When he was only twelve, his father began sending him seventy or eighty miles away from home, on business errands. These trips would take him two days. Sometimes he went alone, and sometimes he took one of his chums with him. Talking so much with grown men gave him an old manner, and as his judgment was pretty good he was called by merchants a "sharp one." He would have been contented to jaunt about the country, trading and colt-breaking, all his life, but his father decided he ought to have military training and obtained for him an appointment at West Point (the United States' school for training soldiers that was started by George Washington) without Ulysses knowing a thing about it. Now Ulysses did not have the least desire to be a soldier and did not want to go to this school one bit, but he had always obeyed his father, and started on a fifteen days' journey from Ohio without any more talk than the simple statement: "I don't want to go, but if you say so, I suppose I must." He found, when he reached the school, that his name had been changed. Up to this time his initials had spelled HUG, but the senator who sent young Grant's appointment papers to Washington had forgotten Ulysses' middle name. He wrote his full name as Ulysses Simpson Grant, and as it would make much trouble to have it changed at Congress, Ulysses let it stand that way. So instead of being called H-U-G Grant (as he had been by his mates at home) the West Point boys, to tease him, caught up the new initials and shouted "Uncle Sam" Grant, or "United States" Grant--and sometimes "Useless" Grant. But the Ohio boy was good-natured and only laughed at them. He was a cool, slow-moving chap, well-behaved, and was never known to say a profane word in his life. At this school there was plenty of chance to prove his skill with horses. Ulysses was never happier than when he started off for the riding-hall with his spurs clanking on the ground and his great cavalry sword dangling by his side. Once, mounted on a big sorrel horse, and before a visiting "Board of Directors," he made the highest jump that had ever been known at West Point. He was as modest as could be about this jump, but the other cadets (as the pupils were called) bragged about it till they were hoarse. After his graduation, Grant, with his regiment, was sent to the Mexican border. In the battle of Palo Alto he had his first taste of war. Being truthful, he confessed afterwards that when he heard the booming of the big guns, he was frightened almost to pieces. But he had never been known to shirk, and he not only rode into the powder and smoke that day, but for two years proved so brave and calm in danger that he was promoted several times. But he did not like fighting. He was sure of that.