ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT.
A General Wanted--A Short War Expected--The Young Napoleon--
God's Revenge Against Slavery--The Silent Man in Galena--
"Tanning Leather"--Gen. Grant's Puritan Descent--How he Loaded
the Logs--His West Point Career--Service in Mexico--Marries
and Leaves the Army--Wood-Cutting, Dunning and Leather-Selling
--Enlists against the Rebellion--Missouri Campaign--Paducah
Campaign--Fort Donelson Campaign--Battle of Shiloh--How
Grant Lost his Temper--Vicksburg Campaign--Lincoln on Grant's
"Drinking"--Chattanooga--Grant's Method of Making a Speech--
Appointed Lieutenant-General--The Richmond Campaign--"Mr. Grant
is a Very Obstinate Man"--Grant's Qualifications as a Ruler--
Honesty--Generosity to Subordinates--Sound Judgment of Men--
Power of Holding his Tongue--Grant's Sidewalk Platform--Talks
Horse to Senator Wade--"Wants Nothing Said"--The Best Man for
Next President.
When the perception of our late great military crisis first came upon
us, and we found ourselves engaged in an actual and real war, our first
inquiry was for our General.
For years and years there had been only peace talk and peace valuations
in our market. There had, to be sure, been some frontier skirmishing--a
campaign in Mexico, which drew off our more restless adventurers, and
gave our politicians a little of a smart, martial air, in rounding
their periods, and pointing their allusions. We had played war in
Mexico as we read romances, and the principal interest of it was,
after all, confined to our very small regular army of some twenty-five
thousand men, where some got promotions in consequence of the vacancies
made in this or that battle.
Gen. Scott won European renown and some laurels in this country. We
created an office of Lieutenant General on purpose to do him honor;
but the people, after all, laughed in their sleeves, and irreverently
called our national hero "Old Fuss and Feathers;" a nickname which
went far to show that whatever his talents in the field might be, he
had not succeeded in establishing over the body of his countrymen the
ascendency which strong minds hold over weak ones.
But when the hour of our trial came we had to look to him as our
leader, and Gen. Scott accepted cheerfully the situation, whose reality
and magnitude neither he nor we, nor any mortal living at that time,
perceived, or could estimate. Seward smiled in his cabinet chair, and
spoke of the affair as a little skirmish that would be over in ninety
days. A battle or two, might occur, then an armistice, and then "We, Us
and Company" would walk in with our red tape and circumlocution office,
and tie up everything better than before. So Scott spread his maps
and talked cheerfully, and the Washington cabinet congratulated one
another. "This is to be my last campaign," said Scott, "and I mean it
to be my best."
The country listened with earnest ears now to what our chief military
man said. When the father of a family is lying between life and death,
there is no more laughing at the doctor--and in the solemn hush that
preceded _real_ war, there was no more sneering at old Fuss and
Feathers. People wanted to believe in him. They searched out his old
exploits, talked of his old successes, that they might hope and believe
that they had a deliverer and a leader in their midst.
Slowly, surely, it began to appear through many a defeat, many a
disaster; through days and nights when men's hearts failed them for
fear, and for looking for the things that were coming on the earth;
through all such signs and wonders as usher in great convulsions of
society--it began to be manifested that this nation was in a contest
for which there were no precedents, which was to be as wide as from
ocean to ocean, which was to number its forces by millions, and for
which all former rules and ordinances of war, all records of campaigns
and battles, were as mere obsolete ballads and old songs. The inquiry
began to grow more urgent: Who is to be our General?
General Scott professed that the work was too great for him, but he
called to his right hand and presented to the nation one whom he
delighted to honor, and who was announced with songs and cheerings as
the young Napoleon of America.
The nation received him with acclamation. They wanted a young Napoleon.
A young Napoleon was just what they needed, and a young Napoleon
therefore they were determined to believe that they had; and for a
while nothing was heard but his praises. Every loyal paper was on
its knees in humble expectancy, to admire and to defend, but not
to criticise. Mothers were ready to send their sons to his banner;
millionaires offered the keys of their treasure chests for his
commissariat; the administration bowed to his lightest suggestion,
gave him all he asked, hung on his lightest word. Everywhere he moved
amid victorious plaudits, the palms and honors of victory everywhere
credited to him in advance by the fond faith of the whole nation.
We waited for victories. Our men were burning with enthusiasm--begging,
praying to be led to the field, and yet nothing was done. "It takes
time to create an army," was the first announcement of our chief.
We gave him time, and he spent it in reviews, in preparations, in
fortifications and entrenchments. The time he took gave the enemy just
what they stood in perishing need of--time to organize, concentrate,
drill, arrange with Europe, and get ready for a four years' conflict.
It was God's will that we should have a four years' war, and therefore
when we looked for a leader he sent us Gen. McClellan.
It was God's will that this nation--the North as well as the
South--should deeply and terribly suffer for the sin of consenting
to and encouraging the great oppressions of the South; that the
ill-gotten wealth which had arisen from striking hands with oppression
and robbery, should be paid back in the taxes of war; that the blood
of the poor slave, that had cried so many years from the ground in
vain, should be answered by the blood of the sons from the best hearth
stones through all the free States; that the slave mothers, whose tears
nobody regarded, should have with them a great company of weepers,
North and South--Rachels weeping for their children and refusing to be
comforted; that the free States, who refused to listen when they were
told of lingering starvation, cold, privation and barbarous cruelty,
as perpetrated on the slave, should have lingering starvation, cold,
hunger and cruelty doing its work among their own sons, at the hands of
these slave masters, with whose sins our nation had connived.
General McClellan was like those kings and leaders we read of in the
Old Testament, whom God sent to a people with a purpose of wrath and
punishment.
Slowly, through those dark days of rebuke and disaster, did the people
come at last to a consciousness that they had trusted in vain--that
such a continued series of disasters were not exceptions and accidents,
but evidences of imbecility and incompetence in the governing power.
Meanwhile the magnitude of this colossal war had fully revealed
itself--a war requiring combinations and forces before unheard of, as
different from those of European battles as the prairies of the West
differ from Salisbury Plain, or the Mississippi from the Thames--and we
again feverishly asked, Where is our leader?
We had faith that some man was to arise; but where was he? Now one
General, and now another took the place of power, and we hoped
and confided, till disaster and reverses came and threw us on our
unanswered inquiry.
Now it is very remarkable that in all great crises and convulsions
of society, the man of the hour generally comes from some obscure
quarter--silently, quietly, unannounced, unheralded, without prestige,
and makes his way alone and single-handed.
John the Baptist said to the awakened crowd, thrilling with vague
expectation of a coming Messiah, "There standeth one among you whom
ye know not," and the same declaration might amount to a general
principle, which would hold good in most cases when the wants of a new
era in society call for a new leader.
When France lay convulsed after the terrible upheavings of the French
revolution, there was one man strong enough to govern her, to bring
back settled society, law and order--but he was doing duty in an
obscure place as corporal of artillery; and in like manner when the
American war broke out, the General who was to be strong enough, and
wise enough, and energetic enough to lead our whole army to victory,
was an obscure, silent, sensible man, who was keeping a leather and
saddle store in Galena, Ill.
He was a man principally to be noted for saying little, and doing with
certainty and completeness the duty he happened to have in hand. If
he failed in any of the points required in a successful store-keeper
in a Western town, it was in the gift of talking. He had no opinions
on politics, no theories about the government of the country, to put
at the service of customers. The petty squabbles of local politics he
despised. When one endeavored to engage him in a discussion of some
such matter, he is said to have answered:
"I don't know any thing of party politics, and I don't want to. There
is one subject on which I feel perfectly at home. Talk to me of that
and I shall be happy to hear you."
"What is that?"
"_Tanning leather._"
Yet this quiet man, who confined his professions of knowledge entirely
to the business he took in hand, was an educated man, who had passed
with credit through the military academy at West Point, graduated with
honor, been promoted for meritorious service in the Mexican war to the
rank of captain, and whose powers of conversation, when he chooses to
converse on any subject befitting an educated man, are said by those
who know him best, to be quite remarkable.
In these sketches of our distinguished men, we have, whenever possible,
searched somewhat into their pedigree; for we have firm faith in the
old maxim that blood will tell.
It is interesting to know that there are authentic documents existing,
by which Gen. Grant's family may be traced through a line of Puritan
patriots far back to England.
A gentleman in Hartford, justly celebrated for his research in these
matters, has kindly offered us the following particulars:
"On the first page of a thick little memorandum book which is now
before me, well preserved in its original sheepskin binding, are the
following entries, the obsolete spelling of which sufficiently attests
their antiquity:
May the 29 16. 45, Mathew Grant and Susanna ware maried.
Mathew Grant was then three and fortey yeares of age, seven moneths and
eyghtene dayes; borne in the yeare, 1601. October 27 Tuesdaye.
Susannah Graunt was then three and fourtey yeares of age seuen weeks &
4 dayes; borne in the yeare 1602 April the 5 Mondaye."
This, as appears, was a second marriage, and Susannah was widow of one
William Rockwell; and immediately after the record, follow the names of
the children of her first marriage, five in number. Ruth Rockwell, the
second daughter of Susannah Grant, married Christopher Huntington, of
Norwich, and their great granddaughter, Martha Huntington, married Noah
Grant, a great grandson of Mathew.
From this marriage came a second Noah Grant, who was a captain in the
old French war, and afterwards settled in Coventry, Conn. The third son
of this Captain Noah Grant, who also bore the name of Noah, resided in
Coventry, and had a son named for the Hon. Jesse Root, Chief Justice
of the Superior Court of Connecticut from 1796 to 1807, and this Jesse
Root Grant is the father of Ulysses S. Grant, the man whom this war
anointed to be our leader and captain.
The Mathew and Susanna Grant whose marriage record is here given, came
first to America in the Mary and John, in the company which settled
Dorchester, Mass., in 1630. They sailed from Plymouth, in Devonshire,
March 20th, and arrived at Nantasket, May 30th.
The style and spirit of these colonists may be inferred from the
following words of Roger Clap, who was one of the passengers:
"These godly people resolved to live together; and therefore they made
choice of these two reverend servants of God, Mr. John Wareham, and
Mr. John Maverick, to be their ministers; so they kept a solemn day
of fasting in the New Hospital in Plymouth, England, spending it in
preaching and praying; where that worthy man of God, Mr. John White, of
Dorchester, in Dorset, was present and preached unto us the Word of
God, in the fore part of the day, and in the latter part of the day. As
the people did solemnly make choice of and call those godly ministers
to their office, so also the Rev. Mr. Wareham and Mr. Maverick did
accept thereof, and expressed the same. So we came by the good hand of
the Lord through the deeps comfortably."
Thus Mathew Grant and his brethren, even before leaving the old
country, were gathered into church estate for the new, and the planters
of Dorchester came thither as a Puritan church, duly organized, with
their chosen and ordained pastor and teacher. In 1635-6, Mr. Wareham
and a great part of his flock removed to Connecticut, and settled a new
Dorchester, afterwards named Windsor. Mathew Grant was one of these
earlier settlers, and was from the first a prominent man in the church
and town. For many years he was the principal surveyor of lands in
Windsor, town clerk and deacon, and the church records speak highly of
his blameless life. He died in 1681, at the age of eighty.
Thus from the little body of men who assembled with fasting and prayer
in Plymouth, to form themselves into a New England colony, descended
in the course of time, a leader and commander that was to stay up the
hands of our great nation in the time of its severest trial.
The genealogist who has traced the pedigree of Grant back to England,
remarks, that in the veins of his family was, by successive marriages,
intermingled the blood of many of the best old New England families.
Gen. Grant is a genuine son of New England, therefore to be looked on
as a vigorous offshoot of the old Puritan stock. His father removed
from Coventry, first to Pennsylvania, afterwards to Ohio, and finally
to Illinois, where the Ulysses of these many wanderings received
his classic name. He appears to be a man of no ordinary class for
shrewdness and good sense. Gen. Grant's mother is one of those sedate,
sensible, serious women, whose households are fit nurseries for heroes.
Industry, economy, patience, temperance and religion, were the lessons
of his early days. The writer of the "Tanner Boy" has embodied,
probably on good authority, some anecdotes of the childhood of the boy,
which show that there was in him good stuff to make a man of. One of
these is worth telling:
"I want you to drive the team to such a spot in the woods," said the
father, "where you will find the men ready to load it with logs, and
you will then drive it home."
The boy drove to the spot, found the logs, but no men.
Instead of sitting down to crack nuts and wait, as most boys would,
Ulysses said to himself, "I was sent to bring these logs, and bring
them I must, men or no men," and so by some ingenious mechanical
arrangements, he succeeded in getting them on to the cart alone, and
drove home with them quietly, as if it were a matter of course.
"Why, my son," exclaimed his father, "where are the men?"
"I don't know, and I don't care," said the boy. "I got the load without
them."
This boy was surely father to the man who took Vicksburg.
There are other anecdotes given of his fighting a schoolboy who
traduced Washington; of his steady perseverance in his school studies;
and of a school saying of his, that _can't_ was never a word in his
dictionary. His industry and energy caused his appointment to West
Point, where the young tanner boy took rank with the scions of the
so-styled Southern aristocracy. It is recorded in his new position that
certain sneers on his industrial calling were promptly resisted, and
that he insisted upon the proper deference to himself and his order,
as a boy of the working classes, and maintained it by a stalwart good
right arm, which nobody cared to bring down in anger.
Grant graduated with respectable credit from West Point, in 1843. He
is said to have been the best rider in his class, but not remarkable
otherwise. In the same class were Gen. W. B. Franklin, Gen. I. T.
Quimby, Gen. J. J. Reynolds, Gen. C. C. Augur, Gen. C. S. Hamilton,
Gen. F. Steele, Gen. R. Ingalls, and Gen. H. M. Judah, all useful and a
number of them eminent officers in the Union Army during the Rebellion.
There were also in the same class several members who adhered to the
rebel cause; R. S. Ripley, S. G. French, F. Gardner, who surrendered
Port Hudson to Gen. Banks, E. B. Holloway, and one or two others. At
his graduation, no second lieutenancy was vacant in the United States
Army, and Grant therefore received a brevet commission as second
lieutenant in the Fourth United States Infantry. With his regiment or
detachments of it, he now served for a time on the western frontier,
near St. Louis, up the Red River, and elsewhere. When in 1845, Gen.
Taylor was ordered into Texas, the Fourth Regiment and Grant with
it formed part of his force, and they continued in active service
throughout the Mexican War. In this war, Lieutenant Grant showed great
readiness, sense, and courage. He was in every one of its important
battles except Buena Vista; to us the words of one of his eulogists,
"in all the battles in which any one man could be." He was repeatedly
mentioned in the reports of his commanding officers for meritorious
conduct. He was appointed first Lieutenant on the field of battle, at
Molino del Rey, for gallantry; and was breveted Captain for meritorious
conduct in the battle of Chapultepec.
In 1848, after the end of the war, Capt. Grant married a Miss Dent,
from near St. Louis, and for some years lived in the monotonous routine
of the peace establishment; at Detroit, at Sackett's Harbor, and in
Oregon. To this period of his life belongs a story that being a good
chess player, and very fond of the game, he found while at Sackett's
Harbor an opponent of superior force. With this champion our stubborn
infantry captain used to play, and as regularly to get beaten. But he
played on, and was accustomed to insist upon protracting the sitting
until his opponent had actually become so tired that his mind would
not work; when Grant would comfortably balance the account.
His full commission as captain reached him in August, 1853, but in
1854, having made up his mind that there was to be a long peace, he
resigned his captaincy and set about establishing himself in civil
life. His first attempt was, to manage a small farm to the southwest
of St. Louis, where he used to cut wood and haul it to Carondelet,
delivering it himself. He diversified his year during summer, with
acting as a collector of debts in that region. But there is nothing
to show that he enjoyed either wood cutting or dunning, and he
certainly did not grow rich at them. In 1859, he tried in vain to
get the appointment of county engineer; and he then went into the
leather trade, in partnership with his father, at Galena. The firm
quickly attained high standing for intelligence and integrity, and the
business, at the breaking out of the war, was prosperous.
It is narrated that Grant's determination to enter the service against
the rebellion was taken and stated along with the drawing on of his
coat, instantly upon reading the telegram which announced the surrender
of Sumter. He came into the store in the morning, read the dispatch,
and as he took up his coat, which he had laid off, and put it on again,
he observed in his quiet way, "The government educated me for the army,
and although I have served through one war, I am still a little in debt
to the government, and willing to discharge the obligation."
Grant, bringing with him a company of volunteers that he had enlisted,
in a few days appeared in the council-chamber of governor Yates,
of Illinois, and tendered his services to the country as volunteer.
The governor immediately proposed to place him on his own staff, as
mustering officer of volunteers. Grant expressed a wish for more active
service, but was overruled for the time by the wishes of the governor,
who represented that his military education and experience would be of
great advantage in forming the raw material now to be made into an army.
In this comparatively humble sphere Grant began his second military
career. He did with all his might whatever he did, and his exertions
in obtaining volunteers were such that the quota of Illinois was more
than full at the appointed time, and at once set in the field. In
June, 1861, he entered actual service, with the rank of colonel of
volunteers; and took hold of work with such purpose and efficiency that
he was almost immediately elevated to be Brigadier General.
The patriotic and energetic Governor Yates, gives the following account
of the first months of Grant's services during the Rebellion.
"In April, 1861, he tendered his personal services to me, saying,
that he 'had been the recipient of a military education at West
Point, and that now, when the country was involved in a war for its
preservation and safety, he thought it his duty to offer his services
in defense of the Union, and that he would esteem it a privilege to
be assigned to any position where he could be useful.' The plain,
straightforward demeanor of the man, and the modesty and earnestness
which characterized his offer of assistance, at once awakened a lively
interest in him, and impressed me with a desire to secure his counsel
for the benefit of volunteer organization then forming for Government
service. At first I assigned him a desk in the Executive office; and
his familiarity with military organization and regulations made him an
invaluable assistant in my own and the office of the Adjutant-General.
Soon his admirable qualities as a military commander became apparent,
and I assigned him to command of the camps of organization at 'Camp
Yates,' Springfield, 'Camp Grant,' Mattoon, and 'Camp Douglas,' at
Anna, Union County. * * * "The Twenty-first regiment of Illinois
volunteers, * * * had become very much demoralized under the thirty
days' experiment, and doubts arose in relation to their acceptance
for a longer period. I was much perplexed to find an efficient and
experienced officer to take command of the regiment, and take it into
the three years' service. * * * I decided to offer the command to
Captain Grant, at Covington, Kentucky, tendering him the colonelcy. He
immediately reported, accepting the commission, taking rank as colonel
of that regiment from the 15th of June, 1861. Thirty days previous
to that time, the regiment numbered over one thousand men; but in
consequence of laxity of discipline of the first commanding officer,
and other discouraging obstacles connected with the acceptance of
troops at that time, but six hundred and three men were found willing
to enter the three years' service. In less than ten days Colonel Grant
filled the regiment to the maximum standard, and brought it to a state
of discipline seldom attained in the volunteer service in so short a
time. His was the only regiment that left the camp of organization
on foot. * * * Colonel Grant was afterwards assigned to command for
the protection of the Quincy and Palmyra, and Hannibal and St. Josephs
Railroads. He soon distinguished himself as a regimental commander in
the field, and his claims for increased rank were recognized by his
friends in Springfield, and his promotion insisted upon, before his
merits and services were fairly understood at Washington."
Grant's brigadier's commission reached him August 9th, 1861, and his
first service under it was, a march to Ironton, in Missouri, for the
purpose of preventing an attack from the rebel Jeff Thompson. Grant had
already once declined a brigadiership when offered him by Gov. Yates,
for the reason that he considered the appointment more properly due to
another person; but though the youngest of the colonels in Missouri, he
had been acting brigadier there.
Soon after this he was placed in command at the great central point of
Cairo, which was the key of the West.
The country was full of confusion and disorder. Rebel sympathizers
every where, openly and secretly, were embarrassing the Federal and
assisting the rebel army. The professedly neutral State of Kentucky
was used as the camping ground and retreat of these forces which thus
annoyed our army. Grant quietly determined to command this dangerous
territory. He took the town of Paducah, a strong post on the Ohio
River, near the mouth of the Tennessee River, in Kentucky, by which
he at once gained possession of interior navigable waters, which
the traitors had been using for their own purposes. The strength
and decision with which he took possession of the town intimidated
all rebel sympathizers. He then issued the following address to the
inhabitants, which is as good a specimen of condensed and effective
military style as we have on record:
"I am come among you, not as an enemy, but as your fellow-American;
not to maltreat and annoy you, but to respect and enforce the rights
of all loyal citizens. I am here to defend you against the common
enemy, who has planted his guns on your soil, and fired upon you; and
to assist the authority and sovereignty of your government. I have
nothing to do with opinions, and shall deal only with armed rebellion
and its aiders and abetters. You can pursue your usual avocations
without fear. The strong arm of the government is here to protect its
friends, and punish its enemies. Whenever it is manifest that you are
able to defend yourselves, maintain the authority of the government,
and protect the rights of loyal citizens, I shall withdraw the forces
under my command.
U. S. GRANT,
Brig. Gen. Commanding.
While in command at Cairo, Grant used to dress rather carelessly,
very much after Gen. Taylor's fashion; he went about wearing an old
"stove-pipe hat," and always with a cigar. Some one, it is said, once
jeered about the "stove-pipe general" and his cigars, and was silenced
by the reply that "such a bright stove-pipe might be excused for
smoking."
The remainder of General Grant's military career must be narrated
with a brevity which by no means does justice to the subject. It may
be said to consist of five campaigns; those of Fort Donelson, Corinth
and Iuka, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, and Richmond. Of these, each pointed
out its commander as the best man for the next, until by simple upward
gravitation of natural fitness, he rose to his present great military
post of general of all the armies of the United States.
Grant's operations in Northern Missouri, his dash on Belmont, and his
seizure of Paducah, though all creditable military services, were
thrown into the shade by the brilliant Fort Donelson campaign, which
opened the career of Union successes in the West.
The Fort Donelson expedition was intended to break in two the rebel
defensive line, which stretched the whole length of the State of
Kentucky, from Columbus on the Mississippi, through Bowling Green, to
Cumberland Gap. On this line, the rebels, under General A. S. Johnston,
stood looking northward with threatening and defiant aspect. Grant saw
that if he could seize Forts Henry and Donelson, which had been built
to shut up the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, the Union gunboats
could range up and down through the heart of rebeldom, and the Union
armies with them, and that thus the great rebel defensive line, cut
through in the middle, would be broken as a chain is when a link is
destroyed. He therefore asked leave of his immediate superior, Halleck,
to take the forts; received it, concerted his plan of attack with
Admiral Foote, and moved from Cairo, February 2d, 1862. The success
of this expedition is well known. It should be recorded, however, even
in this short summary, that to Grant is due the credit of possessing
the military tact and promptness that showed him when to make the
decisive attack, and impelled him to do it. This time was after that
considerable success of the rebel sally from Fort Donelson on Saturday,
Feb. 15th, under Pillow, which drove away so large a portion of the
Union army from its place, and indeed left room enough for the whole
rebel force to walk out of the fort and escape, if they had so chosen.
This was done while Grant had gone to consult with Admiral Foote.
When he came back, and saw how his troops had been driven, to any
common mind the case would have seemed a pretty bad one; but Grant
really does not appear to have seen any bad side to any case he had
charge of during the war. At Belmont, when he was told that he was
surrounded, he simply answered, "Well, then, we must cut our way out."
His own description, afterwards given to Gen. Sherman, at Shiloh, of
the impression now made on his mind by seeing how his troops had been
pounded and driven, was as follows: "On riding upon the field, I saw
that either side was ready to give way if the other showed a bold
front. I took the opportunity, and ordered an advance along the whole
line." In both cases, the thing was done.
At daylight on Sunday, the 16th, Gen. Buckner, (whose two superior
officers, Floyd and Pillow, had run away,) sent a flag of truce asking
for commissioners to consider terms of capitulation. Grant replied by
the bearer, in a letter, two of whose phrases have become permanent
contributions to the proverbial part of the English language:
"Yours of this date, proposing an armistice, and appointment of
commissioners to settle terms of capitulation, is just received. No
terms other than unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted.
I propose to move immediately upon your works."
Buckner's reply was in a very disgusted tone, and it may be excused to
him under the circumstances, that he used some very curious explanatory
phrases, and that he called names. But he came down, though it was from
an extremely high horse, rejoining:
"The distribution of the forces under my command, incident to an
unexpected change of commanders, and the overwhelming force under
your command, compel me, notwithstanding the brilliant success of the
confederate arms yesterday, to accept the ungenerous and unchivalrous
terms which you propose."
The correctness of Grant's estimate of this whole movement was well
proved by its instantaneous result--the evacuation of Columbus at one
end of the rebel line, and of Bowling Green in the middle, and the
falling back of the whole rebellion down to the southern boundary of
Tennessee. The first great victory since Bull Run, the first important
campaign in the West, it encouraged and elevated the spirits of the
whole North, and in equal measure it alarmed and enfeebled the South.
It had flung back the rebellion two hundred miles, along the whole
length of Kentucky, across that State and Tennessee. With soldierly
promptitude and energy, Grant followed up his victory by pushing the
enemy, according to the Napoleonic maxim, that "victory is, to march
ten leagues, beat the enemy, and pursue him ten leagues more."
Immediately after Donelson, Grant was made major general of volunteers
by commission dated on the day of the fall of the fort, and was placed
in command of the "Military District of West Tennessee," consisting
of a long triangle with its northern point at Cairo, its base at the
south, on the Mississippi State line, and its sides the Tennessee and
Mississippi rivers. Thus promoted, Grant had already pushed southward.
Foote's gunboats ascended the Cumberland, the troops kept abreast of
them; Clarksville, with twenty days' subsistence for Grant's whole
army, was occupied on Feb. 20th, four days after the capture of
Donelson; and on the 23d, the advance of Buell's army, operating in
conjunction with Grant's, entered Nashville.
When the rebel military line already mentioned, running lengthwise
of the State of Kentucky, was broken up by Grant's getting through
and behind it at Fort Donelson, the rebel leaders sought to hold
another east and west line, coinciding nearly with the southern line
of Tennessee, along the important Memphis and Charleston Railroad,
and their commander in the West, Albert Sydney Johnston, set about
concentrating his forces at Corinth, on that road. Halleck, by this
time commanding the whole Department of the Mississippi, now prepared
to attack Corinth. It was with this design that Grant's army was sent
up the Tennessee, and encamped at Shiloh. But the rebels did not wait
to be attacked. They advanced themselves, with the bold and judicious
design of beating the army at Shiloh, and then of marching northward,
regaining all the ground they had lost, and retaliating by an invasion
of the States north of the Ohio.
This hardy attempt was well nigh successful. The night before the
battle of Shiloh, Beauregard, as the rebel council of war separated,
had prophesied: "To-morrow night we sleep in the enemy's camp." The
sudden and vehement assault of the morning, maintained with tremendous
and pertinacious fury all day long, had steadily crushed the Union army
backward towards the Tennessee river, until towards sunset it had been
pounded into a heterogeneous, irregular line of desperate fighters,
and behind them a great mass of terrified and disheartened runaways,
hiding under the river bank. What the heathen called Fortune, what
Christians recognize as an overruling Providence, caused a conjuncture
of circumstances by which, between night and morning, the relative
number and spirits of the troops on both sides, and the result of the
fight, were totally reversed. These circumstances were, the powerful
resistance offered, at the end of the Sunday's disastrous fight, to the
final charges of the rebels, by the artillery massed at the left end or
key of the Union position, close to the river; by the further obstacle
of a ravine stretching back from the river before the Union lines just
at that point; by the powerful effect of the monstrous shells sent up
this ravine and into the rebel lines from the two Union gunboats, Tyler
and Lexington; and finally, by the coming upon the field of the advance
of Buell's army. Beauregard's men slept in the Union camp, as he had
said, but during the night Buell's troops and Gen. Lewis Wallace's
division came upon the field. Monday morning, instead of last night's
picture of 30,000 rebels, flushed with all day's victory, against
at most 23,000 disorganized and all but overpowered Union troops,
the daylight broke on a Union army of 50,000, being Grant's 23,000,
somewhat refreshed and reorganized, and entirely inspirited; and 27,000
reinforcements, fresh and unbroken; while the rebel army, exhausted by
its own efforts, had received no increase, had lost by stragglers, had
rested ill in the cold rain, and had been all night long awakened every
few minutes by the unwelcome reveillee of the great gunboat shells that
were flung amongst them from the river. Weary and overweighted as they
were, the rebels fought well, however, and it was not until four in
the afternoon that they retreated, fighting still, and in good order,
toward Corinth, whence they had set out.
When the rebels first attacked, Grant was at Savannah, seven miles down
the river. Hastening back, he was on the field at the earliest possible
moment, and did whatever could be done to withstand the tremendous
force of the rebel advance. When Buell came upon the field toward
night, the aspect of affairs so struck him that his first inquiry of
Grant was, what preparations he had made for retreat.
"I have not despaired of whipping them yet," was the thoroughly
characteristic reply. One account adds, that when Buell urged that
a prudent general ought to provide for possibilities of defeat, and
repeated his inquiry, Grant pointed to his transports and said, "Don't
you see those boats?" "Yes," said Buell, "but they will not carry more
than ten thousand, and we have more than thirty thousand." "Well,"
returned Grant, "ten thousand are more than I mean to retreat with."
One prominent, elaborate and ambitious account of this battle, by a
writer who has been complimented as "the Napier of the War," is visibly
framed with the intention of omitting Grant entirely from this battle;
since no part of the narrative suggests that he gave a single order, or
shows that he was on the field. But this slander by omission is utterly
gratuitous. General Sherman's report tells how Grant "was early on the
field, and visited his (Sherman's) division in person about ten A. M.,
when the battle was raging fiercely;" and again, how Grant, who had
been on the field and frequently under fire, all day long, returned to
him at 5 P. M., and explained the situation of the rest of the field.
Sherman adds, "he agreed that the enemy had expended the _force_ of his
attack, and we estimated our loss and approximated our then strength.
* * * He then ordered me to get all things ready, and at daylight
the next day to assume the offensive. * * * I know I had orders from
General Grant to assume the offensive before I knew General Buell was
on the west side of the Tennessee." It was doubtless at this time that
Grant made to Sherman the remark already quoted, as to the readiness of
either side, at Donelson, to retreat.
Another witness, who, unlike our deceitful "Napier of the Rebellion,"
was on the field of Shiloh, describes how "throughout the battle, Grant
rode to and fro on the front, smoking his inevitable cigar, with his
usual stolidity and good fortune; horses and men were killed all around
him, but he did not receive a scratch."
The consequence of Shiloh was, the withdrawal of the rebels from their
second line of defence, by their evacuation of Corinth on the 30th of
May, seven weeks afterwards, the disappointment both of their great
plan of a northern invasion and of their secondary plan of holding the
Memphis and Charleston Railroad line, and the opening of all Tennessee,
and the North of Mississippi and Alabama, to the Union forces; the
opening of the Mississippi River from Memphis down to Vicksburg; the
subsequent movement which resulted in the battle of Murfreesboro and
the securing of Chattanooga on the east; and the series of efforts
which culminated in the capture of Vicksburg on the west. In short,
this battle flung the Rebellion, in the Valley of the Mississippi, into
a defensive posture, out of which it never escaped during the remainder
of the war.
A few days after the proclamation which gave freedom to the slaves,
General Grant expressed his concurrence in it after his sober fashion,
by a dry phrase in a general order on the subject of organizing
colored regiments. "It is expected," he says, "that all commanders
will especially exert themselves in carrying out the policy of the
administration, not only in organizing colored regiments, and rendering
them effective, but also in removing prejudice against them."
The taking of Fort Donelson had given Grant a reputation as a prompt
and vigorous fighter, and a sensible commander. The battle of Shiloh,
when its extremely important results came to be understood, added to
his reputation in a proportionate degree. While therefore one line of
operations was decided upon, which pointed eastward and was to end
in the occupation of Chattanooga, Rosecrans being placed in command,
to the westward and southward, a second great enterprise was aimed,
which was entrusted to Grant; which should end in the occupation of
Vicksburg, and should thus complete the task which the men of the
northwest had proposed to themselves at the beginning of the war, of
"hewing their way to the sea."
Vicksburg and Port Hudson were now the only remaining two of that
series of positions, most of them really impregnable from the river, by
which the rebels had throttled the great artery of western commerce.
His previous career naturally enough pointed out Grant for the command
of the Vicksburg campaign; and the event showed that his absolute
inability to let go where he had once taken hold, his inevitable
continuance in hammering at his object, were exactly the qualities
needed.
For a little while, General Halleck himself came and commanded in
person against Corinth, General Grant being second in command. It was
during this period that both the two occasions occurred, which are
said to have been the only ones when Grant was ever known to lose his
temper. His steady nature and calm good humor had become proverbial
among his fellows even while he was a student; for about the time of
his leaving West Point, the cadets said of him, to use his father's
words, that the only difficulty about him was, that "if he ever was
engaged in war, he was too good natured to be kicked into a fight." The
two occasions spoken of are said to have been; one, when he discovered
a soldier defiling the water of a clear spring; and the other, when
he wished to "move at once upon the works" of Beauregard at Corinth,
ten days before General Halleck was ready; as he saw that by so doing
the whole rebel army in the place could be taken. Of his urgency with
Halleck, his father Mr. Jesse R. Grant, says, "He (Grant) is sure he
used stronger language to General Halleck than he had ever used before
to any person, and expected to be arrested and tried. But the General
said to him, 'If I had let you take your own course, you would have
taken the rebel army. Hereafter I will not dictate to you about the
management of an army!'"
Halleck now left, being appointed General-in-Chief; and Grant remained
in command of the Army of the Tennessee, and of the military districts
of Cairo, West Tennessee and Mississippi. The rebels knew as well as
he that his face was set steadfastly towards Vicksburg; and to begin
with, they attacked his troops at Corinth and Iuka in great force and
with tremendous fury, in order to break up his plans. At both places
they were however defeated. In October, the rebel General Pemberton was
placed in command in Northern Mississippi, and in the last two months
of 1862, took place Grant's first attempt against Vicksburg. The place
had already been attacked by the two powerful fleets of Farragut and
Davis, during seventy days, from the preceding May 18th to July 27th;
but though 25,000 shot and shell had been thrown into it, not one
gun had been dismounted, and only seven men were killed and fifteen
wounded; a result which showed plainly enough how the place was to be
taken if at all.
Grant's movement was to be by land, southward from his post at Corinth,
directly at Pemberton; while Sherman was to get footing if possible
close to Vicksburg. The loss of Grant's main depot of supplies at Holly
Springs, midway in his progress, broke down his part of the plan, and
Pemberton then reinforcing Vicksburg, repulsed Sherman and broke down
the rest of it.
Grant now established his head-quarters at Memphis, January 10th, 1863,
and moved his army towards his goal by water. On the 2d of February, he
reached Young's Point, a little above the city; his army was already
there and at Milliken's Bend, just below.
His purpose was one; to get his army across to the Vicksburg side
and thence to prosecute his attack. First he tried a canal across
the neck of the river peninsula opposite Vicksburg. Through this, if
he could get the water to accept it as a new bed, he could take his
forces below the city, out of reach of its guns, and cross over. But
a flood burst into the unfinished canal and drowned out the plan.
Then he tried to clear out a longer water route to do the same thing,
through a string of bayous and rivers back in the Louisiana swamps. A
fall in the river broke up this plan, as a rise had done that before
it. Then he tried a longer route of the same sort, beginning at Lake
Providence, seventy-five miles north of Vicksburg, but it was found
impracticable. Then resorting to the east side of the Mississippi, he
sent a naval expedition to try to penetrate Yazoo Pass, and thence
through the inconceivable tangle of the Yazoo swamps and their rivers,
to get behind the outer rebel defences north of Vicksburg, and so make
a lodgment. But this plan was checkmated by the hasty erection in the
heart of the swamp region, at the junction of the Tallahatchie and
Yazoo Rivers, of a powerful fort, which the fleet tried in vain to
silence. Then he sent another fleet to try another part of the same
monstrous tangle, by way of the Big Sunflower River, but that effort
miscarried much as the preceding one did.
The obstinate commander had now tried six assaults upon his prey, and
had been busily working at his failures for nearly four months. March
29th, 1863, he set his forces in motion for the seventh and successful
effort. This was by what he had in fact recognized from the beginning
as the best line of operation--by the south. It was however also the
most difficult. As one of the historians of the war observes, a measure
of the difficulties offered is given by the fact that General W. T.
Sherman was not disposed to advise it. The same writer adds, "It can
only be said that there was that in the composition of General Grant's
mind that prompted him to undertake that which no one else would have
adventured."
Colonel Grierson's cavalry force was now launched down from Tennessee
to go tearing through the whole interior of Mississippi, and thoroughly
frighten all its people, while he should break up, as he circuited
far around Vicksburg, as many as possible of the railroads, bridges,
and other means of communication, leading from the city back into the
country, or from one part of the State to another. Grant's own troops
moved down the river a total distance of seventy-five miles. The
fleet and transports ran the batteries and ferried the army across at
Bruinsburg; Grant moved at once three miles inland, and May 1st, beat
Gen. Bowen at Port Gibson. Then he moved eastward, drove Johnston out
of Jackson, an important center for railroad lines, and broke up all
the communications in the neighborhood; then turning short about, he
approached Vicksburg by forced marches; on May 10th met Pemberton at
Champion Hills and defeated him; followed him sharply up, forced the
passage of the Big Black, drove Pemberton into the city, and on May
16th had formed his lines of attack. After a vigorous siege, whose
progress attracted the attention of the whole civilized world, the
place surrendered with 27,000 men, on July 4th, 1863. The whole number
of prisoners made since crossing the Mississippi was 37,000. This
great achievement freed the Mississippi, cut the rebellion in two, and
rendered it out of the question for the rebels to hold the Mississippi
Valley.
The taking of Vicksburg was remarkable, not so much as a successful
engineering attack against earthworks, as it was when considered as
the culmination of a well planned campaign. The place was in fact
taken a good ways away from it. Grierson's wide destruction of the
railroads and bridges, and the far wider fright which he spread among
the rebels, were part of the fatal preliminaries which were the most
decisive parts of the attack. Such were also the series of battles
which so relentlessly pounded Pemberton backwards into the trap where
he was finally caged; particularly the expulsion of the rebel forces
from Jackson, just before the siege. All these operations gradually
fixed Pemberton where he could not get out, and where his friends could
not help him out; and so he waited until he had no more provisions,
and then gave up. There seems no reason for believing that the assault
which Grant had arranged to give on the 6th, if the surrender had not
been made on the 4th, would have been more successful than either of
the previous assaults; the earthworks of Vicksburg were skillfully and
strongly built, and were much the stronger because they stood on ground
itself naturally very strong. The great feature of the transaction
was therefore the broad and far-seeing wisdom of a general who can
organize campaigns, rather than the mere ability of a colonel to make a
furious assault at the head of his regiment. That this was the nature
of the campaign, appears from the history of the preliminary part of
it; and so it does, from Grant's own dispatch to Sherman, on hearing
that Johnston was doing his best to get together an army to relieve the
place. "They seem," wrote Grant, "to put a great deal of faith in the
Lord and Joe Johnston, but _you_ must whip Johnston at least fifteen
miles from here." That battle never happened.
It is said that during the dreary days of the siege of Vicksburg,
a knot of men collected in a druggist's shop in Cincinnati, were
discussing the probabilities of his success in taking Vicksburg. An
aged countryman, who had been a silent listener, was at last appealed
to for his opinion.
"I rather think he'll do it," said the stranger, in a tone of
certainty.
"What makes you think so?" said the company.
"Well, I don't know; but our Ulysses always did do whatever he said he
would. You see Ulysses is my boy," added the old man; and the event
justified his confidence.
Never was an enterprise hedged in with difficulties more gigantic;
but against these Grant placed the silent, inflexible force of a will
which no length of time could weary, no obstacles discourage, and the
combinations of a brain which seemed equally capable of attending to
the vastest plans and the most trivial minutiæ.
We can all remember that thrill of joy and thankfulness which vibrated
through the country when the telegraph flashed through it the news of
this victory. It was a double triumph for the nation. Not only was
Vicksburg taken, but the General and commander that the nation had long
been looking for was at last made manifest.
In vain did envy and jealousy at this point intrigue against him, and
endeavor to fill the ear of the President with suspicions. "I assure
you he is a hard drinker," said one of these detractors. The "slow,
wise smile" that we so well remember, rose over that rugged face as
Lincoln made answer:
"I wish you would tell me exactly _what_ he drinks. I should like to
send some of the same brand to all my other Generals."
No; there was no deceiving Lincoln. He knew a man when he saw him, and
was ready to put all power in hands that he saw were strong enough to
use it.
General Grant's commission as major-general in the regular army was
dated July 4, 1863, the day of the occupation of Vicksburg. In the
succeeding October he was placed in command of the great "Military
Division of the Mississippi," consisting of the three "Departments" of
the Ohio, the Cumberland, and the Tennessee, and including the command
of four strong armies; his own, Hooker's, and those of the Cumberland
and the Ohio.
Grant's next victory was that of Chattanooga, Nov. 25, 1863, which
substantially repaired the ill effects of the defeat of Rosecrans at
Chickamauga, and assured the possession of the mountain citadel from
which in the next spring Sherman sallied on his way to Atlanta.
A very thorough effort to extract a speech from Grant was made at
St. Louis, January 29, 1864, after the victory of Chattanooga. There
was a public dinner in his honor. When the regular toast to "our
distinguished guest" was offered and drank, and the band had capped
the compliment with "Hail to the Chief," the guest would, on political
principles have talked for at least half an hour. Grant got up and
said: "Gentlemen--in response it will be impossible for me to do more
than to thank you." In the evening there was a serenade, and a great
crowd to hear it. When Grant came out on the balcony, everybody shouted
"Speech, speech!" and then was the time for another able political
manifesto, say of an hour long. The General took off his hat. Everybody
was perfectly still. At last a speech from the Silent General! But
that commander had now "found a can't in his dictionary." "Gentlemen,"
he said, "I thank you for this honor. I cannot make a speech. It is
something I have never done, and never intend to do, and I beg you will
excuse me." So he put on his hat, took out a cigar, lit it, smoked, and
looked at the rockets. The crowd kept bawling out, "Speech, speech,
speech!" A foolish local politician who had been let into the balcony,
offered the General a piece of worn-out clap-trap to fling to the
crowd. "Tell them," said he, "that you can fight for them, but can't
talk to them." The General quietly intimated that he should leave such
things for others to say. Still they bawled "Speech!" and once more the
"very obstinate man," taking his cigar from his lips, leaned over the
railing and puffed forth the smoke as if to speak. "Now, then," said
the excited crowd, and they were all still. "Gentlemen," said Grant,
"making speeches is not my business. I never did it in my life, and I
never will. I thank you, however, for your attendance here."
On March 10th, 1864, Grant was appointed Lieutenant General, and placed
in command of all the armies of the United States. The first law passed
at that winter's session had been a joint resolution thanking Grant
and the officers and men that had fought under him, and providing for
an honorary medal to be presented to him by the United States, in
testimony thereof.
The Union armies, as Grant himself had already remarked, in his dry
way, had hitherto "acted independently, and without concert, like a
baulky team, no two pulling together."
Henceforward, in his single strong hand, those armies worked together.
The rebel leaders could no longer beat a Union army at one end of the
line of hostilities by massing all their troops upon it, and then whirl
them away to the other end and beat another. As Grant was engaged in
crossing the Rapidan at the opening of the final Richmond campaign,
he sat down on a log by the roadside and wrote a few words which were
telegraphed from Washington. They let Sherman loose to co-operate in
the South with the Army of the Potomac in the north--and the Rebellion
was ground to dust between the two.
In this final movement, the first act was the battle of the Wilderness.
There is a story that upon the next morning after the first day's
struggling in those tangled and all but impassable woods, Lee and
his officers came out as aforetime, to see the Union forces going
back again over the river; and that when he saw, instead, signs of
their resuming the attack, he remarked to his companions, "They have
a general now. It is all up with us!" The story may not be true; but
its facts were. It was after six days of battle that Grant sent to
Washington the dispatch which ended with the grim remark, "I propose
to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." Spottsylvania
followed, and Cold Harbor; the investment of Petersburg, and that long
series of assaults, forays, entrenchments and battles which ended with
the surrender of Lee and the explosion of the Rebellion.
In the early days of the campaign, Mrs. Grant gave an opinion about
Richmond, which was as well founded as that of the General's father
about Vicksburg. Somebody was so good as to express to her a hope
that her husband would take Richmond. Mrs. Grant observed, with a dry
simplicity of phrase that sounded as if she had gone to school to her
husband as well as married him; "Well, I don't know. I think he may.
_Mr. Grant always was a very obstinate man!_"
From the time of Grant's first appointment, he has gone on steadily,
firmly, and without bluster or parade, doing the impossible, and
demonstrating his early saying, that there was no can't in his
dictionary. In quiet reticence and persevering patience he resembles
the Duke of Wellington more than any of the great military leaders.
Like Wellington and George Washington, he seems possessed of a buoyancy
of capacity which always and steadily rises to the height of any
emergency.
How modestly and quietly he received promotion; how earnestly and
wisely he set to work, when all the reins of power were in his hands,
to organize that last splendid campaign that issued in the taking of
Richmond and the surrender of Lee, the people do not need to be told.
It will be had in everlasting remembrance.
Never had man more efficient Generals to second him. Grant's marshals
were not inferior to Napoleon's, and the unenvying, patriotic ability
with which he and they worked together is not the least noticeable
feature in the campaign whose glory they share with him.
The war closed leaving General Grant, who entered it an obscure
trader, in a position perhaps as noticeable and brilliant as any in
the civilized world. He stands in the front rank among the leaders of
human society, and in our American affairs, still critical, he shows
a judgment, and a prudence, and a temperate wisdom which seem to point
him out as no less fit to rule in peace than in war.
General Grant has many qualities which fit him to be a ruler of
men. Among them are some plain and common-place virtues. Such is
his unflinching adherence to what he thinks is right. Such is his
unconditional public and private honesty. This was well exemplified
in the solicitous care with which he kept the cotton business outside
of his command in the West, as long as possible, from a well founded
dislike of its immense corrupting power.
When at last he had to consent to allow the progress of trade into the
territory taken from the rebels, he specified that, at least, it should
be kept in the hands of honest and trusty and undoubted Unionists. He
was then asked to name such men. He replied, "I will do no such thing.
If I did, it would appear in less than a week that I was a partner of
every one of the persons trading under my authority."
Such another virtue is, that scrupulous official economy by which
General Grant has already saved our over-taxed country five million
dollars a year, by cutting down expenses in the War Department.
He also possesses other very noticeable qualifications of a more
special sort, and so much rarer among public men, that they must be
named even in the shortest inventory of General Grant's character. Two
of these are, the broadest and most generous justice in attributing the
credit of doing well where it belongs, and remarkable wisdom in judging
and selecting men. Of the former quality, his letter to Sherman at the
time of his appointment as Lieutenant-General is a good instance. That
letter, exceedingly honorable evidence of simplicity and justice in the
writer, and of merit in the recipient, was as follows:
"DEAR SHERMAN:--The bill reviving the grade of Lieutenant-General in
the army has become a law, and my name has been sent to the Senate for
the place. I now receive orders to report to Washington immediately in
person, which indicates a confirmation, or a likelihood of confirmation.
I start in the morning to comply with the order.
Whilst I have been eminently successful in this war, in at least
gaining the confidence of the public, no one feels more than I how much
of this success is due to the energy and skill, and the harmonious
putting forth of that energy and skill, of those whom it has been my
good fortune to have occupying subordinate positions under me.
There are many officers to whom these remarks are applicable to a
greater or less degree, proportionate to their ability as soldiers; but
what I want is to express my thanks to you and McPherson, as the men
to whom, above all others, I feel indebted for whatever I have had of
success.
How far your advice and assistance have been of help to me you know.
How far your execution of whatever has been given you to do entitles
you to the reward I am receiving, you cannot know as well as I.
I feel all the gratitude this letter would express, giving it the most
flattering construction.
The word _you_ I use in the plural, intending it for McPherson also. I
should write to him, and will some day; but, starting in the morning, I
do not know that I will find time just now.
Your friend,
U. S. GRANT, Major-General."
Of his wisdom in selecting and trusting assistants and subordinates,
the list of their names is a very sufficient evidence. The proved
possession of this one faculty goes very far to prove that its
possessor is competent to govern; and when a strong will and stainless
public and private morals are added, the presumption grows very much
stronger.
A gigantic power of minding his own business and holding his tongue is
even a greater wonder in General Grant than his being honest and just.
An instance of his successful resistance to the most violent pumping
of him for a speech, has been given; and other such brilliant "flashes
of silence," as Sydney Smith would have called them, illuminate his
whole career during and since the war. He has been recently subjected
to a very similar and more vexatious series of similar endeavors by the
politicians who have been buzzing about him as he has become more and
more plainly needed as next President. These noxious creatures have
tried every conceivable trick to make him say something to show him a
member of their party--for mere patriotism and uprightness will not
serve these bigoted sectarians.
Thus far the silent soldier has defied them all. In January, 1864,
somebody said something to him about the Presidency. He put the
subject by, saying, "Let us first settle the war, and it will be time
enough then to talk upon that subject." A little while afterwards some
one referred to a certain resolute effort to make him talked of as a
candidate, and he then laid down his famous Side-walk Platform: "When
this war is over," said he, "I intend to run for mayor of Galena, and
if elected I intend to have the sidewalk fixed up between my house
and the depot." Properly understood, this is a very quiet but very
sarcastic valuation of office-seeking.
Not long ago, Senator Wade complained to a newspaper reporter who
immediately printed the story, that he "had often tried to find out
whether Grant was for Congress or Johnson, or what the devil he was
for, but never could get anything out of him, for as quick as he'd talk
politics Grant would talk horse, and he could talk horse by the hour."
This was a horrible irritation to the old politician, who could not be
content to judge the man by his acts. This was a great error. One would
imagine that of all men a veteran politician would have been first to
recognize the utter emptiness of words and professions. If Gen. Grant's
views are not consistent with the unbroken record of his whole life of
action, he is the most gigantic hypocrite the world ever saw, and in
that event it is certainly useless to try to make him expose himself
now. If his views are in harmony with his acts, it is assuredly useless
to state them, and as a respectable citizen and a man of dignified
self-respect, he may justly be offended at such superfluous attempts to
coax him to make affidavits to his own character.
A Texas political editor, in November, 1867, while Gen. Grant was
acting Secretary of War, pushed his way into the General's private
office, and "had an interview" with him. He went right to work with his
feelers, as is the method of this species of insect, and told Grant
that "the people of his section wanted the General for President."
Grant turned the subject. The editor, being one of that sort of
"gentlemen" who see no connection between politics and politeness,
turned the subject promptly back again, saying, "General, we want to
run you for President, and I want to know what I can say when I return
home." Grant answered with peremptory decision, "Say nothing, sir; I
want nothing said."
No other but a man of his peculiar character and power could have
borne the ordeal of forming a part of the President's suite in his
late unpopular progress through the Northern States. The discretion,
delicacy and wisdom with which he sustained himself, show a character
capable of the most skillful adaptations. We are indebted to his wise
presence and temperate advice in averting the threatened danger of
civil war in Maryland: for, like all wise and great Generals, Grant is
duly impressed with the horrors of war, and will be always for every
possible means of averting such an evil.
In all these respects Grant has shown a wise statesmanship, which
points him out to the country as the fittest one to replace to it
what was lost in the sudden death of Lincoln. Should an appeal be
made to the people, we think there is no name that would meet a more
overwhelming and enthusiastic response.
[Illustration: Wm. Lloyd Garrison.]