Lincoln, the unknown

LINCOLN THE UNKNOWN • 177But no more.For good news and astounding good fortune were just aroundthe corner.In a little while he was to go flaring and flaming like a shootingstar across the firmament of fame.He couldn't command the respect of his home town now;but in three years he would command the most formidable armythe world had ever seen.In four years he would conquer Lee, end the war, and writehis name in blazing letters of fire on the pages of history.In eight years he would be in the White House.After that he would make a triumphal tour of the world,with the high and mighty of all lands heaping honors, medals,flowers, and after-dinner oratory upon him—whom people backin Galena had crossed the street to avoid.It is an astonishing tale.Everything about it is strange. Even the attitude of his motherwas abnormal. She never seemed to care much for him. Sherefused to visit him when he was President, and she didn'ttrouble even to name him when he was born. Her relatives attendedto that, in a sort of lottery. When he was six weeks old,they wrote their favorite names on strips torn from a papersack, mixed them in a hat, and drew one out. His grandmotherSimpson had been reading Homer, and she wrote on her slip:"Hiram Ulysses." It was drawn, and so, by chance, that wasthe name he bore at home for seventeen years.But he was bashful and slow-witted, so the village wits calledhim "Useless" Grant.At West Point he had still another name. The politician whomade out the papers giving him an appointment to the MilitaryAcademy imagined that his middle name must be Simpson, hismother's maiden name, so he went as "U. S.Grant." When thecadets learned this, they laughed and tossed their hats in theair, and shouted, "Boys, we've got Uncle Sam with us!" To theend of his life those who had been his classmates there calledhim Sam Grant.He didn't mind. He made few friends, and he didn't carewhat people called him, and he didn't care how he looked. Hewouldn't keep his coat buttoned or his gun clean or his shoesshined, and he was often late for roll-call. And, instead of masteringthe military principles used by Napoleon and Frederick