Ulysses S. Grant Read Online Free PDF Page A

the Crimea against Russia, with France as an ally, he was nevertheless in the habit of automatically referring to the enemy as “the French.”
    Not even Scott, however, with his ponderous bulk, magnificent uniforms, and overpowering personality, could make the profession of arms respectable or desirable in the United States. At the time, people became soldiers because they had failed at everything else in life. As for West Point, it was virtually the only way to get a college education of sorts at government expense; and for many of those who went there, a vast social step upward.
    Grant went there without enthusiasm or argument—no doubt it sounded a better bet than the tannery—and his first act was to accept the change of his name without putting up a fuss about it. It was mildly embarrassing to have his first initials become U.S., but not nearly as bad as having those on his trunk be “H.U.G.” Very shortly he was called “Uncle Sam,” and as a result he soon becameknown to most of his fellow cadets as “Sam Grant.” After being taunted as “Useless” in school, this development must have come as a relief. 2
    Grant did not do well at West Point—although his interest in mathematics was noted with approval, and not only was his horsemanship much admired, but he set a record height for jumping a horse that had remained unbroken for twenty-five years. His dress, deportment, and appearance were slovenly by West Point standards; he seemed to have no interest in girls or dancing or any form of social life; and his interest in military tactics was negligible. Neither then nor later did he read, study, or even own any of the great books on tactics, which perhaps merely confirms Napoleon’s remark that, “In war, as in prostitution, the amateur is often better than the professional.”
    Not surprisingly Grant was put in the “awkward squad,” composed of young men who were no good at drill, and stayed there for an uncommonly long time, a misfit in the eyes of most of his fellow cadets—awkward, lonely, unmilitary in appearance and bearing, and happy only in the riding ring. Although he grew to five feet eight inches, not a bad height for the mid–nineteenth century, he was only five feet two when he arrived at West Point, and must therefore also have seemed more a child than a young man, despite his great strength. Although his classmates included James Longstreet, William Rosecrans, William Hardee, John Pope, Richard Ewell, and Buckner, all of whom went on to become generals on one side or the other in the Civil War, only Buckner seemed to remember him later on (though it did him little good when he sought surrender terms from Grant at Fort Donelson). Longstreet hardly rememberedGrant at all, despite three years together at West Point. He seems to have been about as invisible as a cadet can be. In later life, though he professed a great respect for West Point, he recalled, “The most trying days of my life were those I spent there, and I never recall them with pleasure.”
    Even his graduation caused him no pleasure. Given his love of horses, he had hoped for appointment to a cavalry regiment, but since there were no vacancies he was obliged to settle for an infantry regiment instead. His one consolation was that in those days infantry officers usually rode, rather than marching alongside the soldiers and noncommissioned officers, so he would at least have a horse to keep him busy.

Chapter Three
    I N E NGLAND THERE WAS a vast social gulf between cavalry and infantry regiments (with the exception of the regiments of the Foot Guards), but that was not the case in the United States. Those cadets who graduated at the top of their class from West Point were appointed to the engineers (like Robert E. Lee) or to the artillery, both branches in which brains were thought to be in demand.
    It cannot but have been a disappointment for a shy young second lieutenant who had hoped to serve in the cavalry to arrive at