GENERAL U. S. GRANT.

GENERAL GRANT was the greatest of American generrals. This judgment is established by two considerations: first, he handled successfully the largest armies which have ever been assem

bled on American soil; and, secondly, at each stage of his military career he achieved substantial success with the means at his disposal. Yet this

great captain, whose success and fame are entirely owing to war, was no lover of strife. He was free from the conqueror's ambition; he was a lover of his country and a firm believer in the principles of republican liberty. From humble beginnings he rose to the highest civil as well as military office of the government, and at each successive step sought simply to discharge the duty plainly marked out for him by the Constitution and the laws.

Ulysses Simpson Grant was born at Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, on the 27th of April, 1822. He was descended in the seventh generation from Matthew Grant, who emigrated from Dorsetshire, England, to Massachusetts in 1630, but soon settled at Windsor, Connecticut. Thence the family removed to Western Pennsylvania, and Jesse Grant

settled on the north bank of the Ohio River, where he married Hannah Simpson. Their oldest son was named Hiram Ulysses, but when an appointment to the U. S. Military Academy at West Point was procured for him from Thomas L. Hamer, the Congressman of the district, the document was inadvertently made out in the name "Ulysses S. Grant." He was unable to procure a rectification of the error, and therefore acquiesced; but his comrades frequently nicknamed him "Uncle Sam Grant." When he graduated from West Point in June, 1843, he was No. 21 in a class of thirty-nine, and was made brevet second lieutenant of infantry. His desire then was to become professor of mathematics, but after some time spent at the Jefferson Barracks, near St. Louis, he went with the Fourth infantry regiment to Louisiana. When Congress passed the bill for the annexation of Texas, in 1845, the regiment proceeded to New Orleans, and thence to Corpus Christi, where the Army of Occupation was concentrating under command of General Zachary Taylor.

Under orders of President Polk, General Taylor crossed the Nueces River, which Mexico had asserted to be the boundary of Texas, and marched to the Rio Grande. The Mexicans now sent troops across that river and battles were fought at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, in which Grant took part. He also shared in the desperate attack on Monterey. When the regular troops were withdrawn from Taylor's army, at the close of 1846, to reinforce General Scott's army at Vera Cruz, Grant went with his regiment and took part in all the battles that followed in the march to Mexico. He was specially mentioned by General Garland as having "acquitted himself most nobly."

After the capture of Mexico and the proclamation of peace Grant returned, and in August, 1848, was married to Miss Julia Dent, of St. Louis. With his wife he spent nearly four years in garrison at Sackett's Harbor and Detroit. In 1852 he was ordered to the Pacific coast, but his wife stayed at her father's home. Grant was stationed at Fort Vancouver, Oregon, and Benicia, California. After two years of monotonous life he resigned his commission and returned to the neighborhood of St. Louis, where his father-in-law gave him

a small farm. The only profit Grant obtained from it was by hauling wood to the city. He then became partner in a real estate agency; but in 1860 removed to Galena, Illinois, where his father and brothers had a tannery.

When the Civil War broke out, in 1861, Grant raised a company of volunteers and went to Springfield, where he was soon employed by the Governor of Illinois in organizing the State forces. Being appointed colonel of the Twenty-first Illinois Infantry, which had become demoralized, he soon restored its discipline, and after he had led it into Missouri, he found that by the friendly offices of Elihu B. Washburne, member of Congress from Galena, he had been made a brigadier general of volunteers. In September General Grant was placed in command at Cairo, Illinois, and soon seized Paducah, Kentucky. In November he was ordered to attack the Confederates at Belmont, on the Mississippi, and taking 3,000 men, imperfectly drilled, in steamboats twenty miles down the river, clambered up a steep bank and captured the enemy's camp. The Confederate General Leonidas Polk, who held the town of Columbus on the opposite side, hurriedly sent reinforcements, through which Grant had to make his way back to the river. Although the Confederates claimed a victory, the substantial results rested with Grant, as he prevented Polk from sending aid to General Sterling Price in his invasion of Missouri.

The first decided victory for the Union was the capture of Fort Henry, which commanded the navigation of the Tennessee River. This fort was reduced by Admiral Foote's gunboats almost before the land forces under Grant arrived. General Halleck, who now had command of the Department of Missouri, had formerly scouted the idea of capturing Fort Henry, when Grant made the proposal to do so. In the same spirit he now ordered him to hold the fort and strengthen his position; but Grant, leaving a sufficient garrison, struck across country to Fort Donelson, twelve miles distant, on the Cumberland. Foote, with six regiments on board his fleet, made an attack from the river. The fleet was badly damaged and the admiral severely wounded. Preparations were now made for a siege; but the Confederate commander, seeing the