CHAPTER VII.
In which Captain Galligasken goes with the illustrious Soldier to the Farm near St. Louis, and observes his Career through various Misfortunes, till he is included in the Firm of Grant & Sons.
Captain Grant had been in the army eleven years. He was engaged in the first and the last battle of the Mexican war; indeed, he had taken part in every action of any importance, except Buena Vista. This was his practical training for the great work of his life, developing his faculties and storing his mind with an experience which was to bring forth its rich fruits on the historic battle-fields of the Great Rebellion.
In the wilds of the Pacific slope,—
"In the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings,"—
the impatient soldier unbuckled his sword, and laid it aside. The weapon was rusting in its scabbard, and the proud spirit which had worn it honorably through a fierce war, waged upon a foreign soil, chafed under the inaction to which it was condemned in that far-off region. It was not the sphere for a great mind.
It is a notable fact, that when the bugle-blast of stern necessity rallied the soldiers of the Republic around her banners, to save her from destruction, some of the choicest spirits came out from the walks of civil life, whither they had fled from the dulness of an inactive life in the army. Such were Grant, Sherman, Burnside, Hooker, McClellan, and many others.
At the age of thirty-two, after having been devoted exclusively to military pursuits for fifteen years, Grant left the army to engage in new and untried enterprises. This was an important step of his life, but I humbly believe it was as necessary to the perfect development of the man as any other which he had taken. It was an evidence of his characteristic energy, and of the confidence he had in himself, which was displayed in so remarkable a manner in the most trying days of the Rebellion.
I am not disposed to magnify the deeds of the illustrious soldier,—they need no such office at mine or any man's hands,—or to praise his conduct in the glowing light of subsequent events; but I maintain that the act of resigning his commission in the army required no small degree of moral courage. The government had educated him at its own expense, and provided for him during the term of his natural life. If his had been the dull, stupid, inert character, this lot would have satisfied him. He was placed out of the reach of want in the present and the future; and the deaths and resignations in the army would have materially improved his condition if he quietly submitted to his fate.
His total pay as a captain of infantry amounted to nearly a thousand dollars a year; and it was as sure as the rising and setting of the sun. This was the certainty before him; and only a man of energetic purposes, with great confidence in his own abilities, would have turned from it to strike out a new path in the tangled maze of worldly affairs. From his boyhood he had been absorbed in the pursuits of his military career, and their practical application in the field and on the march, with a limited knowledge of business; and I repeat that it required no little moral courage to abandon the certainty and grapple with the uncertainty.
I am aware that a different explanation of Grant's resignation has been rumored through the country, and the vile slander that he had become addicted to intemperate habits has been circulated over the land. It has even been said that his resignation was prompted by a significant warning from the War Department. I am amazed that such an idle story should ever have obtained even a momentary credence. It is as impossible that Grant could ever have been a drunkard as that he could ever have been a coward. "He that ruleth his spirit is mightier than he that taketh a city." Under all circumstances, in the fierce storm of battle, as in the quiet of the social circle, he always maintained the most perfect control of himself. If he ever used the intoxicating cup to excess, he must have known it himself; and to know that he had a dangerous habit was to conquer it.
Look at the inflexible will of the man, as displayed at Donelson and Vicksburg! Look at him, meek and modest, in the midst of the storm of applause that everywhere greeted him after his mission had been accomplished! Look at him, calm and immovable, when, in the intricacies of the Vicksburg campaign, he outsped the thought and the prudence of his military compeers, and the impatient people began to howl even at him! Could such a man be the slave of his own appetite? The man himself is the best evidence of the falsity of the rumor.
I say I am amazed that this silly story should ever have been harbored for a moment by any one, except an enemy of his country; but I am still more amazed when I realize that this is the only blemish which lukewarm friends and over-critical enemies have been able to cast upon the character of the distinguished soldier. It is the prerogative of greatness to be the mark of slander's poisoned arrows. Napoleon was accused of crimes enough to banish him forever from the pale of human sympathy; Wellington and Marlborough escaped not the blast of calumny; Jefferson was charged with the most loathsome immoralities; and even Washington was systematically traduced by over-zealous partisans. It is a miracle, therefore, that Grant has only been held up to obloquy for the one offence of intemperance, and that the most absurd and improbable one which could possibly have been devised.
Grant retired from the army for the same reason that hundreds of others have done so, in time of peace—because it did not afford a sufficient scope for his talents and energy. He returned to St. Louis, where the family of his wife resided. Mr. Dent gave his daughter, Mrs. Grant, a farm at Gravois, about nine miles from the city, and on this place Grant located himself with his family, consisting now of his wife and two children. He built a house of hewn logs, working on the structure with his own hands, thus drawing upon the experience he had acquired in his youth. His native energy made him a hardworking man. His domain included extensive timber lands, and he attempted to better his condition by the sale of wood in the city of St. Louis. He was not above his business, nor in any sense one of those dandy agriculturists called "gentleman farmers." He employed men to chop the wood, but he carted it to the city and sold it himself. He kept two teams, one of which he drove himself, while his little son had inherited enough of his father's horse nature to be competent to manage the other.
Grant was as thoroughly democratic in his manners as he was in his politics. He wore an old felt hat, a seedy blouse coat, and prudently tucked his trousers' legs into the tops of his boots. He appeared to be—what he was—a simple, honest woodman. His habits were plain, and he lived on the most economical scale; indeed, his means would not permit him to live in any other manner. Those who had dealings with him knew him as an honest, upright man, faithful in the discharge of all obligations.
Grant always remembered and cherished his true friends. One day in St. Louis, whither he had come with his team, he heard that Professor Coppée, one of his classmates at West Point, was in the city. In his homely rig, with the whip in his hand, he waited upon his early friend at the hotel, where were also General Reynolds, General Buell, and Major Chapman. The "honest woodman" was asked to step to the bar and take a drink. "I will go in and look at you, for I never drink anything myself," replied he.
If Grant ever drank anything, this would have been an occasion, when, meeting old friends and classmates, after a separation of years, he would have been little likely to decline the social glass. I was not present on this occasion, but Professor Coppée publishes the incident himself, and of course there can be no doubt of its truth. Other officers, who were frequently with him, declared that he drank nothing stronger than cold water; and, for my own part, I consider him eligible to the office of Grand Worthy Patriarch of the National Division of the Sons of Temperance, or any other position in which entire abstinence from all that can intoxicate is the essential qualification.
But Grant was not a successful man as a farmer. His previous training and experience did not fit him for this calling. It was not his sphere, and it was no discredit to him that he was not successful in it. He was not the man to lie supinely down and moan over his misfortunes. If one expedient failed, he tried another, in his own affairs as well as in those of the army. If a thing did not work right, it was his habit to "fick" it again. In the neighboring city, to which he moved, he resorted to several methods of eking out his failing subsistence. He tried auctioneering; but, though he had the ability to "knock down" a mighty rebellion, he was not equally fortunate in mere commercial pursuits. He had not the skill to exaggerate, nor the oily tongue to win the heart of a doubting customer.
He was an applicant for the position of engineer under the city government, but his petition for appointment was "respectfully declined." His efforts to establish a remunerative business as a real estate agent were equally unfortunate. At the same time he hung out his shingle as a "collector." At this period his fortunes were at dead low tide, and not always did he know on one day where his subsistence for the next was to come from. He seemed to be foraging in an enemy's country, which had already been drained of its supplies. He was too poor to hire an office, and an obliging young lawyer, not burdened with clients, gave him desk room for the conducting of his scanty business.
But he had not much use even for desk room, and the number of his customers did not wear out the patience of his accommodating host. Grant was still out of his sphere; he had none of those mental qualifications which fit a man to be a successful "dunner." With all his pluck and persistence he could not worry a poor or a dishonest debtor up to the point of payment. He failed in this; the tide ran against him, and life became a bitter struggle. He obtained a place in the custom-house, which he held for two months, when the collector, who had given him the appointment, died, and he was obliged to leave. His hour of triumph had not yet come.
While Fortune seems to have entirely deserted the illustrious soldier in the civil walks of life, she had been more constant with his father, who had become prosperous enough to extend his business to Galena, Illinois, where he had established a branch leather store, conducted by two of his sons. As the worthy sire was now in easy circumstances, it seemed to be necessary to do something to redeem the failing fortunes of his oldest son. I am willing to state, on my own individual responsibility, that before he was invited to take a position in the store, or a share in the business, at Galena, there was an anxious inquiry by the prosperous father and sons into the capacity of Grant to fill the position to which he was to be assigned. It was even somewhat doubtful, at that time, whether the man who had the genius to control the movements of a million soldiers, had the business ability to entitle him to admission into the firm of "Grant & Sons."
The brilliant campaign in Mexico, gallant conduct at Monterey and Chapultepec, and turning the enemy's right flank at El Molino del Rey, hardly added much to the accomplishments of a suitor for the honors of the leather trade. It was asked whether fifteen years' service in the military had not disqualified him in some measure for mercantile pursuits; whether the idleness to which he had been condemned after the peace—idleness only as a civilian views it—had not impaired his native energy, and robbed him of some of the force and skill which had characterized his early years; whether he had not displayed so little ability at "getting ahead" on his own hook, as to render him at least a doubtful person to be associated with the prosperous firm.
It is as creditable to the good judgment as it is to the kindly hearts of "Grant & Sons" that these considerations had no weight with them, and in 1860 he was admitted as a partner to the firm. The end of the night of misfortune and futile struggles had come, and the dawn of a prosperous day opened upon the retired soldier. Grant took kindly to his new occupation, and, in spite of his antecedents on the battle-fields of Mexico, and his connection with so "nobby" an institution as the regular army, he still continued to be a plain, modest man. He devoted himself to the leather business with the same energy that he devoted himself to the capture of Vicksburg. He was regarded in this sphere as a sound, solid, common-sense man, with excellent judgment.
He went to work in the leather trade as he did in the army, and in his farming operation, with industry and perseverance. He was not a great talker, but when he spoke he meant something. The solidity of his character was apparent in the firm lines of his face, and he was a man who produced an impression both by his words and his looks; and for this reason he made a good salesman. He was but little known in Galena, taking no pains to extend the circle of his acquaintance.
This was the position which Grant occupied at the breaking out of the Rebellion. I am not a fatalist, but I do believe that Providence adapts means to ends in the affairs of men. I am entirely satisfied that the illustrious soldier needed his experience in the civil pursuits of life to prepare him for the great mission whose successful accomplishment gave him a wreath of glory brighter than ever adorned the brow of any other mortal man. Even his misfortunes, and his struggles against the cold current of poverty, were a necessary discipline and preparation for the man. Without them he could not have been what he is, and what he will yet become; for of all the atoms of experience is agglomerated the character of the man.
Thus prepared by the brilliant campaign of Mexico, thus prepared by the events of his civil life, and thus prepared by the discipline of adversity, stood Grant in the leather store at Galena, when the thunder of Sumter's guns struck upon his listening ears.