Boys Book of Famous Soldiers | Page 9

that for your colt, I am to pay you twenty-five dollars."
"It would not take a Connecticut farmer to tell what was the price paid for the colt," he added afterward when telling the story.
This little incident, while amusing, reveals a trait in his character which persisted all through life. He was the soul of candor. He called a spade a spade. And he never could bargain.
Another early trait revealing itself in later years was something that, in his Memoirs, he calls a superstition. It was a dislike to turn back when once started on a journey. If he found himself on the wrong road, he would keep going until he came to some branching road rather than turn aside. This habit was destined to make some of the generals on the other side, in the Civil War, somewhat uncomfortable. They found that he never quit.
Thus grew up the boy, Ulysses Grant. He was not considered particularly bright at school, but he was a plodder, going along keeping his own counsel. He could not talk readily, even in a small company, and was hopeless when it came to "speaking a piece" on Friday at the school. But he was a sturdy, outdoor boy, by this time remarkably proficient with horses. At the age of fifteen he had explored the back country for miles roundabout.
His father, however, had never lost sight of the fact that the boy was to get a good schooling--and frequently brought up the subject, to "Lys's" discomfort. The lad was not especially keen for any more books. But the opportunity came--just as others were to come, to shape the whole course of young Grant's life.
The son of a neighbor had received an appointment to West Point, but had failed to pass the entrance examinations. Jesse Grant immediately wrote to the Congressman of the district, in behalf of Ulysses, although the two men were on opposite political sides and had quarreled bitterly: "If you have no other person in view and feel willing to consent to the appointment of Ulysses, you will please signify that consent to the Department."
Ulysses got the appointment, despite the political feud, and it is pleasant to note that the two men healed their differences and became good friends again.
The boy received news of his appointment without much enthusiasm. He would much rather be a horse trader, he told his father. But the latter was determined--and Ulysses went.
Nor did his appointment please others in the village, who thought the boy dull. One man meeting Mr. Grant in the street, said bluntly: "I hear that your boy is going to West Point. Why didn't our Representative pick some one that would be a credit to the district?"
This ill-natured speech may have been inspired by the fact that political feeling ran high at that time; and Jesse Grant as a staunch Whig and Northerner had made a good many enemies.
Ulysses was coached for West Point at an academy at Ripley, Ohio, conducted by William Taylor, and passed his entrance examinations with fair grades. His best study was mathematics. He entered at the age of seventeen.
It took young Grant many a long day to accustom himself to the Military Academy. The hazing encountered by every Freshman he didn't seem to mind, so the older men soon let him alone. But the drill and the dress! To this farm lad it was deadly. These were the days of the "ramrod" tactics of Winfield Scott--the starch and stock and buckram days of the army. "Old Fuss and Feathers" his critics called him, but with all his love of pomp and circumstance Scott was a splendid soldier, whether on the drill ground, or in the face of the enemy. Nevertheless, to Grant it was a constant trial, at first. He felt like a fish out of water. General Charles King thus speaks of him:
"Phlegmatic in temperament and long given to ease and deliberation in all his movements at home, this springing to attention at the tap of the drum, this snapping together of the heels at the sound of a sergeant's voice, this sudden freezing to a rigid pose without the move of a muscle, except at the word of command, was something almost beyond him. It seemed utterly unnatural, if not utterly repugnant. Accustomed to swinging along the winding banks of the White Oak, or the cow-paths of the pasture lot, this moving only at a measured pace of twenty-eight inches, and one hundred and ten to the minute, and all in strict unison with the step of the guide on the marching flank or at the head of column, came ten times harder than ever did the pages of 'analytical' or the calculus.
"Grant had no sense of rhythm. He had no joy in martial music. The thrill and inspiration