LIFE AND CAMPAIGNS

OF

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL GRANT.

CHAPTER I.

THE FAMILY AND BOYHOOD OF GENERAL GRANT.

The Grants Emigrate from Scotland.-Their Home in America.-The Removal to the Far West.-Residence in Ohio.—The Orphan Boy.-The Widow takes her Family to Maysville, Kentucky.-Jesse Marries.-The New Home.-Birth of Ulysses.-The Origin of his Name.-Anecdotes of the Boy.-Struggles to Secure an Education.-The Appointment to a Cadetship in the United States Military Academy at West Point.

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL GRANT is of Scotch descent. More than a century ago, his ancestor came to the shores of America, then comparatively a wilderness, and settled in Pennsylvania; while a brother who emigrated with him went on to Canada.

By honest industry, our hardy pioneer supported his growing family upon his forest-girdled clearing, until the Revolutionary War called him to its field of strife. After bravely following the flag of the rising Republic, he returned with the dawn of peace to his home in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. Here Jesse R. Grant was born in January, 1794. Five years later, his father started for the more attractive lands in the far-off valley of the West. With few roads of any kind, it was an enterprise both difficult and perilous, to reach the savage wilds of the vast region watered by the Mississippi and its tributaries. Much of the journey was made in a rude boat down the river-tides -strange, wild sailing, between forest-bordered banks, in whose gloom, startled by the humble "craft," the graceful

deer and the noble bird broke the still-life of primeval nature. Not a State had been formed out of the immense territory which was called the Northwestern, whose boundaries on the one hand were the Alleghany, and on the other the Rocky Mountains. The French had claimed it under the name of Louisiana. A large portion of this rich country was the wide hunting-ground of the Indians.

In 1804, when the Reserve became partially settled, Mr. Grant removed to Deerfield. Here he died, leaving Jesse fatherless. To use his own words :

"I was left a poor orphan boy at eleven years of age, with none to guide my way through the world. I saw that I was destined to get my living by the sweat of my brow, and that it was necessary to select some calling that promised to pay the best; so I learned the tanning busi

I followed that until I was sixty, and then retired." Thus did Jesse, from the earliest childhood inured to pioneer life, with God's blessing, carve his way alone, to an honorable position in society, and to wealth.

When the last war with England threw the country into excitement, and unsettled to some extent its business, the family removed to Maysville, Kentucky. In 1815, with the termination of hostilities, Jesse, returning to Portage County, Ohio, commenced the business of tanning in Ravenna. Fever and ague, once the scourge of the West, compelled young Grant to go South again in 1820. A few months later he returned to Ohio. This charming region had already attracted enterprising people from the colonies East. An interesting peculiarity in the climate is alluded to by early residents in their accounts of the country; and that is, the cool evenings. So much of the land was shaded by forests, that the ground did not get warm during the day; and soon as the sun dropped behind the green ocean of verdure, the air was quite as cold at midsummer there, as in our autumn here. This made the shining bosom of the wide rivers especially cheering to those whose humble dwellings stood on the banks. Among these, was the house of an immigrant from Pennsylvania, who came two years before. His daughter, Hannah Simpson, who was born only twenty-five miles from Philadel

HIS BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD.

19

phia, in Montgomery County, a woman of character and prudent economy, won the heart of Jesse. In June, 1821, they were married. Their first home was at Point Pleasant, on the Ohio River, in Clermont County, Ohio. It is a beautiful spot, below the mouth of Indian Creek. Little Miami River separates Clermont County from Hamilton, whose principal town is Cincinnati, justly called the "Queen City" of the West.

In this new home by the Ohio, a son was born, April 27th, 1822. The humble dwelling is still standing. Writes the original owner: "It is a small one-story frame cottage. It was not worth more than two or three hundred dollars before the war. But every victory gained by the General, or a promotion, adds, in the owner's estimate, another hundred dollars to the price of the cottage." Strangers not unfrequently stop, on their way down the river, to see the recently unknown and unnoticed home.

We give the origin of our Western boy's name, in another extract from a letter received from his father:

"The maternal grandmother was quite a reader of history, and had taken a great fancy to Ulysses, the great Grecian general, who defeated the Trojans by his strategy of the wooden horse. She wished the child named Ulys

His grandfather wanted to have him named Hiram. So both were gratified by naming him Hiram Ulysses. When I wrote to Mr. Hamer, then a member of Congress from our district, to procure the appointment of cadet, he wrote to the War Department, and gave his name 'Ulysses S. Grant.' And we could not get it altered. Simpson was his mother's maiden name. We had a son named Simpson, and Mr. Hamer confounded the two names. We regarded it a matter of but little consequence, and so let it stand."

The absence of fear was always a characteristic of Ulysses. When two years of age, while Mr. Grant was carrying Ulysses in his arms on a public occasion through the village, a young man wished to try the effect of a pistol-report on the child. Mr. Grant consented, saying, "The child has never seen a pistol or gun in his life." The baby hand was put on the lock and pressed quietly