Grant

Grant passed the entrance exams for West Point, which included a physical exam and tests on penmanship and spelling. He enrolled at West Point under the name Ulysses S. Grant, despite his birth name being Hiram Ulysses Grant. Although Grant had been bullied in his hometown, at West Point he was better liked and became known for his “honesty, candor, and generosity” (21). Grant mostly followed the strict military rules that dominated student life at West Point, although he did act out at several points. The times he broke the rules included cooking in his dorm room and punching a student who tried to haze him. Still, Grant was not the best student outside horse-riding and mathematics, although he also picked up a lifelong understanding of military tactics and history. While on a two-month leave back at his family’s home, he courted a young woman named Katie Lowe. However, back at West Point, Grant suffered from depression. Also, he was punished and lost a promotion where he was made a sergeant because he talked back to a superior officer. Ironically, Grant had a “disinclination for military service” (27) and aspired to only teach mathematics at a university.

Nonetheless, Grant served as a lieutenant at Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis, Missouri. During this time, Grant bristled at an insult from a random child and from the locals of his hometown who thought he had gotten “uppity” (28). Chernow believes this is evidence of how sensitive to insults Grant was. While at Jefferson Barracks, Grant applied for a job as an assistant professor in mathematics at West Point. Also, in St. Louis, Grant was introduced to the sisters of his former West Point roommate, Julia and Nellie Dent, who were both smitten with him. Both girls were the daughter of a colonel, Frederick Dent, whose wealthy family owned the White Haven plantation in Missouri, which was known to have enslaved people. Julia was a very well-educated woman with a particular interest in classical and modern literature like Homer, Lord Byron, and Victor Hugo (31). Over time, Julia and Grant fell in love: “Julia was destined to be the bedrock of Grant’s life, and he was a hero in her eyes long before he became a national hero” (34). Colonel Dent opposed Julia and Grant getting married. At the same time, Grant resented the fact that Julia’s father was an enslaver. Still, Julia and Grant entered a secret engagement.

Grant’s regiment was sent to the border between the United States and Texas, then still an independent country. They were sent as a warning to Mexico, to prevent them from interfering with the United States annexing Texas, which used to be a Mexican territory. Grant was opposed to the annexation. If Texas joined the United States as a slave-owning state, it would disrupt the balance between pro-slavery and anti-slavery states: “In his Memoirs, Grant blasted the Texas scheme as an imperialist adventure, pure and simple, designed to add slave states to the union” (38).

As tensions rose between Mexico and the United States over Texas, Grant returned to Missouri to try to convince Julia’s father to let her and Grant marry. Grant got Colonel Dent to agree he and Julia would be allowed to marry within a year if Julia was still willing. Despite being against the annexation of Texas, Grant treated the prospect of a war with Mexico as a “boyish lark” (40). His regiment was stationed in Corpus Christi, a town near the Mexican border. While there, Grant played Desdemona in a production of Othello until a professional actress could come to Corpus Christi. Grant was part of an army led by the future president, Zackary Taylor, who was impressed by Grant. Soon, Grant was promoted to the office of second lieutenant. The current president, President James K. Polk, had the army stationed in territory disputed between Mexico and Texas, a decision whose morality Grant questioned in his memoirs (43). When the conflict that would become known as the Mexican-American War began, Grant first experienced the horrors of combat, seeing a man killed by a cannonball near him (44). Chernow argues that Grant’s experiences in the war taught him to be compassionate toward the defeated enemy and the “essential nuts and bolts of an army” (46). Even so, Grant was eager to leave the army and marry Julia. He had even given up his dream of becoming a mathematics professor and considered leaving the army to work for his father.

During the Battle of Monterey, Grant showed his brave and generous side. He snuck into the battlefield at night to identify the body of Lieutenant Charles Hoskins, to whom Grant loaned his horse, and gave water to a wounded man. Also, he risked his life to retrieve more supplies of ammunition for his regiment. When the Mexican forces surrendered, Grant had “infinite pathos for their miserable plight” (48) and praised Taylor for his generous surrender terms. From the war, Grant also learned how politics influences military decisions. Because Taylor belonged to the Whig party along with President Polk, he had Taylor replaced with another general, Winfield Scott, because of the risk that Taylor might become a political rival. Grant witnessed Taylor’s upset reaction.

A significant number of future American Civil War officers fought in the Mexican-American War, including Robert E. Lee. Eventually, the war ended once the United States army occupied the capital, Mexico City. There, “in time Grant saw how a wise, charitable policy toward a conquered civilian population restored peaceful conditions with impressive speed” (56). At the same time, the experience of the war caused Grant to drink more heavily than he ever had before. As for the war, it ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Under the terms of the treaty, the United States gained territory that would include the modern states of Texas, California, Nevada, and Utah, and parts of New Mexico and Colorado in exchange for a payment of $15 million. The result of so many new territories disrupted the delicate balance between slave-owning and free states in the United States, so much so Grant would later describe the Civil War as “largely the outgrowth” of the Mexican War (58).

In the aftermath of the Mexican-American War, Grant was subjected to an investigation when a chest containing army money was stolen. While he was being investigated, his prospects in the military were limited. Meanwhile, after a four-year engagement, Grant and Julia finally married in St. Louis on August 22, 1848. Grant and Julia ended up stationed at the army base at Sacketts Harbor in northern New York, which had frigid weather and poor conditions. Eventually, he was exonerated on the charge of theft and allowed to move to nearby Detroit. There, Grant and Julia lived as “a cozy, companionable pair” (66). Julia hosted dinners and dress balls while Grant read works of authors like Edward Bulwer-Lytton and Sir Walter Scott and raced horses (66). They had their first child, Frederick Dent Grant, in 1850.

However, Grant had a “chronic drinking problem” (67) which he tried to find help for from his pastor. Grant’s drinking was well known enough that, when he slipped and fell in front of a man’s house, he sued the owner of the house for violating a city ordinance that homeowners had to keep the sidewalk in front of their house clear of ice and snow. The homeowner countered that Grant was drunk and he had to only pay a fine of six cents. While stationed away from Julia at Sacketts Harbor, Grant joined the local chapter of the Sons of Temperance, an anti-alcohol organization. He and his regiment were sent to California to guard against riots during the Gold Rush. Because she was pregnant again, Julia had to stay behind in Detroit. On the stressful sea voyage through Panama to California, Grant started drinking heavily again. Having to cross the land in Panama since the Panama Canal did not yet exist, Grant faced awful conditions and people suffering from an outbreak of cholera.

Stationed near San Francisco, “Grant was entranced by the brawling atmosphere” and “was susceptible to get-rich-quick schemes in a city jammed with hucksters of every stripe” (75). Later, Grant and his regiment were relocated to Columbia Barracks near Portland, then a small settlement. Despite his anxieties that his father-in-law was trying to sabotage his marriage to Julia, Grant stayed faithful. However, an Indigenous American woman named Moumerto, or Maria, would later claim Grant was the father of her daughter, but Chernow argues there is no evidence of this. Still, Grant was sympathetic toward the plight of Indigenous Americans. While in Oregon, Grant got involved in several failed business ventures, including farming, chickens, and exporting ice to San Francisco. At one point, Grant was drunk while performing his duties as a quartermaster, alienating one army officer named George B. McClellan. Grant’s distance from his family depressed him, especially since he could not afford to relocate his family to the West Coast.

Next, Grant is sent to Fort Humboldt in northern California near the town of Eureka. He remained stressed about his family’s absence and the fact that the government had not yet absolved him for the stolen money from the Mexican-American War. At this time, Grant also entered a conflict with his commanding officer, Robert Buchanan: “Grant could be slovenly in dress and careless in his habits and was sure to grate on a spic-and-span officer” (83). Eventually, Grant resigned from the army. Officially, in his memoirs, Grant claimed he did so because he could no longer bear being separated from his family. However, Chernow argues that the historical evidence instead suggests Grant resigned from the army because of his alcoholism (85). While still in California, Grant was cheated by a friend, Captain T. H. Stevens Jr., which left him struggling to afford passage back east. An office clerk helped Grant secure some money owed to him by the government and passage on a ship to New York. Failing to get money owed to him by his friend Elijah Camp, Grant asked for his father’s support. One story suggests that Grant was even detained in New York City for some time because he was arrested for getting drunk and causing a fight (91). After staying with his parents for a week, Grant was reunited with Julia and his children.

Grant began working as a farmer at the plantation owned by Julia’s family, White Haven. He turned down an offer to work for his father Jesse because Jesse would not allow Julia and their children to come with him. On the estate, Grant built a house for his family, which he gave the meaningful name “Hardscrabble.” At New Haven, Grant further showed his love of books, especially the novels of Charles Dickens, and that he “was an easy victim of spongers, even when he could scarcely spare the money” (96). Grant struggled to find a job. Eventually, he agreed to work as a clerk at his father’s store in Galena, Illinois.