ULYSSES S. GRANT . 1869-1877

Late in the administration of Andrew Johnson, General Ulysses S. Grant aligned himself with the Radical Republicans. He was, as the symbol of Union victory during the Civil War, their logical candidate for President in 1868.

Born on April 27,1822, in Point Pleasant, Ohio, Grant was the son of a tanner. Graduated from West Point, he fought in the Mexican War under General Zachary Taylor. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Grant was appointed commander of a volunteer regiment. By September 1861, Grant was brigadier general of volunteers. In February 1862, he took Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. In April, Grant, now a major general of volunteers, fought a bloody battle at Shiloh and came out less well. President Lincoln fended off demands for his removal by saying, "I can't spare this man - he fights."

For his next major objective, Grant maneuvered and fought skillfully to win Vicksburg, the key city on the Mississippi, and thus cut the Confederacy in two. Then he broke the Confederate hold on Chattanooga. Lincoln appointed him general-in-chief in March 1864. Grant directed Sherman to drive through the South while he himself, with the Army of the Potomac, pinned down General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.

Finally, on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House, Lee surrendered. Grant wrote out magnanimous terms of surrender that would prevent treason trials.

As president, Grant presided over the government much as he had run the army. Indeed he brought part of his army staff to the White House. He allowed Radical Reconstruction to run its course in the South, bolstering it at times with military force. Although a man of scrupulous honesty, Grant mistakenly associated with speculators. He uncovered their plan to corner the gold market, but was too late to stop the havoc it wrought on business.

During his campaign for re-election in 1872, Grant was attacked by Liberal Republican reformers. He called them "narrow-headed men," their eyes so close together that "they can look out of the same gimlet hole without winking." The General's friends in the Republican Party came to be known proudly as "the Old Guard."

After retiring from the presidency, Grant became a partner in a financial firm, which went bankrupt. About that time he learned that he had cancer of the throat. He started writing his recollections to pay off his debts and provide for his family, racing against death to produce a memoir that ultimately earned nearly $450,000. Soon after completing the last page, in 1885, he died.

RUTHERFORD B. HAYES . 1877-1881

Beneficiary of the most fiercely disputed election in American history, Rutherford B. Hayes brought to the Executive Mansion dignity, honesty, and moderate reform.

Born in Delaware, Ohio on October 4, 1822, Hayes was educated at Kenyon College and Harvard Law School. After five years' law practice in Lower Sandusky, he moved to Cincinnati, where he flourished as a young Whig lawyer. He fought in the Civil War, was wounded in action, and rose to the rank of brevet major general. While he was still in the army, Cincinnati Republicans ran him for the House of Representatives. He accepted the nomination, but would not campaign, explaining, "an officer fit for duty who at this crisis would abandon his post to electioneer... ought to be scalped."

Party loyalty and a good war record made Hayes a Republican presidential candidate in 1876. Although many famous Republican speakers, including Mark Twain, stumped for him, Hayes expected to lose to Democrat Samuel J. Tilden. The popular vote did go to Tilden - 4,300,000 to 4,036,000 - but a loophole left the final outcome depending upon contested electoral votes in Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida. If every one of the disputed votes went to Hayes, he would win the presidency.

Months of uncertainty followed. In January 1877, an Electoral Commission was established to decide the dispute. The commission, comprised of eight Republicans and seven Democrats, determined in favor of Hayes by eight to seven.

As president, Hayes insisted that his appointments be made on merit and not political considerations. For his cabinet he chose men of high caliber, but many Republicans were outraged because one was an ex-Confederate and another a Liberal Republican.

Hayes pledged protection of blacks in the South, but also advocated the restoration of "wise, honest, and peaceful local self-government." This meant the withdrawal of troops. Hayes hoped such conciliatory policies would lead to the building of a "new Republican party" in the South, to which white businessmen and conservatives would rally. Many of the leaders of the new South did indeed favor Republican economic policies and approved of Hayes's financial conservatism, but they faced annihilation at the polls if they were to join the party of Reconstruction. Hayes and his Republican successors were persistent in their efforts but could not win over the "solid South."

Hayes had announced in advance that he would serve only one term, and retired to Spiegel Grove, his home in Fremont, Ohio, in 1881. He died in 1893.