Part 34

He wrote at once a patriotic letter to his father-in-law, wherein he said, "I foresee the doom of slavery." He accompanied the company to Springfield, where his military experience was needed. Governor Richard Yates gave him work in the adjutant's office, then made him drill-master at Camp Yates; and as his efficiency became apparent he was appointed governor's aide, with rank of colonel. He mustered in several regiments, among them the 7th Congressional regiment at Mattoon. He made such an impression on this regiment that they named their camp in his honor, and about the middle of June sent a delegation of officers to ask that he be made colonel. Governor Yates reluctantly appointed him, and at the request of General John C. Fremont, the commander of the Department of the West, Grant's regiment (known as the 21st Illinois Volunteers) was ordered to Missouri. Colonel Grant marched his men overland, being the first commander of the State to decline railway transportation. His efficiency soon appeared, and he was given the command of all the troops in and about Mexico, Missouri. At this point he received a dispatch from E. B. Washburne, Congressman for his district, that President Lincoln had made him brigadier-general. He was put in command at Ironton, Missouri, and was proceeding against Colonel Hardee, when he was relieved from command by B. M. Prentiss and ordered to Jefferson City, Missouri. He again brought order out of chaos, and was ready for a campaign, when he was again relieved, and by suggestion of President Lincoln placed in command of a district with headquarters at Cairo, Illinois.

This was his first adequate command, and with clear and orderly activity he organized his command of nearly ten thousand men. On the 6th of September, learning that the Confederates were advancing on Paducah, he took the city without firing a gun, and issued an address to the people of Kentucky which led Lincoln to say, "The man who can write like that is fitted to command in the West." Early in November, in obedience to a command from Fremont, he fought the battle of Belmont, thus preventing General Polk from reinforcing Price in Missouri. This was neither a victory nor a defeat, as the purpose was not to hold Belmont.

In February 1862, with an army of twenty thousand men and accompanied by Commander Foote's flotilla, he took Fort Henry and marched on Fort Donelson. On the 16th of the same month he had invested Donelson and had beaten the enemy within their works. General Simon Buckner, his old classmate and comrade, was in command. He wrote to Grant, asking for commissioners to agree upon terms. Grant replied: "_No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works._" Buckner surrendered, and Grant's sturdy words flamed over the land, making him "Unconditional Surrender Grant." The whole nation thrilled with the surprise and joy of this capture, and the obscure brigadier-general became the hero of the day. He was made major-general, and given the command of the District of Western Tennessee.

On the 6th and 7th of April he fought the terrible battle of Shiloh, and won it, though with great loss, owing to the failure of part of his reinforcements to arrive. Immediately after this battle, General H. W. Halleck, who had relieved General Fremont as commander in the West, took command in person, and by a clever military device deprived Grant of all command; and for six weeks the army timidly advanced on Corinth. Corinth was evacuated by the enemy before Halleck dared to attack, and Grant had no hand in any important command until late in the year.

Halleck went to Washington in July, leaving Grant again in command; but his forces were so depleted that he could do little but defend his lines and stores. In January 1863 he began to assemble his troops to attack Vicksburg, but high water kept him inactive till the following April. His plan, then fully developed, was to run the battery with gunboats and transports, march his troops across the peninsula before the city, and flank the enemy from below. This superbly audacious plan involved cutting loose from his base of supplies and all communications. He was obliged to whip two armies in detail,--Johnston at Jackson, Mississippi, and Pemberton in command at Vicksburg. This marvelous campaign was executed to the letter, and on the third day of July, Pemberton surrendered the largest body of troops ever captured on this continent up to that time, and Grant became the "man of destiny" of the army. All criticism was silenced. The world's markets rose and fell with his daily doings. Lincoln wrote him a letter of congratulation. The question of making "the prop-hauler of the Gravois" general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States was raised, and all the nation turned to him as the savior of the republic.

He was made commander of all the armies of the Mississippi, and proceeded to Chattanooga to rescue Rosecrans and his beleaguered army. In a series of swift and dramatic battles he captured Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge. Wherever he went, victory seemed to follow. His calm demeanor never changed. He was bent on "whipping out the Rebellion." He was seen to be a warrior of a new sort. He was never malignant, or cruel, or ungenerous to his enemies; but he fought battles to win them, and the country now clamored for him to lead the armies of the Potomac against Lee, the great Southern general against whom no Northern general seemed able to prevail.

Early in March of 1864, Hon. E. B. Washburne introduced into Congress a bill reviving the grade of Lieutenant-General. It was passed by both houses with some discussion, and Lincoln conferred the title and all it implied upon Grant. He called him to Washington, and placed the whole conduct of the war in his hands. "I don't want to know your plans," he said. Grant became absolutely chief in command, and set forth at once to direct the Army of the Potomac in person, and to encompass Lee as he had captured the armies of Buckner and Pemberton. His aim was not to whip Lee, but to destroy his army and end the war. He began an enormous encircling movement which never for one moment relaxed. The Army of the Potomac retreated no more. It had a commander who never knew when he was beaten.

He fought one day in the Wilderness, sustaining enormous losses; but when the world expected retreat, he ordered an advance. He fought another day, and on the third day ordered an advance. Lincoln said, "At last I have a general." Grant never rested. After every battle he advanced, inexorably closing around Lee. It took him a year, but in the end he won. He captured Lee's army, and ended the war on the 9th of April, 1865. His terms with the captured general of the Southern forces were so chivalrous and generous that it gained for him the respect and even admiration of the Southern people. They could not forget that he was conqueror, but they acknowledged his greatness of heart. He had no petty revenges.

Nothing in human history exceeds the contrasts in the life of Ulysses Grant. When Lee surrendered to him, he controlled a battle line from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, composed of a million men. His lightest command had almost inconceivable power; and yet he was the same man who had hauled wood in St. Louis and sold awls and shoe-pegs in Galena,--he had been developed by opportunity. Personally he remained simple to the point of inconspicuousness. His rusty blouse, his worn hat, his dusty boots, his low and modest voice, gave no indication of his exalted position and his enormous power. At the grand review of the armies in Washington in May, he sat with musing eyes while the victorious legions passed him, so unobtrusive in the throng that his troops could hardly distinguish his form and face; and when he returned to Galena, his old home, he carried no visible sign of the power and glory to which he had won his way step by step, by sheer power of doing things so well that other and greater duties were intrusted to his keeping.

He presented a new type of soldier to the world. He was never vengeful, never angry in battle. When others swore and uttered ferocious cries, Grant remained master of himself and every faculty, uttering no oaths, giving his commands in full, clear, simple, dignified phrases. He hated conflict. He cared nothing for the pomp and circumstance of war; it was not glorious to him; and when it was all over he said, "I never want to see a soldier's uniform again."

He was the chief citizen of the republic at the close of the war, and when Lincoln was assassinated he was the mainstay of the republic. Every eye was turned upon him, and his calmness was most salutary upon the nation. He became inevitably a candidate for President, and was elected with great enthusiasm in 1868. In 1872 he was re-elected, and during his two terms his one great purpose was to reconstruct the nation. He did all that he could to heal the scars of war. He stood between the malignants of the North and the helpless people of the South, always patient and sympathetic. His administrations ran in turbulent times, and corruption was abroad in official circles, but there is no evidence that he was touched by it. His administration was attacked; he was acquitted.

In 1878, two years after his second term had ended, he went on a trip around the world, visiting all the great courts and kings of the leading nations. He received the most extraordinary honors ever tendered to one human being by his fellows, but he returned to Galena and to his boyhood home, the same good neighbor, just as democratic in his intercourse as ever. He never forgot a face, whether of the man who shod his horses or of the man who nominated him for President, though he looked upon more people than any other man in the history of the world.

In 1880 he mistakenly became a candidate for a third term, and was defeated. Shortly after this he moved to New York City, and became a nominal partner in the firm of Grant & Ward. His name was used in the business; he had little connection with it, for he was growing old and failing in health.

In May 1884, through the rascality of Ferdinand Ward, the firm failed, and General Grant lost every dollar he owned. Just before the crash, in the attempt to save the firm, he went to a wealthy friend and borrowed a large sum of money. After the failure the grim old commander turned over to his creditor every trophy, every present which had been given him by his foreign friends, even the jeweled favors of kings and queens and the swords presented to him by his fellow-citizens and by his soldiers; he reserved nothing. He became so poor that his pew rent became a burden, and the question of earning a living came to him with added force, for he was old and lame, and attacked by cancer of the tongue.

Now came the most heroic year of his life. Suffering almost ceaseless pain, with the death shadow on him, he sat down to write his autobiography for the benefit of his wife. He complained not at all, and allowed nothing to stand in the way of his work. He wrote on steadily, up to the very day of his death, long after the power of speech was gone, revising his proofs, correcting his judgments of commanders as new evidence arose, and in the end producing a book which was a marvel of simple sincerity and modesty of statement, and of transparent clarity of style. It took rank at once as one of the great martial biographies of the world. It redeemed his name and gave his wife a competency. It was a greater deed than the taking of Vicksburg.

In this final illness his thoughts dwelt much upon the differences between the North and the South. From Mt. McGregor, where he was taken in June 1885 to escape the heat of the city, he sent forth repeated messages of good-will to the South. In this hour the two mighty purposes of his life grew clearer in men's minds. He had put down the Rebellion, and from the moment of Lee's surrender had set himself the task of reuniting the severed nation. "Let us have peace," he said; and the saying had all the effect of a benediction.

He died on July 23rd, 1885, at the age of sixty-three; and at his grave the North and the South stood side by side in friendship, and the great captains of opposing armies walked shoulder to shoulder, bearing his body to its final rest on the bank of the Hudson River. The world knew his faults, his mistakes, and his weaknesses; but they were all forgotten in the memory of his great deeds as a warrior, and of his gentleness, modesty, candor, and purity as a man. Since then it becomes increasingly more evident that he is to take his place as one of three or four figures of the first class in our national history. He was a man of action, and his deeds were of the kind which mark epochs in history.

[Signature: Hamlin Garland]

EARLY LIFE

From 'Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant.' Copyright by Ulysses S. Grant, and reprinted by permission of the family of General Grant

In June 1821 my father, Jesse R. Grant, married Hannah Simpson. I was born on the 27th of April, 1822, at Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio. In the fall of 1823 we moved to Georgetown, the county seat of Brown, the adjoining county east. This place remained my home until at the age of seventeen, in 1839, I went to West Point.

The schools at the time of which I write were very indifferent. There were no free schools, and none in which the scholars were classified. They were all supported by subscription, and a single teacher--who was often a man or a woman incapable of teaching much, even if they imparted all they knew--would have thirty or forty scholars, male and female, from the infant learning the A B C's up to the young lady of eighteen and the boy of twenty, studying the highest branches taught--the three R's, "Reading, 'Riting, and 'Rithmetic." I never saw an algebra or other mathematical work higher than the arithmetic, in Georgetown, until after I was appointed to West Point. I then bought a work on algebra, in Cincinnati; but having no teacher, it was Greek to me.

My life in Georgetown was uneventful. From the age of five or six until seventeen, I attended the subscription schools of the village, except during the winters of 1836-7 and 1838-9. The former period was spent in Maysville, Kentucky, attending the school of Richardson and Rand; the latter in Ripley, Ohio, at a private school. I was not studious in habit, and probably did not make progress enough to compensate for the outlay for board and tuition. At all events, both winters were spent in going over the same old arithmetic which I knew every word of before, and repeating, "A noun is the name of a thing," which I had also heard my Georgetown teachers repeat until I had come to believe it--but I cast no reflections upon my old teacher Richardson. He turned out bright scholars from his school, many of whom have filled conspicuous places in the service of their States. Two of my contemporaries there--who I believe never attended any other institution of learning--have held seats in Congress, and one, if not both, other high offices; these are Wadsworth and Brewster.

My father was from my earliest recollection in comfortable circumstances, considering the times, his place of residence, and the community in which he lived. Mindful of his own lack of facilities for acquiring an education, his greatest desire in maturer years was for the education of his children. Consequently, as stated before, I never missed a quarter from school, from the time I was old enough to attend till the time of leaving home. This did not exempt me from labor. In my early days every one labored more or less, in the region where my youth was spent, and more in proportion to their private means. It was only the very poor who were exempt. While my father carried on the manufacture of leather and worked at the trade himself, he owned and tilled considerable land. I detested the trade, preferring almost any other labor; but I was fond of agriculture, and of all employment in which horses were used. We had, among other lands, fifty acres of forest within a mile of the village. In the fall of the year, choppers were employed to cut enough wood to last a twelvemonth. When I was seven or eight years of age, I began hauling all the wood used in the house and shops. I could not load it on the wagons, of course, at that time; but I could drive, and the choppers would load, and some one at the house unload. When about eleven years old, I was strong enough to hold a plow. From that age until seventeen I did all the work done with horses, such as breaking up the land, furrowing, plowing corn and potatoes, bringing in the crops when harvested, hauling all the wood, besides tending two or three horses, a cow or two, and sawing wood for stoves, etc., while still attending school. For this I was compensated by the fact that there was never any scolding or punishing by my parents; no objection to rational enjoyments, such as fishing, going to the creek a mile away to swim in summer, taking a horse and visiting my grandparents in the adjoining county, fifteen miles off, skating on the ice in winter, or taking a horse and sleigh when there was snow on the ground.

While still quite young I had visited Cincinnati, forty-five miles away, several times, alone; also Maysville, Kentucky,--often,--and once Louisville. The journey to Louisville was a big one for a boy of that day. I had also gone once with a two-horse carriage to Chillicothe, about seventy miles, with a neighbor's family who were removing to Toledo, Ohio, and returned alone; and had gone once in like manner to Flat Rock, Kentucky, about seventy miles away. On this latter occasion I was fifteen years of age. While at Flat Rock, at the house of a Mr. Payne, whom I was visiting with his brother, a neighbor of ours in Georgetown, I saw a very fine saddle horse which I rather coveted; and proposed to Mr. Payne, the owner, to trade him for one of the two I was driving. Payne hesitated to trade with a boy, but asking his brother about it, the latter told him that it would be all right; that I was allowed to do as I pleased with the horses. I was seventy miles from home, with a carriage to take back, and Mr. Payne said he did not know that his horse had ever had a collar on. I asked to have him hitched to a farm wagon, and we would soon see whether he would work. It was soon evident that the horse had never worn harness before; but he showed no viciousness, and I expressed a confidence that I could manage him. A trade was at once struck, I receiving ten dollars difference.

The next day, Mr. Payne of Georgetown and I started on our return. We got along very well for a few miles, when we encountered a ferocious dog that frightened the horses and made them run. The new animal kicked at every jump he made. I got the horses stopped, however, before any damage was done, and without running into anything. After giving them a little rest, to quiet their fears, we started again. That instant the new horse kicked, and started to run once more. The road we were on struck the turnpike within half a mile of the point where the second runaway commenced, and there was an embankment twenty or more feet deep on the opposite side of the pike. I got the horses stopped on the very brink of the precipice. My new horse was terribly frightened, and trembled like an aspen; but he was not half so badly frightened as my companion Mr. Payne, who deserted me after this last experience, and took passage on a freight wagon for Maysville. Every time I attempted to start, my new horse would commence to kick. I was in quite a dilemma for a time. Once in Maysville, I could borrow a horse from an uncle who lived there; but I was more than a day's travel from that point. Finally I took out my bandanna--the style of handkerchief in universal use then--and with this blindfolded my horse. In this way I reached Maysville safely the next day, no doubt much to the surprise of my friend. Here I borrowed a horse from my uncle, and the following day we proceeded on our journey.

About half my school days in Georgetown were spent at the school of John D. White, a North-Carolinian, and the father of Chilton White, who represented the district in Congress for one term during the Rebellion. Mr. White was always a Democrat in politics, and Chilton followed his father. He had two older brothers,--all three being schoolmates of mine at their father's school,--who did not go the same way. The second brother died before the Rebellion began; he was a Whig, and afterwards a Republican. His oldest brother was a Republican and brave soldier during the Rebellion. Chilton is reported as having told of an earlier horse trade of mine. As he told the story, there was a Mr. Ralston living within a few miles of the village, who owned a colt which I very much wanted. My father had offered twenty dollars for it, but Ralston wanted twenty-five. I was so anxious to have the colt, that after the owner left I begged to be allowed to take him at the price demanded. My father yielded, but said twenty dollars was all the horse was worth, and told me to offer that price; if it was not accepted I was to offer twenty-two and a half, and if that would not get him, to give the twenty-five. I at once mounted a horse and went for the colt. When I got to Mr. Ralston's house, I said to him, "Papa says I may offer you twenty dollars for the colt, but if you won't take that, I am to offer twenty-two and a half, and if you won't take that, to give you twenty-five." It would not require a Connecticut man to guess the price finally agreed upon. This story is nearly true. I certainly showed very plainly that I had come for the colt and meant to have him. I could not have been over eight years old at the time. This transaction caused me great heart-burning. The story got out among the boys of the village, and it was a long time before I heard the last of it. Boys enjoy the misery of their companions,--at least village boys in that day did, and in later life I have found that all adults are not free from the peculiarity. I kept the horse until he was four years old, when he went blind, and I sold him for twenty dollars. When I went to Maysville to school, in 1836, at the age of fourteen, I recognized my colt as one of the blind horses working on the tread-wheel of the ferry-boat.

I have described enough of my early life to give an impression of the whole. I did not like to work; but I did as much of it, while young, as grown men can be hired to do in these days, and attended school at the same time. I had as many privileges as any boy in the village, and probably more than most of them. I have no recollection of ever having been punished at home, either by scolding or by the rod. But at school the case was different. The rod was freely used there, and I was not exempt from its influence. I can see John D. White, the school-teacher, now, with his long beech switch always in his hand. It was not always the same one, either. Switches were brought in bundles from a beech wood near the schoolhouse, by the boys for whose benefit they were intended. Often a whole bundle would be used up in a single day. I never had any hard feelings against my teacher, either while attending the school or in later years when reflecting upon my experience. Mr. White was a kind-hearted man, and was much respected by the community in which he lived. He only followed the universal custom of the period, and that under which he had received his own education....