HIS LIFEWORK APPOINTED
When the boy was about seventeen years old he had made up his mind upon
one matter,--he would not be a tanner for life. He told his father,
possibly in response to some suggestion that it was time for him to quit
his aimless occupations and begin his lifework, that he would work in
the shop, if he must, until he was twenty-one, but not a day longer. His
desire then was to be a farmer, or a trader, or to get an education; but
he seems to have had no definite inclination except to escape from the
disagreeable tannery. His father treated the matter judiciously, not
being disposed to force the boy to learn a business that he would not
follow. He was unable to set him up in farming. He had not much respect
for the river traders, and may have had little confidence in the boy's
ability to thrive in competitions of enterprise and greed.
Without consulting his son, he wrote to one of the United States
Senators from Ohio, Hon. Thomas Morris, telling him that there was a
vacancy in the district's representation in West Point, and asking that
Ulysses might be appointed. He would not write to the congressman from
the district, because, although neighbors and old friends, they belonged
to different parties and had had a falling out. But the Senator turned
the letter over to the Congressman, who procured the appointment, thus
healing a breach of which both were ashamed. General Grant gives an
account of what happened when this door to an education and a life
service was opened before him. His father said to him one day:
"'Ulysses, I believe you are going to receive the appointment.' 'What
appointment?' I inquired. 'To West Point. I have applied for it.' 'But I
won't go,' I said. He said he thought I would, _and I thought so too, if
he did_." The italics are the general's. They make it plain that he did
not think it prudent to make further objection when his father had
reached a decision.
Little did Congressman Thomas L. Hamer imagine that in doing this favor
for his friend, Jesse Grant, he was doing the one thing that would
secure remembrance of his name by coming generations. It did not
contribute to his immediate popularity among his constituents, for the
general opinion was that many brighter and more deserving boys lived in
the district, and one of them should have been preferred. Neighbors did
not hesitate to shake their heads and express the opinion that the
appointment was unwise. Not one of them had discerned any particular
promise in the boy. Nor were they unreasonable. He was without other
distinctions than of being a strong toiler, good-natured, and having a
knack with horses. He had no aspiration for the career of a soldier, in
fact never intended to stick to it. Even after entering West Point his
hope, he has said, was to be able, by reason of his education, to get "a
permanent position in some respectable college,"--to become Professor
Grant, not General Grant.
In the course of making his appointment, his name by an accident was
permanently changed. When Congressman Hamer was asked for the full name
of his protégé to be inserted in the warrant, he knew that his name was
Ulysses, and was sure there was more of it. He knew that the maiden name
of his friend's wife was Simpson. At a venture, he gave the boy's name
as Ulysses Simpson Grant. Grant found it so recorded when he reached the
school, and as he had no special fondness for the name Hiram, which was
bestowed to gratify an aged relative, he thought it not worth while to
go through a long red-tape process to correct the error. There was
another Cadet Grant, and their comrades distinguished this one by sundry
nicknames, of which "Uncle Sam" was one and "Useless" another.
When he arrived at West Point, in July, 1839, he was not a prepossessing
figure of a young gentleman. The rusticity of his previous occupation
and breeding was upon him. Seventeen years old, hardly more than five
feet tall, but solid and muscular, with no particular charm of face or
manner, no special dignity of carriage, he was only a common sort of
pleb, modest, good-natured, respectful, companionable but sober-minded,
observant but undemonstrative, willing but not ardent, trusty but
without high ambitions,--the kind of boy who might achieve commendable
success in the academy, or might prove unequal to its requirements,
without giving cause of surprise to his associates.
He had no difficulty in passing the examination at the end of his six
months' probationary period, which enabled him to be enrolled in the
army, and he was never really in danger of dismissal for deficient
scholarship. He seems to have made no effort for superior excellence in
scholarship, and in some studies his rank was low. Mathematics gave him
no trouble, and he says that he rarely read over any of his lessons more
than once, which is evidence that he had unusual power of concentrating
his attention, the secret of quick work in study. This power and a
faithful memory will enable any one to achieve high distinction if he is
willing to toil for it. Grant was not willing to toil for it. He gave
time to other things, not in the routine prescribed. He pursued a
generous course of reading in modern English fiction, including all the
works then published of Scott, Bulwer, Marryat, Lever, Cooper, and
Washington Irving, and much besides.
The thing for which he was especially distinguished was, as may be
surmised, horsemanship. He was esteemed one of the best horsemen of his
time at the academy. But this, too, was easy for him. He appears to have
been on good terms with his fellows and well liked, but he was not a
leader among them. He has said that while at home he did not like to
work. It must be judged that his mind was affected by a certain
indolence, that he was capable enough when he addressed himself to any
particular task, but not self-disposed to exertion. He felt no constant,
pricking incitement to do his best; but was content to do fairly well,
as well as was necessary for the immediate occasion. One of his comrades
in the academy said in later years that he remembered him as "a very
uncle-like sort of a youth.... He exhibited but little enthusiasm in
anything."
He was graduated in 1843, at the age of 21 years, ranking 21 in a class
of 39, a little below the middle station. He had grown 6 inches taller
while at the academy, standing 5 feet 7 inches, but weighed no more than
when he entered, 117 pounds. His physical condition had been somewhat
reduced at the end of his term by the wearing effect of a threatening
cough. It cannot be said that any one then expected him to do great
things. The characteristics of his early youth that have been set forth
were persistent. He was older, wiser, more accomplished, better
balanced, but in fundamental traits he was still the Ulysses Grant of
the farm--hardly changed at all. No more at school than at home was his
life vitiated by vices. He was neither profane nor filthy. His
temperament was cool and wholesome. He tried to learn to smoke, but was
then unable. It is remembered that during the vacation in the middle of
his course, spent at home, he steadily declined all invitations to
partake of intoxicants, the reason assigned being that he with others
had pledged themselves not to drink at all, for the sake of example and
help to one of their number whose good resolutions needed such propping.
At his graduation he was a man and a soldier. Life, with all its
attractions and opportunities, was before. Phlegmatic as he may have
been, it cannot be supposed that the future was without beckoning voices
and the rosy glamour of hope.