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| Ulysses S. Grant was born on April 27, 1822 in Point
Pleasant, Ohio. Point Pleasant is a small town on the Ohio River southeast of Cincinnati.
He was the first child of Jesse and Hannah Grant. They named their son Hiram Ulysses Grant
but normally called him Ulysses or Lyss. When he was one year old his family moved to the
nearby town of Georgetown, Ohio. His father owned a tannery and some farmland in
Georgetown so they built a house on the land and worked in the tannery. Grant was an excellent horseman. When he was young he carried passengers by horse wagon to distant towns and places. This often earned him money. By the age of five he could stand up on the horse's back while it was trotting. When he was 11 years old, he rode a horse that was trained to buck its rider off. He rode it with ease and was rewarded 500 dollars. He was not only skilled at horses but he was a good schoolboy. When he was five he started attending Georgetown’s subscription school. As he got older he was able to do arithmetic problems fairly quickly in his head. He attended school until he was 14 years old. When he was 14 he got chosen to go to West Point Military Academy. Grant never wanted to go to West Point but his father’s decision was finale. He never considered having a military career. When his father applied for him he accidentally wrote his name as Ulysses Simpson Grant. Grant did not mind because he did not want other students to make fun of his initials "HUG." He soon realized that military school was not as bad as he thought. During his time there he did not take his work seriously. He enjoyed reading novels rather than doing his schoolwork. |
