New West Point statue of Ulysses S. Grant notes his humility and heroism as his presidential stature increases

Grant during the Civil War (Library of Congress)

Ulysses S. Grant had a quiet strength that impressed his classmates at West Point, even if his so-so academic record and long string of demerits might suggest that he would not have been held in high standing.

Shortly before the U.S. Military Academy cadet graduated in June 1843 -- as Ron Chernow writes in his biography “Grant” -- a classmate said Grant would be just the man of character to meet the challenge of a “great emergency.”

That emergency, of course, was the Civil War and its aftermath. Grant, who got to know many of his eventual battlefield foes while at West Point, led Federal armies to a victory that ended slavery. As the 18^th president, he worked to protect the rights of men and women freed by the war and against terror unleashed by groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.

West Point will commemorate Grant's courageous service Thursday afternoon with the unveiling of a statue of its famous graduate. It comes in celebration of the sesquicentennial of Grant’s presidential inauguration and the culmination of “Inspiration Week” at the academy in West Point, N.Y.

According to military.com, the monument will be unveiled by the statesman's great-great-grandson, Ulysses Grant Dietz, an art curator at the Newark Museum in New Jersey.

Sculptor Paula Slater’s work features a full-figure 7-1/2 foot bronze statue upon a 4-1/2 foot granite base. (The general stood at 5-feet, 8 inches, a height he attained at West Point). A hatless Grant wears a four-star general uniform.

Slater said she wanted to capture Grant’s humility (Although he was known to eschew pomp and wore a private’s uniform with a simple rank designation).

“Imbued in this portrait of Grant is the torturous weight of life and death decisions he was required to make. It is this glimpse into his deeply enduring humanity that inspires and stays with the viewer,” her studio said.

The unveiling comes at a time of reputational rehabilitation for Grant, whose standing among presidents has risen in recent years. His legacy has long been dogged by accounts of his drinking and corruption and cronyism within his administration.

Chernow, in a 2017 interview with NPR after the release of his book, said Grant was stained by such descriptions.

“But to my mind, the big story of his presidency is he's really farsighted in courageous action in terms of protecting those four million former slaves who are now full-fledged American citizens, but who were under constant threat from the Klan in the South.”

Chernow and biographer Ronald C. White point out that Grant has moved up 11 places to No. 22 in C-SPAN surveys of presidential historians.

White, author of “American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant,” writes in a Washington Post op-ed piece this week that the new statue is going up for the right reasons as other monuments of Confederate figures are being removed.

“A chief insight in the reappraisal of Grant is the recognition that, at the beginning of the post-Civil War period of oppression, he acted courageously to protect the rights of freed men and women,” White writes. “Grant’s fall from American grace largely coincided with the rise of white supremacy in the early 20th century. During that period, leaders who stood up for the rights of African-Americans were not often lionized.”

Observers might be surprised that only now a monument to Grant will rise above the West Point campus. A congressional committee in 2016 encouraged the secretary of the Army to install a memorial to the first academy grad to become commander in chief. He graduated 21^st out of 39 cadets, but he obviously left marked for greatness, even though he fell upon tough times between the Mexican-American War and the Civil War.

“Ulysses S. Grant embodied the West Point motto of duty, honor, country,” said Col. Ty Seidule, professor and head of the Department of History, in a West Point statement. “As a soldier, he led an army that emancipated four million people, ended slavery, and saved the United States of America. The Grant statue will inspire generations of cadets to become leaders of principle and integrity for the nation.”