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Grant's life is one of the most interesting of all the Presidents. Coming from humble beginnings, he was a talented horseman, finished in the lower half of his class in West Point, he was a failed businessman, the leading general in the Union during the Civil War and a President with remarkable foresight in the field of civil rights. His presidency was marred by scandal because of his flaw of remaining loyal to those who were not loyal to him. As President he kept his country out of war. Victimized by a swindler in his retirement, he went on to write what is regarded as one of the best personal memoirs ever written, so successful that its sale proceeds were used to retire his debts and provide for his family. His habit of smoking several cigars each day led to terminal throat cancer that took his life.
After his presidency, Grant and his wife Julia spent two years touring the world. When Grant returned to America, he had used up most of his savings. He purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by his son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. In 1884, Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant), bankrupted the company, Grant & Ward, and fled. Grant was forced to repay a $150,000 loan to one of his creditors, William H. Vanderbilt, with his Civil War mementos.
Grant and his family were left destitute, having forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President. Deep in debt, Grant wrote a series of literary works that improved his reputation and eventually brought his family out of bankruptcy. Grant first wrote several warmly received articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine. Mark Twain offered Grant a generous contract for his memoirs, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties. Congress restored Grant to General of the Army with full retirement pay.
Terminally ill from his cancer, Grant finished his memoir just a few days before his death. The Memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar." Grant's memoir has been regarded as one of the finest works of its kind ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. Grant's body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America. The entrance to the building has the words "let us have peace" engraved above its entrance, Grant's slogan during his first Presidential campaign.
