Let Us Have Peace

It wasn't just a political slogan for a Reconstruction politician, the phrase also appeared near the end of Grant's Memoirs and his life: "Let us have peace." He meant it. In the absence of Abraham Lincoln, it turned out not to be possible in the 19th century both to pacify the former Confederates and protect their freed slaves, but Grant tried harder than anyone else to do that.

He was more successful abroad, avoiding war with Spain, Britain and every other country. Like Presidents Washington and Eisenhower, his knowledge of war made him determined to avoid new ones.

While the Little Big Horn campaign of 1876 made a mockery of Grant's peace policy with the American Indians, the policy had been to a considerable extent successful during the decade following the Civil War. Part of the credit goes to the man in the photo, Ely Parker, a Tonowanda Seneca from Western New York, who became friends with Grant in Illinois in 1860. He served in the Army with Grant during and after the war, then becoming commissioner of Indian Affairs. A somewhat chastened Parker is a key character in The Last Circle of Ulysses Grant.