Mrs. Grant and Madame Jule (8 page)

“You would have been so proud to see your husband rally the men through their trials, although I am grateful you were not there to suffer with us,” wrote Mrs. Gore, Julia’s newly widowed friend, her distress evident in the broken, staccato strokes of her pen. “He looked after the women and children most solicitously through every calamity, transporting people and goods across the treacherous Isthmus, helping Dr. Tripler with the afflicted, attending to the burials—all manner of horrific duties fell to him, and he bore them all with a saint’s patience and a soldier’s courage.”

“Saint Ulys,” Julia murmured as she folded the letter and put it away, the stories of his valor warming a heart chilled from loneliness and worry.

After a few weeks with the Grants in Bethel, Julia had recovered enough to travel home to White Haven. Ulys had at long last arrived safely at Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River, and it was there he received the tracing she had made of the baby’s tiny hand on paper. “He looks like you,” she had written. “He will be as handsome and strong as you, but not, I think, even half as reticent, if his current habits remain true.”

Letters arrived from Ulys in nearly every post. He was relieved to know that she had recovered from her ordeal, and that the child was a boy, and that she had named him Ulysses.

“Little Buckeye,” friends and neighbors would coo as they bent to kiss the baby’s soft cheek, or “Buckie,” they would murmur tenderly as he wrapped his fist around their fingertips. Eventually, despite Julia’s gentle protests, more people called him Buckie than used his honorable given name. Julia knew she had lost the battle the day Papa called him Buck, and her son turned and smiled brightly back at him.

•   •   •

The months passed and stretched into long, lonely years. Even as Ulys rose to the rank of full captain, he took no pride in it. “I think that I have been away from my family quite long enough,” he wrote to Julia in February of 1854, after the day’s mail had brought no response to his petitions for leave or transfer nor any letters from her. “Sometimes I feel as though I could almost go home
nolens volens.
”

Julia’s worries grew when Ulys wrote with increasing vehemence of wanting to quit the army and come home. “I have the sweetest little wife in the world, a son who has likely forgotten my face, and another whom I have never met,” he lamented angrily in a heart-wrenching letter that brought Julia to tears. “How can I remain in the army when it keeps me from everything I most cherish?”

There was no shame in resigning, Julia assured him through the post. The nation was no longer at war. He had served his country honorably for almost a decade. “You have always wanted to farm, and we have my sixty acres,” she reminded him. “If it’s my blessing you seek, know that I will be as proud to be a farmer’s wife as I am now to be a soldier’s.”

She meant every word, and yet she was still astonished when, in late April, she received a letter he had written nearly two weeks before. “This is the third letter I write today,” he said. “The first was my formal acceptance of my promotion to full captain. The second was my letter of resignation from the army.”

Julia’s cry of astonishment and relief brought Jule running, little Buck in her arms, Fred trotting at her heels. “Your papa is coming home,” Julia cried, sweeping Fred into her embrace.

The next letter she received from Ulys at Fort Humboldt was strangely curt and cryptic. Dated May 2, it warned her not to write to him there anymore, for he would likely not receive her letters. He planned to visit her brother Louis in San Francisco while he settled his affairs and arranged transportation home. “My love to all,” he concluded. “Kiss our little boys for their Pa. Love to you dear Julia. Your affectionate husbd. Ulys.”

But the joy of their anticipated reunion was tainted by rumors that swirled about Jefferson Barracks and in the army circles in St. Louis. Ulys had had a confrontation with a superior officer, some whispered, and he had been given the choice to resign or face charges of insubordination. He had fallen into drunkenness and dissolution, others said more maliciously, and he had been forced to resign.

“Drunkenness?” Julia protested when a concerned friend told her the latest gossip. “Ulys has no taste for liquor. He was an officer in the Sons of Temperance in Sackets Harbor, for goodness’ sake.”

“But they say he takes to his bed often,” her friend replied. “He closes the blinds and stuffs cotton in his ears to block out all light and sound. They say his vision is distorted, his speech slurred, his stomach upset.”

“He suffers dreadfully from sick headaches,” Julia said, her anger rising. “Migraines, the doctor calls them.”

Her friend nodded sympathetically, but Julia knew she didn’t believe her. If she could not convince a friend of Ulys’s sobriety, what even worse rumors would strangers believe?

•   •   •

It was late summer in 1854 when Julia was called to the window by the sound of a buggy coming up the zigzag path. Although she could not see the driver, and she had been waiting for weeks for a lone rider on horseback, she knew at once that her husband had come home.

She ran outside to meet them, hurrying past Fred and Buck where they played on the grass under Jule’s vigilant gaze. Bewildered, the children stared as the buggy halted before the house and a worn, bearded man stepped out. Julia froze at the sight of him, so shocked was she by the new lines of worry etched deeply into his face, the exhaustion in his eyes. But it was he, her beloved Ulys, and she flung herself into his arms, weeping with unrestrained joy and relief.

“Oh, my Julia,” he murmured, kissing her all over her face, tangling his calloused fingers in her hair. “Oh, my darling Julia.”

“Ulys,” she choked out, hugging him with all her strength. “At last, at last, you’ve come.”

Jule had brought the boys forward, and after one rough, lingering kiss, Ulys broke away from Julia and turned his gaze to their children, nearly staggered by the sight. “Fred,” he said thickly, holding open his arms to him. “And this must be little Ulysses.”

A smile slowly began to dawn on Fred’s round cheeks. “You’re my papa,” he declared. “I remember you.”

Ulys’s eyes glistened. “I remember you too.”

A
UGUST
1854–A
PRIL
1860

I
n late September, when they could defer it no longer, Ulys and Julia left their sons in her parents’ care and took the steamer to visit Hannah and Jesse Root Grant at their new residence in Covington, Kentucky, across the river from Cincinnati.

A barrage of letters had already warned them that Jesse was grievously disappointed in Ulys, that he had taken the news of his son’s resignation as an almost physical blow. Ulys’s sister Jennie, ever loyal, had confided that their father had written to Secretary of War Jefferson Davis in a vain attempt to rescind his son’s resignation. Thus Julia was not surprised when her father-in-law spent most of their visit lamenting that Ulys had failed to meet all his proud expectations, that he could not fathom how Ulys supposed he might earn a living now that he had decided to squander his education and abandon the profession for which he had trained. Ulys listened stoically as his father complained, while inwardly Julia fumed and did her best to emulate her mother-in-law’s serene calm.

On the eve of their departure, Jesse summoned Ulys and Julia into the parlor, where Hannah, too, waited. “I’ve decided to give you a position at the store in Galena,” Jesse announced. “Your brother Simpson is doing well there, and he can teach you the business.”

“Thank you, Pa.”

“I do have one condition.” Jesse shifted in his chair, his gaze darting to Julia before fixing squarely on Ulys. “Julia and the boys will remain here with us, or go home to Missouri and her own people.”

“Why,” asked Ulys, carefully measuring his words, “would you require me to leave my wife and children behind?”

“You’ll learn your new occupation faster without distractions.” Jesse frowned and jerked his head in Julia’s direction. “And your wife will benefit from time with us. Julia’s too extravagant with your money, but we’ll teach her economy. From the cradle she’s lived on a lavish scale at the expense of other human beings, but with us she’ll learn a different way.”

Quietly, Julia drew in a breath. She wanted to flee the room, and yet she could not move. Jesse and Hannah were studiously ignoring her, awaiting Ulys’s reply.

“You leave me no choice, Pa,” he said evenly, rising. “I must refuse your generous offer, but thank you all the same.”

Hannah sighed and shook her head. As Jesse’s brow knit in consternation, Ulys held out his hand to Julia. “Come on, darling,” he said, helping her to her feet. “We have to finish packing.”

As he led her from the room, Julia murmured, “Ulys, if you think—”

“What I think is that we must forget everything my father just said.” He halted at the foot of the stairs and kissed her, firmly. “I’ll forgive him for his obstinate foolishness if you’ll forgive me for subjecting you to his unreasonable demands.”

“I will.”

“Good. Then we’ll never speak of this again.”

“But, Ulys—” She wanted to speak of it, if only long enough to ask him if he had been tempted, even for a moment, to accept his father’s proposal. “I can’t promise to forget.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to.” He kissed her again, tenderly, and led her upstairs.

•   •   •

Ulys, Julia, and their sons spent the winter at White Haven, where only the discordant notes of Papa’s barbed criticism for Ulys spoiled their perfect harmony. Papa’s every glance declared that he had hoped for so much better for Julia than an aimless husband who, at thirty-two, had abandoned his profession and had scarcely a dollar to his name.

When spring arrived, Ulys, Julia, and their sons moved to Wish-ton-wish, her brother Louis’s charming cottage three miles from Julia’s sixty acres, which Ulys had begun to clear, felling trees and selling the cordwood. There, on July 4, 1855, Julia gave birth to their third child, a beautiful little girl with blue eyes, a sweet rosebud mouth, and soft, dark hair. Ulys wanted to name her Julia, but Julia insisted upon calling her Ellen, after Mamma, and the nickname “Nellie” was bestowed upon her soon thereafter. All of the servants declared that she was the prettiest baby they had ever seen, and Jule remarked that she resembled her namesake—high praise indeed, for Mamma had been a great beauty as a young woman and was still strikingly handsome at sixty-two.

When little Nellie was not quite a year old, Julia helped Ulys select the perfect place for a home of their own on her sixty acres, a sunny clearing in a grove of young oaks near Gravois Creek. The neighbors came to the house-raising, bringing delicious covered dishes to pass and putting their servants to work on constructing four ample rooms around a central hall. The walls were strong and straight and the roof as tight as a drum, but the cabin remained rustic and homely beneath Julia’s quilts and curtains and wedding china.

“A frame house would have gone up twice as quickly at half the expense,” Julia told Ulys one evening after they had put the children to bed and they were sitting close together in the parlor, amusing themselves by providing names for the quirks and knots and patterns they discovered in the log walls.

“Maybe we should call this place Hardscrabble,” Ulys joked, and Julia laughed and agreed that they should.

When Ulys hauled wood into St. Louis, he was aware of the hard stares and curious whispers of residents who remembered that the man in the faded army coat, battered hat, and muddy boots had once worn a smart officer’s uniform of blue wool and gold braid. Once Ulys ran into tall, affable Major Longstreet—Cousin James, to Julia—while delivering a load of firewood to the Planters Hotel. Major Longstreet, enjoying a furlough from his frontier post, invited Ulys to join him and his companions in a game of cards; later, when Ulys tried to give him a five-dollar gold piece to repay a longstanding debt from their Mexico days, the major shamed him by adamantly refusing it. “Sam, you’re out of the service,” he protested. “You need that more than I do.” His words only made Ulys more determined to repay the debt, and Major Longstreet eventually took the coin to spare him further embarrassment.

On another occasion, Ulys returned from a trip to St. Louis with a curious expression on his face. Julia waited patiently for him to confide in her, and later, as they sat quietly outside the cabin watching the children play, he said, “I ran into Sherman in the city this morning.”

“Captain Sherman?” Julia asked.

“Old Cump hasn’t been a captain in more than three years.” Ulys picked up a stick and scraped mud off the heel of his boot. “He’s living with his wife’s family in St. Louis until his prospects improve. He told me he’s concluded that West Point and the regular army aren’t good schools for farmers, bankers, merchants, or mechanics.”

Julia nodded to conceal her disappointment. An old friend like William Tecumseh Sherman ought to be more encouraging. “And what did you reply?”

“I said I was inclined to believe him, but nonetheless I’m holding out hope for both of us.”

Mamma knew Ulys’s true worth, and Julia adored her for it. “My daughters, listen to me,” she had said one summer evening a few weeks before, having joined them in the parlor after leaving the gentlemen of the family to their pipes and cigars. Her diamond ring sparkled on her finger as she pointed to each of her three daughters in turn, as if the gesture would engrave her words upon their memories. “Someday that man will rise to a higher place than we can yet imagine. His light is presently hid under a bushel, but soon his worth and wisdom will be shown and appreciated. You’ll all live to see it, but I will not.”

“Mamma, don’t say such a thing,” Julia admonished. “You’ll live for ages yet.”

“Do you mean my husband, Mamma?” asked Nell.

“I mean Captain Grant,” she replied. “I’ve been sitting on the piazza for the last half hour listening to the men talk about the political divisions in our country, but Captain Grant, in a few sentences, made the subject so clear and our duty so plain that I must pronounce him a philosopher. He will be a great statesman someday.”

•   •   •

Mamma’s faith in Ulys’s potential for greatness sustained Julia through many an uncertain hour, but as autumn faded into winter, cold and gray, Mamma fell terribly ill. Julia and her sisters desperately tried to nurse her back to health, unable to contemplate how they would manage without her—bereft of her practical wisdom, her gentle diplomacy, her kindness, her inexhaustible love.

But despite their tireless efforts, before the return of spring, Mamma passed away.

Weakened by grief and exhaustion, Julia suffered a lingering affliction of the chest, and Papa a deep despondency. Ulys tended the farms at both Hardscrabble and White Haven, and the crops thrived throughout the summer. Their hopes for a profitable harvest rose until a panic swept through the nation, bankrupting businesses and sending food prices plummeting. By the onset of winter, with Julia expecting another child, the situation had become so desperate that Ulys asked his father for a loan. When he was rebuffed, he pawned his gold hunting watch and chain for twenty-two dollars to buy Christmas presents for the children.

In February Julia gave birth to a son, whom she and Ulys named Jesse Root Grant after his grandfather. Soon thereafter Papa and Emma moved into the Dent family’s St. Louis residence, and Ulys leased out Hardscrabble so he could devote himself to White Haven, planting potatoes, corn, oats, and wheat, as well as clover and Hungarian grass to feed the livestock.

“I believe this harvest will turn everything in our favor at last,” Ulys told Julia, but in midsummer an epidemic of typhoid fever swept through the Gravois Creek settlement. Fred became deathly ill, and Nell, and her two-year-old son, Alex. Slave cabins throughout the county were rife with sickness, and even as Julia and Jule nursed the afflicted back to health, Ulys fell ill with malaria.

“I’ll write to my father again,” said Ulys. “I’ll explain that illness obliges me to give up farming, and I’ll ask for a place in his business.” He took pen in hand, trembling with fever and ague beneath the quilt she had made for him when they were betrothed, when all she wanted in the world was for the war to end so he could come home and marry her. In her innocence she had believed that she would always be perfectly content if only those wishes were granted, but marriage and motherhood had brought with them a host of new concerns, new sources of perpetual worry—for her family’s health, their comfort, and their future prosperity.

When Ulys’s father again rebuffed him, on the first day of 1859, Ulys entered into a partnership with Julia’s cousin Henry Boggs, who ran a small real estate, loan, and rent-collection firm on Pine Street. Julia, the children, and Jule remained at White Haven while Ulys established himself, but when spring came, Ulys rented a small frame house for them at Seventh and Lynch Streets down by the river, far from the fashionable neighborhoods Julia had known as a young belle.

Soon after the family was reunited, Julia discovered that Ulys was not thriving in his new profession. The business was faltering and discord flourishing between Ulys and Henry, their estrangement worsened by rising tensions in the office that mirrored the mood of the country. Cousin Henry and several other employees emphatically sympathized with the South, while Ulys and William Hillyer, an energetic young lawyer from Kentucky, supported the Republican cause. Most of their debates were friendly, but as disagreement over slavery threatened to divide the nation, their arguments became more contentious.

Julia had always known that Ulys found slavery distasteful, but she did not realize how strongly opposed to it he had become until, without giving her any warning of his intentions, he freed his only slave, earning himself fresh recriminations from his father-in-law. “I would free your slaves too, were they mine,” Ulys told Julia.

“Fortunately, you can’t,” she retorted indignantly. Although as her husband Ulys controlled her property, Papa retained legal title to her slaves, so Ulys could not force her to give them up.

“Most of the farmers around White Haven employ paid labor,” Ulys reminded her. “Your father’s insistence upon keeping slaves has made him unpopular.”

“Papa is good to his slaves,” Julia protested. “As am I, and I’m certain Jule and the others would not thank me for casting them out and forcing them to fend for themselves.”

“Why don’t you ask them and see?”

•   •   •

Holding her breath, scarcely daring to move lest they hear her, Jule froze in the hallway outside the couple’s door, awaiting Julia’s answer. Gabriel placed his faith for deliverance from slavery in themselves and in the Lord, but Jule had placed hers in Julia and her abolitionist husband. Would Julia call his bluff? Would she seek out her slaves, one by one, and ask them if they would prefer freedom to servitude?

Jule already knew how she would reply if asked. “You’ve been as kind to me as any mistress could,” she would say gently, but with unmistakable certitude. “Given the choice, though, I’d like to make my own way in the world.”

She and Gabriel could be free at last. He could minister to colored folk from a pulpit instead of preaching around a campfire. She could dress the hair and beautify the skin of the ladies of St. Louis, white and colored alike, and maybe someday count herself among the Colored Aristocracy like Madame Pelagie Rutgers. All Julia had to do was accept Ulys’s challenge, step out into the hallway, and ask.

But instead Jule heard her mistress say, “I refuse to discuss this anymore.”

Heartsick, Jule silently retraced her steps and stole away, down the hallway and outside, where she gulped air and fought back sobs of grief and frustration. Julia, the curious, questioning girl she had known in the days of ginger and cream, had grown into a woman who accepted things the way they were for no better reason than that they had always been that way.

“We could run,” Jule told Gabriel the next time the Grants visited White Haven. She lay in his arms in the hayloft, having slipped away after putting the children down for their naps. “I have money saved up, not enough to buy us free but enough to get us north.”

Gabriel was silent, thoughtful. “If we got caught,” he eventually said, “after they brought us back, they’d be likely to sell one of us, or both. They wouldn’t keep us together and risk us trying again.”