CHAPTER 2

The West Point Years

WHEN GRANT RETURNED home from attending school at Ripley on Christmas holiday in 1838, he discovered that his father was trying to get him into West Point. A letter arrived from Whig Senator Thomas Morris, who represented Ohio. Jesse read the letter out loud to his son and declared, “Ulysses, I believe you are going to receive the appointment.”

Not sure what he meant, Grant replied, “What appointment?”

“To West Point,” his father responded. “I have applied for it.”

The two stubbornly exchanged words with Grant declaring, “But I won’t go.” Jesse wouldn’t back down and convinced his son to give in.

“I really had no objection to going to West Point,” Grant recalled later on, “except that I had a very exalted idea of the acquirements necessary to get through. I did not believe I possessed them, and could not bear the idea of failing.”¹

Before Grant could even enter the gate, he needed to secure a congressional appointment, and as it turned out, Morris had given away one of the slots meant for him to Democratic Congressman Thomas Hamer. Four boys from Georgetown and the surrounding area were graduates of West Point, and Jesse desperately wanted his son to be the fifth. Standing in the way was Hamer’s appointment slated for the son of Dr. Bailey, a neighbor of the Grants. Bart Bailey had been appointed in 1837, but he could not pass his exam, so he resigned and went to a private school. Bailey tried again the following year and was reappointed. But before the next examination, he was dismissed again. (The elder Bailey was embarrassed for his son and tried to keep the failure a secret, but Grant was told the truth from Bart’s mother.)

Now it was up to Jesse to secure the open nomination for his son from Congressman Hamer. Although they were once members of the same debating society, their differing political affiliations made them rivals, and Jesse hated the idea of writing him directly. So Jesse thought he could avoid Hamer by securing an appointment directly from the War Department—they immediately rejected him. With nothing else to do Jesse swallowed his pride and wrote Hamer. As it turned out he was about to leave Congress and responded to Jesse on the last day of his term: “I received your letter and have asked for the appointment of your son, which will doubtless be made. Why didn’t you apply to me sooner?”

Whether he liked it or not, Grant was now headed to the United States Military Academy.

On May 15, 1839, Grant left home and took passage on a steamer from Ripley heading to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a three-day trip. From there he took a ferry to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Nervous about what lay ahead at West Point, Ulysses chose to travel by canal for this leg of the journey instead of the faster stagecoach. He reasoned that “this gave a better opportunity of enjoying the fine scenery of Western Pennsylvania, and I had rather a dread of reaching my destination at all.”²

From Harrisburg he went to Philadelphia, where he spent five days. “I saw about every street in the city,” he recalled. “I attended the theatre, visited Girard College, and got reprimanded from home afterwards, for dallying by the way so long.”³ He also visited relatives while in Philadelphia. Two of them later remembered that “he wandered about the streets and along the Delaware [River].” He told them the city was so “neat and clean that it looked as though it were always fixed up for Sunday.” They also described the future Civil War hero as a “rather awkward country lad, wearing plain ill-fitting clothes and large coarse shoes, as broad as the toes at the widest part of the soles. He was a great smoker and almost every time he would come into the house he would sit up before the fire and light his pipe or cigar by the blazing wood upon the hearth. Then he would interest us with stories of his life in the West. He was a very good talker.”⁴

As he inched closer to West Point, Grant’s next stop was New York City, where he played tourist in the city that later became his final resting place. There he met Fred Dent for the first time. Dent was also an academy aspirant and eventually roomed with Grant during their senior year and later became his brother-in-law. Grant finally reported to the US Military Academy on May 29, 1839. His first day started off on an awkward note: when he presented himself at the adjutant’s office, he registered as Ulysses Hiram Grant, transposing his given names because he did not want to be known by the initials H. U. G. The adjutant looked at him, confused. He told Grant there were no appointments under that name, but there was a Ulysses S. Grant from Ohio. It seems that in haste Congressman Hamer misstated Grant’s given names as Ulysses Simpson. The adjutant refused to correct the error; he was to be known as Ulysses Simpson Grant at West Point. His classmates inevitably interpreted U. S. as “Uncle Sam,” and his nickname then became Sam. Throughout the remainder of his life, he signed most of his correspondence “U. S. Grant,” but in all likelihood, as some previous biographers have suggested, the S has no real meaning. About two weeks later he passed the entrance examination for admission “without difficulty,” he recalled, “very much to my surprise. A 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.” Grant was very unhappy from the start. His first taste of cadet life involved learning the basics of drill and field exercises. He lived in a tent on the parade ground for the better part of the summer until August 28, when camp broke and Grant was moved with the other cadets, called “Things,” into the barracks. He “felt as though I had been at West Point always, and that if I staid to graduation, I would have to remain always.” The Military Academy simply did not appeal to him and Grant was convinced that the next four years would go by slowly. He may not have liked the academy, but he called this part of New York the “prettiest of places.” He wrote to his cousin that “so far as it regards natural attraction it is decidedly the most beautiful place I have ever seen. . . . All in all, I do love the place, it seems as though I could live here forever if my friends would only come too.”

Grant did not take his studies seriously, claiming that he rarely ever read over a lesson the second time. What he did enjoy reading were novels that he borrowed from West Point’s extensive library. Among his favorites were the works of Sir Walter Scott, James Fenimore Cooper, and Washington Irving. When Grant concentrated on his studies it was no surprise that he found mathematics to be the easiest, while French gave him the most troubles. The latter helped place him at the bottom of his class the first year. Grant sarcastically said that “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.” Rufus Ingalls, who roomed with Grant for two years and served under him the last year of the Civil War, confirmed that “in his studies, he [Grant] was lazy and careless. Instead of studying a lesson, he would merely read it over once or twice.”⁵

Each class was divided into sections with twelve or fourteen cadets in each. Every section had a teacher who required that his students recite the lesson at a given hour each day. The cadet was then given a mark reflecting how it was recited. If a cadet recited it perfectly, a mark of three was awarded; if he hesitated even a little on one question, the mark was docked a quarter of a point; if a cadet could not recite the lesson at all, he received a zero. The final grade for the course was determined by the total number of marks received and then added to the final examination score. Grant never mentions in his letters or memoirs how he did with reciting lessons in front of the class, but it can be inferred from his shyness that he did not enjoy this aspect of cadet studies.

When reading Grant’s letters home and his memoirs it is clear that he had mixed emotions about West Point. For instance he had hoped there was some way to leave West Point honorably during his plebe year. He almost got his chance when Congress met in December 1839 to discuss a bill about abolishing the military academy. He recalled,

I read the debates with much interest, but with impatience at the delay in taking action, for I was selfish enough to favor the bill. It never passed, and a year later, although the time hung drearily with me, I would have been sorry to have seen it succeed. My idea then was to get through the course, secure a detail for a few years as assistant professor of mathematics at the Academy, and afterwards obtain a permanent position as professor in some respectable college; but circumstances always did shape my course different from my plans.

After surviving the first two years Grant complained to his cousin that “the examinations are becoming stricter and the studies increased every year, so that now not one half that enter are able to graduate.” Grant worried that he might not make it through the next two years. “For my own part I hope to be able to graduate and understand my courses perfectly,” he relayed to his cousin, “although many that study harder than I do, and write much better than I can, are not able to pass a single examination.” Grant should not have worried about his writing. Letters, reports, orders, and memorandums he wrote during the Civil War are always clear and concise, and there is never any question about their intent. After the war, Grant finished his memoirs just before his death, and they are considered a literary masterpiece.

In addition to “pouring over our dry studies,” as he called them, Grant and his fellow cadets had their share of fun. “Our time is not entirely spent in this dry and irksome way,” he wrote. During the summer of his second year, he attended a “splendid ball.” It was held in a building three stories high that “was well filled by pretty faces from New York, Philadelphia, Albany, Troy, and lots of other places.”⁶ Also that summer the cadets were allowed ten weeks of furlough and Grant returned home. While he was away Jesse Grant prospered and moved the family to Bethel, Ohio where he opened a new tannery. Jesse also bought a leather goods store with a partner in Galena, Illinois as a place to sell his products. When Grant arrived in Bethel he wore a new uniform that was ordered especially for the occasion. Hannah greeted her eldest, whom she had not seen in two years, by telling him “Ulysses, you’ve grown much straighter.” He responded: “Yes, that was the first thing they taught me.”⁷ Jesse presented his son with a colt to ride while he was home. Grant spent most of the ten weeks with his old schoolmates, which he “enjoyed beyond any other period of my life.”⁸ Sadly for Grant “these ten weeks were shorter than one week at West Point.”⁹

At times Grant actually tolerated West Point. One thing that helped was a course in horsemanship. Naturally he mastered in this class and even volunteered to break in the more difficult horses. During his last two years his overall course work got better. Mathematics continued to be his best subject and he showed an aptitude for philosophy. Grant also discovered he had talent as an artist. Cadets were required to take an art class so that as officers they knew how to draw a bridge or other landmarks when planning for battle. Grant and his classmates were lucky to have Robert Walter Weir as their instructor. Weir was self-taught, but also studied in Italy. One of his most famous paintings, Embarkation of the Pilgrims, hangs in the United States Capitol rotunda. Some of Grant’s artwork survive and they include water colors, oils and sketches of Italian landscapes, nearby landmarks, and Native Americans.

Grant also cultivated friendships with classmates that included William Tecumseh Sherman, George H. Thomas, Richard Ewell, William Rosecrans, and Earl Van Dorn. One class ahead of him was James Longstreet and John Pope and one class behind was Simon Boliver Buckner and Winfield Scott Hancock. All of them would of course play prominent roles during the Civil War. Out of the bunch Grant became closest to Longstreet. As one of Grant’s biographers has noted, “the two made an unlikely pair. Grant, small for his age, with a slight stoop and noticeably unmilitary . . . reserved, sensitive and serious. The hulking Longstreet at 6’2”, one of the largest men to attend the military academy in the nineteenth century . . . was boisterous, exuberant and carefree.”¹⁰ Longstreet remembered that he and Grant “became fast friends at our first meeting. [He had] a noble, generous heart, a loveable character, and a sense of honor which was so perfect.”¹¹

One classmate recalled that Grant “was rather slouchy and unmilitary at infantry drills. . . . The principal reputation he gained among his fellow cadets was for common sense, good judgment, entire unselfishness, and absolute fairness in everything he did. When we would get into an excited dispute over any subject, it was a very common thing to say, ‘Well, suppose we see what Sam Grant has to say about it.’” The nickname “Sam” was one of a handful his cadet friends called him. Sherman recalled that when it was recognized that Grant’s first initials were “U. S.,” “a lot of us began to make up names. One said, ‘United States Grant,’ and another ‘Uncle Sam Grant.’”12

During his four years at West Point, one special moment stood out for Grant. General Winfield Scott visited during his Plebe year and reviewed the cadets. Grant recalled that with Scott’s “commanding figure, his quite colossal size and showy uniform, I thought him the finest specimen of manhood my eyes had ever beheld, and the most to be envied. I could never resemble him in appearance, but I believe I did have a presentiment for a moment that someday I should occupy his place on review.”13

The following summer President Martin Van Buren also visited West Point and reviewed the cadets. He did not impress Grant “with the awe which Scott had inspired.” Another who made an impression on Grant was Captain Charles F. Smith, the commandant of cadets. He later wrote of Scott and Smith as “the two men most to be envied in the nation. I retained a high regard for both up to the day of their death.”

During their senior year after all the examinations were passed, the members of Grant’s class were called upon to record their choice of arms of service and regiments, such as infantry, cavalry, or artillery. “I was anxious to enter the cavalry, or dragoons as they were then called,” he later wrote, “but there was only one regiment of dragoons in the Army at that time, and attached to that, besides the full complement of officers, there were at least four brevet second lieutenants.”14 Not having a clue of which branch he would serve, Grant dropped off his measurements with a tailor and told him not to make the uniform until he knew whether it was to be for the infantry or the dragoons. Grant graduated twenty-first out of thirty-nine cadets. When totaling his four-year marks, Grant was 16th in engineering, 28th in ethics, 25th in artillery tactics, 28th in infantry tactics, and 17th in geology. He accumulated 137 demerits during his four years. They were issued for minor infractions, such as being late for reveille roll call, not keeping his musket in good order, and not sweeping his room before morning inspection. Most of these infractions earned him one or two demerits, but he received five demerits for “visiting other barracks at 3 and 4 in the pm.” Fifty-nine of the demerits were for slouching.

After graduation, Grant and his classmates, now commissioned officers, were granted a leave of absence. They were free until the end of September, so he went to Ohio to visit old schoolmates. Waiting for him was “a fine saddle horse purchased for my special use, besides a horse and buggy that I could drive.” Yet Grant was in no physical condition to enjoy himself as he had the last time he was home for an extended period. Six months before graduation, he developed a terrible cough, which Grant called “Tyler’s Grippe.” His weight was down to 117 pounds, the same weight when he entered West Point. However, he had grown six inches in stature since then. What alarmed him most about his illness was the consumption in his father’s family; two of his brothers had died of that disease. (During the Civil War, two more of Grant’s siblings—a brother and a sister—would die of it as well.) Grant managed to regain his strength by resting at home.

Several weeks after he was home Grant learned his fate. He was not going to be a cavalry officer, but was assigned to the Fourth Infantry Regiment. With that in mind Grant wrote the tailor to make an infantry uniform and send it to Ohio. “This was a time of great suspense,” Grant recalled. “I was impatient to get on my uniform and see how it looked, and probably wanted my old school-mates, particularly the girls, to see me in it. The conceit was knocked out of me by two little circumstances that happened soon after the arrival of the clothes, which gave me a distaste for military uniform that I never recovered from.” Shortly after the suit arrived, Grant hurriedly tried it on and rode to Cincinnati on horseback. He recalled that “while I was riding along a street of that city, imagining that everyone was looking at me, with a feeling akin to mine when I first saw General Scott, a little urchin, bareheaded, barefooted, with dirty and ragged pants held up by a bare single gallows—that’s what suspenders were called then— and a shirt that had not seen a wash-tub for weeks, turned to me and cried: ‘Soldier! will you work? No, sir—ee; I’ll sell my shirt first!!’”15 Whenever an embarrassing moment like this occurred, Grant compared it to the time he overpaid for the colt when he was eight years old.

After returning home, Grant continued to be the butt of jokes about his uniform. Across from his family’s house in Bethel there was what he described as an old stage tavern where “man and beast” found accommodation. Grant noticed that the man in charge of the stable, who apparently had a good sense of humor, was “parading the streets, and attending in the stable, barefooted, but in a pair of sky-blue nankeen pantaloons—just the color of my uniform trousers—with a strip of white cotton sheeting sewed down the outside seams in imitation of mine. The joke was a huge one in the mind of many of the people, and was much enjoyed by them; but I did not appreciate it so highly.” Regardless of how he looked, Grant was now a proud officer in the United States Army and about to join the Fourth Infantry at Jefferson Barracks in Missouri as a brevet second lieutenant. Grant spent the remainder of his leave of absence visiting friends in Georgetown and Cincinnati. There was no telling when he would be back in Ohio.