But Grant had been raised in a Northern household that looked down on slave owners, and Julia’s father had purchased his eldest daughter her own personal slave, known as “Black Julia.” Still, he wanted to be around the woman he had fallen for. At one point her pet canary died, and Grant crafted a small yellow coffin and summoned eight fellow officers for an avian funeral service. The time they spent together in Missouri, riding horses and reading poetry to each other, cemented Grant’s commitment to the teenage girl. Before long, he was visiting Julia daily, and just weeks into their courtship, he had marriage on his mind. But she was warm and self-aware, and with young single women few and far between west of the Mississippi, Grant became enamored of her. Julia Dent was plain, squat and cross-eyed, and she didn’t have much in the way of a formal education. Young and lean, Grant was a promising officer from the prestigious military academy in New York. It was at Dent’s White Haven home that Grant first laid eyes on the woman of his dreams. Dent invited him to his family home just ten miles from the barracks, Grant jumped at the opportunity. He was eager to escape the monotony of peacetime, and when his West Point roommate Frederick T. The 21-year-old second lieutenant found his work as a quartermaster, managing equipment and supplies, to be dull.

Grant was fresh out of West Point when he reported for duty with the Army’s 4th Infantry Regiment at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, in 1844.

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