Happy birthday (Hiram) Ulysses S. Grant (April 27, 1822
– July 23, 1885), Commanding General of the U.S. Army during the American Civil War and 18th President of the United States!
“On April 27, 1822… delivered by a stern-faced, bearded abolitionist, Dr. John Rogers, the plump baby weighed in at ten and three-quarters pounds, with reddish-brown hair and blue-gray eyes.” -Ron Chernow, Grant
“What a man he is! what a history! what an illustration—his life—of the capacities of that American individuality common to us all… He proves how an average western farmer, mechanic, boatman, carried by tides of circumstances, perhaps caprices, into a position of incredible military or civil responsibilities… may steer his way fitly and steadily through them all, carrying the country and himself with credit year after year… Seems to me it transcends Plutarch. How those old Greeks, indeed, would have seized on him! … Nothing heroic, as the authorities put it—and yet the greatest hero. The gods, the destinies, seem to have concentrated upon him.” -Walt Whitman, 1879