On entering West Point, each student was required to deposit sixty dollars to guarantee the expenses of his return home, in the event of his failing to pass the entrance examination. Ulysses broke his journey to spend a short time with some relatives in Philadelphia before proceeding to West Point. City life so charmed him that when his visit came to an end and he was due at the college, nearly all his money—including his sixty dollars—was gone. Nothing daunted, Ulysses presented himself for admission, and met the demand for his deposit with the calm reply: ‘I intend to pass the examination!’ He was allowed to sit, and passed easily, and in due course was graduated as second lieutenant in 1843.
His first appointment was at Jefferson Barracks, near St Louis. Here it was that he met his future wife, wooed and, in spite of the opposition of her parents, who thought their daughter might look higher than the poor second lieutenant, won her. The Mexican war gave Lieutenant Grant his first taste of warfare. Several times he was mentioned in the despatches for distinguished services; and for bravery he was appointed First Lieutenant. Congress proposed to confirm the temporary rank, but he declined, preferring, he said, ‘to reach the position by regular gradations of service.’
In 1848, Grant, now Captain, and an honoured hero of the Mexican war, married. Six happy years were spent with his regiment, and then, in 1854, he resigned his position, to take to farming. ‘Whoever hears of me in ten years’ time,’ he told a comrade, ‘will hear of a well-to-do old Missouri farmer.’ But in ten years’ time he was Commander-in-chief of the United States armies! The farming did not pay; a partnership in a land agency that succeeded it, did little better; and then the Captain joined his brothers in a leather business at Galena, Illinois. It was here that the news of the assault on his country’s flag by the rebels reached him.
The Confederates had attacked Fort Sumner on April 12, 1861, and from end to end of the land, the heart of the loyal States was stirred by the tidings. Grant was no politician; indeed, he disliked and shunned party strife; but he felt in this news of his country’s danger, the call of duty. ‘I left the army expecting never to return,’ he said. ‘I am no seeker for position; but the country which educated me is in sore peril, and as a man of honour, I feel bound to offer my services for whatever they are worth.’ Accordingly, he volunteered; but in the crowd of place-hunters at the State capital, the retiring, self-distrustful Captain was passed by. All the Illinois regiments were provided with commanders, and in despair of obtaining any appointment, Grant had actually left the capital to visit his father, when he received a telegram from the governor of the State: ‘You are this day appointed Colonel of the Twenty-first Illinois Volunteers, and requested to take command at once.’ The former commander of the regiment had been dismissed for incompetency, and the governor had asked one of Grant’s friends, ‘What kind of man is this Captain Grant? Though anxious to serve, he seems reluctant to take any high position. He even declined my offer to recommend him to Washington for a brigadier-generalship, saying he didn’t want office till he had earned it. What does he want?’ ‘The way to deal with him,’ was the reply, ‘is to ask him no questions, but simply order him to duty. He will promptly obey.’ This man knew Grant!
Well might governor Yates exclaim, as he is reported to have done in after-years: ‘It was the most glorious day of my life when I signed Grant’s commission.’ For, as Mr Thayer well puts it, ‘Grant had found his place. From that he would go forth “from conquering to conquer.”’ Two months later, he was Brigadier-general—this time he felt he had earned the post—and from this point his advance was rapid. Before the end of the war, the disused ranks of Lieutenant-general, and General, of the United States army were revived and conferred on him. Through the mazes of that long struggle we need not follow him, but incident after incident of that awful war show the grand simplicity and true nobility of his nature. As a commander, determined to the point of obstinacy, resolute of purpose, and daring in action—in private, modest, retiring almost to a fault, and living a sober, upright life, against which inveterate foes could bring no charge but the most groundless tissue of calumnies—all this was ‘Unconditional Surrender’ Grant.
The very title was characteristic of the man—‘Unconditional Surrender’ Grant! It arose from the closing scene of the attack on Fort Donelson. The Confederate General Buckner asked for terms, and Grant thus replied to the demand: ‘Yours of this date proposing armistice, and appointment of Commissioners to settle terms of capitulation, is just received. No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately on your works.’ Buckner surrendered.
This stern determination, though perhaps the ruling feature of Grant’s character, did not shut out other noble qualities. Before Vicksburg, he found that his men faltered in the spade-work under the heavy fire. The General took a seat near them amid a very hail of shot, and quickly reassured them by calmly whittling a stick through it all! At another time, when a battle was in progress, the General sent one of his staff on some errand; the officer asked Grant where he should find him on his return. The answer showed the stuff the general was made of: ‘Probably at headquarters. If you don’t, come to the front, wherever you hear the heaviest firing!’
‘When do you expect to take Vicksburg?’ a rebel woman tauntingly asked the General. ‘I can’t tell exactly,’ was the calm reply; ‘but I shall stay until I do, if it takes thirty years.’ And take it he did, as all the world knows. There is a singular likeness in this reply to the ‘unconditional surrender’ of Fort Donelson, and to the still more famous declaration before Richmond, after six consecutive days’ fighting, unparalleled in modern times: ‘I propose to fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer.’
Yet, in spite of his deep-rooted determination to crush the rebellion, Grant could show a consideration for the feelings of his vanquished foes that with a man of smaller calibre would have been impossible. ‘After the surrender of General Lee,’ Mr Thayer tells us, ‘the Union army began to salute Grant by firing cannon. He directed the firing to cease at once, saying: “It will wound the feelings of our prisoners, who have become our countrymen again.”’ It was this spirit of consideration and conciliation that, in no small degree, served to make union possible again between North and South.
Of course, Grant did not escape calumny—what great man ever did?—but he bore the unfounded charges brought against him without a murmur, silencing not a few by the contempt with which he treated them. ‘When I have done the best I can,’ he said once, ‘I leave it.’ But the calumnies brought against him were as nothing to the tide of honours that burst upon him as soon as the value of his services became apparent. Even before the war was ended, he was, or might have been, the best fêted man in the Union. But his whole nature revolted at the idea. When he was appointed Lieutenant-general, he was ordered to repair to Washington to receive his commission from the President. Mrs Lincoln proposed to give a grand military dinner in his honour. But Grant pleaded that his presence was needed on the field, and begged to be excused. ‘I do not see how we can excuse you,’ Mrs Lincoln urged; ‘it would be Hamlet with the Prince left out.’ The reply shows the man in all the rugged simplicity of his grand nature: ‘I appreciate fully all the honour Mrs Lincoln would do me; but time is precious; and really, Mr President, I have had enough of the show business!’