The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1868-06-04

Ulysses S. Grant was born April 27,
1892, at Point Pleasant, Clermont county,
Ohio. Like Lincoln, his early intellect
ual advantages were of the most ordinary
kind, but he was enabled to educate him
self sufficiently to enter the Military
Academy at West Point, to which he was
fortunate in procuring cadetship, though
at the expense of his name, Hiram Ulys-
ses, which was given him in infancy for
the one which he has become known all
over the world. If the clerical blunder
which inscribed him Ulysses S. could not
be erased from the records of the Acad-
emy, neither can that name be blotted
from the scroll of honorable history. He
graduated in 1S43, and was brevetted
Second Lieutenant in the Fourth Infantry
He served through the Mexican war, re
ceiving brevets of First Lieutenant and
Captain, for meritorious conduct at the
battles of Molina del Rey aud Chepulte-
pee. After the war with Mexico he con-
tinued in the army for few years, and
while serving in Oregon, in 1852, was
promoted to captaincy. The next year
he resigned, going into business at st.
Louis, and in 1859 he removed to Gale
ma, ILL.,, where he was conducting an ex-
tensive tannery when the war broke out.
/ Captain Grant was among the first to of
( fer his services to the government, and
was given command of regiment by the
/ Governor of Illinois, with which he went
/ into active service in Missouri 1t was
not long until he was appointed Briga-
9 al IIar nF v al r+oo 4 y.
and assigned to the command of the Dis
/ trict of Cairo.
! The unfortunate battle of Bull Run
and the varying fortunes in the South
west, had a depressing effect upon the
country, and the people were willing to
| take a leader on trust if he would only
come heralded with victory, however
/ insignificant. Rich Mountain gave Nc
Clellan command of the armies of the
United States; the unfortunate expedi-
/ tion to Belmont doomed Grant to com
parative obscurity at Cairo, until near
the close of the first year of the war.
Then the brilliant victories of Fort Dom
elson and Pittsburg Landing, the first of
any significance gained by Union army,
could do but little for him, and while the
former made him major general, the
latter deprived him of command All
eyes were turned toward the Grand Ar
my of the Potomac, In anticipation of the
great things it would accomplish when its
leader chose to move upon Lee at Man
assas; and decisive actions upon the
Cumberland and the Tennessee were not
considered, while people were amused
with promises never to be realized, and
kept in constant expectation by assur-
ances that all was quiet along lines little
nearer home.
1t were useless to attempt description
of these actions now, but when Grant
completed a victory that had begun as
defeat, by leading in person a charge of
! six regiments, he showed that General
might promise little and yet accomplish
much Soon after he had worsted the
ablest Rebel leader in the South, who
was killed in that fierce engagement
at Shiloh Church, Halleck assumed COM
mand 10 the Southwest, and the victor
was rewarded for his two successes by
subsequent neglect until September,
1862. He was then appointed to the
command of the Army of West Tennes-
see, his force constituting the Thirteenth
Army Corps, and fixed his headquarters
at Jackson, in that State. In the mean
| time Mcclellan had been driven from be-
fore Richmond, Pope had been defeated
at the second battle of Bull Run, and an
uncertain victory at Antietam had closed
the career of General who was called to
!. the head of the army in the fervor of pop
ular enthusiasm, and had been restored
to command in a moment of popular de-
spair
During the dark and terrible winter
that followed, the Army of the Potomac,
under its successive commanders, lay on
the banks of the Rappahannock, and
fought the i'll fated battles of Fredericks-
burg and Charlottesville, while Grant
and Sherman were quietly working out
their plans on the Mississippi and the Va
zoo When Lee moved northward in the
spring and summer of 1868, and Meade
was enabled to gain his great victory at
Gettysburg, the capitulation of Pember-
ton added Yicksburg to Gettysburg in
the associations connected with the ever
glorious Fourth of July. In detailing
the appointments of Major Generals which
had been made in the regular army,
Grant once modestly said: =" After the
capitulation of Vicksburg / was added, y
as if himself unconscious of the import
ance of an event that had given the army
leader who conquered peace for the
country, and makes him today the can
didate of the great Republican party for
President, an Office which he would not
desire were not the people intent on Civ
ing him this last mark of their confidence
aud esteem.
One who was within the Rebel lines
during the invasion of Pennsylvania in
1868, was told by an arrogant Southerner
whose deserted home was near the spot
where Grants army lay, that the dark
and fetid waters of the Yazoo would de-