ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT.

ST the age of thirty-nine Ulysses Simpson Grant held a subordinate post in a small local leather warehouse, after having left the military service of his country under a cloud. At the age of forty-four he was elected to the office of President of the United States. The following sketch will show how apparent failure was turned into brilliant success, through the inherent worth of the man. We get a glimpse of his qualities in the words that Sherman wrote to Grant when the latter was made Lieutenant-General of the American Federal army:-'If you can continue as heretofore to be yourself, simple, honest, and unpretending, you will enjoy through life the respect and love of friends, and the homage of millions of human beings, that will award you a large share in securing to them and their descendants a government of law and stability.' 'Clearness of judgment,' writes another American critic; 'knowledge of character; sagacity and tact in dealing with men; broad views of affairs; prompt intelligence in unexpected and pressing emergencies; ability to control numerous and vast and complicated interests, so that not only the success of each may be assured, but that each success shall directly contribute to the success of all,-if these are not the intellectual components of a character fitted to govern a great nation at a critical period, then all history is at fault.'

About the year of grace 1630 the English ship Mary and John weighed anchor in Plymouth Sound, and arrived safely in Massachusetts, carrying to a new home one Matthew Grant, ancestor of the soldier who more than two hundred years later was destined to overcome the most nearly fatal attempt on the unity of his country. The Grant family in America were held in high respect, and intermarried with good families of the eastern colonies. Captain Noah Grant served in the French war. His son named one of his children after Jesse Root, Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Connecticut; and Jesse Root Grant became in due time father of the eighteenth President of the United States.

President Grant was born at Point Pleasant, in Clermont County, Ohio, on April 27, 1822. He was really christened Hiram Ulysses, and continued to own that name for some years; but when he became a cadet his name was somehow entered as Ulysses Sidney, and he was afterwards referred to as U. S. Grant, both in his diploma and brevet commission. Being thus in a measure constrained to accept the initials, he adopted his mother's name in place of Sidney, and became henceforth known as Ulysses Simpson Grant. Of the early years of General Grant's life we have only very meagre details. His first school was at Georgetown in Ohio; there is no reason to suppose he gave any special signs of brilliance or any premonitions of his future greatness. One of his earliest passions was the love of horses. He rode and drove from a very early age, and through his whole life was noted for his skill as a horseman. His father, who carried on the business of a tanner, was not a successful man; and Ulysses had to assist him in cultivating the farm beside the advanced frontier post of Georgetown. On one occasion, while still young, he was sent

by his father with a waggon to fetch a load of logs from the forest. When the boy reached the timber none of the labourers who were to assist him in loading were to be seen; but Ulysses unhitched the team from the waggon, and, by ingenious contrivance, made the horses assist in raising the heavy logs. When he came home alone his father asked him where the labourers were. 'I don't know and I don't care,' answered Ulysses; 'I got the load without them.'

Young Ulysses had more ambitious views than to succeed to his father as tanner and farmer; and as the paternal poverty forbade a college education, he turned his attention to the army. Through the influence of a member of Congress, who first committed the mistake as to Grant's baptismal name, an appointment was secured to a cadetship in the Government Military School at West Point on the Hudson. Grant passed the preliminary examination, and entered the school at the age of seventeen.

At West Point he did not distinguish himself. There was a strong aristocratic atmosphere about the school, emanating from the haughty sons of wealthy slaveholders in the Southern States; and the tanner's son from Ohio was probably somewhat repressed by an element that he was not accustomed to breathe. His most prominent characteristic while at West Point seems to have been an imperturbable good-nature; but at the same time he did not permit himself to be much imposed upon by any one. He took no eminent position in his class; he was twenty-first out of thirty-nine when he graduated in 1843 at the age of twenty-one. Among his classmates there were, of course, many who afterwards took part in the war that made Grant famous. Among these were Augur, Franklin, Hamilton, and Reynolds, who fought for the North; and

Ripley, French, Holloway, and Gardner, who fought for the South.

Ulysses Grant was appointed brevet second lieutenant in the Fourth Infantry Regiment, and he first saw service in Mexico. General Houston-familiarly known as Sam Houston-had succeeded in his efforts to detach Texas from Mexico. The former was annexed to the United States; and in 1845 General Zachary Taylor embarked for the new State, with a force of 1500 men, including the Fourth Infantry. On March 9, 1846, orders came from home for an advance from the acknowledged western boundary of Mexico to the Rio Grande, an advance tantamount to an invasion of Mexico. Accordingly the American army under Taylor was attacked in May by Arista at the head of 6000 Mexicans; but the fight resulted in a complete success for Taylor. This battle of Palo Alto was Grant's first engagement. But in every subsequent battle fought during the campaign in Mexico he took part, except Buena Vista. At Moline del Rey his bravery led to his promotion on the field to the rank of first lieutenant. His brevet captaincy was next won by his taking share in a successful and decisive manœuvre at the stubborn fight of Chepultepec; but the full grade of captain was confirmed to him only in August 1853. The Mexican campaign showed what stuff there was in the young soldier; his name was mentioned several times in despatches. One of his commanders wrote in an official report:-'I must not omit to mention Lieutenant Grant, who acquitted himself most nobly upon several occasions under my observation.' But not yet was there any suspicion of the power that was in the young brevet captain. He had served creditably in Mexico; but so had scores of other men. He had not elevated himself yet to any conspicuous pre-eminence. After the campaign,

Grant's life was the uneventful life of a soldier in peace. Two years were spent in garrison at Detroit, where his horsemanship attracted notice. A short time was spent at Sackett's Harbour; and in 1852 he was ordered to California.

Grant resigned his commission on July 31, 1854, acting on an intimation that it would be accepted. With his wifewhom he had married soon after the conclusion of the Mexican war-and his young family, he retired to the neighbourhood of St. Louis in Missouri. 'Whoever hears of me in ten years, will hear of a well-to-do old Missouri farmer,' he said. But four years of farming resulted only in failure, and he had to try other means to support himself. He tried many trades, but succeeded in none. One of his resources was selling firewood, which he piled and measured with his own hand. He worked also as a debt-collector and house-agent, and was an unsuccessful candidate for the humble office of county engineer. At last he had to leave St. Louis, and the year 1860 found him acting as clerk in his younger brother's leather store at Galena in Illinois, at a salary of Soo dollars, or £160.

This last position proved for a time a peaceful haven ; and Grant lived happily and quietly with his domestic circle, not troubling himself about external matters, and not even taking that interest in politics which is so peculiarly a feature of American life. It is said that his first vote in any Presidential election was given in 1860 against Abraham Lincoln, who was afterwards to be his firmest and most valuable friend.

The troubles that arose on the question of the neutral territory, and the agitation that resulted in civil war, called Grant from his seclusion. Within ten days after Lincoln's call for troops on April 15, 1861, Grant had led a body of volunteers to Springfield, capital of Illinois. He placed his