Orleans County Monitor

GEN. GRANT'S ROMANCE.

With the name of the good woman and faithful wife who accompanies Gen. Grant to our city, there is a romance connected. While Grant was at West Point he had a friend, or "bunky," as the "plebes" say, for whom he formed a strong attachment. When leaving the academy in 1843, his young friend invited him to pay a visit to his home, and the invitation was accepted. On being gazetted to his regiment, the Fourth infantry, Grant took the usual three months' cadet leave and went to see his friend and classmate, Frederick Dent, who lived with his father, Judge Dent, at St. Louis. It was here Grant saw for the first time Julia Dent, his friend's sister, she being then a girl of 17. The little lieutenant laid siege to her girlish heart, and soon won her consent to become his wife. The Dents lived about four miles from Jefferson barracks, and Grant, to his inexpressible delight, was ordered stationed at the barracks.

War clouds with Mexico were arising and Grant was soon ordered off with his regiment. Ah! then there was hastening to and fro with the little lieutenant, and his marriage had to be postponed. The leaving of a sweetheart behind is about the hardest thing in all nature, but it often happens to officers of the army. How often have we seen a pale Hamlet stalking through the camp late at night with an order in his pocket for the frontier.

Talking of sickness, death in the family, the loss of a father, brother or sister, what are these things when compared with the blow which tears a fond young fellow away from a pair of loving arms? If the lieutenant ever wept it was when he thus parted from his devoted Julia to take the chances of getting his head knocked off in Mexico.

Grant participated in 16 battles in Mexico, and at the close of the war returned to St. Louis with his regiment, and in 1848 was married to Miss Dent.

Many people will to-day contrast the gray-haired soldier with the boy and wonder what he looked like. An officer who was at the military academy when Grant was a cadet there gives the following description of him:-

"I remember him well. He was a small, tiny-looking little fellow, with an independent air about him and a good deal of quiet determination. It was a long time ago, but when I recall old scenes, I can still see Grant, with his overalls strapped down in his boots, standing in front of the quarters. It seems as though it were yesterday that I saw him going to the riding hall with his spurs clanging on the ground and his great cavalry sabre dangling by his side. It is 38 years since, and the General and I must be growing old, but it is wonderful what a short time it seems since I was a young man and saw the famous soldier a mere stripling lad at the Point."—Philadelphia Times.