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The Ulysses S. Grant Association | |
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The Ulysses S. Grant Association | |
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Born on July 4, 1855, Ellen Wrenshall Grant, first named Julia, at her father's insistence, was christened Ellen at eighteen months to honor her dying grandmother and nicknamed Nellie. Touring Europe in 1872, she wrote letters home that her proud father thought "infinitely better, as to composition and substance, than either of her older brothers can write. I have read some of her letters to Mr Childs the publisher, and he says that she ought to write a book of her travels. Of course she will do no such thing." During her voyage home Nellie fell in love with an English fellow passenger, Algernon Sartoris. Learning of their engagement, a troubled Ulysses wrote to Sartoris's father confessing "astonishment because I had only looked upon my daughter as a child, with a good home which I did not think of her wishing to quit for years yet." This undated carte de visite depicts Nellie near the beginning of her father's first presidential term. It is owned by Dr. James Brust of San Pedro, California. |