Resigns and returns home
After his graduation Grant fought in the Mexican War as lieutenant under General Taylor and later under General Scott. After peace was restored he served in California as a captain, but very soon resigned, and when the Civil War broke out in 1861 he was working as a clerk in his father's store at Galena, Illinois.
ULYSSES S. GRANT
From a photograph taken in 1866 by F. Gutekunst, Philadelphia
Grant goes to Springfield
His promotions
168. A Great General. When Lincoln's call for seventy-five thousand men startled the country, Grant was made chairman of a meeting at Galena called to raise a company of soldiers. He then went to Springfield, where the governor set him to work drilling soldiers and getting them ready for the war. After a time he became colonel of a regiment. A further promotion followed which made him a brigadier-general in command of several regiments. Later still he rose to be major-general, in command of an army.
Early in the war it was seen that in order to conquer the Confederacy it must be split in two by gaining possession of the Mississippi River. As a part of the great campaign with this end in view, we find Brigadier-General Grant directing the attacks on Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. These places were less than ten miles apart, in western Tennessee.
Captures Forts Henry and Donelson