Illinois, where his brothers were carrying on a leather business. He
began work in their shop as a clerk at six hundred dollars a year.
But he did not finish out the first year. The War between the
States began. Grant helped to raise a company of soldiers in Galena
and drilled them. As Colonel Grant, he was put in charge of the
twenty-first Illinois regiment which he made the best regiment in the
state. A little later he was made brigadier-general. After several
skirmishes in the border states of Missouri and Kentucky, he went, in
February, 1862, with seventeen thousand men and a fleet of gunboats to
attack Fort Henry on the Tennessee and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland.
Fort Henry was taken by the fleet before the army reached it, and then
the land and water forces made ready to attack Fort Donelson. General
Buckner, who had been with Grant in Mexico, wrote asking Grant for
terms of surrender. “No terms other than an immediate and unconditional
surrender can be accepted,” Grant replied. “I propose to move
immediately upon your works.” As Buckner was unable to hold the fort,
he had to surrender on these terms. Grant was now made major-general.
His next plan was to attack and break the base of Confederate railroad
communications in northern Mississippi. For this purpose he marched
towards Corinth. The Confederate general, Albert Sidney Johnston,
instead of waiting to be attacked, threw his forces gallantly against
the Federal army. The battle raged the whole day, without decisive
results. That night General Buell brought Grant heavy reinforcements,
and in the next day’s battle General Johnston was killed. The
Confederates were forced back to Corinth, contending for every inch of
ground.
Grant’s third move was to divide the Confederacy by getting command of
the posts along the Mississippi River, thus cutting off the western
base of supplies. The fleet under Farragut had tried to carry out
this scheme. But Vicksburg and Port Hudson were both held by the
Confederates, and between these they controlled the river and brought
supplies from the west. Vicksburg, called “the Gibraltar of the
Mississippi,” was strongly situated. In five battles Grant drove back
the Confederate forces and in May, 1863, besieged Vicksburg, resolved
to starve it into surrender. Many said that this was a foolish attempt
and tried to persuade Lincoln to remove Grant, but Lincoln resolved
to give him a chance. Grant closed in on the Confederates and cut off
their line of supplies. In July General Pemberton asked for terms and
received this answer: “The unconditional surrender of the city and the
garrison. I have no terms other than these.” The taking of Vicksburg
was a great victory for the Federals. President Lincoln wrote Grant
a personal letter: “My dear General, I do not remember that you and
I ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment
for the almost inestimable service you have done the country.... When
you turned northward, I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make a
personal acknowledgment that you were right and I was wrong. Yours very
truly, A. Lincoln.” Those who had tried to get Grant removed saw that
they too were wrong, but they lacked the president’s manly frankness
and did not confess it.
Grant was given command of all the armies in the West. He went to
Tennessee to relieve the division of the Union army under Rosecrans
which the Confederates had hemmed up in Chattanooga. It was shut in by
the Tennessee river on the north and by mountains on all other sides.
Grant, with Sherman, Sheridan and other brave generals aiding him,
marched up the mountain and fought a great battle on Lookout Mountain
“above the clouds,” by which the troops in Chattanooga were relieved.
The title of Lieutenant-General, which Washington had borne, was
revived for Grant, and he went to Washington in March, 1864, to receive
his commission from Lincoln. The president said in giving it, “As the
country herein trusts you, so, under God, will it sustain you.”
Lincoln had now found the general that he had been looking for, the
man able to lead the magnificent Federal army of seven hundred thousand
men. Grant went to Virginia, the battle-field of the Confederacy, where
for three years Lee had held his own and defeated four generals sent
with large armies against him. Grant resolved to break the Confederate
lines and to capture Richmond. He thought that one cause of the lack
of Federal success had been that the parts of the great army had not
worked well together; he tried to make them move like the parts of a
well-ordered machine. General Sherman was sent southward on a march
to Savannah to lay the country waste so that no help could be sent
to Lee’s troops. Sherman’s army covered a track of country sixty
miles wide, in which railroads, bridges, houses, and provisions were
destroyed.
It took Grant a year and it cost many lives to carry out his plan of
overcoming Lee, but he never wavered. The two great generals fought
one great battle after another. “I shall fight it out on this line
if it takes all summer,” General Grant wrote after the battle at
Spottsylvania Court House. Then came the desperate battle of Cold
Harbor. After these battles the Federals received reinforcements to
repair their losses, but none came to the southern army. There were
none to come; even the old men and the boys were already in the field.
On the second of April, 1865, the Confederates were forced to abandon
Petersburg. Lee endeavored to withdraw his array but Grant followed
close in the rear. After retreating seventy-five miles, the shattered,
starving remnant of the Confederate army was surrendered to Grant at
Appomattox Court House, April 9, 1865.
Instead of being detained as prisoners, the Confederate soldiers were
released on parole and they were allowed to retain their horses.
“They will need them for their plowing and spring work,” said Grant
with kindly wisdom.
“General,” said Lee earnestly, “there is nothing you could have done to
accomplish more good either for them or for the government.”
To honor Grant for his services, Congress created for him the rank
of general, a higher title than even Washington held. The joy of the
North at Lee’s surrender was turned to mourning by the assassination
of President Lincoln. This was an even greater calamity for the South
than for the North. Lincoln was succeeded by Andrew Johnson and there
followed a period of grave mismanagement,--especially of southern
affairs. At one time Johnson was impeached--that is, tried for
misconduct in office--and he lacked only one vote of being convicted.
Johnson wished to have Lee arrested and punished as a traitor. Grant
said that “he had accepted Lee’s surrender and he and his soldiers were
prisoners under parole and were not to be punished so long as they
obeyed the laws to which they had sworn allegiance.”
In 1868 Grant was elected president as the candidate of the Republican
party by a vote of two hundred and fourteen to eighty. He tried to
withdraw the national government more and more from the South and to
leave the state governments in control. He was re-elected in 1872 by
two hundred and eighty-six votes, showing the people’s approval of his
administration. A noteworthy act of his second term was his vetoing
the bill for the inflation of the currency, making paper money legally
equal to gold and silver.
People wanted him to serve a third term but he refused, and in 1877
started on a tour of the world. He visited Europe and Asia and was
everywhere received with honor,--as the guest of Queen Victoria, the
kings of Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, the Czar of Russia, and
other rulers. Having received royal honors in many lands, he returned
in 1880 to California where he had served thirty years before as an
obscure young soldier.
His last years were burdened by business misfortunes and physical
suffering. He had invested his money in a banking business which failed
and involved him in ruin. With poverty came illness, a painful throat
disease which was to end in death.
From his sickroom in answer to words of sympathy which came from all
parts of the country, indeed of the world he sent this message: “I
am very much touched and grateful for the sympathy and interest
manifested in me by my friends and by those who have not hitherto
been regarded as my friends. I desire the good will of all, whether
heretofore friends or not.”
To make provision for his family, he set about writing his “Memoirs,”
the story of his life and battles. In pain and illness, he toiled on
and held death at bay till this work was finished, July 1, 1885. A few
days later, he died on July 23. He was laid to rest beside the Hudson
and over his remains was erected a magnificent marble tomb; over the
doorway of this is inscribed his noble words, “Let us have peace.”
Robert E. Lee
The Leader of the Confederate Armies
More and more, Americans are coming to realize that in the great War
between the States men on both sides were animated by a sense of duty
and devotion to what they thought right. On the one side, brave,
loyal-hearted men upheld the Union; on the other, men as brave and
loyal upheld the supremacy of the state. You have read how Grant, the
victor, won the love and reverence of his countrymen; no less loved and
reverenced was his defeated opponent, the great Confederate leader, Lee.
Robert Edward Lee was born January 19, 1807, at Stratford, a handsome
old country home in Virginia. His father, General Henry Lee, was the
famous “Light Horse Harry” of the Revolution. When Robert was only
four years old, General Lee moved to Alexandria in order to give his
children the benefit of better schools. From childhood Robert was an
apt and faithful student, careful to do his best at any task which he
undertook. His childhood was darkened by the illness and death of his
father. Robert cared tenderly for his invalid mother who said, “He is
both son and daughter to me.”
[Illustration: ROBERT E. LEE]
From the school at Alexandria Robert went to West Point, where at the
end of four years he was graduated second in his class. Two years after
leaving West Point, he married Mary Randolph Custis, the daughter of
Washington’s adopted son, Washington Parke Curtis. Lieutenant Lee
and his wife made their home at Arlington, a stately mansion on the
Potomac River, in sight of the city of Washington. Here he passed a
few happy months. But a soldier cannot choose his post of duty, and
Lee was summoned from home to engineer work in the West. Then came the
war with Mexico in which he took part. In this war served as privates
or officers many others destined to fame in the War between the
States--Johnston, McClellan, Pickett, Grant, Jackson. Among his brave
and able comrades, Lee made a distinguished record. In the advance on
the city of Mexico, he explored and made a road over a pathless lava
field across which he guided troops; then he rode back alone in the
darkness and rain to report to his commanding officer. General Scott
said that this midnight journey was the greatest deed of the war, and
Lee “the greatest military genius in America.”
After the war with Mexico was over, Captain Lee made a visit home. In
1852 he was made superintendent of the Military Academy at West Point.
Thence he was sent to Texas to fight against the Indians. He was in
Virginia in 1859 and he was sent to suppress John Brown’s raid. He
performed his duty at Harper’s Ferry in soldierly fashion, treated
his prisoners kindly, and turned them over to the civil authorities
to be punished for breaking the laws. In 1860 he was again in Texas,
but the next spring he returned to Virginia. The period of disunion
and secession was a sad one for Colonel Lee. He loved dearly the Union
which his father had aided to establish. He had entered its army
expecting to devote his life to its service. He believed, indeed, in
the supreme authority of the state, but he thought secession unwise and
was confident that in the Union the vexing questions about slavery and
the tariff could be settled.
“If the four million slaves in the South were mine,” he said, “I would
give them all up to keep the Union.”
But dearly as he loved the Union he thought that his first duty was to
his native state, Virginia, his second to the Union of which he was
a part. When Lincoln issued his call for troops, by General Scott’s
advice the command of the Union army was offered to Lee. He declined,
resigned his commission in the army, and accepted the command of the
Virginia forces. It was a sad day when he and his family left beautiful
Arlington which was never again to be a home. It fell into the hands of
the Union soldiers and is now the site of a great national cemetery.
Lee fought at first in western Virginia; then he was sent to aid in
fortifying the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia. Afterwards he
was put in charge of the army in Virginia, and there he remained, as
general and commander-in-chief of the southern army until the end of
the war. The southern army was small but it was commanded by brave and
able generals. Lee’s “right hand” was Stonewall Jackson, a fearless
soldier and earnest Christian, one of the greatest military leaders the
world has ever known. A famous cavalry-leader was J. E. B. Stuart, a
dashing cavalier who loved battle as a boy loves play. Both Jackson and
Stuart were killed before the war was over.
As you have been told, it was the great aim of the northern armies to
capture Richmond; it was the aim of Lee and his little army to defend
the city. Lee led his soldiers with masterly skill in the Seven Days’
Fight about Richmond. Then he marched north; having defeated Pope at
the second battle of Manassas, he advanced into Maryland and fought
a great drawn battle at Antietam, or Sharpsburg. Lee then returned
to Virginia. He fought at Fredericksburg against Burnside who had
supplanted McClellan in command. The next spring “Fighting Joe” Hooker
was defeated at Chancellorsville, but in the death of Jackson, the
Confederates sustained a greater loss than that of many battles.
Lee marched north again, and a great battle was fought at Gettysburg.
General Longstreet failed to advance as ordered, the Confederates who
had charged fell unsupported, and the day was lost. General Lee led
his crippled army back to Virginia. At Gettysburg the tide had turned
against the Confederates. From that day defeat and surrender were but
a question of time. For a long time Lee’s little army held its own in
defence of Richmond. Grant, the victor of the West, was sent against
it. It cost him a month and sixty thousand men to march seventy-five
miles. With masterly skill, Lee opposed him in the great battles of
the Wilderness, Spottsylvania Court House, and Cold Harbor, but the
Confederate line was broken at last.
Forced to give up the defense of Richmond, General Lee endeavored
to withdraw his army, but Grant followed, and the little army was
surrendered at Appomattox Court House, April 9, 1865. As Lee bade
farewell to his soldiers, they sobbed aloud and tears were in his eyes.
He said with a broken voice, “Men, we have fought the war together. I
have done my best for you. My heart is too full to say more.”
Great as had been Lee’s work in war, it was no less great in peace.
Bravely and uncomplainingly he accepted the results of defeat, and
endured the horrors of the reconstruction days. No word of bitterness
was ever heard to pass his lips. Nor would he in their hour of woe and
poverty desert his people. Wealth and position were offered him abroad,
and at home he might have had affluence by lending his name to business
enterprises. But he steadfastly refused all such offers. “I think it
better to do right,” he said, “even if we suffer in so doing, than to
incur the reproach of our consciences and posterity.”
He set himself to aid in the upbuilding and restoring of the South. At
a salary of a few hundred dollars, he became president of Washington
College, now Washington and Lee University, in Lexington, Virginia.
Wisely and conscientiously he performed his duties until the autumn
of 1870. One evening at tea his voice failed as he was about to ask a
blessing and he sank back in his chair. After lingering a few days, he
died October 12, 1870.
David G. Farragut
Our First Admiral
David Glasgow Farragut, the first admiral of the American navy, was
born near Knoxville, Tennessee, July 5, 1801. He was the son of a
Spaniard, a native of the island of Minorca, who came to America in
1776 and after helping the country fight for its rights settled here
to enjoy them. At the end of the eighteenth century, Tennessee was
a sparsely-settled region, occupied by a few hardy pioneers and by
roaming Indians. One day when Mrs. Farragut was alone at home with her
two little sons a band of Indians attacked the cabin. The brave mother
sent her children to hide in the loft and guarded the door with an ax
till help came.
When David was about seven, Mr. Farragut was put in charge of a gunboat
on the Mississippi. His family moved near New Orleans, and there Mrs.
Farragut died of yellow fever about a year later. Just before her
illness, a stranger, an old man who had had a sunstroke, had been taken
into her home and cared for. This stranger was the father of Commodore
David Porter. The grateful naval officer offered to adopt and educate
one of the Farragut boys. After the mother’s death, this offer was
accepted for David. The little fellow was sent to school and at the age
of ten he became a midshipman in the navy. He was very small for his
age, and once when he went ashore a group of idlers gathered around
and made sport of “the baby officer.” One waggish fellow sprinkled him
with water from a watering pot to “make him grow.” This led to a fight
between David’s tormentors and the sailors in which David took active
part. After it was over, someone remarked that “the baby officer was
three pounds of uniform and seventy pounds of fight.”
In October, 1812, David sailed with Captain Porter on the Essex.
Captain Porter was ordered to join the squadron in the Atlantic if he
could: if not, to use his own discretion. He cruised about the Atlantic
several months, capturing several British merchant-vessels, but not
finding the American squadron. He then decided to make a cruise in the
Pacific. There he captured several British vessels and gave timely
warning to American ships that had not heard of the war. At one time
provisions were scarce, and David, like the others, was on a short
allowance of bread and water. In May, 1813, David, then twelve years
old, was put in charge of a captured English vessel to take it to port.
The English captain was very angry at having to take orders from the
“baby commodore,” as Farragut was often called, but Farragut executed
his orders with exactness and dignity.
In March, 1814, the Essex, off the coast of South America, was attacked
by two English vessels and captured after a desperate fight in which
the Americans lost one hundred and twenty-four men. Farragut was “a
man on occasions,” and Captain Porter commended his battery in this
action. The American sailors were made prisoners on parole and they
were exchanged only a few weeks before the treaty of peace was made.
The time was improved by Farragut in attending school. Between his
cruises he was generally at school studying diligently, and at eighteen
he stood the examinations required for a lieutenant, though he did not
receive his promotion till several years later.
In 1822 Farragut went with his friend, Commodore Porter, to fight
against the pirates which thronged the West Indian waters. The American
fleet was composed of small fast-sailing vessels and of boats called
the “mosquito fleet.” They had some exciting adventures and encounters
with the pirates, whom they succeeded in driving from most of their
haunts. A more formidable foe than the pirates was yellow fever.
Twenty-five officers were attacked and of those twenty-three died;
Farragut was one of the two who recovered. Soon after his return to
America, Lieutenant Farragut was put in charge of the Brandywine to
carry Lafayette to France.
In 1833 he went to Charleston under orders to uphold the revenue laws
of the United States which South Carolina had threatened to nullify.
The danger was averted and for the present he was not called upon to
serve against his countrymen. During the years which followed he made
many cruises but saw no active service. He was an excellent officer.
One who knew him said, “Never was the crew of a man-of-war better
disciplined or more contented and happy. The moment all hands were
called and Farragut took the trumpet, every man under him was alive
and eager for duty.”
In 1850 Farragut and three other officers were appointed to draw up a
book of regulations for the navy. They devoted eighteen months of hard
work to the task and made an excellent manual. A few years later the
book appeared with a few changes; the names of the four men who had
prepared it were omitted and the credit was given to men who had really
done none of the work. The fair-minded and hard-working young officer
was naturally indignant at this injustice.
Later, he was sent to California and spent four years establishing
navy-yards near San Francisco. He was now captain, which was then the
highest rank in the American navy. On his return to Washington in 1858,
he was put in charge of a new vessel, the Brooklyn. This was very
different from the old sailing-ships on which he had served, being one
of the first steam war-vessels in our navy.
The clouds of the War between the States were now gathering over the
country, greatly to Farragut’s distress. He was a southerner by birth
but from boyhood he had been in the nation’s service and his strongest
affections were for the American navy.
“God forbid that I should raise my hand against the South,” he said.
Yet when the war broke out he felt that he must choose the national
cause. In January, 1862, he was sent in charge of a squadron to secure
the Mississippi River for the Union. He was to capture Fort Jackson
and Fort St. Philip which defended New Orleans, then take the city, and
afterwards sail up the river, subjecting the forts along the banks. He
was in charge of the largest and best-equipped fleet that had ever been
led by an American commander. It consisted of forty-eight vessels. An
army of fifteen thousand soldiers under General Butler was sent to aid
in the capture of New Orleans. Below the forts commanding the city, was
a barricade of old vessels and logs fastened together with iron chains;
above these was the Confederate fleet of fifteen vessels. For a week
Captain Farragut’s mortar boats rained shells on the forts, then his
gunboats broke the barricade. At four o’clock on the morning of April
the twenty-fourth, his squadron passed the forts which had held back
the British in 1815. Then they engaged in a desperate battle with the
little Confederate fleet. Every vessel of it was captured or wrecked.
Four days later the besieged forts surrendered, and on the first of May
the Union troops under Butler took possession of New Orleans. Farragut
was ordered to “pass or attack and capture” the Confederate forts
between New Orleans and Memphis. He accordingly went to Vicksburg, but
his expedition failed for lack of land-forces to support the attack.
July 4, 1863, Vicksburg was taken by General Grant, and a few days
later, Port Hudson was surrendered. This gave the Union forces entire
control of the river. For his valiant and efficient service, Farragut
was rewarded in 1862 with the rank of rear-admiral, created for his
benefit. Thus he was the first admiral in the United States navy. Later
he was made vice-admiral, and in 1866 he became admiral, each of the
three ranks being created in his honor.