9. Grant toured the world, chartered a railroad, became a broker, and wrote his memoirs
In many ways, Ulysses S Grant is given a bum rap by history. To many, he was a drunkard, a bad general who created huge casualties, a corrupt president, and a dishonest man. None of these smirches on his reputation are true. Although there were several scandals during his administration he was not personally involved in them, and he acted forcefully to correct them and informed the nation that the problems and scandals had been due to errors of judgment when evaluating the character of some of those involved in the scandals. One of them had been his own brother. Upon leaving the presidency, Grant embarked on a world tour which included acting diplomatically at the behest of his successor, Rutherford B. Hayes.
When he returned Grant and partners including Jay Gould established a railroad to Mexico, which went bankrupt after the Senate refused to ratify a free trade agreement with Mexico. A third-party candidacy for another presidential term failed in 1880. He opened a brokerage house with Frederick Ward as a partner. Grant and Ward was a success until Ward embezzled much of the firm’s assets, leaving Grant penniless and heavily in debt. With help from William Vanderbilt, Grant paid off his debts and wrote his memoirs under the urging of Mark Twain. Grant completed his memoirs as he was dying of throat cancer, completing the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S Grant just a few days before he died. It was a commercial and critical success.