section zero of Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jim Clevinger. Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant by Ulysses S. Grant. Preface. Man proposes and God disposes. There are but few important events in the affairs of men brought about by their own choice. Although frequently urged by friends to write my memoirs, I had determined never to do so nor to write anything for publication. At the age of nearly sixty-two, I received an injury from a fall which confined me closely to the house while it did not, apparently, affect my general health. This made, study, a pleasant pastime. Shortly after, the rascality of a business partner developed itself by the announcement of a failure. This was followed soon after by universal depression of all securities which seemed to threaten the extinction of a good part of the income still retained and for which I am indebted to the kindly act of friends. At this juncture, the editor of the Century Magazine asked me to write a few articles for him. I consented for the money it gave me for at that moment I was living upon borrowed money. The work I found congenial and I determined to continue it. The event is an important one for me, for good or evil, I hope, for the former. In preparing these volumes for the public, I have entered upon the task with the sincere desire to avoid doing injustice to anyone, whether on the national or confederate side, other than the unavoidable injustice of not making mention often where special mention is due. There must be many errors of omission in this work, because the subject is too large to be treated of in two volumes in such a way as to do justice to all the officers and men engaged. There were thousands of instances during the rebellion of individual, company, regimental, and brigade deeds of heroism which deserve special mention and are not here alluded to. The troops engaged in them will have to look to the detailed reports of their individual commanders for the full history of those deeds. The first volume as well as a portion of the second was written before I had reason to suppose I was in a critical condition of health. Later I was reduced almost to the point of death and it became impossible for me to attend to anything for weeks. I have, however, somewhat regained my strength and am able often to devote as many hours a day as a person should devote to such work. I would have more hope of satisfying the expectation of the public if I could have allowed myself more time. I have used my best efforts with the aid of my eldest son, F. D. Grant, assisted by his brothers to verify from the records every statement of fact given. The comments are my own and show how I saw the matters treated of whether others saw them in the same light or not. With these remarks I present these volumes to the public, asking no favor, but hoping they will meet the approval of the reader. U.S. Grant, Mount McGregor, New York, July 1, 1885. End of Section 0. Recording by Jim Clevinger, Little Rock, Arkansas, Jim at jocclev.com. Section 1 of Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jim Clevinger, Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant by Ulysses S. Grant, Chapter 1. Ancestry, Birth, Boyhood. My family is American and has been for generations in all its branches, direct and collateral. Matthew Grant, the founder of the branch in America, of which I am a descendant, reached Dorchester, Massachusetts, in May 1630. In 1635 he moved to what is now Windsor, Connecticut, and was the surveyor for that colony for more than 40 years. He was also, for many years of the time, town clerk. He was a married man when he arrived at Dorchester, but his children were all born in this country. His eldest son, Samuel, took lands on the east side of the Connecticut River, opposite Windsor, which had been held and occupied by descendants of his to this day. I am of the eighth generation from Matthew Grant and seventh from Samuel. Matthew Grant's first wife died a few years after their settlement in Windsor, and he soon after married the widow Rockwell, who, with her first husband, had been fellow passengers with him and his first wife, on the ship Mary and John from Dorchester, England, in 1630. Mrs. Rockwell had several children by her first marriage and others by her second. By intermarriage, two or three generations later, I am descended from both the wives of Matthew Grant. In the fifth descending generation, my great-grandfather, Noah Grant, and his younger brother Solomon, held commissions in the English army in 1756 in the war against the French and Indians. Both were killed that year. My grandfather, also named Noah, was then but nine years old. At the breaking out of the War of the Revolution, after the battles of Concord and Lexington, he went with a Connecticut company to join the Continental Army and was present at the battle of Bunker Hill. He served until the fall of Yorktown or through the entire Revolutionary War. He must, however, have been on furlough part of the time, as I believe most of the soldiers of that period were, for he married in Connecticut during the war, had two children, and was a widower at the close. Soon after this, he immigrated to Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, and settled near the town of Greensburg in that county. He took with him the younger of his two children, Peter Grant. The elder, Solomon, remained with his relatives in Connecticut until old enough to do for himself when he immigrated to the British West Indies. Not long after his settlement in Pennsylvania, my grandfather, Captain Noah Grant, married a Miss Kelly, and in 1799 he immigrated again. This time to Ohio and settled where the town of Deerfield now stands. He had now five children, including Peter, a son by his first marriage. My father, Jesse R. Grant, was the second child, oldest son by the second married. Peter Grant went early to Maysville, Kentucky, where he was very prosperous, married, had a family of nine children, and was drowned at the mouth of the Coaner River Virginia in 1825, being at the time one of the wealthy men of the West. My grandmother, Grant, died in 1805, leaving seven children. This broke up the family. Captain Noah Grant was not thrifty in the way of laying up stores on earth, and after the death of his second wife, he went with the two youngest children to live with his son Peter in Maysville. The rest of the family found homes in the neighborhood of Deerfield. My father and the family of Judge Todd, the father of the late Governor Todd of Ohio, his industry and independence of character were such that I imagined his labor compensated fully for the expense of his maintenance. There must have been a cordiality in his welcome into the Todd family, for to the day of his death he looked upon Judge Todd and his wife with all the reverence he could have felt if they had been parents instead of benefactors. I have often heard him speak of Mrs. Todd as the most admirable woman he had ever known. He remained with the Todd family only a few years until old enough to learn a trade. He went first, I believe, with his half-brother Peter Grant, who, though not a tanner himself, owned a tannery in Maysville, Kentucky. Here he learned his trade and in a few years returned to Deerfield and worked for and lived in the family of a Mr. Brown, the father of John Brown, whose body lies moldering in the grave while his soul goes marching on. I have often heard my father speak of John Brown particularly since the events at Harpers Ferry. Brown was a boy when they lived in the same house, but he knew him afterwards and regarded him as a man of great purity of character, of high moral and physical courage, but a fanatic and extremist in whatever he advocated. It was certainly the act of an insane man to attempt the invasion of the South and the overthrow of slavery with less than twenty men. My father set up for himself in business establishing a tannery at Revena, the county seed of Fortage County. In a few years he removed from Revena and set up the same business at Point Pleasant, Claremont County, Ohio. During the minority of my father, the West afforded but poor facilities for the most opulent of the youth to acquire an education, and the majority were dependent almost exclusively upon their own exertions for whatever learning they obtained. I have often heard him say that his time at school was limited to six months when he was very young, too young indeed to learn much or to appreciate the advantages of an education, and to a quarter's schooling, afterwards probably while living with Judge Todd. But his thirst for education was intense. He learned rapidly and was a constant reader up to the day of his death in his eightieth year. Books were scarce in the Western Reserve during his youth, but he read every book he could borrow in the neighborhood where he lived. This scarcity gave him the early habit of studying everything he read so that when he got through with the book he knew everything in it. The habit continued through life, even after reading the daily papers which he never neglected. He could give all the important information they contained. He made himself an excellent English scholar, and before he was twenty years of age was a constant contributor to Western newspapers, and was also, from that time until he was fifty years old, an able debater in the societies for this purpose which were common in the West at that time. He always took an active part in politics, but was never a candidate for office except I believe that he was the first mayor of Georgetown. He supported Jackson for the presidency, but he was a Whig, a great admirer of Henry Clay, and never voted for any other Democrat for high office after Jackson. My mother's family lived in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania for several generations. I have little information about her ancestors. Her family took no interest in genealogy, so that my grandfather who died when I was sixteen years old knew only back to his grandfather. On the other side my father took a great interest in the subject, and in his researches he found that there was an entailed estate in Windsor Connecticut belonging to the family to which his nephew Lawson Grant, still living, was the heir. He was so much interested in the subject that he got his nephew to empower him to act in the matter, and in 1832 or 1833 when I was a boy ten or eleven years old. He went to Windsor, proved the title beyond dispute, and perfected the claim of the owners for a consideration three thousand dollars I think. I remember the circumstance well, and remember too hearing him say on his return that he found some widows living on the property who had little or nothing beyond their homes. From these he refused to receive any recompense. My mother's father, John Simpson, moved from Montgomery County, Pennsylvania to Claremont County, Ohio about the year 1819, taking with him his four children, three daughters, and one son. My mother, Hannah Simpson, was the third of these children and was then over twenty years of age. Her oldest sister was at that time married and had several children. She still lives in Claremont County at this writing, October the 5th, 1884, and is over ninety years of age. Until her memory failed her a few years ago she thought the country ruined beyond recovery when the Democratic Party lost control in 1860. Her family, which was large, inherited her views with the exception of one son who settled in Kentucky before the war. He was the only one of the children who entered the volunteer service to suppress the rebellion. Her brother, next of age and now past eighty-eight, is also still living in Claremont County within a few miles of the old homestead and is as active in mind as ever. He was a supporter of the government during the war and remains a firm believer that national success by the Democratic Party means a retrievable ruin. In June 1821 my father, Jesse R. Grant, married Hannah Simpson. I was born on the 27th of April 1822 at Point Pleasant Claremont 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 ABCs up to the young lady of eighteen and the boy of twenty, studying the highest branches taught, the three Rs, reading, writing, arithmetic. 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 except during the winters of 1836 and seven and 1838 and nine. The former period was spent in Maysville, Kentucky, attending the school of Richardson and Rand, the latter in Ripley, Ohio, at a private school. I was not studious in habit and probably did not make progress enough to compensate for the outlay for bored intuition. At all events both winters were spent in going over the same old arithmetic which I knew every word of before and repeating a noun is the name of a thing which I had also heard my Georgetown teachers repeat until I had come to believe it, but I cast no reflections upon my old teacher Richardson. He turned out bright scholars from his school, many of whom have filled conspicuous places in the service of their states. Two of my contemporaries there, who I believe never attended any other institution of learning, have held seats in Congress and won if not both other high offices. These are Wadsworth and Brewster. My father was from my earliest recollection in comfortable circumstances considering the times, his place of residence, and the community in which he lived. Mindful of his own lack of facilities for acquiring an education, his greatest desire in mature years was for the education of his children. Consequently, as stated before, I never missed a quarter from school from the time I was old enough to attend till the time of leaving home. This did not exempt me from labor. In my early days, everyone labored more or less in the region where my youth was spent and more in proportion to their private means. It was only the very poor who were exempt. While my father carried on the manufacture of leather and worked at the trade himself, he owned until considerable land. I tested the trade, preferring almost any other labor, but I was fond of agriculture and of all employment in which horses were used. We had, among other lands, 50 acres of forest within a mile of the village. In the fall of the year, choppers were employed to cut enough wood to last a 12 month. When I was seven or eight years of age, I began hauling all the wood used in the house and shops. I could not load it on the wagons, of course, at that time, but I could drive and the choppers would load and someone at the house unload. When about 11 years old, I was strong enough to hold a plow. From that age until 17 I did all the work done with horses, such as breaking up the land, furrowing, plowing corn and potatoes, bringing in the crops when harvested, hauling all the wood besides tending two or three horses, a cow or two, and sawing wood for stoves, et cetera, while still attending school. For this I was compensated by the fact that there was never any scolding or punishing by my parents, no objection to rational enjoyment, such as fishing going to the creek a mile away to swim in summer, taking a horse and visiting my grandparents in the adjoining county, 15 miles off, skating on the ice in winter or taking a horse and sleigh when there was snow on the ground. While still quite young, I had visited Cincinnati 45 miles away several times alone, also Mazeville, Kentucky, Hoffman, and once Louisville. The journey to Louisville was a big one for a boy of that day. I had also gone once with a two horse carriage to Chillicothe, about 70 miles, with a neighbor's family who were removing to Toledo, Ohio, and returned alone, and had gone once in like manner to Flat Rock, Kentucky, about 70 miles away. On this latter occasion I was 15 years of age. While at Flat Rock at the house of a Mr. Payne, whom I was visiting with his brother, a neighbor of ours in Georgetown, I saw a very fine saddle horse which I rather coveted and proposed to Mr. Payne, the owner, to trade him for one of the two I was driving. Payne hesitated to trade with a boy, but asking his brother about it, the latter told him that it would be all right, that I was allowed to do as I pleased with the horses. I was 70 miles from home, with a carriage to take back, and Mr. Payne said he did not know that his horse had ever had a collar on. I asked to have him hitched to a farm wagon, and we would soon see whether he would work. It was soon evident that the horse had never worn harness before, but he showed no viciousness, and I expressed the confidence that I could manage him. A trade was at once struck, I receiving ten dollars difference. The next day Mr. Payne of Georgetown and I started on our return. We got along very well for a few miles when we encountered a ferocious dog that frightened the horses and made them run. The new animal kicked at every jump he made. I got the horses stopped, however, before any damage was done and without running into anything. After giving them a little rest to quiet their fears, we started again. That instant the new horse kicked and started to run once more. The load we were on struck the turnpike within half a mile of the point where the second runaway commenced, and there was an embankment twenty or more feet deep on the opposite side of the pike. I got the horses stopped on the very break of the precipice. My new horse was terribly frightened and trembled like an aspen, but he was not half so badly frightened as my companion Mr. Payne, who deserted me after this last experience and took passage on a freight wagon from Aisville. Every time I attempted to start my new horse would commence to kick. I was in quite a dilemma for a time. Once in Mazeville I could borrow a horse from an uncle who lived there, but I was more than a day's travel from that point. Finally I took out my bandana, the style of handkerchief and universal use then, and with this blindfolded my horse. In this way I reached Mazeville safely the next day. No doubt much to the surprise of my friend. Here I borrowed a horse from my uncle and the following day we proceeded on our journey. About half my school days in Georgetown were spent at the school of John D. White, a North Carolinian, and the father of Chilton White, who represented the district in Congress for one term during the rebellion. Mr. White was always a Democrat in politics, and Chilton followed his father. He had two older brothers, all three being schoolmates of mine at their father's school, who did not go the same way. The second brother died before the rebellion began. He was a Whig and afterwards a Republican. His oldest brother was a Republican and brave soldier during the rebellion. Chilton is reported as having told of an earlier horse trade of mine, as he told a story there was a Mr. Ralston living within a few miles of the village, who owned a colt which I very much wanted. My father had offered twenty dollars for it, but Ralston wanted twenty-five. I was so anxious to have the colt that after the owner left I begged to be allowed to take him at the price demanded. My father yielded but said twenty dollars was all the horse was worth, and told me to offer that price. If it was not accepted I was to offer twenty-two and a half, and if that would not get him to give the twenty-five. I at once mounted a horse and went for the colt. When I got to Mr. Ralston's house I said to him, Papa says I may offer you twenty dollars for the colt, but if you won't take that I am to offer twenty-two and a half, and if you won't take that to give you twenty-five. It would not require a Connecticut man to guess the price finally agreed upon. The story is nearly true. I certainly showed very plainly that I had come for the colt and meant to have him. I could not have been over eight years old at the time. This transaction caused me great heart-burning. The story got out among the boys of the village, and it was a long time before I heard the last of it. Boys enjoy the misery of their companions, at least village boys, and that day did, and in later life I have found that all adults are not free from the peculiarity. I kept the horse until he was four years old when he went blind, and I sold him for twenty dollars. When I went to Maysville to school in eighteen thirty-six at the age of fourteen, I recognized my colt as one of the blind horses working on the tread-wheel of the ferry-boat. I have described enough of my early life to give an impression of the whole. I did not like to work, but I did as much of it while young as grown men can be hard to do in these days and attended school at the same time. I had as many privileges as any boy in the village, and probably more than most of them. I have no recollection of ever having been punished at home, either by scolding or by the rod, but at school the case was different. The rod was freely used there, and I was not exempt from its influence. I concede John D. White, the schoolteacher, now with his long beech switch always in his hand. It was not always the same one, either. Switches were brought in bundles from a beech wood near the schoolhouse by the boys for whose benefit they were intended. Often a whole bundle would be used up in a single day. I never had any hard feelings against my teacher, either while attending the school or in later years when reflecting upon my experience. Mr. White was a kind-hearted man and was much respected by the community in which he lived. He only followed the universal custom of the period, and that under which he had received his own education. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Jim Clevenger Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant by Ulysses S. Grant Chapter 2 West Point Graduation In the winter of 1838 and 9, I was attending school at Ripley, only ten miles distant from Georgetown, but spent the Christmas holidays at home. During this vacation my father received a letter from the Honorable Thomas Morris, then United States Senator from Ohio. When he read it he said to me, Ulysses, I believe you are going to receive the appointment. What appointment I inquired? To West Point. I have applied for it. But I won't go, I said. He said he thought I would, and I thought so too if he did. I really had no objection to going to West Point except that I had a very exalted idea of the requirements necessary to get through. I did not believe I possessed him 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 Allegades 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 lifelong 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 monies 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 letter, I presume, was turned over to Mr. Hamer and, as there was no other applicant, he cheerfully appointed me. This healed the breach between the two, never after reopened. Besides the argument used by my father in favor of my going to West Point that he thought I would go, there was another very strong inducement. I had always a great desire to travel. I was already the best travel boy in Georgetown, except the sons of one man, John Walker, who had immigrated to Texas with his family and it immigrated back as soon as he could get the means to do so. In his short stay in Texas he acquired a very different opinion of the country from what one would form going there now. I had been east to Wheeling, Virginia and north to the western reserve in Ohio, west to Louisville and south to Bourbon County, Kentucky, besides having driven or ridden pretty much over the whole country within 50 miles of home. Going to West Point would give me the opportunity of visiting the two great cities of the continent, Philadelphia and New York. This was enough. When these places were visited I would have been glad to have had a steamboat or railroad collision or any other accident happen by which I might have received a temporary injury sufficient to make me ineligible for a time to enter the academy. Nothing of the kind occurred and I had to face the music. Georgetown has a remarkable record for a western village. It is and has been from its earliest existence a democratic town. There was probably no time during the rebellion when, if the opportunity could have been afforded, it would not have voted for Jefferson Davis for president of the United States over Mr. Lincoln or any other representative of his party, unless it was immediately after some of John Morgan's men in his celebrated raid through Ohio spent a few hours in the village. The rebels helped themselves to whatever they could find. Horses, boots and shoes, especially horses, and many ordered meals to be prepared for them by the families. This was no doubt a far pleasanter duty for some families than it would have been to render a like service for Union soldiers. The line between the rebel and Union elements in Georgetown was so marked that it led to divisions even in the churches. There were churches in that part of Ohio where treason was preached regularly and where to secure membership, hostility to the government, to the war and to the liberation of the slaves was far more essential than a belief in the authenticity or credibility of the Bible. There were men in Georgetown who filled all the requirements for membership in these churches. Yet this far off western village with the population including old and young, male and female of about one thousand, about enough for the organization of a single regiment if all had been men capable of bearing arms, furnished the Union Army four general officers and one colonel. West Point graduates and nine generals and field officers are volunteers that I can think of. Of the graduates from West Point, all had citizenship elsewhere at the breaking out of the rebellion except possibly general A. V. Cots who had remained in the army from his graduation. Two of the colonels also entered the service from other localities. The other seven, General McGroyerty, colonels White, Fife, Loudon and Marshall, Majors King and Bailey were all residents of Georgetown when the war broke out and all of them who were alive at the close returned there. Major Bailey was the cadet who had preceded me at West Point. He was killed in West Virginia in his first engagement. As far as I know, every boy who has entered West Point from that village since my time has been graduated. I took passage on a steamer at Ripley, Ohio for Pittsburgh about the middle of May, 1839. Western boats at that day did not make regular trips at stated times, but would stop anywhere and for any length of time for passengers or freight. I have myself been detained two or three days at a place after steam was up, the gang planks all but one drawn in, and after the time advertised for starting had expired. On this occasion we had no vexatious delays and in about three days Pittsburgh was reached. From Pittsburgh I chose passage by the canal to Harrisburg rather than by the more expeditious stage. This gave a better opportunity of enjoying the fine scenery of western Pennsylvania, and I had rather a dread of reaching my destination at all. At that time the canal was much patronized by travelers and, with the comfortable packets of the period, no mode of conveyance could be more pleasant when time was not an object. From Harrisburg to Philadelphia there was a railroad, the first I had ever seen, except the one on which I had just crossed the summit of the Allegheny Mountains and over which canal boats were transported. In traveling by the road from Harrisburg I thought the perfection of rapid transit had been reached. We traveled at least 18 miles an hour, when at full speed, and made the whole distance averaging probably as much as 12 miles an hour. This seemed like annihilating space. I stopped five days in Philadelphia, saw about every street in the city, attended the theater, visited Gerard College, which was then in course of construction, and got reprimanded from home afterwards for dallying by the way so long. My sojourn in New York was shorter, but long enough to enable me to see the city very well. I reported at West Point on the 30th or 31st of May, and about two weeks later passed my examination for admission without difficulty, very much to my surprise. A military life had no charms for me, and I had not the faintest idea of staying in the army even if I should be graduated, which I did not expect. The encampment which preceded the commencement of academic studies was very weary some and uninteresting. When the 28th of August came, the date for breaking up camp and going into barracks, I felt as though I had been at West Point always, and that if I stayed to graduation, I would have to remain always. I did not take hold of my studies with avidity. In fact, I rarely ever read over a lesson the second time during my entire cadetship. I could not sit in my room doing nothing. There is a fine library connected with the Academy from which cadets can get books to read in their quarters. I devoted more time to these than to books relating to the course of studies. Much of the time, I am sorry to say, was devoted to novels, but not those of a trashy sort. I read all of Bulwars then published, Coopers, Marriots, Scots, Washington Irving's Works, Leavers, and many others that I do not now remember. Mathematics was very easy to me, so that when January came, I passed the examination, taking a good standing in that branch. In French, the only other study at that time in the first year's course, my standing was very low. In fact, if the class had been turned the other end foremost, I should have been near head. I never succeeded in getting squarely at either end of my class in any one study during the four years. I came near it in French, artillery, infantry, and Calvary tactics and conduct. Early in the session of the Congress, which met in December 1839, a bill was discussed abolishing the Military Academy. I saw in this an honorable way to obtain a discharge, and read the debates with much interest, but with impatience at the delay in taking action, for I was selfish enough to favor the bill. It never passed, and a year later, although the time hung drearily with me, I would have been sorry to have seen it succeed. My idea then was to get through the course, secure a detail for a few years as Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the Academy, and afterwards obtain a permanent position as Professor in some respectable college, but circumstances always did shape my course different from my plans. At the end of two years the class received the usual furlough, extending from the close of the June examination to the 28th of August. This I enjoyed beyond any other period of my life. My father had sold out his business in Georgetown, where my youth had been spent, and to which my daydreams carried me back as my future home, if I should ever be able to retire on a competency. He had moved to Bethel only 12 miles away in the adjoining county of Claremont, and had bought a young horse that had never been in Hornus for my special use under the saddle during my furlough. Most of my time was spent among my old schoolmates. These ten weeks were shorter than one week at West Point. Persons acquainted with the Academy know that the core of cadets is divided into four companies for the purpose of military exercises. These companies are officers from the cadets, the superintendent and commandant selecting the officers for their military bearing and qualifications. The adjutant, quartermaster, four captains and twelve lieutenants are taken from the first or senior class, the sergeants from the second or junior class, and the corporals from the third or sophomore class. I had not been called out as a corporal, but when I returned from furlough I found myself the last but one about my standing in all the tactics of 18 sergeants. The promotion was too much for me. That year my standing in the class, as shown by the number of demerits of the year, was about the same as it was among the sergeants, and I was dropped and served the fourth year as a private. During my first year's encampment, General Scott visited West Point and reviewed the cadets. With his commanding figure, his quite colossal size and show of uniform, I thought him the finest specimen of manhood my eyes had ever beheld and the most to be envied. I could never resemble him in appearance, but I believe I did have a pre-sentiment for a moment that some day I should occupy his place on review, although I had no intention then of remaining in the army. My experience in a horse-trade ten years before, and the ridicule it caused me, were too fresh in my mind for me to communicate this pre-sentiment to even my most intimate chum. The next summer, Martin Van Buren, then President of the United States, visited West Point and reviewed the cadets. He did not impress me with the all which Scott had inspired. In fact, I regarded General Scott and Captain C. F. Smith, the commandant of cadets, as the two men most to be envied in the nation. I retained a high regard for both up to the day of their death. The last two years wore away more rapidly than the first two, but they still seemed about five times as long as Ohio years to me. At last all the examinations were passed and the members of the class were called upon to record their choice of arms of service and regiments. I was anxious to enter the cavalry or dragoons as they were then called, but there was only one regiment of dragoons in the army at that time, and attached to that, besides the full complement of officers, there were at least four Brevet Second lieutenants. I recorded therefore my first choice, dragoons, Second, Fourth Infantry, and Got the Ladder. Again there was a furlough, or more properly speaking, leave of absence, for the class were now commissioned officers. It's time to the end of September. Again I went to Ohio to spend my vacation among my old schoolmates, and again I found a fine saddlehorse purchased for my special use besides a horse and buggy that I could drive, but I was not in a physical condition to enjoy myself quite as well as on the former occasion. For six months before graduation I had had a desperate cough. Tyler's grip it was called, and I was very much reduced, weighing but one hundred and seventeen pounds, just my weight at entrance, though I had grown six inches in stature in the meantime. There was consumption in my father's family, two of his brothers having died of that disease, which made my symptoms more alarming. The brother and sister next younger than myself died during the rebellion of the same disease, and I seen the most promising subject for it of the three in eighteen forty three. Having made alternate choice of two different arms of service with different uniforms, I could not get a uniform suit until notified of my assignment. I left my measurement with a tailor with directions not to make the uniform until I notified him whether it was to be for infantry or dragoons. Notice did not reach me for several weeks, and then it took at least a week to get the letter of instructions to the tailor and two more to make the clothes and have them sent to me. This was a time of great suspense. I was impatient to get on my uniform and see how it looked, and probably wanted my old schoolmates, particularly the girls, to see me in it. The conceit was knocked out of me by two little circumstances that happened soon after the arrival of the clothes, which gave me a distaste for military uniform that I never recovered from. Soon after the arrival of the suit, I donned it and put off for Cincinnati on horseback. While I was riding along the street of that city, imagining that everyone was looking at me with a feeling akin to mine when I first saw General Scott, a little urchin, bareheaded, footed, with dirty and ragged pants held up by bare a single gallows, that's what suspenders were called in, and a shirt that had not seen a washed up for weeks turned to me and cried, Soldier, will you work? No, sirree, I'll sell my shirt first. The horse trade and its dire consequences were recalled to mind. The other circumstance occurred at home. Opposite our house in Bethel stood the old stage tavern where man and beast found accommodation. The stable man was rather dissipated, but possessed of some humor. On my return I found him parading the streets and attending in the stable, barefooted, but in a pair of sky blue nankine pantaloons, just the color of my uniform trousers, with a strip of white cotton sheeting sewed down the outside seams in invitation of mine. The joke was a huge one in the mind of many of the people, and was much enjoyed by them, but I did not appreciate it so highly. During the remainder of my leave of absence my time was spent in visiting friends in Georgetown and Cincinnati and occasionally other towns in that part of the state. End of Section 2, Recording by Jim Clevinger, Little Rock, Arkansas. Jim at jocclev.com. Section 3 of Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jim Clevinger, Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant by Ulysses S. Grant Chapter 3. Army Life. Causes of the Mexican War. Camp Celebrity. On the 30th of September I reported for duty at Jefferson Barrick, St. Louis, with the 4th United States Infantry. It was the largest military post in the country at that time. Being garrisoned by sixteen companies of infantry, eight of the third regiment, the remainder of the fourth. Colonel Stephen Kearney, one of the ablest officers of the day, commanded the post, and under him discipline was kept at a high standard, but without vexatious rules or regulations. Every drill and roll call had to be attended, but in the intervals officers were permitted to enjoy themselves, leaving the garrison and going where they pleased, without making written application to state where they were going or how long, etc., so that they were back for their next duty. It did seem to me, in my early army days, that too many of the older officers, when they came to command posts, made it a study to think what orders they could publish to annoy their subordinates and render them uncomfortable. I noticed, however, a few years later, when the Mexican war broke out, that most of this class of officers discovered they were possessed of disabilities which entirely incapacitated them for active field service. They had the moral courage to proclaim it too. They were right, but they did not always give their disease the right name. At West Point I had a classmate, in the last year of our studies, he was roommate also, FT Dent, whose family resided some five miles west of Jefferson Barracks. Two of his unmarried brothers were living at home at that time, and as I had taken with me from Ohio my horse, saddle, and bridle, I soon found my way out to Whitehaven, the name of the Dent estate. As I found the family congenial, my visits became frequent. There were, at home, besides the young men, two daughters, one a school miss of fifteen, the other a girl of eight or nine. There was still an older daughter of seventeen who had been spending several years at boarding school in St. Louis, but who, though through school, had not yet returned home. She was spending the winter in the city with connections, the family of Colonel John O'Fallon, well known in St. Louis. In February she returned to her country home. After that I do not know, but my visits became more frequent. They certainly did become more enjoyable. We would often take walks or go on horseback to visit the neighbors until I became quite well acquainted in that vicinity. Sometimes one of the brothers would accompany us, sometimes one of the younger sisters. If the fourth infantry had remained at Jefferson Barracks, it is possible, even probable, that this life might have continued for some years without my finding out that there was anything serious to matter with me. But in the following May a circumstance occurred which developed my sentiment so palpably that there was no mistaking it. The annexation of Texas was at this time the subject of violent discussion in Congress, in the press, and by individuals. The administration of President Tyler, then in power, was making the most strenuous efforts to affect the annexation which was, indeed, the great and absorbing question of the day. During these discussions the greater part of the single rifle regiment in the Army, the second dragoons, which had been dismounted a year or two before, and designated dismounted rifles, was stationed at Fort Jessup, Louisiana, some twenty-five miles east of the Texas line, to observe the frontier. About the first of May the third infantry was ordered from Jefferson Barracks to Louisiana to go into camp in the neighborhood of Fort Jessup and there await further orders. The troops were embarked on steamers and were on their way down the Mississippi within a few days after the receipt of this order. About the time they started I obtained a leave of absence for twenty days to go to Ohio to visit my parents. I was obliged to go to St. Louis to take a steamer for Louisville or Cincinnati or the first steamer going up the Ohio River to any point. Before I left St. Louis orders were received at Jefferson Barracks for the fourth infantry to follow the third. A messenger was sent after me to stop my leaving, but before he could reach me I was off, totally ignorant of these events. A day or two after my arrival at Bethel I received a letter from a classmate and fellow lieutenant in the fourth informing me of the circumstances related above and advising me not to open any letter post Mark St. Louis or Jefferson Barracks until the expiration of my leave and saying that he would pack up my things and take them along for me. His advice was not necessary for no other letter was sent to me. I now discovered that I was exceedingly anxious to get back to Jefferson Barracks and I understood the reason without explanation from anyone. My leave of absence required me to report for duty at Jefferson Barracks at the end of twenty days. I knew my regiment had gone up the Red River, but I was not disposed to break the letter of my leave besides if I had proceeded to Louisiana Direct I could not have reached there until after the expiration of my leave. Accordingly at the end of the twenty days I reported for duty to Lieutenant Ewell, commanding at Jefferson Barracks, handing him at the same time my leave of absence. After noticing the phraseology of the order, leaves of absence were generally worded at the end of which time he will report for duty with his proper command, he said he would give me an order to join my regiment in Louisiana. I then asked for a few days leave before starting which he readily granted. This was the same Ewell who acquired considerable reputation as a Confederate general during the rebellion. He was a man much esteemed and deservedly so in the old army and proved himself a gallant and efficient officer in two wars, both in my estimation unholy. I immediately procured a horse and started for the country, taking no baggage with me, of course. There is an insignificant creek to grab a wall between Jefferson Barracks and the place to which I was going, and at that day there was not a bridge over it from its source to its mouth. There is not water enough in the creek at ordinary stages to run a coffee mill, and at low water there is none running whatever. On this occasion it had been raining heavily, and when the creek was reached I found the banks full to overflowing and the current rapid. I looked at it a moment to consider what to do. One of my superstitions had always been when I started to go anywhere or to do anything, not to turn back or stop until the thing intended was accomplished. I have frequently started to go to places where I had never been, and to which I did not know the way, depending upon making inquiries on the road, and if I got past the place without knowing it, instead of turning back, I would go on until a road was found turning in the right direction, take off at, and come in by the other side. So I struck into the stream, and in an instant the horse was swimming and I being carried down by the current. I headed the horse towards the other bank, and soon reached it, wet through and without other clothes on that side of the stream. I went on, however, to my destination and borrowed a dry suit from my future brother We were not of the same size, but the clothes answered every purpose until I got more of my own. Before I returned, I mustered up courage to make known, in the most awkward manner imaginable, the discovery I had made on learning that the fourth infantry had been ordered away from Jefferson Barracks. The young lady afterwards admitted that she too, although until then she had never looked upon me other than as a visitor whose company was agreeable to her, had experienced a depression of spirits she could not account for when the regiment left. Before separating, it was definitely understood that at a convenient time we would join our fortunes and not let the removal of a regiment trouble us. This was in May 1844. It was the 22nd of August 1848 before the fulfillment of disagreement. My duties kept me on the frontier of Louisiana with the army of observation during the pendency of annexation, and afterwards I was absent through the war with Mexico, provoked by the action of the army, if not by the annexation itself. During that time there was a constant correspondence between Miss Dent and myself, but we only met once in the period of four years and three months. In May 1845, I procured a leave for twenty days, visited St. Louis, and obtained the consent of the parents for the union, which had not been asked for before. As already stated, it was never my intention to remain in the army long, but to prepare myself for a professorship in some college. Accordingly, soon after I was settled at Jefferson Barracks, I wrote a letter to Professor Church, Professor of Mathematics at West Point, requesting him to ask my designation as his assistant when next a detail had to be made. Assistant professors at West Point are all officers of the army. Supposed to be selected for their special fitness for the particular branch of study they are assigned to teach. The answer from Professor Church was entirely satisfactory, and no doubt I should have been detailed a year or two later, but for the Mexican war coming on. Accordingly, I laid out for myself a course of studies to be pursued in Garrison with regularity, if not persistency. I reviewed my West Point course of mathematics during the seven months at Jefferson Barracks, and read many valuable historical works besides an occasional novel. To help my memory, I kept a book in which I would write up from time to time my recollections of all I had read since last posting it. When the regiment was ordered away, I, being absent at the time, my effects were packed up by Lieutenant Hazlett of the Fourth Infantry and taken along. I never saw my journal after, nor did I ever keep another, except for a portion of the time while traveling abroad. Often since, a fear has crossed my mind lest that book might turn up yet and fall into the hands of some malicious person who would publish it. I know its appearance would cause me as much heart-burning as my youthful horse-trade, or the later rebuke for wearing uniform clothes. The Third Infantry had selected camping grounds on the reservation at Fort Jessup, about midway between the Red River and the Sabine. Our orders required us to go into camp in the same neighborhood and await further instructions. Those authorized to do so selected a place in the Pine Woods, between the old town of Nacodotius in Grand Decor, about three miles from each and on high ground back from the river. The place was given the name of Camp Celebrity, and proved entitled to it. The camp was on a high, sandy pine ridge, with spring branches in the valley in front and rear. The springs furnished an abundance of cool, pure water, and the ridge was above the flight of mosquitoes which abound in that region in great multitudes and of great velocity. In the valley they swarmed in myriads, but never came to the summit of the ridge. The regiment occupied this camp six months before the first death occurred, and that was caused by an accident. There was no intimation given that the removal of the third and fourth regiments of infantry to the western border of Louisiana was occasioned in any way by the prospective annexation of Texas, but it was generally understood that such was the case. Ostensibly we were intended to prevent filibustering into Texas, but really, as a menace to Mexico in case she appeared to contemplate war. Generally the officers of the army were indifferent whether the annexation was consummated or not, but not so all of them. For myself I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war which resulted as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad examples of European monarchies in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory. Texas was originally a state belonging to the Republic of Mexico. It extended from the Sabine River on the east to the Rio Grande on the west, and from the Gulf of Mexico on the south and east to the territory of the United States and New Mexico, another Mexican state at that time, on the north and west. An empire in territory. It had but a very sparse population, until settled by Americans who had received authority from Mexico to colonize. These colonists paid very little attention to the supreme government, and introduced slavery into the state almost from the start, though the Constitution of Mexico did not, nor does it now, sanction that institution. Soon they set up an independent government of their own, and war existed between Texas and Mexico, in name from that time until 1836 when active hostilities very nearly ceased upon the capture of Santa Ana, the Mexican president. Before long, however, the same people, who, with permission of Mexico, had colonized Texas and afterwards set up slavery there, and then seceded as soon as they felt strong enough to do so, offered themselves and the state to the United States, and in 1845 their offer was accepted. The occupation, separation, and annexation were, from the inception of the movement to its final consummation, a conspiracy to acquire territory out of which slave states might be formed for the American Union. Even if the annexation itself could be justified, the manner in which the subsequent war was forced upon Mexico cannot. The fact is, annexationists wanted more territory than they could possibly lay any claim to, as part of the new acquisition. Texas as an independent state never had exercised jurisdiction over the territory between the Nucius River and the Rio Grande. Mexico had never recognized the independence of Texas and maintained that, even if independent, the state had no claim south of the Nucis. I am aware that a treaty made by the Texans with Santa Ana, while he was under duress, ceded all the territory between the Nucis and the Rio Grande, but he was a prisoner of war when the treaty was made and his life was in jeopardy. He knew, too, that he deserved execution at the hands of the Texans if they should ever capture him. The Texans, if they had taken his life, would have only followed the example set by Santa Ana himself a few years before when he executed the entire garrison of the Alamo and the villagers of Gulliad. In taking military possession of Texas after annexation, the army of occupation under General Taylor was directed to occupy the disputed territory. The army did not stop at the Nucis and offer to negotiate for a settlement of the boundary question, but went beyond, apparently, in order to force Mexico to initiate war. It is to the credit of the American nation, however, that after conquering Mexico and while practically holding the country in our possession so that we could have retained the whole of it or made any terms we chose, we paid a round sum for the additional territory taken more than it was worth or was likely to be to Mexico. To us it was an empire and of incalculable value, but it might have been obtained by other means. The Southern rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican war. Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions. We got our punishment in the most sanguinary and expensive war of modern times. The Fourth Infantry went into camp at Celebrity in the month of May 1844 with instructions, as I have said, to await for their orders. At first officers and men occupied ordinary tents. As the summer heat increased these were covered by sheds to break the rays of the sun. The summer was wild away in social enjoyments among the officers, in visiting those stationed at and near Fort Jessup, twenty-five miles away, visiting the planters on the Red River and the citizens of Nacodotius in Grand Decor. There was much pleasant intercourse between the inhabitants and the officers of the army. I retained very agreeable recollections of my stay at Camp Celebrity and of the acquaintances made there, and no doubt my feeling is shared by the few officers living who were there at the time. I can call to mind only two officers of the Fourth Infantry besides myself who were at Camp Celebrity with the Regiment, who are now alive, with a war in prospect and belonging to a regiment that had an unusual number of officers detailed on special duty away from the regiment, my hopes of being ordered to West Point as instructor vanished. At the time of which I now write, officers in the quartermasters, commissaries, and adjutant generals departments were appointed from the line of the army and did not vacate their regimental commissions until their regimental and staff commissions were for the same grades. Generally, lieutenants were appointed to captaincies to fill vacancies in the staff corps. If they should reach a captaincy in the line before they arrived at a majority in the staff, they would elect which commission they would retain. In the Fourth Infantry in 1844, at least six line officers were on duty in the staff and therefore permanently detached from the regiment. Under these circumstances I gave up everything like a special course of reading and only read thereafter for my own amusement, and not very much for that until the war was over. I kept a horse and rode and stayed out of doors most of the time by day and entirely recovered from the cough which I had carried from West Point and from all indications of consumption. I have often thought that my life was saved and my health restored by exercise and exposure, enforced by an administrative act and a war, both of which I disapproved. As summer wore away and cool days and colder nights came upon us, the tents we were occupying ceased to afford comfortable quarters and for the orders not reaching us, we began to look about to remedy the hardship. Men were put to work getting out timber to build huts, and in a very short time all were comfortably housed, private, as well as officers. The outlay by the government in accomplishing this was nothing or nearly nothing. The winter was spent more agreeably than the summer had been. There were occasional parties given by the planters along the coast, as the bottom lands on the Red River were called. The climate was delightful. Near the close of the short session of Congress in 1844, 1845, the bill for the annexation of Texas to the United States was passed. It reached President Tyler on the 1st of March 1845 and promptly received his approval. When the news reached us, we began to look again for further orders. They did not arrive promptly and on the 1st of May following, I asked and obtained a leave of absence for twenty days for the purpose of visiting St. Louis. The object of this visit has been before stated. Early in July the long expected orders were received, but they only took the regiment to New Orleans barracks. We reached there before the middle of the month and again waited weeks for still further orders. The yellow fever was raging in New Orleans during the time we remained there and the streets of the city had the appearance of a continuous well-observed Sunday. I recollect but one occasion when this observance seemed to be broken by the inhabitants. One morning about daylight, I happened to be awake and hearing the discharge of a rifle not far off, I looked out to ascertain where the sound came from. I observed a couple of clusters of men nearby and learned afterwards that it was nothing, only a couple of gentlemen deciding a difference of opinion with rifles at twenty paces. I do not remember if either was killed or even hurt, but no doubt the question of difference was settled satisfactorily and honorably in the estimation of the parties engaged. I do not believe I ever would have the courage to fight a duel. If any man should wrong me to the extent of my being willing to kill him, I would not be willing to give him the choice of weapons with which it should be done, and of the time place in distance separating us when I executed him. If I should do another such a wrong as to justify him in killing me, I would make any reasonable atonement within my power if convinced of the wrong done. I placed my opposition to dueling on higher grounds than here stated. No doubt a majority of the duels fought have been for want of moral courage on the part of those engaged to decline. At Camp Celebrity and when we went to New Orleans barracks, the fourth infantry was commanded by Colonel Vos, then an old gentleman who had not commanded on drill for a number of years. He was not a man to discover infirmity in the presence of danger. It now appeared that war was imminent and he felt that it was his duty to brush up his tactics. Accordingly, when we got settled down at our new post, he took command of the regiment at a battalion drill. Only two or three evolutions had been gone through when he dismissed the battalion and, turning to go to his own quarters, dropped dead. He had not been complaining of ill health, but no doubt died of heart disease. He was a most esteemable man of exemplary habits and by no means the author of his own disease. Please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jim Clevenger. Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant by Ulysses S. Grant. Chapter 4. Corpus Christi. Mexican Smuggling. Spanish Rule in Mexico. Supplying Transportation. Early in September, the regiment left New Orleans for Corpus Christi, now in Texas. Ocean steamers were not then common and the passage was made in sailing vessels. At that time there was not more than three feet of water in the channel at the outlet of Corpus Christi Bay. The debarcation, therefore, had to take place by small steamers and at an island in the channel called Shell Island. The ships anchoring some miles out from shore. This made the work slow and, as the army was only supplied with one or two steamers, it took a number of days to affect the landing of a single regiment with its stores, camp and garrison equippage, etc. There happened to be pleasant weather while this was going on, but the land swell was so great that when the ship and steamer were on opposite sides of the same wave, they would be at considerable distance apart. The men in baggage were let down to a point higher than the lower deck of the steamer, and when ship and steamer got into the trough between the waves, and were close together, the load would be drawn over the steamer and rapidly run down until it rested on the deck. After I had gone ashore and had been on guard several days at Shell Island, quite six miles from the ship, I had occasion for some reason or other to return on board. While on the Suvia, I think that was the name of our vessel, I heard a tremendous racket at the other end of the ship and much and excited sailor language, such as damn your eyes, etc. In a moment or two, the captain who was an excitable little man, dying with consumption and not weighing much over a hundred pounds, came running out, carrying a sabre nearly as large and as heavy as he was and crying that his men had mutinied. It was necessary to sustain the captain without question, and in a few minutes all the sailors charged with mutiny were in irons. I rather felt for a time a wish that I had not gone aboard just then. As the men charged with mutiny, submitted to being placed in irons without resistance, I always doubted if they knew that they had mutinied until they were told. By the time I was ready to leave the ship again, I thought I had learned enough of the working of the double and single pulley by which passengers were let down from the upper deck of the ship to the steamer below and determined to let myself down without assistance. Without saying anything of my intentions to anyone, I mounted the railing and taking hold of the center rope just below the upper block. I put one foot on the hook below the lower block and stepped off just as I did so someone called out, hold on. It was too late. I tried to hold on with all my might, but my heels went up and my head went down so rapidly that my hold broke and I plunged head foremost into the water some twenty-five feet below with such velocity that it seemed to me I never would stop. When I came to the surface again, being a fair swimmer and not having lost my presence of mind, I swam around until a bucket was let down for me and I was drawn up without a scratch or injury. I do not believe there was a man on board who sympathized with me in the least when they found me un-inchored. I rather enjoyed the joke myself. The captain of the Soviet died of his disease a few months later and I believed before the mutineers were tried. I hoped they got clear because as before stated, I always thought the mutiny was all in the brain of a very weak and sick man. After reaching shore, or shell island, the labor of getting to Corpus Christi was slow and tedious. There was if my memory serves me, but one small steamer to transport troops and baggage when the fourth infantry arrived. Others were procured later. The distance from shell island to Corpus Christi was some sixteen or eighteen miles. The channel to the bay was so shallow that the steamer, small as it was, had to be dragged over the bottom when loaded. Not more than one trip a day could be affected. Later this was remedied by deepening the channel and increasing the number of vessels suitable to its navigation. Corpus Christi is near the head of the bay of the same name, formed by the entrance of the New Seas River into Tidewater and is on the west bank of that bay. At the time of its first occupancy by United States troops, there was a small Mexican hamlet there containing probably less than one hundred souls. There was in addition a small American trading post at which goods were sold to Mexican smugglers. All goods were put up in compact packages of about one hundred pounds each suitable for loading on pack mules. Two of these packages made a load for an ordinary Mexican mule and three for the larger ones. The bulk of the trade was in leaf tobacco and domestic cotton cloths and calicoes. The Mexicans had, before the arrival of the army, but little to offer in exchange except silver. The trade in tobacco was enormous, considering the population to be supplied. Almost every Mexican above the age of ten years and many much younger smoked the cigarette. Nearly every Mexican carried a pouch of leaf tobacco, powdered by rolling in the hands and a roll of corn husks to make wrappers. The cigarettes were made by the smokers as they used them. Up to the time of which I write and for years afterwards, I think until the administration of President Juarez, the cultivation, manufacture, and sale of tobacco constituted a government monopoly and paid the bulk of the revenue collected from internal sources. The price was enormously high and made successful smuggling very profitable. The difficulty of obtaining tobacco is probably the reason why everybody, male and female, used it at that time. I know from my own experience that when I was at West Point the fact that tobacco in every form was prohibited and the mere possession of the weeds severely punished made the majority of the cadets, myself included, try to acquire the habit of using it. I failed utterly at the time and for many years afterward, but the majority accomplished the object of their youthful ambition. Under Spanish rule, Mexico was prohibited from producing anything that the mother country could supply. This rule excluded the cultivation of the grape, olive, and many other articles to which the soil employment were well adapted. The country was governed for revenue only and tobacco, which cannot be raised in Spain, but is indigenous to Mexico, offered a fine instrumentality for securing this prime object of government. The native population had been in the habit of using the weed from a period back of any recorded history of this continent. Bad habits, if not restrained by law or public opinion, spread more rapidly and universally than good ones, and the Spanish colonists adopted the use of tobacco almost as generally as the natives. Spain, therefore, in order to secure the largest revenue from this source prohibited the cultivation, except in specified localities and in these places farmed out the privilege at a very high price. The tobacco when raised could only be sold to the government, and the price to the consumer was limited only by the avarice of the authorities and the capacity of the people to pay. All laws for the government of the country were enacted in Spain, and the officers for their execution were appointed by the crown and sent out to the new El Dorado. The Mexicans had been brought up ignorant of how to legislate or how to rule. When they gained their independence after many years of war it was the most natural thing in the world that they should adopt as their own the laws then in existence. The only change was that Mexico became her own executor of the laws and the recipient of the revenues. The tobacco tax yielding so large a revenue under the law as it stood was one of the last, if not the very last, of the obnoxious imposts to be repealed. Now the citizens are allowed to cultivate any crops the soil will yield. Tobacco is cheap and every quality can be produced. Its use is by no means so general as when I first visited the country. Gradually the Army of Occupation assembled at Corpus Christi. When it was altogether it consisted of seven companies of the Second Regiment of Dragoons, four companies of light artillery, five regiments of infantry, the Third, Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, and Eighth, and one regiment of artillery acting as infantry. Not more than 3,000 men in all. General Zachary Taylor commanded the whole. There were troops enough in one body to establish a drill and discipline sufficient to fit men and officers for all they were capable of in case of battle. The rank and file were composed of men who had enlisted in time of peace to serve for seven dollars a month and were necessarily inferior as material to the average volunteers enlisted later in the war expressly to fight and also to the volunteers in the war for the preservation of the Union. The men engaged in the Mexican war were brave and the officers of the regular army from highest to lowest were educated in their profession. A more efficient army for its number and armament I do not believe ever thought a battle than the one commanded by General Taylor in his first two engagements on Mexican or Texan soil. The presence of United States troops on the edge of the disputed territory furthest from the Mexican settlements was not sufficient to provoke hostilities. We were sent to provoke a fight, but it was essential that Mexico should commence it. It was very doubtful whether Congress would declare war but if Mexico should attack our troops the executive could announce whereas war exists by the acts of etc. and prosecute the contest with vigor. Once initiated there were but few public men who would have the courage to oppose it. Experience proves that the man who obstructs a war in which his nation is engaged no matter whether right or wrong occupies no enviable place in life or history. Better for him individually to advocate war, pestilence, and famine than to act as obstructionists to a war already begun. The history of the defeated rebel will be honorable hereafter compared with that of the northern man who aided him by conspiring against his government while protected by it. The most favorable posthumous history the stay-at-home trader can hope for is oblivion. Mexico, showing no willingness to come to the Nucces to drive the invaders from her soil, it became necessary for the invaders to approach to within a convenient distance to be struck. Accordingly, preparations were begun for moving the army to the Rio Grande to a point near Matamoros. It was desirable to occupy a position near the largest center of population possible to reach without absolutely invading territory to which we set up no claim whatever. The distance from Corpus Christi to Matamoros is about 150 miles. The country does not abound in fresh water and the length of the marches had to be regulated by the distance between water supplies. Besides the streams there were occasional pools filled during the rainy season some probably made by the traders who traveled constantly between Corpus Christi and the Rio Grande and some by the buffalo. There was not at that time a single habitation, cultivated field, or herd of domestic animals between Corpus Christi and Matamoros. It was necessary, therefore, to have a wagon train sufficiently large to transport the camp and garrison equippage, officers' baggage and rations for the army, and part rations of grain for the artillery horses and all the animals taken from the north where they had been accustomed to having their forage furnished them. The army was but indifferently supplied with transportation. Wagons and harnesses could easily be supplied from the north, but mules and horses could not so readily be brought. The American traders and Mexican smugglers came to the relief. Contracts were made for mules at from eight to eleven dollars each. The smugglers furnished the animals and took their pay in goods of the description before mentioned. I doubt whether the Mexicans received in value from the traders five dollars per head for the animals they furnished, and still more whether they paid anything but their own time in procuring them, such as trade, such as war. The government paid in hard cash to the contractor the stipulated price. Between the Rio Grande and the Neuses there was at that time a large band of wild horses feeding, as numerous probably, as the band of Buffalo roaming further north was before its rapid extermination commenced. The Mexicans used to capture these in large numbers and bring them into the American settlements and sell them. A picked animal could be purchased at from eight to twelve dollars, but taken at wholesale they could be bought for thirty six dollars a dozen. Some of these were purchased for the army and answered a most useful purpose. The horses were generally very strong, formed much like the Norman horse, and with very heavy mains and tails. A number of officers supplied themselves with these and they generally rendered as useful service as the northern animal. In fact they were much better when grazing was the only means of supplying forage. There was no need for haste and some months were consumed in the necessary preparations for a move. In the meantime the army was engaged in all the duties pertaining to the officer and the soldier. Twice that I remember small trains were sent from Corpus Christi with cavalry escorts to San Antonio and Austin with paymasters and funds to pay off small detachments of troops stationed at those places. General Taylor encouraged officers to accompany these expeditions. I accompanied one of them in December 1845. The distance from Corpus Christi to San Antonio was then computed at one hundred and fifty miles. Now that roads exist it is probably less. From San Antonio to Austin we computed the distance at one hundred and ten miles and from the latter place back to Corpus Christi at over two hundred miles. I know the distance now from San Antonio to Austin is but little over eighty miles so that our computation was probably too high. There was not at the time an individual living between Corpus Christi and San Antonio until within about thirty miles of the latter point where there were a few scattering Mexican settlements along the San Antonio River. The people in at least one of these hamlets lived underground for protection against the Indians. The country abounded in games such as deer and antelope with abundance of wild turkeys along the streams and where there were nut bearing woods. On the new seas about twenty-five miles up from Corpus Christi were a few long cabins that remains of a town called San Patricio but the inhabitants had all been massacred by the Indians or driven away. San Antonio was about equally divided in population between Americans and Mexicans. From there to Austin there was not a single residence except at New Braunfels on the Guadalupe River. At that point was a settlement of Germans who had only that year come into the state. At all events they were living in small huts about such as soldiers would hastily construct for temporary occupation. From Austin to Corpus Christi there was only a small settlement at Bastrop with a few farms along the Colorado River but after leaving that there were no settlements except the home of one man with one female slave at the old town of Goliad. Some of the houses were still standing. Goliad had been quite a village for the period and region but some years before there had been a Mexican massacre in which every inhabitant had been killed or driven away. This with the massacre of the prisoners in the Alamo San Antonio about the same time more than 300 men in all furnished the strongest justification the Texans had for carrying on the war with so much cruelty. In fact from that time until the Mexican war the hostilities between Texans and Mexicans was so great that neither was safe in the neighborhood of the other who might be in superior numbers or possessed of superior arms. The man we found living there seemed like an old friend. He had come from near Fort Jessup, Louisiana where the officers of the Third and Fourth Infantry and the Second Dragoons had known him and his family. He had immigrated in advance of his family to build up a home for them. End of section four. Recording by Jim Clevinger. Little Rock, Arkansas. Jim at joclev.com


Welcome to the Thargoid Report, I'm Commander Burr. This is a distillation of the excellent weekly thread from Burr and Simmons on Reddit. For finer details on the why and the what of the Thargoids activity then do give that post a look, I've linked it below. If you find this information useful and enjoy our content then please consider giving the video a thumbs up and hit the subscribe button to make sure you see all our future videos. The following stations are currently hotter than a chili pepper on the surface of a star and are subject to ongoing rescue operations. Bollard Dock in Gleasy 58, Corrie City in BD-plus 411865, Davies City in Devane, Freud Hub in HIP 17298, Ikea Orbital in Machatecua, Coochman City in HIP 16348, Wreckton Vision in HIP 12779, Riggo Gateway in HIP 12605, Sugano Ring in Wittow, Truman Hub in Eskite, Tuttle Gateway in HIP 18187, Vandenberg Hub in Damoth, Wenzel Terminal in Cambo and Wilheim Gateway in Previatem. Remember commanders if you are going into a burning station bring all the heat sinks. Links to my previous videos on this subject are below. If you're looking to attack Thargoids then scout vessel infestations are being reported by the Eagle Eye Sensor Network in the following systems. Telin, Exegis, Opet, HR826, HIP 16607 and HIP 17272. If you are engaging in anti-Thargoid scout combat operations you don't necessarily need specialized equipment but the entry level anti-Xeno weaponry requires no unlocking and it really helps. The scout vessels also count as elite ranked ships so this is an excellent way to level up your combat rank. For the more hardcore combat zone encounters the following systems are under Thargoid Incursion right now and will have combat zones that offer both scouts and larger Thargoid vessels. With the assistance of the AXI these systems are now presented in priority order. Eglise 58, Devane, Cambo, BD plus 411865, HIP 12605, HIP 17298, HIP 18187, HIP 12779, HIP 16348, Machatqua, Dumoth, Praviatem, Eskite and Witau. For the scouts and the death daisies I'd recommend decontamination limpets are added to your standard arsenal and you might want to think about taking shed loads of heat sinks as well. The cone sector critters will struggle to track you when you're cold. If you're looking to wing up with other commanders then there's links below to the AXI, the Hive, the Hand and the Squadrons of Humanity. Between them these organizations have all platforms covered and will help you find advice as well as comrade chip. Wherever you go commanders remember, pick your fights with care. If you want to help with the cleanup from previous attacks and help get stations back online then please visit links below to the amazing Operation IDA. IDA coordinate the rebuilding efforts for the wider galactic community and we'll have you covered on where to go and what to bring with you. That's it for now, thank you so much for making it this far. You can also find us on Twitter, Patreon, Discord and Instagram. Links to all those are in the description below and I'll be back later this week with more videos. Until then, O7 Commanders, may all your hyperdictions be brief and don't let the death blossoms give you nightmares. I very much look forward to seeing you next time.