Deerfield, Ohio, was not a place of any importance when Captain Noah
Grant of Bunker Hill fame arrived there from the East. Indeed, it was
not then much more than a spot on the map and it has ever won any great
renown. Yet in this tiny Ohio village there lived at one and the same
time Owen Brown, the father of John Brown, who virtually began the
Civil War, and Jesse Grant, the father of Ulysses Grant, who practically
brought it to a close.
It is certainly strange that these two men should, with all the world to
choose from, have chanced upon the same obscure little village, but it
is still stranger that one of them should have become the employer of
the other and that they should both have lived in the very same house.
Such, however, is the fact, for when Jesse Grant first began to earn his
living as a tanner, he worked for and boarded with Owen Brown, little
dreaming that his son and his employer's son would some day shake the
world.
It was not at Deerfield, however, but at Point Pleasant, Ohio, that
Jesse Grant's distinguished son was born on April 27, 1822, in a cottage
not much larger than the cabin in which Abraham Lincoln first saw the
light. Mr. and Mrs. Grant and other members of their family differed
among themselves as to what the boy should be called, but they settled
the question by each writing his or her favorite name on a slip of paper
and then depositing all the slips in a hat, with the understanding that
the child should receive the first two names drawn from that receptacle.
This resulted in the selection of Hiram and Ulysses, and the boy
was accordingly called Hiram Ulysses Grant until the United States
government re-christened him in a curious fashion many years later. To
his immediate family, however, he was always known as Ulysses, which
his playmates soon twisted into the nickname "Useless," more or less
good-naturedly applied.
Grant's father moved to Georgetown, Ohio, soon after his son's birth,
and there his boyhood days were passed. The place was not at that
time much more than a frontier village and its inhabitants were mostly
pioneers--not the adventurous, exploring pioneers who discover new
countries, but the hardy advance-guard of civilization, who clear the
forests and transform the wilderness into farming land. Naturally, there
was no culture and very little education among these people. They were
a sturdy, self-respecting, hard-working lot, of whom every man was the
equal of every other, and to whom riches and poverty were alike unknown.
In a community of this sort there was, of course, no pampering of the
children, and if there had been, Grant's parents would probably have
been the last to indulge in it. His father, Jesse Grant, was a stern and
very busy man who had neither the time nor the inclination to coddle the
boy, and his mother, absorbed in her household duties and the care of a
numerous family, gave him only such attention as was necessary to
keep him in good health. Young Ulysses was, therefore, left to his
own devices almost as soon as he could toddle, and he quickly became
self-reliant to a degree that alarmed the neighbors. Indeed, some of
them rushed into the house one morning shouting that the boy was out
in the barn swinging himself on the farm horses' tails and in
momentary danger of being kicked to pieces; but Mrs. Grant received the
announcement with perfect calmness, feeling sure that Ulysses would
not amuse himself in that way unless he knew the animals thoroughly
understood what he was doing.
Certainly this confidence in the boy's judgment was entirely justified
as far as horses were concerned, for they were the joy of his life
and he was never so happy as when playing or working in or about the
stables. Indeed, he was not nine years old when he began to handle a
team in the fields. From that time forward he welcomed every duty that
involved riding, driving or caring for horses, and shirked every other
sort of work about the farm and tannery. Fortunately, there was plenty
of employment for him in the line of carting materials or driving the
hay wagons and harrows, and his father, finding that he could be trusted
with such duties, allowed him, before he reached his teens, to drive a
'bus or stage between Georgetown and the neighboring villages entirely
by himself. In fact, he was given such free use of the horses that when
it became necessary for him to help in the tannery, he would take a team
and do odd jobs for the neighbors until he earned enough, with the aid
of the horses, to hire a boy to take his place in the hated tan-yard.
This and other work was, of course, only done out of school hours, for
his parents sent him as early as possible to a local "subscription"
school, which he attended regularly for many years. "Spare the rod and
spoil the child" was one of the maxims of the school, and the first duty
of the boys on assembling each morning was to gather a good-sized bundle
of beech-wood switches, of which the schoolmaster made such vigorous use
that before the sessions ended the supply was generally exhausted. Grant
received his fair share of this discipline, but as he never resented it,
he doubtless got no more of it than he deserved and it probably did him
good.
Among his schoolmates he had the reputation of talking less than any
of the other boys and of knowing more about horses than all of them put
together. An opportunity to prove this came when he was about eleven,
for a circus appeared in the village with a trick pony, and during the
performance the clown offered five dollars to any boy who could ride
him. Several of Ulysses' friends immediately volunteered, but he sat
quietly watching the fun while one after another of the boys fell victim
to the pony's powers. Finally, when the little animal's triumph seemed
complete, Grant stepped into the ring and sprang upon his back. A
tremendous tussle for the mastery immediately ensued, but though he
reared and shied and kicked, the tricky little beast was utterly unable
to throw its fearless young rider, and amid the shouts of the audience
the clown at last stopped the contest and paid Ulysses the promised
reward.
From that time forward his superiority as a horseman was firmly
established, and as he grew older and his father allowed him to take
longer and longer trips with the teams, he came to be the most widely
traveled boy in the village. Indeed, he was only about fifteen when he
covered nearly a hundred and fifty miles in the course of one of his
journeys, taking as good care of his horses as he did of himself, and
transacting the business entrusted to him with entire satisfaction
to all concerned. These long, and often lonely, trips increased his
independence and so encouraged his habit of silence that many of the
village people began to think him a dunce.
His father, however, was unmistakably proud of the quiet boy who did
what he was told to do without talking about it, and though he rarely
displayed his feelings, the whole village knew that he thought "Useless"
was a wonder and smiled at his parental pride. But the smile almost
turned to a laugh when it became known that he proposed to send the boy
to West Point, for the last cadet appointed from Georgetown had failed
in his examinations before he had been a year at the Academy, and few
of the neighbors believed that Ulysses would survive as long. Certainly,
the boy himself had never aspired to a cadetship, and when his father
suddenly remarked to him one morning that he was likely to obtain the
appointment, he receive the announcement with uncomprehending surprise.
"What appointment?" he asked
"To West Point," replied his father. "I have applied for it."
"But I won't go!" gasped the astonished youth.
"I think you will," was the quiet but firm response, and Grant, who had
been taught obedience almost from his cradle, decided that if his father
thought so, he did, too.
But, though the young man yielded to his parent's wishes, he had no
desire to become a soldier and entirely agreed with the opinion of the
village that he had neither the ability nor the education to acquit
himself with credit. In fact, the whole idea of military life was
so distasteful to him that he almost hoped he would not fulfill the
physical and other requirements for admission. Indeed, the only thought
that reconciled him to the attempt was that it necessitated a trip from
Ohio to New York, which gratified his longing to see more of the world.
This was so consoling that it was almost with a gay heart that he set
out of the Hudson in the middle of May, 1839.
For a boy who had lived all his life in an inland village on the
outskirts of civilization the journey was absolutely adventurous, for
although he was then in his eighteenth year, he had never even as much
as seen a railroad and his experiences on the cars, canal boats and
steamers were all delightfully surprising. Therefore, long as the
journey was, it was far too short for him, and on May 25th he reached
his destination. Two lonely and homesick weeks followed, and then, much
to his astonishment and somewhat to his regret, he received word that he
had passed the examination for admission and was a full-fledged member
of the cadet corps of West Point.