1822–1885 · Union commanding general & 18th President of the United States
Ulysses S. Grant (born 27 April 1822, died 23 July 1885) commanded the Union armies from 1864 and served as the eighteenth President from 1869 to 1877. His tin ear was a standing joke among friends: George W. Childs wrote that Grant “had no fondness for music, nor could he remember a tune or note,” and both Hamilton Fish and Robert C. Winthrop wrote to Childs with versions of the story. What none of them knew is that the line Grant used had been floating through American and British papers since at least 1839 — he was repeating a joke, not coining one.