to move into poorer houses, he had to borrow money, and
finally he walked the streets trying to find some new kind of work.
Nobody would hire him. The men said he was a failure. Friends of the
Dent family shook their heads as they whispered: "Poor Julia, she didn't
get much of a husband, did she?"

Then he went back to Galena, Illinois, and was a clerk in his brother's
store, earning about what any fifteen-year-old boy gets to-day. He
worked quietly in the store all day, stayed at home evenings, and was
called a very "commonplace man." He was bitterly discouraged, I tell
you, that he could not get ahead in the world. And his father's pride
was hurt to think that his son who had appeared so smart at twelve could
not, as a grown man, take care of his own family. But Julia Dent Grant
was sweet and kind. She kept telling him that he would have better luck
pretty soon.

In 1861 the Americans began to quarrel among themselves. Several of the
States grew very bitter against each other and were so stubborn that the
President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, said he must have
seventy-five thousand men to help him stop such rebellion. Ulysses Grant
came forward, and said he would be one of these seventy-five thousand,
and enlisted again in the United States Army. He was asked to be the
colonel of an Illinois regiment by the governor of that State. Then, you
may be sure, what he had learned at West Point came into good play. He
soon showed that he knew just how to train men into fine soldiers. He
did so well that he was made Brigadier-general.

He stormed right through the enemies' lines and took fort after fort.
Oh, his work was splendid--this man who had been called a failure!

A general who was fighting against him began to get frightened, and by
and by he sent Grant a note saying: "What terms will you make with us if
we will give in just a little and do partly as you want us to?"

Grant laughed when he read the letter and wrote back: "No terms at all
but unconditional surrender!" Finally the other general did surrender,
and when the story of the two letters and the victory for Grant was
told, the initials of his name were twisted into another phrase; he was
called Unconditional Surrender Grant. This saying was quoted for months,
every time his name was mentioned. At the end of that time, he had said
something else that pleased the people and the President.

You see, the war kept raging harder and harder. It seemed a