Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 04.djvu/385

 GRANT

GRANT

L. Hamer of Georgetown. In writing to Mr. Hanier, who was an acquaintance of the family, Mr. Grant referred to his son as H. Ulysses, the boy liaving at his birth received the name of Hiram Ulysses. Just before leaving for West Point young Grant changed the initials on his trunk from H. U. G. to U. H. G., and entered his name at the hotel " Ulysses H. Grant." When Representative Hamer filled the official ap- pointment, knowing his familiar name and also the maiden name of his mother (Simpson), he wrote the name Ulysses S. Grant. When the young cadet reached West Point he notified the

BIRTHPL-ACE. OF CENtlViL CRANT't poi/vjT PLEASA/NT.O

officials of the error, but they were not willing to correct it and he adopted the official name. At the academy he had among his cla.ssmates Sher- man, Thomas, McClellan, Burnside, Hancock, Rosecrans, Pope, Franklin. Longstreet, Ingalls and several others who afterward became prom- inent in the civil war. He was a good mathe- matician and a superior horseman, but only an average student, and was graduated twenty-first in the class of thirty-nine in 1843. He w-as brevetted 2d lieutenant and attached to the 4th infantry stationed at Jefferson barracks. Mo. The next year he accompanied the regiment to Camp Salubrity, La., and in September, 1845, received his commission as 2d lieutenant and with his regiment was ordered to Corpus Christi to become part of the army of occupation re- cruiting for General Taj-lor's invasion of Mexico. His first battle was Palo Alto, May 8, 1846, and at Resaca de la Palma the next day he was in command of the company. As regimental quartermaster of the 4th infantry he was given charge of the pack-train and army wagons on the march of the army to Monterey. In the reduction of Black Fort on September 31, he joined his regiment and being the only officer mounted, led the charge, taking full command on the death of the adjutant. When General Taylor called for a volunteer to order up the delayed ammunition train, then far in the rear, cut off from the commanding general and his

forces by the Mexicans, Lieutenant Grant per- formed the hazardous mission with success. With his regiment he was transferred to the army under General Scott and reached Vera Cruz March 9, 1847, He took part in the siege that terminated in the capture of the city, March 29, 1847. In the march to the Mexican capital he fought in the battle of Cerro Gordo, April 17 and 18; the capture of San Antonio and the battle of Churubusco, August 20, and the battle of Molino del Rey, Sept. 8, 1847. For action in the last named battle he was brevetted 1st lieutenant and for action in the battle of Chapultepec he was brevetted captain. He was personally commended by General Worth for his bravery as exhibited in the march, and on reaching the Mexican capital he was promoted 1st lieutenant. He had as companion officers in Mexico, Davis, Lee, Johnston, Holmes, Pember- ton, Buckner, Longstreet, Herbert and other noted Confederate leaders. He remained in Mexico till the summer of 1848 when he accom- panied his regiment to Pascagoula, Miss. He was married, Aug. 22, 1848, Jo Julia, daughter of Frederick T. Dent and a sister of Capt. Fred- erick T. Dent, a classmate at West Point. He was then stationed at Detroit, Mich., and Sacket Harbor, N.Y., and in July, 1852, he was ordered with the 4th U.S. infantry to San Francisco, Cal., and Fort Vancouver, Ore., by way of New York and the Isthmus of Darien. His position as quartermaster made his labors severe in cross^ ing the isthmus, as the recruits were attacked l)y yellow fever. On Aug. n. 1853, he was promoted captain at Fort Humboldt, Cal. Not finding army life in the far west congenial, he resigned his commission, July 31, 18.54, and returned to New York, where he borrowed SoO of his classmate, S. B. Buckner. which sum enabled him to reach his father's home at Covington, Ky. He then went to St. Louis and settled on a farm near that city, which, together with three slaves, had been given to his wife as a wedding gift by her father. In May, 1860, failing to succeed either as farmer, a real estate agent, or a collector of taxes, he removed his family to Galena, 111., where he was a clerk in his father's store, con- ducted bj' his two brothers and a brotherin law. At the outbreak of the civil war he presided at a patriotic meeting held at Galena to raise a com- pany for service in the Federal army, and volun- teered to drill the Jo Daviess guard, a company of volunteers then forming. On April 25, 1861, he took the company to Springfield, where Gov- ernor Yates secured his temporary services as mustering officer in the adjutant-general's office. He then wrote to the adjutant-general's office at Washington, D.C., offering his services to tlie government, but the war department never