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02 - Ulysses S. Grant by Owen Wister · Ulysses S. Grant

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  Speaker 1: Section two of Ulysses s. Grant by Owen Wister. This
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain Chapter three. Various
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  Speaker 1: ardent pens have attempted to embellish Grant's boyhood. He has
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  Speaker 1: even been given illustrious descent. It is enough to know
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  Speaker 1: for certain that Scotch in blood and Americans since sixteen
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  Speaker 1: thirty he was of the eighth generation and counted a
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  Speaker 1: grandfather in the Revolution. Besides other soldier ancestors. The first Grant, Matthew,
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  Speaker 1: probably landed at Nantucket, Massachusetts, May thirtieth, sixteen thirty. In
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  Speaker 1: sixteen thirty six, he helped establish the town of Windsor, Connecticut.
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  Speaker 1: He was its first surveyor and a trusted citizen. Samuel
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  Speaker 1: Solomon Noah a Donnerum, that is what the Grants in
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  Speaker 1: colonial Connecticut were called. And with such names as these,
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  Speaker 1: they did what all the other colonial Noahs and a
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  Speaker 1: Donirams were doing. None of them rose to uncommon dimensions.
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  Speaker 1: But they, and such as they were then, as they
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  Speaker 1: are now, the salt and leaven of our country. After
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  Speaker 1: the Revolution, as our frontier widened and the salt and
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  Speaker 1: leaven began to be sprinkled westward, Captain Noah Grant went
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  Speaker 1: gradually to the Ohio River, leaving there no riches and
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  Speaker 1: many children. One of these, Jesse, became a Tanner, and
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  Speaker 1: in eighteen twenty one, married Miss Hannah Simpson from Pennsylvania.
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  Speaker 1: On April twenty seventh, eighteen twenty two, at Point Pleasant
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  Speaker 1: on the Ohio River, twenty five miles above Cincinnati, was
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  Speaker 1: born their eldest son, and christened Hiram Ulysses Hiram because
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  Speaker 1: his grandfather liked them name Ulysses because his step grandmother
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  Speaker 1: had been reading Fenilon. Seventeen years later, when the boy
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  Speaker 1: was appointed to the Military Academy, mister Hamer, knowing missus
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  Speaker 1: Grant's name was Simpson and that we had a son
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  Speaker 1: named Simpson, somehow got the matter a little mixed up
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  Speaker 1: in making the nomination and sent the name in Ulysses
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  Speaker 1: s Grant. Such is the father's narrative. And before leaving
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  Speaker 1: Grant's plain self reliant, uncommercial ancestry, of which his own
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  Speaker 1: character is such a natural and relevant product, let it
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  Speaker 1: be noted that Jesse, besides writing good clear prose, not
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  Speaker 1: unlike his sons, could turn verses fairly well, and also
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  Speaker 1: that a neighbor remarked of Ulysses that he got his
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  Speaker 1: sense from his mother. As to Ulysses, and the congressional
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  Speaker 1: error in his name, he never succeeded in correcting it.
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  Speaker 1: The consequences were that the boy came variously to be
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  Speaker 1: known as Lysses, lyss useless, uncle Sam and unconditional surrender.
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  Speaker 1: His whole story is here written in nicknames. Grant's boyhood
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  Speaker 1: is like his ancestry, wholesome, pastoral, inconspicuous, with a rustic schooling,
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  Speaker 1: a love of the woods, a preference for idleness, and
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  Speaker 1: an affinity for horse flesh. His recorded words and deeds,
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  Speaker 1: save one, might be those not of a thousand, but
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  Speaker 1: a million American boys. He repeated, A noun is the
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  Speaker 1: name of a thing, until I had come to believe it,
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  Speaker 1: so he says himself. When I was seven or eight
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  Speaker 1: years of age, I began hauling all the wood used
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  Speaker 1: in the house and shops. When about eleven years old,
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  Speaker 1: I was strong enough to hold a plow. From that
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  Speaker 1: age until seventeen, I did all the work done with horses.
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  Speaker 1: While still quite young, I had visited Cincinnati, forty five
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  Speaker 1: miles away, several times alone. I did not like to work,
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  Speaker 1: but I did as much of it while young as
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  Speaker 1: grown men can be hired to do in these days,
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  Speaker 1: and attended school at the same time. The rod was
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  Speaker 1: freely used there, and I was not exempt from its influence.
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  Speaker 1: This steadfast, manly not bright boy had quiet gray blue eyes,
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  Speaker 1: a strong straight nose, straight brown hair, and a bulky build.
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  Speaker 1: His understanding of horses and the manner in which he
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  Speaker 1: was successfully trusted with them on overnight journeys while still
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  Speaker 1: a child, bear witness to the tough fiber of responsibility
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  Speaker 1: and courage in him. Nor was he pugnacious, but rather
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  Speaker 1: the reverse, and this too helps a portrait of the boy,
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  Speaker 1: from which the features of the man seem a natural
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  Speaker 1: slow development. It would be strangely inconsistent to find in
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  Speaker 1: Grant's adolescence any signs of precocity, such as mark, for example,
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  Speaker 1: the early years of Webster, another rustic boy with very
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  Speaker 1: similar antecedents. For intellect was Webster's gift, while character was Grant's,
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  Speaker 1: and character finds no outward expression save in life's chances.
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  Speaker 1: Napoleon owes his fame to himself, but Wellington owes his
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  Speaker 1: fame to Napoleon, and save for the Civil War, Grant's
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  Speaker 1: force would have slumbered in him from the cradle to
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  Speaker 1: the grave. Here is the single prophetic incident. It has
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  Speaker 1: been told in many ways, and his own is the best.
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  Speaker 1: As usual, there was a mister Ralston who owned a
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  Speaker 1: cult which I very much wanted. My father had offered
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  Speaker 1: twenty dollars for it, but Ralston wanted twenty five. I
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  Speaker 1: was so anxious to have the colt that my father yielded,
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  Speaker 1: but said twenty dollars was all the horse was worth,
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  Speaker 1: and told me to offer that price. If it was
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  Speaker 1: not accepted, I was to offer twenty two and a half,
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  Speaker 1: and if that would not get him to give the
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  Speaker 1: twenty five, I at once mounted a horse and went
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  Speaker 1: for the colt. When I got to mister Ralston's house,
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  Speaker 1: I said to him, Papa says, I may offer you
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  Speaker 1: twenty dollars for the colt, but if you won't take that,
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  Speaker 1: I am to offer twenty two and a half, and
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  Speaker 1: if you won't take that, to give you twenty five.
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  Speaker 1: He was eight when this happened, and twhen, after all
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  Speaker 1: his vicissitudes, he came to die the same native candor
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  Speaker 1: and guilelessness like truth. At the Wells Bottom shown uncloudy
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  Speaker 1: in his heart. No experience of deceit seems to have
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  Speaker 1: cured him of this inveterate simplicity, or warned him that
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  Speaker 1: others did not possess it. Grant believes every one as
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  Speaker 1: honest as himself. Was said of him during later days
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  Speaker 1: of struggle. Is it wonderful that he failed in each
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  Speaker 1: business venture? When he was elected president? Such a combination
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  Speaker 1: of firmness and integrity was an outlook which naturally filled
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  Speaker 1: the politicians with dismay. They could not foresee that it
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  Speaker 1: would prove a door wide open to every dollar which
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  Speaker 1: they plotted to steal. When not far from his end,
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  Speaker 1: he was asked if such and such a thing had
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  Speaker 1: not distressed him, and replied, no, nothing but being deceived
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  Speaker 1: in people. And this sorrowful thought haunts the preface to
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  Speaker 1: his memoirs. Yes, that old horse story is an omen.
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  Speaker 1: It raises laughter, to be sure, but changed the figure
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  Speaker 1: of Farmer Ralston getting his undue price through the boy's
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  Speaker 1: guilelessness into Belknap of the Fortsill and National Cemetery scandals,
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  Speaker 1: into Babcock of the Whisky Ring, into Jay Gould of
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  Speaker 1: Black Friday, into Ferdinand Ward the final thief who crossed
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  Speaker 1: Grant's credulous path, and the old horse story grows less mirthful.
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  Speaker 1: His bringing up was evidently strict. Both his talk and
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  Speaker 1: life were pure. He seems to have got on without swearing,
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  Speaker 1: even in battle, as extreme a sign of calm force
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  Speaker 1: as can be imagined, even Washington broke out at Monmouth
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  Speaker 1: Court House. Grant's one weakness, drinking, has therefore been the
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  Speaker 1: more conspicuous. But in these early days at george Stown, Ohio,
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  Speaker 1: where the family moved soon after his birth, he seems
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  Speaker 1: to have been soberer than many in that region. As
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  Speaker 1: for an army career, not only had it never entered
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  Speaker 1: his head to be a soldier, but he was averse
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  Speaker 1: to the notion when suggested to him by his father.
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  Speaker 1: A permanent position in some respectable college, he writes, was
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  Speaker 1: his hope. Even after entering West Point, I had no
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  Speaker 1: intention of remaining in the army. Indeed, in closely studying
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  Speaker 1: Grant's temperament, it almost seems as if he were, not,
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  Speaker 1: in the last analysis, a soldier, but a patriot compelled
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  Speaker 1: to fight. Like poets, the world's great captains are born,
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  Speaker 1: not made the art of war. War for war's sake
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  Speaker 1: struck no spark in Grant, but he brought to its
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  Speaker 1: practice a sagacity and a grip of such dimensions as
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  Speaker 1: after some experience, to serve as the equivalence of genius
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  Speaker 1: and instruction. This is sometimes cited to point the demagogic
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  Speaker 1: moral that education is an American ben Butler, in his
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  Speaker 1: book says Grant evidently did not get enough of west
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  Speaker 1: Point in him to hurt him any. All the graduates
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  Speaker 1: in the higher ranks in their classes never came to
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  Speaker 1: anything now. Robert E. Lee graduated second. It took four
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  Speaker 1: years and some half dozen generals to beat him. But
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  Speaker 1: Butler's book would be a joke were it not a stench.
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  Speaker 1: When Grant was near seventeen, he told his father that
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  Speaker 1: he would never do a day's work at Tanning after
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  Speaker 1: twenty one. The sensible Jesse saw no success for him
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  Speaker 1: there if his heart was not in it, and asking
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  Speaker 1: what would he like, was told farming or trading, or
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  Speaker 1: to get an education. He had no farm to give
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  Speaker 1: his son, nor money to send him to college, and
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  Speaker 1: but a poor opinion of a trader's life on the Mississippi.
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  Speaker 1: But West Point offered free education. And subsequent honorable service.
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  Speaker 1: The father settled the question, and this is the son's
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  Speaker 1: account of it. Ulysses, I believe you are going to
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  Speaker 1: receive the appointment. What appointment? I inquired to West Point.
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  Speaker 1: I have applied for it, but I won't go, I said.
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  Speaker 1: He said he thought I would, and I thought so
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  Speaker 1: too if he did. The italics are Grant's own, and
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  Speaker 1: he seldom uses them. Since his career is offered as
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  Speaker 1: an inspiration to American youth, it is a pity that
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  Speaker 1: his bringing up so rarely serves as a model for
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  Speaker 1: American parents. A sound, sturdy wholesomeness in both fathers and
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  Speaker 1: mother is the assisting cause of most that is admirable
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  Speaker 1: in their son. They made no grief over saying good bye,
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  Speaker 1: but across the street a friend and her daughter did,
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  Speaker 1: and the boy exclaimed, why you must be sorry, I
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  Speaker 1: am going. They didn't cry at our house. At that house, however,
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  Speaker 1: during a period of the Mexican War, when the absent
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  Speaker 1: son could not write home, the mother's hair grew gray.
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  Speaker 1: Local opinion of Congressman Hamer's choice was not flattering. I
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  Speaker 1: am astonished that he did not appoint some one with
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  Speaker 1: intellect enough to be a credit to the district, said
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  Speaker 1: a neighbor to the cadet's father, And no special achievement
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  Speaker 1: during those four years of study contradicts this view. The
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  Speaker 1: boy graduated twenty first in a class of thirty nine,
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  Speaker 1: good in mathematics and excellent in horsemen ship. But and
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  Speaker 1: here again is the dimly felt moral fiber. He was
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  Speaker 1: often umpire in disputes, and he was greatly liked by
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  Speaker 1: his friends, who called him Uncle Sam. Indeed, he was
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  Speaker 1: a very uncle like sort of a youth, writes a comrade,
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  Speaker 1: Henry Copey. His picture rises before me in the old
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  Speaker 1: torn coat, obsolescent leather gig top, loose riding pantaloons with
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  Speaker 1: spurs buckled over them, going with his clanking saber to
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  Speaker 1: the drill hall. He exhibited but little enthusiasm in anything.
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  Speaker 1: Here is testimony to that mental indolence or torpor which
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  Speaker 1: pervaded his nature. And he gives more himself. I rarely
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  Speaker 1: read over a lesson the second time I read all
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  Speaker 1: of Bulwers, Cooper's, Marriatt's, Scott's, Washington, Irving's works, Levers, and
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  Speaker 1: many others that I do not now remember. His letters
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  Speaker 1: home show an appreciation of natural scenery, and this he
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  Speaker 1: seems always to have had. During his furlough at home
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  Speaker 1: after two years at the academy. It is narrated by
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  Speaker 1: Richardson that, in accordance with an agreement between himself and
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  Speaker 1: classmates to abstain from liquor for a year, he steadily
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  Speaker 1: refused to drink with his old friends. The object of
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  Speaker 1: the cadets was to strengthen by their example one of
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  Speaker 1: their number who was falling into bad habits. It has
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  Speaker 1: never been narrated that C. F. Smith, the commandant of Cadets,
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  Speaker 1: sent for the boy once when he was in danger
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  Speaker 1: of being dismissed, and told him that he was capable
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  Speaker 1: of better things. The words that passed on this occasion
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  Speaker 1: have died with the two that spoke them. But Grant
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  Speaker 1: loved and honored Smith with a special fee, and a
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  Speaker 1: great deal lies behind the short sentence in the second
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  Speaker 1: chapter of the Memoirs. So West Point bears consistent witness
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  Speaker 1: to the good and the bad in Grant. He left
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  Speaker 1: it in eighteen forty three, wishing naturally to be a dragoon,
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  Speaker 1: but was commissioned brevet second lieutenant in the fourth Infantry,
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  Speaker 1: to which he reported for duty on September thirty at
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  Speaker 1: Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. End of Chapter three