A paperwork error became an official identity
Grant was born Hiram Ulysses Grant. When Ohio congressman Thomas Hamer nominated him for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Hamer submitted the name Ulysses S. Grant instead. The middle initial likely reflected a mix-up involving Grant’s family name; it did not stand for a middle name Grant had been given.
The discrepancy mattered because West Point’s records and the name on Grant’s appointment did not match the one he had used. Rather than try to undo the nomination over the error, he accepted the name on the paperwork. In a place where a cadet’s official identity appeared in records and correspondence, that choice made the mistaken version stick.
The “S” stood for nothing
Grant later said the initial had no meaning. It was not short for Simpson, his mother’s maiden name, though that explanation is often attached to it. At West Point, fellow cadets also called him “Sam,” a nickname drawn from the initials U.S. and the familiar shorthand “Uncle Sam.”
By the time Grant became a leading Union general, the name Ulysses S. Grant was already established. It followed him into the presidency, turning a clerical mistake into the name by which he is remembered—and leaving a middle initial with no middle name behind it.
