giving formal
expression to his personal interest in the undertaking.

This collection of letters will constitute a suitable companion volume
to Grant's _Personal Memoirs_ and to the accepted biographies of the
Great Commander whose memory is honored by his fellow-citizens not
only for the patience, persistence, and skill of the leader of armies,
as evidenced in the brilliant campaigns that culminated with
Vicksburg, Missionary Ridge, and Appomattox, but for the sturdy
integrity of character, modest bearing, and sweetness of nature of the
great citizen.

GEO. HAVEN PUTNAM.

NEW YORK, April 25, 1912.

ILLUSTRATIONS

ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT (Frontispiece)
From a photograph by W. Kurtz, New York.

JESSE ROOT GRANT, AETAT. 69
Father of Ulysses Simpson Grant.
From a photograph.

MRS. HANNAH GRANT
Mother of Ulysses Simpson Grant.
From a photograph by Landy, taken in Cincinnati.

FACSIMILE OF A LETTER WRITTEN BY ULYSSES
SIMPSON GRANT TO HIS FATHER

FACSIMILE OF GENERAL GRANT'S PROCLAMATION TO
THE CITIZENS OF PADUCAH

GENERAL ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT
From a photograph taken in 1865 by
Gutekunst, Philadelphia.

ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT
From a photograph taken during his second
term as President.

Letters of Ulysses S. Grant

[In 1843, at the age of twenty-one, Ulysses S. Grant was graduated
from West Point with the rank of brevet second lieutenant. He was
appointed to the 4th Infantry, stationed at Jefferson Barracks near
St. Louis. In May, 1844, he was ordered to the frontier of Louisiana
with the army of observation, while the annexation of Texas was
pending. The bill for the annexation of Texas was passed March 1,
1845; the war with Mexico began in April, 1846. Grant was promoted to
a first-lieutenancy September, 1847. The Mexican War closed in 1848.
Both this war and the Civil War he characterizes in his _Memoirs_ as
"unholy."

Soon after his return from Mexico he was married to Julia Dent. The
next six years were spent in military duty in Sacketts Harbor, New
York, Detroit, Michigan, and on the Pacific coast. He was promoted to
the captaincy of a company in 1853; but because of the inadequacy of a
captain's pay, he resigned from the army, July, 1854, and rejoined his
wife and children at St. Louis. In speaking of this period Grant says,
"I was now to commence at the age of thirty-two a new struggle for our
support."

The first chapter in this new st