GRANT
GRANT
L. Hamer of Georgetown. In writing to Mr.
Hanier, who was an acquaintance of the family,
Mr. Grant referred to his son as H. Ulysses, the
boy having at his birth received the name of
Hiram Ulysses. Just before leaving for West
Point young Grant changed the initials on his
trunk from H. U. G. to U. H. G., and entered his
name at the hotel " Ulysses H. Grant." When
Representative Hamer filled the official ap-
pointment, knowing his familiar name and also
the maiden name of his mother (Simpson), he
wrote the name Ulysses S. Grant. When the
young cadet reached West Point he notified the
BIRTHPL-ACE. OF CENtlViL CRANT't poi/vjT PLEASA/NT.O
officials of the error, but they were not willing to correct it and he adopted the official name. At the academy he had among his cla.ssmates Sher- man, Thomas, McClellan, Burnside, Hancock, Rosecrans, Pope, Franklin. Longstreet, Ingalls and several others who afterward became prom- inent in the civil war. He was a good mathe- matician and a superior horseman, but only an average student, and was graduated twenty-first in the class of thirty-nine in 1843. He w-as brevetted 2d lieutenant and attached to the 4th infantry stationed at Jefferson barracks. Mo. The next year he accompanied the regiment to Camp Salubrity, La., and in September, 1845, received his commission as 2d lieutenant and with his regiment was ordered to Corpus Christi to become part of the army of occupation re- cruiting for General Taj-lor's invasion of Mexico. His first battle was Palo Alto, May 8, 1846, and at Resaca de la Palma the next day he was in command of the company. As regimental quartermaster of the 4th infantry he was given charge of the pack-train and army wagons on the march of the army to Monterey. In the reduction of Black Fort on September 31, he joined his regiment and being the only officer mounted, led the charge, taking full command on the death of the adjutant. When General Taylor called for a volunteer to order up the delayed ammunition train, then far in the rear, cut off from the commanding general and his
forces by the Mexicans, Lieutenant Grant per-
formed the hazardous mission with success.
With his regiment he was transferred to the
army under General Scott and reached Vera
Cruz March 9, 1847, He took part in the siege
that terminated in the capture of the city, March
29, 1847. In the march to the Mexican capital
he fought in the battle of Cerro Gordo, April 17
and 18; the capture of San Antonio and the
battle of Churubusco, August 20, and the battle
of Molino del Rey, Sept. 8, 1847. For action in
the last named battle he was brevetted 1st
lieutenant and for action in the battle of
Chapultepec he was brevetted captain. He
was personally commended by General Worth
for his bravery as exhibited in the march, and
on reaching the Mexican capital he was promoted
1st lieutenant. He had as companion officers in
Mexico, Davis, Lee, Johnston, Holmes, Pember-
ton, Buckner, Longstreet, Herbert and other
noted Confederate leaders. He remained in
Mexico till the summer of 1848 when he accom-
panied his regiment to Pascagoula, Miss. He
was married, Aug. 22, 1848, Jo Julia, daughter
of Frederick T. Dent and a sister of Capt. Fred-
erick T. Dent, a classmate at West Point. He
was then stationed at Detroit, Mich., and Sacket
Harbor, N.Y. , and in July, 1852, he was ordered
with the 4th U.S. infantry to San Francisco,
Cal., and Fort Vancouver, Ore., by way of New
York and the Isthmus of Darien. His position
as quartermaster made his labors severe in cross^
ing the isthmus, as the recruits were attacked l)y
yellow fever. On Aug. n. 1853, he was promoted
captain at Fort Humboldt, Cal. Not finding army
life in the far west congenial, he resigned his
commission, July 31, 18.54, and returned to New
York, where he borrowed SoO of his classmate,
S. B. Buckner. which sum enabled him to reach
his father's home at Covington, Ky. He then
went to St. Louis and settled on a farm near
that city, which, together with three slaves, had
been given to his wife as a wedding gift by her
father. In May, 1860, failing to succeed either
as farmer, a real estate agent, or a collector of
taxes, he removed his family to Galena, 111.,
where he was a clerk in his father's store, con-
ducted bj' his two brothers and a brotherin law.
At the outbreak of the civil war he presided at a
patriotic meeting held at Galena to raise a com-
pany for service in the Federal army, and volun-
teered to drill the Jo Daviess guard, a company
of volunteers then forming. On April 25, 1861,
he took the company to Springfield, where Gov-
ernor Yates secured his temporary services as
mustering officer in the adjutant-general's office.
He then wrote to the adjutant-general's office at
Washington, D.C., offering his services to the
government, but the war department never
