American Struggle
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General George McClellan
George McClellan was born December 3, 1826, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1846, he graduated second in his class at West Point. After graduation, he was sent to study European armies during the Crimean War. While there, he developed a saddle—the McClellan saddle—which was used as long as the U.S. Horse Cavalry existed. McClellan resigned his commission in 1857 and went into the railroad business, then rejoined the army in 1861, initially commanding the Ohio militia. He became commander of the Army of the Potomac, and ultimately supreme commander over all Union forces on November 1, 1861. His perceived slowness to move on the Confederate forces led to him being called cowardly and incompetent. Although his leadership in battle was questioned, his organization skills were not. However, his reluctance to engage in battle and his frequent refusal to follow orders from President Abraham Lincoln led to his removal from command on November 5, 1862. George McClellan ran for president against Lincoln in 1864 and lost, but served as governor of New Jersey from 1878 until 1881. George McClellan died on October 29, 1885.
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant was born Hiram Ulysses Grant on April 27, 1822, in Point Pleasant, Ohio. He received an appointment to West Point when he was seventeen years old. His congressman registered him as Ulysses S. Grant, the name by which he would be known from that day forward. Grant graduated from West Point in 1843, ranked number twenty-one in a class of thirty-nine students. After serving in the Mexican-American War, Grant left the army and began a civilian life that included farm work, real estate sales, and finally participation in his father and brother’s leather business. He rejoined the army after the fall of Fort Sumter in 1861. On August 7, 1861, he was appointed a Brigadier General of volunteers. On February 6, 1862, Grant gave the Union forces their first victory by capturing Fort Henry, Tennessee. On March 17, 1864, he assumed the command of all of the armies of the United States. After the Civil War, Congress appointed him to the new position of General of the Army. A Republican, Grant served two terms as president, 1869–1877. Ulysses S. Grant died on July 23, 1885, and is buried in Grant’s Tomb in New York, the largest mausoleum in the United States.
HISTORY IN PERSPECTIVE TIMELINE
1850–1860—Former slave Harriet Tubman leads approximately three hundred people to freedom through the Underground Railroad.
June 5, 1851—Installments of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin begin to appear in the Washington National Era, an antislavery weekly.
February 4, 1861—The Confederate States of America are formed. Jefferson Davis is elected Provisional President the next day.
March 4, 1861—Abraham Lincoln becomes President of the United States. April 12, 1861—The Civil War begins at Fort Sumter, South Carolina.
January 1, 1863—Abraham Lincoln delivers the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring slaves in seceded states free.
August 22, 1864—The International Red Cross is founded in Geneva, Switzerland.
April 9, 1865—The Civil War ends with Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox.
April 14, 1865—Abraham Lincoln is assassinated at Ford’s Theater in Washington, DC, by actor John Wilkes Booth.
July 4, 1865—Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland published.