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John Y. Simon | Ulysses Grant scholar, 75

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John Y. Simon, 75, one of the nation's foremost scholars on President Ulysses Grant and the Civil War, has died.

Dr. Simon died Tuesday at a Carbondale, Ill., hospital, said a Huffman-Harker Funeral Home spokesman.

The award-winning historian spent more than four decades at Southern Illinois University and led the Ulysses S. Grant Association, which is based at the Carbondale school, since 1962.

A graduate of Swarthmore College and Harvard University, Dr. Simon spent decades amassing a collection of documents about the Union general, compiling them into the

Papers of Ulysses S. Grant

. The 31st volume of the collection is in its final stages, school officials said.

Dr. Simon, also an authority on the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln, won a Lincoln Prize for outstanding scholarship about the late president, a lifetime-achievement award from the Lincoln Forum, and an Award of Merit from the Illinois State Historical Society, among other accolades.

- AP

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