Our Standard-Bearer; Or, The Life of General Uysses S. Grant

by Oliver Optic

and entered upon the career of which we have not yet seen the full fruition.

"What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet;" and Grant by any other name would have fought and conquered just as well; but it was only by a singular accident that the newspapers have had the opportunity to make such a varied play upon the initials of his name, which in themselves were sufficiently suggestive to excite the attention of the specials as far back as the victory at Fort Donelson. U.S. Grant demanding and insisting upon unconditional surrender after a savage fight of three days was certainly a coincidence worthy of remark. Perhaps, after the momentous and prolonged discussion in regard to the baby's name soon after Grant was born, it was a great pity, when one had been selected, that it did not "stick" to the end; but it was doomed to be reconstructed, apparently that the initials might have a suggestive and patriotic significance.

His father, mother, grandfather, and grandmother, discussed the important matter, and he was called Hiram Ulysses. Hiram was his grandfather's proposition, simply because it was a pretty name, in his opinion. His mother's step-mother appears to have dabbled in classic lore, and to have read the Odyssey. She had a warm admiration for the hero of that remarkable tale, and insisted that the infant should have the name of Ulysses. As in the eternal fitness of things, this was an appropriate name, posterity will commend the taste, if not the prescience, of the venerable lady.

In making the nomination, Mr. Hamer sent in the name of "Ulysses S. Grant," confounding his name with that of the applicant's brother and mother. While at West Point the interloping S. stood for Sidney. Grant made two attempts to have the matter set right, but the Fates were against him. It seemed to be foreordained that the United States and himself should be so far synonymous as to be designated in the same manner; and he accepted his "manifest destiny," only causing the S. to stand for Simpson, in honor of his mother, instead of for Sidney.

Mr. Hamer, who had conferred so distinguished a favor upon Grant and the nation in nominating him to a cadetship, did not live to realize the magnitude of the service he had rendered to his country and the applicant. In the Mexican war he went into the army himself, as did not a few of the politicians of the country. He distinguished himself at Monterey, but finally succumbed to the treacherous climate of the low lands. Grant was his nurse and his friend in his final sickness, and rendered to him the last kind offices of the living to the dead. The illustrious soldier was always faithful in his friendships, never forgetting a favor or forsaking a friend.

As there is "one glory of the sun, and another of the stars," it was not appointed unto Grant to be everything that is grand in humanity. Indeed, the very grandeur of the man consists in the harmonious development of all his faculties, rather than in the striking preëminence of a few, towering in lofty sublimity at the expense of all the others. He is not lacking in any essential quality of a great man, and his greatness is a combination of all the noble traits of character, instead of the morbid development of a few. He was not a great scholar. It was not his ambition or his destiny to be a Newton, a Humboldt, a Milton, or an Irving. The elements of a brilliant scholar would have shut him out from the distinction he has achieved.

Grant's previous intellectual training had not prepared him to rival in scholarship those in his class who had been over the course before. The district school in a country town had been the limit of his advantages. The class which commenced the course with him was composed of eighty-seven members, only thirty-nine of whom were graduated. The routine and discipline of the institution are exacting and severe; and it is very much to any young man's credit that he goes through at all. The statistics show that the cadets fall out by the wayside, as the lines draw taut upon them. A majority of Grant's class went by the board, and No. 39—the lowest in rank who was graduated—seems to have been a better fellow than forty-eight others who "caved in," some of them, doubtless, from weakness of body, but most of them for the want of pluck. But Grant was not the unhappy No. 39, who by contrast appears in an unpleasant position at the foot of the class, though, as I have shown, he was really a plucky fellow. Grant was graduated the twenty-first in his class, which is certainly a very creditable position.

I confess my surprise, when I consider the fact that Grant's attainments, when he entered the Military Academy, were hardly up to those of the ordinary second class in our grammar schools, while some of his classmates were graduates of colleges, and most of them had been over a part of the regular course before,—I confess my surprise that he was not No. 39, instead of No. 21. In spite of the giant will, and his developed pluck, it is a miracle that he was not of the number of those who fell out of the class during the four years' course. Certainly it is vastly more to his credit to have been able to graduate at all, than for many of the happy score who stood above to win their high rank. To have outdone eighteen of his companions in that unequal race was worthy the energy and perseverance of the man.

He went through the entire course of his class, for no option was then allowed to the cadets in the choice of studies. He exhibited himself to the best advantage in the mathematics, and in the departments of tactics and engineering obtained his highest marks in these branches, thus early developing his military mind.