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Galena
The Illinois town where Grant worked from 1859–1861, the closest thing he ever had to a 'hometown.' -
Georgetown
The Ohio town where Grant grew up and his family owned a tannery. -
Hardscrabble
The home that Grant built on his father-in-law's land in Missouri after resigning from the Army in 1854. He unsuccessfully tried to farm the land and eventually hard to sell firewood. -
Thirteenth Amendment
This Constitutional amendment abolished slavery in all of the United States. -
Fourteenth Amendment
This Constitutional amendment granted the rights of due process and equal protection to all United States citizens. -
Fifteenth Amendment
This Constitutional amendment gave every American citizen the right to vote regardless of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." -
Reconstruction
The period under Presidents Andrew Johnson and Grant where the South was readmitted to the Union. -
Appomattox
The scene of the surrender of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia to Grant's Army of the Potomac–for all intents and purposes the end of the Civil War.
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Black Friday
The day Grant finally broke the corner on the gold market by James Fisk and Jay Gould. Many smaller investors were hurt by the sudden drop in gold prices as Grant ordered the treasury to dump millions of dollars of gold on the market.
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Cold Harbor
One of two battles Grant ever regretted. He lost six thousand men in an hour during assaults on the Confederate Army in May 1864.
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Fort Donelson and Fort Henry
Two forts Grant captured during a campaign through Tennessee in 1862. Simon B. Buckner surrendered an army of about 12,000 men to Grant. Grant declared he would only accept "unconditional surrender," helping to earn U.S. Grant the nickname "Unconditional Surrender Grant."
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Fort Sumter
The site of the first battle of the Civil War, when Confederate batteries opened fire on the federally-occupied fort in Charlestown harbor.
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Gettysburg
A critical three-day battle in southern Pennsylvania, often called the "High Tide of the Confederacy." George Meade defeated an invading Confederate Army in the last time the Confederates were able to mount an invasion of the North.
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Petersburg
The site of a nearly year-long siege to the end the Civil War. When the Confederates evacuated on April two, 1865, the Confederacy lasted only about two weeks.
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Richmond
The Confederate capital. Retaken by Federal troops soon after Petersburg fell. Confederate troops burned the city as they left.
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Shiloh
A bloody battle in 1862 where Confederate troops surprised Grant's army at breakfast.
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Spotsylvania Court House
The second battle in a nine-day string of battles that broke the back of the Confederate Army. During the first two weeks in May 1864, Grant's armies hammered away at the Confederates in The Wilderness, Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor.
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The Wilderness
The name given an area where a multi-day battle was fought in the beginning of May 1864. The Confederates surprised Grant's massive Union army in thick underbrush, and hand-to-hand combat claimed thousands. However, brush fires lit by explosions killed a nd injured as many men as the bullets did.
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Vicksburg
A small Mississippi town on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River and the site of a long siege by the western armies under Grant's command in 1863. The fall of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863, reopened the River to Union naval forces for its entire length , splitting the Confederacy in two. Grant, of course, asked for and got "unconditional surrender."