Ulysses Simpson Grant
April 27, 1822, was born Hiram Ulysses Grant, who by an error of which you will hear later had his name changed to Ulysses Simpson Grant. His father was Jesse Grant, an Ohio tanner. Grant’s ancestors had settled in New England in the seventeenth century and some had served in the French and Indian War and some had served in the Revolution, so he was of good American stock.
When Ulysses was about ten years old, his father moved to Georgetown, Ohio, about forty miles from Cincinnati. There he prospered and became the owner of a farm as well as a tannery. Ulysses was not specially fond of books, but his father was resolved that he should have a good education. The boy was sent regularly to school and was a faithful student. He had work to do at home too—sometimes in the tannery which he disliked, sometimes on the farm, which he liked better. He was fond of horses and learned to ride and drive well.
From the time he was eleven till he was seventeen, he did the plowing and hauling on his father’s farm. His father who seems to have been more ambitious for his son than the boy was for himself, secured an appointment to West Point. Ulysses did not wish to go and feared he could not pass the entrance examinations. But his father’s word was the law of the family and so the sandy-haired, blue-eyed lad of seventeen left his Ohio home to go to West Point. He lingered on the way to see the sights in Philadelphia and other places.
Two weeks after he left home, he reached West Point, in May, 1839. He passed the dreaded examinations and was enrolled among the cadets. The Congressman who had secured the appointment for him forgot his name and filled in the application for Ulysses Simpson Grant, and by that name he was called. The boysnicknamed him “Uncle Sam” and called him “Sam Grant.” He got on well in his studies, especially in mathematics which had always been his favorite. He was more famous as a horseman, however, than as a student. At West Point there is still shown the place where he made a famous leap of six feet, three inches, on a big horse named York. Except for his horsemanship the young Ohioan, quiet in manner and careless in dress, was not much noted one way or another. He was graduated, June, 1843, twenty-first in a class of thirty-nine.
In 1846 came war with Mexico which Grant then and forty years later thought “one of the most unjust wars ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation.” He had hoped for a place in the cavalry, but was sent in the infantry as second lieutenant.
He took part in many battles and distinguished himself by his coolness and courage under fire. In the battle of Monterey his regiment lacked ammunition and Lieutenant Grant volunteered to go for it to headquarters, four miles away. The route he had to travel was exposed to the enemy’s fire. He hung his foot on the saddle and held on to his horse’s mane; thus swinging on the horse’s side he galloped off and carried the message, returning unharmed.
In Mexico served many men and officers with and against whom he fought in the War between the States. He said afterwards that the knowledge of their characterand methods which he gained during the campaign in Mexico was very useful. In the battle of Chapultepec, Grant, with the help of some comrades, dragged a small cannon up into the belfry of a church and used the place as a fort with great advantage. Major Robert E. Lee, in his report of the battle, commended the young lieutenant, saying that “Second Lieutenant Grant behaved with distinguished gallantry.” In 1848 Grant returned home and that year he was married.
Soon after, his regiment was ordered to California and Oregon. Unwilling to be separated from his family, in 1854 he resigned and came home. From his pay he had not been able to lay aside enough to defray his expenses home and these were paid by his father.
At thirty-two he had to begin the world with a wife and children to support. He moved to Missouri to a small tract of land belonging to his wife. Here he cut and hauled logs and split shingles and built a cabin. He named the place Hardscrabble, because, he said, life there was a “hard scrabble.” He worked diligently raising corn, wheat, and potatoes and cutting cord-wood for sale to help out his expenses, but he did not succeed as a farmer. At the end of three years, he was two thousand dollars in debt. Then he tried the real estate business but at that too he failed.
“Grant did not seem to be just calculated for business, but a more honest, generous man never lived,”said one who knew him in those days. “I don’t believe he knew what dishonor was.”
At last he gave up the struggle in Missouri and went to Galena, Illinois, where his brothers were carrying on a leather business. He began work in their shop as a clerk at six hundred dollars a year.
But he did not finish out the first year. The War between the States began. Grant helped to raise a company of soldiers in Galena and drilled them. As Colonel Grant, he was put in charge of the twenty-first Illinois regiment which he made the best regiment in the state. A little later he was made brigadier-general. After several skirmishes in the border states of Missouri and Kentucky, he went, in February, 1862, with seventeen thousand men and a fleet of gunboats to attack Fort Henry on the Tennessee and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland. Fort Henry was taken by the fleet before the army reached it, and then the land and water forces made ready to attack Fort Donelson. General Buckner, who had been with Grant in Mexico, wrote asking Grant for terms of surrender. “No terms other than an immediate and unconditional surrender can be accepted,” Grant replied. “I propose to move immediately upon your works.” As Buckner was unable to hold the fort, he had to surrender on these terms. Grant was now made major-general.
His next plan was to attack and break the base of Confederate railroad communications in northern Mississippi.For this purpose he marched towards Corinth. The Confederate general, Albert Sidney Johnston, instead of waiting to be attacked, threw his forces gallantly against the Federal army. The battle raged the whole day, without decisive results. That night General Buell brought Grant heavy reinforcements, and in the next day’s battle General Johnston was killed. The Confederates were forced back to Corinth, contending for every inch of ground.
Grant’s third move was to divide the Confederacy by getting command of the posts along the Mississippi River, thus cutting off the western base of supplies. The fleet under Farragut had tried to carry out this scheme. But Vicksburg and Port Hudson were both held by the Confederates, and between these they controlled the river and brought supplies from the west. Vicksburg, called “the Gibraltar of the Mississippi,” was strongly situated. In five battles Grant drove back the Confederate forces and in May, 1863, besieged Vicksburg, resolved to starve it into surrender. Many said that this was a foolish attempt and tried to persuade Lincoln to remove Grant, but Lincoln resolved to give him a chance. Grant closed in on the Confederates and cut off their line of supplies. In July General Pemberton asked for terms and received this answer: “The unconditional surrender of the city and the garrison. I have no terms other than these.” The taking of Vicksburg was a great victory for the Federals.President Lincoln wrote Grant a personal letter: “My dear General, I do not remember that you and I ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service you have done the country.... When you turned northward, I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make a personal acknowledgment that you were right and I was wrong. Yours very truly, A. Lincoln.” Those who had tried to get Grant removed saw that they too were wrong, but they lacked the president’s manly frankness and did not confess it.
Grant was given command of all the armies in the West. He went to Tennessee to relieve the division of the Union army under Rosecrans which the Confederates had hemmed up in Chattanooga. It was shut in by the Tennessee river on the north and by mountains on all other sides. Grant, with Sherman, Sheridan and other brave generals aiding him, marched up the mountain and fought a great battle on Lookout Mountain “above the clouds,” by which the troops in Chattanooga were relieved.
The title of Lieutenant-General, which Washington had borne, was revived for Grant, and he went to Washington in March, 1864, to receive his commission from Lincoln. The president said in giving it, “As the country herein trusts you, so, under God, will it sustain you.”
Lincoln had now found the general that he had beenlooking for, the man able to lead the magnificent Federal army of seven hundred thousand men. Grant went to Virginia, the battle-field of the Confederacy, where for three years Lee had held his own and defeated four generals sent with large armies against him. Grant resolved to break the Confederate lines and to capture Richmond. He thought that one cause of the lack of Federal success had been that the parts of the great army had not worked well together; he tried to make them move like the parts of a well-ordered machine. General Sherman was sent southward on a march to Savannah to lay the country waste so that no help could be sent to Lee’s troops. Sherman’s army covered a track of country sixty miles wide, in which railroads, bridges, houses, and provisions were destroyed.
It took Grant a year and it cost many lives to carry out his plan of overcoming Lee, but he never wavered. The two great generals fought one great battle after another. “I shall fight it out on this line if it takes all summer,” General Grant wrote after the battle at Spottsylvania Court House. Then came the desperate battle of Cold Harbor. After these battles the Federals received reinforcements to repair their losses, but none came to the southern army. There were none to come; even the old men and the boys were already in the field. On the second of April, 1865, the Confederates were forced to abandon Petersburg. Lee endeavoredto withdraw his array but Grant followed close in the rear. After retreating seventy-five miles, the shattered, starving remnant of the Confederate army was surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House, April 9, 1865.
Instead of being detained as prisoners, the Confederate soldiers were released on parole and they were allowed to retain their horses.
“They will need them for their plowing and spring work,” said Grant with kindly wisdom.
“General,” said Lee earnestly, “there is nothing you could have done to accomplish more good either for them or for the government.”
To honor Grant for his services, Congress created for him the rank of general, a higher title than even Washington held. The joy of the North at Lee’s surrender was turned to mourning by the assassination of President Lincoln. This was an even greater calamity for the South than for the North. Lincoln was succeeded by Andrew Johnson and there followed a period of grave mismanagement,—especially of southern affairs. At one time Johnson was impeached—that is, tried for misconduct in office—and he lacked only one vote of being convicted.
Johnson wished to have Lee arrested and punished as a traitor. Grant said that “he had accepted Lee’s surrender and he and his soldiers were prisoners under parole and were not to be punished so long as theyobeyed the laws to which they had sworn allegiance.”
In 1868 Grant was elected president as the candidate of the Republican party by a vote of two hundred and fourteen to eighty. He tried to withdraw the national government more and more from the South and to leave the state governments in control. He was re-elected in 1872 by two hundred and eighty-six votes, showing the people’s approval of his administration. A noteworthy act of his second term was his vetoing the bill for the inflation of the currency, making paper money legally equal to gold and silver.
People wanted him to serve a third term but he refused, and in 1877 started on a tour of the world. He visited Europe and Asia and was everywhere received with honor,—as the guest of Queen Victoria, the kings of Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, the Czar of Russia, and other rulers. Having received royal honors in many lands, he returned in 1880 to California where he had served thirty years before as an obscure young soldier.
His last years were burdened by business misfortunes and physical suffering. He had invested his money in a banking business which failed and involved him in ruin. With poverty came illness, a painful throat disease which was to end in death.
From his sickroom in answer to words of sympathy which came from all parts of the country, indeed of the world he sent this message: “I am very muchtouched and grateful for the sympathy and interest manifested in me by my friends and by those who have not hitherto been regarded as my friends. I desire the good will of all, whether heretofore friends or not.”
To make provision for his family, he set about writing his “Memoirs,” the story of his life and battles. In pain and illness, he toiled on and held death at bay till this work was finished, July 1, 1885. A few days later, he died on July 23. He was laid to rest beside the Hudson and over his remains was erected a magnificent marble tomb; over the doorway of this is inscribed his noble words, “Let us have peace.”