GENERAL GRANT.*
GENERAL GuAxr, the most successful soldier of the Secession War, is the first-born of parents residing in Clermont County, Ohio.
All here recorded of his father is that he was of Scotch descent, and that he dealt in leather ; and nothing is set down respecting the mother of the General, except that her maiden name was Simpson. The Christian names of the General are Hiram Ulysses, but the Congressman who gave the youth a nomination to West Point wrote him down Ulysses S. Grant, his comrades nicknamed him Uncle Sam, no efforts of his could induce the military authori- ties to correct the original error, and "U. S." he remained. Grant did not take a high place at the military academy ; he was twenty- first in a class of thirty-nine ; but like many others who have not shone in competitive examinations, he won distinction in the work of actual life, and obtained two brevet promotions for gallantry during the Mexican war. In 1848, when still a subaltern in a marching regiment, he married a Miss Dent, of St. Louis, but in 1854, after getting his company, he resigned his commission and took a farm. Six years afterwards he joined his father and brother, and took up with his old business as leather-seller at Galena. In this situation he was not destined to remain. The fall of Sumter in 1861 caused Grant to volunteer, and twelve days after Anderson struck his flag to the fierce Carolinians, Grant marched into Springfield, Illinois, at the head of a company which he had drilled at Galena. He offered his services to the Washington Government, but his letter was unanswered, and he owed his commission as Colonel of the 21st Illinois to Governor Yates. But at the begin- ning of August, while doing duty in Missouri, he learned from a newspaper that he had become a Brigadier-General of Volunteers. All the members from Illinois, not one of whom he knew, had recom- mended him for promotion. Such is the simple story of Grant's advent on the theatre of war.
General Fremont, then commanding the Western department, posted Grant in Cairo, at the mouth of the Ohio, and here he performed his first noteworthy exploit, the seizure of Paducah. The style of his proceedings is a key to his military character ; it manifests a keen eye for decisive points, great promptitude in action, and no fear of responsibility. General Polk—the fighting bishop—seized Columbus and Hickman, two important places on the Mississippi, the day before Grant reached Cairo. He foresaw that the next move of his episcopal antagonist would be to occupy Paducah, and thus close the navigation of the Ohio, Tennessee, and Cumberland, and he determined to be first in the field. On the 5th he telegraphed to Fremont, " I am getting ready to go to Paducah. Will start at six and a half o'clock." Later in the day he sent a second message. Getting no reply, he steamed off at the hour fixed ; the next morning at half-past eight he was master of Paducah, without having fired a shot ; having garrisoned the post, he returned to Cairo, and then only he received a telegram from Fremont directing him to take Paducah "if he felt strong enough." Fremont was a political general, he knew little of war, and was jealous of his professional subordinates. Had Fremont been a soldier, he would have allowed Grant more discretion; and in that case probably the Confederates would have been driven from Columbus at the outset of the war. The combat at Belmont in November was really fought as a diversion in order to prevent the passage of Confederate troops from Kentucky into Missouri. Here, again, Grant's real character came to light, dis- playing his coolness in danger, his indomitable will, and his readiness to make the very best fight he could under all circum- stances ; and there can be no doubt he saved his command by sheer force of character from impending ruin, rendered almost inevitable not by want of courage, but lack of discipline. In the eyes of the country Belmont did not raise the reputation of Grant, but the country, as usual, was totally ignorant of the facts, and quite unaware that the General had shown the highest military qualities, and had, although defeated, really secured the object of the movement. McClellan had become General-in-Chief on the Potomac, and Halleck had superseded Fremont in the West ; both were soldiers highly accomplished in the "bookish theoric " of their art, but too much under the dominion of European prece- dents; they were soldiers of talent, and the Republic required soldiers of genius who could apply the fundamental principles of Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, from April, 1861, to April, 1865. By Adam Badeau, Colonel and Aide-de-Camp to the General-in-Chief, Brevet Brigadier U.S. Army. Vol. L Appelton, New York, 1868.
re to the moral and physical circumstances of the country and time. Grant had studied the facts presented by his own partment ; he justly estimated the relative worth of the hostile mies ; and he fastened on the weak points iu the Confederate ition. But when he went to St. Louis and proposed to capture the forts on the Tennessee and Cumberland, Halleck rebuked him so sharply and rudely that Grant was almost convinced that he himself and not his learned superior was in the wrong. Halleck was really a pedant in warfare, he was rarely "ready," and always showed a decided fear of responsibility. Returning to his command, the whole force of the facts rushed afresh into Grant's mind, and he once more pointed out that the seizure of Forts Henry and Donelson was as imperative as it was feasible. But it was not until Commodore Foote endorsed the proposal that Halleck accorded his sanction. Fort Henry was rapidly reduced, and Grant, without a word of encouragement from Halleck, marched upon Fort Donelson. The capture of that strong place was effected, in the face of great obstacles, by a display of sterling soldiership. Grant had gone on board a gunboat to see Foote, who was wounded ; during his absence the Confederates had made a desperate sally, intent on breaking through the Union right, and escaping to Nashville. They would have succeeded, had they not, when each side was on the point of yielding, yielded first. But the pause was a lull, not a climax ; Grant, riding up, learned that the enemy's soldiers had come out with knapsacks, and haversacks filled with three days' provisions. " Then they mean to cut their way out ; they have no idea of staying here to fight us," he remarked ; and looking at the disordered style of his own ranks on the right, he exclaimed, " Whichever party first attacks now will whip, and the rebels will have to be very quick if they beat me." Encouraging his soldiers as he rode along, he dashed off to the left, persuaded the wounded Commodore to make a show of fight with his shattered gunboats, flung the whole of his left wing headlong upon the enemy, and won the day. That night the recreants Floyd and Pillow fled, leaving the task of surrendering to the soldier Buckner, an old West Point comrade of Grant's, and the next day the Union flag floated over Donelson. The success was decisive. It broke the whole Confederate line from Bowling Green to Columbus, and gave the Union the whole of West Tennessee and Kentucky. Nevertheless, Halleck, sitting at St. Louis, sent no word of cougratulation to Grant, so little did he understand the unobtrusive commander, and attributing the merit to Charles Smith, a subordinate, he advised the President to "make Smith a Major-General." Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Stanton saw more clearly than Halleck, and they made Grant a Major- General. Indeed, Halleck, who had been restraining the ardour of his brigadier, who had prevented him from seizing Columbus, who was for ever exclaiming, 'Don't be rash, fortify, wait for rein- forcements,' now, on the score that " hesitation and delay " were losing all, demanded, for himself, the command of the armies of the West. For the present the projects of Halleck failed.
Here we may note the beginning of the friendship of Grant and Sherman, which, up to this hour, remains unimpaired. No men ever entered upon national work with less selfish views. Each was anxious solely for the success of the patriotic cause, and ever ready to subordinate his own personal interests to the public good. Sherman, during the siege of Donelson, was in command at Cairo, and he applied his vast energy in support of Grant. Moreover, although senior as Brigadier, he offered to go and help in person if wanted, saying he would make no question of rank with Grant or Smith. After the victory, in reply to Sherman's warm con- gratulations and wishes for his new friend's promotion, Grant wrote, "I care nothing for promotion, so long as our arms are successful and no political appointments are made." The behavi- our of Halleck at this period is scarcely susceptible of any honour- able explanation. While Grant was exerting himself to the utmost and forwarding full reports to head-quarters, Halleck suddenly accused him of disobedience, declared he sent no reports, and, without waiting for a reply, sent a telegram to Washington denouncing Grant for neglect and inefficiency, and asking per- mission to set Charles Smith above him. That permission was granted; more bullying telegrams arrived from Halleck, and Grant asked to be relieved from duty. In the meantime Halleck had got new light from somewhere, refused to relieve Grant, and sent him a copy of a letter which he had written to Washington amply vindicating all Grant's proceedings. The only reasonable explanation we can imagine is that Halleck acted on an anonymous letter, that it was McClellan who took upon himself to order Grant's temporary supersession, and that when the Government learned the facts they promptly compelled Halleck to do his subordinate justice. Between Grant and Charles Smith there was no misunderstanding of any kind ; it is worthy of remark that Grant was just as zealous during his disgrace as he had been before ; and when Smith learned that the stigma had been removed, lie wrote, " I am glad that you are to resume your old command, from which you were so unceremoniously and, as I think, unjustly stricken down." No feelings could animate patriot soldiers finer than those which swayed the personal conduct of Grant, Sherman, and Smith.
The great contest at Pittsburg Landing, or Shiloh, would pro- bably not have been fought hal not lialleck been moved to place Grant under a cloud of transitory censure. The position for the Union Army on the left or enemy's bank of the Tennessee would not, there is reason to believe, have been selected by Grant, whose instincts told him that until assured of a junction with General Buell his place was on the right bank. But when he returned to the army he found it encamped on the other side, and deemed it wiser to stay than retreat. Despite the deliberate judgment of Sherman, who has defended the choice of ground made by Smith during Grant's eclipse, we must remain constant to our opinion, long ago expressed, that the Union Army ought not to have been exposed to the risk of defeat in detail. One-half was on the left, one-half, Buell's army, still en route, on the right bank, while the Confederate Chief, Sydney Johnston, an able man, had concen- trated everything at Corinth. We shall not fight this battle over again, although the theme is tempting, but simply remark that Grant's obstinacy saved the Union Army. At the very worst moment of the engagement, when the Union troops were huddled around the landing, and all looked lost, Buell arrived, having ridden in advance of his soldiers. Buell asked " What prepara- tions have you made for retreating, General ?" The reply was prompt and decisive, " I haven't despaired of whipping them yet," an answer very characteristic of the most dogged fighter in the Union Army. lie did not win, but he did not lose ; and remem- bering Donelson, he gave orders at once for renewing the battle at daybreak. "I have often heard him declare," writes General Badeau, "that there comes a time in every hard-fought battle, when both armies are nearly or quite exhausted, and it seems impossible for either to do more. This he believed the turning- point,—whichever after first renews the fight is sure to win." Grant renewed the fight, and won. For the first time, after this battle, he acquired the conviction that the war would be intense and prolonged, and his biographer, assuring us that the belief developed his peculiar views on the conduct of the war, thus sets them forth :-
" He thought then, and remained firm in the conviction ever after- wards, that it was not extended territory, nor capital cities, nor fortified places, that should bo the prime objects of any commander's strategy ; for it had been proven that all these could be dispensed with by heroin and determined foes ; but that armies and men must become the points of attack ; that these should be pursued wherever they moved, regard- less, comparatively, of positions and forts ; that the armies must not only be defeated, but destroyed ; and that, therefore, the policy of merely outwitting or outmanceuvring the enemy, or forcing the evacuation of strongholds and the abandonment of territory, and allowing him thus to concentrate his real force, was unwise ; that every effort should be made to find and fight the rebel armies again and again, and that only when those armies were either subdued or annihilated would the rebellion end. Upon this idea he thereafter acted, as far as he had control. He did not underrate the value of places, but he was always willing to sacrifice thorn for armies. He did not depreciate the value of life, but ho thought that even life should be freely spent, if so the great object of the war could be attained. He believed, indeed, that life rapidly expended in a vigorous campaign would prove an economy of life in the end."
These views, formed at such an early stage, are creditable to the insight of the commander ; and, so far as the Government per- mitted, he acted upon them in subsequent years, until at last he was able to write with literal truth, "the only objectives now are the armies of Lee and Johnston," and to secure their surrender.
But the morrow of Shiloh found Grant in deep disgrace, for he was naturally considered responsible for the peril incurred, and men's minds, excited by preternatural suspicion, did not know that he had accepted a situation made for him by Halleck, and had really saved the Republic by his indomitable will. Halleck now obtained the goal of his ambition, the entire control of the armies in the Mississippi Valley. He gathered up 120,000 bayonets, the largest force ever assembled west of the Alle- ghenies ; but, wanting the daring of Grant and the originality of Sherman, he spent six weeks in marching fifteen miles ; and, although he did compel Beauregard to yield Corinth, the key of the valley on that aide, yet he allowed the Confederates to slip away. Worse than this, after the retreat of Beauregard, Halleck wasted the army by operating with detachments under indifferent commanders ; the Union troops were reduced to the defensive ; Vicksburg arose to bar the great river ; Bragg invaded Kentucky ; and the cause of the North was placed in bitter peril for a whole year. Grant and Sherman performed very useful services in West Tennessee, but neither were at that time understood. Political influences nearly succeeded in placing McClernand, an ambitious and very incompetent volunteer officer, in command, and the Union was within an ace of losing the services of the two men who were destined to close the war. Nevertheless fortune willed that Grant should remain, but not that be should carry out his own plans. There can now be no doubt that he would have advanced on Vicksburg from the rear, by moving boldly through the heart of Mississippi, had not the Aulic council at Washington insisted upon an attack from the river. Throughout the winter and part of the spring the troops were engaged in an amphibious campaign " against Vicksburg ; trying to dig canals in order to divert the Mississippi, and to push through intricate watercourses on the eastern bank ; the first, with the object of securing the aid of the fleet below, the second to turn the right flank of the enemy's defences, at Ilaine's Bluff, on the Yazoo. Grant had no faith in these expedients, but he obeyed orders sent from Washington. At this time, the spring of 1863, vehement efforts were made at Washington to procure Grant's recall, and his supersession by the incompetent McClernand. Even one of his warmest friends told Mr. Lincoln that the exigencies of the State demanded a fresh commander. The Presi- dent, who had begun to distrust civilian generals, replied, " I rather like the man ; I think we'll try him a little longer." That speech was the turning-point in the General's career. In three months he was master of Vicksburg and its defenders.
The story of the Vicksburg campaign is related in full and interesting detail, and any one who would form an adequate con- ception of the character of Grant should read this minute record. No General, not even Napoleon or Wellington, in his prime, ever worked harder than the nnpresuming, self-effacing, energetic officer whom President Lincoln wisely determined to try a little longer. His design was to transfer his troops overland to posts on the right bank below Vicksburg ; then to cross the river, a mile wide, establish himself in rear of the fortress, and act as oppor- tunity might determine. All Grant's Generals were opposed to the plan, and Sherman took especial and unusual pains to convince his friend of the peril he would incur ; but once resolved on, each subordinate wrought heartily at the work. Sherman's plan was the more scientific, but under the circumstances Grant's was the better. Sherman desired to operate from Memphis, by the line of the Yallabusha, and his scheme was strictly secundenz artem ; but Grant saw that to go back to Memphis would look like a retreat, and involve a loss of moral force; that there was some security in the very hazard he was prepared to run, and that he had all the advantage of the initiative, so precious to a soldier. It is this per- ception of the moral element in the problem and unfaltering adherence to his own solution which constitutes his great merit. He held no council of war, he revoked no orders, but laboured day and night to execute his design. Part of the troops had worked their way down the river, gunboats and transports had run past the batteries; McClernand, though stimulated by Admiral Porter, had missed opportunities of seizing Grand Gulf, a strong- hold at the mouth of the Big Black ; and Grant, forced to have his head-quarters at the front, had determined to go still lower down. Sherman had not started from Milliken's Bend, and Grant thought that it would be useful to have a demonstration against Haine's Bluff ; " but I am loath to order it," he wrote, " because it would be so hard to make our troops understand that only a demonstra- tion was intended, and our people at home would characterize it as a repulse." Besides, it would make Sherman appear as once more unsuccessful, and Grant felt that keenly ; but Sherman, to his glory, promptly replied, " I believe a diversion at Haine's Bluff is proper and right, and will make it, let whatever reports of repulses be made." Nothing, truly, could exceed the singleness of purpose shown by these noble soldiers. The men were not behind in self-devotion. The troops were ordered to take three rations as subsistence for five days, and make them last ; and they did it without a murmur. Grant's daring conceptions were too thorough for the Government at Washington, and they were greatly alarmed to learn that he had turned up the river,
instead of seeking a junction with Banks, then preparing to besiege Port Hudson. But Mr. Lincoln, General Halleck, and Mr. Stanton did not know the real situation, and that much must be said in excuse for their erroneous views. Grant was aware that Pemberton, in charge of Vicksburg, had a strong force in the place, and on the line to Jackson, and that Joseph Johnston was assembling another army in the interior. He knew also that Banks could not even promise to be before Port Hudson until the
10th of May, and that if he tried to co-operate directly with th, officer, Johnston and Pemberton would unite, and frustrate th whole operation. The principle on which the Union Genera acted was the sound one of modifying his plans with the change of circumstances. He saw that by rapid and decisive. movements he might strike in between Johnston and Pemberton, beat them in detail, and capture Vicksburg, or cut it off from the body of the Confederacy. But this involved the abandonment of a base of operations for a short time, and he had the courage to run a risk which usually unnerves every commander. Fortunately he was as prompt in action as he was in decision, and when Halleck telegraphed from Washington instructions to unite with Banks between Port Hudson and Vicksburg, Grant was happily beyond the reach of the despatch and on the high road to victory. Few operations are recorded in history more audacious in design than those of Grant, and they were executed with a skill and vigour which are very rare. He marched stealthily and swiftly upon his foes, who did not comprehend, until they were struck and routed, the deadly blows aimed at them. Threatening Pemberton, with one arm, he suddenly flung himself upon Johnston, defeated him, and destroyed the railway junction at Jackson. While Pemberton was on the march to join his chief, he unexpectedly found in his front nearly the whole of Grant's army, which had swiftly marched back from Jackson ; and had McClernand acted with even moderate resolution, Pemberton's army would have been utterly broken and destroyed at Champion's Hill. As it was, the result of the fight was most disastrous to the Confederate leader, and having endured great loss, he was pushed back rapidly over the Big Black, and ran a near risk of being cut off. On the 11th of May Grant had deliberately aban- doned his communications with Grand Gulf, and on the 18th, hav- ing in the interval fought four actions, routed two armies, captured several guns and thousands of prisoners, he had the gratification of looking on the Mississippi from the line of bluffs, Walnut Hills, which had so long defied approaches from the river. Rarely have seven days been better employed. Grant was with Sherman when the column struck the Walnut Hills, and the two soldiers gazed for a Moment on the goal of the campaign. " Sherman at last turned abruptly round, and exclaimed to Grant, Until this moment I never thought your expedition a success. I never could see the end clearly until now. But this is a campaign ; this is a success, if we never take the town.' The other, as usual, smoked his cigar and made no reply." The silent thinker who never but once held a council of war, the hard worker who never spared him- self, and inspired others with his own spirit of self-devotion, had cal- culated the issue, relying on prudent boldness, rapidity, and the high courage of his army. Sherman was the first to acknowledge the splendour of an achievement which he had not foreseen, which had secured his friend a place among great commanders, and which had done more than that,—served the national cause. The surrender of Vicksburg on the 4th of July, and the battle of Gettysburg, fought on the same day, were the turning-points in a long war, which the two men who watched the tawny flood of the Mississippi on the afternoon of the 18th of May, and saw that they were victors, were destined to close. Into the details we have not space to enter, but few campaigns contain more instructive lessons than that we have briefly recorded, and those who would con them may do so by studying the pages of General Badeau's work. One incident arising out of the fall of Vicksburg we must notice. During the war nothing was more common among the Confederate sympathizers in England, than the boast that all Southerners were gentlemen, and far superior in manners to their opponents. Here is a specimen of rude manners unequalled in any history. Grant had conceded generous terms to his enemies, and when he entered the town as a conqueror he did so with little parade and no fuss " He went direct to one of the rebel head-quarters, but there was no one to receive him, and he dismounted and entered the porch, where Pemberton sat with his Generals; they saluted Grant, but not one offered him a chair, though all had seats themselves. Neither the rank nor the reputation of their captor, nor the swords he had allowed them to wear, prompted them to this simple act of courtesy. Pemberton was especially sullen, both in conversation and behaviour. Finally, for very shame, one of the rebels offered a place to Grant. The day was hot and dusty ; he was thirsty from his ride and asked for a drink of water. They told him he could find it inside ; and, no one showing him the way, he groped in a passage until ho found a negro, who gave him the cup of cold water only, which his enemy had almost denied. When he returned his seat had been taken, and he remained standing during the rest of the interview, which lasted about half an hour."
After reading that anecdote the most prejudiced Confederate partizan can scarcely maintain that in manners the Confederate officers were the superiors of their own slaves. he volume before us closes with the termination of Grant's ttanooga campaign, where his vast administrative abilities, his n perception of the right thing to be done, his astuteness, his ull-dog tenacity, received fresh illustrations. But the story has often been told briefly, and we need only say that the student may read it in our author's pages with a fullness never presented before. As specimens of most excellent military workmanship, the campaigns of Vicksburg and Chattanooga will take a very high place in military history ; but the record of Grant's career, at this moment, will be most carefully studied by those who desire to form some conception of the character of a man who may be President of the United States. They will find in it great pru- dence, tempered by a Dantouesque audacity ; patience that never fails ; a cool temper rarely ruffled ; a habit of independent decision, and reliance on his own judgment ; not the slightest fear of respon- sibility; not a spark of vacillation ; keen attention to minute details, and a capacity for broad sagacious insight, above all, the rare faculty, so conspicuous in Wellington, of forming a just estimate of the facts which furnish the conditions of the problem and the sole basis of fruitful action. How far these characteristics, which have been made manifest in a military career of unusual brilliancy, are likely to mark their possessor in civil and political life yet remains to be determined. When Grant emerged from a trader's shop and took his place in the army, he was clearly deficient in ordinary cul- ture. Since then his mind has been developed and disciplined by varied experience and vast responsibilities. 'Ably only point of doubt," wrote Sherman, in March, 1864, " was in your knowledge of grand strategy and of books of science and history ; but, I con- fess, your common sense seems to have supplied all these." Will that marvellous common sense continue to supply the place of a defective political training? Let us hear Sherman on this point. At the end of December, 1863, he wrote these remarkable words to his comrade in arms :—
"Your reputation as a General is now far above that of any man living, and partizans will manceuvre for your influence ; but, if you can escape them, as you have hitherto done, you will be more powerful for good than it is possible to measure. You said that you were surprised at my assertion on this point, but I repeat that, from what I have seen and heard here, I am more and more convinced of the truth of what I told you. Do as you have heretofore done ; preserve a plain military character, and let others manceuvre as they will, you will beat them, not only in fame, but in doing good in the closing scenes of this war, when somebody must heal and mend up the breaches made by war."
The time has come when " somebody " is imperatively required to restore the health of the body politic. Is Hiram Ulysses Grant the man ?
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