Ulysses S. Grant     Early Years:  
        Grant was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio, on April 27, 1822. He was baptized Hiram Ulysses. The oldest son of Jesse and Hannah Grant, he came from a family that he proudly declared had been American "for generations, in all its branches, direct and collateral." In 1823, his father moved his tanning business to Georgetown, Ohio, where "Lyss" spent his boyhood.  He became noted for his sturdy self-reliance and for his ability to ride and control even the wildest horses.  In 1839, Jesse Grant secured for his son an appointment to the U. S. Military Academy. When he arrived at West Point he learned that he was on the muster roll as Ulysses Simpson Grant, through an error of the congressman who had nominated him. Finding it impossible to change this official listing, Grant accepted the inevitable and dropped Hiram from his name.   Military Career:  
    "A military life had no charms for me," Grant said later, and his only purpose at the academy was "to get through the course, secure a detail for a few years as assistant professor of mathematics at the Academy, and afterwards obtain a permanent position as professor at a respectable college." Understandably, his West Point record was not spectacular. In 1843, he graduated in the middle of his class and was commissioned brevet 2nd lieutenant, assigned to the 4th U. S. Infantry, and sent to Jefferson Barracks, near St. Louis, Mo. There  he began to learn his army duties, and even more important, met his future wife, Julia Dent, sister of a West Point classmate. The orders that sent Grant's regiment to the Southwest frontier in May 1844 temporarily interrupted his romance.
 
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