St. Paul daily globe., 1889-03-05

did not betray any remarkable talent for
learning; yet, while slow in acquiring
knowledge, once acquired, he never forgot
what he had learned.
From his earliest. boyhood he was of a
determined disposition. He pertinaciously
pressed and conquered his studies, and
knew no such word as can't.
1t was young Grants desire to become a
soldier, and through the influence of
General Thomas L. Hamer, then member
of Congress, he was admitted into the
United States Military academy at West
Point.
Simpson was the name of young Grants
mother. In appointing Grant to the
Military Academy, General Hamer gave
his name as Ulysses S. Grant. Effort was
made to have the blunder corrected, but it
never was. His comrades adopted the
initials U. S., and christened him Uncle
Sam-a nickname he has never entirely lost.
At his graduation, both his commission and
his diploma styled him Ulysses S. Grant,
by which name he has since been known.
Cadet Grant passed through the academy
with credit, graduating June 3oth, 1S43,
standing number twenty-one in a class of
thirty nine. Nearly all of Grants class
mates who were living at the time of the
rebellion, participated in the war upon one
side or another-by far the greatest number
of them upon the side of the Union. Upon
his graduation, Cadet Grant entered the
United States army as a brevet second
lieutenant, and was attached as a supernu-
merary lieutenant to the fourth regiment of
regular infantry, afterwards becoming the
most famous of American soldiers, and the
eighteenth President of the United States,
serving from March a, 1860, to March 4,
1877. He won his great reputation in the war
of secession, into which he entered as the
Colonel of an Illinois regiment, and out of
which he came as the successful leader of
the national armies, and holding a place
in the hearts of his countrymen hardly
less exalted than that so long held by
Washington.
His military reputation was established by
the capture of Fort Donelson in 1862, and
his after-career, till he was appointed COM
mander-in-chief in 1864, was series of brill
liant successes. He succeeded Johnson as
President in 1869, and was elected for two
terms Among the important events during
nHr CTR fbo <~f AZ
specie resumption act in 1876, the compile
ton of the Pacific Railroad in 1860, the set
tlement of the alabama claims :" in 1872,
the fires in Chicago and Boston in 1871 and
1872, the Modoc Indian disturbances in 1875,
the Centennial Exhibition, which he opened
in 1876, the admission of Colorado as a
State, and the massacre of Gen. Custer by
the Sioux in 1876.
At the close of his second term, in 1877,
he made the tour of the whole civilized
world, visiting especially all the great ma
tions of Europe and Asia, and receiving, as
great soldier and civilian and the first citi-
zen of the United States, all the honor which
rulers and people could bestow. AS the
unofficial representative of his country in
the nations he visited, his bearing was such
as to win universal respect and esteem. On
his return home in the Spring of 1880, a
large and influential portion of the Republi-
can party sought to make him a candidate
again for the Presidency but the movement
Was defeated, not because the people did