In 1854 Grant left the military and tried to make a go of it as a farmer on land adjacent to his father-in-law’s in St. There is no evidence he legally transferred ownership to Julia but from her writings it is clear she considered them hers. Julia’s father, Frederick Dent, owned 30 enslaved people and had “given” Julia four enslaved people when she was a child: Eliza, Dan, Julia, and John. Through the Dents, Grant began a long pre-war immersion in the milieu of slaveowning planters near St. He married Julia, the sister of his West Point roommate Frederick Dent. “I never was an abolitionist, Grant wrote to his friend and patron, Elihu Washburne, in 1863, “not even what could be called anti-slavery…” In fact, while at West Point, Grant seemed to gravitate toward southern cadets like his friend and future foe James Longstreet. However, his son’s attitudes toward slavery were more ambivalent, at least from what we can discern of his opinions before and during the Civil War. Grant’s father, Jesse, was firmly anti-slavery. While Grant’s views on slavery evolved over time, his relationship with slavery was complicated and demonstrates the pervasiveness of the institution in antebellum America. In 1859, Grant either bought or was given the 35-year-old Jones, who was in Grant’s service until he freed him before the start of the War. No, but it will come as a surprise to many people, that Grant did in fact own a man named William Jones for about a year on the eve of the Civil War.

Was ulysses s grant a president