An uneventful childhood

By Christine Tailer
HCP columnist

It was 1822. A baby boy was born in a small frontier town that sat on the banks of the Ohio River. His father was a tanner, who worked animal hides into leather.

When the child was a year and a half old, the young family moved a few miles north of the river to the county seat. There, the father built a new tannery just across the street from a simple two room home. It was here that the child grew into a young man.

He was a well-behaved boy, honest and quiet-spoken, but he was quick to admit that he was no stranger to being lashed with a switch at school. He loved to draw, and often doodled when he should have been writing out his lessons. He described his childhood as uneventful.

Townsfolk recalled passing by his father's tannery stables and seeing the boy playing between the stable horses' legs and swinging from their tails. The townsfolk would run and tell his mother that she'd better fetch her son or he would surely be trampled. His mother hardly looked up from her chores and replied "No. He understands the horses, and they understand him."

By the age of 6, the boy would be seen riding around town bareback, and by the age of 8, he would stand on one leg on the horse's back, holding onto the reins and galloping down the street. He never met a horse he couldn't break.

Years later, during the Mexican American War, in which the boy, now a young man, served as quartermaster, he captured and broke Plains feral ponies to ride. He realized that these small, scrappy ponies knew how to forage and survive in the Mexican desert, unlike their larger, and far more spoiled, eastern counterparts.

When the boy became a somewhat older child, another boy bet him that he couldn't jump a distance of 25 feet. The wager was for a handful of marbles. He took the boy up on the bet, sorely wanting the marbles. He found the perfect spot for his jump, a 25-foot tall bluff down by a nearby creek. A muddy shore lay at its bottom. He made the jump, and, though buried rather deep in the mud, was not injured. He gladly pocketed the marbles.

And marble lore has it that during the Civil War, after trying to approach Vicksburg for months, the now grown boy retired to his tent early one evening. He understood that the big guns at Vicksburg were enabling the Confederate forces to maintain control of the Mississippi River, allowing them to run supplies up and down the river. The fortified town sat high on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi to its west, and well-armed earthworks guarded its east, holding the Union forces at bay, until one particular night.

On this night, the marble-loving boy, now a major general, stayed awake, playing game after game of marble solitaire. There are many strategies to winning the Victorian era game, but one strategy involves turning the board in a circular fashion, emptying each of the four sections, one after the other. After countless games, the major general emerged from his tent, and told his troops to pack up and abandon their frontal approach to Vicksburg. 

They did, and he led them away from the city, circling around as he had done when repeatedly winning the marble game the night before. He led his troops across the Mississippi to the north of the city, ferried by the Union Navy. He then marched down the western side of the river and crossed again, far to the city’s south, marched through a swamp, and was able to approach from the east, cutting off the town's supplies. After a month and a half siege, Vicksburg surrendered on July 4, 1863. 

Perhaps it’s not surprising that the people of Vicksburg didn’t celebrate July 4 until after World War II.

Later, when the boy, now a four-star general, was sworn in as the 18th president of the United States, his father, the retired tanner, was in attendance. His mother was not. She did not believe that Washington, D.C. was a proper place for a proper Methodist lady, though she did agree to be interviewed by a newspaper reporter. When asked what she might say about her son, she replied that he had two passions as a boy, horses and marbles.

And his passion for horses continued all throughout his life. During his presidency, he was given a speeding ticket a few blocks from the White House. He was galloping through a walk zone. When the officer realized to whom he was giving the ticket, he apologized and was about to tear it to shreds, but the boy, now president, said no. He deserved the ticket. 

His horse was duly confiscated and he walked the rest of the way home. I can't help but wonder whether the now grown boy, Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th president of the United States, had a favorite marble tucked away in his presidential pocket. I like to imagine that he did, and that he took this marble out and held it in the palm of his hand as he walked.

With gray in his beard, he passed away at the age of 63 in July of 1885. One and a half million people lined the streets of New York City to pay their respects. Two Union and two Confederate generals were among his pallbearers. Union and Confederate officers rode together in the procession that stretched for seven miles, all for a boy, grown into a man, who described his childhood as uneventful.

Christine Tailer is an attorney and former city dweller who moved several years ago, with her husband, Greg, to an off-grid farm in Ohio south-central Ohio. Visit them on the web at straightcreekvalleyfarm.com.