Grant

by Ron Chernow

  Fresh miseries awaited Grant on the eastern seaboard. At Governors Island, he was received in kindly fashion by old army friends who loaned him money. He then set out for Sackets Harbor to collect the $800 Elijah Camp still owed him, riding much of the way on horseback. However dubious he may have been about succeeding—he had already told Julia his fear that the faithless former sutler was “slightly deranged”—it was his only chance to land some money before facing the inquiring stares of the Grants and the Dents, and he sent a letter ahead to notify Camp he was coming.50 One version of events claims Elijah Camp went off sailing on Lake Ontario when Grant arrived, having been alerted by Grant’s letter. What we know for certain is that Grant failed to extract a single penny.

  When he had last resided at Sackets Harbor, a man named Walter Camp (no relation to Elijah) had counseled him about his drinking problem, applauding his courage in joining the Sons of Temperance. Now with Grant back in town, Camp passed him on horseback and was shocked to see him drunk. “Evidently under the influence of his Enemy” was how Camp phrased it. “His temperance principles were well known to me while stationed here and I was pained to see him overcome by what he had told me, years before, that he had such a desire for stimulants that his only safety was in letting them entirely alone.”51 From the way Camp told the story, it is apparent he did not stop to greet Grant, but only sorrowfully observed his fallen state. At this point, the lessons of the Sons of Temperance must have seemed a distant, slightly unreal memory to Grant, who returned to New York City bruised by Elijah Camp’s betrayal.

  Luckily for Grant, he sought out his old West Point chum Simon Bolivar Buckner, who was on commissary duty in New York. Having checked into the Astor House, Grant needed help to pay the hotel tab. According to Buckner, Grant apprised him that “his money was all gone and he had been unable to get anything to do and had no means to reach home. He asked for a loan in order to repay his bills at the hotel and reach his father.”52 Buckner introduced Grant to the hotel proprietor and declared he would vouch for his expenses. It is perhaps not surprising that Grant then appealed to his father for money instead of Colonel Dent, who would have gloated over his misery, but it must have irked him to have to be bailed out by his family.

  From his home in Covington, Kentucky, Jesse responded by dispatching his middle son, Simpson, to New York to fetch Ulysses and settle the hotel bill. It seems rather odd that Jesse chose to send an escort instead of simply arranging credit for Ulysses. One possible solution to this mystery lies in a letter written by Frederick Law Olmsted, the renowned designer of Central Park and other urban parks, to his wife at the end of the Civil War. Olmsted had just spent an evening with Major Ralph W. Kirkham, who recalled that during the summer of 1854 he and Winfield Scott Hancock were stationed at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis “when a letter was received from Buckner telling them that he had found Grant in New York. Grant had resigned, arrived at New York, got drunk, got into a row and been locked up by the police. Buckner relieved him and supplied him with means to go to his father in Missouri [sic].”53 The story, if true, may suggest why Grant, who was so desperately homesick and eager to see his wife and children, dallied in Manhattan until late summer and why his brother came to retrieve him. A careful search of the sketchy New York court records for the period fails to provide any confirmation of the story.

  When Ulysses and Simpson arrived in Covington, Jesse and Hannah Grant must have sensed that their eldest son had slipped off the rails. They were surely disturbed by his altered appearance and the suspicion, or knowledge, that he had succumbed to his drinking demons. Hannah professed pleasure that her son had left the army—she told a cousin she “was sorry Ulysses ever had anything to do with this army business”—while Jesse asserted that his son had made a costly mistake and wasn’t shy about saying so.54 He liked to spout a new insight: “West Point spoiled one of my boys for business.”55 By now Ulysses could only envision his life in limited terms, the wings of his ambition having been thoroughly clipped by experience. He stayed with his parents for a week, likely to look presentable when his wife and children set eyes on him.

  For Julia Grant and her eldest son, Fred, the moment of Ulysses’s return to White Haven was dreamlike and long enshrined in family lore. Four-year-old Fred, who had his father’s broad, open face, was playing on the porch when a bearded man in a buggy drove up the drive. “Just as he was throwing the lap-robe over the dashboard a colored woman ran out of the house and said: ‘It’s Mr. Grant.’ And so it was,” recalled Fred, “but I didn’t know him. It is very likely he didn’t know me.”56 With both arms Grant scooped up Fred and Buck, the curly little blond brother with blue eyes whom he had never seen before. For Julia, it was a moment of inexpressible happiness. “I waited for a long time, never knowing when he would come back,” she later wrote. “It was like a dream when he drove up the turnstile.”57 Grant turned to Julia and said, “You know I had to wait in New York until I heard from you.”58 The biographer William McFeely has suggested that the marriage between Ulysses and Julia Grant may have been on the verge of a severe rupture when he left the army, and it is not impossible that he had nervously awaited some reassurance from her before he returned.59

  Where Grant would live and how he would support himself became urgent matters, and he whisked his family off to Covington to settle them. For Ulysses and Julia Grant, the sting of that terrible trip never faded. Even Julia, ever the Pollyanna, remarked frankly afterward: “There are no pleasant memories of that visit.”60 Jesse Grant, now sixty, hoped to withdraw from supervision of his leather business and pass daily control to his three sons. Ulysses responded readily to his suggestion that he join Simpson in running the store in Galena, Illinois. Then Jesse added an absolutely outrageous condition that floored his son and daughter-in-law: he wanted Julia and the two boys to stay with him and Hannah in Covington to benefit from the local schools; both Grant parents viewed Julia as a spendthrift and wished to rein in her expenses. If Julia did not like that idea, they suggested she go back and live with the Dents in Missouri while her husband toiled in Galena. It was a proposal of breathtaking cruelty, all the more so because Ulysses had so long awaited reunion with his family. As Julia wrote, “Captain Grant positively and indignantly refused his father’s offer.”61 One can only wonder whether his son’s drinking problem made Jesse Grant issue such a heartless proposition. One further wonders whether Jesse was openly mocking Colonel Dent, who had long suggested that Julia and the children live with him while Ulysses languished at faraway military posts.

  The contretemps with his father left Grant with the unappealing alternative of relying on the largesse of his father-in-law. Colonel Dent had given Julia sixty acres of White Haven land as a wedding gift, but with a catch: he did not transfer legal title to her. Colonel Dent “did this out of regard for his favorite daughter,” said Louisa Boggs. “He had a very poor opinion of his son-in-law.”62 Grant decided to try his hand at farming this land. He lacked money to stock his farm and Jesse later boasted he had supplied the funds for tools, seed, and horses. To take land from his father-in-law was a terrible comedown for Grant, who had to swallow the Colonel’s barely concealed scorn. Grant’s friend George W. Fishback, a St. Louis journalist, sympathized with his plight: “It must have been a terrible mortification to [Grant] to be set apart on that little tract of farm land, given to his wife by her father.” Colonel Dent contributed “little or nothing” to support Grant, and preferred to comment “with ridicule and bitterness upon his unpromising son-in-law.”63

  At first Ulysses and Julia Grant shared the main house at White Haven, but by spring 1855 an opportune moment arose to flee Colonel Dent’s baleful eye. Julia’s brother Lewis, who remained in California, allowed them to use his house “Wish-ton-wish”—an Indian term meaning whip-poor-will—that stood shaded by majestic oaks about a mile from the Colonel’s quarters. This large, rambling house, which Julia lauded as “a beautiful English villa,” had front and
back porches, pitched roofs, and dormer windows, and was commodious enough to absorb the latest addition to Grant’s family, a little girl named Ellen (in honor of Julia’s mother), who was born on July 4 and was always known as Nellie.64

  Rolling up his sleeves, Grant cleared the sixty acres for farming, pulling up tree stumps and planting corn and grinding wheat at the nearby gristmill of Henry Clay Wright. Grant “was a small, thin man then, with a close-cropped, brown beard,” recalled Wright. “He had no overcoat, I remember, and he wore tall boots, quite unlike any others in the neighborhood . . . He had a way of keeping people at arm’s length.”65 Eager to prove his worth, Grant soon added oats, Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, melons, beets, cucumbers, and cabbages, working with a resolve that won plaudits even from his skeptical father. “During all this time he worked like a slave,” admitted Jesse Grant. “No man ever worked harder.”66

  In this grueling labor, Grant was industrious and resourceful, selling timber props for tunnels of nearby coal mines. In the winter, donning dingy old army overalls, he loaded wagons to sell cords of wood on St. Louis street corners—surely another blow to his pride. Invariably he strolled beside the loaded wagons rather than ride, even though this entailed a ten-mile hike. “The horses,” he quipped, “have enough to draw without carrying a lazy rider.”67 Dr. William Taussig, mayor of Carondelet, remembered how Grant lingered on a log before a blacksmith’s shop—“a serious, dignified looking man, with slouched hat, high boots, and trousers tucked in, smoking a clay pipe and waiting for his horses to be shod.”68 Taussig perceived that Grant’s “seemingly indolent and apathetic” manner fooled people into overlooking his true powers “hidden under the surface of this silent, phlegmatic man.”69

  Perhaps to show independence, Grant decided to craft a house with his bare hands. Julia was reluctant to leave Wish-ton-wish, which “suited me in every way,” but she recognized her husband’s preference for a place closer to the land he farmed.70 At Colonel Dent’s urging, Grant constructed a warm log house that required felling trees, stripping bark, shaping logs, carting cellar stones, and splitting shingles. “I worked very hard, never losing a day because of bad weather, and accomplished the object in a moderate way,” Grant wrote.71 In its final phase, the building evolved into a communal project, finished with neighborly goodwill. When the logs were ready to be installed, Grant sent out invitations for a “raising” and enthusiastic friends demonstrated the respect Grant had earned in the community. One man stood at each corner as they lifted logs into place in two days, with Grant completing the roof and interior by himself.

  From the outside, the house seemed rough and crude with uneven timbers and an eccentric wood pattern emblazoned across the front. It was a handmade house, hewn by a willing amateur. This rustic dwelling, with two stories, had a hall running down the middle, flanked by stone chimneys on either side. Showing his puckish humor, or perhaps mocking the fancy names of White Haven and Wish-ton-wish, Grant anointed his log cabin Hardscrabble, a name reflecting his troubles. Whatever pride he took in this residence, it violated Julia’s sense of gentility. “It was so crude and so homely that I did not like it at all, but I did not say so,” said Julia. “I got out all my pretty covers, baskets, books, etc., and tried to make it look home-like and comfortable, but this was hard to do.”72 When she nearly yielded to depression, Julia decided instead to will herself to be happy.

  Even during this trying period, Grant displayed a steady temper. Once his arduous days in the field ended, he retreated with gratitude to Hardscrabble. After long years confined on army posts, he prized his domesticity and his simple home became a haven, where he was completely relaxed and happy. When Grant later became famous and reporters portrayed this as a difficult time, Julia scoffed at such negative talk, sprinkling stardust over the period. “We always had enough for us and our little children,” she insisted. “We were always happy even when circumstances around us weren’t going as planned.”73 She had little patience with those who recollected her husband as “dejected, low-spirited, badly dressed, and even slovenly . . . they did not know my Captain Grant, for he was always perfection, both in manner and person, a cheerful, self-reliant gentleman.”74 Partly Julia’s sanguine view arose from joy that her family had finally come together, a novelty that trumped any hardship. She often pointed out that this was the first place she and Ulysses ever called home. But there was also a make-believe side to Julia Grant, who had a penchant for romanticizing whatever suffering she and her husband had endured. Her devout creed was never to admit failure and to gaze unashamedly on the bright side of things.

  Her incurable optimism proved correct when it came to the special destiny reserved for her husband. Although he never thirsted for fame, Julia, tugged by restless ambition for him, spied greatness lurking in his future. Dent slave Mary Robinson recalled Julia sitting on a rocking chair and speaking to relatives about her financial distress. “But we will not always be in this condition,” she announced, disclosing that the previous night she had dreamed Ulysses was elected president. “The rest all laughed and looked upon it as a capital joke.”75 Although Julia’s sisters teased her about these exalted prophecies, she never surrendered faith in her husband’s worth and, beset by repeated failure, he needed that unwavering affirmation. Everyone who knew the Grants commented on the power Julia exercised over her husband.

  Julia doted on Ulysses, who beamed as he soaked in her bottomless adoration. She fussed over his unkempt hair, whiskers, and clothing. “Your father is perfection,” she instructed her children. “I just want to make sure others see this too.”76 For Julia, he was simply a superman, capable of wondrous feats. She remembered how he lifted a two-hundred-pound beam; how he could draw almost anything; how he made paper boats for the children; how he rode fifty miles in a day without breaking a sweat. Even as president, she maintained, he could perform twenty-five or thirty chin-ups without exertion, and he always shared her pride in his strength. The Grants delighted in holding hands and kept their love affair fresh. “He was the tenderest and sweetest of husbands,” Julia declared.77 When Ulysses teased her, she interpreted this dry mirth as shot through with deep love. She was fond of dresses with enormous bows tied in back, and Ulysses liked to slip behind her and unravel the knot. “Ulys!” she would cry in mock anger. “You must leave my bows alone!”78 The couple seldom quarreled, but when they did, Grant withdrew in silence. When he returned, they immediately made up and embraced.

  Nothing bothered Julia more than insinuations that her husband was an illiterate yahoo. To save her eyes, he read aloud to her for hours each evening, and they plowed through hundreds of books. Mary Robinson confirmed that Grant was unusually bookish. “Most of his leisure time he spent in reading. He was one of the greatest readers I ever saw.”79 Grant retained special affection for Dickens, especially The Pickwick Papers, Dombey and Son, Little Dorrit, and Oliver Twist. “He rarely laughed aloud,” said his son Fred, “but his eyes would twinkle over a good bit of wit, and occasionally, when very much pleased, he would utter a gentle laugh, which held the essence of mirth.”80

  While the Grants faulted Julia as a free-spending southern woman, it was Ulysses who had trouble managing money and Julia who took charge of family finances. By now it was clear that Grant was an easy victim for spongers, even when he could scarcely spare the money. As Hannah Grant observed, “Ulysses would cheerfully give his last garment to a needy friend.”81 Whenever Julia wanted some bauble or piece of jewelry, he would buy it for her, whether they could afford it or not. The children found money safer in their mother’s hands.

  Ulysses and Julia Grant were loving parents, incorporating their children into social activities. Whether attending a dance, a quilting bee, or church, they showed up with at least one child propped on each saddle. Grant had two congenital weaknesses, children and horses, and was gentle with both. “I have never known a man who had such nice ways about him in that respect as my father,” said Fred.82 Grant cou
ld be jovially indulgent, glorying in the mischievous antics of his boys, whom he dubbed “little rascals” or “little dogs.” He derived special pleasure from roughhousing with them, getting down on all fours to wrestle. Entering into their world, he kneaded pellets of bread and flung them at his children during meals. He playfully encouraged Nellie, born on July 4, to imagine the annual fireworks were staged in her honor. He tried to instill courage in his children, putting them on horses and urging them to swim at early ages, and he thought it important that they hold their own with neighborhood ruffians: “It teaches a boy how to take care of himself.”83 The household showed all the open affection that had been absent in Grant’s own boyhood home.

  With none of the disciplinarian in his nature, Grant tolerated the rowdy behavior of his sons, sometimes to the dismay of straitlaced friends. He gave his children moral instruction—“Lying is the foundation of all crimes and follies” was a favorite maxim—but never resorted to corporal punishment or raised his voice.84 When the children got out of hand, it fell to Julia to restore order, and she could be quite definite in her views. If the children balked, Ulysses told them, “You must not quarrel with mama. She knows what is best for you, and you must always obey her.”85 The children were sensitive enough to their father’s moods that a sharp look sufficed to correct unruly behavior. Grant rarely showed anger, preferring to bury his hurts. “He ignored most slights,” said Buck, “even if he felt them keenly.”86

  At first glance, it seems remarkable that the drinking issue did not detract from the Grants’ happy marriage, but he seldom drank with his family around. “During all the time I knew Grant, between his return from California in 1854 to the fall of Vicksburg, I never saw him intoxicated,” wrote Emma Dent.87 Whatever the grinding misery of these Missouri years, they were mostly a triumph for Grant’s sobriety, which surely owed much to Julia’s steadfast, loving concern. Anchored in the bosom of his family, free from loneliness, Grant was able to conquer his craving for drink.