1839.] ULYSSES "SIMPSON" GRANT APPOINTED.

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military education proved of service to him. In the war for the Union he served as colonel of the Ninth Loyal Virginia regiment; and in 1861, in a skirmish at Guyandotte, West Virginia, he was killed.

The member of Congress from the Georgetown district was Thomas L. Hamer, a lawyer of distinction, and a brilliant orator, who was now regarded by the Democracy as a possible candidate for the Presidency. To him Jesse Grant wrote, and Hamer received the letter on the evening of March 3, 1839, a few hours before the expiration of his last term in the House. He immediately dispatched a note to Joel R. Poinsett, of South Carolina, Secretary of War, asking the appointment, but without referring again to Jesse's letter for the first name of the applicant, as the Grant family, being his neighbors, were all known to him. Confounding the name of Ulysses with that of his younger brother, he asked the Secretary for the appointment of Ulysses Simpson, and then wrote back to Jesse: "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?"

Hamer got home several days before this letter. Jesse surprised at his seeming neglect, said nothing to him on the subject, and he wondering at Jesse's ingratitude was likewise silent. But at length the delayed letter came, and with it an appointment to the Military Academy filled out for Ulysses Simpson Grant.

In vain after reaching West Point did Ulysses attempt to get his own baptismal name substituted. Red Tape argued that the appointment must be right; and Red Tape proved too much for him. So, he could only acquiesce in the name, which, first applied to him through a curious blunder, has proved a shirt of Nessus ever since.

The unexpected appointment caused some wonder in the little town. Even admiring friends of Ulysses marveled that such a "homespun" boy should be sent to West Point. The same neighbor after whom the youth had once named a horse, and perhaps, in revenge for that dubious compliment, accosted Jesse on the street :

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REACHES THE MILITARY ACADEMY.

[1839.

"So Hamer has made Ulyss a cadet?"

"Yes!"

"I am astonished that he did not appoint some one with intellect enough to do credit to the district."

For a long time the father was very sore over the unkind remark, though he enjoys the memory of it now.

Until his appointment came, Ulysses' chief books had been, not woman's looks, but horses' idiosyncracies. Now, however, he began to fit himself for the Military Academy, studying and reciting to one Baldwin Summers of Georgetown, a professional teacher, with a good deal of reputation as a penman and mathematician.

He spent

Meanwhile, the lad's careful mother was preparing his outfit. He had saved about a hundred dollars. twenty-five for new clothing and the like, and had seventyfive for his journey. Sixty dollars was required by the West Point rules as a deposit, to pay the student's expenses home if he should not pass examination, or should afterward be expelled.

On the morning of the fifteenth of May, 1839, Ulysses, in his eighteenth year, parted from his mother and younger brothers and sisters at the door of the old homestead. Then he went across the street to say good-bye to Mrs. Bailey. She and her daughters bade him farewell with tears. This touched the undemonstrative boy, who exclaimed :

“Why, you must be sorry I am going. They didn't cry at our house."

These early friends of his he has never ceased to regard with affection.

On his way to West Point he spent several days with his mother's relatives in Philadelphia. That city he had always longed to see, and he wandered about the streets, Franklin-like, spending his money freely, until he had barely enough left with which to finish his journey. On the tenth of June he reached West Point, passed his examination without difficulty, and entered at once upon his scholastic duties.

The site of the Military Academy had much to stir the enthusiasm, and its history much to captivate the imagina

1777.]

ITS SCENERY AND STIRRING MEMORIES.

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tion of the young cadet. It occupies a beautiful plateau on the west bank of the Hudson, fifty-two miles above New York. Half a mile in the rear, and five hundred feet higher, a bluff is crowned with old Fort Putnam. From the parade ground of the Academy, one hundred and fifty feet above the water, one looks out upon some of the loveliest scenery on the eastern half of our continent. Below runs the placid blue river and on every side rise the hazecovered crests of Butter Hill, Crow's Nest, Breakneck Mountain, and other lovely peaks of the Highlands.

The region is rich in memorials of our struggle for Independence. The British were exceedingly anxious to obtain control of the Hudson, for with uninterrupted passage to its head-waters and beyond, by the use of portages and Lakes George and Champlain, could they reach the great lakes and even the Mississippi. The Colonists were equally alive to the importance of the river, and by order of the Continental Congress, fortifications were begun in the Highlands in 1775.

The next spring, Doctor Benjamin Franklin, accompanied by Samuel Chase and Charles Carroll of Carrollton, commissioners, on their way to Canada to invite her to join in our Revolutionary struggle, visited these works, and reported their strength at twenty-nine guns, and one hundred and twenty-four men. They were afterward greatly strengthened and enlarged; but, in the autumn of 1777, General Sir Henry Clinton, the British commander at New York, captured and demolished them all.

In one fort was Moll Pitcher, wife of an artillerist,a stout Irish woman of only twenty-two, with red hair, freckled face, and bright piercing eyes. When her husband saw the enemy scaling the parapet, he dropped his port-fire and fled; but Molly picked it up, and fired the last shot for the Americans. Seven months later, at the battle of Monmouth, she brought water from a neighboring spring to her husband, who was serving his gun. Just as she was approaching him with a fresh bucketful, he fell, struck dead by a British shot. The captain of the battery, having no one else to take his place, ordered the piece withdrawn, but