Tanning, even with oak bark, and the strong stimulus of the paternal example, had no charms to young Grant. Though it was a very honorable and useful occupation, he was remorselessly opposed to it; not because he was a dandy, and it soiled his hands, nor because he was fastidious, and the odor was unpleasant, but because he had no taste for the trade. It presented nothing but the dull routine of a mechanical employment, with no difficulties to be overcome, and with no variety to enliven it. Whenever his father suggested that they should grind bark, he would start for the village without a word of reply, and hire a boy to take his place in the tannery, while he earned the money to pay him in some more congenial way.
Grant and his father appear to have agreed remarkably, notwithstanding their dissimilarity of tastes on the subject of tanning. The giant will was under judicious control, and was not exerted in opposition to the paternal inclination. He seems to have been obedient to his parents, even while his own wishes and tastes were in violent antipathy to theirs. On one occasion, when there was a scarcity of hands in the tannery, his father told him he must have his help in the beam-room. He obeyed, and went to work, but not without renewedly expressing his dislike of the business. He told his father that he would work at it, if he wished him to do so, until he was of age, but not a day after that time.
This important period was the turning-point in the career of the young man, and the country is indebted to Mr. Grant for his judicious handling of the difficulty before him. He did not blindly and wilfully oppose the boy's inclination, even after he had voluntarily signified his intention to be guided by his father's wishes, at the expense of his own individual tastes. Perhaps, in my unbounded admiration for the man, I am hasty in catching at analogies; but I cannot help seeing the germ of another soldierly attribute in the disposition which young Grant displayed on this occasion—the quality of obedience, without which the soldier is nothing. Though possessed of a mighty will, Grant has never been known to disobey the lawful commands of his superior, however disagreeable they were to him.
Mr. Grant fully realized that it was time for his son to have some definite views in regard to the future; and instead of compelling the boy to bend his back over the beam in the tannery, against his settled inclination, he simply replied to his complaint that he did not wish him to follow the business if he did not like it, and could not choose it as his permanent occupation. The worthy patriarch was prudent in his treatment of the case, I repeat; and though I am not old enough to entitle my words to be regarded as the oracles of a sage, I commend his example to the attention of all ambitious parents who expect their sons to become great generals or presidents.
The father asked the discontented youth what employment he thought he would like. Ulysses evidently had not considered this grave matter in all its bearings, for he was not prepared to mention the particular calling which would suit him best, though he indicated three things, each as dissimilar to the others as it could be.
He would like to be a farmer; a "down-the-river trader," or "to get an education." It was not convenient to establish him as a tiller of the soil; and his father apparently regarded being a "down-the-river trader" as a disreputable occupation—probably as something akin to a Yankee pedler who sells wooden nutmegs; and the money it would cost to give him a liberal education could not readily be spared from the tannery, which, in former days, kept the larger portion of its capital soaking in the vats for months. But the question was a serious one, and though it could not be realized at that time, the welfare of a great nation, as well as the destiny of an unformed youth, rested upon the issue.
Who shall say that an inspiration higher than his own thought did not suggest to the anxious father the idea of sending his son to West Point? It was a happy solution of the problem; and what was better still, it suited the boy "first rate." The idea was promptly followed up. Mr. Grant wrote to the Hon. Thomas L. Hamer, the representative in Congress of the district in which he resided. The letter reached the member only on the day before his term of office expired, when his right to nominate a cadet to the Military Academy would cease. Fortunately the mail was faithful to its sacred duty on this occasion, and bore the missive to its destination in season to save Grant from becoming a farmer or a "down-the-river trader," and in season to have him appointed, not alone as a cadet, but as the savior of the nation; for that nomination was the germ of the event which gave us the man that crushed the Rebellion.
As I think of the condition of my country when the rising sun of Grant's genius pointed him out to the people as the only fit leader for the armies of the Union, I tremble to think of the results which must have followed a single day's delay of that momentous letter! The providential man was providentially guided to his brilliant destiny.
The bugbear of an examination for admission to West Point, though it then included only reading, writing, spelling, and arithmetic to decimal fractions, had more terrors to the young aspirant for military honors than the capers of a three-year-old colt. He was not prepared by any special training for such an ordeal; and a young man, who had previously been appointed by Mr. Hamer, had twice failed to pass, his ill success keeping the place open for Grant. The opportunities of the newly-appointed cadet had been very limited, and it would hardly have been to his discredit if he had failed to come up to the requirements of the institution. But he did not fail; with all his concentrated energy of purpose guiding and strengthening him, he could not fail; and on the 1st of July, 1839, at the age of seventeen, Grant was duly admitted to the Military Academy to prepare himself for the glorious future which God and his country had in store for him. And then
"The great Ulysses reached his native shore,"