James Birdseye McPherson (/məkˈfərsən/) was a career United States Army officer who served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. McPherson was on the general staff of Henry Halleck and later of Ulysses S. Grant and was with Grant at the Battle of Shiloh. He was killed at the Battle of Atlanta, facing the army of his old West Point classmate John Bell Hood, who paid a warm tribute to his character. He was the second-highest-ranking Union officer killed in action during the war.

Ulysses S. Grant was an American military officer, politician, and the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. As commanding general, Grant led the Union Army to victory in the American Civil War in 1865 and briefly served as U.S. secretary of war. An effective civil rights executive, Grant signed a bill to create the Justice Department and worked with Radical Republicans to protect African Americans during Reconstruction.