I am not a civil war buff,but am curious.What does the E. stand for in Robert E. Lee? And the S.in Ulysses S. Grant? I may have learned it and forgotten, I just can't remember.

The E in Robert E. Lee stands for Edward. And the S. stands for Simpson in Ulysses S. Grant.

Thank you,my curiosity is satisfied.

Not to rain on J_9 too much here...

The S in Ulysses S Grant never officially stood for anything. Simpson is a reasonable assumption for it, as it is both his mother's maiden name, and the middle name of Ulysses S Grant, Jr. However, Ulysses S Grant wasn't his given name... that was due to a mistake at the time of his appointment to West Point. He never used anything other than the initial during his life.

And the S never had a period after it, to further indicate it didn't stand for any name.

Well. I stand corrected. I just looked it all up on Google. But now that you say this I think I do remember learning that in History class a few semesters ago.

Thanks for clearing that up guys.

Just think, as we get older we find that so much of what we learned in school,has so many variables than what we were taught. I never thought about there being no period after the S. I always assumed it was there,so see what happens when we assume?

You guys may know a lot about Grant, but have you ever visited his house?