Part 22

When they saw his mud-plastered clothes, they all began to laugh, for Lawyer Lincoln did not often have a new suit of clothes. When they stopped chaffing him about helping his “dear brother” in distress, Lincoln said soberly,

“That farmer’s children might have to go barefoot next winter if he lost his hog.”

Another day Lincoln was missing. One of the party explained,

“I saw him an hour ago over the fence in a grove with a young bird screaming in each hand, while he was going around hunting for their nest.”

It took a long time to find it. Lawyer Lincoln had to let one bird go while he climbed the tree to put the other in its nest. Then he had to climb up again to put the other bird in. So it was after dark when he rejoined his friends at the tavern table. It seemed so absurd for a big man like Lincoln to waste hours on two birds that had fallen out of their nest, that even the judge scolded him. Mr. Lincoln replied with deep feeling,

“Gentlemen, you may laugh, but I could not have slept well to-night if I had not saved those birds. Their cries would have rung in my ears.”

The spring after he was twenty-one, Abraham Lincoln helped to build a flatboat and went on it to New Orleans to buy stock for a store in the village. While in the southern city with two companions, he witnessed the sale of a mulatto girl in a slave market. The sight filled his righteous soul with wrath. Clenching his fists, he exclaimed:

“Boys, let’s get away from this. If I ever get a chance to _hit that thing_ (slavery) _I’ll hit it hard_!”

So Lawyer Lincoln became the champion of the negro and lifted his voice against slavery. “This country cannot exist half slave and half free,” he exclaimed. His ringing words in the famous debates with Senator Douglas pleased the people of the north so much that Lincoln was elected President next time. Within six weeks after he went to live in the White House, the Civil War broke out.

The tender heart of President Lincoln was often hurt when the news of a battle came to Washington with its list of killed and wounded. He tried to keep up his own spirits and the heart of the nation by his constant flow of stories which made the people smile through their tears. To him it was an awful thing for his brothers in the north to be fighting and slaying their brothers down south.

When Abraham Lincoln saw that the time was right, he gave out the Emancipation Proclamation--his order to free four million slaves. He now had “a chance to hit that thing,” and he did “hit it hard.”

Grand as it was to write that great paper and free all the slaves, it was even greater to show the people of the United States and of the whole world how to look on the bright side of the hardest trials, and even to laugh in the face of trouble.

President Lincoln had the supreme joy of seeing the purpose of the war accomplished. His Gettysburg Address--which every boy and girl should know by heart--and the words from the Second Inaugural, “With malice toward none; with charity for all,” are ever-living witnesses of the kind heart and unselfish spirit of Abraham Lincoln.

William Cullen Bryant, one of the first of American poets, wrote these lines for the Martyr President’s funeral:

“O, slow to smite and swift to spare, Gentle and merciful and just! Who in the fear of God didst bear The sword of power, a nation’s trust.

Pure was thy life; its bloody close Has placed thee with the Sons of Light, Among the noble hearts of those Who perished in the cause of Right.”

ULYSSES S. GRANT, THE GENERAL WHO HATED WAR

“This poor little boy has no name!” exclaimed Miss Simpson, the aunt who was visiting the Grant family at Point Pleasant, overlooking the Ohio River, about twenty miles east of Cincinnati.

The rest of the family agreed that it would be a shame to let the baby go a day longer without a name.

“Let’s name him now,” said the aunt; “let’s vote on it.”

The others consented, and each wrote a preferred name on a bit of paper. Then a hat was passed and all put their

slips in it. The aunt took out a ballot which read, “Ulysses.” This name was on several slips, because Grandfather Grant had just been reading the story of the siege of Troy. “Hiram” and “Albert” were on two other ballots. At last they decided to call the baby Hiram Ulysses Grant.

When “Baby Lysses,” as the family called him, was about a year old, the Grants moved to Georgetown, a village about ten miles farther from Cincinnati, and ten miles back from the Ohio. Here little Ulysses grew and began to go to school, and some of the boys called him “Hug,” from his initials, H. U. G. Other boys, just to be funny, called him “Useless.”

Ulysses’ father was a tanner and leather worker. The boy did not like tanning hides because it was dirty, bad-smelling work; but he did like horses. Besides his tannery, Mr. Grant owned a small farm. So Ulysses, while he was a boy, learned to plow and harrow, and to haul logs to the creek near by, where they were floated to the sawmill to be cut up into boards and timber. The lad found a good way to make a horse do the heavy work of lifting or rolling logs on to the sled, so that he and the horse could do that better than two or three men.

A visitor in Georgetown was astonished one day to see a boy dash by, standing on the back of a horse on the run.

“Circus rider?” the stranger asked.

“No--only ‘Useless’ Grant,” was the reply.

When a circus did come to Georgetown, the Grant boy was there to see the trained horses and the fancy riding. There was a trick pony that had been trained not to allow a man or even a boy to stay on its back. The manager came to the side of the ring and called out that a prize of five dollars in gold would be given to any one who could ride the pony five times around the ring. Some of the men and boys in the crowd shouted, “Lyss Grant can do it. Try it! Oh, go ahead, Lyss!”

Although Ulysses was a bashful lad and hated to make a show of himself, the prize and his desire to see what he could do were too tempting to resist. So he went to the ringside and began to pat the pony. Then he sprang lightly upon its back. The vicious little beast began to rear and tear around to shake or rub the rider off, but Ulysses hung on in spite of all its frantic efforts. He won the prize, but that five dollars was of small value compared with the lesson he learned of trying hard and not giving up anything he attempted.

The Grant boy’s mastery of horses and his way of finishing whatever he started out to do made his services valuable to the neighbors. He rode hundreds of miles on important business errands. One time he was driving two young ladies and their baggage on a long journey where they had to ford a swollen stream. The ladies, seeing the horses were swimming and that the wagon was full of water, began to scream and take hold of his arms.

“Keep quiet, please,” said Ulysses calmly. “I’ll take you through safe.” And the Grant lad was as good as his word.

Sometimes he was asked to break a horse to trot or to pace. The wildest animal would soon become tame and gentle and would do whatever he wished. People thought he would be a horse-trainer or jockey, or keep a racing stable, but Ulysses Grant, much as he enjoyed training horses, had a mind above doing that all his life.

He was studious at school and excelled in games and sports. One day, while playing with a neighbor boy, he batted the ball through the window of a neighboring house. Instead of running away or pretending that another boy had done it, Ulysses went at once and knocked at the door of the house, and said to the lady when she came out, “I have broken your window, but I’m going to get a pane of glass and have it put right in.”

The woman, who had seen how it happened, told the Grant boy to go back and play, and she would attend to the glass. In telling about the accident, she said Ulysses was no more to blame than the other boy, and ended her story with, “I like Lyss Grant; he’s such a square, manly little fellow.”

The school at Georgetown was not advanced enough to suit Ulysses’ father; so the lad was sent away to a private school at Marysville. When he came home, though he did not like the tannery, he worked faithfully there. He told his father plainly that he would work at tanning hides until he was twenty-one--“but not one day after that!”

“What _would_ you like to do?” his father asked.

“I’d like to be a planter, or a river merchant, or--or--get an education,” stammered the boy.

Father Grant smiled and sent his son off to another school. He knew it would be very wrong to expect a real man to work all his life at something he did not like. While Ulysses was away this time, his father obtained an appointment for his son to go to West Point. Ulysses himself has written about this:

“I was attending school at Ripley, only ten miles distant from Georgetown, but spent the Christmas holidays at home. During this vacation my father received a letter from the United States Senator from Ohio. When he read it he said to me, ‘Ulysses, I believe you are going to receive the appointment.’

“‘What appointment?’ I inquired.

“‘To West Point. I have applied for it.’

“‘But I won’t go,’ I said.

“He said _he_ thought I _would, and I thought so too, if he did_!”

Young Grant had such a high idea of the requirements at West Point that he was sure he could never pass the entrance examinations. He began to study algebra and other branches to fit him better, but he said he never gave up hoping something would happen--even that the Military Academy might burn down!--so he would not have to go. He was afraid he would fail. The neighbors also thought his father was making a mistake to send the boy to West Point when he seemed so little fitted for a soldier. But, soon after his seventeenth birthday, the neighbors bade Ulysses good-bye, expecting him to come home because he could not pass.

Ulysses found the West Point buildings still standing when he arrived. He registered, and, to his surprise, was permitted to enter as a cadet. They made a mistake in recording his name, writing it Ulysses _S_., instead of H. Ulysses Grant. He was tired of being called “Hug,” and, as it seemed too much trouble to correct the error, he let it go, accepting the S. for his middle initial. As his mother’s maiden name was Simpson, he let them name him Ulysses Simpson Grant, in honor of the U. S. government and his little mother. But even then the boys made fun of his initials, “U. S.,” calling him “United States” and “Uncle Sam” Grant. From this he was nicknamed “Sam.”

Cadet Ulysses did well enough in his studies, and developed a taste for drawing and painting. He thought he would rather be a water-color artist than a soldier. The idea of shooting at men was shocking to him. The sight of blood made him sick--“Just like a girl!” the fellows said. But there were horses at the Academy, so the young cadet managed to be quite happy. He learned to ride like an Indian and to leap from one horse to the back of another as he met it running in the opposite direction. The one thing for which he was remembered by the other cadets was the great feat of jumping York, a huge horse, over a bar. Every one was afraid the vicious horse, if forced to clear such a height, might kill his rider. “I can’t die but once,” remarked Cadet Grant coolly, and made the horse jump over the bar without the least harm to horse or rider. The record of “Grant on York,” then made, has never been beaten since.

The people of Ulysses’ home town had changed their minds about him when he came home after two years, in his mid-course furlough, as a cadet in full uniform with gold lace and gilt buttons. After he had been President of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant said this summer vacation was the happiest time in his whole life, because every one was so kind, and his family were so proud of him.

When he finished his course at the Military Academy and was graduated, it was said of him: “There is ‘Sam’ Grant. He is a splendid fellow; a good, honest man against whom nothing can be said, and from whom everything may be expected.”

Lieutenant Grant went home for a while, and then entered military service near St. Louis. Here he became acquainted with Miss Julia Dent, who afterward became Mrs. Grant, wife of the great general and President of the United States. He had the usual experiences of young army officers in the southwest, with wild beasts and savage Indians. He tells of being wakened early one morning by hearing shots near at hand. Getting up, he learned that two men had been fighting a duel. He afterward wrote:

“I don’t believe I ever could have the courage to fight a duel. If I should do another man such a wrong as to justify him in killing me, I would make any reasonable amends in my power, if convinced of the wrong done. I place my opposition to dueling on higher grounds. No doubt, most of the duels have been fought _for want of moral courage_, on the part of those engaged, to decline.”

Lieutenant Grant’s friends thought it strange for the bravest man they ever met to say, “I don’t believe I ever could have the courage to fight a duel.” But some things that seemed heroic to others did not seem so to Ulysses S. Grant. He spoke almost with scorn of mere physical courage. It is moral courage that counts--the heroism that will face a sneer and bravely say, “That is not right and I will not do it.” He had shown this kind of courage as a boy, when other lads dared him to come out with them at night and disobey his little mother.

In the Mexican War, while fighting desperately in Monterey, the Americans ran short of powder. Who would dare to go back through the streets of the town held by the enemy, and carry the request for more ammunition and reinforcements? “Sam” Grant volunteered, and rode, Indian fashion, keeping his horse between him and the Mexicans’ bullets. He made the dangerous run with both his horse and himself unhurt, relieved the Americans, and thus helped to save the day at Monterey.

When the Civil War broke out, Captain Grant was in business. He had withdrawn from the army, and had been mentioned as a “military dead beat,” working in his father’s leather store at fifty dollars a month. He at once enlisted as a volunteer, and was sent to command a brigade in Missouri. Within a year the name of General U. S. Grant was on every tongue. He had won the battles of Fort Donelson and Fort Henry, and had made his famous demand of “Unconditional Surrender,” words which meant that they were to yield without asking any favors. After that, people said his initials, U. S., stood for “Unconditional Surrender” Grant. He went from one triumph to another until his enemies in the west were beaten. Then President Lincoln called him to end the war in the east, a thing which five northern generals before him had failed to do.

Though he won great victories for his country and became the most successful general of his day, the greatest thing General Grant ever said was, “Let us have peace,” When Richmond was captured he refused to enter the city as its conqueror. When General Lee surrendered, the northern commander treated the enemy general as a friend and a brother.

A grateful nation elected General Grant twice to the presidency of the United States. After he left the White House, he and Mrs. Grant made a trip around the world and became the guests of kings, queens, princes, prime ministers, and peoples.

Wherever General Grant went, he went as a man of peace. When he visited Prince Bismarck, “the man of blood and iron” who taught the Germans that everything they did would be right if they only had the power to do it, General Grant apologized for his record as a soldier. In this way, the greatest living general became the foremost man in the world for peace. He had learned to regard war as a duel between nations. He thought that was quite as wrong as dueling between men, and that war was due to moral cowardice rather than to courage.

General Grant gave this as his belief:

“Though I have been trained as a soldier and have taken part in many battles, there never has been a time when, in my opinion, some way could not have been found to prevent the drawing of the sword.”

THE NOBLE SOUL OF ROBERT E. LEE

Robert E. Lee’s father, Colonel Henry Lee, was a hero of the Revolutionary War. He was commander of the famous company known as “Lee’s Legion.” He was called “Light-Horse Harry” because he was so ready and alert with his cavalry regiment. He was such a friend of the commander-in-chief that it was said: “General Washington loves Harry Lee as if he were his own son.”

Therefore, when the Father of his Country died, Robert E. Lee’s father was chosen by Congress to deliver the great oration in his memory. It was in this brilliant address that Colonel Henry Lee used the now familiar words describing Washington as “First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”

Like George Washington, Robert Lee was born in Virginia, near the Potomac River, in a huge brick house which looked like a mansion, a castle, and a fort, all in one. When Robert was four, his father moved to Alexandria, near the new city of Washington, to send the boy, with his brothers and sisters, to school.

The next year the War of 1812, often called the Second War for Independence, was declared. The father’s rank was raised at once from Colonel to General Henry Lee. But General Lee was badly hurt while defending a friend from a mob in Baltimore. It was very hard for a brave man like “Light-Horse Harry” to be sent away for his health instead of leading in another fight for his country’s liberties. The general did not become better and, after five years of absence and longing, he started home to die. But the end came while he was on his way, and the Lee children were told, one sad day, that they would never see the dear father’s face again.

Robert was now eleven, the same age as George Washington when he lost his father. Mrs. Lee was not left so poor as Washington’s mother, but she was an invalid.

The oldest Lee son was in Harvard College, and the next was a midshipman in the Naval Academy at Annapolis. So Robert was left at home to take care of his mother. He nursed her

“With a hand as gentle as woman’s,”

yet in his strong, manly arms he carried her out to the family coach, when she was well enough to go for a drive. No mother ever had more reason to be proud of her tall, handsome son than the widow of Henry Lee. Feeling that his mother could not afford to send him to college, young Robert studied hard to enter West Point Military Academy. Because the country was still new and settlers had to defend their homes and lives from Indians, and also because the nations were always at war, such boys as George Washington and Robert Lee said to themselves, “When I’m a man I’ll be a soldier.”

When Robert was eighteen he became a West Point cadet. After he left home his brave little mother exclaimed, “How _can_ I do without Robert? He is both son and daughter to me!”

Cadet Lee’s life was without doubt the bravest any young man ever led at West Point. Young Jefferson Davis, who was there at the same time, fell off a cliff and nearly lost his life while breaking the rules of the Academy. Young Ulysses Grant wrote home ten years later that it was impossible to get through at West Point without demerits. But Robert E. Lee went through the whole four years without a single “black mark”! More than this, he did

not drink, though young gentlemen of that day thought the serving of wine necessary in polite society. He did not even smoke.

It was a wonder that the other cadets did not hate a young man who seemed to feel that he must behave better than the rest of them. What kept them all from calling him a “goody-goody boy,” a snob or a prig? It was the love of his kind heart, which they could see shining through his strange courage. Robert Lee fully realized that he had come to West Point to learn, at his country’s expense, how to be a soldier, and that the first duty of a soldier is to obey. If he had left his post and sneaked off the Academy grounds to drink, or gamble, or break some other rule, he would have been a deserter who, in real army life, would have deserved to be shot. But he never acted as if he felt above the rest, and so his fellow cadets did not sneer at Robert E. Lee. One of them said of him afterward:

“He was the only one of all the men I have known who could laugh at the faults and follies of others without losing their affection.”

At graduation, Lieutenant Lee was the most popular man at West Point; he ranked second in his class, and received the highest military honor in the course.

The physical courage of Robert E. Lee was put to the supreme test in the Mexican War. On a dark night he found the way across a dangerous lava field cracked in all directions by deep crevices--“without light, without a companion or guide, where scarcely a step could be taken without fear of death.” General Scott, then chief in command, reported this act to be “the greatest feat of physical and moral courage performed by any one in the campaign.” In his official statement about the whole war, this general stated that the United States’ “success in Mexico was largely due to the skill, valor, and courage of Robert E. Lee, the greatest military genius in America.”

Colonel Lee’s high military reputation made it natural for President Lincoln to offer him the highest command of the United States army when the Civil War broke out. But Colonel Lee did not accept the honor. He did not believe in slavery, and did not think it was right for any of the states to secede, or leave the Union. But he was a Virginian, and he could not bring himself to lead an army to burn his own home or to kill or drive out his relatives, friends, and neighbors. He had heard his father, who was once governor of the state, say with deepest feeling, “Virginia is my country; her will I obey, no matter how sad my fate may be.” So, when his native state went out of the Union, Robert E. Lee resigned as colonel in the United States army and went with her.

The southern people soon made Lee their general and it became, as he thought, his duty to defend the homes and lives of the people not only of Virginia, but also of the other states of the south.

General Lee soon proved that he was, as General Scott had said, “the greatest military genius in America.” With smaller armies and poorer supplies and weapons than those of the north, he gained great victories--the second battle of Manassas, or Bull Run, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. He defeated five northern generals, one after another. It took Grant, the sixth general sent against him, a whole year to “hammer” and surround Lee’s ragged, starving heroes, and capture them at last, when they were almost as helpless as a little flock of shorn sheep. And so noble and dignified was his character that he was honored and admired by north and south alike.

The motto of West Point Military Academy is “Duty, Honor, Country.” All through his life, in all that he did, Robert E. Lee showed that he respected Honor, loved his Country, and almost worshiped Duty. He expressed this thought when he wrote, “Duty is the sublimest word in our language.”

DAVY FARRAGUT, THE HERO OF MOBILE BAY