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U. S. Grant (1822–1885)
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The Civil War changed few men’s lives as much
as it did that of Ulysses S. Grant. Grant was a
West Point graduate, a veteran of the Mexican War,
and a member of the class of officers who found
life in the regular army—away from family and
friends—to be lonely and tedious. In 1854 he resigned
his commission only to offer his services again
at the start of the war. Grant was made a brigadier
general and given a command in Cairo, Illinois.
Nothing much was expected of him until he began
winning victories, first at Fort Donelson, Tennessee,
where his terms were “unconditional surrender,”
and later at Vicksburg, Mississippi, and Chattanooga,
Tennessee. Although some said he drank and was not
fit for high command, President Lincoln had enough
faith in him to promote him to lieutenant general
and to give him command of all the Union armies.
This portrait of Grant, by the Norwegian-born
Ole Peter Hansen Balling, shows the Union’s
most celebrated general at Vicksburg, the site
of his great triumph of 1863. In truth, Balling
had his first sittings with Grant more than a
year later in Washington, D.C. From the turn of
the century until it came to the National Portrait
Gallery, Balling’s likeness, and its massive
frame recalling Grant’s Civil War triumphs,
hung in the lobby of a hotel in Saratoga Springs,
New York.
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Ole Peter Hansen Balling (1823–1906)
Oil on canvas, 1864
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
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