possess every sense but common sense; understand words, and be ignorant of affairs. Such men are "wells that hold no water;" or rather they hold it so closely, no one's thirst is quenched. Like Shakspeare's purblind Argus, they are "all eyes, and no sight." Such are the medical scholars who lose all their patients; legal scholars who lose all their clients; and, last of all, military scholars who lose all their battles. They are educated, but to the death of all usefulness.

But Grant received at West Point the best education a man can receive; namely, that which fits him for his work in life. He was not compelled, as most men are under our college systems, to waste years in studying the rules of Greek accents and scanning Latin verse; making them, often, alive to the "dead languages," while dead to most living things. He was subjected to a course of physical training which invigorated his body. He was taught fencing, drawing, riding, dancing; he was taught science, mathematics, the modern languages, constitutional and international law, and engineering.

Men are not educated by books alone. "The gods forbid," said Plato, "that to philosophize should be only to read a great many books." "I know neither art nor science," said Pythagoras; "but I am a philosopher."

Young Grant appreciated and improved all the opportunities which were offered to him. He gave those years diligently to self-improvement in the widest sense. He graduated with a good rank in his class; and, what was better, without vices which enfeebled his body, or mental habits which depraved his mind.

On leaving the academy, he could recall his life there

with a satisfaction similar to that with which Curran so touchingly recalled to Lord Avonmore their early days and nights of study together :—

"We spent them not in toys or lust or wine,

But search of deep philosophy."

In July, 1843, he entered the United-States army as a brevet second lieutenant in the fourth regiment of infantry. He was ordered to the frontiers of Missouri, among the Indians, then on the outer borders of civilization. Here Lieut. Grant remained nearly two years; when, in 1845, he was ordered to Corpus Christi, Tex., where United-States troops were gathering under command of Gen. Zachary Taylor. War ensued, not long after, between the United States and Mexico, on the question of boundary-lines. From the first attack on Fort Brown, opposite Matamoras, Lieut. Grant was in every battle in the Mexican War except Buena Vista, -fourteen in all. At Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Monterey, Chapultepec, in every engagement, he conducted himself with distinguished bravery, which elicited In special mention from his superiors in command. 1847, he was appointed brevet captain; his cominission dating from the day on which the battle of Chapultepec was fought. In 1853, he was promoted to a full captaincy.

In 1864, Gen. Scott said to Col. Badeau of Gen. Grant's staff, the accomplished historian of his military life, that he remembered a young officer named Grant, who distinguished himself in the Mexican War; and at Appomattox Court House, at the surrender of Gen. Lee, the latter remarked to Grant, that he remembered having seen him in Mexico during the war.

But Grant's service in Mexico gave him an opportunity of showing that he had a warm and grateful heart, and could do something manly beside fighting. Hon. Mr. Hamer, who, as member of Congress, had appointed Grant to his cadetship, and to whom he felt greatly indebted for his education at West Point, went out to Mexico as a general of volunteers, and, while there in camp, was taken sick. Lieut. Grant nursed him with the love of a son and the tenderness of a woman, performed for him the last offices of affection, and closed his eyes in death.

CHAPTER II.

ATTACK ON FORT SUMTER.

BATTLE OF BELMONT.

T the close of the Mexican War, Capt. Grant returned to the United States, and was subsequently stationed on the Canadian frontier, in California, and in Oregon. But garrison life in that lonely region offered no opportunities of usefulness to himself or others. His years were wasting away in the small duties of an outpost; and as the country was at peace, and had no special need of military service from him, he determined to resign his commission, which he did in July, 1854.

He moved to St. Louis, and there married Miss Julia Dent, a sister of his classmate, Major Frederic T. Dent, of the United-States army, and a daughter of Frederic Dent, Esq., a merchant of that city. He soon took a farm in the suburbs of St. Louis, and labored in the life of a farmer. He would cut wood, and haul it to Carondelet: and citizens there tell of buying wood of Capt. Grant; adding, that he dressed according to his work, wearing a slouched hat, a blouse, and his pantaloons tucked in at the top of his boots.

But the wood-lot and the small farm did not yield an adequate income for the support and education of his family; and in 1859 he moved to Galena, Ill.,

entered into business, and was residing there on the morning of the memorable 12th of April, 1861, when the telegraph flashed the news over the country that the rebels had fired on the old flag at Fort Sumter.

"The obligations of the intellect," it has been said, "are among the most sacred of the claims of gratitude." Macaulay, in his history of the attack of James the II. on the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, has given us a beautiful picture of the attachment which all men feel for the place of their education, and the gratitude which accompanies it. There are exceptions; but Grant was not one of these. The country had adopted him and educated him. It had a claim of honor on his services in the day of peril; and he joyously recognized the bond,—all the more cheerfully, because it could not be enforced. There are some things which it is impossible for a noble, manly nature to do.

It would have been impossible for Grant to do as did Robert E. Lee, be educated, supported, and honored through life by the munificence of the government; to remain in personal and official intimacy with Gen. Scott, studying his plans, and the numbers of the Union army, until the last day or two before the first battle at Bull Run; then steal into Virginia under pretence of visiting his family, join the rebels, and fight against the government which had made him all he was. For the honor of human nature, such instances are few. Grant could not have done this, any more than he could have struck the mother who bore him.

None of this generation who witnessed it will ever