Captain Grant in a Hard Fight


Meanwhile, what had become of Grant? The War Department did not
know and apparently did not care. Jefferson Davis, the Secretary
of War, responded to his father's anxious inquiry that Captain
U. S. Grant had resigned from the army in July, 1854, but that he
had no official knowledge as to why he had taken this action. Mr.
Grant, however, soon learned the facts from other sources, and in
his bitter disappointment was heard to exclaim that "West Point
had ruined one of his boys for him."

It was natural enough that the stern and proud old gentleman
should have blamed West Point for the heart-breaking failure of
his favorite son, but, as a matter of fact, West Point was in no
way responsible for what had occurred. Neither during his cadetship
at the Academy nor for some years after his graduation from that
institution had Ulysses Grant touched wine or stimulants in any
form. He had, indeed, tried to learn to smoke during his West
Point days but had merely succeeded in making himself ill. During
his hard campaigning in Mexico, however, he had learned not only
to smoke, but to drink, though it was not until some years after
the war closed that he began to indulge to excess. As a matter
of fact, he ought never to have touched a drop of any intoxicant,
for a very little was always too much for him, and the result was
that he soon came to be known in the army as a drinking man. Had
he been at home, surrounded by his wife and children and busily
engaged, perhaps he might not have yielded to his weakness. But
his orders carried him to lonely posts on the Pacific, many hundreds