In the story of Grant's life some things must be told that are not at all heroic. Much as it might be wished that he had been what Carlyle says a hero should be, a hero at all points, he was not a worshipful hero. Like ourselves all, he was a combination of qualities good and not good. The lesson and encouragement of his life are that in spite of weaknesses which at one time seemed to have doomed him to failure and oblivion, he so mastered himself upon opportune occasion that he was able to prove his power to command great and intelligent armies fighting in a right cause, to obtain the confidence of Lincoln and of his loyal countrymen, and to secure a fame as noble and enduring as any that has been won with the sword. CHAPTER II HIS ANCESTRY This hero of ours was of an excellent ancestry. Until lately, most Americans have been careless of preserving their family records. That they were Americans and of a respectable line, if not a distinguished one, for two or three generations back, was as much of family history as interested them, and all they really knew. This was especially true of families which had emigrated from place to place as pioneers in the settlement of the country. Family records were left behind, and in the hard desperate work of life in a new country, where everything depended on individual qualities, and forefathers counted for little in the esteem of men as poor, as independent, and as aspiring as themselves, memories faded and traditions were forgotten. It was esteemed a condition of the equality which was the national boast that no one should take credit to himself on account of distant ancestry. Not until Abraham Lincoln had honored his name by his own nobility did anybody think it worth while to inquire whether his blood was of the strain of the New England Lincolns.