Though always called Ulysses, Grant was baptized Hiram Ulysses. When registering at West Point, he transposed the two given names to avoid having the initials H.U.G. But the congressman who had obtained his appointment had misstated his name as Ulysses Simpson, and, since the academy refused to correct it, so it remained. Classmates called him Sam, because the new initials, U.S., were seen to stand for Uncle Sam. Later in his career they came to stand for “Unconditional Surrender.”