The Cecil Whig

General Grant.

The following interesting facts are taken from Colonel Adam Badeau's "Military Career of General Grant," soon to be published:

Hiram Ulysses Grant was born on the 27th of April, 1822, at Point Pleasant, Clermont county, Ohio. His father was of Scotch descent, and a dealer in leather. Ulysses was the eldest of six children. He entered the Military Academy at West Point at the age of seventeen, the Congressman who procured his appointment giving his name by mistake as Ulysses S. Grant. Simpson was the maiden name of his mother, and was also borne by one of his younger brothers; this doubtless occasioned the error. Young Grant applied to the authorities at West Point and the Secretary of War to have the blunder corrected, but the request was unnoticed; his comrades at once adopted the initial S. in his behalf, and christened him Uncle Sam—a nickname he never lost in the army; and when he graduated in 1843, twenty-first in a class of thirty-nine, his commission of brevet second lieutenant, and his diploma both styled him Ulysses S. Grant, by which name he has since been known. His regiment was the 4th infantry: he remained in the army eleven years: was engaged in every battle of the Mexican war, except Buena Vista, receiving two brevets for gallantry, and was afterward stationed at various posts on the Canadian frontier, and finally in California and Oregon. In 1848 he married Julia T. Dent, eldest daughter of Frederick Dent, a merchant of St. Louis, and in 1854, having reached the grade of captain, he resigned his commission in the army, and removed to Galena, near St. Louis, where he owned and worked a farm. Afterwards, in 1860, he entered the leather trade, with his father and brother, in Galena, Illinois. Thus, when the civil war broke out, Grant was a private citizen, earning his bread in an insignificant inland town. He was of simple habits and tastes, without influence, and unambitious. Having never been brought in contact with men of eminence, he had no personal knowledge of great affairs. He had never commanded more than a company of soldiers, and, although he had served under Scott and Taylor, it was as a subaltern and without any opportunity of intercourse with those commanders. He had never voted for a President but once; he knew no politicians, for his acquaintance was limited to army officers and Western traders; even in the town where he lived he had not met the member of Congress who represented the district for nine successive years, and who afterward became one of his most intimate personal friends. Of his four children, the eldest was eleven years old. He lived in a little house on the top of one of the picturesque little hills on which Galena is built, and went daily to the warehouse of his father and brother, where leather is sold by wholesale and retail. He was thirty-nine years of age before his countrymen became acquainted with his name. Before receiving his colonelcy, Grant went to Cincinnati to visit Major General McClellan, then in command of Ohio volunteers. The two had known each other in the old army, and although Grant had no intention of making any application, he still hoped that McClellan might offer him a place on his staff. He went twice to head-quarters, but did not meet McClellan there, and returned to Illinois without mentioning his aspirations to any one. On the 14th of February Grant was assigned to the new military district of West Tennessee, "with limits not defined," and Brigadier General William T. Sherman to the command of the district of Cairo. Sherman had been at West Point with Grant, but graduated three years earlier, and they had not since been intimate: their first official intercourse occurred during the siege of Fort Donelson, when Sherman forwarded troops and supplies to Grant with extraordinary despatch. Sherman was the senior, but on the 13th of February he wrote: "I will do everything in my power to hurry forward your reinforcements and supplies, and if I could be of service myself would gladly come without making any question of rank with you or General Smith." After the fall of Fort Donelson Sherman congratulated Grant warmly on his success, and Grant replied: "I feel under many obligations to you for the kind terms of your letter, and hope that, should an opportunity occur, you will earn for yourself the promotion which you are kind enough to say belongs to me. I care nothing for promotion so long as our arms are successful, and no political appointments are made." This was the beginning of a friendship destined thereafter never to flag—to stand the test of apparent rivalry and public censure, to remain firm under trials such as few friendships were ever subjected to, to become warmer as often as it was sought to be interrupted, and in hours of extraordinary anxiety and responsibility and care to afford a solace and a support that were never lacking when the need arose.