The appointment to a sergeantcy turned out to be unfortunate. Grant was not much of a sergeant. At the end of a year he was dropped; I mean that he was passed over in the list of captains and lieutenants, and served the last year as a private. West Point did not give Grant much of an education, but its moral pressure was overwhelming, and he retained an immense respect for the Academy as long as he lived. "I think West Point is the best school in the world," he told John Russell Young many years later. "I do not mean the highest grade, but the most thorough in its discipline. A boy to go through four years in West Point must have the essential elements of a strong, manly character. Lacking any of these he must fail. I hear army men say their happiest days were at West Point. I never had that experience. The most trying days of my life were those I spent there, and I never recall them with pleasure." U CHAPTER IV GRANT FALLS IN LOVE § 1 LYSSES wanted a commission in the cavalry, but he could not get it because there was no vacancy in a cavalry regiment. So the finest horseman at West Point had to be content with a second lieutenant's place in the Fourth Infantry, which at that time was stationed at Jefferson Barracks, an army post eight or ten miles below St. Louis. On his way he stopped in Ohio to visit his parents. They lived then in Bethel, a little cross-roads village near Georgetown. Having sold his tannery, Jesse Grant had turned himself into a farmer. Lieutenant Grant's arrival created a goggle-eyed sensation in the sleepy hamlet. Most of its inhabitants had never seen an army officer before, and did not quite know the difference between a lieutenant and a general. The rural imagination played in fantastic conceptions around his dazzling uniform, the heroic traditions of the army, and the immense learning that must be buzzing in his head after such a thorough education at West Point. If he had been a ladies' man he could have won the heart of any girl in the county; but he did not try. As a soldier taking his ease he was a philosopher of the porticos rather than a Mark Antony of the poppy fields. In the timeless afternoons he sat with the middle-aged men around the steps of the Georgetown court-house, where sticks were whittled and discourse was slow. They did not call him "Useless" Grant any more. In their manner respect and curiosity struggled for precedence. He was invited to drill the local militia company. On the day of this ceremony the whole countryside came to town and stood in glad attentiveness about the court-house square. Grant, measuring five feet eight inches in height-and very slender-looked small beside the militia officers, who had been chosen chiefly on account of size and bellowing power. All those who recalled the occasion many years afterward spoke of the resonance and clarity of his voice in giving commands. They said, too, that he was pale and nervous. 82 Under the warm autumn sun Jefferson Barracks was indolently Southern. Sunny and spacious, with its wide verandas and crisp green lawns. The numerous buildings of the post were spread out like the fingers of an open hand. It had the effect of a miniature village planned by a child of generous mind. On the wide parade ground the drilling companies shrank, in the eye, to toy soldiers on a carpet of green velvet. Far away, beyond the surf of white fences, rose the stiff plumes of a horizon of pines through which the sky showed in jagged, pale-blue patches. Life was both dull and quiet. Officers sat for endless hours on the veranda, their feet on the railing, talking of small things and playing the trumpery games that are bred in idleness. Grant's mind was full of intentions and hopes. From his stopping place in Ohio he had written to the head of the mathematical department at West Point that he would like to teach mathematics at the Military Academy. The professor's reply was favorable, though he wrote that there was no opening at the time. This dampening statement was followed by the assurance that, when the next vacancy in an assistant professorship occurred, Grant would be considered for the place. Out of this correspondence the young lieutenant built a |