August 19, 2025 • 13 mins
Discover the remarkable life of Ulysses S. Grant, the celebrated Union hero of the Civil War and the 18th President of the United States. This engaging biography, presented in a concise 145-page pamphlet, offers a fascinating glimpse into the life of a man who shaped American history. Though the author is renowned for his captivating tales of the Old West, he also crafted a significant body of nonfiction that reveals much about Grants legacy. (Summary by David Wales)
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section three of Ulysses s. Grant by Owen Wister. This
LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter four. He
was twenty one and five feet seven inches high, but
bulky no longer. A threatening cough had reduced him to
(00:20):
one hundred and seventeen pounds his weight four years earlier,
though he had grown six inches. For a time, his
hours were fairly free, and he made the acquaintance of
a classmate's sister, Miss Julia Dent, living in the neighborhood.
When Texas and Mexican affairs called his regiment to Louisiana
(00:41):
in the following May, he found that he regarded Miss
Dent as more than an acquaintance, and they became engaged.
Before the end of the month. He was in camp
near the Red River on high ground, so healthy that
they named it Camp Salubrity, And presently he was cured
of his cough and developed a reddish beard that is
(01:04):
described as being much too long for such a youth.
General Richard Taylor of the Confederacy remembers him at this
time as a modest, amiable, but by no means promising
lieutenant in a marching regiment. But Taylor could scarcely have
held this estimate after Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. In
(01:28):
the months of peace proceeding, whether in Louisiana or Corpus Christi,
Grant's thoughts still saw the goal of a professorship. Nor
was his heart in the Mexican War. When it came,
he pronounces it unholy, and he writes the Southern Rebellion
was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican War. Nations, like individuals,
(01:52):
are punished for their transgressions. This forty years retrospect is
consistent with his letter after Sarah Gordo, you say you
would like to hear more about the war, Tell them
I am heartily tired of the wars. On the intellectual side,
his letters read stark and bald as time tables Mexico, Cortez,
(02:17):
Montezuma are nothing to him. But his constant love of
nature leads him to remark and count the strange birds
of the country, and he speaks of the beauty of
the mountain sides covered with palms which toss to and
fro in the wind like plumes in a helmet. This
(02:38):
poetical note rings so strangely in the midst of his
even matter of fact words that one wonders, did he
not hear some one else say it and adopt it
because he thought it good? It was his habit to
do this. It is thus that many years later the
famous bottling up of Butler came to be so described.
(03:01):
Yet though his heart was not in this war, he
shone in its battles. He was in all fights that
he could be in, and in several that he need
not have been in. For after the capture of Vera Cruz,
he was appointed regimental quartermaster, and this position puts an
officer in charge of the trains and furnishes him with
(03:22):
a valid reason for staying behind with them. Grant never did, however,
but was always in the thick of the action. He
was commended in reports breveted first lieutenant for distinguished service
at Molino del Rey, but deaths in that battle brought
him full first lieutenancy, and for acquitting himself most nobly
(03:47):
at Chapultepec, he received the brevet of captain. Yet these
honors do not show him so much out of the
common as what quietly happened between him and general works.
At San Cosmy. He had found a belfry which commanded
an important position of the enemy, and to the top
(04:08):
of this he, with a few men, had managed to
get a mountain howitzer. Presently. General Worth observed and sent
a staff officer for him, Pemberton of Vicksburg. Worth expressed
his gratification at the services the howitzer in the church
steeple was doing, and ordered a captain of Voltiges to
(04:30):
report to me with another howitzer. I could not tell
the General that there was not room enough in the
steeple for another gun, because he probably would have looked
upon such a statement as a contradiction from a second lieutenant.
I took the captain with me, but did not use
the gun. Here, in his prompt and perfect sagacity stands
(04:53):
the future grant quite plain. Thus ends this chapter of
his life, and in he may be said to have
hit the mark. His careless dress and modesty had not
entirely hidden the man beneath them, and now follows a
darkening time in which he misses the mark. Altogether. War
(05:15):
had forced him to exert himself. When war stopped, he stopped.
Also his ease loving nature furnished no inward ambition to
keep him going, and so in the dead calm of
a frontier post, he degenerated. This drifting and stagnation filled
thirteen years, but is not long to tell. In July
(05:40):
eighteen forty eight, he left Mexico for Mississippi with his regiment.
He was a brevet captain and twenty six years old.
In August he was married. As quartermaster, the regiment's new
headquarters at Detroit should have been his post that winter,
but other officer ordered to Sackett's Harbor preferred the gaiety
(06:04):
of Detroit and managed one sees the thing to day
often enough to have Grant sent to Sackett's Harbor and
himself made acting quartermaster at Detroit. This meanness was righted
by General Scott in the spring, and in later days Grant,
having the chance to even things with the brother officer,
(06:26):
did not take it, but stood his friend. In June
eighteen fifty one, Sackett's Harbor became regimental headquarters, and Grant
was there for twelve months when he was ordered to
the Pacific by way of the Isthmus. On account of
her health, Missus Grant did not go with him. He
(06:46):
passed the next year on the Columbia River at what
is now Fort Vancouver, where he was both post and
regimental quartermaster. One last year he spent as captain of
FIE Company, fourth Infantry at Humboldt Bay. Then he left
the army, resigning July thirty one, h eighteen fifty four.
(07:10):
Such were his moves and removes of his doings, the
tale is equally brief. He was known for his exploits
with horses. Otherwise he was unknown save to the very
few brought by chance or duty into familiarity with him.
To provincial blood and environment, he added an extraordinary personal
(07:32):
powerlessness to express himself or go through his manners. In fact,
he had no manners, which is far better than having
bad ones, to be sure, and a certain something in
him seems to have held even the most familiar at
a distance. But even Georgetown and Galena found him wanting,
(07:55):
and this social dumbness did not wholly wear off until
he had been twice Vice President and had traveled round
the world. Either great strain or great on we may
drive a strong, resourceless man to drink, and both at
different times visited Grant and overcame him. It has been
(08:16):
plainly written, but is seldom remembered, that his head in
these days was singularly light, a strange thing in such
a temperament, but well authenticated. Very little was too much
for him. Never to touch liquor was his only safety.
How he left the army is conflictingly told. He could
(08:39):
scarcely be expected to explain it himself. It is only
the Franklins and the Rousseaus who can be as impersonally
candid as that. Richardson's version closely tallies with what is
still reported on the coast. Grant's commandant asked for his resignation,
which was not to be forwarded to Washington, but held
(09:00):
in escrow, so to speak, that he might pull himself together.
He could not, and the plain truth is that he
drank himself out of the army. He departed into an
era that was to be one of deepening gloom, remarking,
whoever hears of me in ten years will hear of
(09:21):
a well to do old Missouri farmer. Expecting money at
San Francisco, he did not get it. Sixteen hundred dollars
were also owed him by the post trader at Vancouver.
He saw the man again, but the dollars never The
chief Quartermaster of the coast found him penniless and forlorn,
(09:44):
and helped him to go east in New York. He
was generously helped by Buckner, who had ascended Popapotta Kettle
with him. In the autumn, he is seen working as
a laborer on his father in law's farm near Saint
Lewis with his own hands. He builds a cabin on
some of this land and names it hard Scrabble. It
(10:07):
is recorded that every animal about his farm was a pet.
In eighteen fifty eight he sold his farm at auction.
He went into real estate and next into the custom house,
and was even an auctioneer. It is said sometimes army
friends came to visit him, for he retained their regard,
(10:30):
and with overalls tucked in his boots, he would dine
with them at the planter's house. Personally lonely, he was
also out of sympathy with Saint Louis politics, and although
the events of the world had at length begun to
stir his strong brains, and he had opinions not only
about slavery but also about the Italian War, and studied
(10:53):
maps and newspapers minutely. His comments were received with indulgence
for his audience, looking at the man could scarcely look
for wisdom from him. There came a time when he
walked the streets seeking employment. So painful was it all
that those who knew him preferred to cross the street
(11:16):
rather than meet him. Can any one gage the despair
of a man who, little as he studied himself, must
have known how far below himself he was living. In
March eighteen sixty Grant went to weigh leather and buy
hides for his father's branch store in Galena. He was
(11:39):
paid six hundred dollars at first, and later eight hundred,
but this did not support his wife and four children.
He went to the war in debt, which he paid
from his first military savings. In eighteen sixty six, he
refused his inheritance, saying that he had helped to make
(11:59):
none of his father's wealth. This must be remembered in
considering Grant's acceptance of presence in acknowledgment of his military services.
The year at Gallena was more than ever isolated. His
quiet judgment, however, seems to have been wide awake. He
went to hear Douglas during the campaign of this year, and,
(12:22):
being asked how he liked him, answered he is a
very able at least a very smart man, and from
having been a Democrat so far as he was definitely
anything political. His change of view dates from this occasion.
The words of Douglas caused him to rejoice over Lincoln's election,
(12:45):
except his vote for Buchanan. His single political manifestation previous
to this had been to join the know nothings at
Saint Louis and attend one meeting. But now he had
listened to Douglas and preferredly Lincoln, and South Carolina had seceded,
the state of the country became his one thought. It
(13:07):
is interesting to reflect that South Carolina, the first state
to leave the Union, sent one man in thirty eight
to the Revolution, while Grant's ancestral state, Connecticut, furnished one
man in seven or five times as many. Virginia furnished
one in twenty eight. End of Chapter four
Section three of Ulysses s. Grant by Owen Wister. This
LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter four. He
was twenty one and five feet seven inches high, but
bulky no longer. A threatening cough had reduced him to
(00:20):
one hundred and seventeen pounds his weight four years earlier,
though he had grown six inches. For a time, his
hours were fairly free, and he made the acquaintance of
a classmate's sister, Miss Julia Dent, living in the neighborhood.
When Texas and Mexican affairs called his regiment to Louisiana
(00:41):
in the following May, he found that he regarded Miss
Dent as more than an acquaintance, and they became engaged.
Before the end of the month. He was in camp
near the Red River on high ground, so healthy that
they named it Camp Salubrity, And presently he was cured
of his cough and developed a reddish beard that is
(01:04):
described as being much too long for such a youth.
General Richard Taylor of the Confederacy remembers him at this
time as a modest, amiable, but by no means promising
lieutenant in a marching regiment. But Taylor could scarcely have
held this estimate after Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. In
(01:28):
the months of peace proceeding, whether in Louisiana or Corpus Christi,
Grant's thoughts still saw the goal of a professorship. Nor
was his heart in the Mexican War. When it came,
he pronounces it unholy, and he writes the Southern Rebellion
was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican War. Nations, like individuals,
(01:52):
are punished for their transgressions. This forty years retrospect is
consistent with his letter after Sarah Gordo, you say you
would like to hear more about the war, Tell them
I am heartily tired of the wars. On the intellectual side,
his letters read stark and bald as time tables Mexico, Cortez,
(02:17):
Montezuma are nothing to him. But his constant love of
nature leads him to remark and count the strange birds
of the country, and he speaks of the beauty of
the mountain sides covered with palms which toss to and
fro in the wind like plumes in a helmet. This
(02:38):
poetical note rings so strangely in the midst of his
even matter of fact words that one wonders, did he
not hear some one else say it and adopt it
because he thought it good? It was his habit to
do this. It is thus that many years later the
famous bottling up of Butler came to be so described.
(03:01):
Yet though his heart was not in this war, he
shone in its battles. He was in all fights that
he could be in, and in several that he need
not have been in. For after the capture of Vera Cruz,
he was appointed regimental quartermaster, and this position puts an
officer in charge of the trains and furnishes him with
(03:22):
a valid reason for staying behind with them. Grant never did, however,
but was always in the thick of the action. He
was commended in reports breveted first lieutenant for distinguished service
at Molino del Rey, but deaths in that battle brought
him full first lieutenancy, and for acquitting himself most nobly
(03:47):
at Chapultepec, he received the brevet of captain. Yet these
honors do not show him so much out of the
common as what quietly happened between him and general works.
At San Cosmy. He had found a belfry which commanded
an important position of the enemy, and to the top
(04:08):
of this he, with a few men, had managed to
get a mountain howitzer. Presently. General Worth observed and sent
a staff officer for him, Pemberton of Vicksburg. Worth expressed
his gratification at the services the howitzer in the church
steeple was doing, and ordered a captain of Voltiges to
(04:30):
report to me with another howitzer. I could not tell
the General that there was not room enough in the
steeple for another gun, because he probably would have looked
upon such a statement as a contradiction from a second lieutenant.
I took the captain with me, but did not use
the gun. Here, in his prompt and perfect sagacity stands
(04:53):
the future grant quite plain. Thus ends this chapter of
his life, and in he may be said to have
hit the mark. His careless dress and modesty had not
entirely hidden the man beneath them, and now follows a
darkening time in which he misses the mark. Altogether. War
(05:15):
had forced him to exert himself. When war stopped, he stopped.
Also his ease loving nature furnished no inward ambition to
keep him going, and so in the dead calm of
a frontier post, he degenerated. This drifting and stagnation filled
thirteen years, but is not long to tell. In July
(05:40):
eighteen forty eight, he left Mexico for Mississippi with his regiment.
He was a brevet captain and twenty six years old.
In August he was married. As quartermaster, the regiment's new
headquarters at Detroit should have been his post that winter,
but other officer ordered to Sackett's Harbor preferred the gaiety
(06:04):
of Detroit and managed one sees the thing to day
often enough to have Grant sent to Sackett's Harbor and
himself made acting quartermaster at Detroit. This meanness was righted
by General Scott in the spring, and in later days Grant,
having the chance to even things with the brother officer,
(06:26):
did not take it, but stood his friend. In June
eighteen fifty one, Sackett's Harbor became regimental headquarters, and Grant
was there for twelve months when he was ordered to
the Pacific by way of the Isthmus. On account of
her health, Missus Grant did not go with him. He
(06:46):
passed the next year on the Columbia River at what
is now Fort Vancouver, where he was both post and
regimental quartermaster. One last year he spent as captain of
FIE Company, fourth Infantry at Humboldt Bay. Then he left
the army, resigning July thirty one, h eighteen fifty four.
(07:10):
Such were his moves and removes of his doings, the
tale is equally brief. He was known for his exploits
with horses. Otherwise he was unknown save to the very
few brought by chance or duty into familiarity with him.
To provincial blood and environment, he added an extraordinary personal
(07:32):
powerlessness to express himself or go through his manners. In fact,
he had no manners, which is far better than having
bad ones, to be sure, and a certain something in
him seems to have held even the most familiar at
a distance. But even Georgetown and Galena found him wanting,
(07:55):
and this social dumbness did not wholly wear off until
he had been twice Vice President and had traveled round
the world. Either great strain or great on we may
drive a strong, resourceless man to drink, and both at
different times visited Grant and overcame him. It has been
(08:16):
plainly written, but is seldom remembered, that his head in
these days was singularly light, a strange thing in such
a temperament, but well authenticated. Very little was too much
for him. Never to touch liquor was his only safety.
How he left the army is conflictingly told. He could
(08:39):
scarcely be expected to explain it himself. It is only
the Franklins and the Rousseaus who can be as impersonally
candid as that. Richardson's version closely tallies with what is
still reported on the coast. Grant's commandant asked for his resignation,
which was not to be forwarded to Washington, but held
(09:00):
in escrow, so to speak, that he might pull himself together.
He could not, and the plain truth is that he
drank himself out of the army. He departed into an
era that was to be one of deepening gloom, remarking,
whoever hears of me in ten years will hear of
(09:21):
a well to do old Missouri farmer. Expecting money at
San Francisco, he did not get it. Sixteen hundred dollars
were also owed him by the post trader at Vancouver.
He saw the man again, but the dollars never The
chief Quartermaster of the coast found him penniless and forlorn,
(09:44):
and helped him to go east in New York. He
was generously helped by Buckner, who had ascended Popapotta Kettle
with him. In the autumn, he is seen working as
a laborer on his father in law's farm near Saint
Lewis with his own hands. He builds a cabin on
some of this land and names it hard Scrabble. It
(10:07):
is recorded that every animal about his farm was a pet.
In eighteen fifty eight he sold his farm at auction.
He went into real estate and next into the custom house,
and was even an auctioneer. It is said sometimes army
friends came to visit him, for he retained their regard,
(10:30):
and with overalls tucked in his boots, he would dine
with them at the planter's house. Personally lonely, he was
also out of sympathy with Saint Louis politics, and although
the events of the world had at length begun to
stir his strong brains, and he had opinions not only
about slavery but also about the Italian War, and studied
(10:53):
maps and newspapers minutely. His comments were received with indulgence
for his audience, looking at the man could scarcely look
for wisdom from him. There came a time when he
walked the streets seeking employment. So painful was it all
that those who knew him preferred to cross the street
(11:16):
rather than meet him. Can any one gage the despair
of a man who, little as he studied himself, must
have known how far below himself he was living. In
March eighteen sixty Grant went to weigh leather and buy
hides for his father's branch store in Galena. He was
(11:39):
paid six hundred dollars at first, and later eight hundred,
but this did not support his wife and four children.
He went to the war in debt, which he paid
from his first military savings. In eighteen sixty six, he
refused his inheritance, saying that he had helped to make
(11:59):
none of his father's wealth. This must be remembered in
considering Grant's acceptance of presence in acknowledgment of his military services.
The year at Gallena was more than ever isolated. His
quiet judgment, however, seems to have been wide awake. He
went to hear Douglas during the campaign of this year, and,
(12:22):
being asked how he liked him, answered he is a
very able at least a very smart man, and from
having been a Democrat so far as he was definitely
anything political. His change of view dates from this occasion.
The words of Douglas caused him to rejoice over Lincoln's election,
(12:45):
except his vote for Buchanan. His single political manifestation previous
to this had been to join the know nothings at
Saint Louis and attend one meeting. But now he had
listened to Douglas and preferredly Lincoln, and South Carolina had seceded,
the state of the country became his one thought. It
(13:07):
is interesting to reflect that South Carolina, the first state
to leave the Union, sent one man in thirty eight
to the Revolution, while Grant's ancestral state, Connecticut, furnished one
man in seven or five times as many. Virginia furnished
one in twenty eight. End of Chapter four
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