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By Root 210 0

Winfield Scott, a hero of the War of 1812, who commanded the army, and was known, though not to his face, as “Old Fuss and Feathers.” General Scott had grown so corpulent that he could no longer mount a horse, and the magnificence of his uniforms and his plumed hat explains his nickname; but he still commanded great respect, and his authority in military matters was unchallenged. In some ways Scott reminds one of Lord Raglan, in Great Britain, who had been the Duke of Wellington’s devoted military secretary (and who lost an arm at Waterloo), then went on to command the British army. Like Scott, Raglan (after whom the Raglan sleeve is named) was both courageous and resolutely determined to stand in the way of change. It was Raglan’s habit, when any proposal for change in the army was brought up, to say, “Let us consider what the great Duke of Wellington would do,” and then to do nothing. So firmly rooted in the past was Raglan that even when he commanded the British army in the Crimea against Russia, with France as an ally, he was nevertheless in the habit of automatically referring to the enemy as “the French.”

Not even Scott, however, with his ponderous bulk, magnificent uniforms, and overpowering personality, could make the profession of arms respectable or desirable in the United States. At the time, people became soldiers because they had failed at everything else in life. As for West Point, it was virtually the only way to get a college education of sorts at government expense; and for many of those who went there, a vast social step upward.

Grant went there without enthusiasm or argument—no doubt it sounded a better bet than the tannery—and his first act was to accept the change of his name without putting up a fuss about it. It was mildly embarrassing to have his first initials become U.S., but not nearly as bad as having those on his trunk be “H.U.G.” Very shortly he was called “Uncle Sam,” and as a result he soon became known to most of his fellow cadets as “Sam Grant.” After being taunted as “Useless” in school, this development must have come as a relief.2

Grant did not do well at West Point—although his interest in mathematics was noted with approval, and not only was his horsemanship much admired, but he set a record height for jumping a horse that had remained unbroken for twenty-five years. His dress, deportment, and appearance were slovenly by West Point standards; he seemed to have no interest in girls or dancing or any form of social life; and his interest in military tactics was negligible. Neither then nor later did he read, study, or even own any of the great books on tactics, which perhaps merely confirms Napoleon’s remark that, “In war, as in prostitution, the amateur is often better than the professional.”

Not surprisingly Grant was put in the “awkward squad,” composed of young men who were no good at drill, and stayed there for an uncommonly long time, a misfit in the eyes of most of his fellow cadets—awkward, lonely, unmilitary in appearance and bearing, and happy only in the riding ring. Although he grew to five feet eight inches, not a bad height for the mid–nineteenth century, he was only five feet two when he arrived at West Point, and must therefore also have seemed more a child than a young man, despite his great strength. Although his classmates included James Longstreet, William Rosecrans, William Hardee, John Pope, Richard Ewell, and Buckner, all of whom went on to become generals on one side or the other in the Civil War, only Buckner seemed to remember him later on (though it did him little good when he sought surrender terms from Grant at Fort Donelson). Longstreet hardly remembered Grant at all, despite three years together at West Point. He seems to have been about as invisible as a cadet can be. In later life, though he professed a great respect for West Point, he recalled, “The most trying days of my life were those I spent there, and I never recall them with pleasure.”

Even his graduation caused him no pleasure. Given his love of horses, he had hoped for appointment to a cavalry