Ulysses S. Grant

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Preface

Amid the multitude of biographies of General Grant, written in the main by those who knew him with some degree of intimacy, the appearance of another may seem to demand explanation, and even apology. I cannot lay claim either to participation in the stirring history of his times, or to personal acquaintance with my subject; but each generation requires the service of its own historians and biographers, in order to bring the message of the past to bear on the present ; and this book is the result of an honest attempt to record a life that is full of significance for our own era.

The time has now come when the great struggle for national existence, known as the American Civil War, can be studied without passion or prejudice. Within the last few years, many volumes of personal reminiscences and letters have appeared, and the correspondence of the leaders on both sides has been made available. The primary sources of information, therefore, are approaching completion. Even with this wealth of material, it has not always been easy to determine the exact truth with reference to some of the facts of Grant's life. His public record was made in a time of bitter partisanship, when few were willing to state fairly the point of view of their

4 PEEFACE

opponents. Moreover, his own writings are sometimes of little assistance to his biographer, not because of inaccuracy or distortion, but for limitations in subject. While the ''Personal Memoirs" will always rank as a military classic, yet his letters, although numerous, give little explanation of the genius of the man. From early mauhood, he had learned to disregard popular clamour, and even when the leader of a great national party, he rarely deigned to explain his actions, or to palliate hostile criticism. In his most intimate conversations, he almost never discussed himself. What he had done or what he had seen, he could describe with a vivid, terse accuracy ; but subjective analysis did not interest him, nor did he realize how valuable it might be to those who would seek to interpret his life. While his reticence concerning himself has added to the difficulties of the biographer, yet it is hoped that from the wealth of supplementary material, substantial accuracy has resulted.

Many have assisted in the preparation of this book, including some of the fast -decreasing group of Grant's comrades, and their courteous and generous interest is here gratefully acknowledged.

The frontispiece has been taken from a photograph by F. Gutekunst, made in the month of the Appomattox Campaign.

F. S. E.

Contents

Chronology 7

I. Early Life 11

II. At West Point .... 30

Chapter I

" Comrades, having been compelled, as often I have since my arrival in San Francisco, to utter a few words not only to ex-soldiers, but to all other classes of citizens of our great country, and always speaking without any preparation, I have necessarily been obliged to repeat, possibly in not the same words, but the same ideas. But the one thing I want to impress on you is that we have a country to be proud of, to fight for, and die for if necessary."

These simple words were addressed by General Grant to a vast audience of war veterans filling every corner of the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, on December 12, 1879, which had assembled to bid him welcome home from a tour of the world. A distinguished ex-governor of the Commonwealth, then the Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, presided over the meeting ; the governor had delivered an eloquent address of welcome. The guest of the evening was no orator, but on mauy occasions he showed his command of plain and effective words, and this time, impressed with the unusual spirit of the occasion, he spoke from the heart. He described the influence of war upon the growing boy, who, without any exciting cause, would probably have stayed by his father's home and followed his father's pursuit, but who, aroused by the principles of the great conflict, had gone forth into a wider life, and when the war was over, without any diminution of his love for the old home, had then struck out for new fields, and thereby had become a pioneer in trade and commerce.

In referring to the opportunity and change which the Civil War had brought into the life of the country lad, General Grant might have referred appropriately to his own career. There is probably no actor in that stormy period, whose outlook, ambitions, hopes and prospects were altered more completely by the great conflict than his. The drama of life offers many curious contrasts, but none more effective than that which shows him in 1861, as drifting through life, unable, after many trials, without family assistance to make a living for his household and himself, and then — four years later — presents him the idol of the nation, having achieved a world-wide renown — with the greatest political prospects within his reach. When his opportunity came, he was ready, and so his is the well-earned prize, but it is not too much to say that if there had been no American crisis culminating in Civil War, the world never would have heard of Grant, and the literature of American life would

EARLY LIFE 13

have lacked one of its most interesting and effective illustrations.

Ulysses Simpson Grant was born April 27, 1822, at Point Pleasant, Ohio, his parents being Jesse Root and Hannah Simpson Grant. In his " Memoirs," he states that "My family is American and has been for generations, in all its branches, direct and collateral."

For eight generations the history of the Grants is the typical record of a pioneer family. In 1630 Matthew Grant and Priscilla, his wife, with an infant daughter, sailed from Plymouth in the fourhundred-ton boat, Mary and John, under Captain Squib. 1 After a voyage of seventy-one days, they arrived at Nantasket and settled at Dorchester, south of Boston. They were a part of the large Puritan migration to New England. In 1631, Matthew Grant was admitted as a freeman of Dorchester, but five years afterward he removed the family home to Windsor, Conn., where he lived until his death, serving in various positions of honor as the first surveyor of the town, town clerk, etc.

" He was a prominent man in the church," says

1 Whether Matthew Grant was of Scotch descent, owing allegiance to the clan, whose famous motto " Stand Fast, Craig Ellachie " is exemplified strongly in the lives of some of his descendants, or whether he was an English yeoman of Puritan proclivities, it is now impossible to determine. Jesse R. Grant thought he was of Scotch descent, but as Matthew Grant came from the southwestern part of England, it is difficult to understand just how there could have been a strong Scottish element in his blood.

Dr. Styles of the progenitor of the Grant family, "and evidently was just and conscientious in all his public and private transactions and duties ; as Eecorder he often added notes explanatory or in correction to the records, which have considerable value to the investigator of the present day. He was the compiler of the old church record. . . . In short, he was a pious, hard-working, conscientious Christian man and a model town clerk."

Matthew Grant seems to have had a high degree of tenacity in asserting his views and in maintaining what he conceived to be right. A controversy arose in the church in 1668, because a portion of the members desired to leave their first pastor and organize a separate parish under a popular preacher. A town meeting was called at which a vote was secured in favor of giving the new minister a hearing, but Matthew Grant refused to enter the proceedings of the meeting upon the records ; whereupon the entry appears on the books in a strange hand and beneath was a protest by the town clerk, as follows : "This is a proviso: I here express to clear myself from having any hand in assenting to the warning of the town meeting, so called, as George Griswold has entered in this book, Aug. the 8th, '68, for he and some others came to (my) house after they had been together, and desired me, being the town recorder, to enter their town vote, made this day, that Mr. Woodbridge shall have the liberty to preach on the Sabbath. I told him I would not have no hand in the business nor enter their vote. Then he desired me to let him have the town book, wherein I used to enter such things. He being a townsman I laid the book upon the table, and there he wrote himself what is entered by his own hand. This I certify.

" Matthew Grant.

Matthew Grant was twice married and left several children, of whom the oldest son was Samuel, born in Dorchester in 1631. His son was Samuel, Jr., born in Windsor in 1659, dying in 1710. His son, Noah Grant, was also born in Windsor in 1692 and died in 1727. His widow afterward married Peter Buell and so brought about a relationship between the Grants and the family of Don Carlos Buell, the contemporary of General Grant in the Civil War.

The fifth generation was represented by Noah Grant, 2d, who was born in Tolland, Conn., in 1718 and was a scout and soldier, being appointed captain in the French and Indian War. He took part in a number of military engagements around Lake George and Lake Champlain, serving with the famous scout, Eogers, and Israel Putnam and John Stark, until in 1756, when he went out in a scouting party and was returned as "absent. " While he was probably killed, yet no letters of administration were granted on his estate until 1774. His son, Noah Grant, 3d, was also born in Tolland, Conn., in 1748. He took the field after the battle of Lexington, was originally commissioned as a lieutenant, and served until the end of the Revolutionary War as a captain. About 1790 he emigrated from Connecticut to Westmoreland County, Pa., near Greeiisburg, about twenty miles from Pittsburgh. Here he married a second time and after a few years set out for the Western Reserve, locating at first in Liverpool, Columbiana County, O., but removing in 1800 to Deerfield, Portage Couuty. The last years of his life were spent with his son Peter at Maysville, Ky., where he died in 1820. A part of his large family settled south of the Ohio River, and several of his grandchildren fought with the Confederates in the Civil War.

Jesse Root Grant, the oldest son of the second marriage of Captain Noah, was born in Westmoreland County, Pa., in 1794, and was named after the Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Connecticut. Several years of his youth were spent with the family of Judge Todd at Youngstown, O. In 1812 he removed to Maysville, where he learned the tanning business in association with his half-brother. In 1815 he opened a tannery at Deerfield, O., but as there was not much business at this location, he moved three years later to Ravenna, the county seat of Portage County. Here he experienced fever and ague and had a number of business reverses, whereupon he removed to Point Pleasant County, on the banks of the Ohio River, about twenty-five miles southeast from Cincinnati. He again established a tannery, and as business prospered so that he could maintain a home, he decided upon matrimony, and on June 24, 1821, he married Hannah Simpson, the second daughter and the third child of John Simpson, who had been born and brought up in Montgomery County, Pa. Her father was a highly respectable farmer of American ancestry for several generations. The family had recently removed to Ohio. Jesse E. Grant thus described his wife: "At the time of our marriage, Mrs. Grant was an unpretending country girl ; handsome but not vain. She had previously joined the Methodist Church ; aud I can truthfully say that it has never had a more devoted or consistent member. Her steadiness, firmness and strength of character have been the stay of the family through life. She was always careful, and most watchful over her children, but never austere, and not opposed to their free participation in innocent amusements."

The home at Point Pleasant was a small onestory frame cottage situated near the northern bank of the Ohio Eiver. After the great fame came to the child which it sheltered in early life, the house was removed and has since been preserved at Columbus, O., on the state fair grounds. It was here that the oldest son, Ulysses Simpson Grant, was born. In 1823 the Grants removed from Point Pleasant to Georgetown, the county seat of Brown County, O., where the father started again with a small tannery and after a few months built a modest two-story brick house which was paid for that summer from the profits of the business.

" I continued on in this way," writes Jesse Grant,

"improving a little every year. Two years after I built my house, I added a kitchen in the rear, and a few months later, when the increase of my family required and my means justified it, I built a large house in front. My object was not to get rich, but to make my family comfortable and contented, and to train up my children for usefulness. Early in the year 1839, when my oldest son was nearly seventeen years of age, he told me he could never follow the tanning business ; that he did not like it. I told him that whatever he expected to follow through life he should engage in now, and not waste his early life in learning a business he did not intend to follow. Among other preparations for life he desired an education. Although my business had been good and reasonably successful, yet I did not feel able to support him at college. So I suggested "West Point ; that met his approbation, and I made application, and by the veriest accident in the world I obtained the appointment for him."

In 1841 he sold out the business at Georgetown and formed a partnership with E. A. Collins to conduct the leather business at Galena, 111. After several years of success in this partnership, Jesse E. Grant retired from business in 1854 with a competency. His later years were spent in Covington, Ky., where, during the presidency of his distinguished son, he served as postmaster of the town. The secret of his success may be summed up in his own words : " Preferring to do a sure business to a large one, I worked on such means as I had, and never involved myself in debt. Soon after I commenced business at Point Pleasant, General Lytle, of Cincinnati, offered me an empty tannery he had in that city, and agreed to furnish all the means necessary to carry it on, but I was afraid to take the responsibility, and adhered to my first policy of a sure thing rather than a large one. The man who did take the place retired ten years ago on a fortune of a million dollars. I kept on in a moderate way, supporting my family well, teaching them the practical lessons of life, and fitting them for future usefulness. If I had taken the General's tannery, I should, no doubt, have come into possession of a sudden, overgrown fortune, and spoiled my children. As it was, when I was old enough to retire, my boys were fully qualified to take my place, and I have the consolation of knowing that I have educated my children all well, and have made them all moderately wealthy, besides knowing that they are all doing well for themselves." 1

1 Summary of family :

1st. Matthew Grant— Born 1601, Eugland ; died 1681, Windsor, Conn.

2d. Samuel — Born 1631, Dorchester, Mass. ; died 1718, Windsor, Conn.

3d. Samuel, Jr. — Born 1659, Windsor, Conn. ; died 1710.

4th. Noah (I)— Born 1693, Windsor, Conn. ; died 1727, Tolland, Conn.

5th. Noah (II), (Captain)— Born 1718, Tolland, Conn.; lost 1756, near Fort William Henry.

6th. Noah (III), (Captain)— Born 1748, Tolland, Conn. ; died 1819, Maysville, Ky.

7th. Jesse Root — Born 1794, Westmoreland County, Pa. ; died June 29, 1873, Covington, Ky. Married Hannah Simpson

Jesse R. Grant was a successful pioneer. He recognized the business needs of the new community and adapted himself to supply them. Thrifty, although not penurious in personal life, and a good bargainer, he had little difficulty in supporting his growing family and in accumulating a competency for his own old age. But he was not regarded with universal favor by his neighbors. He was disputatious, and fond of an argument, somewhat clever with his pen, but vain of his own cleverness. His Southern neighbors, of whom there were many, regarded him as radical in his Northern sympathies, and even his friends criticized his oft-expressed pride in his children, especially his first-born. To those who were accustomed to deal with the stern realities of life on the edge of the wilderness, it seemed sentimental and foolish to waste time and maybe warp nature by talking of " My Ulysses " aud what he might accomplish !

Hannah Simpson Grant is an illustration of the familiar rule that the strongest qualities of successful men are derived from the mother. She was the descendant of a long line of Pennsylvania pioneers, probably Irish in origin, and illustrated the best traditions of her race. That she was a remarkable woman is the universal testimony of her neighbors. " His mother at that time was about thirty years of

— Born November 23, 1798, Montgomery County, Pa. ; died May 11, 1883, Jersey City, N. J.

8th. Ulysses Simpson — Born April 27, 1822, Point Pleasant, Ohio ; died July 23, 1885, Mt. McGregor, N. Y.

EARLY LIFE 21

age," writes Daniel Ammen, a playmate of Ulysses, " above medium height, graceful in manner, gracious to children, neat in person, and kept the children neatly clothed, which was rather unusual in that part of the world at that time. In after years, the General told me that he had never seen his mother shed a tear. She had a cheerful countenance, a kind word to all, and in my eyes was very haudsome, and in reality certainly was at least very pre possessing and agreeable." She could endure, without complaint ; she could work, without chattering ; she could govern with firmness, without appeal to fear. Later in life, the neighbors said of Grant, — " He got his sense from his mother."

To this father and mother there were born six children, of whom the subject of this biography was the first. 1 He was named Hiram Ulysses, after a family consultation which has something of simple romance. When the baby was a few weeks old, the mother went on a visit to her father's home, ten miles away,

1 Ulysses Simpson (Hiram Ulysses) — Born April 27, 1822 ; died July 23, 1885.

Samuel Simpson— Born September 23, 1825, at Georgetown, Ohio ; died September 13, 1861, near St. Paul, Minn.

Clara Rachel — Born December 11, 1828, Georgetown, O.; died March 6, 1865, Covington, Ky.

Virginia Paine — Born February 20, 1832, Georgetown, O. ; Married Abel R. Corbin ; died March 28, 1881, Jersey City, N. J.

Orvil Lynch — Born May 15, 1835, Georgetown, O. ; died August 4, 1881, Elizabeth, N. J.

Mary Francis — Born July 30, 1839, Georgetown, O. ; married Rev. Michael John Cramer; died January 23, 1898, Carlisle, Pa.

to exhibit her first-born. While there, a family council was called, to name the child. The grandfather, John Simpson, suggested Hiram as a proper Scriptural name ; an aunt advocated Theodore, which was with her a favorite name ; two members of the circle urged Albert in recognition of Albert Gallatin, always a strong favorite in the West, although then in the evening of his years ; the grandmother favored Ulysses, suggested to her from the recent reading of a translation of Fenelon's " Telemaque." 1 Tradition says that these names were written on slips of paper and placed in a hat, and that the name Ulysses was drawn, although afterward Hiram was added, in deference to the grandfather. This quaint tale resulted in many a heartburn, not unnatural, to the child thus baptized. In the simple life of the West, a classical name seemed ridiculous and absurd. In boyhood, natural abbreviations were soon invented, — "Lys" or "Useless" or "Hug" from the initials. It was not until the owner had given honor to the name that the habit of ridicule was overcome.

When Ulysses was one year old, his father moved his family fifteen miles east of Point Pleasant, to Georgetown, a small hamlet located on one of the many tributaries of the Ohio River, about ten miles

1 " Your father, Ulysses, is the wisest of mankind, his heart is an unfathomable depth ; his secret lies beyond the line of subtlety and fraud ; he is the friend of truth ; he says nothing that is false, but when it is necessary he conceals what is true ; his wisdom is, as it were, a seal upon his lips, which is never broken but for an important purpose."

\2 above the main stream. Here the tanner reestablished his home and business, and here the busy, happy years of childhood were spent. At first, there were scarcely a dozen families in the place, but there was rapid growth, and as the population increased, Jesse Grant advanced in prosperity, until he became one of the important citizens of the place.

Many of the traditions of childhood have been preserved, but for most of them it is difficult to find absolute proof. In his "Memoirs," Grant said: " In my early days, every one labored more or less, in the region where my youth was spent, and more in proportion to their private means. It was only the very poor who were exempt. While my father carried on the manufacture of leather and worked at the trade himself, he owned and tilled considerable land. I detested the trade, preferring almost any other labor ; but I was fond of agriculture, and of all employment in which horses were used. We had, among other lands, fifty acres of forest within a mile of the village. In the fall of the year choppers were employed to cut enough wood to last a twelvemonth. When I was seven or eight years of age, I began hauling all the wood used in the house and shops. I could not load it on the wagon, of course, at that time, but I could drive, and the choppers would load, and some one at the house unload. When about eleven years old, I was strong enough to hold a plough. From that age until seventeen, I did all the work done with horses, such as breaking up the land, furrowing, ploughing corn and potatoes, bringing in the crops when harvested, hauling all the wood, besides tending two or three horses, a cow or two, and sawing wood for stoves, etc., while still attending school. For this I was compensated by the fact that there was never any scolding or punishing by rny parents ; no objection to rational enjoyments, such as fishing, going to the creek a mile away to swim in summer, taking a horse and visiting my grandparents in the adjoining county, fifteen miles off, skating on the lake in winter, or taking a horse and sleigh when there was snow on the ground."

Of these early days, a few incidents may be narrated, of higher credibility than many of the legends which surround early greatness, because of the light which they cast upon personality. Thus, when the child was three years old, a neighbor fired a pistol close to his ear, and was greatly pleased at the glee of the youugster, who, with the joy of childhood, demanded " Do it again."

He had a wonderful love for horses, and would as a child play with the teams at the tannery, swinging upon their tails, riding bareback, etc., and later he mastered the difficult art of standing barefoot upon a sheepskin strapped on the horse's back, while driving at a fast gallop. When he was eight years old, his father sent him to buy a horse from Ralston, a farmer, and with his usual keenness at a bargain, Jesse told his son to offer twenty dollars, and then twenty-two-fifty, and if absolutely necessary to get the horse, twenty-five dollars. When Ulysses arrived at the farm Ealstou asked him, — " How much did your father tell you to pay f " To which the boy replied naively, — "He told me to offer you twenty dollars, and if necessary, twenty-two-fifty, and rather than return without the horse, to offer twenty- five dollars." It is needless to say that the highest figure was paid, and the story caused a general laugh in the village at the simplicity of Jesse's favorite son. 1

When Ulysses was about twelve, his father was awarded the contract to build the county jail at Georgetown. This necessitated the hauling of logs and other building material, and the son worked as a teamster in fulfilment of the plan. It was two miles from the woods to the site, and as the logs were a foot square and fourteen feet long, the loading required the aid of strong men. One day, when rain was threatening, the wood-cutters did not report in the forest, and Ulysses found himself alone. Instead of driving back for a holiday or asking for assistance, he took advantage of a fallen maple, used it as an inclined plane, hitched his horse to the logs, and dragged them, one by one, up the plane until they could be pushed on his cart, and so alone completed the job !

This was a fine training for practical life, and

1 It is regrettable that some of Grant's political biographers have ruined this characteristic story, in the desire to puff, by manufacturing a rejoinder to the farmer by the boy that although his father had authorized him to pay twenty -five dollars, he felt that the horse was not worth more than twenty, and would give that amount and no more.

well does Lis career illustrate that there is no better schooling than that which is afforded by the every-day problems of pioneer life, where the mind is trained to quick thinking, and the body is urged to fulfil the command of the will. But this sturdy out-of-doors life was not the only education which the boy received. A small brick schoolhouse stood on a hill about three hundred yards from the court-house, near the home of the Grants, and here John D. White, whose son, Chilton White, was afterward congressman from the district, maintained a subscription school. It was a wholesome school, although the curriculum was not elaborate. "I never saw an algebra, or other mathematical work higher than the arithmetic, in Georgetown, until after I was appointed to West Point," said Grant in the " Memoirs." One teacher taught all grades and subjects and maintained order and discipline in the orthodox and not ineffective fashion then prevailing. Writing to Daniel Ammen, in 1878, Grant refers to the time when ' ' you and I first received instruction under John D. White and a long beech switch cut generally by the boys for their own chastisement."

A better opportunity for training was presented in the winter of 1836-1837, when Ulysses, now aged fourteen, was sent to Maysville, Ky., to visit for several months in the family of his great-uncle, Peter Grant. Here he attended the Maysville Seminary, conducted by Richeson and Rand, and so came under the influence of men of college culture. The records of the Philomathean Society show that

Ulysses attended several meetings from January to March, 1837, and that he participated in several debates on public questions, quite in harmony with the ideals of the American boyhood of his age. 1 When assigned to debate, he responded readily, and was eventually elected a member of the debate committee, but when he was given a declamation, he paid his fine and was silent.

Two years later, Jesse Grant, who was always keenly alert to give his son a good education, provided Ulysses with a winter term in a boardingschool at Ripley, a town on the Ohio Eiver, between Georgetown and Maysville. Later, Grant said : " I was not studious in habit, and probably did not make progress enough to compensate for the outlay for board and tuition."

Such was the environment of his boyhood. There was wholesome, strenuous, useful work to be done, — schooling in the essentials, — plenty of out-of-doors fun, — occasional entertainments, — reverent

1 The researches of Hamlin Garland have brought to light the old minute book of the Society, with the following entries :—

"Resolved, That the Texans were not justifiable in giving Santa Anna his liberty." (Affirmative, H. U. Grant.)

" Resolved, That females wield greater influence in society than males." (Affirmative, H. U. Grant.)

" Resolved, That it would not be just and politic to liberate the slaves at this time." (Negative, H. U. Grant.)

"Resolved, That intemperance is a greater evil than war."

(Affirmative, H. U. Grant.)

" Resolved, That Socrates was right in not escaping when the prison doors were opened to him." (Affirmative, H. U. Grant.)