Daniel Ammen, schoolmate of Grant in Georgetown, Ohio.

"Grant was one of the most remarkable lads I never knew. His mother was one of the most interesting and charming women I ever knew. She was exceedingly kind, ladylike, and mild-mannered. I suspect that Grant inherited his kindly disposition from her, for I think his father was rather aggressive. As a boy, Grant was kindness itself. I never saw him have a show of resentment and I do not believe that he ever felt a tinge of it. He was never rude, oppressive, or disagreeable to other children. He had perfect respect for everybody's feelings and a forbearance that was almost beyond Christianity."

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Rufus Ingalls, Grant's classmate at West Point and close friend.

"Grant was such a quiet, unassuming fellow when a cadet that nobody would have picked him out as one who was destined to occupy a place in history; and yet he had certain qualities which attracted attention and commanded the respect of all those in the corps with him. He was always frank, generous and manly. He had enough marked characteristics to prevent him from being considered commonplace, and everyone associated with him was sure to remember him and retain a high regard for him."

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William Tecumseh Sherman, Grant's fellow cadet at West Point and future partner in command.

"A more unpromising boy never entered the Military Academy."

"I'm a darned sight smarter than Grant; I know a great deal more about war, military histories, strategy and grand tactics than he does; I know more about organization, supply, and administration and about everything else than he does; but I'll tell you where he beats me and where he beats the world. He don't care a damn for what the enemy does out of his sight, but it scares me like hell."

"I always knew when I was in trouble that Grant was thinking about me and would get me out. And he did."

"Grant is a mystery, even to himself."

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James Longstreet, fellow cadet of Grant, cousin of Julia Dent Grant, and General Lee's "Old Warhorse."

"Do you know Grant? [He asked of those who were downplaying Grant's capabilities]. Well, I do. I was in the Corps of Cadets with him at West Point for three years. I was present at his wedding. I served in the same army with him in Mexico. I have observed his methods of warfare in the West, and I believe I know him through and through and I tell you that we cannot afford to underrate him and the army he now commands."

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Richard S. Ewell, general in Lee's army, spoke these prophetic words to General Lee in May of 1861.

"There is one West Pointer, I think in Missouri, little known, and whom I hope the northern people will not find out. I mean Sam Grant. I knew him well at the Academy and in Mexico. I should fear him more than any of their officers I have yet heard of. He is not a man of genius, but he is clear-headed, quick and daring."

Grenvile M. Dodge, Major-General, Union Army.

"The great distinguishing qualities of General Grant were truth, courage, modesty, generosity and loyality. He was loyal to every work and every cause in which he was engaged--to his friends, his family, his country and to his God, and it was these characteristics which bound to him with hooks of steel all those who served with him. He absolutely sunk himself to give to others honor and praise to which he, himself, was entitled. No officer served under him who did not understand this. I was a young man and given much larger commands than my rank entitled me to. General Grant never failed to encourage me by giving me credit for whatever I did, or tried to do. If I failed, he assumed the responsibility; if I succeeded, he recommended me for promotion. He always looked at the intention of those who served under him, as well as to their acts. If they failed in intention, he dropped them so quickly and efficiently that the whole country could see and hear their fall."

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Tom Hamer, Brigadier General of Volunteers in the Mexican War.

"I have found in Lieutenant Grant a most remarkable and valuable soldier. I anticipate for him a brilliant future if he should have an opportunity to display his powers when they mature."

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Mary Robinson, Black maid in the Dent household.

"Mrs. Dent used to say to me, 'I like that young man [Ulysses S. Grant]. There is something noble in him. He will be a great man someday.'"

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Ellen Bray Wrenshall Dent, Julia Dent Grant's mother, spoke these words in 1857.

"My daughters, listen to me. I want to make a prophecy ... that little man will fill the highest place in this government. His light is now hid under a bushel, but circumstances will occur, and at no distant day, when his worth and wisdom will be shown and appreciated. He is a philosopher. He is a great statesman."

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Julia Dent Grant, wife of Ulysses S. Grant, spoke these words at a time when her husband was a struggling Missouri farmer and wood vendor.

"Just wait til my Dudy is president."

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Horace Porter, aide-de-camp to General Grant.

"Grant was a man of slim figure, slightly stooped, five feet eight inches in height, weighing only a hundred and thirty five pounds, and of a modesty of mien and gentleness of manner which seemed to fit him more for the court than for the camp ... his voice was exceedingly musical, and one of the clearest in sound and most distinct in utterance that I have ever heard."

"The extent of his indulgence in personal comfort in the field did not seem to be much greater than that of bluff old Marshall Suvaroff, who, when he wished to give himself over to an excess of luxury, used to go so far as to take off one spur before going to bed."

"His soldiers always knew that he was ready to rough it with them and share their hardships on the march. He wore no better clothes than they, and often ate no better food."

"Upon a few occasions, after a hard day's ride in stormy weather, the general joined the officers in taking a whiskey toddy in the evening. He never offered liquor of any kind to visitors. The only beverage he ever used at the table besides tea and coffee was water."

"[Grant had a] marked aversion to turning back, which amounted almost to a superstition. He often put himself to the greatest personal inconvenience to avoid it. When he found he was not traveling in the direction he intended to take, he would try all sorts of cross-cuts, ford streams, and jump any number of fences to reach another road rather than go back and take a fresh start."

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Joshua Chamberlain, general in the Union Army and hero at Gettysburg.

"He had somehow, with all his modesty, the rare faculty of controlling his superiors as well as his subordinates. He outfaced Stanton, captivated the President, and even compelled acquiescence or silence from that dread source of paralyzing power, the Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War."

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W.R. Rowley, Grant staff officer.

"First as to the General being intemperate. I pronounce it an unmitigated slander. I have been on his staff ever since the Donelson affair ... and I have never seen him take even a glass of liquor more than two or three times in my life and then only a single one at a time, and have never seen him intoxicated or even approximate to it. As to that story that he was intoxicated at the Battle of Pittsburg, I have only to say that the man who fabricated the story is an infamous liar."

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John M. Thayer, Brigadier General, spoke these words to President Lincoln

"I saw him repeatedly during the battles of Donelson and Shiloh on the field and if there were any sober men on the field, Grant was one of them."

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Mary Livermore, official with the Sanitary Commission, led a delegation down to Milliken's Bend to see for themselves if Grant was the butcher, the hard drinker, and the blundering man the rumors alleged.

"In the first five minutes, we learned by some sort of spiritual telegraphy, that reticence, patience, and persistence were the dominant traits of General Grant ... [he was a ] quiet, repressed, reluctant, undemonstrative man ... We instinctively put ourselves on 'short rations' of talk with him. Neither was General Grant a drunkard, that was immediately apparent to us. This conviction gave us such joy that ... we looked each other in the face ... and breathed more freely... The clear eye, clean skin, firm flesh and steady nerves of General Grant gave the lie to the universal calumnies then current concerning his intemperate habits."

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Hamlin Garland, on Grant's clean language and self control.

"Charles Dana [Assistant Secretary of War and journalist] could see no cracks in the man's control. He recalled one night riding beside Grant in black into the mud, and Dana found himself thinking, "Now he will swear."Grant disappointed him. He regained control of his horse and went on with his ride without giving any sign of impatience or irritation, and Dana reflected afterward that from one end of the campaign to the other he never heard Grant use an oath."

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Theodore Lyman, colonel in the Union army, wrote to his wife from the front in March and April of 1864.

"Grant is rather under middle height, of a spare, strong build; light-brown hair, and short, light-brown beard. His eyes are of clear blue; forehead high; nose aquiline; jaw squarely set. His face had three expressions: deep thought; extreme determination; and great simplicity and calmness."

"Grant is a man of a good deal of rough dignity; rather taciturn; quick an decided in speech. He habitually wears an expression as if he had determined to drive his head through a brick wall, and was about to do it. I have much confidence in him."

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Charles Dana, Special Commissioner attached to the War Department, sent from Washington to check on Grant during the Vicksburg campaign.

"Grant was an uncommon fellow, the most modest, the most disinterested, and the most honest man I ever knew, with a temper that nothing could disturb, and a judgement that was judicial in its comprehensivenss and wisdom. Not a great man, except morally, not an original or brilliant man, but sincere, thoughtful, deep, and gifted with courage that never faltered. Unaffected, unpretending hero, who no ill omens could deject and no triumph unduly exalt.."

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Charles Francis Adams, Jr.

"Nobody could watch [Grant] without concluding that he was a remarkable man. He handles those around him so quietly and well, he so evidently has the faculty of disposing of work and managing men, he is cool and quiet; almost stolid ... and in a crisis he is one against whom all around, whether few in number or a great army ... would instinctively lean. He is a man of the most exquisite judgment and tact."

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Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States.

Upon hearing a litany of doubts expressed by Secretary of War Stanton, Lincoln thought for a moment and said to him, "Now, Mr. Secretary, you know we have been trying to manage this army for nearly three years and you know we haven't done much with it. We sent over the mountains and brought Mr. Grant, as Mrs. Grant calls him, to manage it for us, and now I guess we'd better let Mr. Grant have his way."

"He doesn't worry and bother me. He isn't shrieking for reinforcements all the time. He takes what troops we can safely give him .. and does the best he can with what he has got."

"I can't spare this man, he fights."

"My Dear General: [letter to Grant after the fall of Vicksburg] I write this now as a grateful acknowledgement for the almost inestimable service you have done the country. I wish to say a word further. When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I thought you should do, what you finally did--march the troops back across the neck, run the batteries with the transports, and thus go below; and I never had any faith, except a general hope that you knew better than I, that the Yazoo Pass expedition and the like, could succeed. When you got below, and took Port Gibson, Grant Gulf and vicinity, I thought you should go down the river and join Gen. Banks; and when you turned northward East of the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make the personal acknowledgement that you were right, and I was wrong."

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Union Soldier, upon observing an unflinching Grant writing orders while shells were exploding a few yards from him.

"Ulysses don't scare worth a damn."

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Robert E. Lee, Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia.

"Grant is not a retreating man. Gentlemen, the Army of the Potomac has a head."

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General Frank P. Blair, who served under Grant and later ran for the office of Vice-President of the United States on the Democratic ticket, against Grant who was on the Republican ticket.

"I tell you, gentlemen, he is the greatest general in history."

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Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy, upon meeting Grant near the end of the war.

"We all form our preconceived ideas of men of whome we have heard a great deal, and I had certain definite notions as to the appearance and character of General Grant, but I was never so completely surprised in all my life as when I met him and found him a different person, so entirely different from my idea of him. His spare figure, simple manners, lack of all ostentation, extreme politeness, and charm of conversation were a revelation to me, for I had pictured him as a man of a directly opposite type of character, and expected to find in him only the bluntness of a soldier. Notwithstanding the fact that he talks so well, it is plain he has more brains than tongue. He is one of the most remarkable men I have ever met. He does not seem to be aware of his powers."

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Hannah Simpson Grant, Grant's mother, was an extremely modest and quiet woman who never commented to the press or anyone else on the huge success of her first-born son. She finally had one thing to say, and this was to her Ulysses. After this supreme understatement, she went back to her housework.

"Well, Ulysses, you've become a great man, haven't you?"

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A.M. Arnold, former Confederate soldier, sent this letter to General Grant who was dying of throat cancer at the Drexel Cottage on Mt. McGregor, New York State.

"Dear General: I have watched your movements from the hour you gave me my horse and sword and told me to go home and assist in making a crop.' I have been proud to see the nation do you honor. And now, dear Genl. in this the hour of your tribulation I weep that so brave, so magananimous a soul must suffer as you do .. and be assured that I am not the only ex-Confederate who sends his prayers daily to the Throne of Grace for the Grandest, the noblest, the bravest soldier and the Purist Statesman who ever graced the annals of history ... I am Dear General, Yours Most Affectly, A. M. Arnold, Rockbridge Bath, Va."

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John Alcott Carpenter, contemporary historian.

"His success stemmed from a complicated set of circumstances which worked in his favor, but also from specific traits within his own character which only needed the right conditions to reveal themselves, conditions which had been present during the Mexican War, and on the isthmus, but which were singularly lacking on the West Coast, in Missouri, and at the leather store in Galena. These traits were determination, mental acuteness, excellent memory, ability to look into the minds of others, and a willingness to subordinate self to a cause. When these are added to the experience gained in the old army, especially in the Mexican War, and as regimental commander during the early months of the Civil War, Grant's sudden rise from oblivion becomes more comprehensible. Even so, the transformation borders on the miraculous."

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T. Harry Williams, contemporary historian.

"He won battles and campaigns, and he struck the blow that won the war. No general could do what he did because of accident or luck or preponderance of numbers or weapons. He was a complete general and a complete character. He was so complete his countrymen have never been able to believe he was real."

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