1938 18¢ Ulysses S. Grant
Issue Date: November 3, 1938
First City: Washington, DC
Quantity Issued: 170,350,800
Printing Method: Rotary press
Perforations: 11 x 10 ½
Color: Brown carmine
Known affectionately as the “Prexies,” the 1938 Presidential series is a favorite among stamp collectors.
The series was issued in response to public clamoring for a new Regular Issue series. The series that was current at the time had been in use for more than a decade. President Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed, and a contest was staged. The public was asked to submit original designs for a new series picturing all deceased U.S. Presidents. Over 1,100 sketches were submitted, many from veteran stamp collectors. Elaine Rawlinson, who had little knowledge of stamps, won the contest and collected the $500 prize. Rawlinson was the first stamp designer since the Bureau of Engraving and Printing began producing U.S. stamps who was not a government employee.
Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885)
Ulysses S. Grant was born Hiram Ulysses Grant, on April 27, 1822, in Point Pleasant, Ohio. In 1839, after just one year at an academy in Ripley, Ohio, Grant’s father heard of a vacancy at West Point. He asked his congressman to appoint his son to fill the vacancy. The congressman agreed, but when he was filling out the appointment, he mistakenly put Ulysses as the boy’s first name and Simpson (Ulysses’ mother’s maiden name) as the boy’s middle name. Grant decided to keep the new name, because he liked his new initials better than the former “H.U.G.”
Upon graduating from West Point in 1843, Grant was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Fourth Infantry Regiment. During the Mexican War, he distinguished himself as a brave and skillful soldier. By the end of the war, he had achieved the rank of first lieutenant. Afterwards, Grant remained in the Army and was ordered to Fort Vancouver, in the Oregon Territory, and eventually Fort Humboldt, in California. The cost of living in the West was too high to move his wife and young son to his new post, so loneliness soon set in. Just one year later, Grant retired from the Army and joined his family in St. Louis.
For six years Grant drifted from job to job, never gaining the success he had enjoyed in the military. Then in 1861, the Civil War broke out, and it was obvious to Grant that it was his duty to defend the Union he loved. He began by drilling a company formed in Galena, Illinois, and went on to Springfield and worked for the Illinois Adjutant General. After having been ignored on his first request, Grant was finally given a commission as colonel of the 21st Illinois Volunteers. After a two-month campaign against Confederate troops in Missouri, Grant was advanced to the rank of brigadier general. In March 1864, Grant was called to Washington by President Abraham Lincoln. Grant was promoted to lieutenant general – the highest rank in the Union Army, and assumed command of all Union armies
Throughout the course of the war, Grant established himself as a very capable leader. His quick decision making and willingness to commit troops in order to win an engagement distinguished him from his peers. However, after suffering heavy casualties at the Battle of Shiloh, critics called for Grant to be replaced. President Lincoln responded, “I can’t spare this man – he fights.” The Civil War ended when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant.