Poems by Presidents by Michael Croland

Author:Michael Croland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: POETRY / Subjects & Themes/Political & Protest
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2023-12-06T00:00:00+00:00

Ulysses S. Grant

1822–85

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18th president (1869–77)

Ulysses S. Grant was a revered war hero who commanded the Union armies during the Civil War. As president, he worked to move the nation past the remnants of slavery during Reconstruction. He issued a proclamation that solidified the eight-hour workday for federal employees, and he signed legislation making Yellowstone the first national park.

Grant’s bona fides as a writer are impeccable. In Author in Chief, Craig Fehrman dubbed Grant “the presidency’s greatest memoirist.” Mark Twain referred to Grant’s Personal Memoirs as a “literary master­piece,” and historian Ron Chernow called it “probably the foremost military memoir in the English language.”

Whether Grant was a poet is less certain. He supposedly wrote an acrostic in 1839, when he was seventeen, before attending

the US Military Academy at West Point. The poem spells out the name of Mary King, his romantic interest. Grant affirms his military aspirations and asks King to remember him when he is away. While the poem is widely attributed to Grant, its authorship is not definitive. One theory posits that he penned the first couplet and his sister wrote the rest.

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