American Experience Season 14 Episode 13

Ulysses S. Grant (1): The Warrior

A moody two-part biography of Ulysses S. Grant (1822-85). Part 1, "Warrior," quickly sketches his largely unsuccessful pre-Civil War life and ends on Good Friday 1865, when his wife told him to turn down a theater invitation because she didn't like the company of Mary Lincoln. During the war, Grant owed his success to his ability to treat his often unruly troops as he did his horses: calmly, firmly, quietly. But if he was a hero at Fort Donelson and Vicksburg, he's also described as being a "butcher" at Shiloh and Cold Harbor.