Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph over Advcersity, 1822-1865 - Hardcover

9780395659946: Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph over Advcersity, 1822-1865
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A compelling biography of the Union general challenges stereotypes of Grant as a drunk and a bumbler, focusing on his brilliant military career and his political evolution into a man who came to see the war as the necessary destroyer of slavery. Tour.

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About the Author:
Brooks D. Simpson is a professor of History at Arizona State University and the author of Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and The Politics of War and Reconstruction. He resides in Chandler, Arizona.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
Chapter 1
'My Ulysses' Jesse Grant exemplified what America was
all about. A man of restless ambition striving to make
his own way in the world, he was not shy about sharing
his dreams, his hopes, and his accomplishments with
anyone who would listen. Behind his drive was an
understanding of what it meant to fail. Descended from
good colonial stock, Jesse had watched his father,
Noah Grant, fall short of the family standard. Noah's
claims to military glory as a captain during the
American Revolution find no support in existing
records; he was overly fond of alcohol and frittered
away opportunities and money. He had two sons by a
first wife before she died; with his second wife,
Rachel, whom he married in 1792, he had seven more
children, including Jesse, born in 1794. Ten years
later Rachel died in a cabin in Deerfield, Ohio. Noah
was unable to hold things together, and before long
the family broke up. The two youngest children went
with their father to Maysville, Kentucky, where Peter
Grant, Noah's son by his first marriage, was operating
a tannery. The three middle children were parceled out
to other families. Jesse, who was eleven, and his
older sister Susan were set loose on their own.

The boy knew it would take a lot of work to make his
way up in the world, but he was dead set on doing just
that. For three years he scrambled to stay afloat. At
fourteen he gained a job working on the farm of Judge
George Tod, a member of the Ohio Supreme Court. He
learned something about what might lie ahead for a
hardworking lad when he saw the china bowls and silver
spoons that the Tods used. Mrs. Tod did what she could
to build the boy's ambition and talents, lending him
books to read and urging him to find a calling at
which he could prosper.

1
Jesse took the advice to heart and at sixteen decided
to learn the tanner's trade. He apprenticed with his
half-brother Peter, then worked at several tanneries
in Ohio, including one owned by Owen Brown, whose son,
John, openly denounced the "peculiar institution" of
slavery. Jesse agreed with John's sentiments,
explaining later that he had left Kentucky because "I
would not own slaves and I would not live where there
were slaves and not own them." In 1820 he moved to
Point Pleasant, on the banks of the Ohio River, some
twenty miles upriver from Cincinnati, and commenced
working at Thomas Page's tannery in order to
accumulate enough capital to open his own business. He
also wanted a wife. Page pointed him in the direction
of Bantam, ten miles to the north, where John Simpson
and his family, migrants from Pennsylvania, had
settled on land purchased from Page. Jesse was soon
courting Hannah Simpson, "a plain unpretending girl,
handsome but not vain," as her suitor remembered in
later years. Moreover, she was quiet, allowing the
voluble Jesse to hold forth uncontested. Although John
Simpson was not too sure about Jesse's prospects, his
wife, Sarah, loved to discuss books with the young
man; having ingratiated himself with his prospective
mother-in-law, Jesse found it easier to achieve his
objective of matrimony. As Jesse's savings grew, John
Simpson's reservations faded, and on June 24, 1821,
Jesse Grant wed Hannah Simpson. The newlyweds returned
to Point Pleasant, where Jesse had rented a simple
white frame house next to the tannery.

2
When he was not scraping or tanning hides, Jesse Grant
spent his hours reading and writing. Always willing to
share his opinions with others - and never doubting
his own wisdom - he liked to set down his thoughts on
politics for the local paper. Hannah quietly kept
house, attended the local Methodist church (bringing
Jesse with her), and before long discovered that she
would soon have new responsibilities. In the early
hours of April 27, 1822, she gave birth to a boy,
weighing ten and three-quarters pounds, with rich
red-brown hair, blue eyes, and fair skin. For nearly a
month the newborn went nameless: when Hannah was well
enough to travel, Jesse drove his family up to Bantam,
where several Simpsons had gathered to help select a
name. Hannah wanted to name the boy Albert, after
Pennsylvania's Albert Gallatin, who had played a
prominent role in Jeffersonian politics as a diplomat
and secretary of the treasury. One sister seconded the
choice; another preferred Theodore. John Simpson spoke
up, offering "Hiram, because it is such a handsome
name." When Sarah Simpson, fresh from reading
Fénelon's Telemachus and thrilled by its dramatic
description of Greek heroes, opted for Ulysses, Jesse,
seeing yet another opportunity to please his
mother-in-law, endorsed the suggestion (perhaps he had
a hand in making it, for he had lent the book to
Sarah). Aware of the growing political nature of the
discussion, however, and determined to offend no one,
he decided to leave the choice to chance. Anne
Simpson, Hannah's youngest sister, drew a slip from a
hat bearing the name Ulysses. Looking to swing one
more deal, Jesse then declared that the boy's name
would be Hiram Ulysses - a decision designed to
delight both in-laws. Fate eventually triumphed over
politics: the boy would always be known as Ulysses -
or, as his father would put it, "my Ulysses."

3
By the following year Jesse had accumulated enough
money to strike out on his own. He moved his family
inland to Georgetown, the county seat, set up his own
tannery a block east of the town square, and soon
settled with Hannah and their son in a new brick
two-story home. The structure was an impressive sight
among the log cabins and plaster walls of other
residences in the small town known for the propensity
of its residents to drink - no surprise in light of
the two dozen distilleries in Brown County. No matter,
thought Jesse - he was now set up to make a living in
an area that provided a ready supply of tanning bark.
He befriended the justice of the peace, Thomas L.
Hamer, who shared his political preferences for Andrew
Jackson and a more democratic polity, and commenced
working and writing to make a name for himself. But at
times his offspring stole center stage from his
father. Just as Ulysses neared his second birthday, a
small circus came to town. The toddler, adorned in
petticoats, was fascinated by a trained pony; when the
ringmaster invited members of the audience to ride the
animal, Ulysses begged and implored his father until
he got his way. Lifted onto the horse's back and held
in place by an adult, he circled the ring several
times, "manifesting more glee than he had ever shown
before." Several months later, a neighbor with an odd
sense of curiosity wanted to see how the child would
respond to the noise of a pistol shot. As Jesse held
Ulysses, the boy tugged at the trigger. Finally the
weapon went off: delighted, Ulysses demanded, "Fick it
again! Fick it again!" The next year, however, when
the toddler heard the local physician prescribe powder
to remedy an ailment, he cried out, "No, no, no! I
can't take powder; it will blow me up!" Family members
retold the story for years to come.

4
By the time he was three, Ulysses was joined by a
brother, Samuel; later came several more brothers and
sisters, until by 1839 the Grants had three boys and
three girls. Jesse added to the house as he added to
the family: he bought books, read newspapers, and
continued to make money and broadcast his opinions. As
the eldest child, Ulysses got his own room on the
second floor - but just about all he could see from
his bedroom window was the tannery. He did not enjoy
the view. The process of tanning hides as well as the
stench that resulted turned his stomach. He hated
doing chores. Whenever he could, he preferred to be
with living animals, especially horses, for whom he
soon developed a passion. As a small boy he liked to
go out in the stable and sit beside his four-legged
friends. Aware of the damage an errant hoof might
cause, a neighbor shared her alarm with Hannah Grant.
Calmly, Hannah smiled: "Horses seem to understand
Ulysses."

5
And Ulysses seemed to understand horses. He was only
five years old when he learned how to stand on the
back of a trotting horse, using the reins to keep his
balance. At six he harnessed horses to haul brush,
much to his father's surprise; when Jesse opened a
small livery business, it was Ulysses who often drove
passengers or carted wood. At nine he had saved up
enough money to buy his first horse; local townsfolk
brought him horses to break and train, and marveled as
he raced through town or hugged the neck of an
uncooperative colt as it bucked, kicked, and reared up
on its hind hooves. When a horse had distemper, its
owner would bring it to Ulysses to ride, for the best
way to cure the ailment was by running the horse at a
gallop to burn out the disease. Other boys tried to
imitate him, sometimes prodded on by Ulysses, who
teased them that their horses were too slow: one
unfortunate youth was crushed to death when his mount
suddenly shied and fell on him. Although Ulysses's
reaction to the boy's death went unrecorded,
thereafter he drew closer to the boy's mother, Mrs.
Bailey, who lived just up the street. In turn she
thought he was "exceedingly kind and amiable."

6
Two stories about the boy and horses suggested
something deeper about the character of Jesse Grant's
eldest son.
Ulysses was eleven when another circus visited
Georgetown. Once more the ringmaster brought out a
trained pony; once more Ulysses mounted it. This time,
however, the ringmaster barked orders for the pony to
throw its rider while galloping at full speed around
the ring. Ulysses simply dug in his heels. Undeterred,
the ringmaster brought out a monkey: it scrambled on
board, grabbed Ulysses by the hair, and stared down at
the boy's face. People laughed; then they grew
astonished when they saw that Ulysses stayed on. There
was no quit in this boy. In a similar episode young
Grant earned five dollars for hanging on to a
particularly slick mount.

7
And yet the boy's love of horses could also lead to
embarrassment. He was only eight years old when he set
his heart on buying a colt owned by Robert Ralston, a
farmer who lived just west of town. Jesse, needing to
expand his stable, entrusted his son to make the
purchase, but only after instructing him in the fine
art of negotiating, for he did not want to pay
Ralston's asking price of twenty-five dollars.
Accounts differ in the details of what happened next,
but all agree that when Ralston asked the boy what his
father would pay, Ulysses blurted out, "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."
As he later dryly remarked, "It would not require a
Connecticut man to guess the price finally agreed
upon."

8
This tale soon made the rounds of Georgetown. Fathers
and sons alike guffawed and laughed at the business
acumen of "my Ulysses"; for once Jesse was forced to
listen. Ulysses Grant later recalled that the story
"caused me great heart-burning . . . and it was a long
time before I heard the last of it."

Biographers looking to find the man in the boy have
read much into the incident. It was an early sign of
his naivete in business; it illustrated his
determination to gain his objective; it epitomized his
guilelessness and gullibility. But Grant put his own
stamp on the story. "I certainly showed very plainly
that I had come for the colt and meant to have him,"
he recounted: Jesse's desire to cut a deal would not
deter his son from what he wanted. Additional
information about the aftermath tended to place the
incident in a better light. Nearly four years later,
the horse now nearly blind, Ulysses sold him for
twenty dollars - not a bad price; two years after
that, he spotted the Ralston horse "working on the
tread-wheel of the ferry-boat." Nevertheless, he never
forgot the teasing: "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."

9
Horses were more honest than people, or so Ulysses
seemed to believe, for he gave himself to them as he
never did to his friends. He trusted them, and they
responded to him. Nor was his compassion limited to
horses. He showed little interest in hunting; as for
his father's tanning trade, he frankly "detested it,"
preferring to work his father's fifty-acre farm on the
outskirts of town or do anything else involving
horses. He hauled and plowed; he transported
passengers, sometimes as far as Cincinnati and once to
Toledo, some 250 miles away; he often paid other boys
to do his work at the tannery, then hired out his
services as a horseman to people in the community,
pocketing the difference. For fun he fished in the
summer and skated in the winter, played ball with the
boys, and took the girls on sleigh rides. He enjoyed
swimming in White Oak Creek, which ran just west of
the town, although once he nearly lost his life when
he fell off a log into the creek, then flooded as a
result of recent rains, and found himself being
dragged away by the current; only the alert actions of
his chum, Dan Ammen, rescued him from drowning. At
school he was well behaved, usually escaping the
schoolmaster's switch; his schoolmates found him
quiet, a bit shy, and not particularly studious. "He
was a real nice boy," one of the girls later
remembered, "who never had anything to say and when he
said anything, he always said it short." Another
playmate noted that while Ulysses "was up to any lark
with us," he "went about everything in such a
peculiarly businesslike way. . . . I don't remember
that I ever saw him excited." Perhaps he was a quiet
boy because as Jesse's son he did not want to call
more attention to himself - except when he mounted a
horse, when he mixed flair with an occasional
willingness to show off. Had it not been for this
skill (and the burdens that came with being Jesse
Grant's son), Ulysses would have led an unremarkable
childhood.

10
By the 1830s Georgetown was well on the way toward
shedding its frontier origins. In 1827 a Methodist
church opened across the street from the Grant
residence; two years later the children started
attending school in a newly opened brick building, the
successor to the subscription school just a few dozen
yards from the Grant house. Other homes appeared,
including several that reflected the influences of the
Greek Revival movement, complete with columns. What
was once little more than a clearing was now beginning
to look worthy of the name of county seat.
Jesse gained prominence in Georgetown's political
affairs. His early preference for Andrew Jackson
eroded in the 1830s, and he became a staunch advocate
of the rising Whig party, with its plans for
integrated national gr...

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