Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete
deep on the opposite side of the pike. I got the horses stopped on the
very brink of the precipice. My new horse was terribly frightened and
trembled like an aspen; but he was not half so badly frightened as my
companion, Mr. Payne, who deserted me after this last experience, and
took passage on a freight wagon for Maysville. Every time I attempted
to start, my new horse would commence to kick. I was in quite a dilemma
for a time. Once in Maysville I could borrow a horse from an uncle who
lived there; but I was more than a day's travel from that point.
Finally I took out my bandanna--the style of handkerchief in universal
use then--and with this blindfolded my horse. In this way I reached
Maysville safely the next day, no doubt much to the surprise of my
friend. Here I borrowed a horse from my uncle, and the following day we
proceeded on our journey.
About half my school-days in Georgetown were spent at the school of John
D. White, a North Carolinian, and the father of Chilton White who
represented the district in Congress for one term during the rebellion.
Mr. White was always a Democrat in politics, and Chilton followed his
father. He had two older brothers--all three being school-mates of mine
at their father's school--who did not go the same way. The second
brother died before the rebellion began; he was a Whig, and afterwards a
Republican. His oldest brother was a Republican and brave soldier
during the rebellion. Chilton is reported as having told of an earlier
horse-trade of mine. As he told the story, there was a Mr. Ralston
living within a few miles of the village, who owned a colt which I very
much wanted. My father had offered twenty dollars for it, but Ralston
wanted twenty-five. I was so anxious to have the colt, that after the
owner left, I begged to be allowed to take him at the price demanded.
My father yielded, but said twenty dollars was all the horse was worth,
and told me to offer that price; if it was not accepted I was to offer
twenty-two and a half, and if that would not get him, to give the
twenty-five. I at once mounted a horse and went for the colt. When I
got to Mr. Ralston's house, I said to him: "Papa says I may offer you
twenty dollars for the colt, but if you won't take that, I am to offer
twenty-two and a half, and if you won't take that, to give you
twenty-five." It would not require a Connecticut man to guess the price
finally agreed upon. This story is nearly true. I certainly showed
very plainly that I had come for the colt and meant to have him. I
could not have been over eight years old at the time. This transaction
caused me great heart-burning. The story got out among the boys of the
village, and it was a long time before I heard the last of it. Boys
enjoy the misery of their companions, at least village boys in that day
did, and in later life I have found that all adults are not free from
the peculiarity. I kept the horse until he was four years old, when he
went blind, and I sold him for twenty dollars. When I went to Maysville
to school, in 1836, at the age of fourteen, I recognized my colt as one
of the blind horses working on the tread-wheel of the ferry-boat.
I have described enough of my early life to give an impression of the
whole. I did not like to work; but I did as much of it, while young, as
grown men can be hired to do in these days, and attended school at the
same time. I had as many privileges as any boy in the village, and
probably more than most of them. I have no recollection of ever having
been punished at home, either by scolding or by the rod. But at school
the case was different. The rod was freely used there, and I was not
exempt from its influence. I can see John D. White--the school teacher
--now, with his long beech switch always in his hand. It was not always
the same one, either. Switches were brought in bundles, from a beech
wood near the school house, by the boys for whose benefit they were
intended. Often a whole bundle would be used up in a single day. I
never had any hard feelings against my teacher, either while attending
the school, or in later years when reflecting upon my experience. Mr.
White was a kindhearted man, and was much respected by the community in
which he lived. He only followed the universal custom of the period,
and that under which he had received his own education.
CHAPTER II.
WEST POINT--GRADUATION.
In the winter of 1838-9 I was attending school at Ripley, only ten miles
distant from Georgetown, but spent the Christmas holidays at home.
During this vacation my father received a letter from the Honorable
Thomas Morris, then United States Senator from Ohio. When he read it he
said to me, "Ulysses, I believe you are going to receive the
appointment." "What appointment?" I inquired. "To West Point; I have
applied for it." "But I won't go," I said. He said he thought I would,
AND I THOUGHT SO TOO, IF HE DID. I really had no objection to going to
West Point, except that I had a very exalted idea of the acquirements
necessary to get through. I did not believe I possessed them, and could
not bear the idea of failing. There had been four boys from our
village, or its immediate neighborhood, who had been graduated from West
Point, and never a failure of any one appointed from Georgetown, except
in the case of the one whose place I was to take. He was the son of Dr.
Bailey, our nearest and most intimate neighbor. Young Bailey had been
appointed in 1837. Finding before the January examination following,
that he could not pass, he resigned and went to a private school, and
remained there until the following year, when he was reappointed.
Before the next examination he was dismissed. Dr. Bailey was a proud
and sensitive man, and felt the failure of his son so keenly that he
forbade his return home. There were no telegraphs in those days to
disseminate news rapidly, no railroads west of the Alleghanies, and but
few east; and above all, there were no reporters prying into other
people's private affairs. Consequently it did not become generally
known that there was a vacancy at West Point from our district until I
was appointed. I presume Mrs. Bailey confided to my mother the fact
that Bartlett had been dismissed, and that the doctor had forbidden his
son's return home.
The Honorable Thomas L. Hamer, one of the ablest men Ohio ever produced,
was our member of Congress at the time, and had the right of nomination.
He and my father had been members of the same debating society (where
they were generally pitted on opposite sides), and intimate personal
friends from their early manhood up to a few years before. In politics
they differed. Hamer was a life-long Democrat, while my father was a
Whig. They had a warm discussion, which finally became angry--over some
act of President Jackson, the removal of the deposit of public moneys, I
think--after which they never spoke until after my appointment. I know
both of them felt badly over this estrangement, and would have been glad
at any time to come to a reconciliation; but neither would make the
advance. Under these circumstances my father would not write to Hamer
for the appointment, but he wrote to Thomas Morris, United States
Senator from Ohio, informing him that there was a vacancy at West Point
from our district, and that he would be glad if I could be appointed to
fill it. This letter, I presume, was turned over to Mr. Hamer, and, as
there was no other applicant, he cheerfully appointed me. This healed
the breach between the two, never after reopened.
Besides the argument used by my father in favor of my going to West
Point--that "he thought I would go"--there was another very strong
inducement. I had always a great desire to travel. I was already the
best travelled boy in Georgetown, except the sons of one man, John
Walker, who had emigrated to Texas with his family, and immigrated back
as soon as he could get the means to do so. In his short stay in Texas
he acquired a very different opinion of the country from what one would
form going there now.
I had been east to Wheeling, Virginia, and north to the Western Reserve,
in Ohio, west to Louisville, and south to Bourbon County, Kentucky,
besides having driven or ridden pretty much over the whole country
within fifty miles of home. Going to West Point would give me the
opportunity of visiting the two great cities of the continent,
Philadelphia and New York. This was enough. When these places were
visited I would have been glad to have had a steamboat or railroad
collision, or any other accident happen, by which I might have received
a temporary injury sufficient to make me ineligible, for a time, to
enter the Academy. Nothing of the kind occurred, and I had to face the
music.
Georgetown has a remarkable record for a western village. It is, and
has been from its earliest existence, a democratic town. There was
probably no time during the rebellion when, if the opportunity could
have been afforded, it would not have voted for Jefferson Davis for
President of the United States, over Mr. Lincoln, or any other
representative of his party; unless it was immediately after some of
John Morgan's men, in his celebrated raid through Ohio, spent a few
hours in the village. The rebels helped themselves to whatever they
could find, horses, boots and shoes, especially horses, and many ordered
meals to be prepared for them by the families. This was no doubt a far
pleasanter duty for some families than it would have been to render a
like service for Union soldiers. The line between the Rebel and Union
element in Georgetown was so marked that it led to divisions even in the
churches. There were churches in that part of Ohio where treason was
preached regularly, and where, to secure membership, hostility to the
government, to the war and to the liberation of the slaves, was far more
essential than a belief in the authenticity or credibility of the Bible.
There were men in Georgetown who filled all the requirements for
membership in these churches.
Yet this far-off western village, with a population, including old and
young, male and female, of about one thousand--about enough for the
organization of a single regiment if all had been men capable of bearing
arms--furnished the Union army four general officers and one colonel,
West Point graduates, and nine generals and field officers of
Volunteers, that I can think of. Of the graduates from West Point, all
had citizenship elsewhere at the breaking out of the rebellion, except
possibly General A. V. Kautz, who had remained in the army from his
graduation. Two of the colonels also entered the service from other
localities. The other seven, General McGroierty, Colonels White, Fyffe,
Loudon and Marshall, Majors King and Bailey, were all residents of
Georgetown when the war broke out, and all of them, who were alive at
the close, returned there. Major Bailey was the cadet who had preceded
me at West Point. He was killed in West Virginia, in his first
engagement. As far as I know, every boy who has entered West Point from
that village since my time has been graduated.
I took passage on a steamer at Ripley, Ohio, for Pittsburg, about the
middle of May, 1839. Western boats at that day did not make regular
trips at stated times, but would stop anywhere, and for any length of
time, for passengers or freight. I have myself been detained two or
three days at a place after steam was up, the gang planks, all but one,
drawn in, and after the time advertised for starting had expired. On
this occasion we had no vexatious delays, and in about three days
Pittsburg was reached. From Pittsburg I chose passage by the canal to
Harrisburg, rather than by the more expeditious stage. This gave a