Boys Book of Famous Soldiers | Page 8

cannot "come back."
But there are exceptions to every rule, and one of the most striking ones in all history, to the above adage, is furnished by the man who led the Union forces to victory in the American Civil War, and later achieved the presidency.
Here was a man who, at forty, was generally regarded as a failure, a ne'er-do-well. But for the accident of war he would in all likelihood have ended his days "unwept, unhonored, and unsung." We have a picture of this middle-aged man, clerking for his younger brothers in a country store, at eight hundred dollars a year, and day by day sinking further into the slough of despond.
He was of little real value to the store, at even that meager salary. He was no good at driving bargains or at palavering with the trade. He tried to keep out of sight as much as possible among the boxes and shelves. His clothing was poor and shabby, his hair and beard long and unkempt. The brand of failure was stamped all over him.
Yet this was the man who in five short years was to become the most famous military leader of his day.
The life story of Ulysses Simpson Grant abounds in strange paradoxes. If ever a man was made the plaything of fate, it was he. His career has even persuaded some writers into the belief that he was "the Man of Mystery."
His father, Jesse Grant, was a self-taught man, who is said to have received but six months actual schooling in his life. He was all the more determined that his son, Ulysses, should have the education that he lacked. We find him intervening more than once to drive the boy contrary to the latter's wishes--but to his later good. The father was tall, about six feet, rugged and aggressive, making friends and enemies with equal readiness. Ulysses' mother, however, was quiet, self-possessed, and patient--qualities which she afterwards gave the boy. Jesse Grant said of her in later years: "Her steadiness and strength of character have been the stay of the family through life."
At the time of Ulysses' birth (April 27, 1822) the family were living at Point Pleasant, Claremont County, Ohio. But when he was still an infant they removed to Georgetown, a few miles away, where the father established a tannery. At this time the town was little more than a clearing hewed out from the virgin forest. Wood was plentiful and cheap, and for this reason, Mr. Grant bought a tract of land and set up his tannery.
Ulysses, or "Lys" as the neighbors called him, was the oldest of six children--three boys and three girls. As soon as Ulysses was old enough, his father started him to school. There were no public schools in those days, so he went to a school maintained by private subscription and taught by a man named John White.
White had his own notions about a curriculum, and one of the most important was discipline. On top of his desk always reposed a bundle of good husky switches--except at frequently recurring times when they were beating a tattoo on some hapless scholar's back. It was his boast that he often used up a whole bunch in a single day. However, his school was no different from many another of the time. Beatings were taken as a matter of course. "Spare the rod and spoil the child!"
Ulysses went to this school until he was fourteen, and mastered the elementary studies. Between whiles he helped his father at the tannery or on the farm. The tannery work he always hated. But outdoor work, particularly with horses, he delighted in. At seven years of age he drove a team with all the skill of a man; and it was said that when he could scarcely walk he could ride horseback. The story is told of him that at a county fair, where a prize of five dollars was offered to any one who could stick on a trick pony, Ulysses won it after several other boys had got thrown helter-skelter. He flung his arms around the pony's fat neck, and stuck on, though as he afterward said: "That pony was as round as an apple."
He tells another amusing story of himself, in these early days. He greatly coveted a young colt owned by a neighboring farmer, and after teasing his father, the latter tried to buy it for him. But he offered only twenty dollars for the colt, and the owner wanted twenty-five. After some dickering without any result, the boy went to the owner with this message, which he delivered all in a breath:
"Father says I may offer you twenty dollars; and if you won't take that, I am to offer you twenty-two and a half; and if you won't take