TGIF! What will you be doing with all your football free time this weekend? I’ll be working because I put off this project until both football and Kraken hockey won’t be happening.

Word Count Filler Time

Fun facts about Ulysses S. Grant.

Popular stuff
He’s on the fifty dollar bill, he won the Civil War, and he was president.

Early Life
Jesse Grant secured an appointment for his son Ulysses at West Point back in 1839 because it was free and he didn’t think his son had any acumen for business. Ulysses has zero interest in the military, but he went and graduated in 1843, fought in the Mexican war, and remained a cog in the military machine until he retired in 1854. He then proved his father right by failing at farming then real estate before retreating to work as a clerk in his father’s store at age 37. A year later the Civil War started, Ulysses returned to the army, and was promoted to brigadier general.

Civil War
Ulysses toiled about initially with defensive tasks but he wanted to fight. In 1862 he was given approval to attach Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River with 17k troops and gunboats. Fort Henry was defeated in two days. A week later he began his attack on Fort Donelson and after two days victory was imminent. The fort commander was General Simon Bolivar Buckner who just so happened to know Ulysses because they fought together in the Mexican War. Buckner tried to negotiate terms of a settlement but Ulysses would only allow an unconditional and immediate surrender. Buckner had no choice but to accept and call the terms “ungenerous and unchivalrous.” Dude, you’re in a war, what did you expect?

Cigars
The victories made Ulysses famous and also gave him the habit that killed him. Prior to this time, Ulysses only occasionally smoked a pipe. The gunboat Commander gave Ulysses a cigar when he talked to him after being wounded in the Fort Donelson attack. After leaving the ship he was notified of a Confederate attack and went straight to battle still clinging the cigar in his hand even though it had gone out. Reports surfaced that Ulysses conducted the entire battle with that cigar. As a result many people sent him cigars and paraphernalia. He gave away as much as he could, but there’s only so much you can give away when you have 10k free cigars around you. By 1864, having been promoted to lieutenant general, Ulysses would start smoking after breakfast and smoke around two dozen cigars a day. In 1866 he tried to cut back and was down to 10 to 12 cigars a day.

Consequences
In 1868 Ulysses was elected president for the first of his two terms. In 1884 he felt some pain while eating a peach. A small cancerous growth was found in his mouth. Ulysses didn’t have it treated until the fall of that year, but by that time the growth was too large to be operated on. He struggled with it until his death in July of 1885. So a man that never really smoked and didn’t care for the military died a war hero from smoking.

Eh, he made it to 63 in the 1800s. That’s not too shabby. Just make sure if your vices can kill you, that you really enjoy them while you can.

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Enjoy the weekend, folks! Alright, now let’s get to the comments!