1872 presidential election, but Grant was handily reelected. Grant's Native American policy was to assimilate Indians into White culture; the Great Sioux War was fought during his term. Grant's foreign policy was mostly peaceful, without war, the Alabama Claims against Great Britain skillfully resolved. However, his prized Caribbean Dominican Republic annexation was rejected by the Senate. The Grant administration was often remembered primarily for a number of scandals, including the Gold Ring and the Whiskey Ring, but modern scholarship has better appreciated Grant's appointed reformers and prosecutions. Grant appointed John Brooks Henderson and David Dyer, who prosecuted the Whiskey Ring; Benjamin Bristow and Edwards Pierrepont, who served as Grant's anti-corruption team; and Zachariah Chandler, who cleaned up corruption in the Interior. Grant's administration prosecuted Mormon polygamists in 1871, vice crimes such as pornography, and abortion from 1873 to 1877. The Panic of 1873 plunged the nation into a severe economic depression that allowed the Democrats to win the House majority. In the intensely disputed 1876 presidential election, Grant facilitated the approval by Congress of a peaceful compromise. With the tour he took in his retirement, Grant became the first president to circumnavigate the world, dining with Queen Victoria and meeting many other prominent foreign leaders. In 1880, Grant was unsuccessful in obtaining the Republican presidential nomination for a third term. In the final year of his life, facing severe financial reversals and dying of throat cancer, he wrote his memoirs, which proved to be a major critical and financial success. They were published in two volumes in 1885 and 1886 by Mark Twain, shortly after Grant's death. Grant biographer Ronald C. White Jr. called the book "one of the finest memoirs in American letters". At the time of his death, he was memorialized as a symbol of national unity. Grant was a modern general and "a skillful leader who had a natural grasp of tactics and strategy". Historical assessments once ranked Grant as one of the worst presidents in American history. However, revisionist challenges to this narrative have received significant support in recent times. Although critical of the scandals, modern historians have emphasized his presidential administration's accomplishments, including the prosecution of the Klan, support for African American civil rights, an innovative Native American policy, the appointment of Hamilton Fish as secretary of state, and the peaceful settlements of the Alabama Claims and the controversial 1876 presidential election. Early life and