roops in
the Canadian campaign against the British, show him to have possessed
military abilities of a high order. His name will always stand well up
on the list of American worthies.

[Signature of the author.]

ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT[9]

By OLIVER OPTIC

(1822-1885)

[Footnote 9: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

[Illustration: Ulysses Grant. [TN]]

Napoleon I. was a genius; General Grant was not. But the earnest,
persistent, and determined efforts of men only moderately endowed by
nature with intellectual gifts, sometimes surpass what is accomplished
by the spasmodic flashes of those born to be conquerors. So far as the
successful career of the most prominent hero of the War of the
Rebellion may be used to "point a moral," it forcibly emphasizes the
results of energy, perseverance, and a determination to succeed in
spite of all obstacles. As a military strategist he was doubtless
surpassed by others who were engaged in the gigantic struggle with
him; but he accomplished, by adding to his soldierly abilities, his
personal attributes, which seemed not to have been within the power of
any other of the able commanders associated with him in the mighty
conflict.

It is not claimed that General Grant was born into the world with
brilliant, or even superior, intellectual powers, and his greatness
was in the combination of his individual qualities, and the fact that,
like Wellington, he was "rich in saving common-sense." He was a
soldier in the most comprehensive sense; and if he did not overtop his
colleagues in a knowledge of the science of war, he was at least their
equal. The career of its greatest hero illustrates the manner in which
the loyal nation gave to posterity a victorious Union.

Grant was born in humble circumstances at Point Pleasant, a village on
the Ohio River, and there were no accidents of family to gild or cloud
his coming into the world. He was descended from Puritan stock, and
one of his ancestors, a captain in the Old French War, was killed in
battle. The general's grandfather served through the Revolutionary
War. His father was a tanner in Ohio, but his son was not inclined to
follow that occupation, though he was willing to do so if his father
insisted upon it until he was of age, but not a day longer. He stated
his preferences in regard to his future employment, desiring to be a
farmer, a trader on the river, or to obtain an education. The first
was not practicable, an