General Grant's Capture of a

Willing Prisoner"- Her Name

Was "Miss Julia "-His Marriage-Social

Life in Detroit.

After his war with the gods, Prometheus-so the story goes-was bound to a rock in Caucasus, and an immense vulture sent daily to pounce upon his liver, which grew as fast as it was devoured. His punishment seems to be typical of the tedium which preys upon the mind of the soldier when he passes suddenly from such scenes as Churubusco and Chapultepec to the torpid perceptions and sluggish arterial circulation of a hibernating bear at Fort Desolation.

We never should have heard of Grant, says a friend, after his second imprisonment in one of these dungeons of Despair, but for an incident the most fortunate of his varied

career.

He was allowed by his military superiors to select an associate to share his exile from military activity. His choice fell upon one who deserved all his confidence and love. He carried with him to his monotonous duties cheerfulness and consolation in the person of a bride.

He was married in August, 1848, to Miss Julia T. Dent, the daughter of Frederick Dent, a merchant of St. Louis; and the sister of Frederick T. Dent, a classmate at West Point, who has since risen to the rank of brevet brigadiergeneral, and was the aide of Grant in several engagements, and his assistant secretary of war when he was the head, ad interim, of that department.

She has proved herself the kindest and most affectionate of wives; sharing with unabated courage and constancy the trials and disappointments of his early manhood; fully exemplifying the truth of Lord Bacon's aphorism, that “virtue, like precious odors, is most fragrant when incensed or crushed."

Prosperity and renown have since brought to him a cup crowned with blessings; but, among them all, there is no choicer felicity than that the wife of his youth, in the bloom of her years, is permitted to share them.

Fame and position have also entailed their peculiar trials and anxieties; but they are always met with fortitude and composure when cheered and sustained by the companion who has stood beside him in so many emergencies, and in both extremities of fortune.

Washington, at the age of twenty-six, terminated his novitiate, in that French and Indian War which trained him for the Revolution, at Fort du Quesne. At the age of twenty-six, and at the conclusion of Grant's novitiate in the Mexican War which schooled him for the War of the Rebellion, he was stationed at Detroit.

This city, charming in its natural situation, and, by the beauty of its streets and the elegance of its mansions, attractive as a residence, is still more captivating for its society, refined, cultivated, and intellectual, which, descending as it has from the earliest times, is in some measure due to its origin from the most polished nation in the world.

The social parties of Detroit in the winter of 1848-9 delightfully relieved the dull routine of a quartermaster's duty. The new tie which Grant had recently formed, in addition to rendering his own quarters pleasant and inviting, drew him out of himself, from the mess-room and his cigar, to the pleasant and agreeable circles in the city.

Mrs. Grant was herself fond of social pleasures and

amusements, and they soon became far from insupportable to her husband. It is not true, as is generally supposed, that in private life Grant wraps himself up in reticence and reserve. It is only when pressed to divulge prospective military designs, pumped by adroit politicians to indorse party platforms, pestered by those who worship "gab" to play the role of stump-orator on every appropriate and inappropriate occasion, that it becomes as inconvenient and impossible for him to speak as it was for Sir Mungo Malagrowther to hear when his withers were wrung by some disagreeable innuendo. In the society of friends, and even strangers worthy of his civility, Grant is found to be well posted on the current themes of conversation.

General McPherson, who was a distinguished divisioncommander under General Grant, on one occasion said to a friend: "To know and appreciate General Grant fully, one ought to be a member of his military family. Though possessing a remarkable reticence as far as military operations are concerned, he is frank and affable, converses well, and has a peculiarly retentive memory. When not oppressed with the cares of his position, he is very fond of talking and telling anecdotes."

Let it not, therefore, be supposed that Lieut. Grant was not "master of the situation," even in the fashionable circles of Detroit.

IN THE FAR WEST.

General Grant in Oregon-Watching the Indians.

Early in 1852, the Fourth Infantry, in which Grant was still acting quartermaster, was ordered to the Pacific coast. The first station of Grant was at Benicia, where we find him in the fall of 1852. This is a dépot of ordnance and quartermasters' stores in the Pacific Department; and he is engaged here for a few weeks in making requisitions and shipping supplies, when he is ordered to Fort Vancouver in Oregon.

Grant departs with his regiment to this forlorn spot, isolated from civilization on the east by an intervening wil"derness more than two thousand miles in breadth, and from civilization on the west by a coast-range of sombre mountains, which shuts it off even-save by one avenue-from the great highway of nations.

Vancouver is eighty miles from the sea, enveloped in the melancholy shade of primitive forests. When Grant reached it, he found it still retained as one of the central seats of traffic and distribution by the Hudson's Bay Company. During the era of conflicting claims between the United States and Great Britain upon Oregon, it had pushed its pretensions into that territory, wove over it a network of chief and subordinate establishments, and now exercised unlimited control over the nomadic Indians whom the Fourth Infantry had been despatched to quell.

The station of the company, in the center of the clearing, wore all the aspects of a military post. An imposing

stockade encloses an area of about seven acres, with mounted bastions at two of its angles; within are the governor's residence, two small buildings for clerks, and a range of dwellings for families; without is another storehouse, under lease to our government; and a few hundred yards farther to the east, rising from a plain upon the very edge of immemorial woods, are the log houses known as the Columbia Barracks; and within an arrow's flight of our flag-staff is a group of hovels, occupied by Indians, servants, and Kanackas.

Four companies of the Fourth are here, with Grant still quartermaster: one company is at Fort Dallas, higher up the Columbia; and the remainder are so distributed as to guard and keep open communication between Oregon and California, with assistant quartermasters for their respect've stations.

At this desolate station, Grant vegetated for one year. Cervantes never sent Don Quixote on an adventure more fantastic than the one which the Secretary of War had ordered four companies of an infantry regiment to achieve.

They must guard the trail of emigrants through Oregon; the whole army of the United States could not effectually do it. They must chastise Indian raiders upon the route; winged soldiers, with pinions like a condor to buffet mountain-blasts, might attempt it with some hope of success; but it is utterly beyond the capacity of bipeds moving along the earth.

When a report reaches the garrison that the Indians are at a particular post, you put your finger upon them, and they are not there. Before a company is rallied, the warparty vanishes, and can be captured as easily as the winds. which were with them, at the same hour, upon the same occasion.

The sole service of troops at Vancouver is as a moral