Grant

whose family resided some five miles west of the barracks.

I soon found my way out to White Haven, the Dent estate.

As I found the family congenial,

my visits became frequent.

‐ The Dents were a slave‐owning family.

They had approximately 30 slaves.

There's no evidence that Grant felt discomfort

with the Dents' slaves at that point.

By his own later admission, he was not an abolitionist.

Marcia: During Grant's time in Missouri,

the entire nation found itself

divided over the issue of slavery.

The United States was engaged in I would say

kind of a fiction that you could maintain national unity

if you created a balance of slave and free states.

0:11:1,849 --> 0:11:6,645 ‐ Enslaved black people were the largest asset of wealth

that we had in this country, and so many Americans

wanted to maintain the right of enslavement,

and when I say enslavement,

I'm talking about for the right to break up families,

for the right to sell somebody's mother,

somebody's kid away,

for the right to torture people.

‐ So the question of slavery

and the atrocities of the system

was about the direction that the nation would take

economically but also morally.

‐ Grant's dad, Jesse, is a huge anti‐slavery advocate.

He's very vocal about his opinions and his beliefs.

‐ So Grant would have been well aware

of the long‐simmering tensions

between slaveholding and non‐slaveholding states.

At West Point he was friends with slaveholding men,

many who become some of his closest friends.

Grant certainly was part of that tension.

0:12:0,574 --> 0:12:3,494

0:12:5,913 --> 0:12:8,749 ‐ Grant, you haven't yet met my sister Julia.

Julia, this is Sam, that is, Ulysses Grant.

‐ You haven't spoken, Lieutenant Grant.

‐ That's our Grant.

You'll find that he can be silent in several languages.

‐ Grant, far from looking for a girlfriend

or looking for a wife at the time,

was as surprised as anyone that he had fallen in love.

‐ However, Julia Dent is the daughter of a slave owner.

It's gonna create some dilemmas for Grant.

It's gonna cause a lot of friction

because Jesse Grant, anti‐slavery.

Frederick Dent, slave owner.

The families are very much opposed.

‐ So Grant has a secret engagement with Julia,

and they were going to approach

Colonel Dent about it,

but it's put on hold indefinitely

0:13:0,801 --> 0:13:3,554 as he's called to the Mexican‐American War.

0:13:6,807 --> 0:13:9,435 ‐ The thing that led to the Mexican War

was the westward expansion of the United States

into Mexican territory

with an incredibly aggressive foreign policy

to unify the country all the way to California,

which was the crown jewel on the west coast.

Mexico stood in the way, so the army marches in.

Ulysses S. Grant is assigned as a quartermaster‐‐

that is, a supply officer.

Grant is a spectacular quartermaster,

incredibly hands‐on,

but he is itching to get into combat.

He is a 25‐year‐old West Point graduate

who has an opportunity to make a name for himself.

0:14:1,28 --> 0:14:2,780 ‐ To Colonel Garland,

0:14:2,780 --> 0:14:5,199 I respectfully protest against being assigned

0:14:5,199 --> 0:14:6,533 the duties of quartermaster...

0:14:6,533 --> 0:14:8,327 Boys, load those boxes.

Which removes me from sharing in the dangers

and honors of service with my company at the front.

‐ I need ammunition! ‐ Yes, sir!

‐ Come on, guys, mount! Rush in!

‐ Ammunition! Ammunition!

Ammo, now!

‐ Volunteer! Volunteer!

‐ I volunteer.

‐ Grant, you're the quartermaster.

You don't need to do this. ‐ You asked for a volunteer.

‐ I need ammunition! Come on!

‐ I volunteer.

‐ We're gonna lose this position

unless we get ammunition up here now.

‐ God save you, Grant!

‐ In the Mexican War,

there's a very dramatic incident

where Grant rides on the side of a horse

using the horse as a shield

as he rides a gauntlet of bullets

to keep these men supplied in the middle of a battle.

‐ In the Mexican War Grant learns a very important lesson

about his own emotional makeup.

In moments of extreme danger,

when other people are panicking,

Grant becomes very cool in a crisis.

He discovers nothing ever rattled him in battle.

‐ You want to know

what my feelings were on the field of battle?

I do not know that I felt any peculiar sensation.

0:16:0,439 --> 0:16:4,693 War seems much less horrible to persons engaged in it

0:16:4,693 --> 0:16:7,279 than to those who read of the battle.

‐ Grant watches people die horrible deaths in battle.

He loses many of his friends, one after the other,

and so I think he has a very clear sense

of the costs of war from the start.

‐ Many West Point‐trained officers

served together during the U. S. war with Mexico.

That's where Grant met Robert E. Lee

for the first time, Grant as a lower‐level officer

but Lee as a major staff officer.

Lee is a hero during the war.

‐ The Mexican War ends in 1848.

We have gotten exactly what we want,

most of the American Southwest,

roughly 500,000 square miles of territory,

all the way to the Pacific Ocean,

and the question of whether that land would be

0:17:1,959 --> 0:17:3,627 slave or free, of course,

0:17:3,627 --> 0:17:6,880 would raise its ugly head pretty much every year

after that right up to 1861.

In many ways, the completion of the United States

from sea to shining sea leads directly

to the American Civil War.

‐ By the time Grant came back from the Mexican War,

he had matured, and Julia was waiting for him,

but Julia's father, Colonel Dent,

thought she could do better.

He thought that the military life

would be very difficult for her.

‐ Grant eventually won over Dent

and asked to marry Julia.

‐ But Grant came from a strongly abolitionist family

0:18:2,561 --> 0:18:5,939 that was horrified that he was marrying into

0:18:5,939 --> 0:18:8,483 this Missouri slave‐owning family,

and when Ulysses and Julia get married in 1848,

not a single member of the Grant family is there.

‐ The first years

of that marriage are actually quite difficult.

Grant is posted to the west coast, to Fort Humboldt.

Julia is expecting a child and is thus unable

to go with him to the Pacific Northwest.

‐ When he was separated from his family,

he missed them terribly, especially Julia,

and Fort Humboldt was an isolated,

desolate place to be,

so he really started to suffer significant melancholy.

‐ Dear Julia, the mail came

but brought me nothing from you.

0:19:0,77 --> 0:19:2,663 I have only had one letter from you in three months.

0:19:2,663 --> 0:19:6,333 My dear wife, how very anxious I am to get home once again.

0:19:6,333 --> 0:19:8,293 I sometimes get so anxious

0:19:8,293 --> 0:19:9,878 to see you and our little boys,

I'm almost tempted to resign.

Dear Julia, I do not feel

as if it is possible to endure this separation much longer.

‐ Grant gets bored easily when there's nothing going on.

He gets lonely, and that is when you start seeing

maybe some problems with the drinking.

‐ Thank you, sir.

‐ When I have nothing to do,

I get blue,

and I have a natural craving for a drink.

‐ Captain Grant.

0:20:4,307 --> 0:20:9,312 Grant, you know the rules about drink.

‐ This is where all the stories

of Grant's drinking start.

I think there were some times when he did drink.

It was a story that circulated among army officers,

and then later it became an easy thing

for those who vilified him or wished to to seize on.

It became one of the running themes of his life.

‐ Grant, I'm sorry it's come to this.

You have a choice:

resign or court martial.

0:21:4,993 --> 0:21:8,872

‐ Hey, mister, you a soldier?

‐ Uh, n‐no, I'm‐‐