Owen Wister, Ulysses S. Grant

“ [19] strengthen, by their example, one of their number who was falling into bad habits.” It has never been narrated that C. F. Smith, the commandant of cadets, sent for the boy once when he was in danger of being dismissed, and told him that he was capable of better things. The words that passed on this occasion have died with the two that spoke them; but Grant loved and honoured Smith with a special feeling, and a great deal lies behind the short sentence in the second chapter of the memoirs. So West Point bears consistent witness to the good and the bad in Grant. He left it in 1843, wishing naturally to be a dragoon, but was commissioned brevet second lieutenant in the Fourth Infantry, to which he reported for duty on September 30 at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri.