Ulysses S Grant only ever held legal title to one slave, a man named William Jones, and Grant appears to have voluntarily emancipated Jones. Though Grant was, by all accounts, opposed to slavery and treated slaves better than many slavers, that did not stop him from benefitting from the labor of enslaved Americans. Grant's participation in the institution of slavery is certainly objectionable by modern standards, though not entirely out of the ordinary for his time and place.

Grant's father was an outspoken opponent of slavery, and Grant himself was generally opposed to the institution of slavery on principle. However, in 1848 Grant married his wife, Julia Dent, and became part of a Missouri slaveholding family. Because of Grant's opposition to slavery, Grant's father-in-law was reluctant to grant him legal rights to any of the several dozen people enslaved by the Dent family. Biographer Ron Chernow writes:

Through marriage into the Dent family, Grant was thrust into a vexing situation vis-a-vis the passionate slavery controversy. Colonel Dent had given Julia the use of four slaves - Dan, Julia, John, and Eliza - all teenagers. "They were born at the old farm and were excellent," wrote Julia, "though so young." Colonel Dent never transferred to Julia legal title to these slaves for the simple reason that, under Missouri law, his hated son-in-law [Ulysses S Grant] would become their owner. Having grown up in an ardent abolitionist household, Grant made it known, according to Mary Robinson, that "he wanted to give his wife's slaves their freedom as soon as possible." [Chernow, 101]

When Grant worked the fields in Missouri with enslaved persons, those who knew him said that he wouldn't whip the slaves to force them to work. According to early Grant biographer Hamlin Garland:

Jefferson Sappington [a friend of Grant's] told me that he and Grant used to work in the fields with the blacks. He said with glee, "Grant was helpless when it came to making slaves work," and Mrs. Boggs corroborated this. "He was no hand to manage negroes," she said. "He couldn't force them to do anything. He wouldn't whip them. He was too gentle and good tempered and besides he was not a slavery man."

Sometime in the late 1850s, Grant came into possession of an enslaved man named William Jones. While working on his farm in Missouri, he either purchased the title to the man or was given ownership as a gift from his father-in-law. Jones worked on Grant's farm in Missouri for some period of time (likely at least a year, though the precise timeframe is unknown). In March of 1859, Grant emancipated William Jones. Again, Chernow writes:

That Grant was progressively more troubled by the immorality of slavery became patently clear that spring. He had acquired from Colonel Dent the mulatto slave named William Jones who had worked on Dent's farm and was now thirty-five years old. It was the only time Grant ever owned a slave and Jones may have come as a gift. Then, on March 29, 1859, Grant appeared at circuit court in St. Louis to file papers that declared, "I do hearby manumit, emancipate & set free said William from slavery forever." Still struggling financially, Grant could have earned a considerable sum had he chosen to sell Jones rather than liberate him. Instead, he made good on his pledge to set free Dent slaves when it came within his power. [Chernow, 106]

Grant could have chosen to sell title to Mr. Jones, "for a profit of $1,000 to $1,500 (more than $43,000 in 2020 dollars)", but chose instead to give the man his freedom at no material benefit to Grant. [1] Grant was likely not proud of his ownership of Mr. Jones, as Grant omits any mention of the man in his personal memoirs.

When the Grant family moved to Illinois in 1860, Julia Dent was forced to leave her four domestic slaves behind in Missouri, since Illinois was a free state.

Ulysses S Grant was the last U.S. President to own a slave.

__________

Ron Chernow, Grant (2017)

Hamlin Garland, Ulysses S Grant: His Life and Character (1898)

[1] National Park Service, "William Jones", Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site