ally had no objection to going to
West Point, except that I had a very exalted idea of the acquirements
necessary to get through. I did not believe I possessed them, and could
not bear the idea of failing. There had been four boys from our
village, or its immediate neighborhood, who had been graduated from West
Point, and never a failure of any one appointed from Georgetown, except
in the case of the one whose place I was to take. He was the son of Dr.
Bailey, our nearest and most intimate neighbor. Young Bailey had been
appointed in 1837. Finding before the January examination following,
that he could not pass, he resigned and went to a private school, and
remained there until the following year, when he was reappointed.
Before the next examination he was dismissed. Dr. Bailey was a proud
and sensitive man, and felt the failure of his son so keenly that he
forbade his return home. There were no telegraphs in those days to
disseminate news rapidly, no railroads west of the Alleghanies, and but
few east; and above all, there were no reporters prying into other
people's private affairs. Consequently it did not become generally
known that there was a vacancy at West Point from our district until I
was appointed. I presume Mrs. Bailey confided to my mother the fact
that Bartlett had been dismissed, and that the doctor had forbidden his
son's return home.

The Honorable Thomas L. Hamer, one of the ablest men Ohio ever produced,
was our member of Congress at the time, and had the right of nomination.
He and my father had been members of the same debating society (where
they were generally pitted on opposite sides), and intimate personal
friends from their early manhood up to a few years before. In politics
they differed. Hamer was a life-long Democrat, while my father was a
Whig. They had a warm discussion, which finally became angry--over some
act of President Jackson, the removal of the deposit of public moneys, I
think--after which they never spoke until after my appointment. I know
both of them felt badly over this estrangement, and would have been glad
at any time to come to a reconciliation; but neither would make the
advance. Under these circumstances my father would not write to Hamer
for the appointment, but he wrote to Thomas Morris, United States
Senator from Ohio, informing him that there was a vacancy at West Point
from our district, and that he would be glad if I could be appointed to
fill it. This