A life of Grant for boys and girls

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Preface

Just fifty years ago, in the spring of 1861, this country was entering upon a war to test, in the words of President Lincoln, " whether a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, can long endure." The fate, not only of the nation but of civilization, hung in the balance ; for if the force that would break up the union of states prevailed, not only would human slavery be perpetuated in a large section, but the weakened fragments of the nation would fall an easy prey to foreign powers that had long watched with jealousy the great power growing up in the Western hemisphere.

In this crisis hundreds of men sprang to the defense of the Union, leaving their farms and workshops for the hard life of the camp, comforting their wives and children with the assurance that it was better to have a country without husband or father than husband or father without a country. Of this army so swiftly gathered, the majority were young men, many mere lads of high school age.

So suddenly did this war break upon an unprepared country that it was difficult to find competent officers to organize, drill, and command these volunteer soldiers, much more to plan campaigns and lead them to victories. General after general was tried, till at length the attention of the country was turned towards a simple, silent, steadfast man in the Army of the West who was win-

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PREFACE ning victories; who seemed to know how and when to strike, and who was able to follow up one telling blow by another. This man was promoted from one rank to another till he stood at the head of an army of a million men and led it to such a victory that every inch of its territory was restored to the nation and every man who had raised his hand against it laid down his arms.

That silent soldier not only proved himself one of the greatest generals of all times, but in all his life, whether as a private citizen or as the country's Chief Magistrate, showed such high and manly qualities as to make him worthy of being studied by all American youth.

The boys of this day have the same mettle as those of fifty years ago; and in the problems they will meet it will be well for them to know what was done by those before them. They know those boys of '6i, but they know them as gray-haired veterans to whose tales they have loved to listen. Those veterans, who once served their country on the battle-field, can best serve now by instilling lessons of patriotism in the minds of the younger generation.

This offering of an old soldier is addressed to girls as well as boys, since the women on both sides of the great war for the Union showed devotion as great and selfsacrificing as did the men. The girls also will find the life of General Grant worthy of study as an example of the virtues of patience, faith, and patriotism, and it will be of advantage to all young people to contemplate a character so honest, simple, and devoid of pretense as that of our greatest commander.

W. L. G.

New York City, July I, 191 1.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Boyhood and Early Training i

II. Young Grant at West Point iS

Chapter I

Several hundred years ago, there hved among the hills and heaths of Scotland a family named Grant. All Scotchmen are supposed to be hard-headed, but since this family (both in England and in Scotland) took for their motto " Stand Fast," we may suppose that they were a bit more hard-headed even than their neighbors. In 1630 IMatthew Grant turned away from his native land and set his face towards the savage wilderness of America, a much more arduous undertaking than could be found now short of a trip to the North Pole. As yet there were but two colonies between which to choose, Virginia and Massachusetts, and he reached the latter in 1630.

In 1636 we find Matthew Grant settled in Windsor, Connecticut, where he lived for over forty years, serving his generation like a good man and true. He was a surveyor at a time when every rod of land had to be measured and allotted to the settlers as they arrived. He chopped and plowed and grubbed a farm out of the wilderness, or fought Indians with his flintlock musket, whichever happened to be in the day's work. And he left sons and grandsons, a long line, all such hard workers and good fighters and honest men, that the one who became the greatest general of his time and President of his country had no need to be ashamed of his forebears.

The Grant family seems never to have missed any opportunity for fighting, but there was a great deal of it to be done in those pioneer days. In the war against the French and Indians in Canada, both Noah and Solomon Grant held commissions in the English army and both were killed in that contest. Noah Grant's son, also named Noah, was a captain in the Continental Army, serving at Bunker Hill and thereafter to the close of the Revolutionary War at Yorktown. At the close of the war the Continental Congress had no money with which to pay its soldiers, but it could offer them grants of Western land. Captain Grant, like many others, took his family to Ohio, then the far West. Before he could make provision for the support of his family. Captain Grant died, and his children passed into the care of his friends and neighbors. Of these, Jesse Grant found a home in the family of Judge Tod. The boys of that day were expected to work hard etiough to pay for their keep, which young Grant faithfully did. When old enough he learned the tanner's trade, and soon set up in that business for himself.

Jesse Grant married Hannah Simpson, and on April the 27th, 1822, their son Ulysses was born.

In many respects the parents were opposites in person, temperament, and character. The father was tall, almost six feet, energetic and shrewd, much given to talk, dogmatic and aggressive in manner, making enemies and friends in about equal degree. The mother was slim, handsome, but not vain, patient and uncomplaining, self-poised, little given to talk, gossip, or bragging; she made many friends and no enemies. Of her ancestors but little is known, though she was said to be as proud of them as her husband was of his, and that they were as martial as the Grants. All accounts agree in saying that Ulysses got his qualities of patience, reticence, and good nature from his mother. It is said by her neighbors that she never cried and seldom laughed. Her husband said in after years, " Her steadiness and strength of character have been the stay of the family through life."

At the time of Ulysses' birth Mr. Grant had a tannery at Point Pleasant, Ohio, and a year afterwards removed to Georgetown, the county seat of Brown, where he established a tannery, and bought a farm, part tillage and part woodland. One of the evident reasons for this change was that bark was plentiful and cheap. It was here that Ulysses, the future general and President, lived until he went to the Military Academy at West Point.

Georgetown is situated on a plateau ten miles back from the Ohio River, and is a big clearing hewed out from the virgin forest. It was a farming community, largely made up of people who had come from Virginia and Kentucky^ bringing with them

Southern prejudices and sympathies; though there were a few who, Hke the Grants, were Northern by birth or in sentiment. The village consisted of about twenty dwellings, with farm buildings and shops. The houses were small, with few conveniences and no luxuries. The house where the Grants first lived here had but two rooms and an attic. It was warmed by a large open fireplace, where the cooking for the family was done in pots, kettles, and other primitive contrivances. In a few years, however, Jesse Grant, by economy and sagacious business tact, got rich for the times and place, and built a brick house and wore gold spectacles. From the foregoing it will be seen that the environment in which young Grant was brought up was without great refinement, and his life hard and laborious.

Jesse Grant, it is said, had had only six months of schooling in all his life; but by reading and self-culture he had become an intelligent and well-read man. He saw, however, the great advantage that educational training gave, and was grimly determined that his son should have it. There were no public schools in the village or near there, so he sent Ulysses to a school kept by John D. White and supported by subscription.

The teaching in this school was primitive; there were no graded classes, and of some thirty or forty pupils some were learning their A B C's, others arithmetic, writing, and reading, and all were taught by the same teacher in one room. The better to enforce discipline and instruction, the teacher kept a formidable sheaf of long beech switches, of which he sometimes used on his pupils as many as a whole bunch in a single day. Such, however, was the general practice of the teachers of his times! It was then firmly believed that a boy's reverence for his teacher, his obedience and deportment, as well as his general education, were greatly improved by the use of the rod. There is but little doubt that the future general got the full benefit of this " beating in " of information and loving kindness; it is possible that it may have influenced his conduct afterwards when he chastised his enemies of the great Civil War. In this school he remained and became w^ll grounded in the elementary branches of study, until he was fourteen years of age.

At an early age the little Ulysses showed great fondness for horses. It is said that when he could scarcely walk, he was seen playing around them, getting under their feet, hanging by tail or mane, or trying to get on their backs by aid of a box or the manger. He was also getting, in addition to going to school, another kind of education by work. He began driving a team when seven years old, drawing all the wood for the house and shop and bark for the tannery. He also broke the bark for the big coffeemill-like hopper of the tannery. The boy did not, however, like any kind of work that belonged to a tannery and he avoided it all he could, without positive disobedience to his father, though ever ready to do any work which required the use of a team of horses. He seemed intuitively to understand them, and horses appeared to love, obey, and have confidence in the gentle firmness of the boy. The father allowed him, when still quite young, to have almost the entire control of those he owned, and even allowed him to sell and buy them. At an early age he became wonderfully proficient in training, breaking to harness, and riding horses.

When he was eight years of age an incident occurred which, though trivial and amusing, had its significance. A neighbor had a colt that Ulysses wanted very much. His father offered twenty dollars for it, that being all he thought it worth ; but the owner stood for twenty-five. As the boy wanted it very badly, the father finally yielded, telling him to go and bargain for the colt, and, if the owner would not take less, to pay twenty-five dollars for it. So when Ulysses went to buy it he said, " 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." Of course the boy got the colt that his little heart coveted, and the owner got his price.

When this story got out the boys of the village teased and ridiculed the little trader unmercifully, causing him heart burnings which he could not soon forget. This showed, however, a characteristic in Ulysses that he carried through life. He meant to have that colt, as he meant to have Donelson, Vicksburg, and Lee's army, when he wanted them; and he conducted all his negotiations therefor with the same straightforward candor. All through life he disliked indirect or crooked methods of dealing with men; and, as this narrative progresses, it will be seen that this was the cause of some of his failures, as well as of his great successes.

Another characteristic which young Grant showed during these early years was his dislike to turn back (in his Memoirs he calls it a superstition). When driving a team, if by accident he passed a place he was looking for, he kept straight on until he came to a fork in the road that carried him back by another route. This characteristic is shown in all his battles and marches from the beginning to the close of the great Civil War, where he commanded larger armies, fought more battles, and won more victories than any other general of modern times, — victories that gave to this great Empire of States of which we are so justly proud, union and peace.

Ulysses Grant was not thought to be a remarkably bright boy — but he was one who did things! A small circus had come to Georgetown, which he, with other boys of the village, attended. One of the attractions was a trick pony, whose back was so round that there was little chance to find a seat there, and its mane had been cut ofif so there was nothing to hold to. A reward of five dollars was offered to any boy who could ride it without being thrown. Ulysses did not care to try to catch a kangaroo, for which a reward also was offered, but after looking on at the performance of the trick pony, and seeing him throw every boy that tried to ride him, he wanted to try that. The pony, trained for this purpose, tried all his tricks to throw him, but Ulysses threw his arms around the pony's neck, and stuck to his back and conquered. He walked off with the five dollars, saying: "That pony was as round as an apple."

When eleven years of age the boy learned to plow, and from that time forward did all the work done with horses on the place. He furrowed corn and potatoes, brought in the crops when harvested, besides taking care of two or more horses and one or two cows, as well as sawing wood and attending school regularly.

He was not only an industrious boy, but an obedient one. In his Memoirs he records the fact that neither his father nor mother ever whipped or scolded him, which is quite remarkable, considering the methods of those times. He learned to obey, however, and I have never been able to learn where he disobeyed an order from a superior put over him, in all his subsequent eventful life.

With all his tasks, the lad still found a little time for swimming and fishing and for visiting his grandparents, fifteen miles away. He loved to travel and to see new^ things. When quite young he drove his father's horses alone to Cincinnati, over forty miles from home, several times to Maysville, and once to Louisville, Kentucky. At eleven years of age he had driven over most of the country for forty miles around, and a little later as far as seventy miles away.

The boys who read this must remember that in those days there were no macadam or other good roads, such as most of our boys are accustomed to.

The roads over which he drove were mostly wide, rough pathways cut through virgin forests, dusty when the weather was dry, and muddy when it was wet. They were lonely journeys, with but little companionship. It took a stout-hearted boy to drive through these dark woods by night, or even by day, where houses were so far apart and the silence was unbroken save by the chippering squirrels by the roadside, the hoot of owls, the song of birds, or the melancholy sighing of the wind in the treetops. All this must have left an imprint upon his impressionable, reticent nature. But I am not sure that in the development of courage, self-reliance, and powers of observation, these experiences were not equivalent to the best kind of college education.

At one time he carried a family seventy miles on their way to Toledo, and returned alone over the lonely roads.

One of his many experiences was amusing, though characteristic of his courage and ingenuity in finding some way to do difficult things. He made an excursion, accompanied by a Mr. Payne, to visit a person who lived at Flat Rock, a place seventy miles from home. The man where he visited had a saddle-horse which Ulysses coveted so much that he offered one of his carriage horses in trade for it. He knew that the horse had never had a harness on him, but, finding him docile, he believed he could manage him. So he hitched him to the carriage with his other horse and drove on with his passenger.

The new horse went along quite well, until a savlO age dog ran out, barking and snapping at his horses* heels. The saddle-horse, unbroken to harness, ran, kicking and rearing, as frightened horses will. Ulysses finally brought his horses to a standstill on the very verge of an embankment twenty feet high. The horse was frightened and trembling, but not so frightened as his passenger, who refused to go any further, and took passage by some other means.

Ulysses, nothing daunted, calmed his fractious horses and started for home alone, forty miles away. But the saddle-horse couldn't get over his fright; he ran, danced, and kicked so hard, that for a while he threatened the safety of both the driver and the carriage. The boy finally blindfolded the frightened horse with his handkerchief and, after a lively time and a day's journey, reached Maysville, to the surprise of Mr. Payne, who had preceded him by another conveyance to this point. Here he borrowed a horse from his uncle and reached home in safety.

When Ulysses was fourteen years of age his father, with the determination that his son should receive the best education that he could afford him, sent him for one term to the academy at Maysville. It was kept by a college -bred man, and here he studied, took part in the work of the debating society, saw something of social life and of manners more refined than those of his home village. It is recorded, however, that he would rather pay a fine than " speak a piece." He never liked to do anything for self-display.

When nearly seventeen young Grant received his appointment to the Military Academy at West Point.

BOYHOOD AND EARLY TRAINING ii

A neighbor's boy, living near the Grants and friendly with them, had received an appointment the year before, but had failed in his examinations, and resigned. Showy and with surface talents, he was considered by the townspeople a brilliant boy and of great promise.

Jesse Grant, in his grim, determined soul, had made up his mind that his son should have an appointment to the Military Academy — and go there. Young Bailey's failure and resignation w^ere not known to him, so he wrote to one of the Senators of his State inquiring about an appointment for his boy, and was informed by the Senator that there was a vacancy in his own district, which his own Representative could, if he chose, give to Ulysses.

Jesse Grant was a Whig and the Representative was a Democrat, and, though they had formerly been good friends, they had quarreled over politics, so that they did not speak when they met. Grant, however, wrote at once to Mr. Harmer, the Representative, saying. "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."

Mr. Harmer knew the boy, and liked him so well that he did not allow the quarrel with his father to stand in the way of Ulysses, and gave him the appointment. This generous act of Mr. Harmer not only healed the breach between the former friends, but gave to the nation a future general and President.

Now the boy had never shown any preference for the life of a soldier, and when his father told him about his appointment to West Point, Ulysses thought that he didn't care to be a soldier; that he had rather be a trader. The father grimly persisted that he should go to the Military Academy, until his son changed his mind. But it is evident that at this time he did not care for a military life.

When the people of Georgetown learned that Ulysses had got his appointment, many thought that Mr. Harmer might have made a better selection. One man of the village, meeting Mr. Grant on the street, said, " I understand that Ulysses has got the appointment to West Point," adding, " Why didn't our Representative select some one who would be a credit to this district?" It is very curious to observe that in the little village where this great man had been raised the folk thought him dull. The ideal of these people was a person with surface talent ; a boy that could talk, declaim; had the " gift of gab," and other showy qualities. This boy with uncommon ability to do things; who, at an early age, could load a team with big logs without other help than his horses; who had great independence of character; who never failed to do anything that he undertook, from riding a trick pony to getting hard lessons; this hoy the people thought of as dull!

It is possible, however, that Jesse Grant by his dogmatic manners, and political antagonism, had made enemies for his son as well as for himself. The mental atmosphere of this little hamlet was Southern, while the Grants were Northern in sentiment and sympathy. His pride in his boy and his talk about my Ulysses " had brought upon him ridicule, if not dislike, from which his son may have suffered.

When it was decided to send Ulysses to West Point, the better to prepare him for its examinations he was sent to an academy at Ripley, Ohio, superintended by the Rev. William Taylor. It is said by those who knew him there, that though not considered brilliant, he was a good student, and particularly good in mathematics. He never took any part while here in mischievous pranks, was never punished or reprimanded.

In person at this time Grant was a little over five feet tall, stocky, with a large head, small hands and feet, a round face, straight nose and firm chin, calm blue eyes, and a very earnest expression.

Ripley was Northern in its sympathy and atmosphere ; it was here that Mrs. Stowe laid that dramatic scene of " Uncle Tom's Cabin " when Eliza escaped from slavery. This atmosphere may have biased the people who knew young Grant while at school there in his favor.

One thing that reconciled Ulysses to going to West Point was that he would thereby see new places. When he started he had about a hundred dollars, which he had mostly earned by carrying passengers and by teaming. He went to Pittsburg by steamer, and from thence to Harrisburg by canal boat, as that method of travel was slow and gave him an opportunity to see the country. The first steam cars that he had ever seen, or traveled on, were from Harrisburg to Philadelphia, and we can imagine his interest in them.

He stopped in Philadelphia five days, passing through all its streets, and visiting Girard College, then unfinished. In New York he stopped long enough to see the sights, and then took steamer to West Point, where he arrived on the last of May, having been fifteen days in making the journey.

Chapter II Young Grant At West Point

Ulysses was about seventeen years of age when, on the 1st of July, 1839, he was enrolled as a cadet at the National Military Academy. He had feared that he might not be able to pass the examination. It was, therefore, a gratification to him when he easily passed this searching ordeal that has blasted the hopes of so many dull boys.

I have hitherto neglected to inform my readers that young Grant's name was originally Hiram Ulysses instead of Ulysses S. The change happened in this way: When Mr. Harmer sent his name to the War Department he had always known him as Ulysses, and, thinking by inference that his middle name was Simpson, his mother's name, he gave the name as Ulysses S.

After signing his own name on the adjutant's record, Grant was informed that the name had been sent in as given above. Upon requesting to have the change made, he was told that it could not be changed without the consent of the Secretary of War.

" Well," he is represented to have said, I came here to enter the Military Academy, and enter it I will ; one letter more or less does not matter." Hence it was that three months later he signed that name to i6 his enlistment certificate, it became his army name, and he has been known by that name ever since.

After signing the adjutant's roll he was sent to the barracks to report to the cadet officers, and soon after went into the encampment that precedes academic studies. He was given a broom, a pail and chair and two blankets, which he carried to his quarters amidst the usual hoots, jeers, and witticisms that are bestowed on a " plebe." He w^as saluted with all sorts of questions, from : Does your mother know you are out? " to " Who made your breeches? " and " Where did you get that hat? "

He was thenceforward obliged to sweep the floor of his quarters, was taught to arrange his outfit, and had to sleep on the bare floor without a mattress and with only the two blankets, one for his covering and the other under him.

The duties of a cadet are much like those of a raw recruit in the regular army. He was instructed, during his drill, in the " first position of a soldier : — Heels equally on the same line, knees straight without stiffness, palms of the hands outward, the little finger in rear of the seams of the trousers, eyes straight to the front, chest thrown forward, and the body resting on the soles of the feet."

All this he was obliged to do with tiresome repetition until he had learned the " first position " and was sick and tired of it.

Then he was possibly made to stand on one foot, swinging the other and depressing his toe as the foot swung forward. Then he was taught his facings;

YOUNG GRANT AT WEST POINT 17

" right face," " left face," " right about face." Then there is squad drill, company drill, guard mount, all of which has to be performed with painful exactness.

This does not look very formidable on paper, perhaps, but if any of my boy readers will take an hour's drill with a regular drill master, he will find to the contrary. Every position of body and hand has to be mathematically exact, for a soldier is but one of the parts of a huge marching machine controlled by a single will. The cadet has the tactics drilled into him by wearisome repetitions until the evolutions are almost automatically performed. And he is expected to go through these exercises with snap " and keep time in so doing as if it were music instead of tedious drudgery.

When he gets through with two hours of this drill, every muscle is sore and, unless he is a very humble person, and such are not fitted to be soldiers, he is mad all through and questions to himself, Why did I come for a soldier?"

In this preliminary drill of three months that precedes the January examinations there is no glitter of military uniforms; the " plebes," as they are called, wear their citizen's clothes, which naturally as a whole are of a great variety of styles and colors. To make this drill still more exasperating, their superior officers — who are cadets of the upper classes — give their orders in a sarcastic tone, with a plentiful sprinkling of side remarks, such as, " I'll have to put you in the awkward squad, you clown," or, " Dress up there! " or, " Draw your belly in," or, " If you do i8 that again I'll skin you alive." These men of the third class had been through with the same tortures themselves, and were repaying themselves for the humiliations they then endured by practicing them on the " plebes."

All sorts of tricks are played off on the " plebe." Perhaps he is soused with a pail of water while asleep, or trying to sleep, under his small outfit of blankets; and the plebe " must not resent it unless he is looking for more trouble.