The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1920-05-17
BIZ JAMES MOl.GAE

mia. Idle, lonely, homesick for VII
and baby, and indifferent IA
books, this man, whose life and
speech were as clean as a womap,k
found the only possible excitement
in a bottle.
In those days, when the best VI,
no better than the worst west Of
the Missouri, and where there wa
little to do except to raise q thiru.
hard drinking was the common d.
version of army officers at tho
dreary frontier posts Their lens
may have been hollow, but Grants
were not, and these betrayed him
so badly that his captain gave
him the choice of resigning or fac.
ing a courtmartial.
Grant resigped-to Jefferson
Davis, secretary of war.-and sailed
for New York. Landing broke, be
would have had to sleep on bench
in Park Row or on the Battery, i
his classmate Simon Boliver Buck.
ner, had not opened his purse 70
this forlorn captain out OF job.
On a little piece OF wild timber
land in Missouri, which Mrs. Grant
had received from her father as .
wedding gift, Grant built Log
cabin-it is now proudly exhibited
and he gave the place the we'll
| deserved name OF Hard Scrabble.
He hauled into St. Louis ana
peddled around town the wood he
cut and the little grain be could
raise. But his false, seductive
friend, the bottle, still logged his
heels, and, drifting into the city,
he turned first to a real estate
agency and next to precarious
little government job.
As it would at least save express
charges on the money that his
! father was renting to him, be
went to Galena, ILL.,, where the
Grants were prospecting in the hide
business. Arriving there in an old,
faded, blue army oVercoat, he be
came a clerk under his younger
/ brothers. The union was ALREADY
breaking up, but he wrote to {
friend that he liked his new en-
, ployment and was sanguIne OF sue
cess in the hide business.
When Lincoln's call for troops
came TO Galena next spring, Grant
still was known to the town only
as the silent man in the old arm!
overcoat. By that token OF nl
military experience, he was called
to preside over the meeting to RAISE
d company OF volunteers, and ne
went with it TO Springfield.
Officers commissions were golnl
where the pull was strongest, and
Grant did not know politician al
The state capital or in Washing
ton. The only use the politicians
! in Springfield had for lin was 10
hire him at IS a day 10 do the
paper work Of the political
MAJORS and colonels.
| When one of those colonies teli
down in handling an unruiy req,
ment other political aspirants snieo
at it as a tough job and Grant eos
ii. 10 impress the registering
youngsters who had broken t1eA
colonel, two political spelibindefs
were sent along to introduce the
new colonel, who had not yet sue
ceeded in borrowing the money
! with which he finally purchaser ND
first uniform. While the orators
/ ran the scales of bombast ~
! writhed two long hours in his OWL
oratorical inferlority, as ne SAL
there On the platform Wonderils
what in the world he could say.
When at last. with an eioqueas
flourish, he was presented to tns
curious soldiers, he took step OF
two toward the front, ana tnen
there rang il the quiet but ciea.
tones which won admiration on uae
campus at West Point, Grant mrs.
command in the Civil war: MEL
go to your quarters!"
published by special arrangement
ewspaper Syndicate.