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 doing his great work: "Many of us were not a little surprised to find in him a man of slim figure, slightly stooped, five feet eight inches in height, weighing only a hundred and thirty-five pounds, and of a modesty of mien and gentleness of manner which seemed to fit him more for the court than for the camp. His mouth, like Washington's, was of the letter-box shape, the contact of the lips forming a nearly horizontal line. The firmness with which the General's square-shaped jaws were set when his features were in repose was highly expressive of his force of character and the strength of his will-power. His eyes were dark gray. His hair and beard were of a chestnut-brown color. His face was not perfectly symmetrical, the left eye being a very little lower than the right. His brow was high, broad, and rather square, and was creased with several horizontal wrinkles, which helped to emphasize the serious and somewhat careworn look which was never absent from his countenance."—Century Magazine, November, 1896.

And General Ingalls, who saw his West Point life, says of him at that time: "Grant was such an unassuming fellow when a cadet that nobody would have picked him out as one who was destined to occupy a conspicuous place in history.… And at cavalry drill he excelled every one in his class. He used to take great delight in mounting and breaking-in the most intractable of the new horses that were purchased from time to time and put in the squad. He succeeded in this, not by punishing the animal he had taken in hand, but by patience and tact and his skill in making this creature know what he wanted to have it do. He was a particularly daring jumper. In jumping hurdles, when Grant's turn came, the soldiers in attendance would, at an indication from him, raise the top bar a foot or so higher than usual, and