Ulysses S. Grant arrested for speeding in his horse buggy, newspaper reports | April 9, 1866 | HISTORY APR 09 APR 09 Choose another date OK April 31 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 1 2 3 4 By: HISTORY.com Editors 1866 Ulysses S. Grant arrested for speeding in his horse buggy, newspaper reports HISTORY.com Editors Published: April 03, 2024 Last Updated: May 27, 2025 On April 9, 1866, exactly one year after Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House—and decades before police officers would be pulling over speeding cars—the National Intelligencer reports that Ulysses S. Grant , Lieutenant General of the U.S. Army, had been pulled over for speeding in his horse buggy in Washington, D.C. According to the 19th-century newspaper in Washington, D.C., two police officers detained Grant on 14th Street, where he was “exercising his fast gray nag.” Grant offered to pay the fine, but “expressed his doubts of their authority to arrest him and drove off,” the article said. Grant’s defiance, though, later subsided; he acknowledged the warrant, appeared before the justice of the peace and paid the fine. The Unlikely Rise of Ulysses S. Grant Ulysses Grant took an unconventional path to the White House, rising from a leather goods salesman to a general in a matter of months. 1:00m watch The newspaper’s report was reprinted in several other newspapers. The Daily Richmond Whig added this editorial comment in its April 11 edition: “It was a bad example in General Grant to violate a law, but a worse one to treat the officers of law with contempt.” On July 4, 1866, the Richmond Daily Dispatch reprinted a National Intelligencer article stating that Grant was arrested a second time for speeding. In this incident, the article said, Grant “took the arrest very good humoredly, said it was an oversight, and rode over to the Second Precinct station house and paid his fine.” Six years later, Grant allegedly was arrested for speeding again w