Ulysses S. Grant: His Civil and Uncivil Wars
You may have learned about Ulysses S. Grant, but did you know about the man who ruined the last years of his life?
Everyone who enjoys learning about America’s history has an opinion of Ulysses S. Grant. He rose from military obscurity to become the greatest wartime general of the 19th century. A grateful nation rewarded him with the Presidency, but that’s when the problems began. Several members of his cabinet were blatant crooks, and he was fairly or unfairly tarred with the same brush of corruption.
After his presidency, he went into business with one of his sons and ended up losing practically every dollar he had. Then he developed throat cancer from the cigars that were always a part of his persona and died in pain and near poverty. Grant was either blessed with possibilities and opportunities or cursed by association and a trusting nature. Either way, he remains a fascinating historical figure. But his life and career are only the starting points of this story.
It's really more a story about a narcissistic sociopath who was disliked by almost everyone since he was a student, and then lied and cheated his way to a fortune. He spent much of it on a fancy home, lots of expensive accoutrements, but craved the attention of Society, which was not impressed. He ripped off his business partners and stole from everyone he did business with, including a president and his son. He was the topic of scorn in the newspapers and was finally caught, tried and sentenced to prison, declaring all the while that none of his troubles were his fault and life was unfair.
No, it’s not the story you may be thinking of.
This is a story about a man named Ferdinand Ward, and his brief moment on the stage, leaving in his wake a trail of broken lives. But first, let’s introduce you to General and President Ulysses S. Grant.
Hiram Ulysses Grant was born on April 27,1822 in Ohio. His father was a tanner and an ardent abolitionist. He was a slight boy who grew up with one talent and obsession – he loved horses. He was only 5’2” when he entered West Point and grew five inches while there reaching his adult height of 5’7”. He didn’t like the place all that much, and later said the happiest days in his life were when he left West Point and when he left the Presidency.
While he was at West Point he was friends with a fellow student named Frederick Tracy Dent, a young man from a well-off family in Missouri. Dent had a sister named Julia who Ulysses fell madly in love with, and she with him. They were married in 1848 and remained devoted to each other throughout their lives. Having been brought up in an abolitionist household, Grant was not pleased that his new in-laws were slaveholders. Neither of his parents attended the wedding for that reason. Over the next few years, they had four children, Frederick, Ulysses Jr. aka “Buck,” Ellen, called Nellie and Jesse.
He was still in the army when the United State went to war with Mexico in Texas in 1846. It was during this war that he became a seasoned combat officer, with a firm grasp of battle tactics and strategies, one of the few studies he actually liked when at West Point. He found that unlike many, he was at his calmest when chaos was all around him. He never panicked but was able to see strategies before him and see his men through.
But no talent goes unrewarded, and instead of advancing him, the army made him a quartermaster in remote locations. Grant became bored and started drinking, a vice that would haunt him throughout his life. His commander told him to reform or resign. He tried, failed and resigned from the Army in 1854. He returned to St. Louis with no means of support and a growing family.
The next seven years were full of financial struggles and poverty. Grant farmed on his brother-in-law’s property, working alongside the slaves, to the horror of his wife’s family. But the farm was a failure. He ended up selling cords of wood on the street corners of St. Louis.
On April 12, 1861, the Civil War started. Grant eagerly re-enlisted. He was shuffled around in local militias before finally being put in charge of the District of Southeastern Missouri. That November, Grant won his first victories at the battles of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. He showed admirable strategies in both, getting the attention of President Lincoln and his senior generals.
But Grant’s immediate superiors didn’t like him, and complained to their higher-ups that Grant was insubordinate, didn’t listen to their orders and was drinking again. Rejecting the warnings, Lincoln promoted him. The Northern press loved him, calling him “Unconditional Surrender Grant.” His ability to remain calm during cannon fire and the screams of the wounded men and horses allowed him to make strategic battle plans on the fly. He always saw the big picture in his head and sent his men where they needed to be to win the battles. He won Vicksburg, Mississippi in 1863, cutting the Confederate supply lines and their access to the Mississippi.
Lincoln promoted him to major general. More hard-won battles gave him control over much of the Western Confederacy at a time when the Union was losing in the east. Lincoln brought Grant east. Grant said in his memoirs that Lincoln told him, “All he wanted or had ever wanted was someone who would take the responsibility and act.” Act he did. Sherman took Savannah in December 1864. The winter proved harsh, and by the spring of 1865, Confederate troops under Robert E. Lee saw their ranks decimated and exhausted. They began deserting on masse due to hunger and stress. After two more major battles, Grant and Lee began communicating to discuss Lee’s surrender.
On April 9, 1865, Grant and Lee met at the Appomattox Court House in Virginia for the surrender. Grant wrote that he believed the Southern cause was “one of the worst for which a people ever fought.” Five days later, Lincoln was dead. Grant wept at the funeral. He later said, “Lincoln was the greatest man I have ever known.”
Congress promoted Grant to the newly created rank of “General of the Army of the United States.” He felt that he could work with Andrew Johnson, as president, during Reconstruction, but he soon lost all confidence in Johnson as he failed to support any real social change during this period. He decided to run for president.
In 1868, Grant was unanimously nominated as the presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention. He won the popular vote by 300,000, and won the Electoral College vote by a landslide, 214 to 80. Grant was very progressive for his day and began his presidency with some ambitious and important accomplishments. In 1870, he and Congress created the Justice Department, which allowed the new Attorney General the power to prosecute the Ku Klux Klan and others violently defying the mandates of Reconstruction. They also passed laws the were designed to protect African Americans and lead to a more just society.
Other notable achievements were designating Yellowstone as the first National Park. Grant purposely appointed Jews to federal office, including positions as district attorneys and administrative postal positions. He signed the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which would guarantee black Americans access to public facilities and mandated protection against violence. But that law was basically ignored, and in 1883, the Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional and it was dropped.
Grant easily won a second term with an Electoral College landslide of 286 to 66, But this term would be ridden with scandal. His Cabinet was crawling with thieves and crooks. Grant was honest and trusting and therefore gullible. Behind his back, many of his Cabinet members were as crooked as they come. All his executive departments were investigated by Congress and found to be riddled by corruption as well. He trusted many of these men, despite reports, and made some bad decisions in the process. The press hounded and excoriated him. Reconstruction, something that he really believed in and supported had failed, and he’d had enough. He could have run for a third term but decided to get out.
He and Julia embarked on a world tour that lasted two and a half years. Upon returning to the US, the family moved to NYC in 1881. Using funds put up by banker J. Pierpont Morgan and others, Grant purchased a brownstone at 3 E. 66th Street, off 5th Avenue, a prominent address then and today. Their new home was filled with gifts and memorabilia from all over the world. Julia was hosting tea parties for members of the Astor family, the Vanderbilt's and other members of NYC’s elite.
Being an ex-president gave the Grants access to just about anyone and everyone. Whatever anyone thought about his administration and its mistakes was soon forgotten. Being a recent war hero who saved the Republic was even better. He was invited to sit on boards, and to chair all kinds of committees. But the Grants couldn’t live on public acclaim alone, the General needed to make some money if he wanted to continue to live this life of luxury. He was surrounded by rich people and he wanted to be one of them. That caused him to make the biggest mistake of his life.
A corrupt Cabinet had nothing on the next important person in his orbit – an unassuming young man who befriended the Grant sons and their father and offered them the financial deal of a lifetime.
Ferdinand Ward was the youngest child of an upstate NY puritanical Presbyterian missionary and his doting, depressed and disappointed wife. He was raised in a strict and fearful home, with parents who always worried about sin, their status in the community and money. While his older brother Will enlisted in the army during the Civil War, Ferdinand was sent to a private school in Philadelphia where he was profoundly disliked and found to be an untrustworthy liar.
His parents wanted him to become a preacher, which he was not anxious to do. He lied to his parents and told them his eyesight had become so poor that he couldn’t possibly go into ministry where he would be required to do a lot of reading and writing. He came home, ran up bills that his father had to pay, and then proceeded to be enrolled in and kicked out of three more boarding schools. Finally, he got an apprentice job at a bank. He was fired two weeks later, but he found his calling – he loved banks and the financial world!
Ferd had plans, now that he knew how the system worked, but he needed seed money. He needed a wealthy wife. He moved to Brooklyn Heights and took a room in a brownstone. Then he went wife hunting. The first two prospects didn’t work out, the parents of his intended didn’t like him, and told him to get lost.
But not so the third, the family of Sidney Green, whose daughter Ella would be a fine match. Ferd put on the charm and began wooing not only Ella, but her father, who was a director of the Marine National Bank, one of Wall Street’s largest banks. He got Green to invest in buying temporary seats on the Produce Exchange, a transaction that yielded Green a nice return on his money. He was happy to have his daughter marry such a smart and ambitious young man.
But Ferd lied to the Greens about how much he made, and the engagement was almost called off. He then told his mother that he had gone blind in one eye and was losing his sight in the other and could she help him out with money for a nice engagement ring? Mom cried, but came through. His parents forbade his siblings from warning the Green’s about Ferd.
After a couple more close calls, and growing mistrust from Papa, the couple married in 1877. Three months after the wedding, Green died. Ferd convinced his mother-in-law that he should have control of her money. He told her he was going to invest in a sure stock. He sure did, he put the money in his own bank account. Over the years, he stole all her money, leaving her destitute. She was his first victim.
So how did this young sociopath meet the ex-President of the United States?
Ulysses and Julia had four children, three boys and a girl. The second son was named after his father – Ulysses Jr. but everyone called him “Buck.” He was a year and a lifetime younger than Ferdinand Ward. 25 year-old Buck was working as a lawyer in NYC when he met Will Ward, Ferd’s older brother, at a dinner held by his employer. They became friends and when Will wanted to move to a larger apartment, he asked Buck to be his roommate.
Will introduced Buck to his younger brother. Ferd worked hard to became Buck’s new best friend. Since Buck really liked Will, who was nothing like his brother, he soon trusted Ferd, not realizing that Ferd was everything his instincts warned him about in other people. He had grown up with a famous father, and knew many were drawn to him in order to gain access to his father. Ferd, however was in a class to himself.
Buck’s influence landed his roommate a new job out West in mining country. Will did well and was able to advise Ferd and the Grants to invest in a new mining stock, which paid well for all of them. Will met his wife-to-be out there, and never came back. His influence and watchful eye over Ferd was gone.
Now that Ferd had his nest egg, he quit his job and set up his own brokerage firm from a rented desk in the back of someone else’s office. He had the ear and attention of James Fish, the president of his father-in-law’s Marine Bank. Ferd had been bragging about his success in stock trading and had even gotten Fish to invest small amounts in what proved to be successful stocks.
Ferd had lined up his marks. He had the bank president on his side. He was friends with an ex-president’s son. Both men had taken his advice and made money. Now it was time to put them all together.
Ferd set up a dinner where he made sure Buck and Fish were seated next to each other amid the opulence of Ferd’s Brooklyn home. After dinner he casually told them that they should all go into business with each other, as they all brought complimentary skills to the table.
Buck must have been impressed by the riches around him. His family really didn’t have resources like that. Ferd must be doing something right. After months and months of persuasion, on July 1, 1880, the firm of Grant & Ward opened for business. They would trade stocks and bonds and be equal partners. Ferd would be managing partner, with sole access and authority to write the checks, keep the books and conduct the day to day business.
This was great for Ferd, because he only had $2000 left of the small fortune he had made by stealing his mother-in-law’s money, plus the money Fish had lent him, and the initial money Buck had lent him. His fancy Brooklyn Heights house and everything in it had cleaned him out. If either Fish or Grant had demanded their investments back, this story would have ended quickly.
Fish knew that Grant was no more than a patsy. But he had already compromised himself, and had gotten close to Ward, as close as anyone got to Ward, who was a total sociopath. Fish’s wife died in 1879, and he moved to a small apartment over his bank. He was lonely and would take the ferry across the river to the Heights just to have breakfast with Ferd and Ella. Ferd would walk him to the ferry, telling him to be careful, and that the old man was precious to him, a dear friend and benefactor.
The company’s first attempts were good, and real money, legit money was coming in, which made other investors less cautious about the growing company. Buck tried his hand at trading, and lost money, with Ferd convincing him that only HE could trade and make money. Buck should just sit back and enjoy. At the time, Buck thought it made sense. It also made sense after 3 months that he should have his father meet his new business partner. Ferd was only too happy to meet the General and ex-President.
Grant was a decisive, canny military genius. But he was terrible at business and even worse at choosing who to trust. He was bilked by fellow soldiers, he bought land from someone who didn’t own it, and he was blind to the massive corruption in his administration. He needed money. He didn’t even have his army pension, which he had to give up when he became President. His son spoke so highly of Ward, so the general, who had failed in every business except the military, bought into Ward’s world. Ward, enabled by Fish, played him like a violin.
Ward told the Grants that if they each put in $50K, added to their firm’s $100K, they would have $200K to invest in lucrative stocks and bonds. The Grant name would bring in more customers, more stocks, and everyone would be rich. The Grants each invested, putting their life savings into the company. Ward and Fish contributed nothing but pieces of paper.
Grant was offered a place on the board of a railroad which gave him a large new office. He shared it with his son and his business partners. This gave the firm an even bigger physical presence on Wall St, bringing in more new customers.
Everyone thought Grant & Ward was making big bucks. The reality was that Ferd was paying one client with another client’s new money and skimming greatly off the top of everything. The classic Ponzi Scheme. Since he was the only one who had access to the books and the bank account in Fish’s Marine Bank, he was accountable to no one.
The financial press started to call Ferdinand Ward the “Napoleon of Wall Street.” To keep it all going, Ferd cooked the books, resold assets several times and got bank loans from Marine bank and elsewhere based on pledges of money reserves that he had already pledged several other times to other people. Fish was aware of this, and urged caution, but he was already too caught up in it all.
Ward suggested the company start investing in lucrative, but risky government contracts. Here’s where General Grant’s many contacts would be invaluable, added to his own. Brother Will had married into a prominent political family out West. If they could get the inside scoop on contracts, the money problems were over.
Ward pitched this to the former president. Grant said no. He never liked trading on his influence. But Ward lied and told Fish that Grant was on board. Since neither father nor son were in the office very often, Ward was able to get Grant to sign anything put in front of him, including a letter Ferd wrote in his name endorsing the company. Grant trusted Ward and never even read what he was signing.
But Ward was juggling too much, trying to rob Peter to pay Paul. Several of the other investors were starting to think that this success was too good to be true. Some wanted to cash out. Fish’s bank board also had questions. Grant & Ward desperately needed some new customers with new cash.
The Grant letter went out to all kinds of investors, including prominent former military men, railroad executives, celebrities, members of the “400” and even Colonel Fred Grant, the General’s eldest son. They all invested heavily. Fred turned over a million dollars in stock and bonds for Ward to reinvest. Back home in Brooklyn, Ella Ward gave birth to their only child, a boy, on March 11, 1884.
With too many financial balls in the air, the whole scam fell apart in only two days. On May 6, 1884, James Fish went to the bank to discover that payments for several large loans had all gone through at the same time. There was no opportunity to move money around because there was no money in the bank. The juggling act was over. The bank was insolvent, Ward & Grant was insolvent, and everyone who had invested in the company had lost every cent of their investments. The bank’s regular depositors were owed over $14 million.
When General Grant left his house that day he thought he was a millionaire. He got down to the office and went inside to talk to his son. “Grant & Ward has failed,” Buck said. “Ward has fled. You better go home,” Grant buried his face in his hands and said he would never trust anyone ever again. He got home with $80 in the bank. Julia had $130. They had nothing else.
Both Ferd Ward and James Fish were tossed in the Ludlow St. Jail, in Lower Manhattan. Like most prisons of that day, one’s wealth determined whether you suffered in jail or lived pretty much as you had always done. Ward paid his jailers and had a large cell with a nice bed, comfortable furniture, books, and meals delivered from fine restaurants.
Fish went on trial first. He was found guilty on 12 of 24 charges. His appeal knocked it down to 7 charges. Because of his age, he was sentenced to serve them concurrently with 10 years of hard labor at Auburn Prison. He was trundled off to prison, with the added scandal of a dead mistress and illegitimate baby haunting him. But that’s another story. It took the courts over a year to try Ward. He spent that time in the Ludlow Jail.
Although they lost almost everything, the Grants were able to keep their home. William Vanderbilt took title and allowed them to stay there as long as they liked. After Grant’s death, Julia stayed until her own passing in 1902.
In the summer of 1884, Grant began complaining of a persistent and painful sore throat. That fall, his doctor diagnosed throat cancer. He had been a heavy cigar smoker for most of his life. It was so widely known that he loved his cigars that admirers sent him barrels of Cuban cigars as gifts. Those gifts killed him. By March of 1885, the nation knew that Grant was dying of cancer.
His biggest worry was leaving Julia without any resources. Urged by friends, he began writing his memoirs. His friend Mark Twain made him an offer to buy them, with an unheard of 75% royalties. His former staff member Adam Badeau helped him with much of the research, while son Frederick located documents and did most of the fact-checking. Grant began writing, eventually moving upstate to Mount McGregor in the Adirondacks to the cottage of a friend, to enjoy a better climate than in the city, as well as solitude.
The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant was a critical and commercial success. Julia received about $450,000 in royalties, the equivalent of almost $13 million today. Grant didn’t live long enough to see that success. He died at Mount McGregor only a few days after completing the book, on July 23, 1885. He was only 63.
President Grover Cleveland ordered a 30 day period of national mourning. Grant’s casket was placed on a special train which traveled downstate to West Point and finally to NYC. His funeral procession in Manhattan was lined with thousands of veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic, following the casket drawn by 24 black stallions. That day, Ferd Ward bribed his Ludlow St.jailors to let him out so he could attend. He stood on the street as the funeral procession passed by. He wore dark glasses so as not to be recognized. He later said he truly mourned Grant, but realized no one would believe him.
Many people felt that he had ushered Grant into an early grave. But his doting mother hated Grant and his family, because they said bad things about her son. She thought such public spectacles like the funeral procession were “Idolatry of the worst kind.”
Grant’s body was laid to rest in a temporary tomb in Riverside Park. Grant’s only real wish was that he and his wife Julia be buried next to each other. Supporters wanted him to be buried either in Washington DC, or at West Point, but the academy, like all military cemeteries and installations at the time, did not allow women to be buried on their grounds.
Fund raising began for a permanent mausoleum and monument. There was some controversy over the city and site. The Grant family wanted him to lie in NYC, so that Julia could easily visit his grave, and that the memorial would be prominent enough so that “his countrymen” could visit. Construction began in 1891 and the exterior was finished in 1896. On April 17, 1897, Grant’s remains were transferred to the memorial with a dedication ceremony on his 79th birthday , April 27th. Julia died in 1902, and rests next to her husband.
Meanwhile, in Lower Manhattan, Ward was counting the months till his trial. He was often approached by the press. In interviews and at his trial he spent his time sowing the blame for his downfall on everyone else but himself. He blamed banker James Fish most of all. He blamed Buck, the General and their rich and powerful friends. According to his telling of the story, it was another case of the rich and powerful putting the blame on an innocent, unsophisticated young man – himself. He cast himself as the ultimate victim, innocent of everything except trying to please his powerful clients. If the bank failed, it was all their fault, not his. He had done nothing wrong. The jury didn’t buy it and came back with a resounding verdict of “GUILTY!”
The next day, people in Grand Central Station saw plainclothes officers escorting a small man with a drooping mustache and glasses. He had on a fine suit. He sat and chatted with the guards on his way north, smoking his cigar. But he stopped smiling and chatting as the train pulled into Ossining. As the kids like to say, “Shit got real.” Ward spent the next seven years of his life at Sing Sing. The prison was much like Ludlow Jail, if you had the money, you could live quite well if you could pay off the guards and higher ups.
Unfortunately, Ward didn’t have that kind of money. He depended on cash and care packages from his wife and mother. He wrote years of letters to Ella, his mother and siblings, always feeling sorry for himself and blaming others for his situation. He needed money most of all. He wasn’t particularly interested in what anyone had to do to get the money. Poor Ella sent more than she was able to, and it was never enough. In the meantime, she changed her son’s name from Ferdinand to Clarence.
He badgered her to sell her jewelry, sell everything she had to give him money. When she was not able to do so, his letters were a series of guilt trips and whining about how awful she was and how she didn’t love him. Ella started to self-medicate on patent medicine, most of which were opiods. She looked much older than she was and was a wreck. She had almost exhausted her inheritance from her father. Ward didn’t care, he wanted it all.
While he was in prison, Ward’s mother died, the person most sympathetic to him, and a valuable source of income. He was quite upset and redoubled his efforts on Ella to come up with cash. She visited him less and less. In 1890, poor Ella died of peritonitis, although the doctor told her family that her addiction to her patent medicine had helped her along. She left her son Clarence all her worldly goods in a trust fund that he would not be able to access until he was 25. It was about $30K, which would be about $730K today.
Ferd wanted that money, and raged over the injustice that wouldn’t allow him to attend the funeral, and that she had put her last dollars beyond his reach. It was SO UNFAIR!
Ward was released from Sing Sing on April 30, 1892.
By 1910, most people had forgotten about Grant & Ward, or General Grant, who had been dead for 30 years. Ward was hired by the NY Tribune to write a series of articles about his life and dealings with General Grant. He wrote a three part series of pure balderdash, painting Grant as a brilliant general, greatly admired father-figure to him, but a babe in the woods, preyed upon by greedy Wall Street types. The failure of the banks was not his fault, and he was sorry that the Grant’s and other blamed him, but he held no rancor. President Grant was a great man.
Young Clarence, who was only 6, at his mother’s death was being raised by Ella’s brother and family. Ward was not happy about that, either. Ward spent the next few years trying to get Ella’s money. His failed efforts only convinced him of the unfairness of his life. He didn’t know his son, didn’t really care about him, but tried to get custody and failed. He tried for years, aways slinging blame and protesting the unfairness of being denied his only son. He was unsuccessful and got little sympathy. He then attempted to have the boy kidnapped, which also failed. He never got Ella’s money.
Clarence grew up and got married in 1907. He settled in Oberlin, Ohio. After his articles appeared in the Herald, Ward wrote to his son and told him that all he ever wanted from Clarence was what was his. “You insist on keeping me from what is my own,” he said. “Every dollar you now possess came from me. It seems only right that you should consider this and do right by me.” Clarence did not agree. Ferdinand Ward died in 1925. He was 73. He’s buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. It was left to Clarence to make the arrangements.
Clarence Ward was the grandfather of writer Geoffrey Ward, who in 2013 wrote the fascinating story of his great-great grandfather in a best-seller entitled A Disposition to Be Rich. He was able to sift through long held family documents and letters, as well as outside sources, resulting in a highly readable and exciting book. I wholeheartedly recommend it.
Much of the source material for this article came from Disposition, as well as newspaper archives and various publications and online articles. Ulysses S. Grant, his family and his life experiences are well documented. I originally compiled this information for a virtual presentation during COVID called “Ulysses S. Grant: Alive and Dead in Brooklyn.” This is the story of Grant during his lifetime. The rest of my presentation was Grant after his death – his monuments, statues and other representations as they appear in Brooklyn. You might not think so, but there are some good stories there, as well.
Grant did one other great thing. I strongly recommend Fergus Bordewich’s book Klan Wars describing how Grant stood up to the KKK near the time of its birth and—in general—did everything he could as President to destroy the Klan.
Very interesting stuff. What a jerk!