ip Qualities. Grant came from sturdy frontier stock, settlers who were "simple people boasting little education or refinement." His father Jesse had literally pulled himself up by his bootstraps as a local tanner in frontier Ohio and later boasted of his new found success. His mother, Hannah, was "unusually bright, devout Methodist, remarkably quiet, invariably self-possessed." Grant's "taciturnity and composure reflected a temperament shaped more by his mother's example than by his father's."
Throughout his life, Grant was a man of few words, little given to display. His early military role model was General Zachary Taylor, his f
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