_In which Captain Galligasken goes with the illustrious Soldier to
the Farm near St. Louis, and observes his Career through various
Misfortunes, till he is included in the Firm of Grant & Sons._
Captain Grant had been in the army eleven years. He was engaged in the
first and the last battle of the Mexican war; indeed, he had taken
part in every action of any importance, except Buena Vista. This was
his practical training for the great work of his life, developing his
faculties and storing his mind with an experience which was to bring
forth its rich fruits on the historic battle-fields of the Great
Rebellion.
In the wilds of the Pacific slope,--
"In the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings,"--
the impatient soldier unbuckled his sword, and laid it aside. The
weapon was rusting in its scabbard, and the proud spirit which had worn
it honorably through a fierce war, waged upon a foreign soil, chafed
under the inaction to which it was condemned in that far-off region. It
was not the sphere for a great mind.
It is a notable fact, that when the bugle-blast of stern necessity
rallied the soldiers of the Republic around her banners, to save her
from destruction, some of the choicest spirits came out from the
walks of civil life, whither they had fled from the dulness of an
inactive life in the army. Such were Grant, Sherman, Burnside, Hooker,
McClellan, and many others.
At the age of thirty-two, after having been devoted exclusively to
military pursuits for fifteen years, Grant left the army to engage in
new and untried enterprises. This was an important step of his life,
but I humbly believe it was as necessary to the perfect development
of the man as any other which he had taken. It was an evidence of his
characteristic energy, and of the confidence he had in himself, which
was displayed in so remarkable a manner in the most trying days of the
Rebellion.
I am not disposed to magnify the deeds of the illustrious
soldier,--they need no such office at mine or any man's hands,--or to
praise his conduct in the glowing light of subsequent events; but I
maintain that the act of resigning his commission in the army required
no small degree of moral courage. The government had educated him at
its own expense, and provided for him during the term of his natural
life. If his had been the dull, stupid, inert character, this lot would
have satisfied him. He was placed out of the reach of want in the
present and the future; and the deaths and resignations in the army
would have materially improved his condition if he quietly submitted to
his fate.
His total pay as a captain of infantry amounted to nearly a thousand
dollars a year; and it was as sure as the rising and setting of the
sun. This was the certainty before him; and only a man of energetic
purposes, with great confidence in his own abilities, would have
turned from it to strike out a new path in the tangled maze of worldly
affairs. From his boyhood he had been absorbed in the pursuits of his
military career, and their practical application in the field and on
the march, with a limited knowledge of business; and I repeat that it
required no little moral courage to abandon the certainty and grapple
with the uncertainty.
I am aware that a different explanation of Grant's resignation has been
rumored through the country, and the vile slander that he had become
addicted to intemperate habits has been circulated over the land. It
has even been said that his resignation was prompted by a significant
warning from the War Department. I am amazed that such an idle
story should ever have obtained even a momentary credence. It is as
impossible that Grant could ever have been a drunkard as that he could
ever have been a coward. "He that ruleth his spirit is mightier than
he that taketh a city." Under all circumstances, in the fierce storm
of battle, as in the quiet of the social circle, he always maintained
the most perfect control of himself. If he ever used the intoxicating
cup to excess, he must have known it himself; and to know that he had a
dangerous habit was to conquer it.
Look at the inflexible will of the man, as displayed at Donelson and
Vicksburg! Look at him, meek and modest, in the midst of the storm
of applause that everywhere greeted him after his mission had been
accomplished! Look at him, calm and immovable, when, in the intricacies
of the Vicksburg campaign, he outsped the thought and the prudence of
his military compeers, and the impatient people began to howl even at
him! Could such a man be the slave of his own appetite? The man himself
is the best evidence of the falsity of the rumor.
I say I am amazed that this silly story should ever have been harbored
for a moment by any one, except an enemy of his country; but I am
still more amazed when I realize that this is the only blemish which
lukewarm friends and over-critical enemies have been able to cast upon
the character of the distinguished soldier. It is the prerogative of
greatness to be the mark of slander's poisoned arrows. Napoleon was
accused of crimes enough to banish him forever from the pale of human
sympathy; Wellington and Marlborough escaped not the blast of calumny;
Jefferson was charged with the most loathsome immoralities; and even
Washington was systematically traduced by over-zealous partisans. It
is a miracle, therefore, that Grant has only been held up to obloquy
for the one offence of intemperance, and that the most absurd and
improbable one which could possibly have been devised.
Grant retired from the army for the same reason that hundreds of others
have done so, in time of peace--because it did not afford a sufficient
scope for his talents and energy. He returned to St. Louis, where
the family of his wife resided. Mr. Dent gave his daughter, Mrs.
Grant, a farm at Gravois, about nine miles from the city, and on this
place Grant located himself with his family, consisting now of his
wife and two children. He built a house of hewn logs, working on the
structure with his own hands, thus drawing upon the experience he had
acquired in his youth. His native energy made him a hardworking man.
His domain included extensive timber lands, and he attempted to better
his condition by the sale of wood in the city of St. Louis. He was not
above his business, nor in any sense one of those dandy agriculturists
called "gentleman farmers." He employed men to chop the wood, but he
carted it to the city and sold it himself. He kept two teams, one of
which he drove himself, while his little son had inherited enough of
his father's horse nature to be competent to manage the other.
Grant was as thoroughly democratic in his manners as he was in his
politics. He wore an old felt hat, a seedy blouse coat, and prudently
tucked his trousers' legs into the tops of his boots. He appeared to
be--what he was--a simple, honest woodman. His habits were plain, and
he lived on the most economical scale; indeed, his means would not
permit him to live in any other manner. Those who had dealings with him
knew him as an honest, upright man, faithful in the discharge of all
obligations.
Grant always remembered and cherished his true friends. One day in
St. Louis, whither he had come with his team, he heard that Professor
Coppée, one of his classmates at West Point, was in the city. In his
homely rig, with the whip in his hand, he waited upon his early friend
at the hotel, where were also General Reynolds, General Buell, and
Major Chapman. The "honest woodman" was asked to step to the bar and
take a drink. "I will go in and look at you, for I never drink anything
myself," replied he.
If Grant ever drank anything, this would have been an occasion, when,
meeting old friends and classmates, after a separation of years, he
would have been little likely to decline the social glass. I was not
present on this occasion, but Professor Coppée publishes the incident
himself, and of course there can be no doubt of its truth. Other
officers, who were frequently with him, declared that he drank nothing
stronger than cold water; and, for my own part, I consider him eligible
to the office of Grand Worthy Patriarch of the National Division of the
Sons of Temperance, or any other position in which entire abstinence
from all that can intoxicate is the essential qualification.
But Grant was not a successful man as a farmer. His previous training
and experience did not fit him for this calling. It was not his sphere,
and it was no discredit to him that he was not successful in it. He
was not the man to lie supinely down and moan over his misfortunes. If
one expedient failed, he tried another, in his own affairs as well as
in those of the army. If a thing did not work right, it was his habit
to "fick" it again. In the neighboring city, to which he moved, he
resorted to several methods of eking out his failing subsistence. He
tried auctioneering; but, though he had the ability to "knock down"
a mighty rebellion, he was not equally fortunate in mere commercial
pursuits. He had not the skill to exaggerate, nor the oily tongue to
win the heart of a doubting customer.
He was an applicant for the position of engineer under the city
government, but his petition for appointment was "respectfully
declined." His efforts to establish a remunerative business as a real
estate agent were equally unfortunate. At the same time he hung out
his shingle as a "collector." At this period his fortunes were at dead
low tide, and not always did he know on one day where his subsistence
for the next was to come from. He seemed to be foraging in an enemy's
country, which had already been drained of its supplies. He was too
poor to hire an office, and an obliging young lawyer, not burdened with
clients, gave him desk room for the conducting of his scanty business.
But he had not much use even for desk room, and the number of his
customers did not wear out the patience of his accommodating host.
Grant was still out of his sphere; he had none of those mental
qualifications which fit a man to be a successful "dunner." With all
his pluck and persistence he could not worry a poor or a dishonest
debtor up to the point of payment. He failed in this; the tide ran
against him, and life became a bitter struggle. He obtained a place in
the custom-house, which he held for two months, when the collector, who
had given him the appointment, died, and he was obliged to leave. His
hour of triumph had not yet come.
While Fortune seems to have entirely deserted the illustrious soldier
in the civil walks of life, she had been more constant with his father,
who had become prosperous enough to extend his business to Galena,
Illinois, where he had established a branch leather store, conducted
by two of his sons. As the worthy sire was now in easy circumstances,
it seemed to be necessary to do something to redeem the failing
fortunes of his oldest son. I am willing to state, on my own individual
responsibility, that before he was invited to take a position in the
store, or a share in the business, at Galena, there was an anxious
inquiry by the prosperous father and sons into the capacity of Grant to
fill the position to which he was to be assigned. It was even somewhat
doubtful, at that time, whether the man who had the genius to control
the movements of a million soldiers, had the business ability to
entitle him to admission into the firm of "Grant & Sons."
The brilliant campaign in Mexico, gallant conduct at Monterey and
Chapultepec, and turning the enemy's right flank at El Molino del Rey,
hardly added much to the accomplishments of a suitor for the honors
of the leather trade. It was asked whether fifteen years' service in
the military had not disqualified him in some measure for mercantile
pursuits; whether the idleness to which he had been condemned after
the peace--idleness only as a civilian views it--had not impaired his
native energy, and robbed him of some of the force and skill which had
characterized his early years; whether he had not displayed so little
ability at "getting ahead" on his own hook, as to render him at least a
doubtful person to be associated with the prosperous firm.
It is as creditable to the good judgment as it is to the kindly
hearts of "Grant & Sons" that these considerations had no weight with
them, and in 1860 he was admitted as a partner to the firm. The end
of the night of misfortune and futile struggles had come, and the
dawn of a prosperous day opened upon the retired soldier. Grant took
kindly to his new occupation, and, in spite of his antecedents on
the battle-fields of Mexico, and his connection with so "nobby" an
institution as the regular army, he still continued to be a plain,
modest man. He devoted himself to the leather business with the same
energy that he devoted himself to the capture of Vicksburg. He was
regarded in this sphere as a sound, solid, common-sense man, with
excellent judgment.
He went to work in the leather trade as he did in the army, and in his
farming operation, with industry and perseverance. He was not a great
talker, but when he spoke he meant something. The solidity of his
character was apparent in the firm lines of his face, and he was a man
who produced an impression both by his words and his looks; and for
this reason he made a good salesman. He was but little known in Galena,
taking no pains to extend the circle of his acquaintance.
This was the position which Grant occupied at the breaking out of the
Rebellion. I am not a fatalist, but I do believe that Providence adapts
means to ends in the affairs of men. I am entirely satisfied that the
illustrious soldier needed his experience in the civil pursuits of life
to prepare him for the great mission whose successful accomplishment
gave him a wreath of glory brighter than ever adorned the brow of any
other mortal man. Even his misfortunes, and his struggles against the
cold current of poverty, were a necessary discipline and preparation
for the man. Without them he could not have been what he is, and what
he will yet become; for of all the atoms of experience is agglomerated
the character of the man.
Thus prepared by the brilliant campaign of Mexico, thus prepared by
the events of his civil life, and thus prepared by the discipline of
adversity, stood Grant in the leather store at Galena, when the thunder
of Sumter's guns struck upon his listening ears.