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Show D rc: Five-Minute Chats About , Our Presidents . V By JAMES MORGAN 3 (i ULYSSES S. GRANT O O 1822 April 27, Hiram Ulysses Grant born at Point Pleasant, Pleas-ant, O. 1839 Enrolled at West Point Military academy as Ulysses Simpson Grant. 1M6-8 In the Mexican war. 1848 Aug. 22, married Julia Dent. 1854 Resigned from the army. 1861 Colonel of Twenty-first Illinois Illi-nois volunteer regiment of Infantry. 1861 August, brigadier general. 1862 April, fought battle of Shi-loh. Shi-loh. 1863 July 4, took Vicksburg. 1864 March, lieutenant general In command of the armies. May, opened his campaign In the Wilderness in Vlr. glnia. 1865 April 9, received Lee'8 surrender at Appomattox Court House. 1869 March 4, inaugurated eighteenth president, aged 45. 1872 Grant re-elected. The Credit Mobiller scandal scan-dal exposed. 1876 February, "whisky ring" exposed. March, Belknap, secretary of war, impeached. 1877 March 4, Grant retired from the presidency. n rrn A FAILURE at thirty-nine, at forty-one Grant was the most successful soldier of his generation. gener-ation. War was his element, but he did not suspect It. On the contrary, he hated warfare, was bored by army life and never read books on the military art. In the Mexican Mex-ican war he had been contented to be i s 1 Grant as Second Lieutenant. side-tracked from the fighting line In the quartermaster department- That experience inclined him to be a contractor con-tractor for supplying bread to the army at the outbreak of the Civil war, when the politicians refused to make him an officer. The first time Grant came in sight of the enemy in the Civil war he frankly frank-ly tells us that his heart lumped into his throat. "I had not the moral courage," he said, "to halt and consider con-sider what to do ; I kept right on." That is the whole story of how Grant got to Appomattox ; he kept right on. Starting without a friend nt his back, and with only a long, unbroken un-broken trail of disappointments behind be-hind him, he never asked for promotion, promo-tion, an assignment or a favor, yet this unambitious man rose to be general in chief. Mo conqueror ever was higher souled than Grant at Appomattox. Sad and depressed, as he tells us, at the downfall of a valiant foe, he met Lee an If that foeman In war were a neighbor in trouble. When he became president it was Grant's misfortune to know no one except ex-cept his associates in the war. The self-respecting among them kept away from him. But the self-seekers and the camp followers crowded about a man who never forgot and never distrusted dis-trusted a friend, not even when he enme bearing a Greek gift, and Senator Sena-tor Charles Sumner spoke scornfully of the administration as a "gift enterprise." en-terprise." The many scandals of the administration adminis-tration were mostly traceable to the betrayal of Grant's childlike confidence confi-dence In unworthy friends. "Black Frldny" in Wall street cast Its shadow on his family circle Itself. The "whisky ring" Involved the president's private secretary. A member mem-ber of the cabinet was impeached for squalid transactions, but by accepting his resignation Grant let him dodge the conviction. A liberal section of distinguished Republicans revolted against Grant's election to a second term, but they were mostly lenders without followers. follow-ers. The popular revolt did not come until the panic of 1S73 had plunged the country into six years of hard times, nnd a tidal ware In the election elec-tion of 1S74 swept the Democrats Into control of the house. SLUGS AND ARROWS O -U' 1877-9 Grant's tour of the world. 1880 lune, defeated for nomination nomi-nation for third term In Republican national con- vention. Entered the firm of Grant & Ward, bankers in New York. 1884 Failure of Grant & Ward. Grant began to write his "Personal Memoirs." Afflicted Af-flicted with cancer of the throat 1835 March 4, Congress revived the rank of General for him. July 23, died at Mt. McGregor, N. Y., aged sixty-three. O O WHEN Grant left the White House, freed from public cure for the first time In 15 years, his uppermost wish was to visit his daughter, Mrs. Nellie Sartoris, In England, where he was surprised by the public welcome that greeted bis arrival. He was "puzzled "puz-zled to find himself a personage," said James Russell Lowell. But his political politi-cal friends were quick to see In his triumphs abroad a chance to restore their own prestige at home, and they urged him on until he had completed a tour of the world, which remains, perhaps, unequaled in brilliance. As he went his way from London to Tokyo, emperors and kings honored him. Coming home after a three years' absence, he weakly yielded to the politicians who were using his name In a desperate adventure to regain power for the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican party. But the unwritten unwrit-ten law against a third term was vindicated vin-dicated in his defeat in the Republican convention of 1SS0. Falling the White House, he was tempted by a "young Napoleon of Finance" into the whirlpool of New York and to become a partner In a Wall street bank. Into that blind venture he put what little money he had and most of alt . . his name. After three years he was rudely awakened from his dream of wealth by the "young N'apoleon's" request that he go borrowing from William H. Vanderbilt to save the bank from crashing. He was lame from a fall on an Icy street when the truth was broken to him, but he limped into the Fifth avenue palace of the multimillionaire multi-millionaire and came out with $150,000. As he entered the bank, two days later, he was met with the crushing news that the firm of Grant & Ward had gone down in a shameful failure. Hours afterward a clerk found the broken man still sitting at his desk in silent despair, his head dropped forward, his hands gripping the anns of his chair. Out of bad came good. Grant opens his "Personal Memoirs" with a frank admission that he consented to write that great narrative only because he was living on borrowed money when a publisher proposed the undertaking. As he pursued his theme he was gratified grat-ified to discover an unsuspected gift for unfolding a moving tale of hia adventures ad-ventures and achievements in the field. He wrote on until he had finished a story as imposing in Its directness and simplicity as his own nature. And the first sales of It brought his wife. VT. I t v - -?-V. :..:' '- Ulysses S. Grant. when he was gone, more money than all the earnings of his lifetime. One day, in the midst of his writing, writ-ing, as he was eating a peach, ho felt a stabbing pain in his throat. A deadly cancer had him in Its clutch. With grim heroism, be fought It until un-til he had completed the two volumes of his "Memoirs." although he was reduced re-duced to the necessity of whispering his dictation in the ear of a stenographer. stenog-rapher. Finally he was left speechless speech-less and had to write out the closing chapters on a pad in his lap. At the coming of summer, ho was taken up state to a cottage on Mt. McGregor. Mc-Gregor. There he silently welcomed, ns he sat on the piazza, the visitors who came to see him. mining them General Gen-eral Pinion Bolivar Bm-kncr. To Hint classmate at West Point and foeman at Fort Donaldson. Grant gave his last message of rejoicing that his sufferings suffer-ings had united North mid S-iutli in a common sympathy. (Copyright. 13-0. by Jsmei ijo.-an.) |