YEARS OF DORMANT POWER
Although he had done excellent service, demonstrating his courage, his
good judgment, his resourcefulness, his ability in command, and in the
staff duties of quartermaster and commissary, his experience did not
kindle in him any new love for his profession, nor any ardor of military
glory. He had not revealed the possession of extraordinary talent, nor
any spark of genius. He accounted the period of great value to him in
his later life, but his heart was never enlisted in the cause for which
the war was made. His letters home declared this. When he came to write
his memoirs, speaking of the annexation of Texas, he said: "For myself I
was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war
which resulted as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger
against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the
bad example of European monarchies in not considering justice in their
desire to acquire additional territory.... The Southern rebellion was
largely the outgrowth of the Mexican war.... We got our punishment in
the most sanguinary and expensive war of modern times."
But the Mexican war changed Grant's plan of life. While he was at
Jefferson Barracks he had applied for a place as instructor of
mathematics at West Point, and had received such encouragement that he
devoted much time to reviewing his studies and extending them, giving
more attention to history than ever before. After the war the notion of
becoming a college professor appears to have left him. He regarded
himself as bound to the service for the rest of his days. It was not so
much his choice as his lot, and he accepted it, not because he relished
it, but because he discovered no way out of it. This illustrates a
negative trait of his character remarked throughout his career. He was
never a pushing man. He had no self-seeking energy. The work that was
assigned to him he did as well as he could; but he had little art to
recommend himself in immodest ways. He had not the vanity to presume
that he would certainly succeed in strange enterprises. He shrank from
the personal hostilities of ambition.
Then followed a long period of uneventful routine service in garrisons
at Detroit and at Sackett's Harbor, until in the summer of 1852 his
regiment was sent to the Pacific coast via the Panama route. The
crossing of the isthmus was a terrible experience, owing to the lack of
proper provision for it and to an epidemic of cholera. The delay was of
seven weeks' duration, and about one seventh of all who sailed on the
steamer from New York died on the isthmus of disease or of hardships.
Lieutenant Grant, however, had no illness, and exhibited a humane
devotion to the necessities of the unfortunate, civilians as well as
soldiers. His company was destined to Fort Vancouver, in Oregon
Territory, where he remained nearly a year, until, in order, he
received promotion to a captaincy in a company stationed at Humboldt Bay
in California. Here he remained until 1854, when he resigned from the
army, because, as he says, he saw no prospect of being able to support
his family on his pay, if he brought them--there were then two
children--from St. Louis, where Mrs. Grant had remained with her family
since he left New York. His resignation took effect, following a leave
of absence, July 31, 1854.
There was another cause, as told in army circles, for his resignation.
He had become so addicted to drink that his resignation was required by
his commanders, who held it for a time to afford him an opportunity to
retrieve his good fame if he would; but he was unable. Through what
temptation he fell into such disgrace is not clearly known. But garrison
posts are given to indulgences which have proved too much for many an
officer, no worse than his fellows, but constitutionally unable to keep
pace with men of different temperament. It might be thought that Grant
was one unlikely to be easily affected; but the testimony of his
associates is that he was always a poor drinker, a small quantity of
liquor overcoming him.
He was now thirty-two years old, a husband and father, discharged from
the service for which he had been educated, and without means of
livelihood. His wife fortunately owned a small farm near St. Louis, but
it was without a dwelling house. He had no means to stock it. He built a
humble house there by his own hard labor. He cut wood and drew it to St.
Louis for a market. In this way he lived for four years, when he was
incapacitated for such work by an attack of fever and ague lasting
nearly a year. There is no doubt that the veteran and his family
experienced the rigors of want in these years; no question that neither
his necessities nor his duties saved him from being sometimes overcome
by his baneful habit.
In the fall of 1858 the farm was sold. Grant embarked in the real estate
agency business in St. Louis, and made sundry unsuccessful efforts to
get a salaried place under the city government. But his fortunes did
not improve. Finally in desperation he went in 1860 to his father for
assistance. His father had established two younger sons in a hide and
leather business in Galena, Ill. Upon consultation they agreed to employ
Ulysses as a clerk and helper, with the understanding that he should not
draw more than $800 a year. But he had debts in St. Louis, and to cancel
these almost as much more had to be supplied to him the first year. His
father has told that the advance was repaid as soon as he began earning
money in the civil war.
In Galena he was known to but few. Ambition for acquaintance seemed to
have died in him. He was the victim of a great humiliation and was
silent. He avoided publicity. He was destitute of presumption. What
brighter hopes he cherished were due to his father's purpose to make him
a partner with his brothers. He heard Lincoln and Douglas when they
canvassed the State, and approved of the argument of the former rather
than of the other. He had voted for Buchanan in 1856, his only vote for
a President before the war. In 1860 he had not acquired a right to vote
in Illinois.
These thirteen quiet years of Grant's life are not of account in his
public career, but they are a phase of experience that left its deep
traces in the character of the man. He was changed, and ever afterwards
there was a tinge of melancholy and a haunting shadow of dark days in
his life that could not be escaped. Nor in the pride and power of his
after success did he completely conquer the besetting weakness of his
flesh. The years from twenty-six to thirty-nine in the lives of most men
who ever amount to anything are years of steady development and
acquisition, of high endeavor, of zealous, well-ordered upward progress,
of growth in self-mastery and outward influence, of firm consolidation
of character. These conditions are not obvious in the case of General
Grant. Had he died before the summer of 1861, being nearly forty years
of age, he would have filled an obscure grave, and those to whom he was
dearest could not have esteemed his life successful, even in its humble
scope. He had not yet found his opportunity: he had not yet found
himself.