Hiram Ulysses Grant (later took the name Ulysses S. Grant) was born on April 27, 1822, in Point Pleasant, Ohio. He entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in May 1839 and was commissioned a 2d Lt in the U.S. Army on July 1, 1843. His first assignment was as a quartermaster with the 4th Infantry Regiment at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, where he served until the outbreak of the Mexican-American War in April 1846. Grant served as a quartermaster but managed to see combat during the war, and he participated in the battles of Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Monterrey, Veracruz, Molino del Rey, and Chapultepee. He then served at Sackets Harbor, New York, and Detroit, Michigan, until 1853, when he transferred to Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory. His next assignment was as commander of Company F of the 4th Infantry at Fort Humboldt, California, from early 1854 until he resigned his commission on July 31, 1854. Grant lived in St. Louis, Missouri, and Galena, Illinois, until he was appointed a Colonel in the 21st Illinois Infantry on June 17, 1861, after the outbreak of the American Civil War. President Lincoln made Grant a Brigadier General of Volunteers on August 9, 1861, and he later participated in the Battles of Fort Donelson and Shiloh, the Siege of Vicksburg, the Battle of Chattanooga, the Overland Campaign, the Siege of Petersburg, and the Appomattox Campaign. During the war, Grant was appointed General in Chief of all U.S. Armies on March 9, 1864, and after the war he was made the first 4-Star General in U.S. history on July 25, 1866. He was elected President of the United States in the 1868 election, and served two terms as President, from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1877. Ulysses S. Grant died 4 days after finishing his memoirs, on July 23, 1885, and he was buried at Riverside Park in New York City. He married Julia Boggs Dent of St. Louis, Missouri, on August 22, 1848, and they were married until his death. She died on December 14, 1902, and was interred with Grant in the Grant Tomb in New York City.