Ohio When It Was New

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the year 1800 the whole state contained only forty-five thousand people; by 1820 the number had grown to nearly six hundred thousand. In another ten years the figure fell little short of a million, and Ohio stood fourth among the states in population.

It was a land of calloused hands, of lean and muscular men, of canvas-covered wagons with dry mud flaking from their wheels, of shotguns and hunting dogs, of silent women bending over the fires of cooking, with the smoke blowing in their eyes, of log-houses, of wheat growing boisterously in fields full of stumps, of Bibles and poor liquor, of sharp trades, of illiterate lawyers, of hell-fire preachers and innumerable quacks.

Everything was new. The houses were all new, the people were new, and their acquaintances and friends were new. The country had not settled down. Every farm was simply an experiment in soil and muscle, with the farmer looking wistfully toward the next county, where he thought the land might be cheaper and more fertile. This flood of newcomers paid little attention to comfort, to the building of houses, to the laying of walls and fences, because nearly everybody expected either to move on to a better place or to be in such a position of financial independence within a few years that he could build himself a really fine house.

Coarse and heavy-handed as these people were, their coming was nevertheless not a migration of peasants, but of fortuneseekers, for they were buoyant with the high tension of adventure. They were not looking merely for a home. They wanted land, money and power, and their energies fell instinctively into a social pattern that expressed these aspirations. The civilization they created was charged with a naked, muscular energy, though it was for many years without the cosmetics of grace and illusion.

The current myths of the time were the legends that enshrined the great pioneers. Stories of Daniel Boone and the stout-hearted hunters of the long trail were known from New

Hampshire to Georgia; stories of men grown in fancy to the height of demi-gods; half-gods who lived in cabins and carved new commonwealths out of the wilderness. The pioneer was supposed to possess a special courage and virtue of his own. The mirage of new lands and new careers stood on the horizon of the American race. The conquest of nature acquired a romanticism that is equaled only, in our day, by the golden aura which surrounds the gospel of commercial success.

Yet, strong as was this passion for nature, it was destined soon to pass away. By the time young Ulysses had grown into a lad, the men and women of the Ohio settlements had become weary of their harsh toil, and Daniel Boone's ghost had faded through neglect into a faint, dreary wisp. A new ideal was rising from the ground. The coming man was to possess wit before strength, and guile before honesty. His mission was not to work, but to befog his fellow-men and get the better of them. The great day of the politician and the lawyer was moving toward its dawn.

It was not long before every little backwoods county had its flock of lawyers who served to carry on the interminable disputes which gave raciness to life in communities afflicted with a congenital boredom. The courthouse took the place of a non-existent theater. Country people went to a trial as to a picnic, taking their dinners with them. The sayings of foxy lawyers were passed from mouth to ear around the countryside, and a lawyer was esteemed in proportion to his cleverness. A few sharp legal tricks-a circumventing of known facts by quibbles of sophistry-gave a reputation for shrewdness to its perpetrator that sometimes carried him to the legislature, or to Congress.

Almost every young man wanted to be a lawyer, regardless of his literacy or natural aptitude. Many a good farm-hand was spoiled through dallying with law-books.

Love of Horses

84

21

Despite this almost universal urge, there was no hankering for the law in Ulysses. He was incapable of the mental sleight of hand which a lawyer needs; not only that, he was without the desire to acquire it. He had no talent for abstract ideas or for village-store arguments.

He had to work too hard; much harder indeed than any child ought to work, at tasks which were beyond his strength. But this conception of his boyhood does not appear in his Memoirs, and I do not suppose he ever thought of it. He grew up to be a gawky country youth, notwithstanding his good looks, slow at repartee and empty of bright answers.

At social gatherings he was a receding, retiring figure, with nothing to say-but no matter; he was seldom to be found at social gatherings, for horses occupied his interest almost to the point of obsession. Even as Even as a boy he was the best horseman in Georgetown. His understanding of horses had the easy fluency of Dr. Samuel Johnson's understanding of Latin; he would mount a horse and master him as readily as another boy might open a book and master its wisdom.

In this fact a discerning mind, familiar with psychological inversions, may see the repercussion of his ineffective contact with people. His life, like the life of every one else, was a continuous search for power in some form. Among horses, and in contact with physical obstacles, he found a satisfaction which his awkwardness and slow wit kept him from finding among his neighbors.

Once a circus with a trick pony among its attractions came to the village. The proprietor announced that any one who could stay on the pony's back would get a five-dollar bill. This challenge, flaunted in the face of Georgetown's youth and courage, brought out the awkward farm-hands, one by one. The pony's mane had been cut off, and its bare back was probably greased. Without saddle or bridle to hold on

to, the sheepish youths were thrown promptly. Finally Ulysses mounted the capering steed and stayed on by putting his arms around the animal's neck. The trick pony, with the ringmaster's whip cracking around its legs, gave a terrific exhibition of everything a pony can think of to get a man off his back. All to no avail; Ulysses held fast and won the money. "Why, that pony is slick as an apple," was his only comment, as-covered with dust and blushes-he backed away from the

crowd.

Another adventure was with an unbroken horse which he had harnessed to a buggy and was bringing home from Kentucky. The horse ran away, and Ulysses succeeded in stopping him only on the extreme edge of an embankment where another foot of movement would have sent horse, buggy and driver all rolling to the bottom.

While the horse stood panting and trembling, the boy climbed cautiously out of the vehicle and reflected a moment, his hand on the reins. Then an idea occurred to him. He had heard that blind horses are not likely to run away, so he took out his handkerchief and tied it across the horse's eyes. Thus blindfolded, the unbroken horse became a slow-paced Dobbin and was driven home by the lad with great decorum.

These incidents may seem trivial, but they are indicative of a character which is not disturbed by physical encounters, and in which self-reliance and coolness are leading qualities.

Notwithstanding these achievements he gradually acquired the reputation of a numskull among the people of Georgetown. The handling of horses was held of small account in the back counties of southern Ohio, because it was a thing that a boy was expected to do; and his exploits fell into the desuetude that surrounds the common arts. These countrymen were tired of horses and wagons and plowing. That is why they wanted to be lawyers and merchants, and admired the Smart Aleck type of mind.

Yet, even at that, it is very strange that he made so little

"Useless" Grant

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impression. For some reason, which has never fully come to light, he was unpopular among young people of his own age. I suspect his unpopularity was due largely to the fact that he was such poor company. He was bashful, and inept at the fluent jesting that passes for wit among boys and girls.

Among the boys of Georgetown at that time it was the conventional thing to be a successful swearer; profanity stood even higher than obscenity in the juvenile scale of excellence. Ulysses never swore and was not in the least obscene. To the end of his life he did not like to listen to off-color stories, though he had to hear a lot of them in his time. As to profanity, there is no record of his ever having exploded mildly into even a gentle "Damn."

In his later years he was curious about his own lack of desire to swear, and he said that he had no objection to swearing, but he had never wanted to do any of it himself. During the trying days of the Wilderness campaign he was heard several times to say, "Confound it!" and "Doggone it!" But at that time he was forty-two years old.

In the rasping judgment of an average boy-community such a restrained youth is generally considered a sort of male girl, and treated with ridicule. Ulysses was saved from that fate by reason of his obvious bravery and resourcefulness, so he became a mystery. . . and boys do not like other boys who have inscrutable ways.

Now and then he was the victim of a practical joke, and the people of Georgetown circulated exaggerated stories of his dullness. The village wits pretended not to be able to pronounce his strange name of Ulysses. In derision they called him "Useless" Grant. This remained his nickname until he left the village to become a cadet at West Point.

§ 5

I have an impression that he was very lonely and unhappy as a boy. He did not have any close boy or girl friends,