Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1914-06-02

grew chilly. At this juncture, when things
seemed about hopeless as they could be,
Grants father offered him JOB of clerk in his
leather and saddlery store at Cialena, the wages
to be $50 month. He was glad to accept it.
The year 1860 found Grant keeping the books
In the saddlery store Everybc dy looked upon
him a failure in life, and it il likely that he
himself shared this opinion. But soon afterward,
when the war broke out he was led to hope that
1T might offer him some opportunity. His first
effort In this direction was to urge relative to
furnish the small amount of money necessary for
starting business of selling bread to the mill
tary camp ST. Louis Meeting with a
fusal he went &c Springfield. IT,. and asked Gov
ernor Yates to give him employment in some
capacity it mattered not what The governor
did not look upon his application with much
favor, but finally directed that he be hired at SO
a day to do odd jobs at Camp Yates.
Little as he could have imagined 1t, however,
a new day was about to dawn upon the fortunes
of Captain Grant, as he was then called. There
in camp at Nation very unruly regiment
of volunteers, the Twenty-1rst Illinois infantry,
which seemed likely to be disbanded because Of
its unwilngness to submit TO discipline. Grant,
after ALL was West Pointer, and any real knowl-
edge of military matters was just then at high
premium. He asked If he cared to under
take the Job of commanding the regiment in ques-
ton, and promptly accepted the offer, becoming
its colonel.
1t did not take him long to get the regiment
into shape Anybody who attempted to dispute
ais authority was soon sorry for it. In July he
had orders to transfer his command to Alton.
The regiment refused 70 ride on the freight cars
provided for its transportation and he made the
men march all the way. He would not even al
low them to get aboard freight train when one
came along
Modesty was always marked trait OF this
military commander. When, some time before
the events just narrated, a friend urged him to
apply for the coonelcy Of a regiment, he said
Few men are able to command 1000 soldiers,
and I am sure not of those" And yet
the day to arrive before very long when he
would command million men. When asked,
three years later, What sort OF man is
Grant," Abraham Lincoln replied: HE is the
quietest little fellow YOU ever saw. He makes
the least fuss Of any you ever knew be-
neve two or three times he has been In this
room quite while before I knew he was here.
It's about all around. The only evidence you
have that he's In any place is that he makes
things giti Wherever he is he makes things
move"
In later years particularly after he became
president, Grant careful about his attire, but
during the Civil he preserved that indiffer-
ence to costume which had marked him while at
West Point In the vicksburg campaign he wore,
In place of the usual military hat and gold cord,
old battered "stovepipe" such as the average
private soldier In his army would not have picked
up in the street In his mouth was always
black cigar, and he seemed to be perpetually
smoking. A friend Of his, in excuse. said: such
a stoveppe Grants should be allowed to
smoke"
]. R. Ringwalt author of the Anecdotes Of
General Grant" says that he was never wounded
though he constantly and even recklessly exposed
himself. He was not merely brave, but insensi-
bic to danger OF his war horse. Cineinnatus. he
devotedly fond. On occasion, while rid
ing through a piece of woods n Virginia during
a brisk engagement he and Colonel Dent were
obliged to cross brook at a place where the
fire of the enemy concentrated and muir
derous. piece ct telegraph wire had got twist