Ulysses S. Grant Was Bankrupted By Wall Street's Ferdinand Ward; Biography By Geoffrey C. Ward
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'A Disposition To Be Rich,' by Geoffrey C. Ward. Book Review- 'Dreams of Prosperity.' By T.J. Stiles, The New York Times, June 29, *2012.
Millions of Americans loved Ulysses S. Grant, but, as so often with love, the relationship can be hard to understand from the outside. Grant did not woo the public. A rumpled man, he seemed shorter than he was. When he opened his mouth, cigars and whiskey went in, but few words came out. His critics, then and now, have disagreed over whether he should be condemned primarily as a brute of a general or a dupe of a president.
To those who adored him, he looked rather different. He and Lincoln saved the Union in the Civil War, but only Grant lived to receive the nation’s thanks. And he won without ego. “There was no nonsense, no sentiment,” wrote one private, “only a plain businessman of the Republic.” The newspaperman Charles A. Dana called Grant “the most honest man I ever knew, with a temper that nothing could disturb.”
- Ulysses S. Grant, Julia Grant & their 4 children: Jesse, Ulysses Jr., Nellie & Frederick in front of their cottage in Long Branch, New Jersey.
One man did disturb that temper. Grant would dig his fingernails into the armrests of his chair at the thought of him, and told a friend he wanted to kill him, “as I would a snake. I believe I should do it, too, but I do not wish to be hanged for the killing of such a wretch.” When Grant died a year later, on July 23, 1885, the public blamed that “wretch,” who pitied himself as “the best-hated man in the United States.”
His name was Ferdinand Ward. In 1880, when just 28, he had persuaded the former president to become a partner in Grant & Ward, a Wall Street brokerage house. Ward reported astonishing profits, occasionally doling out cash to his partners. Grant believed he was rich.
In reality, Ward was running a Ponzi scheme. In 1884, it blew up, bankrupting Grant and his family.
The author of this elegant new biography of Ward, “A Disposition to Be Rich,” is his great-grandson. For decades, Geoffrey C. Ward has told Americans stories of their ancestors. He has edited American Heritage, collaborated with the filmmaker Ken Burns and written esteemed books like “A First-Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt” and “Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson.” All this time, he has freighted about a box of letters, preserved by his grandfather, documenting the fall of his earnest family because of one remorseless son...
More, https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/books/review/a-disposition-to-be-rich-by-geoffrey-c-ward.html
- Author Geoffrey C. Ward, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_C._Ward
- Ferdinand Ward, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Ward ~ Known as the 'Napoleon of Finance' when young, Ward served 6 years at NY state Sing Sing Prison for fraud.
> 'A Criminal Scheme of The 1880s Brought Grant's Presidential Treasures To The Smithsonian.' (*Thomas Nast, the popular 'Harper's Weekly' cartoonist was also financially ruined by Ferdinand Ward).
https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/criminal-scheme-presidential-treasures
- Thomas Nast painted this self-portrait following the financial scandal that ruined him. NY Trinity Church on Wall Street is in the background, a reference to the scandal. In 1958 the U.S. National Museum purchased the painting...
- The Grants with their four children.
First Lady Julia Grant, https://www.history.com/topics/first-ladies/julia-grant
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