Explanation: Earlier in his career, Grant was most notable for being an excellent rider who loved horses dearly (and for his personal bravery). He was only a middling student at West Point, and his career in the Army before the Civil War is likewise unexceptional.

Despite coming from an abolitionist family (and being against slavery personally enough to free a slave that he was given as a gift, even though Grant was in immense poverty at the time and in dire need of money), he did not begin the Civil War with strong anti-slavery opinions; by the end of the war, he was one of the champions of the liberty and equality of freed slaves, and in his later presidency, he would see the first US anti-segregation legislation passed (sadly struck down by the US Supreme Court).