by Ron Chernow
The four-year engagement had confirmed the steadfast attachment between Ulysses S. Grant and Julia Dent. One Dent acquaintance remembered the young couple sitting on the steps of the St. Louis house, holding hands and gazing soulfully at each other. “I remember Grant as a quiet kind of a man who volunteered but little conversation until some topic coming within his experience was referred to, when he would warm up and talk with great interest.”4 By this time, Colonel Dent had encountered financial setbacks and was embroiled in a costly lawsuit, which may explain why he consented to the marriage, even though Grant had decided to stay in the army with a meager $1,000 annual salary. After waiting so long to marry, Grant pressed Julia for a hasty wedding and they set a date for August 22 in St. Louis.
Grant traveled to see his parents in Bethel, Ohio. Across America, small towns embraced Mexican War veterans with patriotic adulation, and Grant drew rapt attention wherever he went. The war had charged his imagination and reminiscing about it became a favorite pastime for the duration of his life. He could be a compelling raconteur with a penetrating power to visualize battles and conjure them up in graphic detail. “How clear-headed Sam Grant is in describing a battle!” a later listener exulted. “He seems to have the whole thing in his head.”5 Adding to public curiosity was that Grant had brought back from Mexico a bright boy named Gregorio, who was only twelve or thirteen and did not speak a word of English; Grant conversed with him in Spanish. An expert with a lasso, the youth instructed Grant in his full repertoire of tricks. “They practiced on my sheep and cows and horses,” said Grant’s uncle. “Ulysses got so he was quite handy with the lasso himself.”6
During Grant’s Bethel stay, Jesse and Hannah Grant must have made plain their displeasure with the slave-owning Dents and explained their refusal to attend the wedding. Savage stories about the Dents circulated in the Grant family, typified by the caustic later commentary of Ulysses’s sister-in-law. “I never met Julia’s father but I heard he was a cross, lazy man, a surly Democrat and a Rebel. They said he was asleep all day except to wake up to eat and argue . . . Jesse Grant . . . grew to know Mr. Dent from Missouri and had no kind words for him or any other Dent. He said they were a lazy, self-satisfied lot, slave owners and worse. He could not believe Ulysses could treat the Rebel father Dent so kindly.”7 The extended Grant family registered its disapproval of the Dent clan by boycotting the St. Louis wedding.
The Dents reciprocated the antipathy. Julia’s cousin Louisa Boggs said of the marriage: “[Grant] was a northern man married to a southern, slave owning family. Colonel Dent openly despised him. All the family said ‘poor Julia’ when they spoke of Mrs. Grant. So you can see why everybody thought Captain Grant a poor match for Miss Dent.”8 A victim of this interfamily feud, Grant was plunged into his own private civil war, uncomfortably suspended between the easygoing, hedonistic Dents and his thrifty, tightfisted family of die-hard abolitionists.
On August 22, 1848, Ulysses S. Grant and Julia Boggs Dent got married in the small brick downtown house that the Dents occupied at Fourth and Cerre Streets. A simple ceremony, illuminated by candlelight, the wedding took place on a sultry night in an overheated parlor, with a banquet table laden with fruit, ices, and wedding cake set up in a back room. Described in a local paper as “a lady of refinement and elegant manners,” Julia swept down the staircase in a white silk dress with a while tulle veil.9 Always flustered in large crowds on formal occasions, Grant fidgeted nervously all night. “He wore his regimentals and some people thought it would have been better had he dressed in civilian’s clothes,” noted Louisa Boggs. “They said he seemed very awkward and embarrassed and his long sword nearly tripped him up on several occasions!”10 Emma Dent depicted the young soldier more charitably. “Captain Grant was as cool under the fire of the clergyman’s questions as he had been under the batteries of the Mexican artillery.”11 James Longstreet served as best man and two groomsmen, Cadmus M. Wilcox and Bernard Pratte, were to join him in the Confederate army; all three later surrendered to Grant at Appomattox.
The day after the wedding, Ulysses and Julia Grant left for Bethel so she could meet her new in-laws. A sheltered young woman who had never left St. Louis or even traveled on a boat, Julia relished the dreamlike sensation of a steamboat gliding smoothly down the Mississippi then up the Ohio River to Louisville, where they stopped to visit Grant’s rich cousin, James Hewitt, who entertained them in his opulent home. Grant dropped modest hints that he might resign from the army should an advantageous business opportunity arise, but his cousin turned a deaf ear and Grant stayed in the military. Julia resented that Hewitt left her new husband empty-handed, and she possessed a long memory for such slights: “I always remembered this, and did not forget it when my Lieutenant was General-in-Chief nor when he was President of the United States.”12
For the most part, Julia did not dwell on such unpleasantness and recorded a sweetly sanitized version of her first brush with Grant’s family. When their boat reached Cincinnati, she recalled, “there stood my dear husband’s little brother Orvil with his flaxen curls and blue eyes—as pretty a boy as I ever saw. He had come all the way down to meet us, saying he could not wait for us.”13 Similarly, she remembered Jesse Grant being cordial toward her and Hannah even more welcoming. “Mrs. Grant . . . was then a handsome woman, a little below medium height, with soft brown eyes, glossy brown hair, and her cheek was like a rose in the snow. She too gave me an affectionate welcome, and I must say right here she was the most self-sacrificing, the sweetest, kindest woman I ever met, except my own dear mother.”14 In fact, although Jesse and Hannah Grant treated Julia with all due civility, they could not detach her from their scathing critique of the Dents and harbored secret reservations about her boasting, superstitions, and overt displays of affection for their son.
In November, Grant had to report for duty in Detroit, now home of the Fourth Infantry, and he shepherded Julia back to St. Louis for what he assumed would be a final visit before they launched a new life on an army base. Instead Colonel Dent tried one last time to drive a sharp wedge between his daughter and son-in-law. Having led a narrow, overprotected life, Julia grew distraught at the thought of parting from her father. “I could not . . . think of it without bursting into a flood of tears and weeping and sobbing as if my heart would break.”15 After four years of daydreaming about married life, Grant was distressed by this belated attack of nerves. Colonel Dent intervened with a proposal so cruelly preposterous that Grant must have felt hurt. “Grant, I can arrange it all for you. You join your regiment and leave Julia with us. You can get a leave of absence once or twice a year and run on here and spend a week or two with us. I always knew [Julia] could not live in the army.”16 Grant had now been pushed to the breaking point. His Mexican War exploits had enhanced his self-confidence, and he slipped his arm around Julia, whispering, “Would you like this, Julia? Would you like to remain with your father and let me go alone?” “No, no, no, Ulys. I could not, would not, think of that for a moment.” Grant asserted himself. “Then dry your tears and do not weep again. It makes me unhappy.”17 At that moment, Grant declared his independence and liberated Julia from her father’s manipulative wiles, showing Colonel Dent that he was not a timid young man to be trifled with forever.
On November 7, 1848, General Zachary Taylor emerged victorious in the presidential race, despite a glaring lack of experience in public office. Editor Horace Greeley, among others, writhed with indignation at his proslavery platform: “We scorn it; we spit upon it; we trample it under our feet!”18 Nevertheless, Taylor showed no patience with mounting talk of southern secession. “If they attempted to carry out their schemes,” he warned a senator, “they should be dealt with by law as they deserved and executed.”19 On Election Day, Grant was in Kentucky and couldn’t vote, but he said he would have voted for Taylor. Taylor’s presidential tenure proved remarkably short-lived. In 1850, after attending July Fourth orations on a torrid day, he consumed an enormous quantity
of possibly tainted cherries and iced milk and died mysteriously five days later.
When Grant and his bride arrived in Detroit on November 17, he came in for a rude awakening. During his four-month leave of absence, Lieutenant Henry D. Wallen had replaced Grant, who never formally gave up his regimental quartermaster position. Now that he returned, Wallen refused to cede the Detroit position and Grant was reassigned to the bleak outpost of Madison Barracks at Sackets Harbor, New York, on the eastern shore of Lake Ontario, near the Canadian border. Still more infuriating was that Wallen’s own company had been deployed to Sackets Harbor, and he should have departed with them. Sackets Harbor was a frigid, desolate garrison and with winter approaching Grant must have wondered how the sheltered Julia would survive in this inhospitable place. Indignant, he filed an official complaint with the commanding officer in Detroit, who forwarded it to General John E. Wool with the comment that “Lieutenant Grant has unquestionably been hardly and wrongly done by.”20 In the meantime, Grant had no choice but to obey orders and take Julia along, even though cold weather had sealed off traffic on Lake Ontario, forcing them into a prolonged overland journey.
Once installed at Sackets Harbor, Grant was dismayed that soldiers in this inclement climate lacked proper clothing and bedding for the winter. Rather than watch men shiver as they awaited supplies from New York or Philadelphia, he showed his usual initiative by buying up supplies on his own. Now a veteran quartermaster, he was soon busily fixing leaky roofs, repairing dilapidated fences, and refurbishing decaying houses.
The winter stay at Sackets Harbor was much happier than he and Julia had anticipated, and they formed numerous friendships in the tight-knit military community. For the first time, Julia, with scant domestic experience, learned to manage a household without assistance from slaves. She took pride in their small, well-furnished home with its bright carpet, china dishes adorned with floral patterns, and silver cutlery that came as a wedding gift from the Grants. Whenever Ulysses had surplus cash to spend, he journeyed to nearby Watertown and bought finery for Julia at a dry goods store operated by Jesse and Henry Seligman, Bavarian Jewish brothers who became lifetime friends and later emerged as wealthy bankers and substantial donors to Grant’s presidential campaigns. Everyone found Grant modest and retiring, an altogether likable fellow. “His only dissipation was in owning a fast horse,” said a regimental colleague. “He always liked to have a fine nag, and he paid high prices to get one.”21 Grant enjoyed playing chess and checkers, attending parties with Julia, and worshipping with her at the Methodist church.
On March 2, 1849, after four months marooned at Sackets Harbor, Grant learned he had won his appeal and was being sent back to Detroit, where he resumed his job as regimental quartermaster. By all accounts, he was popular with the soldiers, who appreciated his lack of superior airs. Known for impartial honesty and a judicial temperament, he often arbitrated disputes among soldiers, as in Mexico. Still the peacetime army did not showcase his talents and he often seemed mildly bored, as if he needed a bigger challenge to mobilize his energy. According to one officer, Grant struggled with incessant paperwork—never his strong suit—but when it came to “drill, the manual of arms, fighting,” he had no equal in handling the regiment.22 One fellow officer noticed that Grant had both an active, dynamic side to his personality and a curiously passive one, comparing him to “a trained athlete, who leans listless and indifferent against the wall, but who wakes to wonders when the call is made upon him.”23 This split personality was one reason why people could find Ulysses S. Grant quite ordinary one moment and extraordinary the next.
However humdrum his duties, he enjoyed his stay in Detroit, which had a population of about twenty-five thousand and was a raw, unpaved western town with pastures still lying behind many houses. He and Julia moved into a narrow frame house on Fort Street, set off by a white picket fence, in a neighborhood of poor, working families. The house had an arbor covered with wild grapevines and the newlyweds found it an inviting abode. For a time, Gregorio served as valet, bringing food to the table and answering the door, but when he was lured away by higher wages, the Grants felt betrayed by his departure.
Whether playing cards or reading at night, Ulysses and Julia Grant seemed a cozy, companionable pair. More literate than people supposed, Grant perused romances of Sir Walter Scott and historical novels by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. “He would read to me novels, newspapers, books and such,” Julia wrote. “We would discuss what he would read, it was something we looked forward to.”24 In time, Julia recognized how spoiled she had been as a young bride, how unwilling to compromise. When she was difficult or petulant, Grant, instead of chiding her, subjected her to the silent treatment. “The most he would ever say is, ‘Julia, I’m amazed at you.’ That was cutting me to the quick and it would sting like a lash, he said it so calmly.”25 This understated form of rebuke worked: Julia would apologize and beg his forgiveness, which he always offered.
Like many young couples, the Grants flung themselves into an incessant round of parties, dances, and dinners, and Julia took pride in throwing “a fancy dress ball,” a novelty for Detroit and a throwback to her St. Louis girlhood. Local preachers found the concept much too pagan for their tastes. “We had kings, knights, troubadours, and every other character pretty and gay,” remembered Julia, who dressed up as a tambourine girl.26 Grant seemed older and more serious than other young officers, and, undoubtedly feeling a little silly and self-conscious about showing up in a costume, wore his uniform instead. He loitered on the fringes of gatherings, standing with hands clasped behind his back, an impassive spectator who opened up with selected people. When called on to propose a toast at one dinner, Grant grew tongue-tied. “I can face the music,” he confessed blushingly, “but I cannot make a speech.”27 People noticed how Julia overcame his habitual reserve, lightened his somber moods, and fleshed out his life. In the view of one officer, Grant “came out of his shell in her presence. They were two people who hitched well together, they fit like hand to glove.”28
Where Grant clearly shed his inhibitions was in racing horses down Fort Street, when the passionate daring of his nature appeared to advantage. With the town offering few pastimes, Grant electrified the large gatherings who turned out to watch as he whizzed by in his buggy, outstripping competitors and even driving on the River Rouge when it froze. “He was the best horseman I ever saw,” said Colonel James E. Pitman. “He could fly on a horse, faster than a slicked bullet.”29 One impression superseded all others: that Grant was “just power and will and resolution,” said a resident.30
By early fall 1849, Julia was pregnant and decided to return to St. Louis to have the baby. On May 30, 1850, she gave birth to their first child, named Frederick Dent Grant in honor of the Colonel—which could not have thrilled her husband. Two weeks later, Grant applied for permission to travel to St. Louis for “urgent family reasons” and brought Julia and baby Fred back to Detroit.31 From the outset, he was a more relaxed and playful parent than Jesse Grant, free of the persistent badgering and demanding expectations that had so disconcerted him in his own father. Julia was a conscientious, hardworking mother, and one friend remembered her supervising the small household “with a great lump of a baby in her arms.”32
Julia’s prolonged absence during the winter of 1849–50, coupled with a dearth of challenging work, proved a formula for trouble for Grant. Heavy drinking was commonplace in frontier garrisons, making it difficult for Grant, stranded in freezing Detroit, to abstain. The problem was neither the amount nor the frequency with which he drank, but the dramatic behavioral changes induced. He and Julia kept a pew in a Methodist church led by Dr. George Taylor, and perhaps realizing his newfound responsibilities as a father, Grant sought counsel from his pastor about his drinking. “I think that Dr. Taylor helped Grant a great deal,” said Colonel Pitman. “It was said that he had a long talk with Grant at that time and told him that he could not safely use liquor in any form and Grant ackn
owledged this and took the pledge and thereafter used no liquor at all in Detroit.”33 This episode makes clear that Grant, from an early age, acknowledged that he had a chronic drinking problem, was never cavalier about it, and was determined to resolve it. This overly controlled young man now wrestled with a disease that caused a total loss of control, which must have made it more tormenting and pestered his Methodist conscience.
Even as a young man, Grant was infused with a strong sense of justice. No less than as a boy, he could be proud, a bit moody, and hypersensitive, refusing to be bullied. Colonel Pitman stated that Grant “would whip a man who crossed him or who sold him short cords of wood or who was in any way derogatory towards him.”34 During the winter of 1850–51, Grant slipped on the ice and injured his leg in front of the house of Zachariah Chandler, a big, imposing man soon to be Detroit’s mayor. Grant had the courage to file a complaint against Chandler, claiming he violated a city ordinance demanding that residents keep their sidewalks free of snow and ice. During the trial, Chandler taunted Grant: “If you soldiers would keep sober, perhaps you would not fall on people’s pavements and hurt your legs.”35 One wonders whether Chandler hinted obliquely at rumors of drinking by Grant. Although the jury found Chandler guilty, he was fined a laughable six cents, perhaps suggesting the court agreed with Chandler’s insinuation that excessive alcohol consumption had accounted for the fall.
It is unclear how closely Grant followed current affairs as the national debate over slavery broadened and intensified. Through the Compromise of 1850, California was admitted as a free state while other territories wrested from Mexico were left free to adopt slavery or not. In exchange, the North appeased the South by submitting to a strict new fugitive slave law that made many northerners feel like accomplices in the hated institution of their southern brethren.