may never be absent from me as long as I live. How often do I think of them, and how well they strengthen me in every good word and work! My dear mother, should I progress with my studies at West Point and become a soldier of my country I am looking forward with hope to have you spared to share with me any advancement I may make."

His letter to his father written some time after this letter to his mother shows that despite his apparent indifference he had yearnings for future renown. In this letter he says: "I am rendered serious by the impressions which crowd upon me here at West Point. My thoughts are frequently occupied with a hatred I am made to feel towards traitors to my country as I look around me on the memorials that remain of the treason of Arnold. I am full of the conviction of scorn and contempt, which my young and inexperienced pen is unable to express in this letter, towards the conduct of any man who at any time could strike at the liberties of such a nation as ours. If ever a man should be found in our Union base enough to make the attempt to do this-if, like Arnold, they should secretly seek to sell our national inheritance for the mess of pottage of wealth, or power, or section-West Point sternly reminds them of what you, my father, would have your son do. As I stand here in this national fort, a student of arms. under our country's flag, I know full well how you would have me act in such an emergency. I trust my future conduct in such an hour would prove worthy of the patriotic instructions you have given."

However he was not a diligent student, and although he was unexcelled as a horseman, excepting in mathematics, for which he had considerable aptitude, his academic career was far from a brilliant

“A

one. Of his course at West Point he says: military life had no charms for me and I had not the faintest idea of staying in the army, even if I should be graduated, which I did not expect.

Mathematics was very easy to me, so that, when January came, I passed the examination, taking a good standing in that branch. In French, the only other study at that time in the first year's course, my standing was very low. In fact, if the class had been turned the other end foremost I should have been near the head. I never succeeded in getting squarely at either end of my class in any one study during the four years. I came near it in French, artillery, infantry and cavalry tactics, and conduct." Of his career at West Point he further remarks: "I had not been called out' as a corporal, but when I returned from furlough I found myself the last but one about my standing in all the tactics-of eighteen sergeants. The promotion was too much for me. That year my standing in the class-as shown by the number of demerits of the year-was about the same as it was among the sergeants, and I was dropped, and served the fourth year as a private."

Cadet Grant possessed a good deal of originality and was a general favorite with his classmates and, despite his indolence, with his teachers. After he became famous there were those who remembered that it had been prophesied that, "Sam Grant" would yet gain renown and some of his enthusiastic admirers declared that it had been predicted that he would one day be a great General or even President of the United States. He had on one occasion at least a presentiment of his own future greatness. During his first year at West Point, General Scott

reviewed the cadets. He made, by his magnificent physique and more magnificent uniform, a deep impression on Grant, who, in writing of the circumstance in his Memoirs, says, "I believe I did have a presentiment for a moment that I should occupy his place on review." But what boot-black ever looked upon the President of the United States without having a presentiment that he would one day occupy his exalted position. He would be a poor boot-black indeed!

When Ulysses S. Grant graduated from West Point in 1843 he was anxious to enter the cavalry, but was compelled to be content with the Fourth United States Infantry in which corps he took rank as brevet second lieutenant. Then began his real battle with the world. He had so far made many friends and few enemies; some expected much of him; others deemed him, with his lack of self-assertion, and indifference to the show and pomp of his profession a man who would never make his mark. Nearly twenty years were to pass before his strong character was to have the opportunity needful to show what was in him. He was a man who required a great occasion; had the great occasion never come U. S. Grant would doubtless have remained unknown to the nation, as he lacked the sharpness too often required to rise in the ordinary world of business. In the meantime while the occasion was preparing for the man, he was forced to endure much in the sturm und drang period of his life.

CHAPTER XII.

PRESIDENT ULYSSES S. GRANT (Continued).

AFTER graduating from West Point young Grant made a brief sojourn with his friends in Ohio before setting out to join the Fourth Infantry, in which he was a brevet second lieutenant, at Jefferson Barracks, the chief military station in the West. At this time military life in the country was at a low ebb, the entire force being but 7,500 men.

Jefferson Barracks situated near St. Louis was not a place to delight the heart of any ambitious young man, and Lieutenant Grant soon grew very weary of it. He applied to his old professor at West Point for a position as an assistant teacher in mathematics in that institution, and had it not been for the breaking out of the Mexican war he would in all probability have received the appointment, and, instead of leading the greatest armies that any modern general ever led into battle he might have grown to old age, teaching pupils the mysteries of Euclid.

For two years he remained at Jefferson Barracks in a monotonous round of military duties, and but for a friendship which he formed with the family of Colonel Dent these two years would have been unbearable. For Colonel Dent's daughter, a girl of

nineteen, he had more than friendly feelings, and they spent much time together riding about the surrounding country. After two years residence in the West he received leave of absence and paid a visit to his home; but scarcely had he reached it before a letter arrived instructing him to rejoin his regiment which had just been ordered to proceed to the Red River. He at once returned to Missouri to say farewell to the Dents, and took the opportunity to tell Miss Dent of his love for her; and so he departed for his regiment with the understanding that, when his position would permit, Julia Dent would be prepared to join her life with his.

The formal annexation of Texas had made war with Mexico a foregone conclusion, but as hostilities were delayed his regiment camped for nearly a year at Ecore on the Red River. In July, 1845, it was moved to New Orleans and two months later to Corpus Christi in Texas, then held by General Zachary Taylor's "army of occupation." The army that he now joined was as efficient a one as ever took the field. It was well-officered by men who had been trained in West Point, and in the ranks were many who had received their experience in the frontier wars. Many of the officers and men in this army were afterwards to achieve distinction in the Civil

war.

This force was in Texas for the purpose of inviting attack, and accordingly moved over to the Rio Grande opposite the Mexican town of Matamoras. Here it threw up entrenchments and as a result war began. The main army was at this time at Point Isabel for supplies. The sound of the firing at the entrenched position reached the soldiers' ears and General Taylor hastened back with his small force