The house in which Peter the Great lived at Sardam while he worked at ship-building is still preserved, enclosed within another, tableted with inscriptions, and protected from the ravages of time for the inspection of future ages. I wonder that some ardent patriot has not already done a similar service to the little structure in which was born a greater than Czar Peter, and one whose memory will be cherished when the autocrat of the Russias is forgotten.
The house is a mere shanty, which was comfortable enough in its day, with an extension in the rear, and with the chimney on the outside of one end. It was a good enough house even for so great a man to be born in, and compares very favorably with that in which Lincoln, his co-laborer in the war, first drew the breath of life. It has become historic now, and the people will always regard it with glowing interest.
Grant's mother was a very pretty, but not pretentious, girl; a very worthy, but not austere, matron. She was a member of the Methodist church, with high views of Christian duty, especially in regard to her children, whom she carefully trained and earnestly watched over in their early years. Her influence as a noble Christian woman has had, and is still to have, through her illustrious son, more weight and broader expansion than she ever dreamed of in the days of her poverty and toil.
A year after the birth of the first born, Jesse Grant, then a poor man, though he afterwards accumulated a handsome property, removed from Point Pleasant to Georgetown, Ohio, where he carried on his business as a tanner; and as he tanned with nothing but oak bark, and did his work in a superior manner, his reputation was excellent. I am hard on leather myself, but my first pair of shoes was made of leather from the tannery of J.R. Grant, and they wore like iron. It has been observed that this leather, made up into thick boots, was more effectual than any other when applied by the indignant owner to the purpose sometimes necessary, though always disagreeable, of kicking an unmannerly and ill-behaved ruffian out of doors. Though I have not had occasion to test Mr. Grant's leather in this direction, I am a firm believer in its virtue.
I cannot say that, as a baby, Ulysses had any fore-shadowings of the brilliant destiny in store for him. It is quite possible that his fond mother regarded him as a remarkable child, if the neighbors in Georgetown did not. Certainly, in this instance, she was nearer right than loving mothers usually are, and is entitled to much credit for the justness of her view on this interesting subject. I am confident that the infant Hercules displayed some of the energy of which has distinguished his manhood—that he declined to be washed, and held on to dangerous play-things, with greater tenacity than children of tender years usually do. Still, the sacredness of historic truth does not permit me to assume that he displayed any of the traits of a great general, except the embryo of his mighty will, until he had attained his second year, when the first decided penchant for the roar of artillery manifested itself on a small scale.
My friend Mr. Pollard alludes to the incident in his valuable work on The Lost Cause, though, I am pained to observe, in a tone of disparagement quite unworthy of him, as a "Yankee affectation." As he seems to have no scruples in telling strange stories about Stonewall Jackson, Jeb. Stuart, and other Southern worthies, I am compelled to attribute this incredulity and ridicule to a foolish prejudice. Though I happened to be present when the event occurred,—a cosmopolitan then, as now,—I was in the arms of my maternal parent, and being only two years old at the time, I am unable to vouch for its truth on my own personal recollection; but the father of General Grant has confirmed it.
"Let me try the effect of a pistol report on the baby," said a young man to the anxious parent in the street, on the fourth of July, where great numbers of people were gathered.
"The child has never seen a pistol or a gun in his life," replied Mr. Grant; "but you may try it."
The hand of the baby was placed on the trigger, and pressed there till the lock sprang, and the pistol went off with a loud report. The future commander-in-chief hardly moved or twitched a muscle.