Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers Part 2

1754. Appointed lieutenant-colonel and sent against the French and Indians.

1755. Joined General Braddock's staff with rank of colonel.

1757. Resigned his army commission.

1759. Married Martha Dandridge Custis.

1775. Appointed commander-in-chief of American forces, in Revolution.

1781. Receives surrender of Cornwallis.

1788. Became first President of the United States.

1797. Ended second term as President.

1799. December 14. Died at Mt. Vernon.

GRANT

THE MAN WHO "CAME BACK"

"Can a man 'come back'?"

This is a question one frequently hears nowadays; and the answer is, more often than not, a shrug of the shoulders. For the man who has once failed--or even pa.s.sed his first chance of success--is not considered seriously in this busy day and time. He is a "down-and-outer"; he cannot "come back."

But there are exceptions to every rule, and one of the most striking ones in all history, to the above adage, is furnished by the man who led the Union forces to victory in the American Civil War, and later achieved the presidency.

Here was a man who, at forty, was generally regarded as a failure, a ne'er-do-well. But for the accident of war he would in all likelihood have ended his days "unwept, unhonored, and unsung." We have a picture of this middle-aged man, clerking for his younger brothers in a country store, at eight hundred dollars a year, and day by day sinking further into the slough of despond.

He was of little real value to the store, at even that meager salary.

He was no good at driving bargains or at palavering with the trade. He tried to keep out of sight as much as possible among the boxes and shelves. His clothing was poor and shabby, his hair and beard long and unkempt. The brand of failure was stamped all over him.

Yet this was the man who in five short years was to become the most famous military leader of his day.

The life story of Ulysses Simpson Grant abounds in strange paradoxes.

If ever a man was made the plaything of fate, it was he. His career has even persuaded some writers into the belief that he was "the Man of Mystery."

His father, Jesse Grant, was a self-taught man, who is said to have received but six months actual schooling in his life. He was all the more determined that his son, Ulysses, should have the education that he lacked. We find him intervening more than once to drive the boy contrary to the latter's wishes--but to his later good. The father was tall, about six feet, rugged and aggressive, making friends and enemies with equal readiness. Ulysses' mother, however, was quiet, self-possessed, and patient--qualities which she afterwards gave the boy. Jesse Grant said of her in later years: "Her steadiness and strength of character have been the stay of the family through life."

At the time of Ulysses' birth (April 27, 1822) the family were living at Point Pleasant, Claremont County, Ohio. But when he was still an infant they removed to Georgetown, a few miles away, where the father established a tannery. At this time the town was little more than a clearing hewed out from the virgin forest. Wood was plentiful and cheap, and for this reason, Mr. Grant bought a tract of land and set up his tannery.

Ulysses, or "Lys" as the neighbors called him, was the oldest of six children--three boys and three girls. As soon as Ulysses was old enough, his father started him to school. There were no public schools in those days, so he went to a school maintained by private subscription and taught by a man named John White.

White had his own notions about a curriculum, and one of the most important was discipline. On top of his desk always reposed a bundle of good husky switches--except at frequently recurring times when they were beating a tattoo on some hapless scholar's back. It was his boast that he often used up a whole bunch in a single day. However, his school was no different from many another of the time. Beatings were taken as a matter of course. "Spare the rod and spoil the child!"

Ulysses went to this school until he was fourteen, and mastered the elementary studies. Between whiles he helped his father at the tannery or on the farm. The tannery work he always hated. But outdoor work, particularly with horses, he delighted in. At seven years of age he drove a team with all the skill of a man; and it was said that when he could scarcely walk he could ride horseback. The story is told of him that at a county fair, where a prize of five dollars was offered to any one who could stick on a trick pony, Ulysses won it after several other boys had got thrown helter-skelter. He flung his arms around the pony's fat neck, and stuck on, though as he afterward said: "That pony was as round as an apple."

He tells another amusing story of himself, in these early days. He greatly coveted a young colt owned by a neighboring farmer, and after teasing his father, the latter tried to buy it for him. But he offered only twenty dollars for the colt, and the owner wanted twenty-five.

After some d.i.c.kering without any result, the boy went to the owner with this message, which he delivered all in a breath:

"Father says I may offer you twenty dollars; and if you won't take that, I am to offer you twenty-two and a half; and if you won't take that for your colt, I am to pay you twenty-five dollars."

"It would not take a Connecticut farmer to tell what was the price paid for the colt," he added afterward when telling the story.

This little incident, while amusing, reveals a trait in his character which persisted all through life. He was the soul of candor. He called a spade a spade. And he never could bargain.

Another early trait revealing itself in later years was something that, in his Memoirs, he calls a superst.i.tion. It was a dislike to turn back when once started on a journey. If he found himself on the wrong road, he would keep going until he came to some branching road rather than turn aside. This habit was destined to make some of the generals on the other side, in the Civil War, somewhat uncomfortable. They found that he never quit.

Thus grew up the boy, Ulysses Grant. He was not considered particularly bright at school, but he was a plodder, going along keeping his own counsel. He could not talk readily, even in a small company, and was hopeless when it came to "speaking a piece" on Friday at the school. But he was a st.u.r.dy, outdoor boy, by this time remarkably proficient with horses. At the age of fifteen he had explored the back country for miles roundabout.

His father, however, had never lost sight of the fact that the boy was to get a good schooling--and frequently brought up the subject, to "Lys's" discomfort. The lad was not especially keen for any more books. But the opportunity came--just as others were to come, to shape the whole course of young Grant's life.

The son of a neighbor had received an appointment to West Point, but had failed to pa.s.s the entrance examinations. Jesse Grant immediately wrote to the Congressman of the district, in behalf of Ulysses, although the two men were on opposite political sides and had quarreled bitterly: "If you have no other person in view and feel willing to consent to the appointment of Ulysses, you will please signify that consent to the Department."

Ulysses got the appointment, despite the political feud, and it is pleasant to note that the two men healed their differences and became good friends again.

The boy received news of his appointment without much enthusiasm. He would much rather be a horse trader, he told his father. But the latter was determined--and Ulysses went.

Nor did his appointment please others in the village, who thought the boy dull. One man meeting Mr. Grant in the street, said bluntly: "I hear that your boy is going to West Point. Why didn't our Representative pick some one that would be a credit to the district?"

This ill-natured speech may have been inspired by the fact that political feeling ran high at that time; and Jesse Grant as a staunch Whig and Northerner had made a good many enemies.

Ulysses was coached for West Point at an academy at Ripley, Ohio, conducted by William Taylor, and pa.s.sed his entrance examinations with fair grades. His best study was mathematics. He entered at the age of seventeen.

It took young Grant many a long day to accustom himself to the Military Academy. The hazing encountered by every Freshman he didn't seem to mind, so the older men soon let him alone. But the drill and the dress! To this farm lad it was deadly. These were the days of the "ramrod" tactics of Winfield Scott--the starch and stock and buckram days of the army. "Old Fuss and Feathers" his critics called him, but with all his love of pomp and circ.u.mstance Scott was a splendid soldier, whether on the drill ground, or in the face of the enemy.

Nevertheless, to Grant it was a constant trial, at first. He felt like a fish out of water. General Charles King thus speaks of him:

"Phlegmatic in temperament and long given to ease and deliberation in all his movements at home, this springing to attention at the tap of the drum, this snapping together of the heels at the sound of a sergeant's voice, this sudden freezing to a rigid pose without the move of a muscle, except at the word of command, was something almost beyond him. It seemed utterly unnatural, if not utterly repugnant.

Accustomed to swinging along the winding banks of the White Oak, or the cow-paths of the pasture lot, this moving only at a measured pace of twenty-eight inches, and one hundred and ten to the minute, and all in strict unison with the step of the guide on the marching flank or at the head of column, came ten times harder than ever did the pages of 'a.n.a.lytical' or the calculus.

"Grant had no sense of rhythm. He had no joy in martial music. The thrill and inspiration of the drum and fife, or the beautiful harmonies of the old Academy band were utterly lost on him. In all that cla.s.s of 1843, it may well be doubted if there lived one solitary soul who found there less to like or more to shrink from, than this seventeen-year-old lad who, thanks to the opportunities and to the training there given them, was in less than a quarter of a century to be hailed as the foremost soldier of more than two millions of men in the Union blue."

But this was only one of the Grant paradoxes--the contradictions which were to mark his strange career.

Life at West Point was not all hardship, however. In his quiet way Grant made a few warm friends. On account of his initials he was promptly nicknamed "Uncle Sam," which was soon shortened to "Sam." He excelled in two widely different courses--mathematics and horsemanship.

We have already noticed his early skill with, and love for horses. Now it was to stand him in good stead. He was a.s.signed, during one year, to a particularly intractable young horse--a big, raw-boned sorrel, named York. One of York's tricks was to rear and throw himself backward with his rider. But in Grant he found his master, and the steed not only grew tractable, but developed under his rider's training into a famous jumper. Horse and rider are vividly described by General James B. Fry, in his Reminiscences:

"The cla.s.s, still mounted, was formed in line through the center of the hall. The riding master placed the leaping bar higher than a man's head and called out, 'Cadet Grant!' A clean-faced, slender, blue-eyed young fellow, weighing about one hundred and twenty pounds, dashed from the ranks on a powerfully built chestnut-sorrel horse, and galloped down the opposite side of the hall. As he turned at the farther end and came into the stretch at which the bar was placed, the horse increased his pace and measuring his stride for the great leap before him, bounded into the air and cleared the bar, carrying his rider as if man and beast had been welded together. The spectators were breathless."

"Sam" Grant graduated from the Military Academy in July, 1843, one of thirty-nine out of a cla.s.s that had originally numbered one hundred.

Among his cla.s.smates were Sherman, Thomas, Meade, Reynolds, and other soldiers later known to fame. It cannot be said, however, that his entry into the army was auspicious. He was still by no means reconciled to the idea of being a soldier. He had not received the a.s.signment he had coveted, the Dragoons; and moreover his health was poor. He was troubled with a persistent cough which indicated weak lungs--but thanks to his life in the open and horseback riding he escaped a possible attack of consumption.

After a three months' furlough visiting his father's home, now at Bethel, Ohio, he reported for duty at the Jefferson Barracks, near St.

Louis, as a second lieutenant in the infantry. The best horseman in his cla.s.s had to walk!

But there were compensations. Outside of duty, Grant could always procure a mount; and about five miles away from the Barracks--just an easy canter--was the home of his college chum and roommate, Lieut.

Frederick T. Dent. The Dents had a big, hospitable country place, and they speedily made Fred's friend feel at home. One member of the family who had heard much about "Sam" Grant from her brother's letters, long before Grant appeared in person, was Julia Dent now a charming girl of seventeen. It was not long before her friends began teasing her about "the little lieutenant with the big epaulets"--and while she laughed and blushed she didn't seem to mind.

The little round of social gayeties, however, was of brief duration.

Trouble with Mexico was brewing, and in 1844 relations had become so strained that an "Army of Observation," as it was called, was a.s.sembled under General Zachary Taylor, old "Rough and Ready," on the border.

Grant's company was ordered to join this army, on the briefest notice.

The young lieutenant had time only for a brief leave-taking with the Dents, and one member in particular, but her final message meant all the world to him.

In March of the next year, Congress sanctioned the annexation of Texas, and trouble with Mexico began in earnest. History records the rapid course of events which made up the Mexican War. We can only notice the events which directly concern the career of Grant. His company was a part of the expeditionary force of three thousand men destined to see active service on the border.