the South. In this hour the two mighty purposes
of his life grew clearer in men's minds. He had put down the Rebellion,
and from the moment of Lee's surrender had set himself the task of
reuniting the severed nation. "Let us have peace," he said; and the
saying had all the effect of a benediction.

He died on July 23rd, 1885, at the age of sixty-three; and at his grave
the North and the South stood side by side in friendship, and the great
captains of opposing armies walked shoulder to shoulder, bearing his
body to its final rest on the bank of the Hudson River. The world knew
his faults, his mistakes, and his weaknesses; but they were all
forgotten in the memory of his great deeds as a warrior, and of his
gentleness, modesty, candor, and purity as a man. Since then it becomes
increasingly more evident that he is to take his place as one of three
or four figures of the first class in our national history. He was a man
of action, and his deeds were of the kind which mark epochs in history.

[Signature: Hamlin Garland]

EARLY LIFE

From 'Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant.' Copyright by Ulysses S. Grant,
and reprinted by permission of the family of General Grant

In June 1821 my father, Jesse R. Grant, married Hannah Simpson. I was
born on the 27th of April, 1822, at Point Pleasant, Clermont County,
Ohio. In the fall of 1823 we moved to Georgetown, the county seat of
Brown, the adjoining county east. This place remained my home until at
the age of seventeen, in 1839, I went to West Point.

The schools at the time of which I write were very indifferent. There
were no free schools, and none in which the scholars were classified.
They were all supported by subscription, and a single teacher--who was
often a man or a woman incapable of teaching much, even if they imparted
all they knew--would have thirty or forty scholars, male and female,
from the infant learning the A B C's up to the young lady of eighteen
and the boy of twenty, studying the highest branches taught--the three
R's, "Reading, 'Riting, and 'Rithmetic." I never saw an algebra or other
mathematical work higher than the arithmetic, in Georgetown, until after
I was appointed to West Point. I then bought a work on algebra, in
Cincinnati; but having no teacher, it was Greek to me.

My life in Georgetown was uneventful. From the age of five or six until
seventeen, I attended the subscription schools of the village, ex