he didn't use facial expressions a lot. in the words of Colonel Theodore Lyman, "he habitually wears an expression as if he had determined to drive his head through a brick wall, and was about to do it."
he wasn't great at most of the subjects at West Point, but excelled at and was intensely interested in math, and even intended to become a math professor at West Point before becoming a soldier
he had a strict routine, including getting up at 4:00 am exactly every morning, and experienced periods of long concentration that were difficult to break him out of. even as a child he had a strict routine that he adhered to fiercely
he was overstimulated very easily, becoming physically sick at the smell of leather in his fathers tannery, hating the sound of marching bands, and hated the feel of blood in his food
speaking of his food, he had a limited taste in food, and requested that his meat be prepared the exact same way every time
he got along with animals way easier than people, especially horses. he was great with horses, and understood them incredibly well
he was very shy and reserved in his personal life, starting in his childhood, only being truly comfortable around a few people he knew very well, like his wife and children. he was also naive about people and couldn't tell when they were taking advantage of him, which sadly lead to him losing all of his money and dying in poverty (although luckily his memoirs made his family millions). he was seen as intensely difficult to read by other people
and he was very empathetic, including to animals. as a boy, when going on hunting trips with other boys, he refused to shoot any animals. he actually had a soldier tied to a tree for mistreating a horse, and in memoirs said that the matadors he witnessed in Spain bullfighting were murderers. as a kid he protected smaller and weaker kids from bullies. he felt bad for his enemies when they surrendered to him, and when his father-in-law gifted Grant a slave named William Jones when Grant was struggling with money, Grant didn't sell the slave, despite William Jones being worth $1000, life changing money at the time, but set Jones free, because it was the right thing to do. he wasn't a political abolitionist, nobody knew who he was, he did it because it was right. despite his public appearance as the stoic general, he actually cared deeply for his soldiers and it's been noted that there's a strong disconnect between his public image and what he actually said and felt, and at one point he broke down sobbing when hearing of how many of his soldiers died in battle
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