, but earned valuable experience leading his future Army of the Tennessee in combat. And his untested troops, as he later wrote, ‘acquired a confidence in themselves at Belmont that did not desert them through the war.’


Generals
  • Union: Ulysses S. Grant 
  • Confederate: Leonidas Polk 
Troop Size
  • Union: 3,114 
  • Confederate: ~5,000 
Casualties & Losses
  • Union: 607 
  • Confederate: 641 
LEARN MORE  

BATTLE OF FORT HENRY

Kentucky

Nov 6, 1862

Union Victory

To wrest Tennessee from the Confederates, Grant teams with naval commander Andrew Foote to attack Fort Henry at the Tennessee River’s mouth. Foote's bombardment forces a surrender even before Grant’s troopers arrive, delivering the Union’s first major victory.

Bombardment and capture of Fort Henry, Tennessee by the federal gunboats under the command of Commodore Andrew H. Foote. (Credit: VCG Wilson/Corbis/Getty Images)

As 1862 began, Fort Henry guarded access to the Tennessee River—a vital component of the Confederacy’s Tennessee defenses. Grant and Andrew Foote, an ironclad flotilla commander, planned a joint army-navy attack that could capture the poorly placed, waterlogged fort and open the river to future Union advances. On February 6, Foote’s gunboats began their bombardment and his ironclads steamed to close range. Confederate commander Lloyd Tilghman realized the fort’s vulnerabilities and had evacuated all but about 100 men to nearby Fort Donelson. Union naval firepower quickly prevailed, and Tilghman surrendered the fort—even before Grant’s soldiers, slowed by swollen creeks and muddy roads, arrived. It was the war’s first major Union victory. Seizing the momentum, Grant moved on Fort Donelson.


Generals
  • Union: Ulysses S. Grant, Andrew H. Foote 
  • Confederate: Lloyd Tilghman 
Troop Size
  • Union: 17,000 
  • Confederate: 94 
Casualties & Losses
  • Union: 41 
  • Confederate: 94 
LEARN MORE  

BATTLE OF FORT DONELSON

Tennessee

Feb 11-16, 1862

Union Victory

Five days later, Grant’s forces move on Fort Donelson. Refusing Confederate surrender terms, Grant earns the nickname “Unconditional Surrender”—and a promotion. The Fort Henry and Donelson victories open key rivers as future avenues of invasion.

The Battle of Fort Donelson. (Credit: MPI/Getty Images)

Less than a week after Fort Henry’s surrender, Grant’s soldiers and Foote’s ironclads moved on Fort Donelson, situated on high bluffs overlooking the Cumberland River. By February 14, Grant surrounded the fort, and Foote’s ironclads tried to repeat their Fort Henry success—only to be repelled by Donelson’s cannons. The next morning, Confederates attempted a breakout, cracked Grant’s siege line, but turned back after Grant counterattacked. On February 16, Grant’s old friend Simon Bolivar Buckner, having been abandoned by other senior Confederate commanders, asked for terms of surrender and was stunned when Grant offered none but "unconditional and immediate surrender." Twin victories at Forts Henry and Donelson offered an encouraging start to 1862: flushing the Confederates from portions of Kentucky and West Tennessee, cutting vital east-west rail lines and opening the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers as Union avenues of future invasion. “Unconditional Surrender” Grant became a national figure, and as of February 16, 1862, a major general.


Generals
  • Union: Ulysses S. Grant, Andrew H. Foote 
  • Confederate: Simon Buckner, Gideon J. Pillow, John B. Floyd 
Troop Size
  • Union: 24,531 
  • Confederate: 16,171 
Casualties & Losses
  • Union: 2,691 
  • Confederate: 13,846 
LEARN MORE  

BATTLE OF SHILOH

Tennessee

April 6-7, 1862

Union Victory

Two months later, Confederates attack Grant’s unprepared troops. Stubborn fighting, the Confederate commander’s death and approaching darkness end the Union retreat. Reinforced overnight, an unflappable Grant counterattacks, winning the war’s bloodiest battle to date.

Union troops of the 9th Illinois at the Battle of Shiloh. (Credit: VCG Wilson/Corbis/Getty Images)

In early spring 1862, along the Tennessee River, Confederates thundered out of the morning mist to strike Grant’s unprepared Union troops. Grant’s men retreated, and only desperate stands at places like “the Hornet’s Nest” prevented disaster. Confederates, disorganized by successive attacks and their commander’s death, called off their assault by early evening. Although April 6 was, by all standards, a Confederate victory, Grant refused to admit defeat: "No! I propose to attack at daylight and whip them." During that rain-soaked night, Army of the Ohio troops reinforced his army and, at dawn, they attacked, sending surprised Confederates retreating over the previous day’s blood-stained field. Shiloh’s 23,000 casualties, highest in any American battle up to that time, stunned the nation. Many criticized Grant and pressured Lincoln to relieve him, yet the president saw his value: "I cannot spare this man, he fights." Indeed, it was Grant’s doggedness—his refusal to see failure as final—that won Shiloh for the Union after the first day’s loss.


Generals
  • Union: Ulysses S. Grant, Don Carlos Buell 
  • Confederate: Albert Sidney Johnston, Pierre G.T. Beauregard 
Troop Size
  • Union: 65,000 
  • Confederate: 44,968 
Casualties & Losses
  • Union: 13,047 
  • Confederate: 10,669 
LEARN MORE  

VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN

Mississippi

April 30-July 4, 1863

Union Victory

After months of failing, Grant and his army audaciously cross the Mississippi River, march 200 miles, win five battles and trap Confederates for 47 days at Vicksburg. With victory, the Union gains control of the Mississippi—a turning point in the war.

One of the Confederate batteries at Vicksburg in Warren County, Mississippi, during the Vicksburg Campaign, 1863. This four-gun battery was situated about 200 yards from the Mississippi River. (Credit: Kean Collection/Archive Photos/Getty Images)

Grant had tried unsuccessfully for months to cross the Mississippi River and take Vicksburg, which both sides saw as a vital military and commercial transport hub—in Jefferson Davis’s words, “the nailhead that held the South’s two halves together.” In April 1863, Grant and naval commander David Porter enacted a bold scheme: Porter’s gunboats and transports sailed under the city’s bluffs and roaring cannons by night, while Grant’s Army of the Tennessee marched south to cross the river. From there, Grant aggressively pushed the pace: In 17 days, Union victories at Port Gibson, Raymond, Jackson, Champion Hill and Big Black River kept the Confederates divided and reactive, driving them to retreat into Vicksburg’s seven miles of defensive works. After a 47-day siege, and a July 4 surrender, the Union finally controlled the Mississippi, physically dividing the South into two. Along with Gettysburg, Vicksburg was a turning point in the war.


Generals
  • Union: Ulysses S. Grant, David Dixon Porter 
  • Confederate: John C. Pemberton 
Troop Size
  • Union: 44,000 (campaign) & 77,000 (siege) 
  • Confederate: 43,000 (campaign) & 33,000 (siege) 
Casualties & Losses
  • Union: 10,142 
  • Confederate: 38,586 
LEARN MORE  

THE BATTLE OF CHATTANOOGA

Tennessee

Nov 23-25, 1863

Union Victory

A strategic win. With Union forces trapped at Chattanooga’s crucial rail hub, Lincoln gives Grant control of all Union forces in the West. Grant coordinates two Union armies to break the siege, opening the Deep South to future invasion.

General Thomas's charge near Orchard Knob during the Battle of Chattanooga. (Credit: Universal History Archive/UIG/Getty images)

Lincoln tapped Grant to direct all Union forces in the West after the Union Army of the Cumberland’s demoralizing Chickamauga defeat on September 20, 1863 that left it starving and trapped by Confederates in Chattanooga. Grant acted decisively by replacing the Army of the Cumberland’s commander, opening a new supply line and sending his old Army of the Tennessee as reinforcements. To break the siege, he ordered Union attacks on the Confederate flanks—which succeeded to the west, but not in the east, so Grant ordered a diversion against the Confederate center. The Army of the Cumberland redeemed its tarnished reputation by turning that demonstration into an attack that incredibly cracked the Confederate position and ended the siege. Victory at Chattanooga restored Northern morale and established a point of departure for future Union invasions of the Deep South.


Generals
  • Union: Ulysses S. Grant, George Thomas, William T. Sherman 
  • Confederate: Braxton Bragg 
Troop Size
  • Union: 72,500 
  • Confederate: 48,900 
Casualties & Losses
  • Union: 5,824 
  • Confederate: 8,000 
LEARN MORE  

LINCOLN GIVES GRANT COMMAND OF UNION ARMY

Washington, D.C.

Mar 10, 1864

Despite accusations calling Grant a "drunk," President Lincoln admires the general's relentlessness, and puts him in charge of all Union forces. Lincoln banks on Grant’s mind and mettle to win the war and ensure his reelection.

Lincoln gives General Ulysses Grant the commission to oversee all Union forces. (Credit: Fierce Abin/Getty Images)

Since the war’s start, Lincoln wanted a General-in-Chief to command the nation’s military war effort. Winfield Scott proved too old, George McClellan too cautious and Henry Halleck, in the president’s words, ‘little more than a first-rate clerk.’ Lincoln, eyeing reelection, needed a resilient, practical and steely-eyed commander to rout Robert E. Lee and end the war. In March 1864, Lincoln called Grant to Washington, D.C., where he promoted his fellow Midwesterner to lieutenant general, the first since George Washington. Two years of Western theater success had proven not only did Grant fight—he won. Plus, to Lincoln’s thinking, Grant ‘does the best he can with what he has got.’ Within two months of his appointment, Grant began executing a comprehensive, war-winning strategy focused on overwhelming the stretched Confederacy. Its key components: William T. Sherman’s western push to Atlanta and Grant’s eastern focus on Lee and Richmond.


LEARN MORE  

OVERLAND CAMPAIGN

Virginia

May 4-June 12, 1864

Inconclusive

General-in-Chief Grant comes east to oversee Richmond’s capture and the destruction of Robert E. Lee’s army. Six weeks of sustained, savage bloodletting over a half-dozen battles end within earshot of Richmond’s church bells.

The battle of the Wilderness in Virginia on May 6, 1864. (Credit: Archive Photos/Getty Images)

In early May of 1864, General-in-Chief Grant and the Army of the Potomac began an Eastern Theater campaign to annihilate Robert E. Lee’s army and capture Richmond, the Confederate capital. It opened with the two-day Battle of the Wilderness, the war’s fourth bloodiest and by ordinary standards, a Union loss. But, not to Grant. Casting it as the first step toward the war’s end, he turned his cheering soldiers south toward Richmond. The gruesome Battle at Spotsylvania followed, the war’s third bloodiest. Both sides reinforced. Next came fighting at Trevilian Station, North Anna and Totopotomoy Creek. At Cold Harbor, on Richmond’s outskirts, Grant believed Lee’s army was nearly defeated and ordered frontal assaults, but entrenched Confederates slaughtered his advancing soldiers. Later, Grant wrote that "he regretted" ordering the attack. After six weeks, the Confederates had suffered 33,000 casualties and the Union, 55,000; arguably, Lincoln was further from being reelected than at the campaign’s start. Grant would have to change his approach.


Generals
  • Union: Ulysses S. Grant, George G. Meade 
  • Confederate: Robert E. Lee 
Troop Size
  • Union: 120,000 
  • Confederate: 61,000 
Casualties & Losses
  • Union: 55,000 
  • Confederate: 33,000 
LEARN MORE  

SIEGE OF PETERSBURG

Virginia

June 1864-April 2, 1865

Union Victory

A determined Grant shifts south to Petersburg, to sever Lee’s—and Richmond’s—supply lines. Ten months of siege, trench warfare and attacks stretch Lee’s army until it snaps. Grant marches into Richmond.

Soldiers of the Civil War sit in trenches near Petersburg, Virginia in 1864. (Credit: Library of Congress/Getty Images)

Unable to destroy Lee’s army and endure the Overland Campaign’s casualties, Grant shifted his forces south to cut Lee and Richmond’s supply and communication lines. Hesitant Union advances, combined with a handful of Confederate defenders, foiled the initial seizure of Petersburg’s railroad hub. Ten months of siege-like warfare followed, where Grant repeatedly tried to coordinate attacks to strike a weak point in Lee’s intricate trench lines and fortifications. Half-starved, the Confederates could defend their trenches, but not maneuver. Grant had Lee pinned to Richmond as the other Union armies advanced across the South. Time, resources and maturing talent favored the Union, while ever-lengthening battle lines strained Lee’s thinning ranks. On April 2, 1865, Union assaults shattered Confederate defenses and drove Lee’s army from the Southern capital. Richmond was in Union hands, and the end of the war was near.


Generals
  • Union: Ulysses S. Grant, George G. Meade 
  • Confederate: Robert E. Lee 
Troop Size
  • Union: 124,000-58,923  
  • Confederate: 66,533-34,677 
Casualties & Losses
  • Union: 42,000 
  • Confederate: 28,000 
LEARN MORE  

BATTLE OF APPOMATTOX COURT HOUSE

Virginia

April 3-9, 1865

Union Victory

Having shattered Petersburg and Richmond’s defenses, Grant’s soldiers aggressively pursue and surround the retreating Confederates. Without hope of resupply or reinforcement, Lee calls on Grant. Hearing his generous terms, Lee surrenders his army. Other Confederate armies soon follow.

Robert E.Lee and Ulysees S.Grant meeting at Battle of Appomattox Court House. (Credit: Culture Club/Getty Images

Grant’s capture of Richmond on April 2, 1865 sent Lee’s army limping westward to join another Confederate army in North Carolina. While Union infantry harassed the retreating Confederate column’s flanks and rear, Grant’s aggressive cavalry raced ahead to block their marching route. On April 8, Confederates tried to break a line of Union horsemen only to find them supported by infantry. With his forces surrounded, starving, with no hope of resupply or reinforcement, Lee said, "there is nothing left for me to do, but to go and see General Grant." The next day, in the Wilmer McLean farmhouse, the immaculately dressed Virginia gentleman, Lee, met the mud-spattered, Ohio-born tanner, Grant. Hearing Grant’s generous terms, Lee surrendered his army. Within weeks, other Confederates laid down their arms. U.S. Grant had delivered on President Lincoln’s hopes; he secured Lincoln’s reelection, captured Richmond, destroyed Lee’s army, ended the war—and nobly began the nation’s healing.


Generals
  • Union: Ulysses S. Grant, George G. Meade 
  • Confederate: Robert E. Lee 
Troop Size
  • Union: 112,892-63,000  
  • Confederate: 50,000-25,000 
Casualties & Losses
  • Union: 10,780 
  • Confederate: 6,266 killed or wounded, 13,769 captured, 28,231 paroled 
LEARN MORE  

SURRENDER AT APPOMATTOX

April 9, 1865

In Grant, President Lincoln had found the commander to win the war—and save the Union.

FORD'S THEATRE

Washington, D.C.

April 14, 1865

Just days after Lee’s surrender, President Lincoln invites the Grants to attend "Our American Cousin" at Ford’s Theatre. But they beg off—and are spared the trauma of witnessing the president’s assassination and the prospect that Grant may have been a target. Mourning the loss of a great leader and friend, Grant becomes the face of the Union.

THE WHITE HOUSE

Washington, D.C.

Nov 3, 1869

Four years later, Ulysses S. Grant, a beloved national war hero, is elected 18th president of the United States.

CREDITS

Design & Development: Axis Maps Editor & Producer: Missy Sullivan Writer/Battles: Doug Douds Writer/Generals: Greg Timmons Photo Research: Madison Horne

Key Civil War Generals

Ulysses S. Grant

Union

Ulysses S. Grant

Few would have predicted Ulysses S. Grant’s meteoric rise from a quiet, unassuming soldier to a general credited with winning the Civil War. He’d attended West Point reluctantly, failed in farming and business and despite promise shown during the Mexican-American War, had an unimpressive early military career. But two 1862 victories at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson early in the Civil War earned him the nickname “Unconditional Surrender Grant”—and national attention. Grant turned the Battle of Shiloh’s first-day rout of his forces into a second-day victory. But even as the battle’s shocking casualties led to calls for Grant’s removal, President Lincoln declared, “I can’t spare this man—he fights.” After Grant overtook the strategic hubs of Vicksburg and Chattanooga, Lincoln made him commander-in-chief of all Union forces. Grant shifted east to take on Confederate General Robert E. Lee in the Overland and Petersburg campaigns, a series of bloody endurance battles that ended with Lee’s surrender. Grant went on to become the 18th U.S. president.

William Tecumseh Sherman

Union

William Tecumseh Sherman

William Tecumseh Sherman and Ulysses S. Grant, who had known each other since their days at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, formed an effective military partnership that would last throughout the war. Sherman was smart and organized. Grant was bold and tenacious. After Union forces were surprised on Shiloh's first day on April 6, 1862, Sherman's dogged retreat aided in preventing the army's destruction. During the Vicksburg Campaign, Sherman served as Grant’s most trusted subordinate, receiving independent assignments and contributing significantly to the city’s eventual surrender. Sherman went on to Chattanooga, where he assisted in chasing out the Confederate army. That victory cleared the way for Sherman’s famed capture of Atlanta and “March to the Sea,” where his army scorched the earth, broke the South’s will to continue and reduced General Lee’s ability to replenish his army.

George Meade

Union

George Meade

Best known for successfully repelling General Robert E. Lee’s invasion of the North at the bloody battle of Gettysburg, Meade drew criticism from President Lincoln for his cautious pursuit of the Confederates and the subsequent escape of Lee’s army without destruction. Although Meade commanded the Army of the Potomac tactically for the last several months of the war, Grant directed it operationally and strategically—an arrangement Grant later acknowledged was "embarrassing to me if not to him." Meade nonetheless played a crucial role in both the Overland and Petersburg campaigns and in ultimately cornering the Confederate army. Meade proved himself to be one of Grant’s great lieutenants upon whose leadership he counted to bring the war to an end.

Phillip Sheridan

Union

Phillip Sheridan

Philip Sheridan advanced through the ranks from staff officer to Major General of volunteers by early 1863. During the Battle of Chattanooga, Sheridan impressed Grant after he helped break enemy lines, forcing the rebels to abandon their supplies. During the Overland Campaign, Sheridan and George Meade argued over the army’s employment of cavalry. Grant intervened and sided with Sheridan. Though not a full success, Sheridan’s attack at Yellow Tavern led to the death of Confederate cavalry officer J.E.B. Stuart. In September 1864, Sheridan, at Grant’s behest, burned through the Shenandoah Valley, a key Confederate source of food and historic invasion route. Sheridan then rejoined the Union Army facing General Robert E. Lee and served a key role in helping trap Lee's army at Appomattox, forcing his surrender.

Andrew Foote

Union

Andrew Foote

Before the Civil War, Andrew Foote served as commander of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. In August 1861, he was tasked with preparing to break the Southern defensive lines by using naval power on the rivers of the West. Foote teamed with Grant for assaults on Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, strongholds on the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers that were critical to defending Nashville and the Tennessee Valley. With ironclad and wooden gun boats, Foote quickly forced the Confederates to abandon Fort Henry. But the attack on Fort Donelson proved more difficult, and Foote was wounded. The incident had a discernable effect, making him a more cautious commander. After a leave of absence to convalesce from the wound, he died suddenly of Bright’s disease in 1863.

Albert Sidney Johnston

Confederate

Albert Sidney Johnston

Albert Sidney Johnston was assigned to command the Western Theater to prevent a Union invasion of the South. Johnston surprised Grant at Shiloh, and during the bloodbath that followed, Johnston was shot behind his right knee, possibly by one of his own men. It is believed that numbness in his leg from an earlier dueling injury prevented him from realizing the seriousness of the wound. To compound the problem, Johnston had sent his personal doctor to care for a group of wounded Union prisoners. He died within an hour, the highest ranking officer on either side killed in action during the war—and a great loss to the Confederacy.

John Pemberton

Confederate

John Pemberton

John Pemberton was regarded as a turncoat by both sides during the Civil War. Having served as a staff officer in the United States Army during the Mexican-American War, the Pennsylvania native married a Virginian and joined the Confederate Army when that state seceded from the Union. Viewed with suspicion by his Southern colleagues, he was nonetheless given command of the vital river port of Vicksburg. Pemberton did what he could to fortify the city, but was not prepared for a 47-day siege of relentless artillery bombardment. The siege’s constant pressure, the South's failure to coordinate an effort to break it and eventual starvation forced him to surrender his army. The defeat gave the Union dominion over the Mississippi River, effectively cutting the Confederacy in two. Pemberton eventually resigned his general’s commission.

Robert E. Lee

Confederate

Robert E. Lee

Robert E. Lee declined President Lincoln’s offer to command the Federal forces and instead opted to defend his “native country” of Virginia. He went on to challenge the Union during the war’s most intense battles. In June 1862, he assumed control of the Army of Northern Virginia from a wounded General Joseph E. Johnston. Lee led the troops for the next three years, invading the North twice and besting numerous Union generals. By 1864, Lee was trying to keep his army alive. During the Overland Campaign, he parried Grant's repeated assaults. Lee attacked aggressively in the Wilderness, but defended positions at Spotsylvania, North Anna and Cold Harbor. Lee escaped destruction, but was forced into a long stretch of trench warfare outside Petersburg and Richmond that depleted his army further. After those towns' defenses collapsed and the pursuing Union army surrounded him, Lee sent a note to General Grant asking for terms of surrender. The two met at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865, where Lee surrendered his army.

Related Content