As both general and president, Ulysses S. Grant played a major role in preserving the Union, destroying slavery, and battling for equal rights for Blacks in the face of white supremacist terrorism. At the outset of the Civil War, Grant predicted the collapse of slavery, if for no other reason than that the wear and tear of military operations would erode the viability of the institution. At first he was reluctant to strike at slavery out of fear that doing so would deepen the resistance of white Southerners.