To be a great soldier is of course to be immortal; but to be magnanimous
to enemies, heroic in affections, a master of self, without vanity,
honest, courageous, true, invincible,--such greatness is far above the
glory of battlefields. Such greatness he possessed, who, born in
comparative obscurity, came to be numbered in that famous trio, dear to
every American heart: Washington, Lincoln, Grant.
Ulysses Simpson Grant was born April 27, 1822, in a log house at Mount
Pleasant, Ohio. The boy seems to have had the blood of soldiers in his
veins, for his great-grandfather and great-uncle held commissions in the
English army in 1756, in the war against the French and Indians, and
both were killed. His grandfather served through the entire war of the
Revolution.
His father, Jesse R. Grant, left dependent upon himself, learned the
trade of a tanner, and by his industry made a home for himself and
family. Unable to attend school more than six months in his life, he was
a constant reader, and through his own privations became the more
anxious that his children should be educated.
Ulysses was the first-born child of Jesse Grant and Hannah Simpson, who
were married in June, 1821. When their son was about a year old, they
moved to Georgetown, Ohio, and here the boy passed a happy childhood,
learning the very little which the schools of the time were able to
impart.
He was not fond of study, and enjoyed the more active life of the farm.
He says in his personal memoirs: "While my father carried on the
manufacture of leather and worked at the trade himself, he owned and
tilled considerable land. I detested the trade, preferring almost any
other labor; but I was fond of agriculture, and of all employment in
which horses were used. We had, among other lands, fifty acres of forest
within a mile of the village. In the fall of the year, choppers were
employed to cut enough wood to last a twelve-month. When I was seven or
eight years of age, I began hauling all the wood used in the house and
shops. I could not load it on the wagons, of course, at that time, but I
could drive, and the choppers would load, and some one at the house
unload. When about eleven years old, I was strong enough to hold a
plough. From that age until seventeen I did all the work done with
horses, such as breaking up the land, furrowing, ploughing corn and
potatoes, bringing in the crops when harvested, hauling all the wood,
besides tending two or three horses, a cow or two, and sawing wood for
stoves, etc., while still attending school. For this I was compensated
by the fact that there never was any scolding or punishing by my
parents; no objection to rational enjoyments, such as fishing, going to
the creek a mile away to swim in summer, taking a horse and visiting my
grandparents in the adjoining county, fifteen miles off, skating on the
ice in winter, or taking a horse and sleigh when there was snow on the
ground."
The indulgent father allowed his son some unique experiences. Ulysses,
at fifteen, having made a journey to Flat Rock, Kentucky, seventy miles
away, with a carriage and two horses, took a fancy to a saddle-horse and
offered to trade one which he was driving, for this animal. The owner
hesitated about trading with a lad, but finally consented, and the
untried colt was hitched to the carriage with his new mate. After
proceeding a short distance, the animal became frightened by a dog,
kicked, and started to run over an embankment. Ulysses, nothing daunted,
took from his pocket a large handkerchief, tied it over the horse's
eyes, and sure that the terrified creature would see no more dogs,
though he trembled like an aspen leaf, drove peacefully homeward.
Young Grant was as truthful as he was calm and courageous. He tells this
story of himself. "There was a Mr. Ralston living within a few miles of
the village, who owned a colt which I very much wanted. My father had
offered twenty dollars for it, but Ralston wanted twenty-five. I was so
anxious to have the colt that after the owner left I begged to be
allowed to take him at the price demanded. My father yielded, but said
twenty dollars was all the horse was worth, and told me to offer that
price; if it was not accepted, I was to offer twenty-two and a half, and
if that would not get him, to give the twenty-five. I at once mounted a
horse and went for the colt. When I got to Mr. Ralston's house, I said
to him: 'Papa says I may offer you twenty dollars for the colt; but if
you won't take that, I am to offer twenty-two and a half; and if you
won't take that, to give you twenty-five.' It would not require a
Connecticut man to guess the price finally agreed upon....
"I could not have been over eight years at the time. This transaction
caused me great heart-burning. The story got out among the boys of the
village, and it was a long time before I heard the last of it. Boys
enjoy the misery of their companions, at least village boys in that day
did, and in later life I have found that all adults are not free from
the peculiarity. I kept the horse until he was four years old, when he
went blind, and I sold him for twenty dollars. When I went to Maysville
to school, in 1836, at the age of fourteen, I recognized my colt as one
of the blind horses working on the tread-wheel of the ferry-boat."
All this time the father was desirous of an education for his child. The
son of a neighbor had been appointed to West Point, and had failed in
his examinations. Mr. Grant applied for his son. "Ulysses," he said one
day, "I believe you are going to receive the appointment." "What
appointment!" was the response. "To West Point. I have applied for it."
"But I won't go," said the impetuous boy. But the father's will was law,
and the son began to prepare himself. He bought an algebra, but, having
no teacher, he says, it was Greek to him. He had no love for a military
life, and looked forward to the West Point experience only as a new
opportunity to travel East and see the country.
At seventeen he took passage on a steamer for Pittsburg, in the middle
of May, 1839. Fortunately the accommodating boat remained for several
days at every port, for passengers or freight, and meantime the curious
boy used his eyes to learn all that was possible. When he reached
Harrisburg, he rode to Philadelphia on the first railroad which he had
ever seen except the one on which he had just crossed the summit of the
Alleghany Mountains. "In travelling by the road from Harrisburg," he
says, "I thought the perfection of rapid transit had been reached. We
travelled at least eighteen miles an hour, when at full speed, and made
the whole distance averaging probably as much as twelve miles an hour.
This seemed like annihilating space. I stopped five days in
Philadelphia; saw about every street in the city, attended the theatre,
visited Girard College (which was then in course of construction), and
got reprimanded from home afterwards, for dallying by the way so
long....
"I reported at West Point on the 30th or 31st of May, and about two
weeks later passed my examinations for admission, without difficulty,
very much to my surprise. A military life had no charms for me, and I
had not the faintest idea of staying in the army even if I should be
graduated, which I did not expect. The encampment which preceded the
commencement of academic studies was very wearisome and uninteresting.
When the 28th of August came--the date for breaking up camp and going
into barracks--I felt as though I had been at West Point always, and
that if I stayed to graduation I would have to remain always. I did not
take hold of my studies with avidity, in fact I rarely ever read over a
lesson the second time during my entire cadetship. I could not sit in my
room doing nothing. There is a fine library connected with the academy,
from which cadets can get books to read in their quarters. I devoted
more time to these than to books relating to the course of studies.
Much of the time, I am sorry to say, was devoted to novels, but not
those of a trashy sort. I read all of Bulwer's then published, Cooper's,
Marryat's, Scott's, Washington Irving's works, Lever's, and many others
that I do not now remember. Mathematics was very easy to me, so that
when January came I passed the examination, taking a good standing in
that branch. In French, the only other study at that time in the first
year's course, my standing was very low. In fact, if the class had been
turned the other end foremost, I should have been near the head."
The years at West Point did not go by quickly; only the ten weeks of
vacation which seemed shorter than one week in school. Sometimes at the
academy a great general, like Winfield Scott, came to review the cadets.
"With his commanding figure," says young Grant, "his quite colossal
size, and showy uniform, I thought him the finest specimen of manhood my
eyes had ever beheld, and the most to be envied. I could never resemble
him in appearance, but I believe I did have a presentiment, for a
moment, that some day I should occupy his place on review--although I
had no intention then of remaining in the army. My experience in a horse
trade ten years before, and the ridicule it caused me, were too fresh in
my mind for me to communicate this presentiment to even my most intimate
chum." How often into lives there comes a feeling that there is a
specified work to be done by us that no other person can or will ever
do!
When the years were over at West Point, each "four times as long as Ohio
years," young Grant was anxious to enter the cavalry, especially as he
had suffered from a cough for six months, and his family feared
consumption. Having gone home, he waited anxiously for his new uniform.
"I was impatient," he says, "to get on my uniform and see how it looked,
and probably wanted my old school-mates, particularly the girls, to see
me in it. The conceit was knocked out of me by two little circumstances
that happened soon after the arrival of the clothes, which gave me a
distaste for military uniform that I never recovered from. Soon after
the arrival of the suit I donned it, and put off for Cincinnati on
horseback. While I was riding along a street of that city, imagining
that every one was looking at me with a feeling akin to mine when I
first saw General Scott, a little urchin, bareheaded, barefooted, with
dirty and ragged pants held up by a single gallows--that's what
suspenders were called then--and a shirt that had not seen a washtub for
weeks, turned to me and cried: 'Soldier, will you work? No sir-ee; I'll
sell my shirt first!' The horse trade and its dire consequences were
recalled to mind.
"The other circumstance occurred at home. Opposite our house in Bethel
stood the old stage tavern where 'man and beast' found accommodation.
The stable-man was rather dissipated, but possessed of some humor. On
my return, I found him parading the streets, and attending in the
stable, barefooted, but in a pair of sky-blue nankeen pantaloons--just
the color of my uniform trousers--with a strip of white cotton sheeting
sewed down the outside seams in imitation of mine. The joke was a huge
one in the minds of many of the people, and was much enjoyed by them;
but I did not appreciate it so highly."
In September, 1843, Grant reported for duty at Jefferson Barracks, St.
Louis, the largest military post in the United States at that time. His
hope was to become assistant professor of mathematics at West Point, and
he would have been appointed had not the Mexican War begun soon after.
A new page was now to be turned in the eventful life of the young
officer; when he was to have, as Emerson beautifully says of love, "the
visitation of that power to his heart and brain which created all things
anew; which was the dawn in him of music, poetry, and art; which made
the face of nature radiant with purple light; the morning and the night
varied enchantments; when a single tone of one voice could make the
heart bound, and the most trivial circumstance associated with one form
is put in the amber of memory; when he became all eye when one was
present, and all memory when one was gone; ... when the moonlight was a
pleasing fever, and the stars were letters, and the flowers ciphers, and
the air was coined into song; when all business seemed an impertinence,
and all the men and women running to and fro in the streets were
pictures."
At West Point, Grant's class-mate was F. T. Dent, whose family resided
five miles west of Jefferson Barracks. "Two of his unmarried brothers,"
says Grant, "were living at home at that time, and, as I had taken with
me from Ohio my horse, saddle, and bridle, I soon found my way out to
White Haven, the name of the Dent estate. As I found the family
congenial, my visits became frequent. There were at home, besides the
young men, two daughters, one a school miss of fifteen, the other a girl
of eight or nine. There was still an older daughter, of seventeen, who
had been spending several years at boarding-school in St. Louis, but
who, though through school, had not yet returned home.... In February
she returned to her country home. After that I do not know but my visits
became more frequent; they certainly did become more enjoyable. We would
often take walks, or go on horseback together to visit the neighbors,
until I became quite well acquainted in that vicinity.... If the fourth
infantry had remained at Jefferson Barracks it is possible, even
probable, that this life might have continued for some years without my
finding out that there was anything serious the matter with me; but in
the following May a circumstance occurred which developed my sentiment
so palpably that there was no mistaking it."
This "circumstance" was the annexation of Texas, the probability of a
war with Mexico, and the necessity of leaving Jefferson Barracks for the
Texan frontier. Alas! now that days full of hope, and the sweet
realization of a divine companionship had come, they must have sudden
ending. Grant took a brief furlough, went to say good-bye to his father
and mother, and then to White Haven to see Julia Dent. In crossing a
swollen stream, his uniform was wet through, but he donned the suit of a
future brother-in-law, and appeared before his beloved to ask her hand
in marriage, to receive her acceptance, and then to hasten to the scene
of action. He saw her but once in the next four years and three months;
four anxious years to her, when death often stared her lover in the
face.
As soon as Texas was admitted to the Union, in 1845, the "army of
occupation," as the three thousand men under General Zachary Taylor were
called, advanced to the Rio Grande and built a fort. When the first
hostile gun was fired, Grant says, "I felt sorry that I had enlisted. A
great many men, when they smell battle afar off, chafe to get into the
fray. When they say so themselves, they generally fail to convince their
hearers that they are as anxious as they would like to make believe, and
as they approach danger they become more subdued. This rule is not
universal, for I have known a few men who were always aching for a fight
when there was no enemy near, who were as good as their word when the
battle did come on. But the number of such men is small."
The first battle was at Palo Alto, meaning "tall trees or woods," six
miles from the Rio Grande. Early in the forenoon of May 8, Taylor's
three thousand men were drawn up in line of battle, opposed by superior
numbers. The infantry was armed with flintlock muskets and paper
cartridges charged with powder, buckshot, and ball. "At the distance of
a few hundred yards," says Grant, "a man might fire at you all day
without your finding it out." The artillery consisted of two batteries
and two eighteen-pounder iron guns, with three or four twelve-pounder
howitzers throwing shell. The firing was brisk on both sides. One
cannon-ball passed near Grant, killing several of his companions. After
a hard day's fight, the enemy retreated in the night. The war had now
begun in earnest, and the man who at the first hostile gun "felt sorry
that he had enlisted" was ready to brave danger on any field.
In the hard-fought battle of Monterey, between sixty-five hundred men
under Taylor and ten thousand Mexicans, Grant's curiosity got the better
of his judgment, and, leaving the camp, where he had been ordered to
remain, he mounted a horse and rode to the front. He made the charge
with the men, when about a third of their number were killed. He loaned
his horse to the adjutant of the regiment, Lieutenant Hoskins, who was
soon killed, and Grant was designated to act in his place.
The ammunition became low, and to return for it was so dangerous that
the general commanding did not like to order any one to fetch it, so
called for a volunteer. Grant modestly says, "I volunteered to go back
to the point we had started from.... My ride back was an exposed one.
Before starting, I adjusted myself on the side of my horse furthest from
the enemy, and with only one foot holding to the cantle of the saddle,
and an arm over the neck of the horse exposed, I started at full run. It
was only at street-crossings that my horse was under fire, but these I
crossed at such a flying rate that generally I was past and under cover
of the next block of houses before the enemy fired. I got out safely,
without a scratch."
When Monterey was conquered, and the garrison marched out as prisoners,
young Grant was moved to pity, as he says in his Memoirs, thus showing a
gentle nature, which he bore years later when thousands were falling
around him, and he was still obliged to say, "Forward."
After the capture of Vera Cruz and the surprise at Cerro Gordo, where
three thousand Mexicans were made prisoners, the army advanced toward
the City of Mexico. Between three and four miles from the city stood
Molino del Rey, the "mill of the King," an old stone structure, one
story high, flat-roofed, and several hundred feet long. Sandbags were
laid along the roof, and good marksmen fought behind them. Near by was
Chepultepec, three hundred feet high, fortified on the top and on its
rocky sides. From the front, guns swept the approach to Molino. Yet, on
the morning of September 8, the assault upon Molino was made, young
Grant being among the foremost. The loss was severe, especially among
commissioned officers.
Grant says, "I was with the earliest of the troops to enter the mills.
In passing through to the north side, looking toward Chepultepec, I
happened to notice that there were armed Mexicans still on top of the
building, only a few feet from many of our men. Not seeing any stairway
or ladder reaching to the top of the building, I took a few soldiers,
and had a cart that happened to be standing near brought up, and,
placing the shafts against the wall, and chocking the wheels so that the
cart could not back, used the shafts as a sort of ladder, extending to
within three or four feet of the top. By this I climbed to the roof of
the building, followed by a few men, but found a private soldier had
preceded me by some other way. There were still quite a number of
Mexicans on the roof, among them a major and five or six officers of
lower grades, who had not succeeded in getting away before our troops
occupied the building. They still had their arms, while the soldier
before mentioned was walking as sentry, guarding the prisoners he had
_surrounded_, all by himself. I halted the sentinel, received the swords
from the commissioned officers, and proceeded, with the assistance of
the soldiers now with me, to disable the muskets by striking them
against the edge of the wall, and throwing them to the ground below."
Five days after the fall of Molino, Chepultepec was taken, with severe
loss. Grant was mentioned in the official report as having "behaved with
distinguished gallantry." Just before the City of Mexico fell into our
hands, Grant was made first lieutenant. Promotion had not come rapidly.
It is sometimes better if success does not come to us early in life. To
learn how to work steadily, day after day, with an unalterable purpose;
to learn how to concentrate thought and will-power, how to conquer self
through failure and hope deferred, is often essential for him who is to
govern either by physical or moral power.
After Mexico fell, and General Scott lived in the halls of the
Montezumas, he controlled the city as a Havelock or a Gordon might have
done; and Grant learned by observation the best of all lessons for a
soldier, to be magnanimous to a fallen foe. He learned other valuable
lessons in this war; made the acquaintance of the officers with whom he
was to measure his strength, in the most stupendous war of modern times,
twenty years later.
When the treaty of peace was signed between our country and Mexico,
February 2, 1848, whereby we paid fifteen million dollars for the
territory ceded to us, Grant obtained leave of absence for four months.
One person must have been inexpressibly thankful that his life had been
spared. Four years, and she had seen him but once! How noble we often
become by the mellowing power of circumstances which prevent our having
our own way! Discipline may be only another word for achievement.
U. S. Grant and Julia Dent were married August 22, 1848, when he was
twenty-six, and began a life of affection and helpfulness, which grew
brighter till the end came on Mt. McGregor. There was reason why the
affection lasted through all the years; in the best sense they lived for
each other. Those who find their happiness outside the home are apt to
find little inside the home. Devotion begets devotion, and men and women
must expect to receive only what they give. Affection scattered produces
a scanty harvest.
The winter of 1848 was spent at the post at Sackett's Harbor, New York;
the next two years at Detroit, Michigan. In 1852, Grant was ordered to
the Pacific coast. And now the young husband and wife must be separated;
she to go to her home in St. Louis, and he to the then unsettled West.
When Aspinwall was reached the streets of the town were a foot under
water, in a blazing, tropical sun. Cholera broke out among the troops,
as it had among the inhabitants, and a third of the people died. The
crossing of the Isthmus of Panama, on the backs of mules, was tedious
and trying. San Francisco was reached early in September. The
gold-mining fever was at its height. Soon the troops passed up to Fort
Vancouver, on the Columbia River, and a quiet and dull life began.
Measles and small-pox were killing the Indians so rapidly that the gun
of the white man was superfluous as an agent of destruction.
In 1854, six years after Grant's marriage, despairing of supporting his
wife and two children on the Pacific coast with his pay as an army
officer, he resigned. His prospects now were not bright. Without a
profession, save that of arms, he was to begin, at thirty-two, a
struggle for support, which must have tested the affection of the woman
who married the young officer in her hopeful girlhood. She owned a farm
in St. Louis, and thither they moved as their home. He says of the farm:
"I had no means to stock it. A house had to be built also. I worked very
hard, never losing a day because of bad weather, and accomplished the
object in a moderate way. If nothing else could be done, I would load a
cord of wood on a wagon and take it to the city for sale. I managed to
keep along very well until 1858, when I was attacked by fever and ague.
I had suffered very severely and for a long time from this disease while
a boy in Ohio. It lasted now over a year, and, while it did not keep me
in the house, it did interfere greatly with the amount of work I was
able to perform. In the fall of 1858 I sold out my stock, crops, and
farming utensils at auction, and gave up farming."
Four years of struggling had not paid pecuniarily. Poverty is not a
pleasant school in which to be nurtured. Blessings upon those who do not
grow harsh or discontented with its bitter lessons. To keep sunshine in
the face when want knocks at the heart is to win the victory in a
dreadful battle. And yet many are able to accomplish this, and brighten
with their happy faces lives more prosperous than their own.