Until he arrived in Washington Lincoln had never met the man to whom he
had entrusted the supreme command of the army, and the new General was
a very different individual from those who had been previously appointed
to high rank. Some of his predecessors had possessed undoubted ability,
but most of them had soon acquired an exaggerated idea of their own
importance, surrounding themselves with showy staffs in gorgeous attire,
delighting in military pomp and etiquette of every kind, and generally
displaying a great weakness for popular admiration and applause.
Moreover, all of them, with the exception of Meade, had talked too much
for their own good and that of the army, so that many of their plans had
become known in Richmond almost as soon as they had been formed. Indeed,
they not only talked, but wrote too much, and in discussions with their
superiors and wrangling with their fellow officers more than one proved
far mightier with the pen than with the sword. All this, to a very large
extent, was the fault of the public, for it had made an idol of each new
General, deluging him with praise, flattering his vanity and fawning on
him until he came to regard the war as a sort of background for his own
greatness. Thus, for almost three years, the war was conducted more like
a great game than a grim business, and not until it began visibly to sap
the life blood and resources of the nation did the people, as a whole,
realize the awful task confronting them.
Both sides had begun the conflict in much the same careless fashion, but
the South had immediately become the battle ground, and the horrors of
war actually seen and felt by its people quickly sobered even the most
irresponsible. But from the very first Lee had taken a serious view
of the whole situation. Every word he spoke or wrote concerning it
was distinctly tinged with solemnity, if not sadness, and his sense of
responsibility had a marked influence upon the whole Confederacy. It had
taken the North almost three years to respond in a similar spirit, but
by that time it was ready for a leader who knew what war really meant
and for whom it had no glory, and such a leader had undoubtedly been
found in Grant.
In the evening of March 8, 1864, the new commander arrived in Washington
and made his way, without attracting any attention, to one of the
hotels. There was nothing in his presence or manner to indicate that
he was a person of any importance. Indeed, he presented a decidedly
commonplace appearance, for he walked with an awkward lurch and bore
himself in a slouchy fashion which made him even shorter than he was.
Moreover, his uniform was faded and travel-stained, his close-cropped
beard and hair were unkempt, and his attire was careless to the point
of slovenliness. There was, however, something in the man's clear-cut
features, firm mouth and chin and resolute blue eyes which suggested
strength, and while his face, as a whole, would not have attracted any
particular notice in a crowd, no one in glancing at it would have been
inclined to take any liberties with its owner.
But though Grant had arrived unheralded and unrecognized at the national
capital, he had barely given his name to the hotel clerk before the
whole city was surging about him eager to catch a glimpse of the new
hero and cheer him to the echo. But however much notoriety of this sort
had pleased some of his predecessors, Grant soon showed that he wanted
no applauding mob to greet him in the streets, for he quickly escaped
to the seclusion of his own room. But the same public that had cheered
itself hoarse for McClellan, Pope and Hooker, and then hissed them all
in turn, had found another hero and was not to be cheated of its prey.
Indeed, the newcomer was not even allowed to eat his dinner in peace,
for a crowd of gaping and congratulating enthusiasts descended upon
him the moment he reappeared and soon drove him from the dining room in
sheer disgust.
Possibly the fate of the fallen idols had warned Grant against making a
public exhibition of himself or encouraging the hysterical acclamations
of the crowd, but he was naturally a man of sound, common sense,
entirely free from conceit, and he had no idea of allowing the idle or
curious mob to amuse itself at his expense. He, therefore, quickly made
it plain that he had serious work to do and that he intended to do it
without nonsense of any kind.
Ceremonies and forms with such a man would have been impossible, and
on March 9, 1864, President Lincoln handed him his commission as a
Lieutenant-General, with a few earnest words to which he made a modest
reply, and then, with the same calmness he had displayed in assuming the
colonelcy of the 21st Illinois, he turned to the duties involved in the
command of half a million men.
From that time forward no more councils of war were held at the White
House and no more military secrets were disclosed to the Confederate
chiefs. "I do not know General Grant's plans, and I do not want to know
them!" exclaimed Lincoln with relief. But other people did want to know
them and the newspaper reporters and busybodies of all sorts incessantly
buzzed about him, employing every device from subtle flattery to masked
threats to discover his designs. But Grant knew "how to keep silent in
seven different languages" and no one could beguile him into opening
his lips. Neither had he time nor inclination to listen to other people
talk. His troops were spread over a thousand miles of territory, and
never before had they been under the absolute control of any one man.
With the Army of the Potomac he had had but little practical experience;
of the country in which its campaigns had been conducted he knew nothing
at first hand; with a few exceptions he had no personal acquaintance
with the officers under his immediate command, and there were countless
other difficulties which had to be overcome. He, therefore, had no
leisure for trifling and quickly sent all intruders about their business
while he attended to his own.
The problem involved in a grand campaign was in many respects new to
him, but doing his own thinking in silence, instead of puzzling himself
with the contradictory opinions of other men, Grant reached a more
accurate conclusion in regard to the war than any of his predecessors.
In the first place, he saw that the various campaigns which had been
conducted in different parts of the country would have been far more
effective had they all formed part of one plan enabling the different
armies to coöperate with each other. He, accordingly, determined to
conduct the war on a gigantic scale, keeping the Confederates in the
West so busy that they would not be able to reënforce Lee and giving Lee
no chance to help them. In a word, he intended to substitute team play
for individual effort all along the line.
Again, he saw the capture of Richmond, upon which the Army of the
Potomac had expended all its efforts, would be futile if Lee's army
remained undefeated in the field, and he resolved that Lee and not
Richmond should thereafter be the main object of the campaign. "Where
Lee's army goes, there you will go also," was the substance of his first
order to Meade who virtually became his Chief of Staff, and those who
were straining every nerve to discover his plan and expecting something
very brilliant or subtle never guessed that those nine words contained
the open secret of his whole campaign.
Such, however, was the fact. "I never maneuver," he remarked to his
Chief of Staff; and Meade, who had spent the best part of a year in a
great series of maneuvers with Lee, listened to this confession with
astonishment and dismay, scarcely believing that his superior really
meant what he said. But Grant did mean it. No elaborate moves or
delicate strategy had been employed in any of his campaigns and he
had yet to meet with a serious defeat. To make his first experiment in
maneuvering against such an expert in the science of war as Lee, would
have been to foredoom himself to defeat. With a far smaller force then
either McClellan, Pope, Burnside, Hooker or Meade had possessed, the
Confederate leader had practically fought a drawn battle with them for
three years. His science had not, it is true, been able to overcome
their numbers, but their numbers had not overpowered him. This, as far
as anyone could see, might go on forever.
But Grant knew that the North had long been tiring of the war and that
unless it were speedily closed the Union might be sacrificed in order
to obtain peace. Moreover, he saw that every day the war lasted cost an
enormous sum of money, and that the loss of life on the battle field was
nothing compared to that in the hospitals and prisons, where disease and
starvation were claiming scores of victims every hour.
He, therefore, determined to fight and continue fighting until
he pounded his opponent to pieces, well knowing that almost every
able-bodied man in the South was already in the army and that there was
practically no one left to take the place of those who fell.
This policy, in the minds of many people, proves that Grant was no
general, but merely a brute and a butcher. But history has never yet
revealed a military leader who, having the advantage of numbers, did not
make the most of it. Had Grant been waging war for war's sake, or been
so enamored with his profession as to care more for its fine points than
for the success of his cause, he might have evolved some more subtle and
less brutal plan. But he had no love for soldiering and no sentimental
ideas whatever about the war. Common sense, with which he was liberally
supplied, told him that the only excuse for fighting was to uphold
principles which were vital to the national life and the only way to
have those principles upheld was to defeat those who opposed them and to
do this he determined to use all the resources at his command.
The two men whom Fate or Chance had been drawing together for over two
hundred years were utterly different in appearance and manner, but in
other respects they were singularly alike. Lee was, at the time of their
meeting, already in his 58th year, his hair and beard were almost white,
but his calm, handsome face, clear eyes and ruddy complexion, made him
appear younger than he was. His bearing also was that of a young man,
for his erect, soldierly carriage showed his height to full advantage;
his well-knit figure was almost slight for a man standing over six
feet, and, mounted on his favorite horse "Traveller," he was the ideal
soldier. Grant was barely forty-two years of age, short of stature,
careless in dress and generally indifferent to appearances. His face,
though strong, was somewhat coarse, his manners were not polished and
he had nothing of the cultivation or charm which Lee so unmistakably
possessed.
But though Grant thus reflected his Roundhead ancestors and Lee his
Cavalier descent, the contrast between them was mainly external. Both
were modest and courageous; both were self-contained; each had his
tongue and temper under complete control; each was essentially an
American in his ideas and ideals; each fought for a principle in which
he sincerely believed, and neither took the least delight in war. Had
they met in times of peace, it is not probable that they would have
become intimate friends, but it is certain that each would have
respected, if not admired the other for his fine qualities, and this was
undoubtedly their attitude toward each other from the beginning of the
struggle.