A laughable incident occurred when he was eight. He saw a colt which he very much coveted, and for which the owner demanded $25. General Grant's father said he would give $20. The boy was so anxious to possess the colt that his father yielded, giving him instructions how to make the bargain. Going to the owner the boy said: "Papa says I may offer you $20 for the colt, but if you won't take that I am to offer $22.50, and if you won't take that, to give you $25." It is needless to say what he had to pay for the colt.
The elder Grant was not poor in the usual sense of the term--on the contrary, he was quite well situated for the time and place.
Ulysses was sent to West Point at seventeen; he was quite apt in mathematics, but had no love for military tactics, and resolved { 310}not to stay in the army, even if he graduated. He was not brilliant in his class here, either--he says himself that had "the class been turned the other end foremost, I should have been near the head." He graduated four years after his entrance, No. 21 in a class of thirty-nine.
It was feared at that time that he had the consumption, for he had a bad cough, but his outdoor life entirely removed it.
His real name was Hiram Ulysses Grant, but some one made a blunder in making out the document appointing him a cadet, and as U. S. Grant he will be known always.
On graduation he was breveted Second Lieutenant of Infantry, and placed in the Fourth Regiment, which was sent to the frontier. But two years went by, ere he was sent to Texas to join General Taylor's army, and here he became a full lieutenant. He was made quartermaster of his regiment early in 1847, after showing great valor in the battles of Palo Alto, Resaca, Monterey, and the siege of Vera Cruz. He participated in all of the engagements, and was promoted on the field of Molino del Rey for his bravery. A few days after an exhibition of the same quality won him special notice and praise from his brigade commander.
When { 311}the Mexican War was over, he was stationed at: Sackett's Harbor, New York. He had long been attached to Miss Julia Dent, the sister of one of his classmates, and August 22, 1848, she became his wife.
Four years later he went with his regiment to California and Oregon, where he became captain. The summer of 1854 saw, apparently, an end to his military career, for he resigned his commission and tried to work a small farm near St. Louis, and attend to real estate in the city. He was { 312}not intended for either vocation. Greater things were in store for him, and, disheartened at his poor success, he went to work for his father, as clerk in his store--the leather trade, in Galena, Illinois.