bottom-him, who had boasted of wide possessions-when I saw all this, and after I had personally suffered such experiences, I determined to abandon the business career and to devote all my efforts to worthier and more enduring ends.

And so I set about visiting different parts of the world and seeing its many wonders. Both time and place were favorable to my plans. For Ferdinand, King of Castile, was at that time fitting out four ships to discover new lands in the west, and His Highness made me one of that company of explorers. We set sail from the harbor of Cadiz on the 20th of May, 1497, making our way through the Great Gulf of the Ocean. This voyage lasted eighteen months, during which we discovered many lands and almost countless islands (inhabited as a general rule), of which our forefathers make absolutely no mention. I conclude from this that the ancients had no knowledge of their existence. I may be mistaken, but I remember reading somewhere that they believed the sea to be free and uninhabited. Our poet Dante himself was of this opinion, when, in the 18th canto of the Inferno, he pictures the death of Ulysses. From the following pages, however, your Majesty will learn of the marvels I saw."

The first land seen by Vespucius was in the torrid zone. He says: "The moment we approa

ched we rejoiced not a little to see hordes of naked people running along the shore. Indeed, all of those whom we saw going about naked seemed also to be exceedingly astonished at us, I suppose because they noticed that we wore clothing, and presented a different appearance from them."

It would be unfair to hold Vespucius responsible for a modern fashion, but he remarks that the women do not allow any hair to grow on their eyebrows nor their eyelids, "because they deem it coarse and animal-like to have hair on the body." He speaks highly of the physical prowess of the women, who, he says, are far better swimmers than the men, and can carry on their backs for thirty leagues a greater burden than even a strong man can lift from the ground. He tells of many Indian customs, of eating and drinking, of medicines and of burial.

After due allowance is made for the navigator's desire to tell a really good story, the "Four Voyages" contained the most substantial account of transatlantic discoveries which had appeared up to that time. During these four expeditions Vespucius explored large tracts of South America; if his own statement is to be believed, on his third voyage he went south as far as latitude 52°, only a little north of the Straits of Magellan. So it is not surprising after all that Waldseemuller gave credit to Vespucius for discovering a new world.

Qua Vogefi montis funt iuga preffit opus Vrbs Deodate tuo clarefcens nomine præful

The colophon may be translated as follows: "The city, Deodate, which is made illustrious by thy name, where the summits of the Vosgian mountains lift themselves, has printed this work. The Lord willing, in time to come, it shall print many other monuments. Finished on the seventh day before the Kalends of May in the year one and one-half thousand and seven." The letters S. D. stand for St. Die; G. L. and N. L. are the two Luds, Walter and Nicholas; while M. I. is Martin Ilacomilus, the Graecized form of Waldseemuller. The religious significance of the cross and the circle (the latter being the emblem of Omnipresence or Eternity) is apparent.

Tempore venturo

COLOPHON OF WALDSEEMULLER'S

Ulysses S. Grant, son of Jesse R. Grant and Hannah Simpson Grant, was born at Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, on April 27, 1822. In 1823 he went with his parents to Georgetown, Ohio, where he resided until 1839, when he went to the Military Academy at West Point, New York, at the age of seventeen. His father was a tanner "in comfortable circumstances considering the times, his place of residence and the community in which he lived." The schools at Georgetown were very far from the educational opportunities the boys of today enjoy. There were no free schools, public schools as we have today. They were schools supported by subscription "and a single teacher with from thirty to forty scholars, from the infant learning the A B C's up to the young lady of eighteen and boy of twenty, studying the highest branches there taught, Reading, 'Riting, and 'Rithmetic." Such school young Ulysses attended from the age of five to seventeen, and never missed a quarter from school, but this did not exempt him from manual labor. He detested the tanning trade, but was fond of agriculture and of all employment in which horses were used, and at seven or eight years of age he was hauling all the wood used in the house and the shops.

a

Mrs. Jones has told me a story of his early fondness for horses. When he was two or three years old he would find his way to the stable alone, go into the stall, walk about under the horses and between their legs. Some neighbors, hearing of this daily occurrence, went to his mother and protested against her allowing him to run the risk of being kicked or trampled upon. His mother listened to them patiently and unconcernedly, and calmly replied, "Horses seem to understand Ulysses." At the age of eleven he was strong enough to hold a plow, and from that age until he was seventeen he did all the work done with horses, such as breaking up the land, furrowing, plowing corn and potatoes, bringing in the crops when harvested, hauling all the wood, besides tending two or three horses, a cow or two, and sawing wood for the stoves, and all this time attending school.

I am not painting an imaginary and exaggerated picture of toil and hardships for the boy, of

fearless "wild West" courage, of impossible

feats of daring, and of more than human wisdom in the man, to excite wonder and admiration. This is too frequently indulged in by biographical writers and to the harm of young readers.

In 1839 Jesse R. Grant said to his son, "Ulysses, you are going to get the appointment." "What appointment?" asked the boy. The father replied, "To West Point. I have applied for it." "But I won't go," replied the son. The father said he thought he would, and the General " He in his Memoirs says, "I thought so too.' really had no objection to going to West Point, but his schooling had been limited and a Georgetown boy friend of his had failed there, and Ulysses believed that he did not have the ability to pass the examinations and graduate. He could not bear the idea of failing. He did not want to fail in anything he undertook to do. and in addition to his anxiety over the examinations, he says a military life had no charms for him and he had no idea of staying in the army even if he should graduate.

His distaste for a military life was so great that he anxiously hoped for the passage of the bill before Congress in 1839 abolishing the Military Academy, or if it was not abolished, he hoped to be an assistant professor of mathematics in the Academy. He said in London when on his trip around the world, "I have never felt any sort of fondness for war and I have never advocated it except as a means for peace." And again, "War at all times, whether a civil war between sections of a common country or between nations, ought to be avoided if possible with honor."

Young Grant was about to leave for West Point. The usual preparation had to be made. -the purchase of a trunk, the marking of the same with his initials. At the time of his birth he was named Hiram Ulysses Grant. He rebelled against arriving at West Point with the initials "H. U. G." on his trunk, and so having always been called Ulysses, he himself painted on his trunk the initials "U. S. G." adopting the initial "S" for his middle name, making his name Ulysses S. Grant, not Ulysses Simpson Grant as so often erroneously, Mrs. Jones tells me, is printed.

In the early stage of his last illness, Bishop Newman of the Methodist Church called to inquire after his condition. Mrs. Grant ushered him up to the bedroom where she and her children were watching the sleeping sufferer, and then and there at the request of Mrs. Grant, the General was christened Ulysses S. Grant, he having told Mrs. Grant that he wished to be christened by that name.

In 1843 after graduation from West Point, young Grant reported for duty at Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis, Missouri, and while there he visited at the home of his West Point roommate, Frederick T. Dent, about five miles from St. Louis, and there met Dent's sister, Miss Julia Dent. The Dent home aroused great interest in young Grant, and on one of his visits there was an incident which brought out one of his great qualities, the one, I believe, more than any one of his many excellent qualities, that brought him his great success as a soldier.

He was on horseback and when he reached Gravois Creek, which he had to cross and which was usually so shallow that the authorities had no bridge over it, he found the banks full and overflowing from very heavy rains. He was out for a call and had no extra clothes. There was a call on the other side of that hungrylooking stream stronger than his fear of that flood or of the drenching of his spick and span military uniform. So in he rode and finally and luckily reached the other side a bedraggled young army officer. He says in his Memoirs in reference to this ride, "One of my superstitions had always been, when I started to go anywhere or to do anything, not to turn back or stop until the thing intended was accomplished." I believe that out of his great modesty, exemplified throughout his entire life, he miscalls this quality superstition when the impulse was "force of character" to do the thing he starts out to do, the determination to accomplish what he starts out to accomplish. The motto of the Clan Grant is "Stand fast-stand sure." It was force of character in the Wilderness in

spired his famous message "I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." It was that force of character that took him to Donelson, into Vicksburg and into Richmond, and won for us what he started out to accomplish, the restoration of the union of the States. It was that force of character, that determination which every boy must have and exercise,

as he did in a clean, honorable way, to win

success.

But I have digressed and possibly left you anxious about his water-soaked suit and his call. His friend Dent loaned him one of his suits, too large and ill-fitting, and we can well imagine he cut a sorry figure, but he had started on this side with a fixed purpose and the young lady probably never noticed the ill fitting clothes, she saw only the man, modest and forceful, and the citadel of her heart was stormed so successfully that Miss Julia Dent surrendered and terms were agreed upon. It was not an "unconditional surrender" so often exacted by him in so many battles won by him in the Rebellion. There was a mutual agreement that on his return from the Mexican War, where he was then going, they would be married.

At Monterey two American regiments in the midst of terrific fighting found their cartridge boxes nearly empty. They could not turn back even if they would, for the open ground was swept by the enemy's fire and it was death to attempt it. The Commanding General wished to get a message back to the Division Commander or to General Taylor that he was nearly out of ammunition, and deeming the return dangerous, he did not like to order anyone to carry the message, so he called for a volunteer. Lieutenant Grant promptly volunteered his services. He examined his saddle to be sure it was tight and firm, headed his horse to the rear, gave him the rein and spur, putting one leg over the horn of his saddle, he flung himself low to one side of the horse and with an arm over the horse's neck, through a shower of musketry bullets, he reached the cartridge wagons, and within an hour the brigade was resupplied with ammunition.

...

Captain Grant left Mexico on leave of absence, and Captain Ulysses S. Grant and Miss Julia Dent were married at the Dent home, August 22, 1848. After a brief honeymoon he was stationed at Sacketts Harbor, New York, and later on the Pacific Coast, and in 1854 resigned from the Army and returned to civil life, going to a farm of eighty acres, owned by Mrs. Grant, a short distance from St. Louis.

Then began a real struggle for the support of himself, wife and two children. He had no money with which to stock his farm and his appeals to his father for a loan of $500 for a year at ten per cent fell on deaf ears. He had no

house to live in. He built a log house of two stories, cutting the logs, splitting the shingles and doing nearly all the work himself. He seemed to have a sense of humor with it all, for he named the home "Hardscrabble", and surely it must have been a hard scrabble.

He says in his Memoirs, "If nothing else could be done I would load a cord of wood on a wagon and take it to the city for sale." In a letter to his father he says, "This last year my place was not half tended because I had but one span of horses and one hand, and we had to do all the work of the place. For two years now I have been compelled to neglect my farm to go off and make a few dollars to buy any little necessities, sugar, coffee, etc., and to pay hired men. My expenses for my family have been nothing scarcely for the last two years. Fifty dollars I believe would pay all that I have laid out for their clothing." While at Hardscrabble his family increased to four children.

Farming had not been a success, so in 1858 the farm was sold and the family moved to St. Louis, where Captain Grant and a cousin of Mrs. Grant's opened a real estate office. This was not a success, and in 1860 he and his family moved to Galena, Illinois, and he took a clerkship in his father's store, supporting himself and his family on a stipulated salary. Mrs. Jones tells me he supported himself, his wife and four children on $75 a month.

Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated President March 4, 1861. Then came the secession of the Southern States, the firing on Fort Sumter, and the President's call for 75,000 troops. Very soon thereafter Grant went to Springfield, Illinois, and offered his services as Colonel of a regiment. He could easily have been captain of the Galena company, but he very justly thought that from his army experience he could successfully command a regiment. In the early days of the war there were many with political influence and ambitions for political preferment who wanted to be Colonels. They thought it the popular thing to do, but the louder the cannon roared the less anxiously some of them wanted to be Colonels. Captain Grant had no influence and repeatedly in his letters declared that he would not ask for any, but would stand or fall on his merits.

Captain Grant was appointed Colonel of the 21st Illinois. When he left Illinois he marched his regiment to Palmyra, Missouri.

He says, “My sensations as we approached what I supposed might be a 'field of battle' were anything but agreeable." But on arriving there he found the Confederate Colonel Harris had gone, and Colonel Grant then concluded that Harris was as much afraid of him as he was of Harris, which was a view of the situation he never forgot, and from that event to the close of the war he never experienced trepidation in confronting an enemy, though always with more or less anxiety.

General Grant, during his military career, carefully studied the characteristics-mental and moral of those in the Army with whom he was thrown. Especially so in Mexico, where there were a number he was destined to meet again in the great Civil War-some on the Northern side and some on the Southern. And apparently he had so successfully studied them that he knew just about what each one would do in different military positions. He knew Flood and Pillow at Donelson, and governed his movements accordingly, and when General Buckner surrendered he said to General Grant, "You would not have gotten up to Donelson so easily if I had been in command." General Grant replied, "If you had been in command, I should not have tried it in the way I did.” He knew Pemberton at Vicksburg.

Lieutenant General Grant continued his victorious march "on to Richmond", confident of his plan of attack, fully advised of the position of the enemy and their movements. On September 5, 1864, in a letter to his father, eight months before Appomattox, he says, "Richmond will fall as Atlanta has done and the Rebellion will be suppressed." Richmond fell -General Lee surrendered and the Union of the States was restored. All sections of the country hailed Lieutenant General Grant as the one who had put down the Rebellion. Wherever he went it was a triumphal march.

It is difficult to realize that this man, in 1860 a clerk in Galena at $75 a month, after the struggles, hardship, privations, and failure of working an eighty-acre farm, building his own log house with his own hands, cutting and hauling wood to the city to raise money for the support of his family of four, expending on them not to exceed $50 in two years for clothing, should in 1865 rise to the heights of General of all the Armies of the North, the Conqueror of the Rebellion.