Ulysses S. Grant

Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant; Born on April 27th, 1822 and died July 23rd, 1885) He was the 18th President of the United States (1869–1877) following his highly successful role as a war general in the second half of the Civil War. Under Grant, the Union Army defeated the Confederate military; the war, and secession, ended with the surrender of Robert E. Lee's army at Appomattox. As president he led the Radical Republicans in their effort to eliminate all vestiges of Confederate nationalism and slavery. Upset over uncontrolled violence in the South and wanting to protect African American citizenship, President Grant effectively destroyed the Ku Klux Klan in 1871. Grant was the first President to establish Civil Service reform, creating a two-year federally funded Civil Service Commission in 1871. In terms of foreign policy, Grant revealed an "unexpected capacity for deliberation and consultation" that promoted the national interest. His reputation was marred by his repeated defense of corrupt appointees, and by America's first industrial age economic depression (called the "Panic of 1873") that dominated his second term. Although his Republican Party split in 1872 with reformers denouncing him, Grant was easily reelected. By 1875 the conservative white Southern opposition regained control of every state in the South and as he left the White House in March 1877 his policies were being undone.

A career soldier, he graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point and served in the Mexican–American War. When the Civil War began in 1861, Grant trained Union volunteer regiments in Illinois. In 1862, as a general he fought a series of battles and was promoted to major general after forcing the surrender of a large Confederate army and gaining control of Kentucky and most of Tennessee. He then led Union forces to victory after initial setbacks in the Battle of Shiloh, earning a reputation as an aggressive commander. In July 1863, after a long, complex campaign, Grant defeated five uncoordinated Confederate armies (capturing one of them) and seized Vicksburg. This famous victory gave the Union full control of the Mississippi River, split off the western Confederacy, and opened the way for more Union triumphs. After another win at the Battle of Chattanooga in late 1863, President Abraham Lincoln made him lieutenant general and commander of all of the Union Armies. As commanding general of the army, Grant confronted Robert E. Lee in a series of very bloody battles in 1864 known as the Overland Campaign that ended with the bottling up of Lee at Petersburg, outside the Confederate capital of Richmond. During the siege, Grant coordinated a series of devastating campaigns launched by William Tecumseh Sherman, Philip Sheridan, and George Thomas. Finally breaking through Lee's trenches, the Union Army captured Richmond in April 1865. Lee surrendered his depleted forces to Grant at Appomattox as the Confederacy collapsed. Although pro-Confederate historians attacked Grant as a ruthless butcher who won by brute force, most historians have hailed his military genius.

Grant's two consecutive terms as President stabilized the nation after the American Civil War and during the turbulent Reconstruction period that followed. As president, he enforced Reconstruction by enforcing civil rights laws and fighting Ku Klux Klan violence. Grant won passage of the Fifteenth Amendment; giving constitutional protection for African-American voting rights. He used the army to build the Republican Party in the South, based on black voters, Northern newcomers ("Carpetbaggers") and native white supporters ("Scalawags.") As a result, African Americans were represented in the U.S. Congress for the first time in American history in 1870. Reformers praised Grant's Indian peace policy, which broke the deadlock on Indian appropriations in Congress, created the Board of Indian Commissioners to make reform recommendations, enlisted Quaker Protestants who controlled mid western Indian agencies, and curbed Congressional patronage. Grant remained determined to keep Indians from being exterminated by white settler encroachment or by the U.S. military. Grant's reputation as president by 1875 was at an all-time high for his previous veto of the Inflation Bill, the passage of the Resumption of Specie Act, and Secretary Bristow's successful raids that shut down the Whiskey Ring. However, after the Democrats gained control of the House in 1875, Grant had to respond to a series of Congressional investigations into bribery charges of his Secretary of War William W. Belknap and his Secretary of the Navy George M. Robeson.  

Grant's foreign policy, led by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, implemented International Arbitration, settled the Alabama Claims with Britain and avoided war with Spain over the Virginius Affair. His attempted annexation of the Dominican Republic failed. Grant's response to the Panic of 1873 gave necessary, although limited, financial relief to New York banking houses, but was ineffective in stopping the severe five-year industrial depression that followed. More than any other president, Grant had to respond to Congressional investigations into financial corruption charges of all federal departments. After leaving office, Grant embarked on a two-year world tour that included many enthusiastic royal receptions. In 1880, he made an unsuccessful bid for a third presidential term. His memoirs were a critical and popular success. Historians until recently have given Grant's presidency the worst rankings; however, his reputation has significantly improved because of greater appreciation for his foreign policy and civil rights achievements, particularly: avoiding war with Britain and Spain, the Fifteenth Amendment, prosecution of the Ku Klux Klan, enforcement of voting rights, and his Indian Peace Policy. Northern Republican capitalists who desired reconciliation without concern for civil rights, joined together with Southern Democrats who forgot the American Civil War was caused by slavery, emphasized Grant's presidential scandals, rather than his role in breaking up the Gold Ring and prosecution of the Whiskey Ring.

Hiram Ulysses Grant was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio on April 27th, 1822. His father Jesse Root Grant (1794–1873) was a self-reliant tanner (leather producer) and businessman, from an austere family, and his mother was Hannah (Simpson) Grant (1798–1883). Both were natives of Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1823, the family moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio. At one point, according to Grant's memoirs, his father Jesse worked in the tanning business for the father of John Brown. 

Grant was of English and Scottish ancestry; his immigrant ancestor Mathew Grant arrived with Puritans from England in the 1630s. Raised in a Methodist family devoid of religious pretentiousness, Grant prayed privately and was not an official member of the church. Unlike his younger siblings, Grant was neither disciplined, baptized, nor forced to attend church by his parents. Grant is said to have inherited a degree of introversion from his reserved, even "uncommonly detached" mother (she never took occasion to visit the White House during her son's presidency). Grant assumed the duties expected of him as a young man at home, which primarily included maintaining the firewood supply; he thereby developed a noteworthy ability to work with, and control, horses in his charge, and used this in providing transportation as a vocation in his youth. At the age of 17, with the help of his father, Grant was nominated by Congressman Thomas L. Hamer for a position at the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, New York. Hamer mistakenly nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio." At West Point, he adopted this name with a middle initial only. His nickname became "Sam" among army colleagues at the academy, since the initials "U.S." stood for "Uncle Sam". The "S", according to Grant, did not "stand for anything", though Hamer had used it to abbreviate his mother's maiden name.

The influence of Grant's family brought about the appointment to West Point, while Grant himself later recalled "a military life had no charms for me". Grant, then standing at 5 feet 2 inches and weighing 117 lbs, graduated from West Point in 1843, ranking 21st in a class of 39. Part of Grant's demerits were due to his refusal, at times, of compulsory church attendance, then a West Point policy that Grant viewed as anti-republican. Grant freely admitted that he was lax in his studies; however, he achieved above average grades in mathematics and geology. He established no close or lasting friendships while at West Point, though to his own later advantage, he closely observed the many notable officers he would serve with and command in the future. At West Point, Grant studied under Romantic artist Robert Walter Weir and produced nine surviving artworks. Trained under Prussian horse master Herschberger, Grant established a reputation as a fearless and expert horseman, setting an equestrian high-jump record that lasted almost 25 years. Grant later recalled that his departure from West Point was of the happiest of his times, and that his intent had been to resign his commission after serving the minimum term of obligated duty. Although naturally suited for cavalry, he was assigned to duty as a regimental quartermaster, managing supplies and equipment in the 4th U.S. Infantry, and achieved the rank of brevet second lieutenant.   

At age 32, with no civilian vocation, Grant began to struggle through seven financially lean years. His father, Jesse, initially offered Grant a position in the Galena, Illinois branch of the tannery business, on condition that Julia and the children, for economic reasons, stay with her parents in Missouri, or the Grants in Kentucky. Ulysses and Julia were adamantly opposed to another separation, and declined the offer. From 1854 to 1858, Grant farmed on his in-laws property near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by Julia's father, but it did not succeed. In 1856, Grant, in order to give his family a home, built a house he called "Hardscrabble", and which he considered an achievement. Julia hated the rustic house, which she described as an "unattractive cabin". During this time, Grant also acquired a slave from Julia's father; Julia herself had inherited four slaves. Having met with no success farming, the Grants left the St. Louis farm when their fourth and final child was born in 1858. Grant, notably, freed his slave instead of selling him, at a time when slaves commanded a high price and Grant needed money badly. For the next year, the family took a small house in St. Louis where he worked, again without success, with Julia's cousin Harry Boggs, as a bill collector. In 1860 Jesse offered him the job in his tannery in Galena, Illinois, without condition, which Ulysses accepted. The leather shop, "Grant & Perkins", sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area. He moved his family to Galena before the Civil War broke out.     

Although unopposed to slavery at the time, Grant kept his political opinions private and never endorsed any candidate running for public office before the Civil War. His father-in-law was a prominent Democrat in St. Louis, a factor that helped derail Grant's bid to become county engineer in 1859, while his own father was an outspoken Republican in Galena. In the 1856 election, he cast his first presidential vote for the Democratic candidate James Buchanan, saying he was really voting against Fremont, the Republican presidential candidate. In 1860, he favored the Democratic presidential candidate Stephen A. Douglas over Abraham Lincoln, and Lincoln over the alternate Democratic candidate, John C. Breckinridge. Lacking the residency requirements in Illinois at the time, he could not vote. By August 1863, during the Civil War, after the fall of Vicksburg, Grant's political sympathies fully coincided with the Radical Republicans' aggressive prosecution of the war and for the abolition of slavery. In 1864, his patron Congressman Elihu B. Washburne used Grant's private letters as campaign literature for Lincoln's reelection.  

Grant's curt response to Johnson in the Stanton matter increased his popularity with the Radical Republicans; John Weiss Forney, editor of the Washington Daily Chronicle, who had paved the way for previous presidential nominations, took up the effort for Grant's nomination, by first inquiring with Rawlins about Grant's interest in the presidency. Rawlin's response was that while Grant was a loyal member of the Republican Party, he would be unable to serve as president for financial reasons, since he would lose his lifetime military pension upon ascendancy to the White House, and the presidency did not provide any such income benefit. By becoming President under current terms, Grant would at best leave the office at age 56 with no income, assuming he served two terms. Rawlin's strategy in making this response was that if Forney had real influence over the matter, he could facilitate a legislative change to solve the problem. The ultimate answer was that this could not be changed.

Forney forged ahead with an editorial reviewing Grant's record with the recommendation for his nomination; he made a point of getting Grant's personal review before publication. By reviewing the article, though limited to the accuracy of his record, Grant implicitly opened the door for the nomination despite the precarious financial prospects in his future. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the 1868 Republican National Convention in Chicago; he faced no significant opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became his campaign slogan. 

As was common practice at the time, Grant remained home in Galena during the campaign, and left most of the active campaigning and speaking on his behalf to his campaign manager William E. Chandler and others. Grant's General Orders No. 11 and antisemitism became an issue during the 1868 presidential campaign. In a letter, published after the election, Grant sought to unequivocally distance himself from General Orders No. 11: "Grant's self-serving explanation", notes Jonathan Sarna, "did not actually bear close scrutiny," but Jews nonetheless generously accepted his attempt at self-extrication: "I have no prejudice against sect or race, but want each individual to be judged by his own merit. Orders No. 11 does not sustain this statement, I admit, but then I do not sustain that order. It never would have been issued if it had not been telegraphed the moment it was penned, and without reflection." Though Jewish opinion was mixed, Grant's determination to court Jewish voters ultimately resulted in his capturing the majority of that vote, though Grant did lose some Jewish votes as a result of the order. In the general election of that year, Grant won against former New York Governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 votes out of 5,716,082 votes cast. Grant commanded an Electoral College landslide, receiving 214 votes to Seymour's 80. When he assumed the presidency, Grant had never before held elected office and, at the age of 46, was the youngest person yet elected president. After the election, in an attempt to reconcile with Jewish leaders and people, Grant offered the position of Secretary of the Treasury to Joseph Seligman, a prominent Jewish businessman. Seligman, who had helped finance the Union war effort by obtaining European capital, declined the offer. Grant appointed more Jews to public office than any president before him. Grant was the first US President to be elected after the nation had outlawed slavery and given citizenship to former African-American slaves by US constitutional amendments.

 

Implementation of these new rights was slow to come; in the 1868 election, the black vote counted in only sixteen of the thirty-seven states.

The second president from Ohio, Grant was elected the 18th President of the United States in 1868, and was re-elected to the office in 1872; he served as President from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. Historian H. W. Brands described Grant as the greatest of war hero Presidents and that by the end of his second term the nation was secure from secession.

The commencement of the Grant administration was somewhat unorthodox. First, Grant's relationship with his predecessor Johnson had deteriorated badly, culminating with Johnson's appointment of Grant antagonist William Rosecrans as minister to Mexico. Breaking a long held tradition, President Johnson declined to ride with Grant's carriage or attend Grant's Inauguration at the Capitol, having chosen to remain at the White House signing last-minute bills into law. Grant took a unique and overly self-confident approach to his cabinet choices. In keeping with his style of acting unilaterally as a military commander, his nominations were made with minimal Congressional consultation, and were even kept secret until submission to the Senate for confirmation. Finally, Grant's primary appointment, the Secretary of State, which went to Hamilton Fish, a New York conservative statesman, actually grew out of a strong relationship initially forged between the two men's wives. Grant's first choice, Elihu B. Washburne, given the State Department only as personal favor, served 12 days in office, resigned due to "sickness", and then was appointed Minister to France. Grant's other Cabinet appointments, Jacob D. Cox (Interior), John A.J. Creswell (Postmaster General), and Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar (Attorney General), were popularly received by the nation. Grant desired to select non politicians to his Cabinet including Adolph E. Borie and A.T. Stewart. Borie, however, only served briefly as Secretary of Navy, replaced by Grant appointment George M. Robeson, while Stewart was lawfully prevented from becoming Secretary of Treasury by a 1789 statute and by Senator Charles Sumner's and Senator Roscoe Conkling's opposition to amend the law. In place of Stewart, Grant appointed George S. Boutwell, known for his integrity, as Secretary of Treasury. 

Booming post-war industrial markets and the expansion of the American West fueled wild speculation and corruption throughout the United States, only to come to an abrupt crash with the Panic of 1873. National wounds brought on by the massive socio-economic upheaval of the Civil War continued to mend. Although there were initial scandals in his first term, Grant remained popular in the country and was re-elected a second term in 1872. Notable accomplishments as President include policies for the protection of African Americans in the Reconstruction states as well as Native Americans in the West, the Treaty of Washington in 1871, and the Specie Payment Resumption Act in 1875. The Department of Justice was created during the Grant administration in an effort to centralize under the Attorney General the hiring of lawyers to represent federal agencies. President Grant sponsored two federally funded scientific discovery projects; the Polaris Expedition, America's first large-scale attempt to reach the North Pole, and the Hayden Geological Survey into the Yellowstone, that led to the establishment of Yellowstone National Park. Grant's 1862 General Orders No. 11 had haunted him, and as President he opposed a constitutional amendment that would have named Jesus as "ruler among the nations," out of respect for the Jewish people. President Grant appointed a Jew, Edward S. Salomon, Governor of the Territory of Washington in 1870. In 1875, Grant supported the Blaine Amendment, having stated the church and state should remain "forever separate."  

Grant's personal reputation as President suffered from the continued scandals caused by many corrupt appointees and personal associates and for the ruined economy caused by the Panic of 1873. A faction of the Republican party, the Liberal Republicans, bolted in 1872, publicly denounced the political patronage system known as Grantism and demanded amnesty for Confederate soldiers. In his re-election campaign, Grant benefited from the loyal support of Harper's Weekly political cartoonist Thomas Nast. Grant had multiple opportunities to strengthen the Supreme Court with nominations; biographer, William S. McFeely, considered his appointments not to have benefitted the Court. When Chief Justice Chase died, Grant chose not to make an appointment until Congress reconvened, since he did not want to appoint an interim Chief Justice, only to be rejected by Congress. When Congress reconvened, Grant chose Senator Roscoe Conkling, sure to be appointed by the Senate, however, Conkling ubruptly declined. This upset President Grant who believed Conkling needed to have accepted out of duty for the nation. After muddling through two failed nominations, the ultimate choice, Morrison Remick Waite was finally confirmed by the Senate. By 1876, during Grant's second term in office, as more scandals were exposed by Congress, his personal reputation was damaged, and Republicans decided not to renominate Grant for a consecutive third term.

Grant was the first president to have both parents living at the time of his election. His father Jesse Root Grant died on June 29th, 1873, whereas his mother Hannah Simpson Grant died on May 11, 1883. To date, the only other presidents to enter office with both of his parents alive are John F. Kennedy and George W. Bush.

A distinguishing characteristic in the Grant Presidency was his concern with the plight of African Americans and native Indian tribes, in addition to civil rights for all Americans. Grant's 1868 campaign slogan, "Let us have peace," defined his motivation and assured his success. As president for two terms, Grant made many advances in civil and human rights. In 1869 and 1871, he signed bills promoting black voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. He won passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, which gave freedmen the vote, and the Ku Klux Klan Act, which empowered the president "to arrest and break up disguised night marauders.

Grant continued to fight for black civil rights when he pressed for the former slaves to be "possessed of the civil rights which citizenship should carry with it." However, by 1874, a new wave of paramilitary organizations arose in the Deep South. The Red Shirts and White League, who conducted insurgency in Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Louisiana, operated openly and were better organized than the Ku Klux Klan had been. They aimed to turn Republicans out of office, suppress the black vote, and disrupt elections. In response to the renewed violent outbreaks against African Americans, Grant was the first President to sign a congressional civil rights act: the Civil Rights Act of 1875. This legislation mandated equal treatment in public accommodations and jury selection.  

Grant's attempts to provide justice to Native Americans marked a radical reversal of what had long been the government's policy of Indian removal. "My efforts in the future will be directed ... by a humane course, to bring the aborigines of the country under the benign influences of education and civilization. It is either this or war of extermination: Wars of extermination... are demoralizing and wicked," he told Congress. Grant's innovative "Peace" policy advocated Native American citizenship and education. It recommended use of reservations for protection of tribes. Grant, however, allowed millions of buffalo to be hunted without restriction, eventually resulting in the depletion of Native American food supply and of tribal independence. Statistical data indicate that during Grant's two terms as President the number of Indian battles per year decreased by 58, going from 101 Indian battles in 1869 to 43 in 1877. Historian H. W. Brands stated that Grant's peace policy was successful in terms of reducing Indian battles, while many tribal leaders, including Red Cloud, The Grass, and Spotted Owl, accepted Grant's reservation system to protect Indians from settler intrusion. 

President Grant faced financial corruption charges or scandals in all federal departments during his two terms in office. Some historians have emphasized Grant's responsibility for the corruption, while others have considered this exaggeration, and stress Grant's establishment of Civil Service reform and abolishment of the moiety system. Although personally honest with his own money matters, Grant had difficulty in spotting corrupt individuals. President Grant by personal nature was extremely loyal and protective of associates whom he befriended and viewed as victims of injustice. Grant's military instinct was to shield associates from attack at the expense of his own Presidential reputation, unless evidence of personal misconduct was overwhelming. Reformers who desired integrity in the federal government became hostile to the Administration and caused a party split in 1872. In November 1876, President Grant pardoned both William O. Avery and William McKee, who were convicted in connection with the Whiskey Ring tax evasion frauds in St. Louis; having served six months of their two-year sentences.

There were 11 scandals directly associated with Grant's two terms. The main scandals included Black Friday in 1869, the Whiskey Ring in 1875, and his Secretary of War William Belknap's resignation, House impeachment, and Senate trial in 1876 over accepting illicit payments from the Fort Sill tradership. The primary instigator and contributor to many of these scandals was Grant's personal secretary, Orville E. Babcock, who indirectly controlled many cabinet departments and was able to delay investigations by reformers. Babcock had direct access to Grant at the White House and had tremendous influence over who could see the President. Grant's political opponents used the phrase Grantism, coined by Sen. Charles Sumner during the Presidential election of 1872, to describe the many corruption charges during the Grant Administration. The Crédit Mobilier scandal was exposed by Congress, during the Grant Administration in 1872; the involvement of Vice-President Schuyler Colfax was an embarrassment to the Administration, but the wrongdoing in that instance is not generally imputed to Grant's Presidency. Grant's Attorney General George H. Williams prosecuted the Crédit Mobilier company, although unsuccessfully, representing the share holders who lost money. Robert C. Schenck, U.S. Ambassador to Britain, was involved with the Emma Silver Mine scandal, however, this embarrassment was not directly associated with President Grant or the State Department.  

Grant appointed reformer Benjamin Bristow to the Secretary of Treasury in 1874, who uncovered and shut down the notorious Whiskey Ring. In order to help Bristow's investigation and clean house, Grant appointed reformer Edwards Pierrepont as U.S. Attorney General. Initially Grant fully endorsed Bristow's investigation, stating, "Let no guilty man escape if it can be avoided," however, after Sec. Bristow discovered that the President's personal secretary Babcock was involved in the ring, Grant became defensive and eventually defended Babcock in an unprecedented 1876 deposition, which biographer McFeely contends was perjurious; the deposition was read in St. Louis during the Whiskey Ring graft trials. Biographer Smith, however, maintains that evidence against Babcock was circumstantial. The result of Grant's deposition, as well as testimony from Sherman, brought Babcock an acquittal. No President, before or since Grant, has ever given a deposition for a criminal defendant in a federal trial. This and the other scandals ruined any chances for Grant getting a third term nomination.

After the end of his second term in the White House, Grant spent over two years traveling the world with his wife. In Britain and Ireland the crowds were enormous. The Grants dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle, and with Chancellor Bismarck in Germany, met Pope Leo XIII at the Vatican then ventured east to Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Siam (Thailand), Burma, and China.

In Japan, they were cordially received by Emperor Meiji and Empress Shōken at the Imperial Palace. Today in Shiba Park in Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay. In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He worked with Japanese and Chinese officials to arrange a compromise, by which Japan would get most of the Ryukyus, and China would get the southernmost island groups, and Taiwan, thus settling the dispute over Taiwan at the same time. In the end, after Grant's departure, and much negotiation, China refused to sign the agreement. 

In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the businessmen, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing, but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. His popularity was fading, however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield, who won by a narrow margin. Grant supported his Stalwart ally Conkling against Garfield in the battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Conkling's resignation from office. Historians consider the world tour was in part a strategic attempt to rejuvenate Grant's image and set the stage for a political comeback; they conclude that, despite efforts to prolong the tour, Grant was unable to procure transportation and was forced to return too early, six months before the Republican convention, and thus lost the momentum the trip provided.  

Grant died of throat cancer at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor. His last words were, "I hope that nobody will be distressed on my account." After lying in state, Grant's body was placed on a funeral train and traveled via West Point to New York City. His body was interred in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in what is now known as General Grant National Memorial ("Grant's Tomb"), the largest mausoleum in North America. Grant is honored by the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial at the base of Capitol Hill in Washington. 

In May 2012, on the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Ulysses S. Grant Foundation, Mississippi State University was selected as the permanent location for Ulysses S. Grant's Presidential Library. President Grant's artifacts are to remain permanently at the Mitchell Memorial Library on the MSU campus. These include Grant's letters and photographs while he was President from 1869 to 1877. The MSU library cataloged and cross-referenced 15,000 linear feet of material. Grant's letters have been divided into 31 volumes while a 32nd volume is due to be released.

Grant is the third most popular American president to be portrayed in movies, films, or cinema, his character appearing in 35 movies. He is often portrayed as a scowling drunkard, which is historically inaccurate.


Source: Wikipedia

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