General of the Army and 18th President of the United States Ulysses S. Grant won brilliant victories during the Civil War, orchestrated the defeat of the Confederacy, and dedicated his time in the White House to fighting the Ku Klux Klan. Before all that, he was an unlucky loser, an inept businessman, a lightweight who couldn’t hold his liquor in a hard-drinking society, and, for a brief time, a slave holder. You might have heard of the man who secured Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. This podcast is about the person who came before the Civil War hero, and the offbeat paths he walked in life before finding his calling.