His best study was mathematics. He entered at the age of
seventeen.
It took young Grant many a long day to accustom himself to the Military
Academy. The hazing encountered by every Freshman he didn't seem to
mind, so the older men soon let him alone. But the drill and the
dress! To this farm lad it was deadly. These were the days of the
"ramrod" tactics of Winfield Scott--the starch and stock and buckram
days of the army. "Old Fuss and Feathers" his critics called him, but
with all his love of pomp and circumstance Scott was a splendid
soldier, whether on the drill ground, or in the face of the enemy.
Nevertheless, to Grant it was a constant trial, at first. He felt like
a fish out of water. General Charles King thus speaks of him:
"Phlegmatic in temperament and long given to ease and deliberation in
all his movements at home, this springing to attention at the tap of
the drum, this snapping together of the heels at the sound of a
sergeant's voice, this sudden freezing to a rigid pose without the move
of a muscle, except at the word of command, was something almost beyond
him. It seemed utterly unnatural, if not utterly repugnant.
Accustomed to swinging along the winding banks of the White Oak, or the
cow-paths of the pasture lot, this moving only at a measured pace of
twenty-eight inches, and one hundred and ten to the minute, and all in
strict unison with the step of the guide on the marching flank or at
the head of column, came ten times harder than ever did the pages of
'analytical' or the calculus.
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