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The Riverside Biographical Series
NUMBER 7
ULYSSES S. GRANT
BY
WALTER ALLEN
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The Riverside Biographical Series
ANDREW JACKSON, by W. G. BROWN
JAMES B. EADS, by LOUIS HOW
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, by PAUL E. MORE
PETER COOPER, by R. W. RAYMOND
THOMAS JEFFERSON, by H. C. MERWIN
WILLIAM PENN, by GEORGE HODGES
GENERAL GRANT, by WALTER ALLEN.
MERIWETHER LEWIS AND WILLIAM
CLARK, by WILLIAM R. LIGHTON.
JOHN MARSHALL, by JAMES B. THAYER.
Each about 100 pages, 16mo, with photogravure portrait, 75 cents;
_School Edition_, 50 cents, _net_
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
* * * * *
[Illustration: U. S. Grant]
* * * * *
ULYSSES S. GRANT
BY
WALTER ALLEN
[Illustration: Publisher's logo]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1901
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COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY WALTER ALLEN
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. OUR NATIONAL MILITARY HERO 1
II. HIS ANCESTRY 5
III. THE PERIOD OF YOUTH 11
IV. HIS LIFEWORK APPOINTED 18
V. LOVE AND WAR 26
VI. YEARS OF DORMANT POWER 34
VII. THE SUMMONS OF PATRIOTISM 42
VIII. FROM SPRINGFIELD TO FORT DONELSON 46
IX. SHILOH, CORINTH, IUKA 57
X. VICKSBURG 65
XI. NEW RESPONSIBILITIES--CHATTANOOGA 77
XII. LIEUTENANT-GENERAL, COMMANDER OF ALL THE ARMIES 85
XIII. THE WILDERNESS AND SPOTTSYLVANIA 95
XIV. FROM SPOTTSYLVANIA TO RICHMOND 104
XV. IN WASHINGTON AMONG POLITICIANS 114
XVI. HIS FIRST ADMINISTRATION 123
XVII. HIS SECOND ADMINISTRATION 133
XVIII. THE TOUR OF THE WORLD 144
XIX. REVERSES OF FORTUNE--ILL HEALTH--HIS
LAST VICTORY--THE END 149
ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT
CHAPTER I
OUR NATIONAL MILITARY HERO
Since the end of the civil war in the United States, whoever has
occasion to name the three most distinguished representatives of our
national greatness is apt to name Washington, Lincoln, and Grant.
General Grant is now our national military hero. Of Washington it has
often been said that he was "first in war, first in peace, and first in
the hearts of his countrymen." When this eulogy was wholly just the
nation had been engaged in no war on a grander scale than the war for
independence. That war, in the numbers engaged, in the multitude and
renown of its battles, in the territory over which its campaigns were
extended, in its destruction of life and waste of property, in the
magnitude of the interests at stake (but not in the vital importance of
the issue), was far inferior to the civil war. It happens quite
naturally, as in so many other affairs in this world, that the
comparative physical magnitude of the conflicts has much influence in
moulding the popular estimate of the rank of the victorious commanders.
Those who think that in our civil war there were other officers in both
armies who were Grant's superiors in some points of generalship will
hardly dispute that, taking all in all, he was supreme among the
generals on the side of the Union. He whom Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas,
and Meade saw promoted to be their commander, not only without envy, but
with high gratification, under whom they all served with cordial
confidence and enthusiasm, cannot have been esteemed by them unfit for
the distinction. If these great soldiers then and always acclaimed him
worthy to be their leader, it is unbecoming for others, and especially
for men who are not soldiers, to contradict their judgment.
Whether he was a greater soldier than General Robert E. Lee, the
commander-in-chief of the army of the Confederate States, is a question
on which there may always be two opinions. As time passes, and the
passions of the war expire, it may be that wise students of military
history, weighing the achievements of each under the conditions imposed,
will decide that in some respects Lee was Grant's superior in mastery of
the art of war. Whether or not this comes about, Lee can never supplant
Grant as our national military hero. He fought to destroy the Union, not
to save it, and in the end he was beaten by General Grant. However much
men may praise the personal virtues and the desperate achievements of
the great warrior of the revolt against the Union, they cannot conceal
that he was the defeated leader of a lost cause, a cause which, in the
chastened judgment of coming time, will appear to all men, as even now
it does to most dispassionate patriots, well and fortunately lost.
In the story of Grant's life some things must be told that are not at
all heroic. Much as it might be wished that he had been what Carlyle
says a hero should be, a hero at all points, he was not a worshipful
hero. Like ourselves all, he was a combination of qualities good and not
good. The lesson and encouragement of his life are that in spite of
weaknesses which at one time seemed to have doomed him to failure and
oblivion, he so mastered himself upon opportune occasion that he was
able to prove his power to command great and intelligent armies fighting
in a right cause, to obtain the confidence of Lincoln and of his loyal
countrymen, and to secure a fame as noble and enduring as any that has
been won with the sword.