Ulysses S. Grant
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50 free Ulysses S. Grant trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Ulysses S. Grant was not born with that name: a congressman's clerical error enrolled Hiram Ulysses Grant at West Point as 'U. S. Grant', and his classmates promptly nicknamed him Sam after Uncle Sam. He left the army broke, sold firewood in St. Louis, clerked in his father's Galena leather shop, and within four years was the first lieutenant general since George Washington, accepting Lee's surrender with terms that let the Confederates keep their horses. These 50 questions follow him from Point Pleasant, Ohio, through Forts Henry and Donelson, Shiloh, the Vicksburg siege that ended on July 4, Chattanooga, the Overland Campaign and Appomattox, then into a presidency that created the Justice Department and the first Civil Service Commission, prosecuted the Klan, settled the Alabama Claims and drowned in the Whiskey Ring and Black Friday. The later years cover the first presidential trip around the world, the failed third-term bid, the Wall Street swindle that left him penniless and the memoirs Mark Twain published on a 70% royalty as he died of throat cancer. Easy questions stick to the presidency number, the surrender and the tomb; the hard tier asks about cabinet secretaries, Korean expeditions and the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you pick up something even when you miss.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who succeeded Grant as president in 1877?
Rutherford B. Hayes
Rutherford B. Hayes: because March 4 fell on a Sunday, he took the oath privately in the White House Red Room the day before, while Grant was still president.
Q 02What was Grant's name at birth?
Hiram Ulysses
Hiram Ulysses was the name he left behind at 17, and for the rest of his life he insisted that the 'S' in his famous initials stood for nothing at all.
Q 03In which state was Grant born?
Ohio
Ohio: after Grant died, his birth cottage at Point Pleasant was shipped off by barge and spent decades on display around the state before it was finally brought home.
Q 04How did Grant end up with the name 'U. S. Grant'?
A congressman's error
A congressman's error: nominating him to West Point, Thomas Hamer got his name wrong, and the young cadet kept 'Ulysses S. Grant' for life.
Q 05What nickname did Grant's fellow cadets give him at West Point?
Sam
Sam: the academy's roster listed him as 'U. S. Grant', and his classmates joked that the initials stood for Uncle Sam.
Q 06West Point's best horseman, Grant was nonetheless commissioned in 1843 into which branch of the Army?
Infantry
Infantry: branch assignments went by class rank, not talent, and Grant had graduated 21st of 39, too low for one of the Army's coveted cavalry places.
Q 07Grant's father made his living in what trade?
Leather goods
Leather goods: Jesse Grant was a tanner, and young Ulysses so hated the stench of the tannery that he swore he would never work in it as an adult.
Q 08What was Grant's wife's maiden name?
Julia Dent
Julia Dent was the sister of his West Point roommate, and James Longstreet, by several accounts one of the groom's attendants at their 1848 wedding, later fought against him as a Confederate general.
Q 09What did Grant name the cabin he built on his father-in-law's farm in 1856?
Hardscrabble
Hardscrabble lived up to its name: the farm failed within a few years, and one Christmas Grant pawned his watch to buy presents for his family.
Q 10In which Illinois town was Grant living when the Civil War began?
Galena
Galena: Grant was clerking in a family store there when the war broke out, and within days he was helping to recruit and drill the town's volunteers.
Q 11Grant demanded 'unconditional surrender' at which 1862 stronghold?
Fort Donelson
Fort Donelson gave the Union its first major victory of the war, and a delighted North decided that Grant's initials stood for 'Unconditional Surrender'.
Q 12Which April 1862 battle, won by Grant, was the costliest in American history to that point?
Shiloh
Shiloh's losses brought calls for Grant's dismissal, but Lincoln is said to have answered, 'I can't spare this man; he fights.'
Q 13Grant's 1863 capture of Vicksburg gave the Union control of which river?
The Mississippi
The Mississippi: Vicksburg surrendered to Grant on the Fourth of July, 1863, and with the whole river in Union hands the Confederacy was cut in two.
Q 21Which Grant phrase became the Republican slogan in 1868?
Let us have peace
'Let us have peace' closed Grant's letter accepting the 1868 nomination, and the same four words are now carved above the entrance to his tomb.
Q 22Who was Grant's first-term vice president?
Schuyler Colfax
Schuyler Colfax, the Speaker of the House, lost his place on the 1872 ticket and was then named in the Crédit Mobilier railroad-stock scandal.
Q 23Which chief justice swore Grant in on March 4, 1869?
Salmon P. Chase
Salmon P. Chase, appointed by Lincoln, had spent the previous spring presiding over the first Senate trial of a sitting president in American history.
Q 14Grant's 1862 General Order No. 11, later a campaign issue, expelled whom from his district?
Jews
Jews: Lincoln had the order revoked within weeks, and Grant later admitted he could not defend it; as president he appointed a record number of Jewish Americans to office.
Q 15Before Grant, who was the only man to hold the full rank of lieutenant general in the US Army?
George Washington
George Washington: Winfield Scott had worn the title only by brevet, an honorary promotion, so Congress revived the full rank for Grant, who took command of every Union army.
Q 16The brutal series of 1864 Virginia battles Grant fought against Lee is called what?
The Overland Campaign
The Overland Campaign cost Grant dearly at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor, but he kept moving south until Lee was pinned down in the siege of Petersburg.
Q 17Where did Lee surrender to Grant on April 9, 1865?
Appomattox Court House
Appomattox Court House: after the signing, Grant sent rations across the lines to Lee's hungry army and stopped his own men from firing salutes in celebration.
Q 18What did Grant allow Lee's troops to keep after the surrender?
Their horses
Their horses: at Lee's request, Grant let the cavalry and artillery men take their animals home, reasoning that most were small farmers with a spring crop to plant.
Q 19What reason did the Grants give for declining Lincoln's invitation to Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865?
A trip to see family
A trip to see family in New Jersey was the excuse, though Julia Grant was also on poor terms with Mary Lincoln; Booth had expected to find the general in the president's box.
Q 20Which president promoted Grant to General of the Army in 1866?
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson made Grant America's first four-star general, but the two fell out over Reconstruction, and within three years Grant had replaced him as president.
Q 24Which constitutional amendment, on voting rights, did Grant champion?
Fifteenth
The Fifteenth Amendment barred denying the vote on account of race; when it was ratified in 1870, Grant called it a measure of 'grander importance' than any since the nation's founding.
Q 25Which federal agency was created in 1870 under Grant to enforce Reconstruction?
The Justice Department
The Justice Department was barely a year old when its lawyers were indicting Klansmen by the thousand under the new Enforcement Acts, though convictions proved far harder to win.
Q 26Which federal body did Grant create in 1871?
Civil Service Commission
The Civil Service Commission drew up competitive exams for federal jobs, and Grant put them into effect, but within a few years Congress cut off its money and the reform lapsed.
Q 27Who was Grant's Secretary of State for nearly all eight years of his presidency?
Hamilton Fish
Hamilton Fish steered Grant away from a war with Spain over Cuba and negotiated the Treaty of Washington, which settled a bitter wartime dispute by arbitration.
Q 28The Alabama Claims, settled under Grant, concerned a Confederate warship built where?
Britain
Britain let Confederate agents build the CSS Alabama in its shipyards, and an arbitration panel later ordered it to pay the United States $15.5 million for the damage.
Q 29Which Caribbean territory did Grant try and fail to annex?
Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo, today's Dominican Republic, had a government eager to join, and Grant hoped it would offer Black Americans a refuge from violence in the South; the Senate said no.
Q 30Which Massachusetts senator led the fight against Grant's Caribbean annexation treaty?
Charles Sumner
Charles Sumner chaired the Foreign Relations Committee and helped sink the treaty; a furious Grant then had his Senate allies strip him of the chairmanship.