Former President Grant came close to winning a third Republican presidential nomination in 1880, but his campaign's heavy handed tactics backfired at the deadlocked convention where the GOP settled on James Garfield as a compromise candidate. Had Grant's campaign not overreached, it's possible that the General could have won a third nomination and faced General Hancock in the general election. Grant was possibly the most popular statesman in America during this time (it wasn't until after his death that conservative historians turned him into a corrupt, drunken despot), so he would have stood a good chance of beating the Democrats that year. What if Grant had won an unprecedented third term?