U.S.G FIRST IN WAR FIRST IN PEACE AND FIRST IN THE HEARTS OF HIS COUNTRYMEN

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by

William T. Adams,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

Electrotyped at the Boston Stereotype Foundry,

No. 19 Spring Lane.

to

The Illustrious Soldier,

GENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT,

President of The United States from March 4, 1869,

THE ONLY MAN

WHO HAD THE MENTAL POWER, THE MORAL FORCE, THE MILITARY GENIUS TO SUPPRESS

THE GREAT REBELLION,

THE MIGHTIEST THE WORLD EVER SAW;

THE MAN WHOM,

FIRST IN WAR,

AND

FIRST IN THE HEARTS OF HIS COUNTRYMEN,

THE NATION WILL SOON ACKNOWLEDGE TO BE

FIRST IN PEACE,

This Volume

IS ADMIRINGLY AND ENTHUSIASTICALLY

DEDICATED.

[PREFACE.]

In this volume my friend Captain Galligasken has been permitted to tell his story very much in his own way. As I fully and heartily indorse his positions, fully and heartily share in his enthusiasm, my task has consisted of nothing more than merely writing the book; and I assure the reader that I have enjoyed quite as much as my friend the captain the pleasant contemplation of the brilliant deeds of the illustrious soldier. There is something positively inspiring in the following out of such a career as that of General Grant; and when I declare that the enthusiasm of Captain Galligasken is nothing more than just and reasonable, I do it after a careful examination of the grounds on which it is based; after a patient, but exceedingly agreeable, study of the character of the man whom we have jointly eulogized; and after instituting a critical comparison between the general and the mighty men of the present and the past. I have twice read all that I have written, and I find no occasion to add any qualifying words, and no reason to moderate the warm enthusiasm of the captain.

As the candidate for the presidency of the dominant party in the land, all of General Grant's sayings and doings will be subjected to the closest scrutiny by his political opponents. All that he has said and all that he has done will be remorselessly distorted by savage critics. Partisan prejudice and partisan hatred will pursue him into the privacies of life, as well as through every pathway and avenue of his public career; but Captain Galligasken joins me in the confident belief that no man has ever been held up to the gaze of the American people who could stand the test better; hardly one who could stand it as well. In his private life the general has been pure and guileless, while in his public history he has been animated by the most noble and exalted patriotism, ever willing to sacrifice all that he was and all that he had for the cause in which he embarked.

The study of the illustrious hero's motives and character has been exceedingly refreshing to me, as well as to my friend Captain Galligasken, as we analyzed together the influences which guided him in his eventful experience. We were unable to find any of those selfish and belittling springs of action which rob great deeds of more than half their glory. We could see in him a simplicity of character which amazed us; a strength of mind, a singleness of heart, which caused us to envy Sherman and Sheridan the possession of such a man's friendship. Unlike most eminent men, whose very greatness has induced them to shake off more or less of the traits of ordinary humanity, our illustrious soldier is a lovable man—an attitude in which we are seldom permitted to regard great men. He stands in violent contrast with the bombastic heroes of all times—modest, gentle-hearted, and always approachable. There is none of the frigid reserve in his manner which awes common people in the contemplation of those exalted by mighty deeds or a lofty position. Captain Galligasken says all this upon his honor as a soldier and an historian; and from my own personal stand-point I cordially indorse his opinion, which, in both instances, is derived from actual experience.

Captain Galligasken was somewhat afraid of the politicians, and not a little nervous at the possible manner those of the party to which he never had the honor to belong might regard his enthusiasm. I have taken the liberty to assure him that his enthusiasm is legitimate; that he has never manifested it except on suitable occasions; that the fact always specified in connection with the glowing eulogy amply justifies his praise. I was willing to go farther, and to insist that it was impossible for the politicians of his own or any other party to resist the conclusions, or withhold the homage, after the facts were admitted.

And this matter of facts, the unclothed skeleton of reliable history and biography, is a point on which my friend Captain Galligasken is especially sensitive. Our library of reference in the agreeable task we have jointly performed included all the works bearing on the subject now extant in the country. We have used them liberally and faithfully, and, animated by a desire to set forth "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" in regard to the illustrious soldier, the Captain feels entirely confident that he has produced a reliable history of all the important phases in his life. He has plentifully besprinkled his pages with anecdotes, some of which have never been related before, for they are the most telling illustrations of individual character.

We jointly acknowledge our indebtedness to General Adam Badeau's "Military History of Ulysses S. Grant," at once the most interesting and exhaustive work on the subject which has yet been issued, and which Captain Galligasken insists that every patriotic lover of the truth should read; to "Ohio in the War;" to "Grant and his Campaigns," by Professor Coppée, who had peculiar facilities for the performance of his task; to Howland's "Grant as a Soldier and a Statesman;" to Swinton's "Army of the Potomac;" to General Shanks's "Personal Recollections of Distinguished Generals;" and, in a less degree, to other volumes. Captain Galligasken is especially desirous of acknowledging his obligations to his friend Pollard, author of "The Lost Cause,"—though he thinks Grant is the chief author of the lost cause,—not only for the citations he has taken the liberty to make from the book, but also for some of the heartiest laughs he ever had in his life. We tender our personal thanks to those kind friends—whose names we are not even permitted to mention—for facts, suggestions, and anecdotes.

When our enterprising and discriminating publishers insisted upon just this Life of General Grant,—which I should not have been willing to undertake without the indispensable aid of my cheerful friend the captain,—we gladly accepted the agreeable task; but I noticed that Captain Galligasken appeared to be disturbed in his mind about something. I asked him what it was. He replied by asking me what possible excuse a humble individual like himself could offer for inflicting upon the patient, much-enduring community another Life of General Grant, who was even then more fortunate than a cat, for he had more than "nine lives." I bade him tell the reason, and he did.

"Because I can't help it," he replied; "because I desire to have the people of the United States see General Grant just as I see him. He has been nominated by the National Republican party as its candidate for the presidency, on a platform which every patriot, every Christian, heartily indorses, and which is the sum total of the general's political creed. I wish, if I can, to do something for his election; and I am fully persuaded that all the people would vote for him if they understood the man. I am no politician, never held an office, and never expect to hold one; but I believe in Grant above and beyond all party considerations. I respect, admire, and love the man. I glory in his past, and I am confident of his future. I honestly, sincerely, and heartily believe every word we have written. Nothing but the election of Grant can save the nation from the infamy of practical repudiation, from the distractions which have shaken the land since the close of the Rebellion, if not from another civil war and the ultimate dissolution of the Union. I hope the people will read our book, think well, and be as enthusiastic as I am."

It affords me very great pleasure, again and finally, to be able to indorse my friend Captain Galligasken. He is sincere; and before my readers condemn his enthusiasm, I beg to inquire how they can escape his conclusions. All we ask is a fair hearing, and we are confident that the people who sustained Grant through the war will enable him to finish in the presidential chair the glorious work he began on the battle-fields of the republic.

Oliver Optic.

Harrison Square, Mass.,
July 11, 1868.

[CONTENTS.]

Our Standard-Bearer;
OR, THE
Life of General Ulysses S. Grant.

[CHAPTER I.]

Wherein Captain Galligasken modestly disparages himself, and sets forth with becoming Enthusiasm the Virtues of the illustrious Soldier whose Life he insists upon writing.

Who am I? It makes not the least difference who I am. If I shine at all in this veritable history,—which I honestly confess I have not the slightest desire to do,—it will be only in the reflected radiance of that great name which has become a household word in the home of every loyal citizen, north and south, of this mighty Republic; a name that will shine with transcendent lustre as his fame rings along down the grand procession of the ages, growing brighter and more glorious the farther it is removed from the petty jealousies of contemporaneous heroes, statesmen, and chroniclers.

What am I? It does not make the least difference what I am. I am to chronicle the deeds of that illustrious soldier, the providential man of the Great Rebellion, who beat down the strongholds of Treason by the force of his mighty will, and by a combination of moral and mental qualifications which have been united in no other man, either in the present or the past.

What was Washington? God bless him! A wise and prudent statesman, a devoted patriot, the savior of the new-born nationality.

What was Napoleon? The greatest soldier of the century which ended with the battle of Waterloo.

What was Andrew Jackson? The patriot statesman, who had a will of his own.

What were Cæsar, Wellington, Marlborough, Scott? All strong men, great soldiers, devoted patriots.

What is the Great Captain, the illustrious hero of the Modern Republic? He is all these men united into one. He has held within the grasp of his mighty thought larger armies than any other general who is worthy to be mentioned in comparison with him, controlling their movements, and harmonizing their action throughout a territory vastly larger than that comprised in the battle-grounds of Europe for a century.

Washington was great in spite of repeated defeats. Grant is great through a long line of brilliant successes. Napoleon won victories, and then clothed himself in the scarlet robes of an emperor, seated himself on a throne, and made his country's glory only the lever of his own glory. Grant won victories not less brilliant, and then modestly smoked his cigar on the grand level of the people, diffidently accepting any such honors as a grateful people thrust upon him.

As I yield the tribute of admiring homage to Washington that he put the Satan of sovereign power behind him when he was tempted with the glittering bait, I am amazed that Grant, the very idol of a million veteran soldiers, permitted his sword to rest in its scabbard while his recreant superior, by the accident of the assassin's bullet, dared to thwart the will of the people whose ballots had elevated him to power. I can almost worship him for his forbearance under the keenest insults to which the sensitive soul of a true soldier can be subjected, that he did not smite his cunning traducer, and did not even appeal to the people.

Who am I? If I am seen at all in this true narrative of a sublime life, I beg to be regarded as the most humble and least deserving of Columbia's chosen sons, but standing, for the moment, on a pedestal, and blushingly pointing to the historic canvas, whereon is delineated the triumphal career of the Great Man of the nineteenth century; the successful General, towering in lofty preëminence above every other man, who in the days of darkness struck a blow for the redemption of the nation; the fledged Statesman, who, without being a politician, apprehended and vitalized the chosen policy of the sovereign people. I am nothing; he is everything.

I am an enthusiast!

Is there nothing in The Man, sublimated by glorious deeds, elevated by a conquering will far above his fellows, almost deified by the highest development of godlike faculties,—is there nothing in The Man to quicken the lazy flow in the veins of the beholder? Can I, who marched from Belmont to Appomattox Court House, by the way of Donelson, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, Spottsylvania, Petersburg, and Five Forks, who have, since the collapse of the rebellion, gazed, in common with the Senators and Representatives in Congress, the Governors of the states, the President, and the heads of the departments of state, the sovereign people, with friends and with foes of the regenerated country,—can I, who have gazed with the most intense interest at the little two-story brick building in the nation's capital, where smoked and labored the genius of the war, to see what that one man would do, to hear what that one man would say,—can I gaze and listen without realizing the throb which heaves the mighty heart of the nation? I felt as they felt, that there was only one man in the land. It mattered little what senators and representatives enacted in the halls of Congress, if he did not indorse it. It mattered little what the Nation's Accident vetoed, if he but approved it. It was of little consequence what rebels north or rebels south planned and plotted, if only this one man frowned upon it. Reconstruction could flourish only in his smile. If a department commander ambitiously or stupidly belied his war record, and attempted to bolster up with this diplomacy the treason which he had put down with his sword, the howl of the loyal millions was changed into a shout of exultation, if the one man in the little two-story brick building in Washington only nodded his disapproval of the course of the recreant. That man has been the soul of the people's policy of reconstruction. Conscious that he was its friend, it mattered not who was its enemy; for foes could delay, but not defeat it.

Can I be unmoved while I look at The Man? When I behold a huge steamship, the giant of the deep, threading its way through night and storm over the pathless ocean, from continent to continent, herself a miracle to the eye, I wonder. When I see the electric telegraph, flashing a living thought from farthest east to farthest west, and even along its buried channel in the depths of the storm-tossed ocean, I wonder. Can I gaze unmoved upon the Man, the Fulton, the Morse, from whose busy brain, lighted up by an inspiration from the Infinite, which common men cannot even understand, came forth the grand conception of these miracles of science?

I am an enthusiast. I cannot gaze at the spectacle of a nation rent and shattered by the most stupendous treason that ever fouled historic annals, restored to peace and unity, without a thrill of emotion. I cannot follow our gallant armies in imagination now, as I did in reality then, in their triumphal march from the gloom of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville to the glorious light and sunshine of Vicksburg and Five Forks, from death at Bull Run, to life at Fort Donelson, without having my heart leap with grateful enthusiasm.

In the ghastly midnight of disaster, when the nation's pulse almost ceased to beat in dread and anxiety for the fearful issue, we had men—hundreds of thousands, millions of men, the bravest and truest soldiers that ever bore a musket. Thousands and tens of thousands of them sleep beneath the bloody sod of Antietam, in the miry swamps of the Chickahominy, and under the parching soil of the southern savannas, where they sank to their rest with the field unconquered above them. There they slumber, each of them a willing sacrifice, if his death brought the nation but one hair's breadth nearer to the final redemption, or could add one ray to the flood of light which the peace they prayed for would shed upon the land beloved.

There was no lack of men, and pure patriots prayed for a leader. They sighed for a Washington, a Napoleon, a Wellington, to guide their swelling masses of ardent warriors from the gloom of disaster to the brightness of victory. Chiefs, mighty in battle, pure in purpose, skilful in device and execution, reared their banners successively at the head of the valiant hosts, then drooped and fell, as the hot blast of jealousy swept over them, or they became entangled in the silken meshes of adulation. In none of these did the soldiers find their true leader, though they fought fiercely and fell in horrid slaughter under all of them.

It was only when the soul of the mustered hosts was fired by the sublime fact of a worthy leader, and their muscles nerved by the will of a mighty champion, that the thundering march of victory commenced, and the triumphal car of the conqueror swept like a whirlwind through the war-stricken South. Then treason trembled, tottered, few. Then the infatuated leaders of rebellion wailed in terror, and fled from the halter that dangled over their heads. Then the one man of the war towered like a giant above his fellows. Then he stood forth as the nation's savior, and a generous people placed the laurel on his brow.

I am an enthusiast as I review the history of my country from 1862 to the present time. I watched with McClellan in the oozy swamps of Virginia, when he feared to risk his popularity by striking an avenging stroke at the exposed foe, and I joined in singing the pæan of victory with Grant after Five Forks, when the final blow had been given to the rebellion. Therefore am I enthusiastic.

The people acknowledged the greatness of Grant's military genius, the tremendous power of his will, and the unflinching earnestness of his patriotism. Then, while salvos of artillery throughout the loyal land proclaimed the victory to the astonished nations, we hailed Grant as our standard-bearer.

If I am enthusiastic, so are the people, to their honor and glory be it said. I shall only ask to be their mouthpiece, assured that I cannot exceed their estimate of the hero. What he was in the storm of battle, he is in the calm pursuits of peace. What he was among the soldiers, he is among the citizens. As he possessed the unlimited confidence of the "boys in blue," so has he the unlimited confidence of the people. They are full of gratitude to him for the past, full of trust in him for the present, and full of hope in him for the future. In a tone more enthusiastic, and a voice more united than ever before since the days of Washington, the people have declared that Grant shall still be our standard-bearer, and I am more enthusiastic than ever.

Presumptuous as it may be in one so humble and little deserving as I am to intrude himself upon the public eye, I insist upon giving my views of the life of General Grant. I claim to know all about the distinguished subject of my story—which is no story at all, inasmuch as every word of it, so far as it relates to the general, is only the living truth, as I understand it. Even if my kind and courteous readers should deem me a myth, I shall only have won the obscurity I covet, and succeed in concentrating their attention upon the illustrious man whose immortal name I reverently utter, and whose undying deeds I seek to illustrate.

I wish to say in the beginning, that I hold it to be the sacred duty of the historian to tell the truth; so far as in him lies. For this reason I have taken the trouble, in this initial chapter of my work, to explain at some length the grounds of my individual enthusiasm in speaking and writing of the illustrious subject of this memoir. The fact, and my view of the fact, are two essentially different things. I shall state facts as I find them; and whatever view my indulgent reader may entertain in regard to me and my views, I assure him, on the honor of an historian, that all my statements are true, and worthy of the utmost credit.

Others may not be willing to agree with me in all respects in my estimate of particular events or incidents in the life of my illustrious subject, though I am persuaded there can be no essential difference in our view of the sum-total of the general—that he must stand unchallenged as the greatest man and the greatest soldier of the nineteenth century, if not of all time. A proper regard for the sacred truth of history compels me to make this declaration, which I do without the fear of a denial.

I have been very much pained to observe that my friend, Mr. Pollard, author of "The Lost Cause," has arrived at an estimate of the merit of our distinguished general, which is, in some respects, different from my own. Perhaps my valued contemporary was unable to derive the necessary inspiration from his subject to enable him to do full justice to the shining abilities of some of the heroes who, unfortunately for The Lost Cause, were on the other side of the unpleasant controversy. Doubtless Mr. Pollard meant well; but it is painful to find that he has, in some cases, exhibited symptoms of prejudice, especially towards General Grant, who does not seem to be a favorite general with him. I notice also on his pages a degree of partiality towards General Lee which greatly astonishes me. After a careful examination of Mr. Pollard's voluminous work, I am surprised and grieved to find that he actually regards Lee, in the matter of soldier-like qualities and in generalship, as the superior of Grant!

I confess my surprise at his singular position; but in view of the fact that he is writing the history of "The Lost Cause"—lost, the world acknowledges, through the active agency of General Grant,—I am disposed to palliate, though not to excuse, my friend's departures from the sacred line of historic truth. Mr. Lee is doubtless a very amiable and kind-hearted gentleman, though we must protest against his inhumanity to the Belle Island prisoners; but I object to any comparison of him, as a general, with Grant. When Mr. Pollard shall have time to go over the ground again, he will see his blunders, and, being an honest man, he will have the hardihood to correct them. Then "The Lost Cause" will be to him, as to the rest of mankind, a monument of the folly and wickedness of those who engaged in it, a solemn warning to traitors and conspirators, and the best panegyric of the true hero of the war which a rebel pen could indite.

Though, as I said before, it makes no difference who or what I am, it will be no more than courtesy for me to satisfy the reasonable curiosity of my readers on these points, before I enter upon the pleasant task before me. Though one of my ancestors, some ten generations back, was born in the parish of Blarney, in the County of Cork, Ireland, I was not born there. Sir Bernard Galligasken—whose name, shorn of its aristocratic handle, I have the honor to bear—was one of the earliest known, at the present time, of our stock, and emigrated to Scotland, where he married one of the Grants of Aberdeenshire. My more immediate progenitor came over in the Mayflower, and landed on Plymouth Rock, for which, on this account, as well as because I love the principles of those stalwart men of the olden time, I have ever had the most profound veneration. Early in the present century my parents removed from Eastern Massachusetts to the Great West.

I was born at Point Pleasant, Ohio, April 27, 1822. By a singular coincidence (on my side) was born in the same town, and on the same day, Hiram Ulysses Grant.

[CHAPTER II.]

Wherein Captain Galligasken delineates the early History of the illustrious Soldier, and deduces therefrom the Presages of Future Greatness.

I respectfully subscribe myself a cosmopolitan, not in the sense that I am a citizen of the world—God forbid! for I am too proud of my title as an American citizen to share my nationality with any other realm under the sun. I am cosmopolitan in the "everywhere" significance of the term; and it has been a cause of sincere regret to me that I could only be in one place at one time; but I ought to be content, since I always happened to be in sight or hearing of the illustrious subject of my feeble admiration.

Point Pleasant is a village on the Ohio, twenty-five miles above Cincinnati, celebrated for nothing in particular, except being the birthplace of General Grant, which, however, is glory enough for any town; and passengers up and down the beautiful river, for generations to come, will gaze with wondering interest at its spires, because there first drew the breath of life the immortal man who has been and still is Our Standard-Bearer.

Many people have a fanatical veneration for blood as such. I confess I yield no allegiance to this sentiment, for I expect to be what I make myself, rather than what I am made by my distinguished ancestor, Sir Bernard Galligasken. But those who attach any weight to pedigree may be reasonably gratified in the solid character of the progenitors of General Grant. He came from the Grants of Aberdeenshire, in Scotland, whose heraldic motto was, "Stand fast, stand firm, stand sure!" which, by an astonishing prescience of the seers of the clan, seems to have been invented expressly to describe the moral and mental attributes of the illustrious soldier of our day.

Matthew Grant was a passenger in the Mary and John, and settled in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1630. The American citizen, whose pride tempts him to look beyond the Pilgrim Fathers for glorious ancestors, ought to have been born in England, where pride of birth bears its legitimate fruit. Grant came in a direct line from one of these worthies; but I never heard him congratulate himself even on this fortunate and happy origin. Noah Grant, a descendant of the stout Puritan, emigrated to Connecticut, and was a captain in the Old French War. He was killed in battle, in 1756, having attained the rank of captain. His son, also taking the patriarchal name, was belligerent enough to have been killed in battle, for he was a soldier in the revolutionary war from Lexington—where he served as a lieutenant—to Yorktown, the last engagement of that seven years' strife. This faithful soldier was the general's grandfather. He had a son named for Mr. Chief Justice Jesse Root, of Connecticut, who was the father of Our Standard-Bearer.

Jesse Root Grant was born in Pennsylvania, but when he was ten years of age his parents removed to the Western Reserve of Ohio. He was apprenticed to a tanner at Maysville, Kentucky, when he was sixteen, and set up in business for himself at Ravenna, Ohio, when he was of age; but severe illness compelled him to relinquish it for a time. In 1820 he settled at Point Pleasant, and married Miss Hannah Simpson. Here, in a little one-story house, still in existence, was born the subject of our story.

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.

"Fick it again! fick it again!" cried the child, pushing away the weapon, and desiring to have the experiment repeated.

"That boy will make a general; he neither winked nor dodged," added the inevitable bystander, a cosmopolitan like myself, who is ever at hand on momentous occasions.

To me, the trait of character exhibited by the child is not so much the type of a taste for the rattle of musketry and the odor of gunpowder as of a higher manifestation of soldier-like qualities. After weary days and long nights of the thunder of cannon at Donelson, when ordinary generals would have been disgusted and disheartened by continued failure, Grant persevered, not knowing that he had been beaten, and in tones full of grand significance, though in speech more mature, he repeats his order,—

"Fick it again! fick it again!"

When canal, and squadron, and repeated assaults had failed to reduce Vicksburg, and friend and foe believed that the place was invulnerable, Grant seemed to shout,—

"Fick it again! fick it again!"

When, after the terrible onslaught of the Union army at the Wilderness, no advantage seemed to have been gained, and the time came when Grant's predecessors had fled to recruit in a three months' respite, the heroic leader only said, in substance,—

"Fick it again! fick it again!"

At Spottsylvania he hurled his army again at the rebel host, and then fought battle after battle, never completely succeeding, but never turning his eye or his thought from the object to be gained: he still maintained his baby philosophy, and still issued the order of the day, which was, practically,—

"Fick it again! fick it again!"

That celebrated telegram, sent to Secretary Stanton, which thrilled the hearts of the waiting people as they listened for the tidings of battle, and which was a most significant exponent of the man's character and purpose, "I shall fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer," was only another rendering of his childish exclamation,—

"Fick it again! fick it again!"

Fort Donelson, Vicksburg, Richmond, the Rebellion itself, were fully and completely "ficked," in the end, by the carrying out of his policy. It is an excellent rule, when a plan does not work in one way, to "fick" it again.

Grant's father was too poor at this time to send him to school steadily, for the boy was an industrious fellow, and had a degree of skill and tact in the management of work that rendered him a very useful assistant. He went to school three months in winter till he was eleven, when even this meagre privilege was denied him, and his subsequent means of education were very limited. But his opportunities were fully improved, and he heartily devoted himself to the cultivation of his mind. He was the original discoverer of the fact that there is no such word as "can't" in the dictionary; and it appears never to have been added to his vocabulary. Grant's dictionary was a capital one for practical service; and if some of our generals had used this excellent edition, their own fame and the country's glory would have been thereby promoted.

It affords me very great pleasure to be able to testify, in the most decided manner, that Grant was a patriot in his boyhood, as well as in the later years of his life. As an American youth, he had a just and proper reverence for the name of Washington, which is the symbol of patriotism to our countrymen. Grant's cousin from Canada came to live with his uncle for a time in Georgetown, and went to school with the juvenile hero. This lad, though born under the shadow of the Star-spangled Banner, had imbibed some pestilent notions from the Canadians, and had the audacity to speak ill of the immortal Washington. This was not the only time that Americans from Canada have assailed their native land, nor was this the only time that Ulysses had the honor of fighting the battle directly or indirectly against them. On the present occasion, in spite of the oft-repeated admonition of his pious mother to forgive his enemies and not to fight, he pitched into the renegade and thrashed him soundly, as he deserved to be thrashed. I never spoke ill of Washington, but I should esteem it a great honor to have been thrashed by Ulysses S. Grant in such a cause; and doubtless his cousin, if still living, and not a Canadian, is proud of his whipping.

Grant appears not to have been a brilliant horse-trader, at least not after the tactics of jockeys in general, though in this, as in all other purposes, he carried his point. At the age of twelve his father sent him to buy a certain horse—and it ought to be remarked that his worthy sire seems to have had as much confidence in him at that time as the sovereign people of the present day manifest in him. He was instructed to offer fifty dollars for the animal; then fifty-five if the first offer failed, with the limit at sixty. Ralston, the owner of the horse, wished to know how much the youthful purchaser was authorized by his father to give for the animal. Ulysses, with a degree of candor which would have confounded an ordinary jockey, explained his instructions in full, and of course the owner asked the maximum sum for him.

Though the youth had "shown his hand," he was not the easy victim he was supposed to be. He positively refused to give more than fifty dollars for the horse, after he had seen and examined him. He had made up his mind, and the horse was purchased for that sum. I think Grant bought out the Rebellion in about the same way; for while he was ready to pay "fifty-five," or even "sixty," for the prize of a nation's peace and unity, the rebels came down at the "fifty."

Grant was a good boy, in the reasonable sense of the term, though he did not die young. I never heard that he made any extravagant pretensions to piety himself, or that any one ever made any for him, though he attended church himself regularly, and had a profound respect for religious worship. He was a sober, quiet little fellow, indulged in no long speeches then any more than now. He was a youth of eminent gravity, rather an old head on young shoulders, and I am only surprised that neither his parents nor his instructors discovered in him the germ of greatness. As the child is father to the man, all the records of his early years concur in showing that he exhibited the same traits of character then as now.

The phrenologist who examined Ulysses' "bumps," and declared that "it would not be strange" if he became the President of the United States, exhibited more intelligence than others within the ring; but I am provoked with him that he did not state the case stronger; for if there is anything at all in phrenology, the gentleman ought to have been confident of this result. Any man may become President, as the stupendous accident of the present generation has shown, but every man is not fit for the place. It is vastly better to be qualified to fill the high position, than it is even to fill it. As Grant was the providential man of the war, so shall he be the providential man of the peace that follows it in the highest office within the gift of the people. No accident can cheat him out of his destiny, which he willingly accepts, more for the glory of the nation than of the individual.

[CHAPTER III.]

Wherein Captain Galligasken "talks Horse," and illustrates the Subject with some Anecdotes from the Life of the illustrious Soldier.

The horse is a noble animal, and it is by no means remarkable that a bond of sympathy has been established between great men and good horses. I have noticed that distinguished generals are always mounted on splendid steeds—a fact of which painters and sculptors have availed themselves in their delineations, on canvas or in marble, of the heroes and mighty men of history. Bucephalus, the war-charger of Alexander the Great, seems to be almost a part of the Macedonian conqueror; Washington, in the various equestrian attitudes in which he is presented to the admiring gaze of the people by the artist, appears to gain power and dignity from the noble steed he rides; and scores of lesser heroes, dismounted and detached from the horse, would, so far as the eye is concerned, slip down from the pedestal of grandeur to the level of common men. Though it is sometimes unfortunate that the limner's idea of the man is better than of the horse, it will be universally acknowledged that the gallant steed adds dignity and grace to the hero.

Although it has not yet been the good fortune of the American people to behold any worthy equestrian delineation of our illustrious soldier, either on canvas or in marble, yet the popular ideal would represent him as a sort of Centaur—half horse and half Grant. While I am by no means willing to acknowledge that every man who "talks horse" is necessarily a great man, it is undeniable that great military geniuses have figured attractively and appropriately in intimate association with this intelligent and noble animal. The inspired writers used the horse to add grandeur and sublimity to their imagery, and St. John's vision of Death on the Pale Horse thrills the soul by the boldness of the equestrian attitude in which it places the grim destroyer.

The centaur which the American people idolize is not an unworthy combination, and neither the man nor the horse loses by the association. From the time the embryo hero could go alone—if there ever was a time when he could not go alone—Grant fancied the horse; Grant loved the horse; Grant conquered the horse.

Bucephalus was offered for sale to Philip by a Thessalian horse-jockey. He was a glorious horse, but neither groom nor courtier could handle him. So fierce was his untamed will, that the king ordered the jockey to take him away; but Alexander, grieved at the thought of losing so fine a steed, remonstrated with his father, who promised to buy him if his son would ride him. Alexander did ride him, and the horse became his war-charger in all his campaigns.

In his early and intimate association with the horse, young Grant exhibited the force of his immense will, even more effectively than his Macedonian prototype.

When children of seven "talk horse," they do so at a respectful distance from the object of their admiration, with a lively consciousness that the animal has teeth and heels. At this age Grant demonstrated his enterprise by operating with a three-year-old colt. I do not profess to be a great man, as I have before had occasion to remark, or to possess any of the elements of greatness; but I do like a horse, while I am free to say I should as soon think of teaching an African lion to dance a hornpipe as to meddle with a three-year-old colt. However good-natured the creature may be, he has an innate independence of character, which makes him restive, and even vicious, under restraint. I never break colts.

Georgetown, where we lived in those early days, was about seven miles from the Ohio. One day Grant's father went to Ripley, a small town on the river, and remained there all day. The juvenile centaur had an idea on that occasion, which for a seven-year-old, may be regarded as an emphatically brilliant one. On the place was a three-year-old colt, which had been used under the saddle, but never attached to a vehicle of any kind. It required some confidence on the part of the youth to think of harnessing this unbroken animal; yet he not only conceived the idea, but actually carried it out. He put the collar on the three-year-old for the first time, attached him to a sled, and hauled wood with him all day. At eight years of age he was the regular teamster on his father's place. At ten he used to drive a span of horses to Cincinnati, forty miles distant, and return with a freight of passengers, but with no adult to direct or control him.

The pony trick at the circuses which travel over the country is not a new thing; and when a call was made for a boy to ride the fractious little beast, trained to throw the daring youngster who had the hardihood to mount him, for the amusement of the gaping crowd, Ulysses used to be a regular volunteer. I never offered my services, because I had a proper respect for the unity of my corporeal frame. Grant, bent on overcoming some new obstacle, was always on hand, and always as sure to succeed as he was to undertake any difficult feat.

On one occasion a peculiarly vicious little rascal of a pony was attached to one of these shows which exhibited in our town. Grant, as usual, was the only youngster who had the pluck to venture upon the difficult feat of riding him. He mounted the little villain, and away he darted with the speed of the lightning, resorting to all manner of mean tricks to dismount his bold rider. Round the ring he whirled, flying rather than running, and increasing his efforts to unhorse the determined youth, who sat as steadily as though he had been the veritable, instead of the figurative, Centaur. Grant carried too many guns for that pony.

A large monkey, included in the programme of the performance, was next let loose, to assist in dismounting the rider. The little demon sprang up behind the volunteer equestrian, and away dashed the pony at redoubled speed. The intelligent but excited audience shouted with laughter, but the youth was unmoved either by the pony, the monkey, or the storming applause of the crowd. He could neither be bullied nor coaxed from his position. Then the gentlemanly master of the ring caused the monkey to mount the shoulders of the intrepid youngster, and hold on at his hair. Away went the pony once more, and a new effort was made to throw the unconquered young horseman. The crowd shouted and roared with renewed energy as the scene became more ludicrous and more exciting; but Grant's nerves were still steady, and his face still wore its resolute, unmoved expression. As usual with those who attempt to throw him, somebody besides Grant had to give in. He was too much for pony, monkey, and ring-master combined.

I am well aware that I am enthusiastic; I have made full confession of my enthusiasm, and I am not ashamed of it; but I cannot help regarding this exciting incident as a type of events in the subsequent career of that bold rider. When he mounted the pony to ride into Fort Donelson, he was not to be shaken from his seat; he went in. That same pony—after all sorts of vicious attempts to pitch him into the Mississippi, or heave him over into the swamps—carried him safely into Vicksburg, after almost as many turns around the ring and the ring-master—one Pemberton on this occasion—as in the circus at Georgetown.

On a still larger scale, with one Jefferson Davis as ring-master, he was induced to mount the emblematic pony of the army of the Potomac, an exceedingly well-trained steed, which, however, had succeeded in throwing all his previous riders. Little Mac went round the ring very handsomely, and so far as the pony was concerned, proved himself to be master of the situation; but the monkey, which, in this case, appeared to be his personal reputation, too dear to be risked upon any issue short of absolute certainty, was too much for him, and he was unhorsed. His immediate successors held on well for a brief period; but the monkey of jealousy, insubordination, or vanity, very soon gave them a wretched tumble, even before the crowd had ceased to applaud.

Grant had ridden too many horses to be overwhelmed by this pony. The ring-master kept his eye on the daring rider, expecting soon to see him pitched off by the pony, with the assistance of the monkey. He started from the Wilderness one day, and every device was used to unseat him; but he did not move a muscle when the ring-master cracked his whip, or even when the monkey perched upon his shoulders. He fought it out on that line, and brought up at Appomattox Court House. The ring-master gave up, and closed the performance.

Doubtless Grant would have made a capital circus-rider, for he appears to have had a taste for daring feats with horses. At five years of age he began to stand up on the bare backs of the horses as he rode them to water to the White Oak River. When he was nine, he would stand on one foot, with the horse at the top of his speed, only holding on by the rein. A neighbor's boy was unfortunately killed in his attempts to keep up with him, though he did not seek to imitate him in his circus proclivities by standing on the back of the animal.

Grant was a perfect breaker of horses, for the independent, self-willed creature soon learned that he had a master in the youth; but he would do this kind of business only for his own amusement. He appears to have had an instinctive nobility of character, which would not assimilate with anything like the horse-jockey or the horse-trainer. Though he had a remarkable tact, in his boyhood, for teaching a horse to pace, he regarded it as degrading to follow the art as a calling. While he was always willing to work, and had a just regard for the dignity of labor, he was sensitive about engaging in anything of doubtful utility or questionable respectability. A trick was resorted to by his father to induce him to teach a neighbor's horse to pace: though, in a ride of thirteen miles and back, he accomplished the feat, and returned the animal to the owner a perfect pacer, he discovered the subterfuge of which he had been made the victim, and he would never again train another.

At the age of twelve the embryo hero was very small in stature, but he seems to have indulged in big ideas even then. Mr. Grant had a contract to build the Brown County jail, and the little fellow promised to haul all the logs of which the structure was to be composed, if his father would buy a certain large-sized horse, to which the youth had taken a fancy. His father assented, but did not suppose the boy would be able to endure the fatigue for more than a week, and hired a man to take his place when he was worn out. But he did not wear out; he had a habit of never wearing out, for he imparted the firmness and solidity of his will to his slight frame. The hired man followed the team for a few days, and then declared that the boy was more competent than himself to handle the big horse.

That hired man reminds me of a certain general who followed Grant around for a time, ready to take his place, or give it to another, thinking the "big horse" was too much for his subordinate to manage, and who finally took the field in person; but he was obliged to acknowledge in the end, as the other hired man had, that Grant could handle the "big horse" better than he could.

For some reason the men who were hewing the logs in the woods for the jail did not go to work as usual one day, and there was no one to load the timber for the enterprising youth. There was only the alternative of returning to town without any logs, or of loading them himself. The latter expedient would have been sufficiently impossible to deter an ordinary boy from attempting the task. The sticks were very large and heavy, and even the gang of men used levers and handspikes in loading them. But here was Grant standing before Donelson or Vicksburg, with this team,—before the logs, I should say,—and he had either to do a miracle or return logless to his father. If there had been no particular difficulty in the undertaking, perhaps he would not have felt compelled to do it; as it was, he felt obliged to do it, if only as an illustration of his character.

A tree had been felled on the spot, the trunk resting on the branches, and the butt on the ground, forming a convenient inclined plane. The big horse was hitched to the end of the timbers, and three of them were successively "snaked" up on the trunk of the fallen tree, till their ends were high enough to permit the wagon to be backed under them. Taking a long chain, so as to enable the horse to work beyond the vehicle, he whipped the end of it around each stick in turn, and hauled it into the wagon, harnessed up again, and drove to the site of the jail.

I maintain that this was a great achievement for a boy of twelve, very small at that; and the people in the neighborhood talked about it as such, just as they did, years after, about the capture of Vicksburg. The youth had a great deal of engineering skill, and a quickness of perception which enabled him to profit by every favorable circumstance within his reach—a faculty which has contributed in no small degree to his success as a great commander. He was a boy of expedients. The accident of that felled tree, prompt as he was to profit by it, was by no means essential to his success. It was certainly wise to use the inclined plane, which he found ready for service; but if it had not been there, Grant would have made one, or loaded the logs in some other way. He would no more have gone off without them than he would have returned from Vicksburg or Richmond without capturing the city.

There is a sort of unexpectedness about Grant, which he began to develop as a boy. He does just what the beholder does not anticipate, surprises by sticking to anything, when, according to ordinary rules, one ought to give up, or confounds by a course of action hitherto unheard of. He holds on to the pony when he ought to be thrown; he comes home with a load of logs when he ought to have come home empty; he accomplishes many a feat in which he ought to have failed, according to the every-day rules of life. He was fond of playing marbles, which seems to be the only strictly boys' amusement in which he indulged. He bet half a dozen marbles with a school-mate that he would jump twenty-five feet at a single leap, selecting his own ground for the feat. If I had been there, I should have taken that bet, for it seemed as impossible for a little fellow like him to do it, as it did to capture Vicksburg.

Grant went to a perpendicular bluff, having the requisite height, and jumped down at one leap,—for if the terms of the wager had required it, it would hardly have been convenient to make two leaps of it. Though he went down to his middle in the mud below, he won the bet. Doubtless he came out of the slough rather the worse for the leap, so far as personal appearance was concerned, but his plight only assures us that he looked before he leaped, as he always did, for hard pan, or a solid rock, might have been trying even to his nerves, in a jump of twenty-five feet.

In my opinion Lee was as much astonished to see Grant on the south side of Richmond as the boy with whom he made the bet was to see him jump perpendicularly instead of horizontally.

[CHAPTER IV.]

Wherein Captain Galligasken follows the illustrious Soldier to West Point, and dilates admiringly upon the many excellent Traits of Character which the Hero exhibited there.

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,"

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.

At West Point I had a warm admiration for Grant, though none of us were wise enough to predict his brilliant future. I am astonished that we did not, for the Grant of to-day was the Grant of West Point. He was the same modest, anti-sensational, unenthusiastic being that he is now. He was the boldest and apparently most reckless rider in the ring; but he always came out right then as now. He was not a dandy in any sense of the word; and though he appeared to have no regard for the elegance of his attire, he was always scrupulously neat, and paid a proper respect to the amenities of society in his personal appearance. He effectually dodged that period in the life of a young man when dress is the most important subject of consideration.

I could not help admiring the embryo general, for though he did not court popularity, and seemed to be entirely indifferent to it, he was one of the most popular of the cadets. The qualities of his mind and heart were of the highest order, and no student was able to point to a low or mean trait in his character. Bold, daring, and energetic, without the slightest display, without even uttering a boast, or exhibiting a particle of egotism, what wonder that he was the idol of his fellow-students!

"Methinks Ulysses strikes my wondering eyes!"

He never betrayed a trust reposed in him by friend or foe, was careful of the rights of others, and his word was as good as his bond. He was utterly forgetful of himself, never seeming to be conscious that he was of any particular consequence to others. In a word, he was then, as he is now, an honest, honorable man, true to himself, true to others. The sum of human greatness in personal character can include nothing more.

I say that he was careful of the rights of others. While I shall have occasion to demonstrate this trait in his character,—which is really one of the most noble and beautiful that can adorn the human mind,—on a larger scale in the course of this true narrative, let me say that it was the foundation of his popularity at West Point. He was never concerned in the disgraceful practice of "hazing," which can amuse only a mean, low, and tyrannical character. When he went to West Point he carried a letter of introduction to a cadet, who explained to him some of the tricks of the institution played off upon new-comers. On the first night a young gentleman entered his room and informed him that it was customary to assign a lesson of twenty pages, to be committed to memory while the student was nervous under the excitement of his admission, to test his firmness and energy. Grant assured the assumed officer that it was all right, turned over and went to sleep, while his roommate labored all night over the bogus task.

Grant's initials suggested for him the name of "Uncle Sam" at West Point; but his sober, steady demeanor, which gave him a sort of my-uncle bearing and dignity, was quite as much implicated in the nickname as the accidental letters that preceded his patronymic. He was a good fellow, by the popular vote of his companions; and none but such were entitled to the distinction of a nickname.

Having completed his four years' course, he was graduated in 1843, at the age of twenty-one. He was appointed to the Fourth Regiment of Infantry, with the brevet rank of second lieutenant.

[CHAPTER V.]

Wherein Captain Galligasken accompanies the illustrious Soldier to Mexico, and glowingly dilates upon the gallant Achievements of our Arms from Palo Alto to Monterey.

My distinguished ancestor, Sir Bernard Galligasken, was a fighting man, and was knighted for meritorious services in the loyal cause in Ireland. My respected progenitors in the New World were engaged in the French and Indian wars, and fought their way through the Revolution with credit to themselves. I inherited the military taste; but I do not mention this fact, or introduce the warlike record of my worthy ancestors, to add one jot or tittle of glory to their fame or my own, but simply to convince the reader that I have the soul to appreciate the military prowess of the illustrious soldier in the cheering light of whose brilliant deeds I am content to be ignored, eclipsed, obscured.

Grant's rank at the Military Academy consigned him to the infantry; for the best scholars of the graduating class are assigned to the more desirable arms of the service—the engineers, cavalry, artillery. But to the soldier of such transcendent abilities as those of the illustrious hero, it mattered but little to what branch he was sent. His rising star was eventually to confound all the puerile distinctions of particular arms, and to grasp them all in one comprehensive idea. He was sent to the infantry, as if to place in his path more obstacles to be overcome.

When those above him had been assigned to places in the army, all the vacancies were filled, and Grant was added as a supernumerary officer to the Fourth Infantry, with only brevet rank, there to wait till an opening was made, in those "piping times of peace," by resignation or death. His regiment was stationed in Jefferson Barracks, near St. Louis. It was dull music here for ambitious young men, full of life, and thirsting for distinction in their chosen profession; but Grant had the happiness to soften the rigor of his captivity by a pleasant episode. Frederick T. Dent, his classmate at the Military Academy, who was also assigned to the Fourth Infantry, resided in the vicinity of the barracks. The young officers were friends, and Grant was invited to the house of Dent's family, where he won the esteem and respect which have ever been accorded to him.

On the mind and heart of Miss Julia T. Dent, the sister of his professional friend, he impressed himself even more strongly than upon those of others. They were engaged; but it was not until five years later that the happy parties were married.

After a residence of a year in the vicinity of St. Louis, Grant was ordered with his regiment to Louisiana. In 1845, as the Mexican imbroglio began to assume shape and form, the Fourth was ordered to Corpus Christi to observe the movements of Mexican army concentrating on the frontier. Here he was commissioned as a full second lieutenant in the Seventh Regiment; but he was so strongly attached to the officers of the Fourth that he asked permission of the War Department to be retained in it; and his request was granted.

I am willing to confess, that, owing to my political predilections, I had not much heart in the war that was then brewing; but I was a soldier whose only duty is obedience. Grant, on the contrary, had no such scruples. His political faith fully and heartily indorsed the war, and he went into it calmly, resolutely, unflinchingly, and from a sense of duty higher even than that of soldierly obedience. I honor a man who has principles, and who has the courage to stand by them, even though he has the misfortune to disagree with me.

Corpus Christi is situated at the mouth of the Rio Nueces, between which and the Rio Grande was the disputed territory, nominally the bone of contention between the United States and Mexico. General Taylor, in command of about four thousand troops at Corpus Christi, was ordered to advance to the Rio Grande. He accordingly posted himself opposite Matamoras, having his base of supplies at Point Isabel, on the Gulf, and erected defensive works to cover his army. Ampudia and Arista, the Mexican commanders, signified that the advance of General Taylor into the disputed territory was an act of war, and that hostilities would be commenced.

Unfortunately for the Mexicans, they were commenced, and a body of dragoons under Captain Thornton was surprised by an overwhelming force of the enemy, and all of them killed, wounded, or captured. Our blood was up then, and we had no disposition to discuss any fine political points. All my scruples vanished, for the Mexicans had taken the initiative in the conflict, and struck down American soldiers. Their army crossed the Rio Grande, and Taylor, suspecting that Ampudia intended to attack his base of supplies, hastened to the relief of Point Isabel. Having reënforced the garrison, and assured himself of its ability to hold the place, he prepared to return to Fort Brown.

During his absence the Mexicans crossed the river again, and attacked the fort. General Taylor started early in the morning, admonished by the sound of the guns at Fort Brown that assistance was needed there. Lieutenant Grant was in the column, with his regiment. At noon we came in sight of the Mexicans drawn up in order of battle at Palo Alto. General Taylor immediately formed his line for the conflict, and for the first time in thirty-one years an American army was drawn up before a civilized foe. Lieutenant Grant was there—in the first battle of the last half century, as he was in the last one.

Taylor formed his line half a mile from the enemy, and the battle was fought mainly with artillery. Night gathered over the combatants in the same relative position. While the Mexicans had been fearfully slaughtered by the weight and range of the American guns, the loss on our side was insignificant in comparison with theirs. The enemy retired in the darkness, and we encamped on the field of battle.

Compared with the mighty actions of the late Rebellion, or even with those which followed it in the Mexican war, Palo Alto was a trivial affair, and I dwell upon it only as the occasion in which the illustrious soldier first drew his sword in actual conflict, in which he was first under the fire of an enemy. This was his baptismal battle, and there is no difficulty in believing that he behaved like a true soldier.

We slept upon the field, as we have slept upon many a field since, but only to awake to another and fiercer battle the next day. The enemy had taken up a strong position near Resaca de la Palma, three miles from Fort Brown. Whatever may be said of the Mexicans, judged by the measure of their success in the war of 1846, they were by no means a contemptible foe. They were not deficient in military science, and they stood their ground bravely, as the vast numbers of them slain in the various battles fully attest. At Resaca they were well posted in a ravine, with their flanks protected by an impenetrable jungle of scrub oaks. The battle opened with artillery, but the enthusiasm of both sides would not permit it to be continued at long range, and infantry and cavalry made some handsome charges. The Mexicans fought with dogged courage; but, in spite of this, and of the fact that they were three to our one, they were utterly defeated and routed.

The Mexican artillery was handled by General La Vega, a brave and skilful fellow, and did us much mischief. Taylor ordered Captain May, of the dragoons, to charge upon this battery, which was so gallantly done that the feat has passed into history. He was supported by the infantry, and the entire Mexican line was shattered by the onslaught. The demoralized foe fled in terror, leaving their guns and ammunition on the field, a prey to our conquering arms. La Vega, who had no talent for running away, was taken prisoner. When the night of the second battle-day closed upon the scene, not a single Mexican soldier was to be found on the east side of the Rio Grande.

General Taylor fought his battles thoroughly, and in this school of conflict Lieutenant Grant took his first lessons in actual warfare. His quaint criticism that the army of the Potomac "did not fight its battles through" conveys a vivid impression of his views on this important subject. After blood and treasure have been freely expended to procure a military success, nothing can excuse the commander from following out the results of victory to the utmost extent within his means. This was the practice of "Old Rough and Ready" in the Mexican war. He "fought his battles through," as Resaca, Monterey, and Buena Vista fully testify, thus making a wise and economical use of the resources intrusted to his keeping. Grant is a greater general than Taylor ever was, and it would not be respectful to say that he followed the example of the worthy veteran; but the experience of this period doubtless assisted in the preparation of the man for the gigantic work he was to accomplish eighteen years after.

Three months later in the year the army of General Taylor crossed the Rio Grande, and marched upon Monterey. On the 20th of September he appeared before the city with an army of six thousand men, to attack a position strong in its natural and artificial defences, and garrisoned by ten thousand troops. The conditions of successful warfare, as usually recognized by prudent commanders, were nearly reversed against the American army. Instead of having two or three to one of the garrison in force, they were nearly outnumbered in this numerical ratio. But the attack was promptly commenced, not by the slow and tedious process of regular siege operations, but by a direct assault, without wasting a single day. The battle opened on the morning following the arrival of the troops, and continued with unabated spirit during the day. Several fortified heights were carried before night, and the soldiers rested only to renew the assault the next day.

The Bishop's Palace, a strongly-fortified position in the rear of the town, and the last to yield, was gallantly carried by the force under the brave General Worth. On the third day of the fight the lower city was stormed with the most tremendous fury, the troops burrowing through the stone walls of the houses in their progress, and the defenders of the place were all driven within the citadel of the town before night again settled down upon the unequal fight. Penned in by their furious assailants, the Mexicans had no hope in continuing the resistance after the misfortunes which overtook them. Ampudia, the general in command of the city, submitted a proposition for terms which resulted in the surrender and evacuation of the town.

Thus, in three days, Monterey, a city so strong in position, and so well defended that its commander might have confidently defied a besieging army of double the force of that which sat down before its walls, was carried by repeated assaults. This was another of the training fields of Lieutenant Grant. The walls of the houses within the city were strongly built, affording ample defensive positions from which the Mexican soldiers could safely annoy the Americans. From the windows they fired down upon their assailants, disputing the possession of each dwelling with the most dogged tenacity.

In the midst of this irregular strife, while the foe in the windows were remorselessly shooting down the daring soldiers in the streets below, the ammunition of the brigade to which Lieutenant Grant was attached was nearly exhausted. It was an unpleasant position to be in, without powder and ball to keep the enemy at bay; and it was therefore necessary to send for a fresh supply, which could only be obtained by traversing a distance of four miles. But who should be the messenger to ride or walk beneath those death-dealing muskets in the windows, which were showering storms of bullets at every blue-coat which appeared in the streets below? The service was so fraught with peril, if not with certain death, that the general in command was not willing to issue a peremptory order for any one to undertake the mission. He called for a volunteer.

It is hardly necessary to say that, while the brigade contained a Grant, a volunteer for any desperate service would not be wanting. The lieutenant stepped forward, and was despatched on the important errand upon which nothing less than the safety of the command depended, without considering the ultimate success of the movement in progress. Grant was a bold rider, and full of expedients. He had been among the Indians of the western country, and was willing in this emergency to profit by one of their feats of horsemanship. Mounting a spirited horse, he attached one of his feet to the back of the saddle, grasping the animal's mane with the other, and permitting himself to hang down by the horse's flanks, so that his body shielded the intrepid equestrian from the bullets of the foe, who occupied the windows of only one side of the street. Hanging to his steed in this perilous attitude, he dashed off on his errand, at the highest speed of his charger, passing in safety through the destructive fire. He succeeded in bringing in a load of ammunition, guarded by a sufficient escort to insure its safety.

The capture of Monterey was a splendid feat of our arms, however it may have been cast into the shadow by the subsequent achievements of our army in Mexico. History presents a record of but few parallel victories, obtained in such a brief period, against all the disadvantages of the enemy's strong position, and with such a great disparity of numbers. The result was not because the Mexicans did not fight bravely and persistently, for they held their ground while the dead and wounded were piled high around them. The skilful officers and the trained soldiers of warlike France, exulting in her military prowess, won no such fields as Monterey and Buena Vista. While seven thousand of the Mexican soldiers in the city were regulars, Taylor's army was composed in part of raw volunteers, who had never snuffed the smoke of battle.

Grant as the Messenger to procure Ammunition.

Page 64.

The Americans were brave, but they could hardly be more so than the Mexicans, who had the additional stimulus of standing upon their own soil, fighting for their native land. We cannot find the secret of success in the superior bravery of our troops, and I can only attribute it to the high character, the daring courage, and the matchless skill of our officers. A few such tried and trusty spirits as Grant would leaven any army, and render it capable of performing seeming miracles.

President Pierce, himself a general in the war with Mexico, as a representative in Congress, years before, spoke and voted against the appropriations for the Military Academy at West Point, being heartily opposed to the institution. As a soldier in this brief and decisive contest, he had an opportunity to behold the representatives of the Academy in the storm of battle, and in the active operations of the siege and the march. He saw that West Point fought out that bloody war, and won that series of brilliant victories; and it is creditable to him to have acknowledged his error in this matter, however unrepentant he may be over other and more glaring blunders.

Soon after the battle of Monterey, Lieutenant Grant's regiment was sent to Vera Cruz to swell the grand army which was to march directly to the Halls of the Montezumas.

[CHAPTER VI.]

Wherein Captain Galligasken marches with the illustrious Soldier to the Halls of the Montezumas, and glowingly describes the brilliant Campaign in Mexico.

General Winfield Scott was a great soldier, and his Mexican campaign gave him a European reputation, chary as the critics of the old world are in the bestowment of praise upon American celebrities. He was never popular as an individual, for his qualities of mind and heart were not of the winning sort. His military skill must stand unchallenged, and his operations in Mexico will always attest his ability. A greater than Scott arose to obscure and eclipse his fame as a commander; but if the midday sun darkens the lustrous star, yet shall the star shine on bright as ever, its light paled only by the mighty contrast.

Scott was a well-trained, a prudent, and a skilful soldier. Like Taylor, he fought his battles thoroughly; and, after throwing out two or three brilliant geniuses in the art of war, he compares favorably with any of the great captains of ancient or modern times. He was the peer of Wellington, Marlborough, and the galaxy of able generals whom Napoleon gathered around him; and his fame as a soldier will be cherished by the American people to their remotest posterity.

General Scott's bloody but brilliant and successful campaign was to be the next training school of Lieutenant Grant; and to have been a witness of the skilful strategy and the terrible fighting included in that memorable march from Vera Cruz to Mexico was to obtain an experience of war and an insight into its mysteries which could not fail to be of incalculable value to the future chief of the armies of the Union. Grant was twenty-five years of age when he landed at Vera Cruz. Among the eager young officers whose souls were fired with the military spirit, he was but a unit. As a second lieutenant, however bravely and faithfully he discharged his duties, there was no opportunity for him to attract attention beyond the limit of his own brigade. He was training for the future rather than living for the present.

Scott landed at the head of twelve thousand men to make the conquest of Mexico. His first objective point was the famous Castle of San Juan de Ulua, the dragon which guarded Vera Cruz, and lay in the path of the little army to the capital. On the 12th of March, 1847, the investment of the city was completed. Ten days later the batteries opened fire upon the castle and city; and after four days of the most incessant hammering, an assault by the besieging army was planned; but the governor of the city proposed to surrender. In just twenty days after the little army landed, the Stars and Stripes floated victoriously over the city, and over the invulnerable castle.

The amazing rapidity with which the siege operations were carried forward confounded the enemy. With the bitter experience of Monterey as a specimen of the spirit of the assailants, they were not disposed to go through the form of attempting to repel an assault. The dragon in the path of the victorious army was demolished, and the road to Mexico was open to the conquerors. Preparations were made immediately for the grand march to the Halls of the Montezumas.

On the 1st of April Lieutenant Grant was appointed quartermaster of the Fourth Regiment—a position requiring peculiar abilities in the incumbent. He was selected for this important office because he was a careful, substantial, and energetic person; and he continued to fill it to the entire satisfaction of his superiors until the close of the war.

Early in April the advance was sent forward on the road to Jalapa. Santa Anna, routed at Buena Vista, had gathered together another army of fifteen thousand men, and intrenched himself in a strong position on the heights of Cerro Gordo, effectually commanding the only passage through the mountain gorges to the capital. Six days after the appearance of the advance before this formidable position, Scott, with the main army, arrived. The stronghold was immediately stormed, and after a series of brilliant operations the position was carried. Three thousand prisoners and forty-three bronze guns were captured, besides seven standards and Santa Anna's private baggage.

Signor Jimen, in the official journal of Mexico, defended the generalship of Santa Anna, and innocently attributed the terrible defeat to "inevitable misfortune, the result of the tactics of the invaders." The Mexicans were flanked by the passage of a portion of the American forces through a ravine which had never before been crossed, and which was deemed impassable. The "tactics" were doubtless the sore trial of the Mexicans, and when I think of the material of which our officers were composed, I am hardly supprised at the magnitude of their achievements. Scott believed in councils of war, and had the benefit of the united thought of his brilliant officers.

By this time, Grant, having been engaged in his fifth battle, was almost a veteran; and in this daring warfare was the training process carried on in his mind; in this arena of brilliant strategy was his military education perfected, and his experience enriched by an observation vouchsafed to only a few.

The army, having beaten down the obstacle at Cerro Gordo, continued on its march towards the capital, occupying Jalapa and Castle Perote on its way. At Puebla the little force was so reduced by sickness, death, and the expiration of the term of volunteer enlistments, that the veteran general no longer deemed it prudent to advance. His numbers had dwindled down to five thousand; and he rested here, in the heart of Mexico, with his handful of men, for three months, until reënforcements swelled his army to eleven thousand—an insignificant force for the conquest of the country.

About the middle of August this little army reached the vicinity of the capital. The city of Mexico is situated on Lake Tezcuco, and is approached over impassable marshes and lagoons by long causeways and bridges. The nature of the country was favorable to an effective defence of the place, especially as the Mexicans had at least four times as many troops in service as their invaders. Located outside of these causeways, and guarding the approaches of the city, were the strongholds of Chapultepec and Churubusco, and the heavy batteries of San Antonio and Contreras, all of them mounting about a hundred pieces of artillery. They were surrounded by morasses, by headlong steeps and rocks heaved into fantastic irregularities by volcanic action. The Mexicans confidently relied upon these natural additions to the strength of their works, and regarded their positions as impregnable.

Turning aside from the national road, by which he had marched to Ayolata, and which here presented too many difficulties for the remaining fifteen miles of his journey, Scott made a detour around Lake Chalco, and approached the city from the south. On the 20th of August the battery on the height of Contreras was captured by an impetuous assault, which occupied but seventeen minutes. The garrison of San Antonio evacuated their position, being cut off from the line of defence by the fall of the supporting works.

Four miles nearer to the city of Mexico, and commanding the road, frowned upon the invaders the strong fortification of Churubusco, where the main body of the enemy's army had been concentrated for an obstinate resistance; but on the same day the stronghold was battered down, and the Mexicans were driven to their only remaining fortress of Chapultepec. All day long Scott's gallant army had been fighting three times their own numbers, lodged in what had been deemed impenetrable works; but their arms were victorious at every point.

After a delay of more than two weeks in receiving and declining some absurd terms for an armistice, offensive operations were resumed by General Scott. The plain on which the city of Mexico is situated is studded with volcanic heights, projecting up from the morasses and lava fields. On one of these eminences, two miles from the city, stood the strong castle of Chapultepec, its base one hundred and fifty feet above the average level of the ground. It had a front of nine hundred feet, which bristled with guns, manned by a picked force, commanded by one of the ablest Mexican officers. This huge work stood, like another dragon, to protect the entrance to the principal causeway leading to the city. Behind it was a powder mill, called El Molino del Rey, which was fortified and occupied by troops, and constituted the principal outer defence of the castle. It was necessary that this position should be first captured, and the duty was assigned to General Worth, of whose command the Fourth Infantry formed a part.

The assault was a desperate one, and Worth lost one fourth of his troops in the action, so obstinate was the defence by the Mexicans, who had reached their "last ditch," and fought with corresponding valor. The position was carried, and in the sharp battle Grant won his first recorded laurel. "Captain Brooks and Lieutenant Grant, with a few men of their respective regiments, by a handsome movement to the left, turned the right flank of the enemy, and the barrier was carried. Second Lieutenant Grant behaved with distinguished gallantry on the 13th and 14th." This is the language of the official report of Major Francis Lee, commanding the Fourth Infantry at the time.

I have said that Grant had been appointed quartermaster of his regiment. As the officer in charge of the baggage trains of the force, well-established precedents permitted him to remain in charge of them during the fierce conflict, and thus to escape the personal peril of being under fire. It would not have been dishonorable, or an imputation upon his courage, for him to do so; but to his honor and glory be it said, that he never took advantage of his non-belligerent position. He always joined his regiment when it was summoned to the strife, and "behaved with distinguished gallantry" on all occasions. For his conduct on this eventful day he was promoted to the rank of full first lieutenant.

The Castle of Chapultepec was bombarded, and then carried by storm, after the walls had been breached. In the complicated details of the final attack the Fourth Infantry acted a worthy part. Grant assisted in serving a howitzer, mounted on the top of a convent, by which the enemy was considerably annoyed. It was a novel position for an infantry officer; but this was not the first, and by no means the last, time he was where he was least expected to be found—in front of the enemy. Colonel Garland, commanding the First Brigade on this occasion, officially says, "I must not omit to call attention to Lieutenant Grant, of the Fourth Infantry, who acquitted himself most nobly upon several occasions under my own observation."

The result of that gallant attack shows that all the officers behaved well; so well that Grant and one other only are mentioned out of the whole First Brigade, and the quality of the deeds which called forth the generous compliment of his superior may be judged from this fact. All had been brave to recklessness, all had been earnest and persevering; but it was the nature of Grant, even then, to surpass the bravest, the most earnest and persevering. In General Worth's report of the battle, he also speaks in commendation of the gallant lieutenant. For Grant's honorable mention he received the brevet rank of captain, to date from the day of the battle of Chapultepec.

With this strong fortress fell the city of Mexico; and during the night which followed its capture, the remains of the army of Santa Anna, with the civil officers of the government, fled to a place of safety. On the following morning, Scott and his gallant little army marched into the capital. The American flag floated proudly over the walls of the national capital, and Mexico was conquered; victory had constantly perched upon our banners, and we stood in the Halls of the Montezumas, where we were permitted to repose in peace after the battle summer through which we had just passed.

Grant remained in the city of Mexico while the negotiations for peace were in progress. As usual, he had a very spirited horse, for he never rode any other when one could be obtained. A Mexican gentleman, with whom he was on terms of friendly intimacy, desired to borrow this animal for a ride. Grant feared that the worthy señor could not handle the fiery steed; but it was not prudent to decline the request, for the Spanish nature of the applicant would take offence, and misjudge his motives in the refusal. The Mexican mounted the horse, but, when he had ridden a short distance, was thrown off and instantly killed.

Long ago I came to the conclusion that it is not safe for any man to attempt to ride Grant's horses, in a literal or a figurative sense.

Grant's mission in Mexico was finished. In that rapid and brilliant campaign from Vera Cruz to the capital, he had practically learned the lesson of war, and prepared himself for the great work he was to accomplish at a later period of his life, when West Point was to be divided between the opposing armies, when the most brilliant genius and the most determined energy alone could win victories. The importance of this season of actual duty in the field, in all the details of siege, march, and garrison duty, can hardly be over-estimated. In the war of the Great Rebellion he came into the field a trained soldier, with the teachings of experience stored up for use in a broader sphere of action than he or any of his companions in arms had yet dreamed of.

After the ratification of the treaty of peace between Mexico and the United States, our forces evacuated Mexico, and Captain Grant was sent to New York with his regiment, where its companies were detached and sent to the forts on the northern frontier. Grant and his company were first stationed at Detroit, and then transferred to Sacketts Harbor. In 1848 he was married to Miss Dent, in conformity with the engagement made five years before, to which both had religiously adhered.

The treaty of peace with Mexico had given us California, and coincident with the acquisition of the territory, gold was discovered there in such quantities as to attract an immense immigration, and it was necessary for the government to send out troops for the protection of the swarming hosts, both from themselves and from the Indians. The Fourth Infantry was sent to Oregon in 1851. The battalion in which Grant served was stationed at Fort Dallas, where the illustrious soldier obtained some further experience of Indian warfare.

He was separated from his family, and in this wild region shut out from any employment worthy his nature, and apparently from all hope of rising either as a citizen or a soldier. It would have been surprising if Grant had not been discontented. He was a man of deeds, emphatically a man of action; but there was nothing to be done worthy his ambition.

In 1853 he was promoted to a full captaincy; but this advancement could not relieve him from the tedium of such a stupid life, and the following year he resigned his commission, to enter upon a new and untried career in civil life.

[CHAPTER VII.]

In which Captain Galligasken goes with the illustrious Soldier to the Farm near St. Louis, and observes his Career through various Misfortunes, till he is included in the Firm of Grant & Sons.

Captain Grant had been in the army eleven years. He was engaged in the first and the last battle of the Mexican war; indeed, he had taken part in every action of any importance, except Buena Vista. This was his practical training for the great work of his life, developing his faculties and storing his mind with an experience which was to bring forth its rich fruits on the historic battle-fields of the Great Rebellion.

In the wilds of the Pacific slope,—

"In the continuous woods

Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound

Save his own dashings,"—

the impatient soldier unbuckled his sword, and laid it aside. The weapon was rusting in its scabbard, and the proud spirit which had worn it honorably through a fierce war, waged upon a foreign soil, chafed under the inaction to which it was condemned in that far-off region. It was not the sphere for a great mind.

It is a notable fact, that when the bugle-blast of stern necessity rallied the soldiers of the Republic around her banners, to save her from destruction, some of the choicest spirits came out from the walks of civil life, whither they had fled from the dulness of an inactive life in the army. Such were Grant, Sherman, Burnside, Hooker, McClellan, and many others.

At the age of thirty-two, after having been devoted exclusively to military pursuits for fifteen years, Grant left the army to engage in new and untried enterprises. This was an important step of his life, but I humbly believe it was as necessary to the perfect development of the man as any other which he had taken. It was an evidence of his characteristic energy, and of the confidence he had in himself, which was displayed in so remarkable a manner in the most trying days of the Rebellion.

I am not disposed to magnify the deeds of the illustrious soldier,—they need no such office at mine or any man's hands,—or to praise his conduct in the glowing light of subsequent events; but I maintain that the act of resigning his commission in the army required no small degree of moral courage. The government had educated him at its own expense, and provided for him during the term of his natural life. If his had been the dull, stupid, inert character, this lot would have satisfied him. He was placed out of the reach of want in the present and the future; and the deaths and resignations in the army would have materially improved his condition if he quietly submitted to his fate.

His total pay as a captain of infantry amounted to nearly a thousand dollars a year; and it was as sure as the rising and setting of the sun. This was the certainty before him; and only a man of energetic purposes, with great confidence in his own abilities, would have turned from it to strike out a new path in the tangled maze of worldly affairs. From his boyhood he had been absorbed in the pursuits of his military career, and their practical application in the field and on the march, with a limited knowledge of business; and I repeat that it required no little moral courage to abandon the certainty and grapple with the uncertainty.

I am aware that a different explanation of Grant's resignation has been rumored through the country, and the vile slander that he had become addicted to intemperate habits has been circulated over the land. It has even been said that his resignation was prompted by a significant warning from the War Department. I am amazed that such an idle story should ever have obtained even a momentary credence. It is as impossible that Grant could ever have been a drunkard as that he could ever have been a coward. "He that ruleth his spirit is mightier than he that taketh a city." Under all circumstances, in the fierce storm of battle, as in the quiet of the social circle, he always maintained the most perfect control of himself. If he ever used the intoxicating cup to excess, he must have known it himself; and to know that he had a dangerous habit was to conquer it.

Look at the inflexible will of the man, as displayed at Donelson and Vicksburg! Look at him, meek and modest, in the midst of the storm of applause that everywhere greeted him after his mission had been accomplished! Look at him, calm and immovable, when, in the intricacies of the Vicksburg campaign, he outsped the thought and the prudence of his military compeers, and the impatient people began to howl even at him! Could such a man be the slave of his own appetite? The man himself is the best evidence of the falsity of the rumor.

I say I am amazed that this silly story should ever have been harbored for a moment by any one, except an enemy of his country; but I am still more amazed when I realize that this is the only blemish which lukewarm friends and over-critical enemies have been able to cast upon the character of the distinguished soldier. It is the prerogative of greatness to be the mark of slander's poisoned arrows. Napoleon was accused of crimes enough to banish him forever from the pale of human sympathy; Wellington and Marlborough escaped not the blast of calumny; Jefferson was charged with the most loathsome immoralities; and even Washington was systematically traduced by over-zealous partisans. It is a miracle, therefore, that Grant has only been held up to obloquy for the one offence of intemperance, and that the most absurd and improbable one which could possibly have been devised.

Grant retired from the army for the same reason that hundreds of others have done so, in time of peace—because it did not afford a sufficient scope for his talents and energy. He returned to St. Louis, where the family of his wife resided. Mr. Dent gave his daughter, Mrs. Grant, a farm at Gravois, about nine miles from the city, and on this place Grant located himself with his family, consisting now of his wife and two children. He built a house of hewn logs, working on the structure with his own hands, thus drawing upon the experience he had acquired in his youth. His native energy made him a hardworking man. His domain included extensive timber lands, and he attempted to better his condition by the sale of wood in the city of St. Louis. He was not above his business, nor in any sense one of those dandy agriculturists called "gentleman farmers." He employed men to chop the wood, but he carted it to the city and sold it himself. He kept two teams, one of which he drove himself, while his little son had inherited enough of his father's horse nature to be competent to manage the other.

Grant was as thoroughly democratic in his manners as he was in his politics. He wore an old felt hat, a seedy blouse coat, and prudently tucked his trousers' legs into the tops of his boots. He appeared to be—what he was—a simple, honest woodman. His habits were plain, and he lived on the most economical scale; indeed, his means would not permit him to live in any other manner. Those who had dealings with him knew him as an honest, upright man, faithful in the discharge of all obligations.

Grant always remembered and cherished his true friends. One day in St. Louis, whither he had come with his team, he heard that Professor Coppée, one of his classmates at West Point, was in the city. In his homely rig, with the whip in his hand, he waited upon his early friend at the hotel, where were also General Reynolds, General Buell, and Major Chapman. The "honest woodman" was asked to step to the bar and take a drink. "I will go in and look at you, for I never drink anything myself," replied he.

If Grant ever drank anything, this would have been an occasion, when, meeting old friends and classmates, after a separation of years, he would have been little likely to decline the social glass. I was not present on this occasion, but Professor Coppée publishes the incident himself, and of course there can be no doubt of its truth. Other officers, who were frequently with him, declared that he drank nothing stronger than cold water; and, for my own part, I consider him eligible to the office of Grand Worthy Patriarch of the National Division of the Sons of Temperance, or any other position in which entire abstinence from all that can intoxicate is the essential qualification.

But Grant was not a successful man as a farmer. His previous training and experience did not fit him for this calling. It was not his sphere, and it was no discredit to him that he was not successful in it. He was not the man to lie supinely down and moan over his misfortunes. If one expedient failed, he tried another, in his own affairs as well as in those of the army. If a thing did not work right, it was his habit to "fick" it again. In the neighboring city, to which he moved, he resorted to several methods of eking out his failing subsistence. He tried auctioneering; but, though he had the ability to "knock down" a mighty rebellion, he was not equally fortunate in mere commercial pursuits. He had not the skill to exaggerate, nor the oily tongue to win the heart of a doubting customer.

He was an applicant for the position of engineer under the city government, but his petition for appointment was "respectfully declined." His efforts to establish a remunerative business as a real estate agent were equally unfortunate. At the same time he hung out his shingle as a "collector." At this period his fortunes were at dead low tide, and not always did he know on one day where his subsistence for the next was to come from. He seemed to be foraging in an enemy's country, which had already been drained of its supplies. He was too poor to hire an office, and an obliging young lawyer, not burdened with clients, gave him desk room for the conducting of his scanty business.

But he had not much use even for desk room, and the number of his customers did not wear out the patience of his accommodating host. Grant was still out of his sphere; he had none of those mental qualifications which fit a man to be a successful "dunner." With all his pluck and persistence he could not worry a poor or a dishonest debtor up to the point of payment. He failed in this; the tide ran against him, and life became a bitter struggle. He obtained a place in the custom-house, which he held for two months, when the collector, who had given him the appointment, died, and he was obliged to leave. His hour of triumph had not yet come.

While Fortune seems to have entirely deserted the illustrious soldier in the civil walks of life, she had been more constant with his father, who had become prosperous enough to extend his business to Galena, Illinois, where he had established a branch leather store, conducted by two of his sons. As the worthy sire was now in easy circumstances, it seemed to be necessary to do something to redeem the failing fortunes of his oldest son. I am willing to state, on my own individual responsibility, that before he was invited to take a position in the store, or a share in the business, at Galena, there was an anxious inquiry by the prosperous father and sons into the capacity of Grant to fill the position to which he was to be assigned. It was even somewhat doubtful, at that time, whether the man who had the genius to control the movements of a million soldiers, had the business ability to entitle him to admission into the firm of "Grant & Sons."

The brilliant campaign in Mexico, gallant conduct at Monterey and Chapultepec, and turning the enemy's right flank at El Molino del Rey, hardly added much to the accomplishments of a suitor for the honors of the leather trade. It was asked whether fifteen years' service in the military had not disqualified him in some measure for mercantile pursuits; whether the idleness to which he had been condemned after the peace—idleness only as a civilian views it—had not impaired his native energy, and robbed him of some of the force and skill which had characterized his early years; whether he had not displayed so little ability at "getting ahead" on his own hook, as to render him at least a doubtful person to be associated with the prosperous firm.

It is as creditable to the good judgment as it is to the kindly hearts of "Grant & Sons" that these considerations had no weight with them, and in 1860 he was admitted as a partner to the firm. The end of the night of misfortune and futile struggles had come, and the dawn of a prosperous day opened upon the retired soldier. Grant took kindly to his new occupation, and, in spite of his antecedents on the battle-fields of Mexico, and his connection with so "nobby" an institution as the regular army, he still continued to be a plain, modest man. He devoted himself to the leather business with the same energy that he devoted himself to the capture of Vicksburg. He was regarded in this sphere as a sound, solid, common-sense man, with excellent judgment.

He went to work in the leather trade as he did in the army, and in his farming operation, with industry and perseverance. He was not a great talker, but when he spoke he meant something. The solidity of his character was apparent in the firm lines of his face, and he was a man who produced an impression both by his words and his looks; and for this reason he made a good salesman. He was but little known in Galena, taking no pains to extend the circle of his acquaintance.

This was the position which Grant occupied at the breaking out of the Rebellion. I am not a fatalist, but I do believe that Providence adapts means to ends in the affairs of men. I am entirely satisfied that the illustrious soldier needed his experience in the civil pursuits of life to prepare him for the great mission whose successful accomplishment gave him a wreath of glory brighter than ever adorned the brow of any other mortal man. Even his misfortunes, and his struggles against the cold current of poverty, were a necessary discipline and preparation for the man. Without them he could not have been what he is, and what he will yet become; for of all the atoms of experience is agglomerated the character of the man.

Thus prepared by the brilliant campaign of Mexico, thus prepared by the events of his civil life, and thus prepared by the discipline of adversity, stood Grant in the leather store at Galena, when the thunder of Sumter's guns struck upon his listening ears.

[CHAPTER VIII.]

Wherein Captain Galligasken discourses upon the breaking out of the Rebellion, and describes the noble and modest Behavior of the illustrious Soldier.

Until Treason opened its treacherous batteries on Fort Sumter, Grant had been a Democrat. His sympathies, though he seldom expressed himself on political topics, were with the conservative party. Abolition and abolitionists, as such, had no place in his regard, and the Republican party he viewed with all the disfavor of a sturdy Democrat. His father had been a Democrat before him, and so far as he had any political associations, they were of this faith.

In those months of dire forebodings, of anxious waiting, and of fruitless attempts to patch up a compromise, which intervened between the election of Lincoln in November and the breaking out of hostilities, Grant had been in favor of conceding to the South all its rights, even as they were interpreted by a Democrat who lived and breathed and had his being in compromise. It cannot be said or thought that the illustrious soldier embarked in an anti-slavery war. The terrible conflict was precipitated by the madness of the South in opening its guns upon a national fort.

For months the country had been waiting with breathless interest for the issue of the political complications which grew out of the secession of South Carolina and the states which followed her reckless example. Patriots north and patriots south were not willing to believe that the horrors of civil war were to be enacted in the land they loved. Even the "fire-eaters" of the South, while they looked daggers, used none. There was no spirit of prophecy in the country which foresaw the stupendous conflict that ensued. Men hoped and believed that some happy event would turn aside the impending storm. The South expected that its noisy bluster and its parade of arms would intimidate the North; and the cooler North thought that the hot blood of the South would cool itself in the lapse of time. Both were mistaken.

The fiery Southrons ostentatiously made their preparations for a conflict which they did not believe would take place, and the North, if not unmoved, yet exercised a degree of forbearance which appeared like indifference, in the face of this parade of hostile demonstrations. The government was paralyzed by the unwonted situation; but it did not raise a finger to disturb or check the hostile operations of the rebels. The constitution and the laws were set at nought; forts, arsenals, and dock-yards were seized; the nation's property was plundered, and its honored flag insulted and trailed in the dust; but the sword of justice still rested in its scabbard. Southern fanatics howled, stormed, and blustered; yet the government only waited—waited till the fiery zeal of the South appeared to be in danger of wasting itself before the purposes of its leaders were accomplished.

It was necessary that something should be done to "fire the Southern heart," and rekindle the enthusiasm of the people, which was waxing cold under the forbearance of an insulted government. Fort Sumter was bombarded; lines of batteries encircling the devoted work poured in their rain of shot and shell, and battered down the walls of the fortress, defended by only a handful of men. Skilful officers, educated at the public expense to defend the government against which they were now raising their parricidal hands, conducted the cowardly enterprise, with the flower of Southern chivalry gathered in thousands under their command, to a successful issue. The triumph was theirs, the glory and the endless shame in one foul deed.

The South sang the pæan of victory, achieved with an odds of a hundred to one in its favor, and the Southern heart was fired. By the same deed another heart was fired. The North rose as one man to resent the base outrage, the cowardly assault. The last moment when compromise was possible, passed away with the report of the first gun aimed at Sumter. That gun awoke the slumbering North, and in every peaceful hamlet the drum-beat of preparation sounded, beginning on the St. Croix and ending far west of the Mississippi. The news that the first blow had been struck flashed through the land, silent between hope and fear, and kindled an enthusiasm which had no bound or limit. Traitors north and traitors south were marked men from that thrilling hour. There was no voice but for the nation's honor and the nation's defence, in the onslaught of a treacherous foe.

For years the military spirit in the people had been repressed and discouraged. The soldier was regarded as an obsolete necessity, and the profession of arms had become absolutely disreputable in many parts of the country. Except here and there one who had served in the Mexican war, and a superannuated veteran of 1812, there was not a soldier in the land who had any experience of actual warfare. Half a century had elapsed since the fact of war in their own midst had been realized by the people, and all their traditions were of peace and prosperity.

But in spite of their peaceful antecedents, in spite of the seeming indifference with which they had regarded the gathering storm, they flew to arms. Without any concert of action, without any startling proclamations to rouse their sleeping energies, they rallied beneath the banner of the country, and the spectacle of a united North was held up to the view of the astonished South. The proclamation of the president calling for seventy-five thousand men—an unheard-of army within our peaceful borders—immediately followed the tidings of the shock of actual conflict. The government had come out of its lethargy with the people, and both were in hearty sympathy.

To Galena came the tidings from Fort Sumter, and to Galena came the proclamation of President Lincoln. We were thrilled by the treacherous deed of those who were henceforth to be our foes. We were thrilled by the note of preparation which sounded at the same time. Our hearts beat the quickstep which was reverberating through the entire North, and from the depths of our souls we thanked the patriot president for his prompt and decided action. With an indignation which was characteristic of the man, Captain Grant read the newspaper which contained the story of the nation's dishonor. The lines which delineate on his face the force of his will seemed to deepen as he realized the fact that the first blow had actually been struck. In that cowardly army which had rained shot and shell upon a little worn-out band of regular soldiers for thirty-three hours were some of his classmates and companions in arms on the bloody fields of Mexico. They had been friends, but now they were enemies.

There was no halting or hesitation in the man. The blows which battered down Sumter reached his great heart. His country was in peril, and his patriotic soul responded to the call for her defence. He made no noisy demonstrations, but calmly and resolutely fixed his purpose and declared his intentions. There was no foam or fury in his manner; nothing was said and nothing was done to create a sensation, though the man who had won laurels in the hard-fought battles of Mexico might have been excused, on such an occasion, for a little display or a little pomposity; but that was not Grant. Actuated only by a sense of duty to his country, and not at all by a desire to serve himself or to win the honors of the profession he had first chosen, he was as gentle and modest as the humblest civilian.

The soldier, especially the trained and experienced soldier, was a mighty man in those days. The whole country was rising in arms, and his influence was potent. The nation wanted him, and his profession, maligned and treated with contempt before, suddenly elevated him above the sphere of politicians and statesmen. Grant was a soldier, and the fact that he was a graduate of West Point, and had seen service in the field, made him a man to whom others looked up with respect and admiration in the new dispensation which necessity preached to the people.

I dwell with pride and pleasure upon the deportment of Captain Grant at this exciting period. To me there was something sublime in his absolute self-negation. His antecedents, his military record, entitled him to a high position in the volunteer army which was then gathering. It would not have been immodest for him to write to the governor of Illinois, asking a position as a major general in the mustering host. He did nothing of the kind; he asked for no position. He did not thrust his rank in the regular army, which he had earned by hard fighting, into the faces of civil or military officials. He claimed nothing.

"Uncle Sam has educated me for the army," said he to a friend. "Though I have served him through one war, I do not feel that I have yet repaid the debt. I am still ready to discharge my obligations. I shall therefore buckle on my sword, and see Uncle Sam through this war, too."

The obligation could not be forgotten, for Grant never permitted the remembrance of a favor to be obliterated from his heart; but high above even this sacred duty was that which he owed to his stricken country, then writhing in the gripe of the monster of Treason. The purpose which gave to the United States the greatest commander the world has ever seen was formed; but he did not blow a trumpet before him in the streets of Galena, and say to the people, "Lo, here I am, a soldier trained to arms and fit to be your chief. Behold me—a hero from Monterey and Chapultepec. Make me your leader, and send me to battle at the head of your men, and I will win great victories for you."

Not thus spoke Grant: save in the privacy of his narrow social circle, he spoke not at all; and even when his mighty prowess and his brilliant victories had made him famous, the people came to the shop windows of Grant & Sons to ascertain which of the firm was so effectually tanning rebel hides, so little was he known, and so little had he paraded himself before the citizens of the place.

Though like him I had been to West Point; though like him I had seen the glories of Palo Alto, Resaca, Monterey, and the fourteen battles of Scott from Vera Cruz to Chapultepec; though like him I had retired from the army,—I could not regard myself as of so little consequence as he did. I felt that nothing less than the commission of a brigadier would be a proper appreciation of my record and my profession. I am sorry to be obliged to confess that I placed myself where the gaze of the multitude might rest upon me; but alas! they did not see me. I was not the providential man of the Great Rebellion, and the microscopes of the people failed to bring me into view. But my own position enables me to see more clearly that of the illustrious soldier of whose deeds I am the admiring chronicler.

Grant exhibited no ambitious spirit—he was at work for the nation, not for himself. He said nothing in public—the people of Galena hardly knew the sound of his voice; but there, in the streets of his town, he raised the standard of the loyal cause, and invited the hardy and patriotic men of the place to rally for its defence. In less than a week after the news from Fort Sumter had arrived, he was drilling a company; but he did not claim even the rank to which he had risen in the regular army, the cause, and not himself, being still uppermost in his thought.

The company proposed to elect him to this highest office within their gift. Doubtless he would have accepted the position, but a gentleman with more ardent aspirations for military glory frankly acknowledged his desire to obtain this place; and Grant declined the honor. He stepped out of the way to accommodate another, but he consented to go with the company to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. He was accompanied on his journey by the Hon. E. B. Washburn, who introduced him to Governor Yates. The chief magistrate did not appear at first to be profoundly impressed by the captain, and did not take much notice of him.

Grant was determined to use a laboring oar in the work before the loyal country, and he wrote to the adjutant general of the army at Washington. He did not apply for a position as brigadier, but simply stated that he had been educated at the public expense at West Point; and as the country was in peril, he considered it his duty to place whatever skill and experience he had acquired at the disposal of the government, offering his services in any capacity in which they might be needed. This modest offer brought no response from the War Department.

While Grant was waiting for the moving of the waters, he visited Cincinnati, where McClellan, who had been appointed a major general of volunteers by the governor of Ohio, was organizing his forces. The "Little Napoleon" of the first years of the rebellion had served with Grant in Mexico, and they had become acquainted there. Both were in Worth's brigade at the siege of Vera Cruz, and both had been honorably mentioned for gallant conduct at Chapultepec and El Molino del Rey.

Grant was seeking a position in which he could make himself useful to the country. He twice called at the headquarters of General McClellan, but failed to see him on either occasion. He thought it possible that his old comrade in arms might offer him a place on his staff, which appears to have been the highest aspiration of the great commander at this time. Failing to see McClellan, he returned to Springfield.

While he was waiting at the capital, Governor Yates sent for him, and wished to inquire whether he knew how many men belonged in a company, how many companies in a regiment, and what officers were required in such an organization—questions which seemed to have been especially perplexing to the earnest and loyal chief magistrate of the state. Grant assured him that he understood all about such matters; that he had been educated at West Point, and had served eleven years in the regular army. This straight-forward reply helped the governor out of his annoying dilemma, and Grant was invited to take a seat at the capital and officiate as adjutant general, in which capacity he served for several weeks during the hurry of sending off the troops, rendering the most valuable assistance from his familiarity with the details of military organizations.

Though the future hero had made no parade of himself or his accomplishments, several regiments desired to elect him as their colonel; but for reasons of his own, which do not appear,—though I suspect that his military prejudice against electing officers was the strongest one,—he declined all these overtures. One who knew him better than others suggested to the governor that he should appoint him to some regiment, without previously consulting him. The suggestion was acted upon, and Captain Grant was appointed colonel of the Twenty-first Regiment of Infantry. The commission was promptly accepted, and Colonel Grant hastened to Mattoon, where the regiment was in camp, and assumed the command.

[CHAPTER IX.]

Wherein Captain Galligasken has Something to say about Citizen Soldiers, and follows the illustrious Soldier into the Field in Missouri.

The "thinking bayonets" of the United States army, in a merely disciplinary point of view, were not at first the best of material of which to make soldiers. To a vastly greater extent than any other armies which have been gathered since the foundations of the earth were laid, they were composed of intelligent, educated men. They could read and write, and were competent to do their own thinking, and to form their own judgments. They had ideas of their own in regard to the war, and the means of carrying it on.

The men in the ranks, as well as those with warrants and commissions in their pockets, were, without many exceptions, the graduates of the free schools which are the greatest glory of the nation. They read the newspapers, the potent educators of the people. They were the village politicians, the schoolmasters, the printers, the intelligent mechanics, the merchants, ministers, lawyers, and doctors of the country. There was no pursuit or profession in the land which was not represented in the volunteer army.

All of them were thoroughly imbued with the spirit of our democratic institutions. Each man in the rank and file of the grand army, as a citizen, was the peer of the president, the governor of his state, or of the mightiest man of the nation. Any infraction of their rights they were ready to resent and resist. Regarded, therefore, as the mere insensate humanity of which an army is composed, they were not the most hopeful material. Blindly to obey without question, heavily to be hampered with the details of what seemed to them needless restrictions and regulations, meekly to ignore their own will, and follow unchallenged the will of another, was a condition of life for which their education and habits had not prepared them. They were willing to fight to the death, but to become mere stupid machines, moved by their officers, was at first hardly within the scope of their democratic philosophy. Even while they acknowledged the necessity of strict discipline, and advocated its enforcement, the details of the daily routine pinched them severely.

The officers of the regular army were rigid disciplinarians. Those who had been in the service had been accustomed to different and coarser material than that which formed the volunteer army. Their men had never had a voice in choosing their officers, whose responsibility was in the direction of the War Department, and not at all in the direction of the force they commanded. It had been their province to command, as it had been that of their men to obey, not only on the battle-field, but in all the minutiæ of the camp and the garrison. One of these soldiers could be punished for neglecting to button his coat on parade, or to clean the spot of rust from the barrel of his musket; for being two inches short of the regulation step, or for a degree of variation in the angle of his feet in the line. Men who had left the plough in the furrow on the farm which they had paid for and owned, to fight the battles of the republic, were at least impatient under such restraints.