2015 NT and COLFAX:
033317
THEIR
LIVES AND SERVICES.
WITH PORTRAITS, MAPS AND PLANS.
By. L. P. BROGIvETT, M, D.,
. AUTirOIi OF
MEN OF OUR day; WOMAN'^ AYOUK IN TIIK OIVIL WAK; HISTORY OF THE OREAT
rebellion; ouu oreat captains, etc.
PRICE, TWENTY-FIVE CENTS.
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NEW YORK:
RICHARDSON AND COMPANY,
4 BOND STREET.
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GRANT and COLFAX :
THEIR
LIVES AND SERVICES.
WITH PORTRAITS, MAPS AND PLANS.
By. L, P> BROCKETT, M. D.,
AUTHOR OP
ICEN OP CUE day; WOMAN’8 work in the civil war; niSTOST OP THE aBBAT*
rebellion; our orbat captains, etc.
PRICE, TWENTY-FIVE CENTS.
NEW YORK:
RICHARDSON AND COMPANY,
4 BOND STREET.
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-^ ‘The deep interest felt by the" writer in General Grant’s
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movements, which it had been his duty to trace m "a
history of the laVe'^ wafj^and a careful' sthdy, frohf t^ most ample materials, of his whole career, "^'from his child- hood t6 the present time,*'have been the motives^'which ‘have iiidiiced the addition of* this^little* volume to the
already numerous biographies of the warrior-statesman of our time, "'boob oldon Tiodt ^{liigno'xodJ
While the writer disclaims any scientific
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training, he has not deemed such training indispensable to a clear and simple narrative of the great battles of the war, in so many of which General Grant participated ; and writing for the masses, rather than for military men, he has believed accuracy of statement more important than scientific nomenclature. He has endeavored to give, with more precision and fullness than has been done elsewhere, an account of General Grant’s great cam- paign of 1864-5, and to avoid exaggerating his earlier and minor battles, at the expense of those, which for
militai’y
iv
PEEFAOK,
magnitude and destructiveness, have never been equaled in ancient or modern times.
The sketch of Mr. Colfax is from authentic sources, and he has reason to know receives the sanction of that distinguished statesman. Its dates will be found more accurate, and its statements more in accordance with fact, than those of some of the professedly ‘‘ authorized ” lives. . . ^ f,;
The nomination, almost by acclamation, of these truly representative men, for the highest positions in. the gift
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of the people, renders their biographies a matter of deep interest to every American citizen, and it is the hope of the writer, that no voter will fail to inform himself thoroughly concerning their noble deeds and great serv- ices to the Republic. ^ j . • , , ,
. L. P. B.
* Brooklyn, N. Y.; June 30, 1868.
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CONTENTS
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GENERAL ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT.
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chjlpter I.
PXQM
lineage, birth, and boyhood ^-13
• - ' i , •
CHAPTER IL
At West Point, in the Mexican War, on the Pacific coast, in ciril life, and at the opening of the Rebellion. I4~23
CHAPTER m.
At Paducah, Belmont, Donelson, and Nashyille — Grant a
Major-General... 24-41
;
CHAPTER IV. r
->
At Pittsburg' Landing. . 42-53
CHAPTER V.
At luka and Vicksburg. 54-68
CHAPTER VI.
In command of Military Division of Mississippi — Successes and honors
69-81
VI
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER YII.
Commissioned Lieutenant-Greneral — Campaign of 1864-5 —
Battles of the Wilderness — Spottsylvania — North Anna — Pamunkey — Cold Harbor — The Mine — Deep Bottom —
Final movements before Petersburg and Richmond —
Lee’s Surrender — The grade of fuU General conferred. . . 82-103
.BTKaTVioO
CHAPTER YIII.
Since the War — Secretary of War ad interim — The National Convention — The Republican Platform — Unanimous nom-
the ]pre sidency-f-Le tter_^ of Aoceptance-^^^ar- 0
acter and personal appearance 104-111
* ■ HON: • SCHUYLER COLEAX/
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^ ^ . CHAPTER I.
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HiS‘ birth,* lineage, and early History. ! ;.*
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113-118
.CHAPTER II.
His entrance: OH political life, and his course in Congress. . . 119-127
14-42 .. f >0- t; M
CHAPTER IIL
His nomination to the Yice-Presidency-i-Acceptance, and E^charaoter. . , , . , .^,,,^.128-1.36
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GENERAL ■ ULYSSES ' SIMPSON GRANT.
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General Grant a lover of peace— His mental • characteristics — A ^ man of the people— His lineage honest and good, but not aris- ^ tocratic — His ancestry-^A patriotic Puritan stock — His father* ~ - and 1 mother— ^Hlannah Simpson had done Veryiiwell, after all’*
^ — His birth — Early* training— HiS self-possession. — His perse- verance—Anecdotes — “ Pick it again” — The swollen creek — Loading timber — His kindly nature — Will not be imposed upon. ^ — Never profane — His school advantages — His father seeks for ' cadetship for him at' West Point — He is appointed by Hon.
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’ Thomas L. Hamer — The blunder in regard to his nanio..
• •
Our great. captain makes no pretensions to exalted genius. He is not one, of those men, who have a pas- sion' for war or conquest ; he would never weep with Alexander, that there were no more worlds to conquer, nor, like Caesar, push his fighting legions beyond the pillars, of Hercules, in* search of some simple, unwar- like nation, whom he might reduce to subjection; nor like the first Napoleon, seek to bring all the nations of a continent under his sway. In fact, he is not fond of war. Peace is with him the great desideratum, so it be an honorable and just peace. Like the Iron Duke, he has seen enough of thehorrore of the battle-field ; but he owes his great reputation as a military commander, to the firm- ness,= pertinacity, and. skill, with which, finding himself engaged in a,war/or the right, he has fought it through to a successful termination. 'With a strong, vigorous,- healthy ^ organization, a clear and well balanced Intel- .
8
GENERAL U- S. GRAOT.
lect, a quiet and even temper, great self-command, ready tact, and a wonderful capacity for judging the character of men, he possesses such qualifications as will make him as successful in civil administration, as he has been in military command.
He is a man of the people. Though of good, honest, and patriotic Puritan stock, he traces his ancestry back to no lordly aristocrats ; no race of robber kings ; no .‘‘ancient but ignoble blood” which has flowed “through scoundrels ever since the flood.” It is enough for him, that none of the race have ever dishon- ored their good name by being traitors to their country, cowards in their resistance to its foes, or plunderers of its revenues, and what could he ask more ?
It has been often stated, and on what seemed good authority,* that General Grant’s ancestors were of Scot- tish origin. If true at all, this statement can only be true of his remote ancestry. Matthew Grant, the founder of the family in this country, was from the vi- cinity of Plymouth, England, and emigrated, with a company of intelligent and substantial colonists, to Dor- chester, Massachusetts, in 1630. From thence, he, with a considerable company of his neighbors, struck into the then pathless forest of Central New England, in 1636, and established the settlement at Windsor, Connecticut, of which he was one of the principal men, and for many years town clerk and recorder. The son of Mat- thew Grant, Samuel, removed to the adjacent town of Tolland, and reared a family. His son Samuel also re- sided in Tolland; but Noah Grant, a son of the second Samuel, pushed farther eastward, and established him- self in Coventry. His sons, Noah and Solomon, were both officers in the Colonial troops in the old French war, and both were slain in battle near Crown Point, in
ms ANCP:StRY.'"'^ ■ " &
1756. Noah Grant, 2d, left a son also -named Noah, *who was a lieutenant of militia in the battle of - Lexinsr- ton, and fought through the whole Revolutionary war ; but thoucch a brave fiorhter in more than a score of bat- ties", escaped' un wounded. He settled, after the war, in Westmoreland County^ Pennsylvania ; but the’ roving and unsettled habits,xbred of his seven years in the army, had unfitted him for steady and continuous appli- cation to business, and he was poor and dissatisfied, re- moving to Columbiana County, Ohio, and afterward to Portage County. He had a large family of children, and his second wife, a woman of gtcat resolution and ‘energy, was a better manager than her husband. Jesse Root, Grant, one of her sons, was apprenticed to a tan- ner ‘ at the age of eleven years, afid acquired a very thorouerh knowiedc^e ’ of the business, though not with- oiit removing two or three times. In his twenty-first ■year, he established himself in hiS trade at Ravenna, Portage County ; but, after struggling for some years with intermittent fever, then prevalent in that portion ,of Ohio, he removed to the region of the Ohio River in 1820, and again started a tannery. He was poor, but ambitious, and having formed the acquaintance of Miss TIannah Simpson, a young woman of excellent charac- ter, intelligent, and in somewhat higher social position than himself, he married her in June, 1821, though the Toint Pleasant people thought that she 'could have done better. But the tannCr, though poor, was industrious and energetic, ahd the people, life he prospered in his business, concluded that, after all, Hannah Simpson had done very well. The'tady herself, we believe, had al- ways been of that opinion. ^ •
The young couple pCciipied a small one-sfbry house
on the banks of the Ohioy in thcwillage of Point Pleas- 1*
10
GENERAL U. S. GRANT.
ant, Clermont County, and here, April 27, 1822, Hiram Ulysses, since called Ulysses Simpson Grant, was bom.
The boy was a comely, healthy baby, and inheriting from both parents a vigorous constitution, grew to be a sturdy, resolute little urchin ; not precocious, but en- tirely devoid of fear ; of kindly disposition, fond of a horse almost from infancy, and managing and riding even spirited and vicious animals when a child of eight or ten years, with a skill and courage which was re- garded as remarkable by all his neighbors. His self- possession was a marked trait of his character from in- fancy. That imperturbability which no adverse fortune could disturb, which threatened disaster could not ^hake, and which was so often exhibited during the war, in occasions when almost any other general would have been excited and disturbed, was no cultivated stoicism, but had its origin in the depth of his nature. His father relates that when Ulysses was but two years old, he took him in his arms and carried him through the village on some public occasion, and a young man wished to try the effect of the report of a pistol on him. Mr. Grant consented, though, as he said, “the child had never seen a gun or pistol in his life.” The hand of the baby was accordingly put on the lock and pressed there quietly, until the pistol was discharged with a loud report. The little fellow exhibited no alarm, neither winking nor dodging, but presently pushed the pistol away, saying “ JE^ch it again ! Fich it again /”
Another instance of self-possession, still more strik- ing, is related of him when under twelve years of age : he had been to Cincinnati with a double team and car- riage, and was bringing back some young ladies to Georgetown, C)hio, where his father then resided ; but there had been a heavy rain during the night, and a
HIS CHILDHOOD,
11
creek in his route was swollen and . threatening. The boy^ after ' a glance at it, decided that .it could safely be forded, and drove in ; the water came up to the seat of the carriage, and the J»orses were beginning to swim ; the ladies were becoming much alarmed, and would probably have sprung from the carriage, but Ulysses, calm as a summer’s inorning, turned a moment and said, ‘iSit still, ladies, I will bring you through safe,” and drove on. He did bring them through, but seemed entirely unconscious that he had done any thing extraordinary. i . j
Another incident related by his father, illustrates that resolute will and determination to accomplish his pur- pose somehow, which in his military career, was so strikingly manifested by his varied efforts to work out .the Vicksburg problem, and by his declared intention at Spottsylvania, “to fight it out on this line ifdt takes all summer.” When Ulysses was twelve years of age, his father wanted several sticks of hewn timber from the forest, and sent him with the. team to draw them to the village, telling him that men would be there with hand- spikes to helpi load them on to the wagom The boy went with the team, but on arriving. at his destination the men were not there,- and, after some little delay, they still did not ’ appear,. He had been sent for the timber, however, and he had no intention of going home without it. Looking about, he observed at a little dis- tance a tree which had fallen over,; and was leaning againstt another, its, trunk forming an inclined plane. This, he reasoned, would enable him to get the timber into his .wagon ;‘ accordinglyy lie took out his horses, and hitching them to the logs, drew them up to the foot of the fttllen tree, and, backing his wagon . to the ^de of the inclined plane, he,.pushed and-dr0\y the
GENERAL Uj’g: GRANT.
timber, piece after- piece, up the inclined plane', and hauled it into- the wagon, and with his load seciured, drove home triumphantly. ' *
Ulysses,’’ ' says^ his father, “ had a very peaceable, equable disposition, and had no inclination to quarrel, but he would not be iniposed upon7 On one occasion, when he was* quite small, he rescued an inoffensive boy, who worked for us, from a trick which a large number of his companions were about to perpetrate upon him. 'The whole crowd then made for Ulysses, and he' came home for a gun to defend himself. But he was never known to pick a quarrel with anyone'. Neither was he in' the habit of swearing.- Indeed — notwithstanding he has served so long in tlie army — I never knew or heard
•• • * i ' ft 9 •
of his using a profane word!” ‘
In -school the boy was faithful, diligent, and pains- taking ; not a genius, who acquired knowledge without study, but a boy who appreciated the value of an edu- cation, and who was hot to be disheartened in his efforts to obtain one. However difficult his lessons might " be, arid however severe the study required to master them, he never gave Up to discouragement, but if one method or resourbe failed, was ^ always ready to try another. He had some natural taste fon mathematics, and for the time and' the" schools oT that section, had made^dair progress in ‘ these studies.^ " But the ' advantages of school- training' Were limited by the want of good schools in the " village, the * small portion of the year {only three months) in which he could attend/* and the straitened circumstances of his father, which did not permit him to send his ^ son ’ abroad for an 'education. An education^, however, • young < Grant determined to have/^and his father was also very desirous^ that he should obtain it. He had reached the age of seventeen,
HIS EARLY EDUCATION'.
13
when it was decided that the effort should be made to secure an appointment as cadet at West Point. Appli- cation was first made to Hon. Thomas Morris, then U. S. Senator from Ohio, but Mr. Morris had already pledged himself to another applicant, and so informed Mr. Grant, but at the same time notified him of a va- cancy in the gift of Hon. Thomas L. Hamer, the member of Congress from Grant’s' own district, the ‘ young man wliom he had appointed, having for some cause, failed to enter. JVIr. Grant immediately corresponded with Mr. •Hamer, who promptly appointed Ulysses to the vacant cadetship. Having successfully passed his preliminary examination, the young' cadet entered the Academy, 'July 1, 1339. " ^
It was at this time and by a blunder^of Gen. Hamer, that his ^original name, Hiram Ulysses, was exclianged for that which he (has since made so famous. General Hamer, in nominating him, had -reported his name to the Examiner at West Point as Ulvsses S.«Grant, prob- ably with some indistinct idea that he-had two names, and that, as he was always called Ulysses, the second name wa^ probably Simpsorf, from his mother’s maiden lianie. However this may be, the young cadet' found himself on his admission entered as Ulysses ' Sidney Grant. *He endeavored, but in vain, to have it changed on the records of thc'Academy, and when he had grad- uated, he substituted Simpson for ' Sidney whicli he
had always repudiated, and thenceforth wrote the name
U. S^ Grant.
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CHAPTER n.
In the Military Academy — Only thirty-nine of the hundred grad--
A I
uate — Hia standing — Hia clasamates — Brevet Second Lieuten- ant— Jefferson Barracks — Bed River — In the Mexican war — Distinguishes himself — Major Lee’s testimony — Flanking. — Marriage — Sackett’s Harbor — Ordered to Pacific Coast— Fron- tier duty — Promoted to a Captaincy — Resigns — Hia 'reasons — Returns to the' East — A farmer — Not successful — Hauling wood — Real estate agency — Custom-house — Situation at Gale- na — ^Approach of the war — Fort Sumter-^Oflfers his services to the Governor — Neglected at first — Adjutant-General — Colonel of Twenty-first Illinois. — March to Quincy. — On the Hannibal and St. - Joseph Railroad — Brigadier-General — Mrs. Selvidge’s pie-— Cairo — Smithland — Paducah. if , ^ •
In the Military, Academy Grant was studious, atten- tive to , all his duties, and though he had not enjoyed the advantages of many of his, classmates in early edu- cation, he soon took a good position in scholarship, while his amiable disposition won him the friendship of all his classmates. The • examinations at this period .were very severe, and of Grant’s class, which numbered
one hundred in 1839, only thirty-nine graduated in 1843.
»
He stood No, 21, his standing being very high in artil- lery and infantry tactics, mathematics, engineering, and horsemanship, and fair in the other studies. During his last year he was commanding officer of cadets. Major-General Franklin, and Generals Ingalls, Steele, and Judah, were among his classmates. As there was no existing vacancy, he was on his graduation brevet-
m MEXICO.
15
ted second lieutenant of the Fourth Infantry Regiment, and for a time after joining his regiment, then at Jef- ferson Barracks, near St. Louis, was required to per; form the duties of a private soldier.* In 1844, he re- moved with his regiment up the Red River, in Louisi- ana. There began now to be rumors of war between Mexico .and the United States, in consequence of the annexation of Texas, and in 1845, General Taylor was sent to the border in command of an “ army of occu- pation,’’ and of this army young Grant’s regiment, the Fourth Infantry, was a part. Grant had meantime been promoted to the rank of first lieutenant of the Seventh Infantry; but preferring to remain with his old regiment, where there seemed more chance of see- ing service, he accepted instead the second-lieutenancy, then vacant, in that regiment.
In May, 1846, Lieutenant Grant, with his regiment^
moved forward to Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, *
and in both those battles he distinguished himself for gallantry and courage. In the subsequent storming of Monterey, he .received honorable mention from his com- mander for his good conduct. ^ In April, 1847, after the .capture of Vera Cruz, in which he had participated, the young lieutenant was appointed quartermaster of his regiment, and served in this capacity, through the re- mainder of the campaign ; but he showed no disposition to avail himself of his privilege of remaining in his
.■ M. . ■ '
^ ♦ Wliile here he formed the acquaintance of the lady whom he
married five years later, Miss Julia S. Dent. She was the sister of Lieutenant (now Brigadier-General) Frederick T. Dent, a classmate of General Grant, and, like him, a brevet second lieutenant in the Fourth Infantry. Lieutenant Dent’s family were residents of St. Louis.
Id geneeal tt. s. geant.
own department in time of ‘battle. In the autumn of 1847, at the desperate assault of Molino del Rey, and at the storming of Chapultepec, five days later, Lieu- tenant Grant exhibited such daring, and acted so prompt- ly and fearlessly, as to receive the high commendation of his superior officers, and to be promoted to a first- lieutenancy on the spot. Among those who spoke in the highest terms of his gallantry and daring on these occasions, was Major Francis Lee, then commanding the 'Fourth Infantry. The following is the language of his
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report of the storming of Chapultepec : —
‘‘ At the first barrier the enemy was in strong force, whieh rendered it necessary to advance with caution. This was done : and when the head of the battalion was •within short ‘musket-range of the barrier. Lieutenant Grant, Fourth Infantry, and Captain Brooks, Second Artillery, with a few men of their respective regiments, by a handsome movement to the left, turned the right flank of the ene'my, and the barrier was carried. Lieu- tenant Grant behaved with distinguished gallantry on the isth and 14th of September.” For this ^achieve- ment he was bre vetted captain, his rank to date from September 13, 1847. During the Mexican war. Lieu- tenant Grant participated in fourteen battles.
After the clo^e bf the war the volunteers were mus- tered out of service, and the officers and soldiers of the regular army distributed among the forts and posts on the frontiers. In August, 1848, Lieutenant Grant mar- ried Miss Dent, and soon after was ordered to Detroit,
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'Michigan, and, after a time, to- the post of Sackett’s Harbor, New York, where in the quiet of peace he im- proved his leisure by the study of military science. In the autumn of 1851, the Fourth Infantry was ordered to the Pacific coast to preserve order, which was greatly
HIS FRONTIER LIFE.
17
endangered by the reckless and vicious emigrants who flocked thither after the discovery of gold.
^ He arrived in California in 1852, and, after a short period of service at Benicia, California, his battalion was ordered on frontier duty at Columbia Barracks, Oregon, and a year and a half later transferred to Fort Vancouver, Oregon. It was while at this distant fron- tier station that he received his commission as captain, August 5, 1853. From Fort Vancouver he was ordered, still on frontier duty, to Fort Humboldt, California, in the spring of 1854. '
But he wearied of this rough, boisterous, aimless frontier life. He had been separated from his wife and his little children for more than two years, as they could not endure the hardships of the frontier, and he felt that the associations with which he was surrounded were more fitted to demoralize and degrade him than to secure his advancement. Further promotion was only to be hoped for in the distant future ; he had been promoted to a captaincy only after, eleven years of hard service, and the next step might be quite as dis- tant. He determined, therefore, to resign his commis- sion, and at the age of thirty-two virtually began life anew. His wife and children had been at his father’s, and he now removed with them to a small farm, nine miles from St. Louis, which Mrs. Grant’s father had given her, and which Mr. Jesse Grant had stocked for his son.
He labored hard on this farm for four years, but he was not successful. The farm was not a fertile one ; and though he tried to make up for its deficiencies by cutting and hauling wood from it to St. Louis, and found a ready market for his wood, yet he did not improve his financial condition. Tha^t this was not due to any
18
GENERAL U. S. GRANT.
negligence or any intemperate habits on his part is fully proved by the testimony of, his brother officers and friends, who still- maintained their acquaintance and intimacy with him. The y>* all testify to his strict tem- perance, his industry, and his perseverance. Finding, at last, that he could not make farming pay, he removed to St. Louis and entered the real estate business with a man named Boggs. After a few months, he found that the profits of the business were not sufficient for the support of two families ; and with that unselfish spirit which has always characterized him, he said to his part- ner, ‘-You may take the whole of this, and I will look up something else to do.” He next obtained a place in the Custom-house, which he held for about two months, when the collector who appointed him died and he left<
His father, meantime, had been amassing a fortune. He now resided at Covington, Kentucky, and his tan- neries, under his own management and that of his sons, had become very profitable. He had himself retired from active labor, but still continued his interest in the business. A short time previous to Captain Grant’s removal from his farm to St. Louis, the father had es- tablished a leather store at Galena, Illinois, which was conducted by two of his sons. He now offered the ex- captain a position and interest in this, and it was thankfully accepted. The house did a good business from the besfinnino:. Their leather had an excellent reputation, and their dealings were honorable and fair. Meantime there were dark clouds lowering in the national sky, and the hoarse mutterings of the storm, which was so soon to burst, were heard. The ex-captain had never been much of- a poli- tician.; but here was a catastrophe approaching
HB RAISES A COMPANY. , 19
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which would soou transcend all party politics, and which threatened to bury the nation itself in ruin ; and it behooved him, in his quiet way, to be a careful watcher of the coming, events. When at last the echo of the guns which were^ bombarding Fort Sumter, on the 12th and 13th of April, 1861, resounded over the land and ffave token that the rebel leaders had commenced war
O J . J . j .. . . . ,
upon the nation, the quiet business man, witliout ado or delay, abandoned his business and gave liimself to the cause of his country. The nation had educated him, and 'though he had served more than the pre- scribed time to which he was pledged in the army, he still felt that in the hour of his country’s peril she had a strong claim upon him for further service. To raise a company, and march with it to Springheld and tender it, to the 'governor, was his first act, and was soon ac- complished. One of the members of Congress from Illinois (lion. E. 1>. Washburne) wrote to Governor Yates, recommending JNIr. Grant for a military com- niand ; but at that time, inexperienced in the work of selecting officers to command his troops, and naturally enough supposing that an officer should be a man of imposing figure and lofty stature, Governor Yates looked with some curiosity upon the small man, so plainly clad, who seemed so diminutive in comparison with some ,of the stalwart gigantic applicants, and gave him' no appointment.
It was not long, however, before the governor found Inmself embarrassed by his want* of knowledge of the detail necessary in the organization of troops, and call- ing upon his Cpngressional friend, he inquired if that little man whom • he had recommended to him under*, stood, these- matters. The ^ representative answered by bringing Grant to_ the govpinor, and finding, on inquiry.
20
GENERAL XT. 8, GBAISTT.
that he was perfectly conversant with these details, the governor at once made him his adjutant-general. In this position he worked indefatigably, and soon suc- ceeded in bringing order out of confusion. The gov- ernor was now called upon by the President to name two officers for promotion to the rank of brigadier- general, and proposed the name of his adjutant-general for one ; but Grant declined, as he had not earned the promotion.
In J une, the three months’ troops being organized, Adjutant-General Grant made a flying visit to his father at Covington, Kentucky, and while there a com- mission was sent him from Governor Tates as colonel of the Twenty-first Illinois Volunteers. The colonel originally appointed to the command of this regiment, one of Governor Yates’s fine, commanding-looking men, had proved utterly wanting in military capacity, and his regiment had fallen into disorder. The governor had refused to commission him, and inquired of Grant by telegraph if he would take the command of the tur- bulent regiment. He consented, and hastened to join his regiment at Mattoon, where it was organized, and removed it to Caseyville for encampment. The new colonel made no display of authority, and was not in the least boisterous, but by the quiet influence of exam- ple, and the exercise of his remarkable tact, he soon had the regiment under the strictest discipline, and in a month, from being the most turbulent and disorderly regiment in the State, it became the model organization. At this time Quincy, Illinois, was thought to be in danger, and an application was made to the governor for a force for its protection. It was difficult to find transportation, for Quincy w^is a hundred and twenty miles distant, and the railroads were unable to furnish a
HE IS APPOINTED BEIGADIEB-GENERAL.
21
sufficient number of cars.* Colonel Grant heard of the governor’s difficulty, and sent him word, —
“ Send my regiment, and I will find the transporta- tion.”
The governor at once gave orders to send the Twenty- first Regiment, and before night it commenced its march on foot, and arrived in due season in excellent order.
The first service to which the Twenty-first Illinois was assigned was .to guard the Hannibal and St. Jo- seph’s Railroad. Several regiments having been ordered to this service, it was necessary that one of the regi- mental commanders should become acting brigadier- general, and control the whole, as no brigadier-general had been assigned to the command. For this office Grant, though the youngest colonel on the ground, was selected, and took command at Mexico, Missouri, July 31, 1861. On the 9th of August, Colonel Grant was commissioned brigadier-general, his commission dating from May 19, 1861, and sent with an adequate force to Southern Missouri, where the rebel General Jeff Thomp- son was threatening an advance. He visited Ironton, superintended the erection of fortifications there and at Marble Creek, and, leaving a garrison in each place to defend it, 'hastened to Jefferson City, which was also threatened, and protected it from rebel attacks for ten days, when Thompson, having abandoned his purpose. General Grant left the Missouri capital to enter upon the command of the important district of Cairo.
It was while he was in Southern Missouri, his biogra- phers say, that he issued his famous special order con- cerning Mrs. Selvidge’s pie. The incident, which illus- trates somewhat forcibly the quiet humor which is a marked characteristic of the general, was something like this : — ‘ i .
23
GENERAL E. S. GEA;NT.- ■
In the rapid marches of his force in Southern Mis- souri, their rations were often scanty, and "^not very palatable, but the region-* was ' poor- and sparsely set- tled, and, for the most part, there was no chance of procuring food from' the inhabitants 5f the country through which they were passing. At length, how- ever, they emerged into a better and more cultivated section, and Lieutenant Wickham, of an Indiana cavalry regiment, who was in command of the advance guard of eight men, halted at a* farm-house of somewhat more
comfortable appearance than any which they had
passed, and Entered dhe dwelling with two second lieu-
tenants.' Pfetendirig to be Brigadier-General Grant, he
demanded food for himself and his staff The family,
whose loyalty was somewhat doubtful, alarmed at the
idea of the Union general being on their premises,
hastily brought forward the best their house afforded,
at the same time loudly ^protesting their attachment to , » •
the Union cause. ‘The lieutenants ate their fill, and,
offering to compensate their hosts, were told that there
was ' nothing to pay; whereupon they went on their
way, chuckling at their adroitness in getting so good a
dinner for -nothing.^ ‘ * n >
Soon after. General Grant, who had -halted his army
for a short rest a few miles * further back, came up, and * » ■ •
being rather favorably impressed with the appearance of the' farm-house, rode up to the door and asked if they would cook him a meal. The woman, who grudged the 'food already furnished to the self-styled general and
• f ^ , A
his staff, ‘ replied gruffly n?:
No! General' Grant and his staff have just been here, and eaten • every thing in the house, except one pumpkin-pie.” : - ' ,> t a .
‘‘ Ah !” said Grant, “ what is your name
23
MRS. SELVIDOe’s PIE.
“ Selvidge,” answered the woman.
Tossing her a half-dollar, the general asked : —
“ Will you keep that pie till I send an officer for it ?”
“ I will,” said the^woman.. t i i
' , .1 . k . A ^
The general and staff rode on, and soon a camping ground was selected, and the 'regiments were notifi^ that there would be a grand parade'at half-past six for orders. This was unusual, and neither officers nor men could imagine what was coming. Tlie parade was .formed, however, ten columns deep, and a quarter of a mile -in length. After the usual review, the assistant adjutant-general read the following : — '
^ ^ Head-quarters, Army in the Field.
•• . — T - -
Special Order, JSfo. . .
Lieutenant Wickham, of the ; Indiana Cavalry, having - on
this day eaten every thing in_Mrs. Selvldge’s house, at the crossing ofjthe Iron ton and Pocahontas and Black River and Cape Girardeau -roads, exceptone pumpkin-pie, jlieutenant- Wickham is hereby ordered to return with- an escort of one hundred cavalry and eat that pie also.
U. S. GRANT,
I n .. .n ITT .{ rf , Brigadier-Gcneral Commanding.
To .attempt to evade this order Avas useless, and-, at seven o’clock the lieutenant filed out of camp Avith his hundred men, amid the cheers of the Avhole army. The escort witnessed the eating of the pie*, the whole of which the lieutenant succeeded in deVouring, and re- turned to camp. t '
7 - ..-fi . ,s. t . ( '•
• - • .. ■ -''i ^ 3
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• « . - . * 1 : 1 'i : ** . I ■ . 'i*, i ‘ ‘ y ^ -
.1- ^ ' di 1-t . Ui> ]•• ^ -{Ur . -
4
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.n
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i
CHAPTER HI.
4 '
; 1 • ■ ’
Importance of Cairo as a military post — The advance of the rebels into Kentucky — Gen. Grant takes possession of Paducah and Smithland — Rage of the 'rebels— -jGen. Grant’s '.proclamation — Bishop-General Polk — Exchange of prisoners — Grant don’t recog- nize any Southern Confederacy — The toasts — Operations in S. E. Missouri — Col. Plummer’s expedition — Its success-^The battle of Belmont — Sharp fighting — Essentially a Union victory — Gen. Grant’s command enlarged — Reconnoissance in force — The expe- dition against Fort Henry, and its capture — Flag-Officer Foote — Gen. Grant marches against Fort Donelson — Incidents of the siege — Repulse of Union troops — Pillow’s dispatch, “Upon the honor of a soldier, the day is ours.” — Gen. C. F. Smith’s charge — “Steady I men; steady 1” — The rebel council of war — Floyd and Pillow determine to steal away — Buckner’s letter to Grant — Grant’s reply — “Unconditional and Immediate Surrender.” — “I propose to move immediately upon your works.” — Surrender of Fort Donelson — ^The amount of troops and supplies — Clarksville and Nashville fall — Grant a Major-General — The Charge of Drunk- . enness — Its falsity — Grant’s new command — His general order — ^Pillaging prohibited.
The post of Cairo, the head-quarters of the district,
to the command of which General Grant was now or-
>
dered, was one, from its position, of great importance to the Union cause. It commanded both the Ohio and the Upper Mississippi, and was the depot of supplies for an extensive region above, and subsequently below. Grant’s command extended along the shores of the Mississippi as far as Cape Girardeau, and on the Ohio to the mouth of Green River, and included Western Kentucky. That State at this time was trying to maintain a neutral po- sition^ favoring neither the Union nor the rebels, a posi-
THE REBELS IN KENTUCKY.
25
tion which was as absurd as it was soon found to be impossible. The rebels were the* first to cross the lines and take possession of the important towns of Co- lumbus and Hickman, on the Mississippi, and Bowling Green, on the Green River, all of which they fortified.
tucky’s professed neutrality, and as they afibrded him
ample justification for occupying positions within the 2
26
GENERAL IT, S. GRANT.
State, lie quietly sent ’a body of troops on the 6th of September up the Ohio to Paducah, a town at the mouth of the Tennessee, and took possession of it at the time when the secessionists there were looking for the entry of the rebel troops, who were marching to occupy it. The rage of these enemies of the country can be better imagined than described. Rebel flags w^ere flaunted in the faces of our troops, and they were told that they should not long retain possession of the town.
This did not, however, in the least disturb the equa- nimity of General Grant. He issued a proclamation to the inhabitants, informing them of his reasons for taking possession of the town, and that he was prepared to de- fend the citizens against the enemy ; and added, signifi- cantly, that he had nothing to do with opinions, but should deal only with armed rebellion, and its aiders and abettors. On the 25th of September he dispatched a force to Smithland, at the mouth of the Cumberland River, and took possession of that town also. The principal avenues through which the rebels had ob- tained supplies of food, clothing, arms and ammunition, from the ISTorth, were thus effectually closed. When General Grant was assigned to the command at Cairo, General McClernand’s briga*de and some other troops were added to his own brigades. Having taken pos- session of Paducah and Smithland, he now began to turn his attention to Columbus, Kentucky, an import- ant position, held by the rebel Major-General Polk, bishop of the diocese of Louisiana, in the Protestant Episcopal Church, with a force of twenty thousand men. He had nearly completed his affangements for attacking the fort, when the Government ordered him to send five of hk regiments to St. Louis ; this left him too weak to make the attack with any hope of success.
GENERAL GRANT AND GENERAL POLK. 27,
Meantime there had been some correspondence, by flag of truce, between General Grant and General Polk, con- cerning an exchange of prisoners, of which each side had taken a considerable number. General Polk commenced the correspondence proposing! the exchange, and re- ferred repeatedly in his communication to the Con- federate army and the Confederate States. General Grant replied that he had no authority to make ex- changes : that he recognized no Southern Confederacy himself, but would confer with higher authorities for their views, and should he not be sustained, would find means of communicating with him. It is to this period that the story told by General J. Grant Wilson of the two commanders, belongs, if, indeed, it is any thing be- yond the invention of some ingenious newspaper writer. At any rate, if not true, it deserves to have been ; so our readers shall have it : “ Flags of truce were occa- sionally sent back and forth between Cairo and Colum- bus, and the opposing generals who were in command of those posts were sometimes present. On one occa- sion General Polk proposed a toast which he said all could drink. Tliose present filled their glasses, and he gave, ‘ To General George Washington.’ As he paused, purposely, at the end of the name, the company com- menced to drink, when he added, ‘the first rebel.’ General Grant exclaimed, ‘ that was scarcely fair. Gen- eral, but I will be even with you some day.’ The laugh was, of course, against him, but the company parted in good humor. Some two weeks afterward, an- other flag of truce was sent down to Columbus, General Grant accompanying it. After business was over, Gen- eral Grant adroitly turned the conversation upon State rights. He allowed them to proceed at considerable length without attempting to refute any thing. At
28
GENERAL U. S. GRANT.
length he arose to go, and proposed a toast at parting. Glasses were filled, and the General arose and gave, ‘ Equal rights to all.’ He then made a pause, as Gen- eral Polk had done, and when all were busily drinking, he added, ‘ white and black,’ and turning to the Bish- op-General with a bow, said, ‘ and now. General, I think I am even with you.’ The reverend and gallant Gen- eral owned up flanked.”
On the 16th of October, General Grant having learned that the rebel General Jeff. Thompson was approaching Pilot Knob, Missouri, and evidently preparing an ex- tensive raid through Southeastern Missouri, ordered fif- teen hundred men, under Colonel Plummer, then sta- tioned at Cape Girardeau, to move toward Frederick- town, Missouri, by way of Jackson and Dallas, forming a junction at the latter place with Colonel Carlin, who had been ordered to move with three thousand men from another point, and pursuing Thompson, to defeat and rout his force. The expeditions were successful. Thompson was found on the 21st of October, not far from Dallas, on the Greenville road, and after an action of two and a half hours, defeated and routed with very heavy loss. Colonel Plummer captured in this engage- ment forty-two prisoners and one twelve-pounder.
By this expedition. General Grant ascertained the position and strength of Jeff. Thompson’s forces, and learned also that the rebels were concentrating a con- siderable force at Belmont, Missouri, nearly opposite Columbus, Kentucky, with a view to blockade the Mis- sissippi Piver, and to move speedily upon his position at Cairo. Having received orders to that effect from his superior officers. General Grant resolved to break up this camp, although aware that the rebels could be re- enforced to almost any extent from Columbus, Kentucky.
THE BATTLE OF BELMONT.
29
On the evening of the 6th of November, General Grant embarked two brigades, in all about two thou- sand eight hundred and fifty men, under his own -and General McClernand’s command, on board river steam- ers, and moved down the Mississippi. lie had pre- viously detached small bodies of troops to threaten Columbus from different directions, and to deceive the rebels as to his intentions. The ruse was successful, and the force which he commanded in person reached the vicinity of Belmont, and landed before the enemy had comprehended tlieir intention. The Union troops, disembarking with great promptness, marched rapidly toward the rebel camp, a distance of about two and a lialf miles, and, forcing their way through a dense abatis and other obstructions, charged through the camp, capturing their camp equipage, artillery, and small-arms, and burned the tents, blankets, &c. They also took a large number of prisoners. The rebel force at the camp was not far from four thousand, but Gen- eral Polk, learning of the attack, sent over as re-eiiforce- inents eight regiments, or somewhat more than four thousand more troops, under the command of Generals Pillow and Cheatham, and finally crossed the river himself and took command. General Grant, having accomplished all, and more than he expected, and being aware that Belmont was covered by the batteries at Columbus, and that heavy re-enforcements could readily be sent from thence, made no attempt to hold the posi- tion, but withdrew in good order. On their way to their transports, the Union troops were confronted by the fresh rebel force under Polk’s command, and a severe battle ensued, during which a considerable number of the rebel prisonei*s made their escape ; and there were heavy losses in killed and wounded on
30
GENERAL U. S. GRANT.
both sides, the Union loss amounting to nearly one hundred killed, and four or five hundred wounded and mifesing, the larger part of whom were prisoners. AYliat was the exact rebel loss has never transpired, but it is ■ known to have been larger than this, the number of prisoners alone exceeding the total Union loss. The Union troops at length succeeded in reaching their transports and re-embarking, under the protection of the gun-boats Tyler and Lexington^ which had con- voyed them, bringing with them two cannon which they had captured, and spiking two others, wdiich they were obliged to abandon. This action, which was represented in some quarters as a Union defeat, proved to have been rather a Union victory, the advantage being decidedly on the part of General Grant, his men having, by the action, gained confidence in themselves and in their commander.
On the 20th of December, General Halleck, who was then in command of the western department, reorgan- ized the districts of his command, and enlarged the district of Cairo, including in it all the southern portion of Illinois, all of Kentucky west of the Cumberland River, and the southern counties of Missouri, and ap- pointed General Grant commander of the new district. Large numbers of troops, newly mustered into the service, and as yet untrained to military duties, poured into this district, some for service within its limits, others intended to re-enforce the armies in other dis- tricts. General Grant maintained a vigilant supervision over these, and, wherever it was possible, subjected them to a thorough discipline, organization, and train- ing, to qualify them for service, and then distributed them as rapidly as possible to the various posts within his district, or, when so directed, to other points. On
REC0NN0I3SANCE IN FORCE.
31
. the 10th of January, 1802, the troops under the com- mand of General McClernand were sent in transports, convoyed by two gun-boats, to Fort Jelferson, Ken- tucky, and landed there, the gun-boats being ordered to lie off the fort. The rebels attacked these gun-boats with three vessels the next day, but were beaten off after a brisk engagement, and pursued till they took refuge under the batteries of Columbus.
On the 14tli of January, 1862, General Grant made an extended reconnoissaiice in force, moving in three columns, by different routes, to explore the country east • of Columbus, and ascertain the rebel strength and posi- tion, with a view to an important enterprise soon to be undertaken. The reconnoissaiice was a severe and la- ■ borious one for raw troops, on account of the weather and 'tlie condition of the roads, but it was in every respect successful. On this march. General Grant issued general orders, the first, it is believed, issued during the war, prohibiting, under the severest penalties, all private plundering and straggling, and directing the order of march. The gun-boats whicli had been constructed during the autumn and winter on the Mississippi, above Cairo, were now completed, and General Grant called for volunteers from the troops to man them, as there was a lack of sailors to make up the complement for their efticient management. The number of volunteers proved sufficient, and the gun-boat flotilla, under the command of Flag-officer (afterward Ilear-Admiral) A. H. Foote, was soon ready for action.
Grant kept up his feint of attacking Columbus, and by his movements and general orders, issued for effect, led the rebels to concentrate at that point most of their available forces, while he was preparing for a flank movement in a different direction, which would compel
32
GENERAL U. 8. GRANT.
them to evacuate that post without his striking a blow. Two large divisions were secretly concentrated at Pa- ducah and Smithland, at the mouths of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, under the command of Generals C. F. Smith and Lewis Wallace; and the other two di- visions under his command, which were apparently ready to pounce upon Columbus, were quietly withdrawn, and one being left to hold his base at Cairo, the other was transferred by night to Paducah, on the night of Feb- ruary 2d, and, with the troops already there, moved di- rectly upon Fort Henry on the Tennessee River. The gun-boats were also moving for the same point, and ar- rived on the morning of February 6th, in advance of the troops, who were delayed by the condition of the roads. Grant was hastening forward as rapidly as pos- sible, and was prepared to cut olf the retreat of the garrison. Flag-officer Foote, having ascertained that
the rebels were expecting re-enforcements, resolved to attack the fort without waiting for the land forces to come up. He did so ; and, after an engagement of an
INVESTMENT OF FORT DONELSON.
33
hour and a quarter, tlie garrison surrendered the fort, tlie rebel forces outside having made their escape to Fort Donelson.
General Grant came up within an hour, and the fort and its contents were handed over to him. The dispo- sitions he liad made would have insured its capture the same day, had Flag-officer Foote not anticipated the time of attack.
The capture of Fort Henry, however, was but one item in the programme which General Grant had marked out for accomplishment. Fort Donelson, a much larger and stronger work, and defended by a garrison of more than twenty thousand men, and lying nearly east of Fort Henry, still obstructed the passage of the Cumber- land, and forbade the advance of the Union forces southward. To possess himself of this important for- tress was the design of General Grant, and ordering up all tlie available forces of his district to join him on the strip of land lying between the Tennessee and Cumber- land Rivers, near the Kentucky line, on the 11th of Feb- ruary the three divisions constituting his force, under the command of Generals McClernand, C. F. Smith, and Lewis Wallace, moved by different routes toward Fort Donelson, and by the evening of the 12th were in front of the fort. General Grant proceeded at once to put them in position to invest the fort, though, owing to the non-arrival of the gun-boats, which had been obliged to descend the Tennessee and ascend the Cumberland, the river front of the fort was still open. On the morning of the 13th the Carondelet, the only gun-boat which had arrived, by General Grant’s direction, engaged the fort for two hours, and then withdrew. The object of this diversion was to give time for the remainder of his troops and the gun-boats to arrive by way of the river.
2*
84
GENERAL TJ. S. GRANT.
On the 14th, the gun-boats and troops having arrived, a combined attack by the land and marine forces was or- dered. The principal attack was made by the gun-boats, which silenced the water-batteries; but, after a pro- tracted contest, two of the iron-dads were disabled by plunging shots from the higher batteries, and two others so much injured that a single shot might disable them entirely. Under these circumstances. Flag-officer Foote, who had already been wounded, decided to withdraw from the action. General Grant now proposed to re- duce the fort by siege, but on the morning of the 15th
the enemy made a sudden and desperate sortie from their works upon the extreme right of the Union line, and at first broke it and captured two batteries of artil- lery. Very soon the troops were rallied, re-enforcements brought up, and all but three of the captured guns re-
ASSAULT ON FORT D0NEL30N.
35
taken. The rebels in turn were re-enforced, and again broke tlirougli the Union lines and drove back the sup- porting regiments, holding the position they had gained witli great tenacity. At this time the Union center had advanced and gained some successes in the rebel line, but so successful had the rebels been on the Tight that the day seemed lost. General Pillow, the second officer in command in the rebel fort, telegraphed to Nashville,
“ Upon the honor of a soldier, tlie day is ours.” But while some of the Union officers gave way to despond- ency, no such feeling found a place in the heart of General Grant. At the darkest moment, he exclaimed to one of his staff, after comparing the reports of the officers sent into head-quarters, “ Good ! we have them now exactly where we want them.” General C. F. Smith, one of tlie ablest officers in the army, was ordered to make a vigorous assault with his fresh troops on the left of the line, and carry it at whatever cost; and, meantime, Lewis Wallace was to hurl his force against the enemy in their advanced position on the i*ight, and drive them back at the point of the bayonet.
General Smith’s advance was one of the finest of the war. With his cap lifted, and his gray hair streaming in the wind, he galloped along the front of his men, unheeding the missiles which flew thick around him like the pattering of heavy rain. “ Steady ! men ; steady ! ” rang out in his clear tones : and steadily they advanced, though at. every step their lines were thinned , by the deadly minie-balls. They reached the line of the rebel troops and drove them back, back, till they had gained a position from which they could render the strongest portion of the fort untenable. Then rang out their hurrahs, and the whole army resounded with shouts of triumph. Wallace had done his work well;
36
GENERAL U. S. GRANT.
and at sunset the Union army occupied a position along the whole line, which, it was evident, would give them the fort in another day. That night the rebel generals held a council to deliberate on their actions for the morrow. General Buckner, who had held the position on the left, from which he had been driven by Genieral Smith, declared that he could not hold his post a half- hour if the Union troops should attack, as they were certain to do, at daybreak ; that his men were too much wearied and discouraged to fight, and proposed to treat with Grant for an armistice, and to capitulate on the best terms that could be obtained. Floyd and Pillow objected to this ; they were unwilling to be taken pris- oners,— Floyd, in particular, being conscious of a record as Secretary of War which would put his life in peril. There was some talk of attempting to fight their way out, but Buckner declared that three-fourths of the troops would be sacrificed in the attempt ; and it was finally arranged that Floyd and Pillow should relinquish their commands to Buckner, and escape with what troops they could take away, and Buckner should surrender with the remainder. Accordingly, Floyd and Pillow stole away during the night with one brigade of rebel troops, and embarking on some small steamboats in the river, made their escape to Nashville.
At dawn of the 16th, a messenger, bearing a flag of truce, approached the Union lines with a message for General Grant. It was as follows : —
Head-quarters, Fort Donelson, ) February 16, 1862. j
Sir: — In consideration of all the circumstances governing the pres- ent condition of affairs at this station, I propose to the commanding officer of the Federal forces the appointment of commissioners to agree upon terms of capitulation of the forces and fort under my
IJNCONDITIONAL SUKRENDER.
37
command, and in that view suggest an armistice until 12 o’clock to-day.
I am, sir, respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
S. B. BUCKNER, Brig.-Gen.. C. S. A.
To Brigadier* General Grant, Commanding
United States forces near Fort Donelson.
The writer of tliis note knew, what Grant did not, that he was powerless to continue the contest another liour, and that his two senior generals and a part of his troops had already fled ; but Grant was fully assured that before sunset of that day he could carry the fort by force of arms, though perhaps with considerable loss ; and as he had no disposition to hold parley long with a traitor, nor to yield other and better conditions to him than such as he had the power to enforce within a few hours, he sent back by Buckner’s messenger the follow- ing brief but decisive reply : —
Head-quarters, Ar^iy in the Field, ) Camp near Donelson, Feb. 16, 1862. j
To General S. B. Buckner, Confederate Army : —
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 he accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works.
I am, respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
U. S. GRANT.
Brig.-Gen., U. S. Army, Commanding.
The rebel general was greatly chagrined at this reply, but knowing his inability to sustain another assault, he Avas compelled to submit, Avhich he did most ungra- ciously in the following letter : —
38
GENERAL TJ. S. GRANT.
Head-quarters, Dover, Tenn., ) Feb. 16, 1862. . )
To Brigadier-General U. S. Grant, U. S. A. : —
Sir: — The distribution of 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 un- chivalrous terms which you propose.
I am, sir, your very obedient servant,
S. B. BUCKNER,
Brig.-Gen., C. S. A.
By this surrender the tliiion troops received, and the rebels lost, over thirteen thousand prisoners, including one . brigadier-general and numerous inferior officers, three thousand horses, forty-eight field pieces, seventeen* heavy guns, twenty thousand stand of arms and a large quantity of commissary stores. The rebel loss, aside from this, was 230 killed, and 1,007 wounded, some of whom were prisoners. The Union loss was, killed 446, wounded 1,745, prisoners 150. The day after the capitulation two regiments of rebel Tennesseeans, num- bering 1,745, officers and men, who had been ordered to re-enforce Fort Donelson, but were unaware of the sur- render, marched into the fort with colors flying, and ‘were at once made prisoners.
The capture of these forts having effectually flanked the rebel posts of Columbus' and Bowling Green, Ky., the rebel commanders made all haste to evacuate them, Polk descending the river to Island No. Ten, and John- ston making a hurried retreat to Nashville, Tenn.
The victory thus won caused the promotion of General Grant to the major-generalship, his commission dating Feb. 16, 1862. It may be as well in this place to meet the charge which was about this time industriously prop-
GENERAL GRANt’s ORDER. 39
aecated, that General Grant was addicted to habits of intemperance. The masterly manner in which he had conducted the brief campaign just closed was in itself an indication tliat he could not have been, as was freely charged, an habitual drunkard ; but we have other and conclusive evidence that the charge, however it origi- nated, was wholly false. His father, and the officers of his stalf, who have been with him throughout the war, testify that he is, and has been from his youth, one of the most abstemious of men, rarely or never tasting in- toxicating liquors even as a medicine.
On the 14th of February, General Halleck, foreseeing the result which soon followed, announced the formation of the new military district of West Tennessee, bounded on the south by Tennessee River and the State line of Mississippi, and west by the Mississippi River as far north as Cairo. To 'the command of this new district he assigned General Grant, with permission to select his own head-quarters.
In taking command of this new district, on the 17th of February, General Grant first issued the following congratulatory order to the troops which had aided in the reduction of F ort Donelson : —
Head-quarters, District of West Tennessee, ) Fort Donelson, Feb. 17, 1862. )
General Order No. 2.
The General commanding takes great pleasure in congratulating the troops of this command for the triumph over rebellion gained by their valor on the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth iustant. For four successive nights, without shelter, during the most in- clement weather known in this latitude, they faced an enemy in large force, in a position chosen by himself. Though strongly forti- fied by nature, all the additional safeguards suggested by science were added. Without a murmur this was borne, prepared at all
40
GENERAL U. S. GRANT.
times to receive an attack, and with continuous skirmishing by day, resulting ultimately in forcing the enemy to surrender without con- ditions. The victory achieved is not only great in the effect it will have on breaking down rebellion, but has secured the greatest number of prisoners of war ever taken ^ in any battle on this continent.
Fort Donelson will hereafter be marked in capitals on the map of our united country, and the men who fought the battle will live in the memory of a grateful people.
U. S. GRANT,
Brig-Gen. Commanding.
It was no part of General Grant’s policy to rest satis- fied with this victory. The enemy whom he had thus driven from one stronghold must be followed promptly, and driven successively from each one where they might seek shelter. The district of West Tennessee, now nominally, must be very soon really in his possession, and the rebel army captured or driven far to wad the Gulf. Immediate preparation was therefore made for an advance. The gun-boats were ordered to ascend the Cumberland, and a land force, consisting of a division of Grant’s army, under command of General C. F. Smith, marched along the west bank of that river to keep them company.
On the 20th of February, Clarksville, the most im- portant depot of supplies on the river, was captured without a fight, and supplies sufficient to sustain Grant’s whole army for twenty days were found there. This place was at once garrisoned and held, while the gun- boats continued to ascend the river to open the way for the Army of the Ohio, under command of General Buell, which was marching from Bowling Green to occupy Nashville. On the 22d of February, General Grant, who remained for a time at Fort Donelson to organize the troops constantly arriving, and to send forward
ORGANIZING THE TROOPS.
41
men and supplies, issued an order declaring his district under martial law ; and on the 25th, published a general order received from General Ilalleck, prohibit- ing, under severe penalties, all pillaging, marauding, the destruction of private property, and the stealing and concealment of slaves, and defining the status of non-combatants, and the rules to be observed in obtain- ing forced contributions for supplies and subsistence.
CHAPTER IV.
Ascent of the river by the gun-boats — Greneral Grant’s head- quarters at Fort Henrj^ — Sword presentation — Concentration of rebel troops at Corinth — Pittsburg Landing selected as the Union base of operations — Troops collected there — Their com- manders— Locations of the divisions — The Battle of Shiloh — Sur- prise— Death of W. H. L. 'Wallace— Union troops driven back toward the river — The rebel commander A. S. Johnston killed — Where was Grant? — Slanders of his enemies — General Sherman’s statement — The condition of things at evening of the sixth of April — Brighter prospects — The enemy defeated on the seventh —Losses on both sides — Rebel generals killed and wounded — Pursuit of the enemy — General Beauregard’s request — General Halleck takes command — Disagreement between him and Grant — Evacuation and occupation of Corinth — General Grant in com- mand of the new department of West Tennessee — Other depart- ments— General Grant at Memphis.
After the fall of Nashville the gun-boats returned to the Ohio River, and ascended the Tennessee River as far as Florence, Alabama. Their reconnoissance demon- strated the fact that there were no considerable bodies of rebel troops along the river, and that a base of opera- tions could be established near the southern line of his district. In the interval which must necessarily elapse before this change could be effected. General Grant removed his head-quarters to Fort Henry, and continued the organization of the troops now constantly ascending the Tennessee River, sending small bodies in every direction to scour the country, who occasionally en- countered the enemy, and, in one instance (at Paris,
GATIIERma OF THE REBEL FORCES.
43
Tenn.) met and defeated a considerable rebel force, causing them to lose in killed, wounded, and prisoners, over one hundred men.
While engaged in this work of organizing troops,, on the 11th of March, General Grant was presented with an elegant sword by four of the colonels of regiments constituting the garrison of Fort Henry.
The rebel commander-in-chief, Albert Sydney John- ston, after he had been compelled to abandon Nashville, concentrated his troops at Corinth, Mississippi, the point of junction of the Mobile and Ohio and Memphis and Charleston railroads, a position which, from its con- nections with the ficreat network of railroads traversing:
o o
the Southern States, was admirably adapted to the collection of troops from all quarters, and, from its great natural strength and capacity for fortification, could readily be made a most formidable position. To this point were brought with the greatest possible rapidity, all the rebel troops which could be collected from the Southwest, and organized under the super- vision of Generals Johnston, Beauregard, Bragg, Hardee, and Polk. Corinth was but little more than twenty-five miles from Savannah, Tennessee, the point
first selected by General Grant as his base of operations,
^
and was still nearer to Pittsburg Landing or Shiloh, on the west bank of the Tennessee, the point finally selected from strategic considerations by Major-General C. F. Smith, who was in command in the absence of General Grant at Fort Henry. General Buell with the Army of the Ohio, which had been in the service longer than most of Grant’s troops, was ordered by General Halleck to march across the country from Nashville, and join Grant at Pittsburg Landing, and, the roads being heavy, made but slow progress.
44
GENERAL TJ. S. GRANT.
Meantime, the rebel commander, who had assembled at Corinth an army of full forty-five thousand men, under his ablest generals, with thirty thousand more under Yan Dorn and Price, coming from Arkansas, well disciplined, and provided with all that was ne- cessary to its efficiency, had conceived the plan of hurling his force upon Grant before Buell could come up, and while Lewis Wallace’s division was at Crump’s Landing, some distance from the field of battle, and thus conquering the Union army in detail. The plan was well devised, and came v^ery near being successful. Johnston at first fixed upon April 5 th as the time for making the attack, and had he adhered to this deter- mination he would very possibly have succeeded ; but, desirous of obtaining Van Dorn’s and Price’s re-enforce- ments before moving, he delayed one day, in the liope that they would come up, and that day’s delay lost him the battle. The roads in that region were so heavy that though Pittsburg Landing was but twenty miles away, it took the rebel army two days to reach it. General Grant’s suspicions had been aroused by the movements of some of the rebel reconnoitering parties on the night of the second of April, and he returned to the camp that night from Savannah, ten miles away, where his head- qtTarters were, and reconnoitered in person.
As no sign of battle appeared, he returned to Savan- nah, leaving orders to fire a signal-gun if there were any appearances of an approaching battle. The Union army was surrounded by spies ; rebel citizens who, while pro- fessing to be non-combatants, discovered and carried to the rebel head-quarters every position and movement of the Union forces.
The forces under General Grant’s command, consti- tuting the army of West Tennessee, were organized in
THE BArrLE OF SHILOH.
45
five divisions, commanded as follows: First division, Major-General John A. McClernand; second division, Brigadier-General W. H. L. Wallace; third division, Major-General Lewis Wallace; fourth division, Briga- dier-General S. A. Hurlbut ; fifth division, Brigadier- General W. T. Sherman. Of these generals, McCler- nand, W. H. L. Wallace, Hurlbut, and Sherman were at Pittsburg Landing, and Lewis Wallace at Crump’s Landing, six miles distant. General Buell’s force, the • Army of the Ohio, was twenty miles distant.
The troops were arranged in the following order: Prentiss’s command, a subdivision of McClernand’s, oc- cupied the extreme Union left, resting on Lick Creek, a distance of nearly three miles from the Tennessee River ; next came McClernand; then W. H. L. Wallace, forming the right, with Sherman partly in reserve as a support on the right wing, extending along Snake Creek. Gen- eral Hurlbut’s division acted as the supports of Prentiss on the left wing, and were also partly in reserve. The Union force that day in the battle did not exceed thirty- eight thousand. The rebel commander had thrown a detachment between Pittsburg and Crump’s Landings, and thus obstructed Lew. Wallace’s division, and com- pelled them to make so extended a detour that they were unable to take any part in the first day’s battle.
The battle commenced at daybreak of the 5th of April (Sunday), by a sudden and desperate attack on the extreme left, — Prentiss’s division, — which was taken somewhat by surprise, but fought bravely. The rebel force Avas, however, massed so heavily against them, that they at last gave way, and the greater part of them were captured. Hurrying these to the rear, the rebels next hurled their forces upon W. H. L. Wallace and Sher- man. Wallace was mortally wounded, and his troops
46
GENERAL U. S. GRANT.
driven back some distance, but Sherman, making a stubborn resistance, held his position and repulsed the enemy, who, however, rallied and returned to the attack, flinging, meantime, a large force of fresh troops upon McClernand’s division, and that general, though doing his utmost to keep his troops in line, was crowded back. The rebels next having tried in vain to break Sherman’s lines, about two p. m. slackened their fire on him, and threw their principal force on General Ilurlbut’s divi- sion, gradually but surely pressing them back, till the . greater part of the line was two and a half miles in rear of their first position, though still half a mile from the ' river. Sherman, meanwhile, had taken a new line in a strong position, and repulsed all attacks, while Web- ster, General Grant’s chief of artillery, gathering the batteries which had been scattered, and some of them deserted, opened a steady and destructive fire upon the enemy, who were making desperate efforts to turn the Union left, rout General Hurlbut, and gain posses- sion of the landing. The fire of the artillery, aided by that of the gun-boats Tyler and Lexington^ which, coming within range, opened heavily upon the rebel ranks, caused them to give way a little, and General T. J. Wood’s division, the advance of Buell’s corps, coming up just at this time, aided in driving them back. At nightfall the rebels rested on their arms in what had been the Union camp; but the Union forces, though sadly shattered, looked forward with confidence to the morrow, when they felt certain they would be able to drive back and defeat the enemy. The rebel com- mander-in-chief, General Albert S. Johnston, had been mortally wounded early in the action, and died before evening, and General Beauregard was now in com- mand.
GENERAL SIIERMAn’s LETIER.
47
Where, in this day of desperate lighting, was General Grant? That he was in the battle during the day was admitted, and was, indeed, evident from his own re- port, though, with characteristic modesty, he does not state when he reached the field. But his enemies, and among them some who should have had more manhood than to have brought false accusations against him, charged that he was surprised, and was, indeed, de- feated, until General Buell’s coming and taking com- mand reversed the tables, and from the misfortunes of the first day’s battle ^evoked the ‘ triumph of the second. It was also charged that he was unjustifiably absent on the morning of the first day’s battle ; that his place was with his troops ; that he did not arrive till noon, and that he did nothing to prevent the demorali- zation which was taking place among his raw troops. To these charges, though knowing their falsity, General Grant has never deigned a reply, but near the close of the war we had a refutation of them from the man of all others best qualified to testify to the truth in the case, Lieutenant-General Sherman. He states, in a letter to the editor of the “ United States Service Magazine,” that the battle-field was chosen by the late lamented Major- General Charles F. Smith, and that it was well chosen ; that on any other the Union army Avould have been over- whelmed. He further says that General Grant was early on the field; that he visited his division in person about ten A. M., when the battle was raging fiercest ; approved of his stubborn resistance to the enemy, and, in answer to his inquiry concerning cartridges, told him that he had anticipated their wants, and given orders accord- ingly; and, remarking that his presence was more needed over at the left, rode off to encourage the
48
GENERAL U. S. GRANT.
hardly pressed ranks of McClernand and Hurlbut's divisions.
• “ About five p. M.,” continues General Sherman, ‘‘ be- fore the sun set, General Grant came again to me, and, after hearing my report of matters, explained to me the situation of affairs on the left, which were not as favor- able ; still the enemy had failed to reach the landing of the boats. We agreed that the enemy had expended fiirore of his attack, and we estimated our loss and approximated our then strength, including Lew. Wal- lace’s fresh division, expected each minute. He then ordered me to get all things ready, and at daylight the next day to assume the offensive. That was before General Buell had arrived, but he was known to be near at hand. General Buell’s troops took no essential part in the first day’s fight, and Grant’s army, though col- lected together hastily, green as militia, some regiments arriving without cartridges even, and nearly all hearing the dread sound of battle for the first time, had success- fully withstood and repelled the first day’s terrific onset of a superior enemy, well commanded and well handled. 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. . . I understood Grant’s forces were to advance on the right of the Corinth road, and Buell’s on the left (this was on the 7th), ahd accordingly at daylight I advanced my division by the fiank, the re- sistance being trivial, up to the very spot where the day before the battle had been most severe, and then waited till near noon for Buell’s troops to get up abreast, when the entire line advanced and recovered all the ground we had ever held. I know that with the exception of one or two severe struggles, the fighting of April 7th was easy as compared with that of April 6th. I never
BATTLE OF SHILOH CONTINUED.
49
was disposed, nor am I now, to question any thing done by General Buell and his army, and know that, ap- proaching our field of battle from the rear, he en- countered that sickening crowd of laggards and fugi- tives that excited his contempt and that of his army, who never gave full* credit to those in the front line who did fight hard, and who had, at four p. m., checked the enemy, and were preparing the next day to assume the offensive.”
Thus far General Sherman. Let us now resume the history of the battle. General Lew. Wallace’s division had reached the battle-field on the evening of the sixth, too late to participate in the fighting of tliat day, but fresh and ready for the severe work of the morrow. General Nelson’s division of Buell’s army crossed the river during the night, and were also ready to com- mence fighting at dawn ; but the remainder of Buell’s army, owing to a deficiency of transportation and the want of pontoons, did not cross until the morning of the seventh. General Grant assigned Wallace’s division to the right, and Nelson’s to the left of his line, and the divisions which formed the center were those which had - so bravely withstood the onset of the previous day. The attack on the seventh was made by the Union troops, General Nelson, on the left, opening with a de- structive and galling fire, and advancing rapidly as the rebels fell back. In a short time the fighting was gen- eral along the whole line, and though the rebels main tained their position with great tenacity at some points, and were urged forward by their leaders, they at length began to break, and, when the remainder of Buell’s troops came up toward noon, they gave evidence of thorough defeat, and, after an ineffective struggle, fled, abandoning their artillery and small-arms, about five 3
50
GENERAL IT. S. GRANT.
o’clock, p. M. The battle had been the most sanguinary of the war up to that time. Of the Union troops, one thousand six hundred and fourteen were slain, seven thousand seven hundred and twenty-one were wounded, and three thousand nine hundred and sixty-three were missing, the greater part of them prisoners, making a total of thirteen thousand two hundred and ninety- eight hors de combat. The rebel losses, as stated by Pollard, were, killed, one thousand seven hundred and twenty-eight ; wounded, eight thousand and twelve ; missing, nine hundred and fifty-nine ; making an aggre- gate of ten thousand six hundred and ninety-nine.
There is abundant evidence that the amount of miss- ing, which includes the prisoners not wounded, is greatly understated, and from this statement it appears that the number of their killed and wounded was considerably in excess of that of the Union troops. The loss of cannon by the Union troops on the sixth was nearly or quite balanced by the loss of the rebels on the seventh. General Grant was slightly wounded in the ankle in this battle. The rebel loss of officers in hio'h
O
command had been very severe. Besides their com- mander-in-chief, General A. S. Johnston, General Glad- den of South Carolina, General G. M. Johnston, governor of Kentucky, and Colonels Adams, Kitt Wil- liams, and Blythe were killed ; and Generals Breckin- ridge, Hardee, Cheatham, Johnson, and Bowen, were wounded. General Grant’s troops were too completely exhausted to make pursuit that night, and General Buell did not order any of his force, which was less wearied, to that duty. On the morning of the eighth. General Grant ordered Sherman to follow the retreating rebel force. He did so, and proceeding along the Corinth road, came upon the rebel cavalry, whom he drove from
BEORaANIZATION OF THE AKMY. 51
the field after a short skirmish, and, pressing forward, entered and destroyed the rebel camp and considerable quantities of ammunition. Proceeding onward, he found abundant evidences of a hasty and disorderly re- treat, in the abandoned wagons, ambulances, and limber- boxes which strewed the road.
On the evening of the eighth. General Beauregard sent by flag of truce a note to General Grant, asking permission to send a mounted party to the battle-field to bury the dead, and that gentlemen wishing to remove the remains of their sons and friends might accompany the party. The next morning General Grant replied that, owing to the warmth of the weather, he had made heavy details of forces to bury the dead of both parties, and that it had been accomplished. He therefore de- clined to permit the approach of any party of the enemy to the battle-field.
General Halleck, the commander of the Mississippi department, on hearing of the battle of Pittsburg Land- ing, hastened at once to the field to take command in person, and on the 13th of April issued a general order expressive of his thanks to General Grant and General Buell, and the officers and men under their charge, for the results of the great battle, lie also collected at the camp at Pittsburg Landing all the troops which could be spared from the other posts of the department, and reorganized the army in sixteen divisions, eight of which formed the Army of the Tennessee, under General Grant, four the Army of the Ohio, under General Buell, and four the Army of the Mississippi, under General John Pope. On the 30th of April this grand army moved forward to drive the rebels from their strongly fortified position at Corinth. As they approached the stronghold several sharp actions occurred between them
52
GENERAL TJ. S. GRANT.
and the rebels, which however resulted, in each instance, in the repulse of the latter. On the lYth of May, the Union army commenced a series of regular approaches for the reduction of the city. On the 19th, General Grant urged General Halleck to allow him with his army to assault the enemy’s works, as he was satisfied that the rebel army could be captured by a vigorous and concerted' attack. General Halleck refused, prefer- ring the method of slow approaches. General Grants till urged it with great importunity, and a quarrel threat- ened between the two generals, the only one in Grant’s military career. Halleck, however, adhered to his plan, and, in spite of frequent sallies on the part of the enemy, the parallels were drawn closer and closer, and on the night of the 28th of May, Generals Beauregard and Bragg, with their troops, evacuated Corinth, blow- ing up their, caissons and magazines, and moving south- ward along the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, sought a safer position. They were pursued by General Pope, but without any considerable result, though their .flight was somewhat accelerated, and by the end of June there was no rebel force within fifty miles of Corinth. Meantime, IN^ew Orleans and the forts below it had been surrendered to the Union forces under Farragut and Butler, and Memphis had been captured by the Missis- sippi flotilla, under Commodore Davis. On the 17th of July, General Halleck was summoned to Washington to take the position of general-in-chief of the armies of the United States, and the new department of West Tennessee created, embracing Northern Mississippi, West Tennessee, Western Kentucky, and Southern Illinois, and General Grant placed in command of it. General Curtis had succeeded General Pope in command of the Army of the Mississippi, now named the depart-
CONTRABAND TRAFFIC SUPPRESSED.
53
ment of Arkansas, and General Buell still commanded the Army of the Ohio, which had for its department the region inclosed by the Tennessee River. General Grant made his head-quarters for a time at Memphis, which, with its swarms of crafty secessionists, specu- lators, gamblers, and Jewish traders, desperate for gain, bid fair to be of more value to the rebels, when in possession of the Unionists, than when held by the rebels themselves, inasmuch as every thing in the Avay of supplies, which the enemy needed, was smuggled through the lines to them on one pretense or another. This illicit traffic General Grant broke up with a strong hand, and crushed the disloyal operators so effectuallr, that the unscrupulous traitors and spies were almost beside themselves with rage.
rc\\ *\ ^ ^ rr c-
^ ^ ■ i I ' J .° ' r
( ^ -i ‘ I? ^
/: V/ /
.,-1 CHAPTER V,
The race between Buell and Bragg — The battle of Perryville — the design of the. rebels — The battle of luka — The two days’ battle of Corinth — Changes in the Army of the Ohio — General Grant’s four districts — Memphis — General Grant expels the Jewish specu- lators— His integrity — His determination to reduce Vicksburg — Its strength — Previous attempts to capture it — The movement down the Mississippi Central in concert with Sherman’s attack on Chickasaw Bluffs — How frustrated — Young’s Point — Other plans — Canals — River and bayou passes — Failures — Running past the batteries — March down the. west side — Grand Gulf — Bruinsburg — Port Gibson — Raymond — Jackson — Sherman’s feint — Grierson’s raid — Champion Hills — The Big Black — Assaults on the rear of Vicksburg — Siege — Surrender — The terms — “ You can continue the defense ” — What was surrendered — Sherman sent to defeat J ohnston.
While General Grant was endeavoring to reduce the chaotic elements in his department to order, and repressing with a strong hand the manifestations of treason and greed, the rebel General Bragg was moving with all speed to regain the territory lost to rebeldom in Tennessee and Kentucky. General Buell followed, but did not overtake him ; and when balked in his greater j)urpose, but still heavily laden with plunder, he doubled on his track and again faced southward, Buell again pursued, but not with that energy and resolution which would insure success ; and when he finally brought him to bay at Perryville, Kentucky, only a part of the Union forces were brought into action, and but for the courage, resolution, and energy of a young commander, General Philip H. Sheridan, they would
CORINTH THREATENED.
have been defeated. As it was, tlie battle was inde- cisive, and Bragg got safely away witli his rich booty, and occupied a strong position in Tennessee.
This expedition of General Bragg^wUiS only one por- tion of a combined movement of the rel^s, having for its object the expulsion of the Union armies from Northern Mississip|)i, West Tennessee, and AVest Ken- tucky, and the regaining of the territory they had lost witliin the previous seven or eight months. That por- tion of the programme having for its object the expul- sion of Grant from his department, was intrusted to Generals Van Dorn, Price, and Lovell. The first move- ment made by the rebels to this end was the capture of luka, a Union post about twenty miles from Corinth, and the subsequent battle of luka, in which Price attacked General Rosecrans, then one of Grant’s lieutenants. Tlie battle was a very severe one, but Price was severely beaten and compelled to evacuate the town. lie retreated eastward instead of northward, as Grant had expected, and managed to join Van Dorn, and Lovell in Tippah County, Mississippi, when the three, with a formidable force, determined to repossess themselves of Corinth, and thus compel Grant to loosen his hold on West Tennessee. General Grant compre- hended their plans, and was ready to thwart them. It was at first somewhat uncertain whether they would attempt to seize Corinth, wliere Rosecrans was now stationed, or Bolivar, which Avas Iield by General Ord, another of Grant’s lieutenants, Avith a considerable force, or Jackson, Avhere General Grant had his OAvn head-quarters ; their position near Pocahontas, on the Memphis and Charleston railroad, threatening all these about equally. This Avill be evident, from a glance at the map, Jackson being the apex of an equilateral tri-
56
GENERAL U. S. GRANT
OPERATIONS AT lUKA.
a. Powell’s Battery.
b. 63d Ohio.
c. 43d Ohio.
d. 27th Ohio.
e. 39th Ohio.
/, 8th Wisconsin.
g. 26th Illinois. A. 47th Illinois. i. 10th Iowa. k. 48th Indiana. L 16th Iowa. m. 6th Iowa.
72. 25th Missouri. '
o. 17th Iowa.
p. 4th Minnesota.
q. 11th Ohio Battery.
r. Spoor's Battery.
8. 11th Missouri.
BATTLE OF CORINTir.
67
angle formed by the junction of the Mobile and Ohio and Mississippi and Jackson railroads at Jackson, and their several crossings of the Memphis and Charleston •Railroad at Laorraruje and Corinth. Corinth formed -another angle of the triangle, and Pocahontas was nearly midway between that and Lagrange, and Bolivar about half-way between Lagrange and Jackson. But Grant had so arramred his forces and timed his move- ments, that whichever point might be attacked, a sup- porting force should be ready to strike the enemy in the rear, or to cut off his escape. General Ilurlbut had been stationed between Pocahontas and Lagrange, and when it became evident that Corinth was the point aimed at by the enemy, he put himself in position to intercept his retreat along the Ilatchie River, and Gen- eral Ord was directed to move to Iiis support. AYe need not describe in detail the battle of Corinth ; suffice it to say that .General Rosecrans defeated the combined rebel force after a severe battle on the 3d and 4th of October, and that the flying rebels were pursued and terribly punished by Ilurlbut and Ord, and by General ‘McPherson, whom he had detached from his immediate command for tlie purpose. A more thorough defeat and rout had not, up to that time, occurred during the war, nor a more decided- and zealous pursuit. On the 25th of October, another change was made in the boundaries of the department of Tennessee. General Rosecrans was assigned to the command of the old de- partment of the Ohio — -now somewhat changed in boundary, and re-named the department of the Cumber- land— in place of General .Buell, relieved ; and the
0
department of Tennessee 'WMi extended down the !Mis- sissippi to Vicksburg. , This' new department General
Grant divided into four districts, and^ assigned com- 3*
58
GENERAL U. S. GRANT.
raanders to each, viz. : 1st. The district of Memphis, General W. T. Sherman, commander ; 2d. The district of Jackson, General S. A. Hurlbut, commander; 3d. The district of Corinth, Brigadier-General C. S. Hamil- ton, commander ; 4th. The district of Columbus, Briga- dier-General T. A. Davies, commander.
There was* still much trouble in regard to trade at Memphis, and other points in his department. While some of those engaged in trade were men of high and honorable character, too many were unscrupulous spec- ulators, who were ready, for the sake of gain, to smug- gle through the lines weapons, ammunition, food, medi- cines, and other articles contraband of war, to the « •
rebels. General Grant tried the most stringent rules and the most critical examination, but the evil still con- tinued, and he was compelled to expel the Jews, who had been the principal offenders, from the department. Amid the almost universal corruption which prevailed at this period — very many officers in the army secretly engaging^ in cotton speculations, and neglecting their duty to acquire wealth in this way — General Grant’s reputation for strict integrity, and avoidance of- even the appearance of evil, was never questioned. He was remarkably sensitive to any thing which might seem to implicate his integrity in these matters. A friend, him- self a man of unimpeachable honor, proposed to him, at this time, that he should designate Union men of high character to conduct the necessary trade. “No !” w^as his prompt reply, “ I will do no such thing ; for, if I did,* it would be stated within a week, on the highest authority, that I was a partner with every man I ap- pointed ; and if any of tlMn were guilty of misconduct,
the blame and guilt would fall on my shoulders.”
• «
Vicksburg was now the goal of Grant’s hopes; to
STRENGTH OF VICKSBUKG.
59
capture that stronghold, the great object of his ambi- tion. It was, indeed, a prize worth contending for. It was the key to the navigation of the Mississippi ; strong by nature, in its terraced blutfs rising high over tlie Mis- sissippi, it had been made tenfold stronger by the en- gineer’s art, and was believed by the rebels to be utter- ly impregnable. From the very commencement of the war no pains had been spared in fortifying it, and when the loss of the forts below New Orleans and of Island No. Ten, and Memphis, had convinced the rebels that this fortress must be their main dependence in closing the river navigation, they redoubled their etforts to make it a perfect Gibraltar. Not simj^ly the city itself was surrounded with earth-works — fort, bastion, redan, and rifle-pits — but Haines’s, Chickasaw, and Walnut blufts, to the northwest, north, and northeast of the city, and Warrenton, commanding the lower approaches to it, were also strongly fortified, and iron-clad vessels of for- midable character were built on the Yazoo River above, out of harm’s way, to descend at the proper time and carry destruction among the gun-boats of the Union squadron. It had been assailed before its defenses were quite perfected, in the summer of 1862, by Admiral Far- ragut’s squadron, but a long bombardment had proved ineflectual, so lofty were its blufis, and so formidable at that time its batteries. An attempt during the same summer, by General Williams (who was killed in Au- gust of that year at Baton Rouge), to turn the current of the Mississippi through a canal across the peninsula formed by the bend of the Mississippi in front of Vicks- burg, had proved a failure. General Grant was well aware how formidable was the enterprise he was about to undertake, and he made all possible preparation for it. The troops of the levy of July and August, 1862,
60
GENERAL U. S. GRANT.
were rapidly joining the army, and rendering its num- bers large far beyond any former precedent. The sup- plies of food, ammunition, arms, clothing, &c., were also collected in vast quantities at suitable depots, for dis- tribution to the forces of each district. Early in De- cember, General Grant began to move his troops down 'the Mississippi Central Railroad, for the purpose of a flank movement upon Vicksburg, to be executed in con- cert with an attack upon the north and northwest front of the city, by a force under General Sherman descend- ing the river from Memphis. About the 15th of De- cember, General Grant’s head-quarters were at Oxford, Mississippi, while his principal depot of supplies was at Holly Springs, thirty miles above, guarded by a suffi- cient garrison under a Colonel Murphy. A small rebel force, by a detour to the east, managed to make a dash upon Holly Springs on the 20th of December, but might easily have been driven off by the garrison, whose com- mander had been apprised' of the attack by General Grant as soon as possible, and ordered to hold his ground and re-enforcements should be sent to* him. Colonel Murphy, however, was either a coward or trai- tor, and made but slight resistance, suffering the vast accumulation of supplies to fall* into the hands of the rebels, who plundered and destroyed them, and then made all haste to escape. This mishap deranged* Gen- eral Grant’s plans, compelling him to fall back to Holly Springs and order forward other supplies, and thus pre- venting him from making a simultaneous attack with General Sherman upon Vicksburg. * Nor was he able to apprise General Sherman of the cause of his failure. Sherman went forward, made the attack upon Vicks- burg, but, after a three days’ struggle, was compelled to withdraw his troops, defeated but not dispirited at
PROJECTS FOR TAKING VICKSBURG.
61
• their want of success. Having renewed his stock of sup- plies, and the time for success in a movement south- ward, by way of the Mississippi Central Railroad, having passed, General Grant next descended the Mississippi to Young’s Point, Louisiana, a short distance above Vicks- bur<x, where' he devoted his whole attention to solvincc
0 7 O
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the problem of capturing the stronghold which frowned so loftily upon the Mississippi. The problem proved a knotty one. An assault on the water-front w^as impos- sible, and the heavy and repeated bombardments of the squadron, though seemingly sufficient to reduce any known fortress, made little impression upon this. The approaches by way of Chickasaw .bluffs, strong enough in December to repulse Sherman’s army, had* been for- tified since that' time, until they left no hope of success in that direction. No siege was possible, because, the rear being open, supplies and men could be thrown in till the besieged could ’become the offensive party. There remained three alternatives, all attended with difficulty, and none giving*very certain promise of suc- cessi These were the renewal of the. canal project un- der more favorable auspices, with a view to rendering the position of Vicksburg worthless in a military point of view, arid opening a new route for the navigation of the Mississippi through the canal ; the approach to the city from the north* and northeast by way of the Yazoo River, which at several points above communicated more or less directly with the’ Mississippi ; and the passing of
a land and naval force’ below Vicksburg, and attacking
•
the fortress from the south.
’ ’ That dogged pertinacity which,* when a school-boy, led Grant never to give up till he had mastered a diffi- "cult problem, an heir-loom, perhaps, of his revolutionary ancestry, how caused him to adhere to his purpose, hope-
62
GENERAL F. S. GRANT.
less as it seemed to the rebels, and indeed to our own Government, which at first seemed hardly willing to brook the delay. The canal was first tried, but owing to a sudden flood in the Mississippi, which broke the dam and overflowed the adjacent country, it was aban- doned. Attempts were next made to enter the Yazoo by the old Yazoo Pass, and subsequently by a more cir- cuitous route, through Steel’s Bayou, Black Bayou, Duck Creek, Deer Creek, Rolling Fork, and Sunflower River; but neither of these, though accomplishing much as raids into the enemy’s country, proved successful in opening the way for an attack upon the city of Vicks- burg. There remained, then, the last alternative of bringing his troops, with their supplies, to some point below Vicksburg, and thence attacking the fortress from below. How to do this was a serious question. From Vicksburg to Port Hudson, a distance of two hundred and thirty-two miles, every commanding blufi* was forti- fied, and the batteries and earth-works at Port Hudson, ^Natchez, Grand Gulf, &c., were very formidable. Ad- miral Farragut had, indeed, run past the Port Hudson batteries, but had lost a ship-of-war in doing so ; and there was no possibility of bringing troops for the pur- pose of attacking Vicksburg from iS^ew Orleans. To run the batteries in front of Vicksburg, with transports loaded with troops, was impossible ; and to lead them through the swamps on the west side of the Mississippi, with their trains, at this time of the year (February and March), equally so. By opening an old channel of the Mississippi, into Lake Providence, and thence passing down the Tensas, and through a bayou discharging into the Mississippi some distance below Grand Gulf, it might be possible to send down some troops and sup- plies ; but the work would necessarily be slow, as the
MARCH DOWN THE WEST BANK.
63
route was tortuous, and only practicable for small ves- sels of light draft. Little as it promised, this route was tried, and a moderate amount of supplies forwarded. But it was necessary that a part of the gun-boat squad- ron should be below Vicksburg, as well as transports to bring the troops and stores across the river, and to en- gage the batteries at Grand Gulf. Accordingly, after conference with Admirals Farragut and Porter, it was determined to send a part of the gun-boats, and sixteen or eighteen transports, laden with forage and supplies, past the batteries, in two divisions, on dilferent nights. This was accomplished with only the loss of two transports, though under a most terrific fire, continued for hours, and was one of the most heroic acts of the war.
Meantime the roads having improved, and the worst portions of them being corduroyed. General Grant com- menced marching his troops by land through the coun- try west of the Mississippi, the Thirteenth Army Corps, General McClernand’s, taking the' lead, and the Seven- teenth, General McPherson’s, following ; while the Fif- teenth, General Sherman’s, and a part of the Sixteenth,
were left to take care of the communications and sup-
*
plies, and to deceive the rebels as to the intentions of the commanding general. This march, which it was expected would terminate .at New Carthage, thirty-five miles below Milliken’s Bend, the point of departure, Avas, from the condition of the roads, the breaking of the leA^ee, &c., extended to Hard Times, Louisiana, a distance of seventy miles, and OA^er roads Avhich almost any other general Avould liaA^e pronounced impassable. The movement commenced March 29th, and occupied thirty days.
*
At first the attempt was made to land the troops
64
GENERA.L U. S. GRANT.
near Grand Gulf, and the squadron engaged the batte- ries there with the intention of carrying the position, and thus aifording a base of operations. But the resistance was too stubborn to be overcome by the gun- boats, and, after a fight of five hours and a half, the admiral (Porter) ordered their withdrawal. During the night following, the squadron and transports ran past the batteries, and the next ‘morning commenced ferrying over the troops and landing them at Bruins- burg, ten miles below. Marching rapidly from ' this point northeastward toward Port Gibson, the Thir- teenth and Seventeenth Corps encountered a considera- ble force of the enemy, whom they defeated after a sharp battle, and moved on to and across Bayou Pierre. The next day it was ascertained that Grand Gulf, which had been flanked by this movement, had been evacuated, and General Grant repaired thither with a small escort, and made arrangements to make it his base .of supplies for a time. These arrangements occu- pied nearly a week. By his orders, as nearly as possi- ble simultaneously with the landing of the two corps at Bruinsburg, General Sherman had made a strong demonstration toward Haines’s Bluff and the Yazoo, and had thus attracted the attention of the rebels toward that quarter, where they believed the entire Union army were concentrated, . and prevented them from opposing their landing below. .
This being accomplished, Sherman’s troops made all • speed in marching to the rendezvous on the river, where the transports were in waiting to take them over to 'Grand Gulf. * ; >r. . r
Before leaving Young’s Point, General i Grant had also ordered an expedition by a competent cavalry force, under the command of Colonel, now General, Benjamin
MARCH ON VICKSBURG.
65
IT. Grierson, to start from Lagrange, at the junction of the Mississippi Central and Memphis and Charleston railroads, to follow the lines of the Mobile and Ohio and Mississippi Central railroads, and destroy as much of these, and the Meridian and Jackson Railroad, as possi- ble,— capturing and destroying also all stores, ammuni- tion, locomotives, and railroad cars possible, in their route. This expedition was thoroughly successful, and reached Baton Rouge on the 1st of May, at the time Grant was lighting the battle of Port Gibson. Other raids were ordered about the same time from Middle Tennessee, which aided in breaking up the railroad communications and frustrating the plans of the rebels.
Our space does not allow us to go into details of the subsequent masterly movements by 'which, while appa- rently threatening an immediate attack on Vicksburg from the south, the garrison there, under the command of General Pemberton, were prevented from forming a junction with General J. E. Johnston’s troops, then in the vicinity of Jackson, nor of the battle of Raymond, the capture of Jackson, and the destruction of the property and manufixctories of the rebel government there ; the rapid march westward, the severe battles of Champion’s Hill and of Black River Bridge, and the eminently skillful management of the corps of Generals Sherman and McPherson. Suffice it to say that General Grant interposed his army between the forces of John- ston and Pemberton, drove the former, broken and routed, northward, and compelled the latter to put him- self and his defeated army as soon as possible within the defenses of Vicksburg ; and on the 18th the Union army sat down before Vicksburg, iiaving completely invested it on the land side, and opened communication with their squadron and transports by way of Walnut
66
GENERAL U. S. GRANP.
Bluffs, above the river. On r the 19th of May, and again on the 22d, ‘General Grant ordered assaults upon the beleaguered city, neither of which were successful, except in gaining some ground and expediting the sub- sequent regular: approaches. The army now became satisfied that the stronghold could only be captured by a systematic siege, and General Grant accordingly took all precautions to make that siege effective, and to pre- vent the rebel General Johnston from approaching with sufficient force to raise the siege. Day by day the parallels were brought nearer and nearer, and finally came so near that the rebels could not use their cannon, while the Union artillery from the adjacent hills, and from the squadron, constantly showered their iron hail upon the devoted city. The inhabitants and the rebel army dug caves in the bluffs, and endeavored to shelter themselves from the fiery storm, but these were often penetrated by the shells from the batteries, or blown up in the explosion of the forts. At length, on the third of July, General Grant was prepared to order an assault, wliich could not have failed of success, when overtures were made for a surrender, and the city was delivered into the hands of the Union army on the 4th of July, 1863. • ^ <
" It is stated that at the interview between General Grant and General Pemberton, after shaking handsj and a short silence. General Pemberton said : — '
“ General Grant, I meet you in order to arrange terms for the capitulation of the city of Vicksburg and its garrison. What terms do you demand ?
' Uyiconditional surrender replied General Grant.
‘‘ Unconditional surrender !” said Pemberton. “Never, so long as I have a man left me ! I will fight rather.”
“ Then^ sir^ you can continue the defense^'^ replied
SURRENDER OF VICKSBURG.
67
Grant. “ My army has never been in a better condition for the prosecution of the siege?''
During this conversation, General Pemberton was greatly agitated, trembling with emotion from head to foot, while Grant was as calm and imperturbable as a ]\Iay morning. After a somewhat protracted interview, during wdiich General Grant, in consideration of the courage and tenacity of the garrison, explained tlie terms he was disposed to allow to them on their uncon- ditional surrender, the two generals separated, an armis- tice having been declared till morning, when the (|ues- tion of surrender was to be finally determined. The same evening General Grant transmitted to General Pemberton, in writing, the propositions he had made during the afternoon for the disposal of the garrison, should they surrender. These terms were very liberal, far more so than those usually accorded to a conquered garrison.
The rebel loss in this campaign had been very great, larger than has often been experienced in the campaigns of modern times, and utterly without precedent in the previous history of this continent. The number of prisoners captured by the Union troops, from the land- iua at Druinsbursc, to, and includino:, the surrender of
O O' 7 O'
Vicksburo^, was 34,62-0, includiim one lieutenant-cfeneral and nineteen major and brigadier-generals ; and 11,800 men were killed, wounded, or deserters. There were also among the spoils of the campaign two hundred and eleven field-pieces, ninety siege-guns, and 45,000 small- arms. The Union losses had been 943 killed, 7,095 w^ounded, and 537 missiim, makino; a total of casualties of 8,575, and of the wounded nearly one-half returned to duty within a month.
Having disposed of his prisoners at Vicksburg, Gen-
68
GENERAL U. S. GRANT
eral Grant dispatched General Sherman with an ade- quate force to Jackson to defeat and break up John- ston’s army, and destroy, the rebel stores • collected there, in both which enterprises he was successful.
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CHAPTER VI. '
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The General takes his first furlough — Accident at New Orleans — The intended promotion of General Grant by the Government — Delay in consequence of the accident — The campaign/ successes and peril of the Army of the Cumberland — Ilosecrans relieved ^ and Thomas appointed its commander — General Grant in com- mand of the Military Division of the Mississippi — Bragg’s threat — Grant’s plans — Hooker’s ascent of Lookout Mountain — The cap- ture of Orchard Knob — Sherman’s assaults on Fort Buckner — The storming of Mission Ridge — Capture of Fort Bragg — Pursuit of Bragg — Sherman raises the siege of Knoxville — President Lincoln’s Letter — General Grant’s congratulatory order — Honors lavished on the successful General — The medal — Work at Chatta- nooga and elsewhere — The Meridian Expedition — Partial success.
During the long period of two and a quarter years since he had entered the army, General Grant had never sought or received a day’s furlough. But after this great victory, and while the thanks of the .Presi- dent, the Cabinet, Congress, and the people, were
•
lavished upon him Avithout stint, he sought for a few days’ rest Avith his family, and received it. His stay with them was brief, and he returned to his duties, de- scending the Mississippi — now, thanks to his skillful generalship, open to the commerce of all nations from its mouth to the Falls of St. Anthony — to New Orleans, to confer Avith General Banks relative to the operations of the autumn.- While here, on the 4th of September, he Avas seriously injured by being thrown from his horse while revicAving the troops of General Banks’s 'department. - .i:
70
GENERAL U. S. GRANT.
It had been the intention of the Government to place him in command of all the troops west of the Allegha- nies and east of the Mississippi, on the resumption of active warfare in September, but this accident, unfor- tunately, postponed that appointment. These troops were, at this time, comprised in three distinct armies — the ^ Army of the Cumberland, under the command of General Rosecrans ; the Army of the Tennessee, 'under General Sherman ; and the Army of the Ohio, under General Burnside. The interest of the whole country was now concentrating on the first of these, the Army of the Cumberland. General Rosecrans, an able officer, had fought a great battle at, Stone River, near Murfreesboro’, the beginning of the year, with the rebel General Bragg, and had compelled him to retreat to Tullahoma ; but both armies had maintained a posi- tion of observation from that period until the last of June, when Rosecrans made a movement forward, and .threatening to flank Bragg, caused him to evacuate Tullahoma, and drove him, by persistent and steady pressure to Chattanooga, a strong position, and one which it was very important for the United States Government to have in its possession, as it was the key to East Tennessee, w^hich, though loyal, had long been in the hands of the rebels. General Rosecrans, by an admirable flank movement, compelled Bragg to mai*ch out of Chattanooga to give him battle, and occupied that important post meanwdiile with a small garrison.
At this critical juncture, Bragg was largely re-en- forced from the Army of Virginia, and the battle of .Chickamauga was fought on the 19th and 20th of Sep- tember, and the result was indecisive, since the Union army, though driven back and losing’ heavily, still oc- cupied Chattanooga, the goal for which they fought,
CnAlTANOOGA.
71
and had inflicted a loss equal to or greater than their own upon the enemy. The condition of the Army of tlie Cumberland was, nevertheless, precarious for the next two months, and that of the Army of the Ohio, which occupied Knoxville, Tennessee, hardly less so. Tlie rebels held possession of Lookout IVlountain and Mission Kidge, and thus were able to lay an embargo upon both railroad and river communication with Nash- ville and Louisville, the real bases of the Army of the Cumberland, and had, moreover, captured a large train of supplies. Rations and forage could only be brought for the supply of the Army of the Cumberland by sixty miles’ cartage over the worst roads in the Republic, and the force, augmented in October and November by two army corps from the Army of the Potomac, and by a ])art of Sherman’s Army of the Tennessee, was for some months on half rations. It was at this time that General Rosecrans was relieved of the command of the Army of the Cumberland, and General Thomas made his suc- cessor, while General Grant was put in command of the grand military division of the jMississippi, comprising the three armies already named. lie had not long as- sumed command when aft airs put on a brighter aspect. By an adroit movement, the sixty miles of wagon-road was reduced to ten, over a good road ; and presently, by another equally adroit maneuver, the navigation of the Tennessee below Chattanooga was secured, and arrangements made for the speedy repair of 'the Nash- ville and Chattanooga Railroad. Still, so sanguine was Bragg that he should soon obtain possession of Chatta- nooga, that on the 21st of November he sent this mes- sage by flag of truce to General Grant : — “ Humanity would dictate the removal of all non-combatants from Chattanooga, as I am about to shell the city 1”
72
GENERAL ^U. S. GRANT.
The reply to this threat came promptly, but it was not fully delivered until the evening of the 25th of that month.
General Grant had been devising means and ways for the expulsion of the rebel forces from the valley of Chattanooga and its vicinity, and his plans were just ripe for execution, when this summons came from Bragg. That general had been betrayed into the indiscretion of sending Longstreet with about twenty thousand troops to besiege Knoxville, and had thus fatally weakened his force. Giving instructions to General Burnside to lure him on, and while delaying his progress by occasional, and, apparently, strenuous resistance, to fall back after each battle, till Longstreet was securely entrapped, he made rapid dispositions to punish Bragg most severely for his audacity. Pontoons were secretly transported to the Tennessee, near the mouth of Korth Chickamauga Creek, and a sufficient body of troops crossed in boats to drive off any rebel troops in the immediate vicinity ; and then, at a preconcerted signal, the pontoons were laid, a cavalry force crossed, and sent to cut the rail- roads leading to Knoxville effectually, and, a large body of troops following them, took possession of an isolated hill between the Atlanta Railroad and the river. This movement was made under General Sherman’s direction. General Hooker, meantime, was dispatched with a suffi- cient and resolute force to take possession of Lookout Mountain and drive the rebels from it. He marched down Lookout Valley, and seemed to be intending to reach and ascend a pass ten miles below, but, when out of sight of the rebel camps on the brow of the mountain, suddenly turned, ascended, and attacked them in the rear, and, after a series of gallant engage- ments, subceeded in driving them, with heavy loss, from
FORT BUCKNER.
73
the mountain, which, the next morning, was crowned with the Union flag.
On the previous day, simultaneously with Sherman’s • movements, General Thomas had moved out of Chatta- nooga with a heavy force, and after a sharp action and a brilliant charge, obtained possession of Orchard Knob and another eminence in front of Chattanooga, on which the rebels had a strong redoubt, and which commanded a part of Mission Ridge and the principal forts of the rebels on that ridofe.
O
On the 25th of Kovember, General Grant directed General Sherman to make persistent and repeated de- monstrations against Fort Buckner, situated on Tunnel Hill, the northern extremity of the continuous Mission Ridge, not in the expectation that he would be able to carry the fort by his assaults, but to draw the attention of the rebels in that direction, while he was preparing to attack them from Fort Wood. Sherman’s first as- sault was made about 10 a. m. ; it was repulsed, as were other successive assaults delivered on one and the other slope of the ridge on which Fort Buckner stood defiant, and, as the rebels believed, impregnable. The assaulting columns were re-enforced accain and a2:ain, and, thouoch not successful in carrying the fort, they had accom- plished all that Grant desired; they had drawn thither a large portion of the rebel force, thus weakening the garrisons of Forts Breckinridge and Bragg, further south on the same ridcfe, and had been able to c:ain and hold a position far up the slope, from which, when the time came, they could deliver a crushing blow upon the rebel fort. It had been announced to the corps in a general order, that the firing of six guns was to be the signal for the movement of the Fourth Army Corps (General Gordon Granger’s) to the assault of Fort
74
GENERAL IT. S. GRANT.
Breckinridge, the largest and most formidable of the enemy’s works on Mission Ridge, situated nearly a mile below Fort Buckner. This fort' was about two miles distant, and nearly northeast of Fort Wood, the earth- work on the summit of Orchard Knob, where Thomas’s army were assembled. A little past 3 p. m.. General Sherman sent word to General Grant that he could hold his position, and at twenty minutes to four the signal guns boomed from Fort Wood, and the divisions of Wood, Sheridan, and Baird, forming the Fourth Army Corps, sprang to their positions, and in five minutes were marching steadily toward the ridge. The rebel batteries on the summit, and the rifle-pits which girded the slope and the base of the ridge, commenced at once a sweeping fire over the plain which the assaulting party must cross ; and the Union batteries — (Forts Wood and Negley, Forts Palmer and King, from a point nearer Chattanooga, Bridge’s battery from the base of Orchard Knob, and Moccasin Point Battery, from the other side of the Tennessee) — hurled in reply their heavy shot and shell, at long range, on the rebel forts and rifle-pits. Undismayed by the tempest of shot, and shell, and bullets that rained so fiercely upon them, the veteran troops pressed steadily and swiftly forward, cleared with a hurrah the rifle-pits at the base of the ridge, sending the rebel troops which had occupied it back as prisoners, and instantly ascending the precipitous slope, a slope so steep that it would task severely the po^-. ers of a skillful climber to reach the top unopposed ; yet, with an ardor that nothing could restrain, upward, still upward they went, though every step was attended with loss from the fire of the thirteen batteries on the summit, and the volleys of musketry which belched forth from the rebel rifle-pits and barricades half way up the slope. These
MISSION KIDGE.
75
last are soon carried with a shout, and their occupants sent reeling down the slope under the fire of their own batteries ; and, without stopping for breath, the Union soldiers push on up a steep so precipitous that the can- non in the forts can not be depressed sufficiently to reach them, and it is only the musketry fire from the rebels on the summit which opposes them. The rebels did not, would not, believe that they could reach the top. Bragg himself declared it utterly impossible. Five minutes before the Union troops captured Fort Breck- inridge, an old lady, at whose house on the summit Bragg made his head-quarters, said to him, “General, what shall we do if the Yankees do get up here?” “ Oh ! never fear,” was Bragg’s reply, “ they can not reach the top ; every man of them will be killed before they get near it.” “But,” said the old lady to a Union officer, “he had hardly said so, when they came swarming up, and General Bragg and General Breckinridge had to ride for their lives.” The top of the ridge was gained ; Fort Breckinridge, after a brief but sharp struggle, was captured; and Bragg’s army, routed, and abandoning all their artillery and most of their small-arms, fled, tum- bled, and rolled down the eastern slope of the ridge. Instantly Sherman advanced and drove the rebels from Fort Buckner, while Hooker, who had been moving from the eastern slope of Lookout mountain since early morning, and had ascended Mission Ridge some distance below, came uppn Fort Bragg, two miles below, and drove its garrison into the valley of the Chicka- mauga.
General Bragg was answered. The non-combatants were not removed from Chattanooga, and that redoubt- able general, partly from the loss of most of his cannon, and partly from the entire rout of his forces and their
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GENERAL U. 8. GRANT.
rapid retreat eastward, was unable to fulfill bis threat of shelling the city.
But General Grant had not yet done with General Bragg or his troo23S. On the morning of the 26th, long before dawn, Davis’s division of the Fourteenth Corps were in rapid pursuit of the retreating foe, and very soon after sunrise three corps. Hooker’s, Palmer’s, and Sherman’s, were on their way, and, overtaking the rear of the enemy, drove them in confusion from Chicka- mauga depot, capturing and destroying large quantities of supplies and some cannon ; and thence pushing for- ward to Pigeon Pidge and Graysville, still skirmishing wherever the rebels would make a stand, drove them eastward to Ringgold Gap, where they fought for a time desperately, having every advantage of position, but were eventually driven from the Gap and beyond Red Clay Station, on the Dalton and Cleveland Railroad ; and that railroad being destroyed, thus effectually cut- tinor off all communication between Brao:2: and Lono^- street, the pursuit was given over, and the shattered columns of Bragg’s army were gathered at Dalton, where Bragg was at once displaced from command, and Hardee, and eventually J. E. Johnston, put at the head of the rebel army.
Meantime, General Grant had directed General Sher- man, after pursuing the enemy a few miles, to turn northward, and, marching with all practicable speed, put himself in communication with General Burnside and compel Longstreet to raise the siege of Knoxville. This was accomplished, and Longstreet, who, enraged at having been outwitted, had dashed himself in vain against the defenses of Knoxville, found himself com- pelled, on the 4th of December, by the near approach of Sherman’s army, to abandon the siege and retreat
PRESIDENT Lincoln’s letter.
77
toward Virginia, while both Foster’s and Sherman’s cavalry pursued.
With this movement the campaign of Chattanooga closed, a campaign hardly less brilliant than that of Vicksburg, and one which paralyzed for months the rebel army in the Southwest.
On the 7th of December it was announced that from the commencement of the war, up to that date, the armies under General Grant’s particular command had captured four hundred and seventy two cannon, ninety thousand prisoners, and more than a hundred thousand stand of small-arms.
On the 8th of December the President of the United States sent the following dispatch to General Grant : —
Washington, Dec. 8, ]863.
Major- General Grant : —
Uoderstanding that your lodgment at Chattanooga and Knoxville is now secure, I wish to tender you, and all under }"Our command, my more than thanks — my profoundest gratitude, for the skill, cour- age, and perseverance with which you and they, over so great dif- ficulties, have effected that important object. God bless you all I
A. LINCOLN.
On the 10th of December, General Grant issued the following congratulatory order to the array under his com- mand. Its quiet, self-possessed, and appreciative tone, while they contrast favorably with the boastful character of some of the general orders of officer-#whose achieve- ments were far less conspicuous than his, remind us forcibly of the orders of that other great commander, whom in so many traits of character he strikingly resembles, the Duke of Wellington : —
78
GENERAL JJ. S. GRANT.
Head-quarters, Military Division’ of the Mississippi, )
IN THE Field, Chattanooga, Tennessee, j
December, 10, 1863.
General Orders^ No. 9.
The general commanding takes this opportunity of returning his sincere thanks and-congratulations to the brave armies of the Cum- berland, the Ohio, the Tennessee, and their comrades from the Poto- mac, for the recent splendid and decisive successes achieved over the enemy. In a short time you have recovered from him the control of the Tennessee River from Bridgeport to Knoxville. You dislodged him from his great stronghold upon Lookout Mountain, drove him from Chattanooga Yalley, wrested from his determined grasp the possession of Missionary Ridge, repelled with heavy loss to him his repeated assaults upon Knoxville, forcing him to raise the siege there, driving him at all points, utterly routed and discomfited, beyond the limits of the State. By your noble lieroism and determined courage you have most effectually defeated the plans of the enemy for regain- ing possession of the States of Kentucky and Tennessee. You have secured positions from which no rebellious power can drive or dis- lodge you. For all this, the general commanding thanks you, col- lectively and individually. The loyal people of the United States thank and bless you. Their hopes and prayers for your success against this unholy rebellion are with you daily. Their faith in you will not be in vain. Their hopes will not be blasted. Their prayers to Almighty God will be answered. You will yet go to other fields of strife ; and with the invincible bravery and unflinching loyalty to justice and right which have characterized you in the past, you will prove that no enemy can withstand you, and that no defenses, how- ever formidable, can check your onward march.
By order of Maj.-Gen. U. S. GRANT.
T. S. Bowers, A. A. G.
The honors lavished upon General Grant for this and his previous su^esses, were not confined to the thanks sent him by the President. On the 17th December, 1 863, a joint resolution passed both Houses of Congress, and received the Executive approval, which, in addition to the thanks of the National Legislature, provided for a
THE MEDAL OF COGNRESS.
79
gold medal, with suitable emblems, devices, and inscrip- tions, to be prepared and presented to General Grant. This token of a nation’s grateful regard was designed by the artist Leutze. On one face of the medal was a pro- file likeness of the hero, surrounded by a wreath of laurels — his name and the year of his victories inscribed upon it ; and the whole surrounded by a galaxy of stars. The design for the obverse was the figure of Fame seated in a graceful attitude on the American Eagle, which, with wings outspread, seems about to take flight. In her right hand she holds her trumpet, and in her left a scroll on which are inscribed Corinth, Vicksburg, Mississippi Riv- er, and Chattanooga. On her head is an Indian helmet with radiating feathers. In front of the eagle is the em- blematic shield of the United States. Below the group, sprigs of the pine and palm, denoting the North and South, cross each other. Above the figure of Fame, in a curved line, is the motto, “Proclaim Liberty throughout the Land.” The edge is surrounded by a circle of By- zantine stars, exceeding the number of the present States of the Union. Resolutions of thanks were also passed by the Legislatures of most of the loyal States ; and numerous costly presents (swords, pistols, &c.) were made by admiring friends. None of these honors, however, produced on the part of tlie recipient of them any ela- tion, or changed in the least the simplicity and modesty of his manners, or his earnest devotion to the work of putting down the rebellion. His health was not fully re-established, after the severe injuries he had received at New Orleans, but he toiled more continuouslv and patiently than any ofiicer in the service. The communi- cations of his army with its bases at Nashville and Louis- ville, which had long been broken or in indifferent con- dition, must be put in the best order, and abundant
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GENEBxiL U. g. GRANT.
stores accumulated at Chattanooga, ISTasliville, and Knoxville, for the coming campaign into the heart of Georgia. His men, worn down by short rations and severe labors, must be recruited by the best of care to the Inghest degree of efficiency, and withal there must be, during the winter months, a severe and crushing blow struck upon some vital point of the Confederacy in the Southwest. He had hoped to join in a co-operative movement with the department of the Gulf on Mobile, but his plans in that direction were thwarted by some adverse influences. He then determined upon an expe- dition from Vicksburg eastward to reach Meridian, Miss., and, if possible, Selma and Montgomery, Ala. ; this expedition to be joined at or near Meridian by a cavalry force dispatched simultaneously from Lagrange, southward, and the two to traverse at will the central portions of Mississippi and Alabama. The enterprise was a bold and daring one ; the army which should un- dertake it must cut loose from their base, and obtain their subsistence mainly from the enemy’s country — and this, with a force of twenty or twenty-five thousand men, was not an easy matter. The management and leader- ship of the principal column, which was to move east- ward from Vicksburg, he assigned to his tried and able lieutenant, General William T. Sherman, and the com- mand of the cavalry co-operating force to his chief of cavalry. General W. Sooy Smith. The expedition started early in February, and penetrated as far as Meridian ; but the cavalry failing to join them, they ad- vanced no further eastward, but returned to Vicksburg after an absence of a month. In consequence of this failure on the part of the cavalry to connect, which was not wholly their fault, the expedition did not produce all the results expected from it by General Grant ; but
THE MERIDIAN EXPEDITION.
81
it greatly crippled the resources of the rebels, made their railroads worthless as communications, and by the alarm it awakened prevented the forces in the vicinity of the Gulf from joining Johnston, who had now succeeded Hardee in the command of the rebel array at Dalton.
4*
f*
9
CHAPTER VII.
Commissioned Lieutenant-General — Yisits the various departments — Conference with Sherman — Preparations for the campaign of 1864 — Lee’s army — The forces under command of General Grant — The advance — Battles of the Wilderness — Spottsylvania — North Anna — Pamimkey — Cold Harbor — Crossing the Chick- ahominy and the James — Petersburg — Cavalry movements — The double attack north and south of the James — The Mine — Hatcher’s Bun — Deep Bottom — Chapin’s Farm — Hatcher’s Bun again — Sheridan appointed to the Army of the Shenandoah — ^His successes — Final movements before Petersburg and Bichmond — Sherman’s grand marches — Thomas at Franklin and Nashville — Canby at Mobile — Cavalry expeditions — Lee’s surrender — Joe Johnston’s surrender — Assassination of the President — Beviews — Banquets and donations to General Grant — The grade of full General con- ferred.
»
While the expedition to Meridian was in progress General Grant was summoned to new and higher re- sponsibilities. Congress resolved to revive' the grade of Lieutenant-General, which had been conferred by brevet only, on General Scott, but as an actual rank in time of war had only been bestowed on General Washington; and a law to that effect having been passed, the Presi-> dent at once nominated Grant Lieutenant-General, and the Senate confirmed him. The commission bore date March 2d, 1864, and on the ninth of that month the President presented to him in person his commis- sion, assuring him of his own hearty personal concur- rence in the measure. General Grant replied very briefly, but evidently with deep feeling. On the twelfth
TAKES THE FIELD IX TEUSOX.
83
of March, the President, by official order, assigned to the Lieutenant-General the command of the armies of the United States; at the same time appointing General W. T. Sherman commander of the grand military divi- ' sion of the Mississippi, which General Grant had pre- viously commanded ; and General McPherson, an able and accomplished officer, to succeed General Sherman in command of the Army of the Tennessee ; while General Halleck, hitherto general-in-chief, was relieved from duty, and made chief of staff to the army, at Washington.
General Grant had, in January, 1864, visited all parts of his command, the military division of the Mississippi, and carefully observed its condition, but his position as lieutenant-general required that he should spend some time in ascertaining the condition of the other western departments, and that he should arrange with General Sherman the future movements of the spring and summer campaign. This done, he returned as speedily as possible, and made every preparation for the coming campaign in Virginia, lie proposed taking command in person of the forces destined to assail Pichmond, though keeping a vigilant oversight of the movements in other parts of the country. General Sherman, with his magnificent force, composed of the three armies of the Cumberland, the Tennessee, and the Ohio, had been ordered to move, as nearly as pos- sible, simultaneously with the armies in Virginia, so that there should be no re-enforcements sent from one rebel army to the other, as there had been during the previous autumn.
The force with which Grant took the field against Lee, was such a one as has seldom been under a single commander, or concentrated upon a single object. It
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GENERAL U. S. GRANT.
consisted in fact, of three armies; the Army of the Potomac, under the command of Major-General Meade, consisting of three corps of infantry recruited up to ‘ tlieir full strength, and numbering each nearly fifty thousand men, with such corps-commanders as Hancock, Warren, and Sedgwick; a cavalry corps of extraor- dinary ability, commanded by the gallant and fiery Sheridan, and a reserve corps of about forty thousand men, one-third of them colored troops, under the com- mand of the brave and trusty Burnside; the Army of the James, under the command of Major-General Butler, composed of two corps, one that was hitherto known as the Army of Eastern Virginia and IsTorth Carolina, the other a fine corps, partly composed of colored troops, under the command of General Gilmore, hitherto forming a part of the Army of the department of the South ; and the Army of the Shenandoah, commanded by Major-General Franz Sigel, and composed of the Army of Western Virginia, under General Crooks, and to which was subsequently added the Nineteenth Army Corps, formerly from the department of the Gulf, com- manded by General Emory, and with these a consider- able cavalry force. But, though seeking the accom- plishment of a common object — the reduction of Bich- mond — these armies were moving from different points, and over different fields, to effect it. Lee'S forces lay south of the Rapidan, stretching eastward from Orange Court-House, and his cavalry guarding his left flank toward Gordonsville, and his right near Chancellors- ville. The Army of the Potomac, which for months had been confronting him, lay north of the Rapidan, its head-quarters being at Culpeper Court-House, and its camps extending from Brandy Station to Robertson’s River. To this army was assigned the opening of the
CROSSING THE RAPIDAN.
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conflict, and the mighty task of driving hack Lee’s vast force, which possessed the advantage of interior lines. The Army of the James had for its first diity the seizing, by an adroitly executed feint, the position at Bermuda Hundred, lying on tlie south or right bank of the James, nearly midway between Richmond and Petersburg ; and, if it should prove practicable, the interposition of a sufficient force permanently between Richmond and Petersburg, and the capture of the latter city. The Army of the Shenandoah, though not at first existing under that title, had for its first mission a movement upon Staunton, Waynesboro’ and Lynchburg, with the intent of crippling the resources, and effectually cut- ting off the supplies of Lee’s army from the West, and at the same time guarding against any sudden move- ment of a rebel force down the Valley of the Shenan- doah, and into 3 [ary land and Pennsylvania.
Every thing being thus prepared, the order was given on the night of May 3d, for the Army of the Potomac to break up camp, and on the morning of the 4th, the three corps crossed the Rapidan, the Second Corps (Hancock’s) in front, crossing at Ely’s Ford, the Fifth (Warren’s), and the Sixth (Sedgwick’s) immediately following, crossing at Germanna Ford. This movement, which aimed at flanking Lee’s right, as his army were strongly intrenched at Mine Run, was at once observed by General Lee, who, with his usual promptness, made a counter movement to match it. From a short dis- tance south of Germanna Ford, eastward to and beyond Chancellorsville, stretches a tract of dense, tangled forest and undergrowth, fifteen or twenty miles in length, and about five miles wide, traversed by few and indifierent roads, known as “ The Wilderness.” It was in the eastern part of this that the battle of Chancel-
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GENERAL IT. 8. GRANT.
lorsville was fought, in May, 1863. Into this desolate and difficult region the Army of the Potomac plunged almost immediately on crossing the Rapidan ; and against their line, at right angles, between the Fifth and Sixth Corps, Lee flung Longstreet’s corps, on Thursday, May 5th, before they had had the opportunity of getting into position, and while they were yet em- barrassed by the dense and tangled undergrowth of the forest.
The weight of the first attack fell on Sedgwick’s corps, which, though losing heavily, succeeded in holding its own. Drawing back momentarily. Long- street returned to the attack with still greater despera- tion, and at first seemed to be carrying all before him, but Sedgwick’s veterans would not yield, and the enemy, sorely disappointed, withdrew ; then a fresh force was hurled against the center (Warren’s corps), but, though gaining a temporary advantage, was finally foiled, and beaten back. The battle lasted far into the night, but with indecisive results. At four o’clock, a. m., on Friday, 6th of May, Lee renewed the attack, again massing his force, and attempting to break through the right and center ; the attack was repulsed, and by six A. M., Hancock commenced driving the rebels, who fell back to a high ridge, with a marsh in front — a position they had previously fortified. Through the day the fighting was terribly severe, each party in turn gaining some slight success, though at the expense of terrible slaughter. Toward dark an attack was made on the extreme right of the Union lines, and they were turned, and the right completely flanked. General Grant showed his military skill and fertility of resources by extending his left and center, which were still firm, southward, and bringing his right into a new position,
AT SPOTTSYLVANIA.
87
changing his base meanwhile to Fredericksburg and the Rappahannock. He thus flanked Lee in turn, and out of threatened defeat evoked success. He had also gained another advantage, in getting out of The Wilder- ness into a more open country, wLere he could use his artillery with greater efiect. Moreover, Burnside, with a part of the reserves, had come up in season to take part in the flght of Friday afternoon. An advance at daybreak on Saturday (May Vth) showed that Lee had fallen back. Grant pursued vigorously, and came upon him near Spottsylvania Court-House, where he had taken a new and very strong position. On Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday there was some sharp fighting, but without any decisive result. On Wednesday the fighting Avas more severe, but still without marked result. On Wednesday night (11th), General Grant directed Han- cock’s (Second) corps to be transferred to the left, taking up a position between Sedgwick’s (Sixth) and Burnside’s (Ninth) corps. This movement Avas made for the purpose of turning the enemy’s right, and at the same time forcing them further from their connections with Richmond. At half-past four a. m., on the 12th, the Second Corps (Hancock’s) moved on the enemy in a most terrible bayonet-charge, Avhich proA^ed a perfect surprise to the rebels, Aviiming the day, capturing thirty heavy guns, and OA^er four thousand prisoners, including tAVO generals. The Fifth and Ninth Corps also made successful, charges. This A\^as the first great success of the campaign, and it rendered the rebels desperate ; they made repeated and obstinate charges in the at- tempt 10 retake the positions captured by Hancock, continuing their struggles, though at terrible cost, till three o’clock on Friday morning. On Friday, Lee re- formed his lines, moving further to the right, and Grant
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GENERAL U. S. GRANT.
kept pace with him. On Friday night the rebels at- tacked the Fifth Corps (Warren’s), but were repulsed with severe loss. From the 12th to the 18th of May there was a lull in the fighting, both armies resting, and receiving large re-enforcements. On the 18th, General Hancock attacked the right flank of the rebels, and gained two lines of his intrenchments. Burnside was also engaged the same day, but without decisive result. General Grant had already planned another flanking movement, by way of Guiney’s Station to Milford Bridge, which occupied the next three days, and which was successfully executed, except some loss of wagons and ambulances, from an attack of Ewell. Lee mean- time had moved and occupied a strong position between the North and South Anna. After some hard fighting, in which the Union troops reaped partial success. General Grant found their position too strong for direct attack, and again prepared to make a flank movement. Or- dering the army to recross the North Anna, and, making an attack with his right wing to cover the movement, he burned the bridge of the Virginia Central Railroad, rapidly crossed the Pamunkey, and on the 31st of May had his entire army across the Pamunkey, and within fifteen miles of Richmond. Here ao;ain he found Lee ready to receive him, and, with re-enforcements received from the Shenandoah Valley, presented a full front. For two or three days there was cavalry fighting and skir- mishing, but no general engagement. On the 1st of June, the Sixth Corps took up a strong position near Cold Harbor, where they were joined by a force under General W. F. Smith, detached from the Army of the James. Here, on the 3d of June, a stubborn and des- perate battle was fought, which resulted in the posses- sion of Cold Harbor by the Union forces. The same
BUTLERj SIGEL, AND HUNTER.
89
day tlie Union troops attacked the rebel position, and a bloody and protracted engagement followed, but tliey failed to carry the rebel works. Finding that to dis- lodge the enemy from his position by direct attack would require too great a sacrifice of life. General Grant now determined on the bold measure of crossing the James Kiver, and makinc: his attack on Richmond from that side. This movement was made in the face of the enemy, though without his knowledge, in three days, viz., from the 12th to the 15th of June.
General Butler had, meantime, been executing his part of the programme with great zeal. He had occupied Bermuda Hundred, and fortified his 2^o^itioll there ; had cut the railroad below Petersburg, and made a dash upon that city, but had not succeeded in capturing it; had laid siege to Fort Darling, but had been unable to liold his position against the rebel force ; had repelled the rebel attacks upon his lines, and was in position to welcome the approach of tlie Army of the Potomac, and render it valuable assistance. The Army of West Vir- ginia, under General Sigel, had been less successful. On the 15th of May, he encountered a considerable rebel force at Reed’s Hill, near Mount Jackson, in the Valley of the Shenandoah, and was severely handled. He was then relieved of command, and succeeded by General Hunter, who at first met with better fortune. He defeated General Sam Jones, near Staunton, and killed him; took 1,500 prisoners and several guns, driving the rebels to Waynesboro’. On the 8th, he formed a junction with Crook and Averill ; and, while General Sheridan moved toward Gordonsville, and de- feated the rebels at Trevillian Station, Hunter pressed on toward Lynchburg, destroying railroads and bridges on his way, but finding it strongly defended did not
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venture to attack, and Early marching against him, in turn, with a large force, retreated into the mountains, and made a forced march into Western Virginia. On this march his army suffered terribly, and he lost heavily in i^uns and wagons.
Sheridan, meantime, had made his famous raid round Lee’s lines, destroying railroads, trains, depots of sup- plies, releasing our j>risoners, and capturing many of the enemy. He penetrated within the first line of works around Hichmond, and having cut all Lee’s communica- tions, reached Butler’s head-quarters in safety, five days after starting.
The rebel General Early finding himself unopposed, extended his expedition down the Shenandoah, crossed into Maryland, occupied Hagerstown and Frederick, and plundered extensively ; fought two or three battles with the militia, which had been called out to oppose him; threatened Baltimore and Washington ; approach- ing within two miles of the latter city, but finding that the ^NTineteenth Corps, from ISTew Orleans, and the Sixth, from the Army of the Potomac, were ready to attack him, and that General Couch, from Pennsylvania, was threatening his rear, he hastened back into Virginia, taking with him most of his plunder.
General Grant, having reached the south side of the James, ordered an immediate attack on Petersburg. This would probably have proved successful but for the lack of co-operation on the part of the cavalry force, through some misunderstanding. A series of attacks were made upon the rebel works, and by the 22d of June the city was invested, except on the north and west. There was sharp fighting that day for the posses- sion of the Petersburg and Danville or Southside Rail- road, which was finally held by the Union troops.
EXPLOSION OF THE MINE.
91
Meantime, an extensive raid was made by Wilson and Kautz’s cavalry upon the Weldon Railroad, several miles of which they destroyed, together with stores, &c. Before they could reach our lines, however, they were surrounded by a large rebel force, and lost seven or eight hundred men. After an interval of com- parative quiet, during which General Grant had suc- ceeded in running a mine nearly under the Confederate fortifications, he ordered a feint to be made on the north side of the James, to divert General Lee’s at- tention from an a*ssault which he purposed making on Petersburg at the time of exploding the mine. The feint, better known as the action of Strawberry Plains, was successful in turning the enemy’s left, and captur- ing four heavy guns. On the 30th of July the mine, which was charged with eight tons of powder, was exploded, and the assault commenced. There was a disagreement between the commanders, and fatal delays occurred, which permitted the rebels to recover from their first panic, and make effectual resistance, and the movement failed of success, and entailed heavy losses upon the troops engaged in it. Not disheartened by this failure. General Grant continued his operations with renewed energy. The battle of Deep Bottom, on the north side of the James, occurred on the 12th of August. The Second Corps alone was engaged, and dis- lodged the enemy from his position, taking five hun- dred prisoners, six cannon, and two mortars. On the 18th of August, the Fifth Corps (Warren’s) moved on Reams’s Station, on the Weldon road, surprised the rebel force guarding it, and took possession of the road. On the 19th a large rebel force attacked Warren with great impetuosity, and breaking the right center. The Union troops rallied, however, and being re-en-
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GENERAL U. S. GRANT.
forced by two divisions of the Ninth Corps, retrieved measurably the fortunes of the day, holding a part of the road, though with a loss of nearly 4,000 men.
During the next five weeks there were no move- ments of great importance in the vicinity of Richmond or Petersburg, though a little advance had been made by occasional attacks upon the enemy’s lines. On the night of the 28th September, General Ord crossed the James to the north side, and early on the morning of the 29th advanced on the intrenchments at Chapin’s farm, and carried them without serious loss, capturing nearly three hundred prisoners and fifteen pieces of artillery. General Birney, at the same time, moved up the Newmarket road, and carried the intrenchments there with perfect ease. The Union forces then took pos- session of Fort Harrison, and advanced as far as Laurel Hill. On the 30th, the rebels made a despe- rate effort to capture Fort Harrison, but failed, and the Union cavalry, on the 1st of October, made a reconnoissance within less than two miles of Rich- mond. On the 7th of October, the rebels attempted to turn the right flank of the Army of the J ames, but after some temporary success and some sharp fighting they were severely repulsed. On the 29th of October, General Grant ordered a reconnoissance in force against the rebel position at Hatcher’s Run. A severe battle ensued, with considerable loss on the part of the Union troops, but the position was held until General Grant ordered their withdrawal.
Dissatisfied with the inefficiency which had existed in the Shenandoah Valley, and Northern Virginia and Maryland, General Grant advised, in August, the or- ganization of a new and larger department, to be called the Department of the Shenandoah, and the
SHERIDAN AND SHERMAN.
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appointment of Major-General Philip II. Sheridan to its command. This was done, and after careful watch- ing of the enemy for some time, General Sheridan decided that the hour for action had come. lie had at this time under his command the Army of Western Virginia, and the Sixth and Nineteenth Corps. On the 19th of September was fought the battle known as that of Opequan Creek, in wliich, after a sharp contest. General Sheridan, by a brilliant cavalry charge, drove Early’s army from the field in confusion, capturing over 2,000 prisoners and a large number of guns. On the 22 d he attacked them again at Fisher’s Hill, routing them completely, capturing their artillery, horses, and ammunition, and pursued them as far as Staunton, caus- ing them a loss in the two engagements of over 10,000 men. On the 9th, the rebel General Posser attacked Sheridan again at Fisher’s Hill, but was grievously defeated. On the 19th of October, General Early attacked the Union forces again, when General Sheri- dan was absent, and in the morning defeated it, driving the Union troops three uniles, and taking twenty-four cannon ; but Sheridan coming up, rallied his men, re- formed them, and defeated the rebels in turn, utterly routing them, capturing fifty-four pieces of artillery, in- cluding all his own.
General Sherman had fulfilled, in the most brilliant manner, the work assigned to him. After a campaign of extraordinary vigor and many hard-fought battles, he took possession of Atlanta on the 2d of September. Hood, who was in command of the rebel force, rallying from his severe defeats, attempted to cut Sherman’s lines of communication with his base ; and Sherman giving him, for good reasons, every facility of doing so, sent General Thomas with two corps to the Tennessee
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GENERAL TJ. S. GRANT.
River to look after Hood, who was bv this time in :Alabama; and then,- tearing up the railroad between Atlanta and Chattanooga, and cutting loose from his base, started with a large force across the country, nearly three hundred miles, to Savannah, which was surrendered to him on the 22d of December.
Meantime, Hood rashly pushed on after Thomas, whose instructions were to draw him on, and after fight- ing a severe battle at Franklin, on the 30th of IsTovem- ber, in which he lost in killed, wounded, and prisoners, eighteen generals and about 7,000 of his troops, at- tempted to invest Nashville; but on the 15th of De- cember General Thomas attacked and routed him completely, pursuing him to the Tennessee River. Hood’s losses were about 17,000 men in these two en- o;aocements.
O O
An expedition was planned late in the season by General Grant against Wilmington, and sailed on the 13th of December from Hampton Roads, under the com- mand of General Butler, accompanied by a naval squadron under Rear-Admiral Porter. This expedition was unsuccessful, and the troops returned to City Point; but soon after a second expedition, under the command of General A. H. Terry, embarked for the same destination, and on the 15th of January captured Fort Fisher, and effectually sealed the harbor of Wil- mington. On the 6th of February, General Grant ordered another movement with four corps of the army to Hatcher’s Run, ^ith the intention of establishing his lines in closer proximity to the Weldon Railroad. The struggle was a desperate one, and on the second day the enemy was successful, as before, in finding a gap in the Union lines, through which he broke, causing a considerable loss ; but the Union soldiers were able the
THE SOUTHSIDE RAILROAD.
95
next day to regain the ground they had lost and hold it, and established themselv'es permanently four miles in advance of their previous position. On the 25th of ]\Iarch the rebels, by a sudden attack in mass, seized Fort Steadman, near Petersburg, and caj^tured the gar- rison ; but the Union troops, rallying promptly, retook the fort, and drove the rebels back, into and beyond their works, and the Sixth and Second Corps advancing at the same time, gained and held a portion of their lines. The Union loss in this affair was about 2,000 ; that of the rebels over 6,000, of whom 2,800 were prisoners.
On the 29th of March, the Union army was, by Gen- eral Grant’s order, put in motion, with a view to oc- cupying the Southside Railroad. For this purpose, he ordered General Sheridan, on the 29th of Marcli, to move Avith liis cavalry force (returned three days before from the great raid), by way of Reams’s Station to Din- Aviddie Court-House, and, threatening the Southside Rail-
road in the direction of Burkesville Junction, com ud Lee to send a force AvestAvard to protect it, and the Second and Fifth Corps, as in the previous attacks upon the line of the Southside Railroad, to cross, by the
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Yaughan and Halifax roads, Hatcher’s Hun, and en- deavor to gain possession of the Boydton plank road.
The movement was on a larger scale than any pre- vious one; and the weakness of the enemy, as de- veloped in the Fort Steadman afiair, gave promise of success. Portions of the Twenty-fourth and Twenty- fifth Corps, under command of General Ord, were brought across the river, and stationed along the line of the Vaughan road to maintain the connection be- tween the Sixth and Second Corps, in full strength. The first day the movement was successful. The cavalry reached Dinwiddie ; the Fifth Corps had a sharp fight for the possession of the Quaker road, but drove back the enemy ; the Second Corps had very little fight- ing. The 30th of March also passed without serious fighting, and the Fifth Corps had taken position on the White Oak road and the Boydton plank road, the Second Corps being near and within supporting dis- tance. On the 31st, the Fifth Corps, attempting to ' advance on the White Oak road, toward Five Forks, where the enemy were intrenched in large force, was met and attacked by a heavy body of rebel troops, and Crawford’s and Ayres’s divisions driven back in disor- der to the Boydton plank road, where Griffin’s division still held its position. Meantime, Miles’s division of the Second Corps, witnessing the rapid retreat, moved forward promptly, and, striking the enemy in flank, drove them back ; and Griffin, with so much of Ayres’s and Crawford’s divisions as could be rallied, following and attacking the rebels, forced them back, till at night- fall the Fifth Corps occupied nearly the same position as in the morning. But this temporary repulse had opened a passage through which another division of the rebel forces flung themselves with great fury upon
THE LAST CAMPATQX
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GENERAL IT. S. GRANT.
Sheridan’s cavalry, cutting oif for a time Merritt’s divi- sion from the remainder of the cavalry, and imperiling the whole. General Sheridan, however, took the com- mand in person, and rallying his troops, and placing them, dismounted, behind temporary barricades, suc- ceeded in r^ulsing the attacks of the rebels, and com- pelling them to desist. When it was too dark for longer fighting, both forces bivouacked on their arms, within a few hundred yards of each other.
The commander of the Fifth Corps, General G. K. Warren, had been ordered to report to'General Sheridan at midnight, March 31st, and General Grant had notified General Sheridan that he would do so. The cavalry commander was anxious for his assistance early, as he had made up his mind to defeat the rebels before him, and, driving them westward, to carry Five Forks by as- sault, the next day. As he did not appear. General Sheridan addressed him a note, dated 3, a. m., April 1st, requesting him to attack the rebel force, then in his front, in the rear at daylight, and he would attack them in front at the same time. General Warren, however, was delayed by the condition of the roads and the darkness, and could not get up in time. Sheridan, at daylight, charged the rebels Tn his front and drove them west of Chamberlain’s Creek, and met Warren and the Fifth Corps toward 8 o’clock, a. m., four or five miles north of Dinwiddie, and directed him to be ready to move on the enemy when he should receive orders. After a careful reconnoissance, Sheridan proceeded to invest Five Forks on two sides with his cavalry, and about two o’clock, p. m., ordered up the Fifth Corps to attack on the east side. The attack was not delivered with any great force, and once or twice the troops were repulsed, but they finally carried the intrenchments,
THE END APPROACHING.
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and the enemy were routed and driven westward. General Warren seems to have performed his duty well, though not with any great enthusiasm ; and the fiery little Irish general, who did not see his best behavior, was dissatisfied with his moderation and relieved him of his command, putting General Griffin in his place. The next day the enemy were driven by Miles’s division of the Second Corps, and Crawford’s and Ayres’s of the Fifth, from a strong position which tliey held at the junction of the Wliite Oak and Claiborne roads, and pursued to Sutherland’s Station on the Southside Rail- road, and thence by a front and rear attack to the river road along the banks of the Appomattox.
Meantime, the troops which manned the lines around Petersburg had kept up a frequent and lieavy bombard- ment along the lines, and on the 2d of April the Sixth and Ninth Corps and the provisional corps assaulted the fortifications with great fury, and after a short but
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severe struggle broke through to the Southside Kail- road, and commenced tearing it up. They captured many i^risoners and guns in this bold assault, and of course rendered both Richmond and Petersburg un-
O
tenable. During the night both were evacuated, and were occupied on the morning of the 3d of April by Union troops.
Not delaying to enter the vacated cities. General
Grant pressed on to capture the rebel general and his
•
army. The pursuit was unremitting, and after actions
of greater or less . extent at Deep Creek, Paine’s Cross-roads, Deatons ville, Farmville, and High Bridge over the Appomattox, and Appomattox Station, the rebels leaving at each point artillery, wagons, and sup- plies, on the 9th of April, General Lee surrendered his army to General Grant. The terms granted by the conqueror were liberal in the extreme. They were as follows : —
“Rolls of all the officers and men to be made in duplicate ; one copy to be given to an officer designated by General Grant, the other to be retained by such officers as General Lee should designate. The officers to give their individual paroles not to take arms against the United States until properly exchanged, and each company or regimental commander to sign a like parole for the men of their commands. The arms, artillery, and public property to be packed and stacked, and turned over to the officer appointed by General Grant to receive them. This not to embrace the side- arms of the officers, nor their private horses or bag- gage. This done, each officer and man to be allowed to return to their homes, not to be disturbed by United States authority so long as they observe their parole and the laws in foi’ce where they may reside.”
OTHER M0VE:MENT9.
101
The surrender perfected, General Grant passed through Richmond, and thence to Washington, whence on the evening of April 14th he took the train for Phil- adelphia to visit his family, and while on his way was overtaken by the sad intelligence of the assassination of the President, and returned immediately to the capi- tal.
Meanwhile, with that comprehensive grasp of mind which characterizes him, and that admirable perception of character which has always enabled him, when the choice was his, to select the men best adapted for car- rying out his plans. General Grant had been directing, in other quarters of the vast territory of the Union, im- portant movements, all tending to tlie one end of crush- ing the rebellion. Under his suggestion. General Sher- man had made his famous campaign of sixty days in the Carolinas, flanking Charleston and compelling its sur- render, capturing Columbia, Cheraw, Fayetteville, and in concert with Schofield and Terry (who had joined him after capturing the city of Wilmington), Goldsborough ; and having, after a fortnight’s delay to recruit, moved forward, had added Smithfield and Raleigh to his cap- tures, and held Johnston in a position where he must surrender. At the AYest, General Thomas, had sent a magnificent cavalry force under General AA^ilson to cap- ture Selma, Montgoihery, Columbus, Ga., AYest Point, Macon, &c.; an infantry force to aid General Canby in the department of the Gulf ; Schofield and the Army of the Ohio to assist in the reduction of AA’^ilmington ; and finally, Stoneman, with a large body of cavalry, through Southwest Virginia and AYestern North Carolina, to . attack Johnston and Lee in the rear; and this force, having thoroughly broken the Virginia and East Ten- nessee Railroad, had struck the North Carolina Railroad
102
GENERAL IT. S. GRANT.
above Salisbury, captured that place with all its stores, released its prisoners, and effectually barred Johnston’s further retreat. In the Southwest, General Canby, act- ing under his direction, in concert with the fleet under Admiral H. K. Thatcher, had, after a siege of about two weeks, captured Spanish Fort, . Blakely, and Mobile, the surrender being made on the 12th of April.
Tho last sad funeral rites for the martyred President were hardly passed, when a special messenger from Gen- ' eral Sherman brought to Washington a memorandum ' for a treaty between the rebel General Johnston and himself, for a complete cessation of hostilities and surren- der by all the armies of the rebels. A cabinet meeting was called, and although the consummation was greatly to be desired, the terms of the memorandum were re- garded as objectionable, and it was disapproved. Here- ‘ upon General Grant went immediat^ely to Raleigh, incog, ^ and after consultation with General Sherman, finding Johnston desirous of surrendering on the terms which he had granted to Lee, directed General Sherman to make those terms to the rebel general, and accept the surrender without any reference to his presence. This matter settled, he returned to Washington, where a few days later he received the intelligence of the caj)ture of the rebel President.
A weary round of reviews, receptions, and felicita- tions followed. The grand armies of the East and West passed in review before the Lieutenant-General in Wash- ington, and were sent to their homes rejoicing. He visited Galena, and the people escorted him along the pavement he had wished to be mayor that he might repair, now in thorough order, to his old home, which- they had purchased, repaired, beautified, and furnished, and now presented to him. St. Louis received him
HONORS CONFERRED.
103
with more than presidential lionors. Philadelphia and Washington each presented him with an elegant resi- dence, and N^ew York, by the hands of its princely mer- cliants, gave him a hundred thousand dollars in Govern- ment bonds. To crown all these acknowledgments of his services, Congress created, in July, 1866, the grade of full General, and on the 25th of that month, he re- ceived a commission to a rank higher than that to which Washington attained.
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CHAPTER VIIL
General Grant not elated by the honors received — Reduces the army — Tries to keep on good terms with Johnson — Swinging round the circle — Suspension of Secretary Stanton — Grant, Sec- retary ad interim — Grant surrenders the position to Stanton — The President’s rage — The correspondence — Grant avows his sym- pathy with the Republicans — A candidate for the Presidency — The National Convention — The Republican Platform — Grant’s unanimous nomination — His reception of the intelligence — His letter of acceptance — His character and personal appearance.
Amid all the demonstrations of popular approbation, General Grant remained as utterly unmoved as when he sat upon his horse at Pittsburg Landing and calmly calculated the chances of the’ next day’s victory, in the midst of apparent defeat. He was one of those whom successes and honors could not elate, and no disaster could depress. In the autumn of 1865, he had made a hurried visit to the Southern States, but his known rank had prevented him from learning much that he desired to know. As soon as he could disengage him- self from the receptions and banquets which were pressed upon him, he gave his prompt and efficient attention to the reduction of the army to a peace establishment. The million of men under arms at the close of the rebellion dwindled rapidly until there were less than a hundred thousand left, and these were distributed at the points where they were most needed. The Freedmen’s Bureau was ably sustained. The rights of the newly enfranchised loyal men of the South were defended.
CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE PRESIDENT. 105
The moral influence of the nation gave new courage to the struggling republicans of Mexico, and Maximilian was soon compelled to surrender, and became a victim to his mad ambition to become emperor. * '
General Grant endeavored to keep on good terms with his constitutional commander-in-chief, and to co- operate with him in the restoration of peace and order. At the President’s invitation or quasi-ordier^ he accom- panied him in “ swinging round the circle but he could neither be commanded nor cajoled into indorsing his course or his excesses. When the President, sus- pended the Secretary of War, General Grant accepted the appointment of Secretary ad interim^ to save the office from being filled by some tool of the President, who would pervert it to thwart the reconstruction meas- ures of Cono^ress. His administration of it was admir- able. Economy was studied and combined with great effi- ciency. When, in January, 1868, the Senate decided that the President’s reasons for suspending Mr. Stanton were insufficient, and that he must be reinstated. General Grant, who had constantly maintained the closest friend- ship with the suspended Secretary, promptly relinquished the place to him, and reported to the President. That functionary was full of rage at this step on the part of General Grant, and in cabinet meeting and in private conversation charged him with a breach of faith. This, Grant desired. A correspondence ensued in which the frankness and manliness of the soldier were more than a match for the chicanery, the craft, and the bitterness of the President.
Up to this time a portion of the Republican party had been in doubt in regard to General Grant’s thorough adherence to their principles ; but the contents of these
letters, thus wrung from him, convinced them that he
6*
106
GENERAL JJ, S. GRANT.
was fully in accord with Congress on the question of re- construction, and that he could be trusted. Thencefor- ward there was no thought of any other candidate for the Presidency. i
During the whole impeachment trial, General Grant’s course was dignified and in the highest degree honora- ble. While fully convinced that the President deserved impeachment, he did not allow himself to express any opinion or exert any influence which could weigh either for or against Mr. Johnson, while the trial was in prog- ress.
At the National Union Republican Convention, held at Chicago, May 20th and 21st, 1868, the first action was the preparation and adoption of a platform of prin- ciples, which embodied in terse and lucid expression the views which animate and control the great Republican
party. They were the following : —
(
«
PLATFORM OP PRINCIPLES.
The National. Republican Party of the United States, assembled in
National Convention, in the city of Chicago, on the 21st day of
May, 1868, make the following Declaration of Principles : —
I. We congratulate the country on the assured success of the re- construction policy of Congress, as evinced by the adoption, in the majority of the States lately in rebellion, of Constitutions securing equal civil and political rights, to all, and it is the duty of the Gov- ernment to sustain those institutions and to prevent the people of such States from being remitted to a state of anarchy.
II. The guaranty by Congress of equal suffrage to all loyal men at the South was demanded by every consideration of public safety, of gratitude, and of justice, and must be maintained; while the ques- tion of suffrage in all the loyal States properly belongs to the people of those States.
III. We denounce all forms of repudiation as a national- crime ; and the national honor requires the payment of the public indebted-
REPUBLICAN PLATFORM.
107
ness in the utmost good faith to all creditors at home and abroad, not only according to the letter but the spirit of the laws under which it was contracted.
lY. It is due to the labor of the nation that taxation should bo equalized, and reduced as rapidly as the national faith will permit.
Y. The national debt, contracted, as it has been, for the preserva- tion of the Union for all time to come, should be extended over a fair period for redemption ; and it is the duty of Congress to reduce the rate of interest thereon, whenever it can be honestly done.
YI. That the best policy to diminish our burden of debt is to so improve our credit that capitalists will seek to loan us money at low- er rates of interest than we now pay, and must continue to pay so long as repudiation, partial or total, open or covert, is threatened or suspected.
YII. The Government of the United States should be administer- ed with the strictest economy ; and the corruptions which have been so shamefully nursed and fostered by Andrew Johnson, call loudly for radical reform.
Ylir. We profoundly deplore the untimely and tragic death of Abraham Lincoln, and regret the accession to the Presidency of An- drew Johnson, who has acted treacherously to the people who elect- ed him, and the cause he was pledged to support ; who has usurped high legislative and judicial functions; who has refused to execute the laws ; who has used his high office to induce other officers to ig- nore and violate the laws ; who has employed his executive powers to render insecure the property, the peace, liberty, and life of the cit- izen ; who has abused the pardoning power ; who has denounced the National Legislature as unconstitutional ; who has persistently and corruptly resisted, by every means in his power, every proper attempt at the reconstruction of the States lately in rebellion ; who has perverted the public patronage into an engine of wholesale cor- ruption ; and who has been justly impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and properly pronounced guilty thereof by the vote of thirty-five Senators.
IX. The doctrine of Great Britain and other European powers, that, because a man is once a subject he is always so, must be re- sisted at every hazard by the United States, as a relic of feudal times, not authorized by the laws of nations, and at war with our national honor and independence. Naturalized citizens are entitled
108
GENERAL U. S. GRANT.
to protection in all their rights of citizenship, as though they were native-born ; and no citizen of the United States, native or natural- ized, must be liable to arrest and imprisonment by any foreign pow- er for acts done or words spoken in this country ; and, if so arrest- ed and imprisoned, it is the duty of the Government to interfere in his behalf.
X. Of aU who were faithful in the trials of the late war, there were none entitled to more especial honor than the brave soldiers and seamen who endured the hardships of campaign and cruise, and im- periled their lives in the service of the country ; the bounties and pensions provided by the laws for these brave defenders of the na- tion, are obligations never to be forgotten ; the widows and orphans of the gallant dead are the wards of the people — a sacred legacy be- queathed to the nation’s protecting care.
XL Foreign immigration, which in the past has added so much to the wealth, development and resources and increase of power to this republic, the asylum of the oppressed of all nations, should be fos- tered and encouraged by a liberal and just policy.
XII. This Convention declares itself in sympathy with all op- pressed peoples struggling for their rights.
(The following resolutions were unanimously added.)
Resolved^ That we highly commend the spirit of magnanimity and forbearance with which men who have served in the rebellion, but who now frankly and honestly co-operate with us in restoring the peace of the country and reconstructing the Southern State govern- ments upon the basis of impartial justice and equal rights, are re- ceived back into the communion of the loyal people ; and we favor the removal of the disqualifications and restrictions imposed upon the late rebels in the same measure as their spii’it of loyalty will di- rect, and as may be consistent with the safety of the loyal people.
Resolved, That we recognize the great principles laid down in the immortal Declaration of Independence, as the true foundation of dem- ocratic government ; and we hail with gladness every effort toward making these principles a living reality on every inch of American soil.
This platform having been adopted by unanimous vote the next business in order was the nomination of a can-
NOMINATION FOE THE PEESIDENOY.
109
didate for the Presidency. It was proposed to nominate General Grant by acclamation, but the rules of the Con- vention not permitting this, the roll of the States and Territories was called, and each in succession cast its entire vote for him, and at the close the President of the Convention announced, “ You have six hundred and fifty votes, and you have given six hundred and fifty votes for Ulysses S. Grant.” Such unanimity on the first ballot has never occurred, we believe, except in the case of Washington.
On the reception of the intelligence in Washington, the General manifested no excitement or elation ; his principal anxiety seemed to be in regard to the platform, and on reading that, he declared that it met his hearty approval. To the addresses of congratulation made him from all quarters, he replied with exceeding brevity, and when the officers of the Convention who had 'been ap- pointed a committee to announce to him his nomination, called upon him, his oral reply was brief, but thoroughly appropriate. Ilis formal letter of acceptance of the nom- ination has hardly ever been excelled in terseness, pith, and comprehensiveness. It is as follows : —
To Gen. Joseph E. Hawlev, President National Union Repvhlican Convention: —
In formally accepting the nomination of the National Union Re- publican Convention of the 21st of May inst., it seems proper that some statement of views beyond the mere acceptance of the nomina- tion should be expressed. The proceedings of the Convention were marked with wisdom, moderation, and patriotism, and I believe ex- press the feelings of the great mass of those who sustained the coun- try through its recent trials. I indorse the resolutions. If elected to the office of President of the United States, it will be my endeavor to administer all the laws in good faith, with economy, and with the view of giving peace, quiet, and protection everywhere. In times
110
GENERAL U. S. GRANT.
like the present it is impossible, or at least eminently improper, to lay down a policy to be adhered to, right or wrong, through an adminis- tration of four years. New political issues, not foreseen, are con- stantly arising : the views of the public on old ones are constantly changing, and a purely administrative officer should always be left free to execute the will of the people. I have always respected that will, and always shall. Peace and universal prosperity — its sequence — with economy of administration, will lighten the burden of taxa- tion, while it constantly reduces the national debt. Let us have peace. With great respect, your obedient servant,
U. S. GRANT.
Washington, D. C., May 29, 1868.
There can be no question from his conduct, his acts, as well as his words, that General Grant is in full ac- cord with the Republican party ; that he fully approves of the action of their representatives in Congress in relation to reconstruction and impartial suffrage ; that he has no sympathy with repudiation or any measures looking that way ; that he is earnest in his determina- tion to protect our citizens of foreign birth in all their rights, and that he desires a permanent peace based on right and just principles. His strong common-sense, his clear judgment, his remarkable appreciation of character, and his skill in always selecting “ the right man for the right place,” his calmness and freedom from impulse, his steady tenacity of purpose, and his wonderful executive ability, are all traits which emi- nently fit him for the responsible position which, if his life is spared, he is evidently destined to fill.
In person General Grant is rather below the middle size, but of firm, well-knit figure, with a pleasant coun- tenance, a firmly-set mouth and chin, clear gray eyes, brown hair, and a full beard, inclined to auburn.
He is an admirable horseman, and has a passion for
HIS CHARACTER.
Ill
fine horses. He smokes almost incessantly ; but in- dulges in no other amusement or dissipation, save an occasional game of billiards. He is strictly temperate and abstemious, and it is the testimony of those com- posing his military family, that during the whole war no intoxicating drink passed his lips. Though quiet, reticent, and thoughtful, he is quick and prompt in ac- tion. His health is almost uniformly good, and he has a fine, vigorous constitution, and remarkable powers of endurance.
There is not a particle of jealousy in his composition. He accords most heartily to his lieutenants all the honors they can claim, and even turns honors meant for himself upon them. A man of less real greatness and magnanimity, placed in his position, would have winced under the encomiums showered upon Sherman and Sheridan, especially when comparisons not in his favor were drawn, as they have been ; but he only honors these brave generals the more.
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HON. SCHUYLER COLFAX.
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. CHAPTER I. . .
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•Mr. Colfax a representative man — His birth— His ancestry — The V child-wife — The young widow — His affection for his mother — Early school-days — His mother’s second marriage — Removal to the West — Schuyler a clerk — Removal to South Bend — Schuyler ^deputy Auditor — The debating society — “The gentleman from Newton” — Senate reporter — Contributes to newspapers— Becomes
editor and proprietor of the St. Joseph Valley Register — Embarrass-
* •
ments — Debts — Eire — Eventual ' success — The character of his paper— ’His abundant labor on it. *
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In Schuyler Colfax we have a representative man — a specimen of what free institutions will produce — whom we need not fear to compare with the best prod- ucts of any monarchy on the globe. He is essentially a man of the people ; of good arid honorable, but ' not of affluent lineage, inured to toil from, childhood, yet thoughtful and studious ; courteous and gentle to all, whether of high or lowly birth ; as thoroughly a gentle- man in manners as any man of either hemisphere ; elo- quent in debate, quick in perception, ready in thought and plan, but always frank, open, fair, and impartial ; a man of such magnetic nature that he draws all men to him inevitably, and unites them to his fortunes ‘‘as
114
nON. SCnUYLER COLE AX.
with hooks of steel;” in brief, a noble, high-minded, brave, generous, manly, Christian man.
Schuyler Colfax was born in North Moore Street, New York City, March 23, 1823. His grandfather. General William Colfax, had been, during the whole Revolutionary War, the commander of Washington’s body-guard, and is often mentioned in terms of regard and confidence by the General in his letters. He mar- ried, after the war, Hester Schuyler, a cousin of General Philip Schuyler, and his son was named from both parents, Schuyler Colfax. This son was early trained to business, and while yet young attained to a position of honor and trust in one of the New York City banks. His prospects being fair- for acquiring a fortune, he married, early in 1822, a young but beautiful girl, and, though his child-wife was but fifteen, the happy couple took upon them the cares of housekeeping in the quiet and retired suburb of New York City known as North Moore Street. Their bright hopes for the future were, however, destined to speedy disappointment, for, before the close of the year 1822, Mr. Colfax was called to die. In deep sorrow, and with but scanty provision for her support, the young widow remained in the house now become so sad and lonely, and in March, 1823, she gave birth to a son, upon whom, in remembrance of his dead father’s virtues, she bestowed his father’s name.
The child was healthy and joyous, affectionate in his disposition, ready and apt to learn, and so fond of his child-mother, that their intimacy and association seemed more like that of a loving boy for his elder sister, than of a child for his mother. It is worthy of note that this tender deference and afiection has grown with Mr. Col- fax’s groAVth, and strengthened with his strength, and nothing can be more beautiful than his chivalric cour-
REMOVAL TO THE WEST.
115
tesy to his mother, in public and in private, amid all the heavy responsibilities and cares of his exalted position.
The early school-days of young Colfax (all his school- days, indeed, for his attendance in scliools ceased with his tenth year) were passed in the school of the Public School Society, in Crosby Street, for in- those days Ward schools had not been dreamed of. “ He was,” says one of his schoolmates, now a prominent merchant in New York, ‘‘ a good scholar, quick to learn, and always at the head of his class,” and a fragile, daxen-haired boy, seemingly too delicate for the rough-and-tumble life of this work-a-day world.
When he Avas ten years old, his mother married again, her second husband being a J\[r. MattheAVS, the proprietor of a small store in NeAV York. He was soon attracted by the Avinning and pleasant Avays of his step- son, and took him, young as be was, into his store as a clerk. Here the hours for improvement were scanty ; but they were well improved, and while no duty Avas neglected, eA^ery leisure moment was occupied with books.
In 1836, Mr. Matthews, attracted bv the gloAvinor ac- counts then given of the beauty, fertility, and rapid growth of population in the valley of the St. Joseph River, in Southern Michigan and Northern Indiana, re- solved to emigrate thither Avith his family. The region was then mostly a Avilderness; but it is now the garden- spot of the Northwest. The Matthews family settled at first at Ncav Carlisle, St. Joseph County, Indiana, and here for four years Mr. MattheAvs conducted a coun- try store, and Schuyler Avas again a clerk. His oppor- tunities for self-improvement by study Avere some av hat greater than in NeAV York, for there were more and
116
HON. SCHITTLEK COLFAX.
longer intervals of leisure ; and though hooks were not abundant, yet so diligent a student managed to pick up more knowledge and culture than could have been expected.
In 1841, Mr. Matthews was elected county auditor, and removed to South Bend, the county seat. His step-son was appointed his deputy, and gave himself to the study of law, both in its general principles and its particular application to the duties of the auditor’s office, that he soon became an undisputed authority on all questions of local law.
A debating society was one of the inevitable institu- tions of a village like South Bend. The elements for a successful association of the kind were already there, and in a happy hour some one of its constituent members proposed to organize it on the model of a House of Repre- sentatives, rather than in the ordinary form. The propo- sition met with general approval, and Mr. J. D. Defrees, since Government Printer, then a young lawyer, was elected speaker; Schuyler Colfax was of course an active and interested member, and, as “ the gentleman from ISTewton,” took a prominent part in the debates, and young as he was, soon became authority in all matters of parliamentary law and usage. ' This was»in 1843, and for the two years following he was employed, during the winter, as Senate reporter, at Indianapolis, for the State Journal^ which had passed into the hands of his friend, Defrees. This aided him greatly in his mock legislature at home, and laid the foundation for that skill and readiness in deciding all parliamentary ques- tions, which have, with his other qualities, made him the ablest and most popular speaker of the National House of Representatives.
Meantime, he was casting about for a more permanent
A NEWSPAPER EDITOR.
117
• »
profession. The practice of law had no particular charm for him ; but he had already begun to be a valued con- tributor to the local paper of South Bend, and to the State Journal, He had, from the first, clear and logical views, and a happy, pleasant way of “ putting things,” that made his articles sought for. In 1845, before he had attained his twenty-second year, an opportunity came, which, improved, became the turning-point of his destiny. The local paper of South Bend, though at first conducted with ability, had latterly fallen off in interest and subscribers, till it had at this time a list of but two hundred and fifty. Young Colfax purchased it, and entered at once upon the severe and generally ill-paid drudgery of conducting a country newspaper. He had never learned the printer’s trade, but he acquired a suf- ficient familiarity with it in the years that followed, to be able to assist in getting* up the paper when help was scarce, or there had been unusual delay.
It was up-hill work at first. New subscribers came in, in considerable numbers, and advertisements increased; but it was the era of credit, and in the West, at least, the cash principle had not been adopted in the publica- tion of newspapers. So it happened that at the end of
the year, Mr. Colfax found himself embarrassed by a
»
heavy debt, which the amount due from his delinquent subscribers and advertisers would have enabled him to pay with ease, but which pressed heavily upon him. Eventually, he was able to lift this load, and his paper prospered ; but a few years later his office was burned, and, being uninsured, was a total loss. His popularity and credit enabled liim to go on again immediately, and in a short time he was more prosperous than ever.
From the first he directed all Ins energies to making a good paper. The St Joseph 'Valley Register (the
118
HON. SCHUYLER COLFAX.
name' he. gave it) was Whig in its politics ; but its col- umns were never .defiled by any scurrility, never sullied by any coarseness or discourtesy, in discussion of politi- cal themes. He was siyrrounded by Democratic papers which often attacked him with violent personal abuse ; but the most careful readers of his paper testify that he never rendered railing for railing. Always -dignified and gentlemanly in his editorials, he was also genial and humorous, and in that at first obscure country paper appeared some of the ablest editorial articles on great political questions, to be found in any paper in the country.
He made his paper, too, a suitable and popular one for the family. Temperance, and the pleasures and de- lights of the home circle, were duly remembered, and in process of time it came to pass that the Register was regarded throughout that entire region as- the best fami- ly paper published. All this was not accomplished with- out great and constant toil. Far into the lioiirs of night, this patient, industrious worker wrought, and disciplin- ing his mind by his constant thought and study, he hammered out, by his incessant labor, those- rare jewels of eloquence which have so often delighted both reader and hearer. For eighteen years he was thus engaged, and his careful and painstaking exertions eventually brought him reputation and a moderate competency.
%
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CHAPTER II.
Mr. Colfax a Whig in his early political career — A delegate to the National Convention of 1848 — Member of Constitutional Conven- tion— Nominated for Congress — Defeated because of his opposi- tion to the Black Laws — The Democratic majority greatly reduced — Secretary of National Convention of 1852 — The Democratic Con- gressman from his district — His vote on the Kansas-Nebraska Bill — Demand for Mr. Colfax — His election to Congress — Tho contest on the Speakership — Ilis first speech — His successive re-elections to Congress — The “ Butternut Ticket ” — Ilis solicitude for recruits — Ilis re-election — Elected Speaker — Repeated re- election to that office — Causes of his popularity — Measures ho advocated — His relations with Mr. Lincoln — His patriotism — “The Soldier’s Friend” — Soldiers’ Aid Societies — Christian Com- mission— His address to the House, in December, 1865 — His ex- pression of opinion on the question of universal suffrage.
Though a Whig, and deeply interested in the princi- ples of the Whig party before his majority, Mr. Colfax’s public political services did not begin till 1848, when he was chosen a delej^ate to the AVhiof National Con- vention which nominated General Taylor for the Presi- dency. On taking his seat in that convention, he was made one of its secretaries. He worked zealously for Gen- eral Taylor’s election, and had the happiness of know- ing that his labors aided in aclneving the success of his candidate. In 1850 he was elected a member of the con- vention which framed the present Constitution of Indi- ana. lie took an active part in its debates, and opposed with all his energy and ability the unmanly clause pro- hibiting free men of color from entering the State. In-
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HON. SCHUYLER COLFAX.
diana was, at this time, under strong pro-slavery influ- ences, and this atrocious measure was carried in the State by ninety thousand majority, receiving the in- dorsement of a majority of eight thousand in Mr. Col- fax’s own consrressional district. Yet, true to his con- victions, he voted against it, though he was at the. time a candidate for Congress, in a district which was demo- cratic by a thousand majority.
He had been nominated for Congress by the Whigs of that district, in 1851, and had for a competitor Dr. Graham iN*. Fitch, one of the most adroit and unprinci- pled democratic politicians and wire-workers in the West. Dr. Fitch believed that this vote of Colfax asrainst the “ Black Laws ” would be sufficient to defeat him, and he used it mercilessly against him throughout the canvass. But despite this shock to their prejudices, the vounsr editor had so won their confidence that Dr.
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Fitch’s previous majority of over a thousand dwindled to two hundred and thirty-eight.
In the National Whig Convention of 1852, Mr. Colfax was again a member and secretary, and in the presidential campaign which followed, he did his part, manfully, to secure the election of General Scott. He refused to be a candidate for the next Congress, and the wily Fitch, who had withdrawn from the canvass, from the appre- hension of defeat by his youthful competitor, was suc- ceeded by a Mr. Eddy, nominated as a Free Soil Demo- crat, who was carried in by a majority of nearly twelve hundred.