An unusually civil armistice in the most punishing conflict ever fought on American soil. One hundred and fifty years ago, on April 9, 1865, a lone Confederate horseman violently waving a white towel as a flag of truce galloped up to the men of the 118th Pennsylvania Infantry near Appomattox Court House and asked for[…]
Grant was accused with packing the court, the same charge later leveled against FDR in 1937. Introduction On April 10, 1869, Congress passed an act to amend the judicial system in part by increasing the number of Supreme Court justices to nine, to take effect the first Monday in December of that year. That act,[…]
After winning the Civil War and living in the White House, he decided to see the world. Introduction Liverpool was the first stop on Grant’s two-and-a-half-year trip around the world. After eight years in the White House, with no ancestral home to return to, Grant and his wife, Julia, decided to indulge their wanderlust and[…]
The president and his Seneca friend Ely Parker wanted Native Americans to gain citizenship, but their efforts are mostly lost to history. The man elected president in 1868—Ulysses S. Grant—was determined to change the way many of his fellow Americans understood citizenship. As he saw it, anyone could become an American, not just people like[…]
On the motives of a reluctant memoirist. In late 1884, after delivering an evening lecture at Chickering Hall, Samuel Clemens ventured out into the soggy New York City night. November had brought with it both cold and rain, leaving only a few brave souls on the dark streets. Clemens had appeared as his alter ego,[…]