Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. The young horsebreaker. — Riding circus ponies. — Young Grant's famous horse-trade. — Selling a refractory horse. — Trips to Cincinnati. — Sent to West Point. — How the appointment came about. — Mistake in his name. — Grant's sensitiveness on the subject. — Preparing for examination. — His outfit. — Journey to West Point.— Canal, stage, railway, and steamboat. — West Point and its history. — Grant's proficiency. — Excels in horsemanship. Very early in life young Grant became famous as the best horseman in all the country, which was no small repute in a region where nearly every man was familiar with the saddle and its uses. Before he was ten years old, owners of horses afflicted with a distemper that was cured only by vigorous exercise used to bring their animals to Ulysses to get him to ride them "into a lathering sweat." He was also in demand for breaking colts; and it was no uncommon sight to see the tanner's boy on a pitching, rearing, bucking beast, tearing around the square or along the streets that led into the country. Usually he went out at a furious pace, but returned at a walk. Strange as it may seem at first, while he was ready and willing to earn money by teaming or driving passengers, he disliked to do so by breaking colts or vicious horses. The profession of a horse-jockey was TRAINING A COLT. 37 not in good repute there, and he had no desire to be known as a trainer. He declined to take money for breaking colts for the neighbors, and refused to handle those that were brought to him from a distance. Once a neighbor came with a colt, and offered Ulysses two dollars to ride the animal and carry a letter to a town thirteen miles away. Just as Ulysses mounted the steed, the man said, as if the thought had just struck him, — "I wish you'...