When you think of Ulysses S. Grant, you probably see that stoic, bearded guy on the fifty-dollar bill. Or maybe the grim general who stared down Robert E. Lee. But honestly? The real man was a total mess of quirks, phobias, and some genuinely hilarious social awkwardness. He wasn't just some marble statue. He was a guy who got speeding tickets on a horse and couldn't stand the sight of a rare steak.
Actually, calling him "Ulysses" is already a bit of a historical joke. His name was Hiram Ulysses Grant. He hated the initials. Think about it: H.U.G. mocked him his whole childhood. When he got to West Point, a clerical error listed him as Ulysses S. Grant. Most people would’ve corrected the paperwork. Not Grant. He saw a chance to ditch the "HUG" moniker and took it, even though the "S" didn't actually stand for anything. It was basically a typo he turned into a legacy.
Ulysses S. Grant Funny Facts and the $20 Speeding Ticket
Imagine being a police officer in 1872. You’re patrolling the corner of 13th and M Streets in Washington, D.C. Suddenly, a carriage flies past you at a breakneck pace. You pull it over, and who’s at the reins? The President of the United States.
This actually happened.
Officer William Henry West—a Black veteran of the Civil War—was the man who did it. He’d actually warned Grant the day before. Grant apologized, promised to slow down, and then immediately went out and did it again because he had a "lead foot" for horse-drawn carriages. When West caught him the second time, he told the President, "I am very sorry, Mr. President, to have to do it, for you are the chief of the nation, and I am nothing but a policeman, but duty is duty, sir, and I will have to place you under arrest."
Grant didn't pull rank. He didn't fire the guy. He actually admired West for having the guts to do his job. He followed the officer to the station, paid a $20 bond, and then... skipped his court date. He forfeited the cash, making him the only sitting U.S. President to ever be arrested and booked.
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The General Who Feared a Rare Steak
For a man who oversaw some of the bloodiest battles in human history, Grant was incredibly squeamish. It sounds like a paradox. The "Butcher," as his enemies called him, literally could not stand the sight of blood on his dinner plate.
If his meat wasn't charred to a crisp, he wouldn't touch it.
He had this specific rule: meat had to be "cooked black." If he saw a hint of red or pink, he’d lose his appetite immediately. This weird quirk probably came from a deep-seated psychological aversion to the violence he witnessed, but it made for some very awkward state dinners. Imagine being a world-class chef at the White House and having to serve the President a piece of beef that essentially looked like a lump of coal.
He also hated poultry. Like, a lot. He refused to eat anything that walked on two legs. No chicken, no turkey, nothing.
Why He Was Basically a Professional Failure (Until He Wasn't)
Grant was a brilliant general but a catastrophically bad businessman. Before the war, he was selling firewood on street corners in St. Louis just to keep his family fed. He tried farming on a plot of land he ironically named "Hardscrabble." It lived up to the name. He was so broke at one point that he pawned his gold watch just to buy Christmas presents for his kids.
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His gullibility was legendary. He trusted everyone.
This stayed with him even after the White House. He got caught up in a massive Ponzi scheme run by a guy named Ferdinand Ward (the "Napoleon of Wall Street"). Grant lost everything. Every penny. He was 62 years old, dying of throat cancer, and completely bankrupt.
That’s when he did the most "Grant" thing ever. He sat down and wrote his memoirs while in agonizing pain, finished them just days before he died, and secured his family's financial future because the book became a massive bestseller. Mark Twain actually helped him publish it. Twain thought Grant’s writing was better than most professional authors of the time.
A Few More Bizarre Habits
He smoked about 20 cigars a day. People used to send him boxes of them as "thank you" gifts after battles. At one point, he had over 10,000 cigars stashed away. It’s no wonder he ended up with throat cancer, but the sheer volume of smoke he consumed is staggering by modern standards.
Then there was the naked thing.
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Grant was pathologically modest. He refused to let anyone see him without clothes on. Even in the middle of a war, where soldiers were bathing in rivers and living in cramped quarters, Grant would go to extreme lengths to ensure total privacy. He bathed in a completely sealed tent. Nobody—not his doctors, not his orderlies—ever saw him in the buff.
- The "S" stands for nothing. It was a mistake by Congressman Thomas Hamer.
- He was a math whiz. Despite his business failures, he excelled at complex mathematics at West Point.
- He hated music. Grant famously said he only knew two tunes: "One is 'Yankee Doodle,' and the other isn't."
- He was a horse whisperer. He could tame almost any horse, often by just talking to it quietly.
The 1872 Election and the Dead Opponent
The 1872 election was just weird. Grant was running for re-election against Horace Greeley. Greeley was a eccentric newspaper editor who somehow managed to get the backing of both the "Liberal Republicans" and the Democrats.
But then, Greeley died.
He died after the popular vote was cast but before the Electoral College could meet. It’s the only time in U.S. history a major presidential candidate died during the election process. Grant won by a landslide, but he essentially beat a ghost.
Actionable Insights from Grant’s Weird Life
If there’s anything to take away from these Ulysses S. Grant funny facts, it’s that "success" isn't a straight line. Grant was a man of immense contradictions. He was a quiet, shy, sensitive person who was thrust into the loudest, most violent role imaginable.
- Leverage your mistakes: Grant turned a name typo into a brand. If you have a flaw or a mistake that sticks, see if you can own it rather than fighting it.
- Persistence over pedigree: He failed at almost everything civilian for forty years. He didn't "find his lane" until his mid-forties. It's never too late to pivot.
- Integrity matters more than optics: He let a cop arrest him because he respected the law more than his own ego. That kind of humility is rare, especially today.
If you're looking to dig deeper, read his Personal Memoirs. It’s widely considered the best military memoir ever written. Skip the dry history textbooks and go straight to the source to see the dry, understated wit of a man who was way more interesting than the $50 bill lets on.