Part 16

In 1837 Lincoln was licensed to practice law. He resolved to make his home in Springfield, lately made the capital of the state. He rode thither on a borrowed horse, carrying in a pair of saddle-bags all his personal effects,--“two or three law books and a few pieces of clothing.” One who knew him in those days describes him as a tall, gaunt, awkward figure; he wore a faded brown hat, a loose, ill-fitting coat, and trousers which were too short; in winter he added to this costume a short cloak or a shawl. In one hand he carried a carpet-bag containing his papers, and in the other a faded green cotton umbrella, tied with a string. Like the other lawyers of the place, he “traveled on the circuit,” going from one place to another to attend courts. He usually carried with him a book or two; rising earlier than his companions, he would sit by the fire to read and think. In later days when a young lawyer asked Lincoln’s advice as to the best method of obtaining a knowledge of law, he answered that it was “simple though laborious,” such knowledge must be gained by careful reading and study. “Work, work, work, is the main thing.”

Lincoln was popular with men and was known as an honest, kind-hearted fellow. He himself told the following anecdote: one day as he was riding along dressed in his best he saw a hog “mired up” beside the road. Unwilling to soil his clothes, he passed on. The poor animal gave a grunt which seemed to say, “There now, my last chance is gone.” Unable to resist the brute’s appeal, Lincoln went back and helped it out.

In 1842 Lincoln married Miss Mary Todd, a clever, well-bred woman, who forwarded his professional and political success. She lacked, however, the amiable temper which would have made a happy home; more and more her husband’s interest centered in public matters and in politics. In 1844 he gave his enthusiastic support to Henry Clay, the presidential candidate, who was “his ideal of a statesman.” Two years later Lincoln was elected to Congress; after serving a term, he retired from public life for awhile, devoting himself to his profession and to his studies.

In 1854 the repeal of the Missouri Compromise led him again to take an interest in politics. Lincoln was opposed to the extension of slavery, but he did not agree with the extreme abolitionists; he said that “loyalty to the Constitution and the Union” forbade interference with slavery where it was already established. In 1856 he was a member of the Convention at Bloomington, Illinois, which formed the Republican party, the object of which Lincoln said was “the preventing of the spread and nationization of slavery.”

He became the Republican candidate for senator in 1858 and made a famous speech in which he asserted that the Union could not endure, part free and part slave. “‘A house divided against itself cannot stand,’” he said. “I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, I do not expect the house to fall,--but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all the one thing or the other.” To a friend who objected to this utterance he said, “If I had to draw a pen across my record and erase my whole life from sight and I had one poor gift or choice left as to what I should save from the wreck, I should choose that speech and leave it to the world unerased.”

Lincoln was defeated by Douglas in this contest, but the eyes of the people were on him and in 1860 the Republican party made him its candidate for president. Some of the rails he had split were brought into the convention; the contest between free and slave labor was made an issue of the campaign. There were three other candidates in the field, and the division of votes in the old parties caused Lincoln to be elected. The southern people knew little about Lincoln personally; they knew, however, that he led the party which wished to destroy slavery. There had been so much disagreement and friction in the Union that some of the southern states now decided to leave it. The Constitution did not give the general government power to enforce a permanent union. In course of time there came to be held two different views about the Union,--one, generally held in the South, was that it was “a compact between sovereign states” and that the power of the state was supreme; the other, generally held in the North, was that the states made up one great nation to which belonged the supreme authority. The latter was the view held by Lincoln. He prepared for his inaugural address by studying the Constitution, Clay’s great speech of 1850, Jackson’s proclamation against nullification, and Webster’s reply to Hayne: locked in his dingy office he composed his inaugural address.

Before he left home, he paid a farewell visit to his aged step-parent who had been as a mother to him. Then with his wife and three sons, he set forth to Washington.

When he took the oath of office, it was over a divided Union. South Carolina had seceded and several other southern states had followed its example. Lincoln said, “the Union must be preserved” and he issued a call for seventy-five thousand soldiers. At this call there withdrew from the Union several states which loved the Union but believed in the supreme power of the states and the constitutional right of secession.

The reverse at Manassas distressed but did not daunt Lincoln. As commander-in-chief of the army and the navy, he appointed officers and supervised their movements. There were three great military tasks necessary for the northern forces,--to control the Mississippi River, to blockade southern ports, and to capture Richmond. The sea forces under Farragut and Porter successfully performed their tasks. In Virginia one unsuccessful or incompetent general after another was put forward and supported,--McClellan, Halleck, Pope, and Hooker. Meanwhile the great commanders, Grant, Sheridan, and Sherman, were fighting undiscovered in the west. At last they were brought forward and put at the head of magnificent armies to “end the job.”

As a military measure, in 1863, President Lincoln made the emancipation proclamation granting freedom to slaves. In November, of that year he made his famous address, consecrating the military cemetery at Gettysburg.

Not long before the presidential election of 1864, Lincoln issued a call for five hundred thousand soldiers; friends urged him to wait a few weeks as this call for troops might injure his chance of re-election. He refused saying, “What is the presidency worth to me if I have no country?”

In his second inaugural address are the famous words, “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in.” The end was already in sight. The capital of the Confederacy fell and Lee’s little army was forced to surrender. Lincoln expressed only sympathy for the defeated and desolate South. But his plans for reunion in peace and kindness were not to be carried out. Just as the great victory was accomplished he was struck down by the hand of an assassin, John Wilkes Booth. His death was an even greater loss to the South than to the North which mourned so bitterly, the heroic man of the people, the martyred president.

Ulysses Simpson Grant

April 27, 1822, was born Hiram Ulysses Grant, who by an error of which you will hear later had his name changed to Ulysses Simpson Grant. His father was Jesse Grant, an Ohio tanner. Grant’s ancestors had settled in New England in the seventeenth century and some had served in the French and Indian War and some had served in the Revolution, so he was of good American stock.

When Ulysses was about ten years old, his father moved to Georgetown, Ohio, about forty miles from Cincinnati. There he prospered and became the owner of a farm as well as a tannery. Ulysses was not specially fond of books, but his father was resolved that he should have a good education. The boy was sent regularly to school and was a faithful student. He had work to do at home too--sometimes in the tannery which he disliked, sometimes on the farm, which he liked better. He was fond of horses and learned to ride and drive well.

From the time he was eleven till he was seventeen, he did the plowing and hauling on his father’s farm. His father who seems to have been more ambitious for his son than the boy was for himself, secured an appointment to West Point. Ulysses did not wish to go and feared he could not pass the entrance examinations. But his father’s word was the law of the family and so the sandy-haired, blue-eyed lad of seventeen left his Ohio home to go to West Point. He lingered on the way to see the sights in Philadelphia and other places.

Two weeks after he left home, he reached West Point, in May, 1839. He passed the dreaded examinations and was enrolled among the cadets. The Congressman who had secured the appointment for him forgot his name and filled in the application for Ulysses Simpson Grant, and by that name he was called. The boys nicknamed him “Uncle Sam” and called him “Sam Grant.” He got on well in his studies, especially in mathematics which had always been his favorite. He was more famous as a horseman, however, than as a student. At West Point there is still shown the place where he made a famous leap of six feet, three inches, on a big horse named York. Except for his horsemanship the young Ohioan, quiet in manner and careless in dress, was not much noted one way or another. He was graduated, June, 1843, twenty-first in a class of thirty-nine.

In 1846 came war with Mexico which Grant then and forty years later thought “one of the most unjust wars ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation.” He had hoped for a place in the cavalry, but was sent in the infantry as second lieutenant.

He took part in many battles and distinguished himself by his coolness and courage under fire. In the battle of Monterey his regiment lacked ammunition and Lieutenant Grant volunteered to go for it to headquarters, four miles away. The route he had to travel was exposed to the enemy’s fire. He hung his foot on the saddle and held on to his horse’s mane; thus swinging on the horse’s side he galloped off and carried the message, returning unharmed.

In Mexico served many men and officers with and against whom he fought in the War between the States. He said afterwards that the knowledge of their character and methods which he gained during the campaign in Mexico was very useful. In the battle of Chapultepec, Grant, with the help of some comrades, dragged a small cannon up into the belfry of a church and used the place as a fort with great advantage. Major Robert E. Lee, in his report of the battle, commended the young lieutenant, saying that “Second Lieutenant Grant behaved with distinguished gallantry.” In 1848 Grant returned home and that year he was married.

Soon after, his regiment was ordered to California and Oregon. Unwilling to be separated from his family, in 1854 he resigned and came home. From his pay he had not been able to lay aside enough to defray his expenses home and these were paid by his father.

At thirty-two he had to begin the world with a wife and children to support. He moved to Missouri to a small tract of land belonging to his wife. Here he cut and hauled logs and split shingles and built a cabin. He named the place Hardscrabble, because, he said, life there was a “hard scrabble.” He worked diligently raising corn, wheat, and potatoes and cutting cord-wood for sale to help out his expenses, but he did not succeed as a farmer. At the end of three years, he was two thousand dollars in debt. Then he tried the real estate business but at that too he failed.

“Grant did not seem to be just calculated for business, but a more honest, generous man never lived,” said one who knew him in those days. “I don’t believe he knew what dishonor was.”

At last he gave up the struggle in Missouri and went to Galena, Illinois, where his brothers were carrying on a leather business. He began work in their shop as a clerk at six hundred dollars a year.

But he did not finish out the first year. The War between the States began. Grant helped to raise a company of soldiers in Galena and drilled them. As Colonel Grant, he was put in charge of the twenty-first Illinois regiment which he made the best regiment in the state. A little later he was made brigadier-general. After several skirmishes in the border states of Missouri and Kentucky, he went, in February, 1862, with seventeen thousand men and a fleet of gunboats to attack Fort Henry on the Tennessee and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland. Fort Henry was taken by the fleet before the army reached it, and then the land and water forces made ready to attack Fort Donelson. General Buckner, who had been with Grant in Mexico, wrote asking Grant for terms of surrender. “No terms other than an immediate and unconditional surrender can be accepted,” Grant replied. “I propose to move immediately upon your works.” As Buckner was unable to hold the fort, he had to surrender on these terms. Grant was now made major-general.

His next plan was to attack and break the base of Confederate railroad communications in northern Mississippi. For this purpose he marched towards Corinth. The Confederate general, Albert Sidney Johnston, instead of waiting to be attacked, threw his forces gallantly against the Federal army. The battle raged the whole day, without decisive results. That night General Buell brought Grant heavy reinforcements, and in the next day’s battle General Johnston was killed. The Confederates were forced back to Corinth, contending for every inch of ground.

Grant’s third move was to divide the Confederacy by getting command of the posts along the Mississippi River, thus cutting off the western base of supplies. The fleet under Farragut had tried to carry out this scheme. But Vicksburg and Port Hudson were both held by the Confederates, and between these they controlled the river and brought supplies from the west. Vicksburg, called “the Gibraltar of the Mississippi,” was strongly situated. In five battles Grant drove back the Confederate forces and in May, 1863, besieged Vicksburg, resolved to starve it into surrender. Many said that this was a foolish attempt and tried to persuade Lincoln to remove Grant, but Lincoln resolved to give him a chance. Grant closed in on the Confederates and cut off their line of supplies. In July General Pemberton asked for terms and received this answer: “The unconditional surrender of the city and the garrison. I have no terms other than these.” The taking of Vicksburg was a great victory for the Federals. President Lincoln wrote Grant a personal letter: “My dear General, I do not remember that you and I ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service you have done the country.... When you turned northward, I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make a personal acknowledgment that you were right and I was wrong. Yours very truly, A. Lincoln.” Those who had tried to get Grant removed saw that they too were wrong, but they lacked the president’s manly frankness and did not confess it.

Grant was given command of all the armies in the West. He went to Tennessee to relieve the division of the Union army under Rosecrans which the Confederates had hemmed up in Chattanooga. It was shut in by the Tennessee river on the north and by mountains on all other sides. Grant, with Sherman, Sheridan and other brave generals aiding him, marched up the mountain and fought a great battle on Lookout Mountain “above the clouds,” by which the troops in Chattanooga were relieved.

The title of Lieutenant-General, which Washington had borne, was revived for Grant, and he went to Washington in March, 1864, to receive his commission from Lincoln. The president said in giving it, “As the country herein trusts you, so, under God, will it sustain you.”

Lincoln had now found the general that he had been looking for, the man able to lead the magnificent Federal army of seven hundred thousand men. Grant went to Virginia, the battle-field of the Confederacy, where for three years Lee had held his own and defeated four generals sent with large armies against him. Grant resolved to break the Confederate lines and to capture Richmond. He thought that one cause of the lack of Federal success had been that the parts of the great army had not worked well together; he tried to make them move like the parts of a well-ordered machine. General Sherman was sent southward on a march to Savannah to lay the country waste so that no help could be sent to Lee’s troops. Sherman’s army covered a track of country sixty miles wide, in which railroads, bridges, houses, and provisions were destroyed.

It took Grant a year and it cost many lives to carry out his plan of overcoming Lee, but he never wavered. The two great generals fought one great battle after another. “I shall fight it out on this line if it takes all summer,” General Grant wrote after the battle at Spottsylvania Court House. Then came the desperate battle of Cold Harbor. After these battles the Federals received reinforcements to repair their losses, but none came to the southern army. There were none to come; even the old men and the boys were already in the field. On the second of April, 1865, the Confederates were forced to abandon Petersburg. Lee endeavored to withdraw his array but Grant followed close in the rear. After retreating seventy-five miles, the shattered, starving remnant of the Confederate army was surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House, April 9, 1865.

Instead of being detained as prisoners, the Confederate soldiers were released on parole and they were allowed to retain their horses.

“They will need them for their plowing and spring work,” said Grant with kindly wisdom.

“General,” said Lee earnestly, “there is nothing you could have done to accomplish more good either for them or for the government.”

To honor Grant for his services, Congress created for him the rank of general, a higher title than even Washington held. The joy of the North at Lee’s surrender was turned to mourning by the assassination of President Lincoln. This was an even greater calamity for the South than for the North. Lincoln was succeeded by Andrew Johnson and there followed a period of grave mismanagement,--especially of southern affairs. At one time Johnson was impeached--that is, tried for misconduct in office--and he lacked only one vote of being convicted.

Johnson wished to have Lee arrested and punished as a traitor. Grant said that “he had accepted Lee’s surrender and he and his soldiers were prisoners under parole and were not to be punished so long as they obeyed the laws to which they had sworn allegiance.”

In 1868 Grant was elected president as the candidate of the Republican party by a vote of two hundred and fourteen to eighty. He tried to withdraw the national government more and more from the South and to leave the state governments in control. He was re-elected in 1872 by two hundred and eighty-six votes, showing the people’s approval of his administration. A noteworthy act of his second term was his vetoing the bill for the inflation of the currency, making paper money legally equal to gold and silver.

People wanted him to serve a third term but he refused, and in 1877 started on a tour of the world. He visited Europe and Asia and was everywhere received with honor,--as the guest of Queen Victoria, the kings of Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, the Czar of Russia, and other rulers. Having received royal honors in many lands, he returned in 1880 to California where he had served thirty years before as an obscure young soldier.

His last years were burdened by business misfortunes and physical suffering. He had invested his money in a banking business which failed and involved him in ruin. With poverty came illness, a painful throat disease which was to end in death.

From his sickroom in answer to words of sympathy which came from all parts of the country, indeed of the world he sent this message: “I am very much touched and grateful for the sympathy and interest manifested in me by my friends and by those who have not hitherto been regarded as my friends. I desire the good will of all, whether heretofore friends or not.”

To make provision for his family, he set about writing his “Memoirs,” the story of his life and battles. In pain and illness, he toiled on and held death at bay till this work was finished, July 1, 1885. A few days later, he died on July 23. He was laid to rest beside the Hudson and over his remains was erected a magnificent marble tomb; over the doorway of this is inscribed his noble words, “Let us have peace.”

Robert E. Lee

The Leader of the Confederate Armies

More and more, Americans are coming to realize that in the great War between the States men on both sides were animated by a sense of duty and devotion to what they thought right. On the one side, brave, loyal-hearted men upheld the Union; on the other, men as brave and loyal upheld the supremacy of the state. You have read how Grant, the victor, won the love and reverence of his countrymen; no less loved and reverenced was his defeated opponent, the great Confederate leader, Lee.

Robert Edward Lee was born January 19, 1807, at Stratford, a handsome old country home in Virginia. His father, General Henry Lee, was the famous “Light Horse Harry” of the Revolution. When Robert was only four years old, General Lee moved to Alexandria in order to give his children the benefit of better schools. From childhood Robert was an apt and faithful student, careful to do his best at any task which he undertook. His childhood was darkened by the illness and death of his father. Robert cared tenderly for his invalid mother who said, “He is both son and daughter to me.”

From the school at Alexandria Robert went to West Point, where at the end of four years he was graduated second in his class. Two years after leaving West Point, he married Mary Randolph Custis, the daughter of Washington’s adopted son, Washington Parke Curtis. Lieutenant Lee and his wife made their home at Arlington, a stately mansion on the Potomac River, in sight of the city of Washington. Here he passed a few happy months. But a soldier cannot choose his post of duty, and Lee was summoned from home to engineer work in the West. Then came the war with Mexico in which he took part. In this war served as privates or officers many others destined to fame in the War between the States--Johnston, McClellan, Pickett, Grant, Jackson. Among his brave and able comrades, Lee made a distinguished record. In the advance on the city of Mexico, he explored and made a road over a pathless lava field across which he guided troops; then he rode back alone in the darkness and rain to report to his commanding officer. General Scott said that this midnight journey was the greatest deed of the war, and Lee “the greatest military genius in America.”