cousin of his wife in the real estate business. Again separation came.
The little family were left on the farm while the father tried another
method of earning a living for them. "Our business," he says, "might
have become prosperous if I had been able to wait for it to grow. As it
was, there was no more than one person could attend to, and not enough
to support two families. While a citizen of St. Louis, and engaged in
the real estate agency business, I was a candidate for the office of
county engineer, an office of respectability and emolument which would
have been very acceptable to me at that time. The incumbent was
appointed by the county court, which consisted of five members. My
opponent had the advantage of birth over me (he was a citizen by
adoption), and carried off the prize. I now withdrew from the
co-partnership with Boggs, and, in May, 1860, removed to Galena,
Illinois, and took a clerkship in my father's store."
He was once more in the tannery business, which he had so hated when a
boy. It is well that men and women are spurred to duty because somebody
depends upon them for daily food, otherwise this life of often
uncongenial labor would be unbearable. We rarely do what we like to do
in this world;--we do what the merciless goad of circumstance forces us
to do. He is wise who goes to his work with a smile.
The year 1860 opened upon a new era in this country. Slavery and
anti-slavery had struggled together till the election of Abraham Lincoln
to the presidency told that the decisive hour had come. The nation could
no longer exist "half slave and half free."
When Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated, March 4, 1861, the Southern States
seceded, one after another, until eleven had separated from the Union.
Most of the Southern forts were already in the hands of the
Confederates. Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, still remained
under the control of the Union. While besieged by the South, an effort
was made to send supplies to our starving garrison. The fort was fired
upon April 11, 1861, and that shot, like the one at Concord, was "heard
round the world."
From that hour slavery was doomed. The President issued his first call
for seventy-five thousand volunteers for ninety days. The North and West
seemed to respond as one man. The intense excitement reached the little
town of Galena. The citizens were at once called together. Business was
suspended. In the evening the court-house was packed. Captain Grant was
asked to conduct the meeting. The people naturally turned to one who
understood battles, when they saw war close at hand. With much
embarrassment Grant presided. The leather business was finished for him
from that eventful night. The women of Galena were as deeply interested
as the men. They came to Grant to obtain a description of the United
States uniform for infantry, subscribed and bought the material,
procured tailors to cut the garments, and made them with their own
willing hands. More and more, with their superior education, women are
to play an important part in this country, both in peace and war.
Captain Grant was now asked by Governor Yates, of Illinois, to go into
the adjutant-general's office, and render such assistance as he could,
which position he accepted, but he modestly says, "I was no clerk, nor
had I any capacity to become one. The only place I ever found in my life
to put a paper so as to find it again was either a side coat-pocket or
the hands of a clerk or secretary more careful than myself. But I had
been quartermaster, commissary, and adjutant in the field. The army
forms were familiar to me, and I could direct how they should be made
out."
Though a man of few words, those few could be effective if Grant chose
to use them. Meeting in St. Louis, in a street-car, a young braggart,
who said to him, "Where I came from, if a man dares to say a word in
favor of the Union we hang him to a limb of the first tree we come to,"
Grant replied, "We are not so intolerant in St. Louis as we might be. I
have not seen a single rebel hung yet, nor heard of one. There are
plenty of them who ought to be, however." The young man did not continue
the conversation. In May, 1861, Grant wrote a letter to the
adjutant-general of the army at Washington, saying that, as he had been
in the regular army for fifteen years, and educated at government
expense, he tendered his services for the war. No notice was ever taken
of the letter, and, of course, no answer was returned. Soon after he
spent a week with his parents, in Covington, Kentucky. Twice he called
upon Major-General McClellan, at Cincinnati, just across the river, whom
he had known slightly in the Mexican War, with the hope that he would be
offered a position on his staff. But he failed to see the general, and
returned to Illinois. He was not to serve under McClellan. A different
destiny awaited him.
President Lincoln now called for three hundred thousand men to enlist
for three years or the war. Governor Yates appointed Grant colonel of
the Twenty-First Illinois regiment. Another separation from wife and
children had come; the beginning of a great career had come also. The
regiment repaired to Springfield, Illinois, and, after some time spent
in drill, was ordered to move against Colonel Thomas Harris, encamped at
the little town of Florida. There was no bravado in the man who had
fought so bravely in all the battles of the Mexican War. He says: "As we
approached the brow of the hill from which it was expected we could see
Harris' camp, and possibly find his men ready formed to meet us, my
heart kept getting higher and higher until it felt to me as though it
was in my throat. I would have given anything then to have been back in
Illinois, but I had not the moral courage to halt and consider what to
do; I kept right on. When we reached a point from which the valley below
was in full view, I halted. The place where Harris had been encamped a
few days before was still there, and the marks of a recent encampment
were plainly visible, but the troops were gone. My heart resumed its
place. It occurred to me at once that Harris had been as much afraid of
me as I had been of him. This was a view of the question I had never
taken before, but it was one I never forgot afterwards. From that event
to the close of the war, I never experienced trepidation upon
confronting an enemy, though I always felt more or less anxiety. I never
forgot that he had as much reason to fear my forces as I had his. The
lesson was valuable."
Soon after this Lincoln asked the Illinois delegation in Congress to
recommend some citizens of the State for the position of
brigadier-general, and Grant, to his great surprise, was recommended
first on a list of seven. After his appointment he spent several weeks
in Missouri, whither he had been ordered. His first battle was at
Belmont, where, in a severe engagement of four hours, the loss on our
side was 485, and the Confederate loss 642. Grant's horse was shot under
him. After the battle the Confederates received reenforcements, and
there was danger that our men could not return to the transports on
which they had come to Belmont. "We are surrounded," they cried.
"Well," said their cool leader, "if that be so, we must cut our way out
as we cut our way in;" and so they did.
Grant, meantime, rode out into a cornfield alone to observe the enemy.
While there, as he afterwards learned, the Southern General Polk and one
of his staff saw the Union soldier, and said to their men, "There is a
Yankee; you may try your marksmanship on him if you wish;" but,
strangely enough, nobody fired, and Grant's valuable life was spared.
He soon perceived that he was the only man between the Confederates and
the boats. His horse seemed to realize the situation. Grant says: "There
was no path down the bank, and every one acquainted with the Mississippi
River knows that its banks, in a natural state, do not vary at any great
angle from the perpendicular. My horse put his fore feet over the bank
without hesitation or urging, and, with his hind feet well under him,
slid down the bank and trotted aboard the boat, twelve or fifteen feet
away, over a single gangplank. I dismounted and went at once to the
upper deck.... When I first went on deck I entered the captain's room,
adjoining the pilot-house, and threw myself on a sofa. I did not keep
that position a moment, but rose to go out on the deck to observe what
was going on. I had scarcely left when a musket-ball entered the room,
struck the head of the sofa, passed through it, and lodged in the boat."
Thus again was his life saved.
Until February of the following year, 1862, little was done by the
troops, except to become ready for the great work before them. The enemy
occupied strong points on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, at Forts
Henry and Donelson, points as essential to us as to them. These Grant
determined to take, if possible. Truly said President Lincoln, "Wherever
Grant is things move. I have noticed that from the beginning."
On February 2 the expedition started against Fort Henry, with about
seventeen thousand men. Several gun-boats, under Commodore Foote,
accompanied the army. At a given hour the troops and gun-boats moved
together, the one to invest the garrison, the other to attack the fort.
After a severe fight of an hour and a half every gun was silenced.
General Lloyd Tilghman surrendered, with his seventeen heavy guns,
ammunition, and stores.
Fort Donelson must now be taken, strongly fortified as it was. It stood
on high ground, with rifle-pits running back two miles from the river,
and was defended by fifteen heavy guns, two carronades, and sixty-five
pieces of artillery. Outside the rifle-pits, trees had been felled, so
that the tops lay toward the attacking army. Our men had no shelter from
the snow and rain in this midwinter siege. No campfires could be allowed
where the enemy could see them. In the march from Fort Henry to Fort
Donelson numbers of the tired troops had thrown away their blankets and
overcoats, and there was much real suffering. But war means discomfort
and woe as well as death itself.
At three o'clock, February 14, Commodore Foote's gun-boats attacked the
water batteries, and after a severe encounter several of them were
disabled. The one upon which the commodore stood was hit about sixty
times, one shot killing the pilot, carrying away the wheel, and wounding
the commander. The night came on intensely cold. The next morning, the
enemy, taking heart, came against the national forces to cut their way
out. Then Grant rode among his men, saying, "Whichever party first
attacks now will whip, and the rebels will have to be very quick if they
beat me.... Fill your cartridge-boxes quick, and get into line; the
enemy is trying to escape, and he must not be permitted to do so."
Our men worked their way through the abatis of trees, took the outer
line of rifle-pits, and bivouacked within the enemy's lines. A driving
storm of snow and hail set in, and many soldiers were frozen on that
dismal night. There must have been little sleep amid the firing of the
Confederate pickets and the groans of the wounded on that frozen ground.
During the night the Confederate Generals Floyd and Pillow left the fort
with three thousand men and Forrest with another thousand. On the
morning of February 16, Brigadier-General S. B. Buckner sent a note to
General Grant, suggesting an armistice. The following reply was returned
at once:--
"Sir,--Yours of this date, proposing armistice and appointment of
commissioners to settle terms of capitulation, is just received. No
terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be
accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works."
From that day U. S. Grant became to the people of the North
"Unconditional Surrender" Grant; precious words, indeed, to the army as
well as the people, to whom decisive action meant peace at last.
General Buckner considered the terms "ungenerous and unchivalrous," but
he surrendered his sixty-five guns, seventeen thousand six hundred small
arms, and nearly fifteen thousand troops. Our loss in killed, wounded,
and missing was about two thousand; the Confederate loss was believed to
be about twenty-five hundred.
This victory, the first great victory of the war, caused much rejoicing
at the North, and Grant was at once made major-general of volunteers.
Two weeks from this time he was virtually under arrest for not
conforming to orders which he never received, but he was soon restored
to his position. The country was to learn later, what Lincoln learned
early in the war, that one head for an army is better than several
heads.
The next great battle under Grant was at Shiloh, near Pittsburg Landing.
On the morning of April 6, 1862, the Confederates, under General Albert
Sidney Johnston and Beauregard, rushed upon the national lines. All day
Sunday the battle raged, and at night the Union forces had fallen back a
mile in the rear of their position in the morning. Sherman, who
commanded the ridge on which stood the log meeting-house of Shiloh, was
twice shot, once in the hand and once in the shoulder, a third ball
passing through his hat. Grant could well say of this brave officer, "I
never deemed it important to stay long with Sherman."
During the night after the desperate battle the rain fell in torrents
upon the two armies, who slept upon their arms. General Grant's
headquarters were under a tree, a few hundred yards back from the river.
"Some time after midnight," he says, "growing restive under the storm
and the continuous rain, I moved back to the log house under the bank.
This had been taken as a hospital, and all night wounded men were
brought in, their wounds dressed, a leg or an arm amputated, as the case
might require, and everything being done to save life or alleviate
suffering. The sight was more unendurable than encountering the enemy's
fire, and I returned to my tree in the rain."
In battle, the great general could look on men falling about him
apparently unmoved; when the battle was over, he could not bear the
sight of pain. The men revered him, because, while he led them into
death, he almost surely led them into victory.
On April 7 the battle raged all along the line, and the enemy were
everywhere driven back. At three o'clock Grant gathered up a couple of
regiments, formed them into line of battle, and marched them forward,
going in front himself to prevent long-range firing. The command
"Charge" was given, and it was executed with loud cheers and a run, and
the enemy broke. Grant came near losing his life. A ball struck the
metal scabbard of his sword, just below the hilt, and broke it nearly
off. Night closed upon a victorious Union army, but the victory had been
gained at a fearful cost.
"Shiloh," says General Grant, "was the severest battle fought at the
West during the war, and but few in the East equalled it for hard,
determined fighting. I saw an open field, in our possession on the
second day, over which the Confederates had made repeated charges the
day before, so covered with dead that it would have been possible to
walk across the clearing, in any direction, stepping on dead bodies,
without a foot touching the ground. On our side national and Confederate
troops were mingled together in about equal proportions; but on the
remainder of the field nearly all were Confederates. On one part, which
had evidently not been ploughed for several years, probably because the
land was poor, bushes had grown up, some to the height of eight or ten
feet. There was not one of these left standing unpierced by bullets.
The smaller ones were all cut down."
During the first day the brave Albert Sidney Johnston was wounded. He
would not leave the battle-field, but continued in the saddle, giving
commands, till, exhausted by loss of blood, he was taken from his horse,
and died soon after. The Union loss was reported to be over thirteen
thousand. Some estimate the losses as not less than fifteen thousand on
each side. Up to this time, Grant had hoped that a few such victories as
Fort Donelson would dishearten the South; now he saw that conquest alone
could compel peace, with a brave and heroic people, of our own blood and
race. From this time the work of laying waste the enemy's country began,
with the hope that the sooner supplies were exhausted the sooner peace
would be possible.
On October 25, the battle of Corinth having been fought October 3,
General Grant was placed in command of the Department of the Tennessee,
and began the Vicksburg campaign. The capture of this place would afford
free navigation of the Mississippi. For three months plan after plan was
tried for the reduction of this almost impregnable position. Sherman
made a direct attack at the only point where a landing was practicable,
and failed. Grant's army was stationed on the west bank of the river, on
marshy ground, full of malaria, from recent rains. The troops were ill
of fever, measles, and small-pox, and many died. There could be found
scarcely enough dry land on which to pitch their tents.
It was finally decided to cut a canal across the peninsula in front of
Vicksburg, that the gun-boats might safely pass through to a point below
the city. Four thousand men began work on the canal, but a sudden rise
in the river broke the dam and stopped the work. A second method was
tried, by breaking levees and widening and connecting streams between
Lake Providence, seventy miles above Vicksburg, through the Red River,
into the Mississippi again four hundred miles below, but this project
was soon abandoned. Meantime, the North had become restless, and many
clamored for Grant's removal, declaring him incompetent, but, amid all
the reproaches, he kept silent. When Lincoln was urged to make a change,
he said simply, "I rather like the man; I think we'll try him a little
longer!"
At length it was decided to attempt to run the gun-boats past the
batteries, march the troops down the west bank of the river, cross over
to the east side, and attack the rear of Vicksburg. The steamers were
protected as far as possible with bales of hay, cotton, and grain, for
the boilers could not bear the enemy's fire. On the 16th of April, 1863,
on a dark night, the fleet was ready for the dangerous passage. As soon
as the boats were discovered, the batteries opened fire, piles of
combustibles being lighted along the shore that proper aim might be
taken against the fleet. Every transport was struck. As fast as the
shots made holes, the men put cotton bags in the openings. For nearly
three hours the eight gun-boats and three steamers were under a
merciless fire. The Henry Clay was disabled, and soon set on fire by the
bursting of a shell in the cotton packed about her boilers. Grant
watched the passage of the fleet from a steamer in the river, and felt
relieved as though the victory were close at hand.
Soon after, the whole force of thirty-three thousand men were crossed
below Vicksburg. Fifty miles to the east, the Confederate General Joseph
E. Johnston had a large army, which must be crippled before Vicksburg
could be besieged. Port Gibson, near the river, was first taken by our
troops; then Raymond, May 12; Jackson, May 18; Champion Hill, May 16;
and then Black River Bridge. Grant had beaten Johnston in the rear; now
he must beat Pemberton with his nearly fifty thousand men shut up in
Vicksburg.
On May 19, the city of Vicksburg was completely invested by our troops.
Says General Grant, "Five distinct battles had been fought and won by
the Union forces; the capital of the State had fallen, and its arsenals,
military manufactories, and everything useful for military purposes had
been destroyed; an average of about one hundred and eighty miles had
been marched by the troops engaged; but five days' rations had been
issued, and no forage; over six thousand prisoners had been captured,
and as many more of the enemy had been killed or wounded; twenty-seven
heavy cannon, and sixty-one field-pieces had fallen into our hands; and
four hundred miles of the river, from Vicksburg to Port Hudson, had
become ours."
And now the siege began. By June 30, there were two hundred and twenty
guns in position, besides a battery of heavy guns, manned and commanded
by the navy. The besiegers had no mortars, save those of the navy in
front of the city, but they took tough logs, bored them out for six or
twelve-pound shells, bound them with strong iron bands, and used them
effectively in the trenches of the enemy.
The eyes of the whole country were centred on Vicksburg. Mines were dug
by both armies, and exploded. Among the few men who reached the ground
alive after having been thrown up by the explosions was a colored man,
badly frightened. Some one asked how high he had gone up. "Dunno, massa;
but tink 'bout t'ree mile," was the reply.
Meantime, the people in Vicksburg were living in caves and cellars to
escape the shot and shell. Starvation began to stare them in the face.
Flour was sold at five dollars a pound; molasses at ten and twelve
dollars a gallon. Yet the brave people held out against surrender. A
Confederate woman, says General Badeau, in his graphic "Military History
of U. S. Grant," asked Grant, tauntingly, as he stopped at her house for
water, if he ever expected to get into Vicksburg.
"Certainly," he replied.
"But when?"
"I cannot tell exactly when I shall take the town; but _I mean to stay
here till I do, if it takes me thirty years_."
All through the siege, the men of both armies talked to each other; the
Confederates and Unionists calling each other respectively "Yanks" and
"Johnnies." "Well, Yank, when are you coming into town?"
"We propose to celebrate the Fourth of July there, Johnnie."
The Vicksburg paper said, prior to the Fourth, in speaking of the Yankee
boast that they would take dinner in Vicksburg that day, "The best
receipt for cooking a rabbit is, 'First ketch your rabbit!'" The last
number of the paper was issued on July 4, and said, "The Yankees have
caught the rabbit."
On July 3, at ten o'clock, white flags began to appear on the enemy's
works, and two men were seen coming towards the Union lines, bearing a
white flag. They bore a message from General Pemberton, asking that an
armistice be granted, and three commissioners appointed to confer with a
like number named by Grant. "I make this proposition to save the further
effusion of blood," said General Pemberton, "which must otherwise be
shed to a frightful extent, feeling myself fully able to maintain my
position for a yet indefinite period."
To this Grant replied: "The useless effusion of blood you propose
stopping by this course can be ended at any time you choose, by the
unconditional surrender of the city and garrison. Men who have shown so
much endurance and courage as those now in Vicksburg will always
challenge the respect of an adversary, and, I can assure you, will be
treated with all the respect due to prisoners of war."
In the afternoon of July 3, Grant and Pemberton met under a stunted
oak-tree, a few hundred yards from the Confederate lines. They had known
each other in the Mexican War. A kindly conference was held, and
honorable terms of surrender agreed upon, the officers taking their
side-arms and clothing, and staff and cavalry officers one horse each.
When the men passed out of the works they had so gallantly defended, not
a cheer went up from our men nor was a remark made that could cause
pain. The garrison surrendered at Vicksburg numbered over thirty-one
thousand men, with sixty thousand muskets, and over one hundred and
seventy cannon. Five days later, Port Hudson, lower on the river,
surrendered, with six thousand prisoners and fifty-one guns.
There was great rejoicing at the North. Lincoln wrote to Grant: "My dear
general, I do not remember that you and I have ever met personally. I
write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable
service you have done the country. I write to say a word further. When
you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I thought you should do
what you finally did, march the troops across the neck, run the
batteries with the transports, and then go below; and I never had any
faith, except a general hope that you knew better than I, that the Yazoo
Pass expedition and the like could succeed. When you got below and took
Port Gibson, Grand Gulf, and vicinity, I thought you should go down the
river and join General Banks, and when you turned northward, east of the
Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. I wish now to make the personal
acknowledgment that you were right and I was wrong."
Rare is that soul which is able to see itself in the wrong, and rarer
still one which has the generosity to acknowledge it.