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 ULYSSES 
 GRANT 
 
 WALTER ALLEN 
 
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 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
®tie Htoerai&e Biographical &>ttit& 
 
 NUMBER 7 
 
 ULYSSES S. GRANT 
 
 BY 
 
 WALTER ALLEN 
 
ULYSSES S. GRANT 
 
 BY 
 
 WALTER ALLEN 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 mt fitoetfibe #«#, £ambrib0e 
 
 1901 
 
THE LIBRARY OF 
 
 CONGRESS, 
 Two Copies Received 
 
 APR. 29 1901 
 
 Copyright entry 
 
 (jLhn.T-q.tqo! 
 
 CLASS &> XXc. N» 
 COPY 9. 
 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY WALTER ALLEN 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. Our National Military Hero . . 1 
 
 II. His Ancestry 5 
 
 III. The Period of Youth . . . .11 
 
 IV. His Lifework Appointed . . 18 
 V. Love and War 26 
 
 VI. Years of Dormant Power . . 34 
 
 VII. The Summons of Patriotism . . 42 
 
 VIII. From Springfield to Fort Donelson 46 
 
 IX. Shiloh, Corinth, Iuka .... 57 
 
 X. Vicksburg 65 
 
 XL New Responsibilities — Chattanooga 77 
 XII. Lieutenant-General, Commander of 
 
 all the Armies ... .85 
 
 XIII. The Wilderness and Spottsylvania 95 
 
 XIV. From Spottsylvania to Richmond . 104 
 XV. In Washington among Politicians . 114 
 
 XVI. His First Administration . . . 123 
 
 XVII. His Second Administration . . 133 
 
 XVIII. The Tour of the World . . . 144 
 XIX. Reverses of Fortune — III Health — 
 
 His Last Victory — The End . 149 
 
ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 OUR NATIONAL MILITARY HERO 
 
 Since the end of the civil war in the 
 United States, whoever has occasion to name 
 the three most distinguished representatives 
 of our national greatness is apt to name 
 Washington, Lincoln, and Grant. General 
 Grant is now our national military hero. Of 
 Washington it has often been said that he 
 was " first in war, first in peace, and first in 
 the hearts of his countrymen." When this 
 eulogy was wholly just the nation had been 
 engaged in no war on a grander scale than 
 the war for independence. That war, in the 
 numbers engaged, in the multitude and re- 
 nown of its battles, in the territory over 
 which its campaigns were extended, in its 
 destruction of life and waste of property, in 
 
2 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 the magnitude of the interests at stake (but 
 not in the vital importance of the issue), was 
 far inferior to the civil war. It happens 
 quite naturally, as in so many other affairs 
 in this world, that the comparative physical 
 magnitude of the conflicts has much influ- 
 ence in moulding the popular estimate of the 
 rank of the victorious commanders. 
 
 Those who think that in our civil war 
 there were other officers in both armies who 
 were Grant's superiors in some points of 
 generalship will hardly dispute that, taking 
 all in all, he was supreme among the gen- 
 erals on the side of the Union. He whom 
 Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas, and Meade saw 
 promoted to be their commander, not only 
 without envy, but with high gratification, 
 under whom they all served with cordial 
 confidence and enthusiasm, cannot have been 
 esteemed by them unfit for the distinction. 
 If these great soldiers then and always ac- 
 claimed him worthy to be their leader, it is 
 unbecoming for others, and especially for 
 men who are not soldiers, to contradict their 
 judgment. 
 
OUR NATIONAL MILITARY HERO 3 
 
 Whether he was a greater soldier than 
 General Robert E. Lee, the commander-in- 
 chief of the army of the Confederate States, 
 is a question on which there may always be 
 two opinions. As time passes, and the pas- 
 sions of the war expire, it may be that wise 
 students of military history, weighing the 
 achievements of each under the conditions 
 imposed, will decide that in some respects 
 Lee was Grant's superior in mastery of the 
 art of war. Whether or not this comes 
 about, Lee can never supplant Grant as our 
 national military hero. He fought to de- 
 stroy the Union, not to save it, and in the 
 end he was beaten by General Grant. How- 
 ever much men may praise the personal vir- 
 tues and the desperate achievements of the 
 great warrior of the revolt against the 
 Union, they cannot conceal that he was the 
 defeated leader of a lost cause, a cause which, 
 in the chastened judgment of coming time, 
 will appear to all men, as even now it does 
 to most dispassionate patriots, well and for- 
 tunately lost. 
 
 In the story of Grant's life some things 
 
4 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 must be told that are not at all heroic. Much 
 as it might be wished that he had been what 
 Carlyle says a hero should be, a hero at all 
 points, he was not a worshipful hero. Like 
 ourselves all, he was a combination of quali- 
 ties good and not good. The lesson and en- 
 couragement of his life are that in spite of 
 weaknesses which at one time seemed to 
 have doomed him to failure and oblivion, he 
 so mastered himself upon opportune occa- 
 sion that he was able to prove his power to 
 command great and intelligent armies fight- 
 ing in a right cause, to obtain the confidence 
 of Lincoln and of his loyal countrymen, and 
 to secure a fame as noble and enduring as 
 any that has been won with the sword. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 HIS ANCESTRY 
 
 This hero of ours was of an excellent an- 
 cestry. Until lately, most Americans have 
 been careless of preserving their family rec- 
 ords. That they were Americans and of a 
 respectable line, if not a distinguished one, 
 for two or three generations back, was as 
 much of family history as interested them, 
 and all they really knew. This was espe- 
 cially true of families which had emigrated 
 from place to place as pioneers in the settle- 
 ment of the country. Family records were 
 left behind, and in the hard desperate work 
 of life in a new country, where everything 
 depended on individual qualities, and fore- 
 fathers counted for little in the esteem of 
 men as poor, as independent, and as aspiring 
 as themselves, memories faded and traditions 
 were forgotten. It was esteemed a condition 
 of the equality which was the national boast 
 
6 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 that no one should take credit to himself on 
 account of distant ancestry. Not until 
 Abraham Lincoln had honored his name by 
 his own nobility did anybody think it worth 
 while to inquire whether his blood was of the 
 strain of the New England Lincolns. 
 
 All that was known of the Grants in Ohio 
 was that Jesse, the father of Ulysses, came 
 from Pennsylvania. Jesse himself knew that 
 his father, who died when he was a boy, was 
 Noah Grant, Jr., who came into Pennsylva- 
 nia from Connecticut, and he had made some 
 further exploration of his genealogical line. 
 But this was more than his neighbors knew 
 or cared to know about the family, until a 
 son demonstrated possession of extraordinary 
 qualities, which set the believers in heredity 
 upon making investigation. The Grants 
 are traced back through Pennsylvania to 
 Connecticut, and from Connecticut to the 
 Massachusetts Bay Colony, where Matthew 
 Grant lived in 1630. He is believed to 
 have come from Scotland, where the Grant 
 clan has been distinguished for centuries on 
 account of its sturdy indomitable traits and 
 
HIS ANCESTRY 7 
 
 its prowess in war. The chiefs of the clan 
 had armorial crests of which the conspicuous 
 emblem was commonly a burning mountain, 
 and the motto some expression of unyielding 
 firmness. In one case it was, " Stand Fast, 
 Craig Ellarchie ! " in another, simply " Stand 
 Fast ; " in another, " Stand Sure." Some- 
 times Latin equivalents were used, as " Sta- 
 bit " and " Immobile." It is said that, as 
 late as the Sepoy rebellion in India, there 
 was a squadron of British troops, composed 
 almost entirely of Scotch Grants, who car- 
 ried a banner with the motto : " Stand Fast, 
 Craig Ellarchie ! " 
 
 If it be true that our General Grant came 
 from such stock, his most notable character- 
 istics are no mystery. It was in his blood 
 to be what he was. Ancestral traits reap- 
 peared in him with a vigor never excelled. 
 But they had not been quite dormant during 
 the intermediate period. His great-grand- 
 father, Captain Noah Grant, of Windsor 
 (now Tolland), Conn., commanded a com- 
 pany of colonial militia in the French and 
 Indian war, and was killed in the battle of 
 
8 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 White Plains in 1776. His grandfather 
 Noah was a lieutenant in a company of the 
 Connecticut militia which marched to the 
 succor of Massachusetts in the beginning 
 of the Revolution. He served, off and on, 
 through the war. 
 
 Regarding the circumstances of the re- 
 moval to Pennsylvania little is known. 
 The home was in Westmoreland County, 
 where Jesse R. Grant was born. Soon af- 
 terwards the family went to Ohio. When 
 Jesse was sixteen he was sent to Maysville, 
 Ky., and apprenticed to the tanner's trade, 
 which he learned thoroughly, and made the 
 chief occupation of his life. Soon after he 
 reached his majority he started in business 
 for himself in Ravenna, Portage County, 
 Ohio. In a short time he removed to Point 
 Pleasant, on the Ohio side of the Ohio 
 River, about twenty miles above Cincinnati. 
 Here he lived and prospered for many years, 
 marrying, in 1821, Hannah Simpson, daugh- 
 ter of a farmer of the place in good circum- 
 stances. The Simpsons were also of Scotch 
 ancestry, and of stout, self-reliant, industri- 
 
HIS ANCESTRY 9 
 
 ous, respectable character, like the Grants. 
 Thus in the parents of General Grant were 
 united strains of one of the strong races of 
 the world, — sound in body, mind, and soul, 
 and having in a remarkable degree vital 
 energy, the spirit of independence, and the 
 staying power which enables its possessors 
 to work without tiring, to endure hardships 
 with fortitude, and to accumulate a compe- 
 tence by patient thrift. This last ability 
 General Grant lacked. 
 
 These parents, like those of the majority 
 of Americans of the old stock, thought it no 
 dishonor to toil for livelihood, cultivating 
 their souls' health by performance of daily 
 duty in fidelity to God, their country, and 
 their home. Jesse R. Grant had slight op- 
 portunities of schooling, but he had no con- 
 tempt for knowledge. Throughout his life 
 he was a diligent reader of books and news- 
 papers, and was rated a man of uncommon 
 intelligence and of sound judgment in busi- 
 ness. He was an entertaining talker, and 
 a newspaper writer and public speaker of 
 local celebrity. Through his early manhood, 
 
10 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 while he lived in Ohio, he was a farmer, a 
 trader, a contractor for buildings and roads, 
 as well as a tanner. When he reached the 
 age of sixty, having secured a comfortable 
 competence, he retired from active business. 
 In his declining years he removed to Coving- 
 ton, Ky., near Cincinnati. Mrs. Grant was 
 a true helpmate, a woman of refinement of 
 nature, of controlling religious faith, being 
 from her youth an active member of the 
 Methodist Church, of strong wifely and ma- 
 ternal instincts. Her life was centred in 
 her home and family. Both these parents 
 lived to rejoice in the high achievement and 
 station of their son Ulysses. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE PERIOD OF YOUTH 
 
 Of such ancestry General Grant was born 
 April 27, 1822, in Point Pleasant, Ohio, and 
 was named Hiram Ulysses Grant. A pic- 
 ture of the house in which he was born shows 
 it to have been a small frame dwelling of 
 primitive character. Its roof, sloping to the 
 road in front, inclosed the two or three rooms 
 that may have been above the ground floor. 
 The principal door was in the middle of the 
 front, and there was one small window on 
 each side of it. Apparently there was a low 
 extension in the rear. This manner of house 
 immediately succeeded the primal log cabins 
 of the Western States, and such houses have 
 sufficed for the happy shelter of large fami- 
 lies of strong boys and blooming girls, as 
 sound in body and soul, if not so refined and 
 variously accomplished, as are reared in man- 
 sions of more pretension. Love, virtue, in- 
 
12 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 dustry, and mutual helpfulness made true 
 homes and bred useful citizens. 
 
 In the next year his parents removed to 
 the village of Georgetown, Ohio, in Brown 
 County, where the father continued his busi- 
 ness of tanner. There young Grant lived 
 until he became a cadet in the Military 
 Academy at West Point. His life was that 
 of other boys of like condition, with few un- 
 common incidents. Being the eldest of an 
 increasing f amily, it naturally happened that 
 he was required to perform a share of work 
 for its support, and to bear responsibilities. 
 In Ins early youth his employment was in 
 the farm work, and this he always preferred. 
 He had a native liking for the open air, and 
 enjoyed the smell of furrows and pastures 
 and woods more than that of reeking hides 
 in their vats. He was fond of all animals, 
 and especially delighted in horses, early de- 
 monstrating a surprising power in managing 
 them. He was locally noted for lus suc- 
 cess in breaking colts, and as a trainer of 
 horses to be pacers, those having this gait 
 being esteemed more desirable for riding, at 
 
THE PERIOD OF YOUTH 13 
 
 a time when a large part of all traveling was 
 done on horseback. As General Grant be- 
 came famous at a comparatively early age, 
 a large crop of stories of his early feats in 
 the subjection and use of horses was culti- 
 vated by persons who knew him as a boy. 
 Many of these, doubtless, are entirely credi- 
 ble ; few of them are so extraordinary that 
 they might not be true of any clever boy 
 who loved horses and studied their disposi- 
 tion and powers. 
 
 He was a lad of self-reliance, fertile in 
 resources, and of good judgment within cer- 
 tain limitations. Before he was fairly in his 
 teens his father intrusted to him domestic 
 and business affairs which required him to 
 go to the city of Cincinnati alone, a two- 
 days' trip. His own account of this period 
 of his life is : " When I was seven or eight 
 years of age I began hauling [driving the 
 team] all the wood used in the house and 
 shops. . . . 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. . . . While still young, I 
 
14 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 had visited Cincinnati, forty-five miles away, 
 several times alone; also Maysville, Ky., 
 often, and once Louisville. ... 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. . . . The rod was freely used there, 
 and I was not exempt from its influence." 
 
 But his knowledge of horses, of timber, 
 and of land was better than his knowledge 
 of men. He had no precocious " smartness," 
 as the Yankees name the quality which 
 enables one person to outwit another. His 
 credulity was simple and unsuspecting, at 
 least in some directions. This is illustrated 
 by a story which he has told himself, one 
 which he was never allowed to forget : — 
 
 " There was a Mr. Ralston, who owned a 
 colt which I very much wanted. My father 
 had offered twenty dollars for it, but Ral- 
 ston wanted twenty-five. I was so anxious 
 to have the colt that . . . 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- 
 
THE PERIOD OF YOUTH 15 
 
 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. Kalston's house, I said 
 to him : 4 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.' " This naive bargaining was 
 done when he was eight years old. Some 
 persons have thought it betokens a defect 
 in business acumen which was never fully 
 cured. 
 
 He learned his school tasks without great 
 effort. His parents were alive to the advan- 
 tages of education, and required him to at- 
 tend all the subscription schools kept in the 
 town. There were no free schools there 
 during his youth. He was twice sent away 
 from home to attend higher schools. It is 
 not recorded that he especially liked study 
 or disliked it. Probably he took it as a 
 part of life, something that had to be done, 
 and did it. He was most apt in mathemat- 
 ics. When he arrived at West Point he 
 
16 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 was able to pass the not very severe entrance 
 examination without trouble. He seems to 
 have had good native powers of perception, 
 reasoning, and memory. What he learned 
 he kept, but he was never an ardent scholar. 
 He had no enthusiasm for knowledge, nor, 
 indeed, so far as appears, for anything else 
 except horses. He used to fish occasionally, 
 but never hunted. The sportsman's tastes 
 were not his, nor were his social tastes de- 
 monstrative. Possibly they may have been 
 restrained in some measure by his mother's 
 strictness of religious principles. He was 
 neither morose nor brooding, — not a dreamer 
 of destiny. He yearned for no star. No 
 instinct of his future achievements made 
 him peculiar among his companions or caused 
 him to hold himself aloof. He exhibited 
 nothing of the young Napoleon's distemper 
 of gnawing pride. He was just an ordinary 
 American boy, with rather less boyishness 
 and rather more sobriety than most, dis- 
 posed to listen to the talk of his elders in- 
 stead of that of persons of his own age, and 
 fond of visiting strange places and riding 
 
THE PERIOD OF YOUTH 17 
 
 and driving about the country. His work 
 had made him acquainted with the subjects 
 in which grown men were interested. The 
 family life was serious but not severe. Obe- 
 dience and other domestic virtues were incul- 
 cated with fidelity ; but he said that he was 
 never scolded or punished at home. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 HIS LIFEWORK APPOINTED 
 
 When the boy was about seventeen years 
 old lie had made up his mind upon one mat- 
 ter, — he would not be a tanner for life. 
 He told his father, possibly in response to 
 some suggestion that it was time for him to 
 quit his aimless occupations and begin his 
 lifework, that he would work in the shop, 
 if he must, until he was twenty-one, but not 
 a day longer. His desire then was to be a 
 farmer, or a trader, or to get an education ; 
 but he seems to have had no definite inclina- 
 tion except to escape from the disagreeable 
 tannery. His father treated the matter 
 judiciously, not being disposed to force the 
 boy to learn a business that he would not 
 follow. He was unable to set him up in 
 farming. He had not much respect for the 
 river traders, and may have had little confi- 
 dence in the boy's ability to thrive in com- 
 petitions of enterprise and greed. 
 
HIS LIFEWORK APPOINTED 19 
 
 Without consulting his son, he wrote to 
 one of the United States Senators from 
 Ohio, Hon. Thomas Morris, telling him that 
 there was a vacancy in the district's repre- 
 sentation in West Point, and asking that 
 Ulysses might be appointed. He would not 
 write to the congressman from the district, 
 because, although neighbors and old friends, 
 they belonged to different parties and had 
 had a falling out. But the Senator turned 
 the letter over to the Congressman, who pro- 
 cured the appointment, thus healing a breach 
 of which both were ashamed. General 
 Grant gives an account of what happened 
 when this door to an education and a life 
 service was opened before him. His father 
 said to him one day: Ui Ulysses, I believe 
 you are going to receive the appointment.' 
 4 What appointment ? ' I inquired. ' To 
 West Point. I have applied for it.' 4 But 
 I won't go,' I said. He said he thought I 
 would, and I thought so too, if he did." 
 The italics are the general's. They make it 
 plain that he did not think it prudent to 
 make further objection when his father had 
 reached a decision. 
 
20 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 Little did Congressman Thomas L. Hamer 
 imagine that in doing this favor for his 
 friend, Jesse Grant, he was doing the one 
 thins: that would secure remembrance of 
 his name by coming generations. It did 
 not contribute to his immediate popularity 
 among his constituents, for the general opin- 
 ion was that many brighter and more deserv- 
 ing boys lived in the district, and one of 
 them should have been preferred. Neigh- 
 bors did not hesitate to shake their heads 
 and express the opinion that the appoint- 
 ment was unwise. Not one of them had 
 discerned any particular promise in the boy. 
 Nor were they unreasonable. He was with- 
 out other distinctions than of being a strong 
 toiler, good-natured, and having a knack 
 with horses. He had no aspiration for the 
 career of a soldier, in fact never intended to 
 stick to it. Even after entering West Point 
 his hope, he has said, was to be able, by rea- 
 son of his education, to get " a permanent 
 position in some respectable college, " — to 
 become Professor Grant, not General Grant. 
 
 In the course of making his appointment, 
 
HIS LIFEWORK APPOINTED 21 
 
 his name by an accident was permanently 
 changed. When Congressman Hamer was 
 asked for the full name of his protege to be 
 inserted in the warrant, he knew that his 
 name was Ulysses, and was sure there was 
 more of it. He knew that the maiden name 
 of his friend's wife was Simpson. At a ven- 
 ture, he gave the boy's name as Ulysses 
 Simpson Grant. Grant found it so recorded 
 when he reached the school, and as he had 
 no special fondness for the name Hiram, 
 which was bestowed to gratify an aged rela- 
 tive, he thought it not worth while to go 
 through a long red-tape process to correct 
 the error. There was another Cadet Grant, 
 and their comrades distinguished this one by 
 sundry nicknames, of which " Uncle Sam " 
 was one and " Useless " another. 
 
 When he arrived at West Point, in July, 
 1839, he was not a prepossessing figure of 
 a young gentleman. The rusticity of his 
 previous occupation and breeding was upon 
 him. Seventeen years old, hardly more 
 than five feet tall, but solid and muscular, 
 with no particular charm of face or manner, 
 
22 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 no special dignity of carriage, he was only a 
 common sort of pleb, modest, good-natured, 
 respectful, companionable but sober-minded, 
 observant but undemonstrative, willing but 
 not ardent, trusty but without high ambitions, 
 — the kind of boy who might achieve com- 
 mendable success in the academy, or might 
 prove unequal to its requirements, without 
 giving cause of surprise to his associates. 
 
 He had no difficulty in passing the ex- 
 amination at the end of his six months' pro- 
 bationary period, which enabled him to be 
 enrolled in the army, and he was never really 
 in danger of dismissal for deficient schol- 
 arship. He seems to have made no effort 
 for superior excellence in scholarship, and 
 in some studies his rank was low. Mathe- 
 matics gave him no trouble, and he says 
 that he rarely read over any of his lessons 
 more than once, which is evidence that he 
 had unusual power of concentrating his at- 
 tention, the secret of quick work in study. 
 This power and a faithful memory will en- 
 able any one to achieve high distinction if 
 he is willing to toil for it. Grant was not 
 
HIS LIFEWORK APPOINTED 23 
 
 willing to toil for it. He gave time to other 
 things, not in the routine prescribed. He 
 pursued a generous course of reading in 
 modern English fiction, including all the 
 works then published of Scott, Bulwer, 
 Marryat, Lever, Cooper, and Washington 
 Irving, and much besides. 
 
 The thing for which he was especially 
 distinguished was, as may be surmised, 
 horsemanship. He was esteemed one of the 
 best horsemen of his time at the academy. 
 But this, too, was easy for him. He appears 
 to have been on good terms with his fellows 
 and well liked, but he was not a leader 
 among them. He has said that while at 
 home he did not like to work. It must be 
 judged that his mind was affected by a cer- 
 tain indolence, that he was capable enough 
 when he addressed himself to any particular 
 task, but not self -disposed to exertion. He 
 felt no constant, pricking incitement to do 
 his best ; but was content to do fairly well, 
 as well as was necessary for the immediate 
 occasion. One of his comrades in the acad- 
 emy said in later years that he remembered 
 
24 ULYSSES SIMPSON GEANT 
 
 him as " a very uncle-like sort of a youth. 
 . . . He exhibited but little enthusiasm in 
 anything." 
 
 He was graduated in 1843, at the age of 
 21 years, ranking 21 in a class of 39, a 
 little below the middle station. He had 
 grown 6 inches taller while at the academy, 
 standing 5 feet 7 inches, but weighed no 
 more than when he entered, 117 pounds. 
 His physical condition had been somewhat 
 reduced at the end of his term by the wear- 
 ing effect of a threatening cough. It can- 
 not be said that any one then expected him 
 to do great things. The characteristics of 
 his early youth that have been set forth 
 were persistent. He was older, wiser, more 
 accomplished, better balanced, but in funda- 
 mental traits he was still the Ulysses Grant 
 of the farm — hardly changed at all. No 
 more at school than at home was his life 
 vitiated by vices. He was neither profane 
 nor filthy. His temperament was cool and 
 wholesome. He tried to learn to smoke, but 
 was then unable. It is remembered that 
 during the vacation in the middle of his 
 
HIS LIFEWORK APPOINTED 25 
 
 course, spent at home, he steadily declined 
 all invitations to partake of intoxicants, the 
 reason assigned being that he with others 
 had pledged themselves not to drink at all, 
 for the sake of example and help to one of 
 their number whose good resolutions needed 
 such propping. At his graduation he was a 
 man and a soldier. Life, with all its attrac- 
 tions and opportunities, was before. Phleg- 
 matic as he may have been, it cannot be 
 supposed that the future was without beck- 
 oning voices and the rosy glamour of hope. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 LOVE AND WAR 
 
 He had applied for an appointment in the 
 dragoons, the designation of the one regi- 
 ment of cavalry then a part of our army. 
 His alternative selection was the Fourth In- 
 fantry. To this he was attached as a brevet 
 second lieutenant, and after the expiration 
 of the usual leave spent at home, he joined 
 his regiment at Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis. 
 Duties were not severe, and the officers en- 
 tertained much company at the barracks and 
 gave much time to society in the neighbor- 
 hood. Grant had his saddle-horse, a gift of 
 his father, and took his full share in the 
 social life. A few miles away was the home 
 of his classmate and chum during his last 
 year at the academy, F. T. Dent. One of 
 Dent's sisters was a young lady of seventeen, 
 educated at a St. Louis boarding school. 
 After she returned to her home in the late 
 
LOVE AND WAR 27 
 
 winter young Grant found the Dent home- 
 stead more attractive than ever. 
 
 This was the time of the agitation regard- 
 ing the annexation of Texas, a policy to which 
 young Grant was strongly hostile. About 
 May 1 of the next year, 1844, some of the 
 troops at the barracks were ordered to New 
 Orleans. Grant, thinking his own regiment 
 might go soon, got a twenty-days leave to 
 visit his home. He had hardly arrived when 
 by a letter from a fellow officer he learned 
 that the Fourth had started to follow the 
 Third, and that his belongings had been for- 
 warded. It was then that he became con- 
 scious of the real nature of his feeling for 
 Julia Dent. His leave required him to 
 report to Jefferson Barracks, and although 
 he knew his regiment had gone, he construed 
 the orders literally and returned there, stay- 
 ing only long enough to declare his love and 
 learn that it was reciprocated. The secret 
 was not made known to the parents of the 
 young lady until the next year, when he re- 
 turned on a furlough to see her. For three 
 years longer they were separated, while he 
 
28 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 was winning honor and promotion. After 
 peace was declared, and the regiment had 
 returned to the States, they were married. 
 She shared all his vicissitudes of fortune 
 until his death. Their life together was one 
 in which wifely faith and duty failed not, 
 nor did he fail to honor and esteem her 
 above all women. Whatever his weaknesses, 
 infidelity in domestic affection was not one 
 of them. In all relations of a personal 
 character he reciprocated trust with the 
 whole tenacity of his nature. 
 
 In Louisiana the regiment encamped on 
 high ground near the Sabine River, not far 
 from the old town of Natchitoches. The 
 camp was named Camp Salubrity. In 
 Grant's case, certainly, the name was justi- 
 fied. There he got rid of the cough that 
 had fastened upon him at West Point and 
 had caused fears that he would early fall a 
 victim to consumption. In Louisiana he was 
 restored to perfect, lusty health, fit for any 
 • exertion or privation. He was regarded as 
 a modest and amiable lieutenant of no great 
 promise. The regiment was moved to Cor- 
 
LOVE AND WAR 29 
 
 pus Christi, a trading and smuggling port. 
 There the army of occupation (of Texas) 
 was slowly collected, consisting of about 
 three thousand men, commanded by Gen- 
 eral Zachary Taylor. Mexico still claimed 
 this part of Texas, and it was expected that 
 our forces would be attacked. But they 
 were not, and, as the real purpose was to 
 provoke attack, the army was moved to a 
 point opposite Matamoras on the Rio 
 Grande, where a new camp was established 
 and fortified. Previous to leaving Corpus 
 Christi, Grant had been promoted, Septem- 
 ber 30, 1845, from brevet second lieutenant 
 to full second lieutenant. The advance was 
 made in March, 1846. On the 8th of May 
 the battle of Palo Alto was fought, on the 
 hither side of the Rio Grande, in which 
 Grant had an active part, acquitting himself 
 with credit. On the next day was the bat- 
 tle of Resaca de la Palma, in which he was 
 acting adjutant in place of the officer killed. 
 One consequence of these victories was the 
 evacuation of Matamoras. War with Mex- 
 ico having been declared, General Taylor's 
 army became an army of invasion. 
 
30 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 Volunteers for the war now began coming 
 from the States. In August the movement 
 on Monterey began, and on the 19th of 
 September, Taylor's army was encamped 
 before the city. The battle of Monterey 
 was begun on the 21st, and the desperately 
 defended city was surrendered and evacuated 
 on the 24th. Grant, although then doing 
 quartermaster's duty, having his station with 
 the baggage train, went to the front on the 
 first day, and was a participant in the as- 
 sault, incurring all its perils, and volunteer- 
 ing for the extremely hazardous duty of a 
 messenger between different parts of the 
 force. 
 
 When General Scott arrived at the mouth 
 of the Rio Grande, Grant's regiment was 
 detached from Taylor's army and joined 
 Scott's. He was present and participated 
 in the siege of Vera Cruz, the battle of Cerro 
 Gordo, the assault on Churubusco, the storm- 
 ing of Chapultepec, for which he volunteered 
 with a part of his company, and the battle 
 of Molino del Rey. Colonel Garland, com- 
 mander of the brigade, in his report of the 
 
LOVE AND WAR 31 
 
 storming of Chapultepec, said : " Lieutenant 
 Grant, 4th Infantry, acquitted himself most 
 nobly upon several occasions under my own 
 observation." After the battle of Molino 
 del Key he was appointed on the field a first 
 lieutenant for his gallantry. For his con- 
 duct at Chapultepec he was later brevetted 
 a captain, to date from that battle, Septem- 
 ber 13, 1847. He entered the city of Mex- 
 ico a first lieutenant, after having been, as 
 he says, in all the engagements of the war 
 possible for any one man, in a regiment that 
 lost more officers during the war than it ever 
 had present in a single engagement. 
 
 Perhaps his most notable exploit was dur- 
 ing the assault on the gate of San Cosine, 
 under command of General Worth. While 
 reconnoitring for position, Grant observed 
 a church not far away, having a belfry. 
 With another officer and a howitzer, and 
 men to work it, he reached the church, and, 
 by dismounting the gun, carried it to the bel- 
 fry, where it was mounted again but a few 
 hundred yards from San Cosme, and did 
 excellent service. General Worth sent 
 
32 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 Lieutenant Pemberton (the same who in 
 the civil war defended Vicksburg) to bring 
 Grant to him. The general complimented 
 Lieutenant Grant on the execution his gun 
 was doing, and ordered a captain of volti- 
 geurs to report to him with another gun. 
 " I could not tell the general," says Grant, 
 " that there was not room enough in the 
 steeple for another gun, because he probably 
 would have looked upon such a statement as 
 a contradiction from a second lieutenant. 
 I took the captain with me, but did not use 
 his gun." 
 
 The American army entered the city of 
 Mexico, September 14, 1847, and this was 
 his station until June, 1848, when the Amer- 
 ican army was withdrawn from Mexico, 
 peace being established. There was no more 
 fighting. Grant was occupied with his 
 duties as quartermaster, and in making ex- 
 cursions about the country, in which and its 
 people he conceived a warm interest that 
 never changed. Upon returning to his own 
 country he left his regiment on a furlough 
 of four months. His first business was to 
 
LOVE AND WAR 33 
 
 go to St. Louis and execute his promise to 
 marry Miss Dent. The remainder of this 
 honeymoon vacation was spent with his fam- 
 ily and friends in Ohio. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 YEARS OF DORMANT POWER 
 
 Although he had done excellent service, 
 demonstrating his courage, his good judg- 
 ment, his resourcefulness, his ability in com- 
 mand, and in the staff duties of quarter- 
 master and commissary, his experience did 
 not kindle in him any new love for his pro- 
 fession, nor any ardor of military glory. He 
 had not revealed the possession of extraordi- 
 nary talent, nor any spark of genius. He 
 accounted the period of great value to him 
 in his later life, but his heart was never en- 
 listed in the cause for which the war was 
 made. His letters home declared this. 
 When he came to write his memoirs, speak- 
 ing of the annexation of Texas, he said : 
 " For myself I was bitterly opposed to the 
 measure, and to this day regard the war 
 which resulted as one of the most unjust 
 ever waged by a stronger against a weaker 
 
YEARS OF DORMANT POWER 35 
 
 nation. It was an instance of a republic 
 following the bad example of European 
 monarchies in not considering justice in their 
 desire to acquire additional territory. . . . 
 The Southern rebellion was largely the out- 
 growth of the Mexican war. ... We got 
 our punishment in the most sanguinary and 
 expensive war of modern times." 
 
 But the Mexican war changed Grant's 
 plan of life. While he was at Jefferson 
 Barracks he had applied for a place as in- 
 structor of mathematics at West Point, and 
 had received such encouragement that he 
 devoted much time to reviewing his studies 
 and extending them, giving more attention 
 to history than ever before. After the war 
 the notion of becoming a college professor 
 appears to have left him. He regarded 
 himself as bound to the service for the rest 
 of his days. It was not so much his choice 
 as his lot, and he accepted it, not because he 
 relished it, but because he discovered no 
 way out of it. This illustrates a negative 
 trait of his character remarked throughout 
 his career. He was never a pushing man. 
 
36 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 He had no self-seeking energy. The work 
 that was assigned to him he did as well as 
 he could ; but he had little art to recommend 
 himself in immodest ways. He had not the 
 vanity to presume that he would certainly 
 succeed in strange enterprises. He shrank 
 from the personal hostilities of ambition. 
 
 Then followed a long period of unevent- 
 ful routine service in garrisons at Detroit 
 and at Sackett's Harbor, until in the sum- 
 mer of 1852 his regiment was sent to the 
 Pacific coast via the Panama route. The 
 crossing of the isthmus was a terrible expe- 
 rience, owing to the lack of proper provision 
 for it and to an epidemic of cholera. The 
 delay was of seven weeks' duration, and about 
 one seventh of all who sailed on the steamer 
 from New York died on the isthmus of dis- 
 ease or of hardships. Lieutenant Grant, 
 however, had no illness, and exhibited a 
 humane devotion to the necessities of the 
 unfortunate, civilians as well as soldiers. 
 His company was destined to Fort Van- 
 couver, in Oregon Territory, where he re- 
 mained nearly a year, until, in order, he 
 
TEARS OF DORMANT POWER 37 
 
 received promotion to a captaincy in a com- 
 pany stationed at Humboldt Bay in Califor- 
 nia. Here he remained until 1854, when 
 he resigned from the army, because, as he 
 says, he saw no prospect of being able to 
 support his family on his pay, if he brought 
 them — there were then two children — 
 from St. Louis, where Mrs. Grant had re- 
 mained with her family since he left New 
 York. His resignation took effect, follow- 
 ing a leave of absence, July 31, 1854. 
 
 There was another cause, as told in army 
 circles, for his resignation. He had become 
 so addicted to drink that his resignation was 
 required by his commanders, who held it for 
 a time to afford him an opportunity to re- 
 trieve his good fame if he would; but he 
 was unable. Through what temptation he 
 fell into such disgrace is not clearly known. 
 But garrison posts are given to indulgences 
 which have proved too much for many an 
 officer, no worse than his fellows, but consti- 
 tutionally unable to keep pace with men of 
 different temperament. It might be thought 
 that Grant was one unlikely to be easily 
 
38 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 affected ; but the testimony of his associates 
 is that he was always a poor drinker, a small 
 quantity of liquor overcoming him. 
 
 He was now thirty-two years old, a hus- 
 band and father, discharged from the service 
 for which he had been educated, and with- 
 out means of livelihood. His wife fortunately 
 owned a small farm near St. Louis, but it 
 was without a dwelling house. He had no 
 means to stock it. He built a humble house 
 there by his own hard labor. He cut wood 
 and drew it to St. Louis for a market. In 
 this way he lived for four years, when he 
 was incapacitated for such work by an at- 
 tack of fever and ague lasting nearly a year. 
 There is no doubt that the veteran and his 
 family experienced the rigors of want in 
 these years; no question that neither his 
 necessities nor his duties saved him from 
 being sometimes overcome by his baneful 
 habit. 
 
 In the fall of 1858 the farm was sold. 
 Grant embarked in the real estate agency 
 business in St. Louis, and made sundry un- 
 successful efforts to get a salaried place 
 
YEARS OF DORMANT POWER 39 
 
 under the city government. But his fortunes 
 did not improve. Finally in desperation he 
 went in 1860 to his father for assistance. 
 His father had established two younger sons 
 in a hide and leather business in Galena, 111. 
 Upon consultation they agreed to employ 
 Ulysses as a clerk and helper, with the under- 
 standing that he should not draw more 
 than $800 a year. But he had debts in 
 St. Louis, and to cancel these almost as much 
 more had to be supplied to him the first 
 year. His father has told that the advance 
 was repaid as soon as he began earning 
 money in the civil war. 
 
 In Galena he was known to but few. 
 Ambition for acquaintance seemed to have 
 died in him. He was the victim of a great 
 humiliation and was silent. He avoided 
 publicity. He was destitute of presumption. 
 What brighter hopes he cherished were due 
 to his father's purpose to make him a part- 
 ner with his brothers. He heard Lincoln 
 and Douglas when they canvassed the State, 
 and approved of the argument of the former 
 rather than of the other. He had voted for 
 
40 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 Buchanan in 1856, his only vote for a Pre- 
 sident before the war. In 1860 he had not 
 acquired a right to vote in Illinois. 
 
 These thirteen quiet years of Grant's life 
 are not of account in his public career, but 
 they are a phase of experience that left its 
 deep traces in the character of the man. 
 He was changed, and ever afterwards there 
 was a tinge of melancholy and a haunting 
 shadow of dark days in his life that could 
 not be escaped. Nor in the pride and power 
 of his after success did he completely con- 
 quer the besetting weakness of his flesh. 
 The years from twenty-six to thirty-nine in 
 the lives of most men who ever amount to 
 anything are years of steady development 
 and acquisition, of high endeavor, of zealous, 
 well-ordered upward progress, of growth in 
 self-mastery and outward influence, of firm 
 consolidation of character. These conditions 
 are not obvious in the case of General Grant. 
 Had he died before the summer of 1861, be- 
 ing nearly forty years of age, he would have 
 filled an obscure grave, and those to whom 
 
 
YEARS OF DORMANT POWER 41 
 
 he was dearest could not have esteemed his 
 life - successful, even in its humble scope. 
 He had not yet found his opportunity : he 
 had not yet found himself. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE SUMMONS OF PATRIOTISM 
 
 The tide of patriotism that surged through 
 the North after the fall of Fort Sumter in 
 April, 1861, lifted many strong but dis- 
 couraged men out of their plight of hard 
 conditions and floated them on to better 
 fortune. Grant was one of these. At last 
 he found reason to be glad that he had the 
 education and experience of a soldier. 
 
 On Monday, April 15, 1861, Galena 
 learned that Sumter had fallen. The next 
 day there was a town meeting, where indig- 
 nation and devotion found utterance. Over 
 that meeting Captain Grant was called to 
 preside, although few knew him. Elihu B. 
 Washburn, the representative of the district 
 in Congress, and John A. Eawlins, a rude, 
 self-educated lawyer, who had been a farmer 
 and a charcoal burner, made passionate, fiery 
 speeches on the duty of every man to stand 
 
THE SUMMONS OF PATRIOTISM 43 
 
 by the flag. At the close of that meeting 
 Grant told his brothers that he felt that he 
 must join the army, and he did no more work 
 in the shop. How clearly he perceived the 
 meaning of the conflict was shown in a letter 
 to his father-in-law, wherein he wrote : " In 
 all this I can see but the doom of slavery." 
 
 He was offered the captaincy of the com- 
 pany formed in Galena, and declined it, al- 
 though he aided in organizing and drilling 
 the men, and accompanied them to the state 
 capital, Springfield. As he was about start- 
 ing for home, he was asked by Governor 
 Richard Yates to assist in the adjutant- 
 general's office, and soon he was given charge 
 of mustering in ten regiments that had been 
 recruited in excess of the quota of the State, 
 under the President's first call, in prepara- 
 tion for possible additional calls. His know- 
 ledge of army forms and methods was of 
 great service to the inexperienced state offi- 
 cers. 
 
 Later, but without wholly severing his 
 connection with the office, he returned home, 
 and wrote a letter to the adjutant-general 
 
44 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 of the regular army, at Washing-ton, briefly 
 setting forth his former service, and very re- 
 spectfully tendering his service "until the 
 close of the war in such capacity as may be 
 offered," adding, that with his experience he 
 felt that he was " competent to command a 
 regiment, if the President should see fit to 
 intrust one to him." The letter brought no 
 reply. He went to Cincinnati and tried, 
 unsuccessfully, to see General McClellan, 
 whom he had known at West Point and in 
 Mexico, hoping that he might be offered a 
 place on his staff. While he was absent 
 Governor Yates appointed him colonel of 
 the Twenty-First Regiment of Illinois In- 
 fantry, then in camp near Springfield, his 
 commission dating from June 15. It was a 
 thirty-day regiment, but almost every mem- 
 ber reenlisted for three years, under the 
 President's second call. Thus, two months 
 after the breaking out of the war, he was 
 again a soldier with a much higher com- 
 mission than he had ever held, higher than 
 would have come to him in regular order 
 had he remained in the army. 
 
THE SUMMONS OF PATRIOTISM 45 
 
 At Springfield he was in the centre of a 
 great activity and a great enthusiasm. He 
 met for the first time many leading men of 
 the State, and became known to them. Their 
 personality did not overwhelm him, famous 
 and influential as many of them were, nor 
 did he solicit from them any favor for him- 
 self. His desire was to be restored to the 
 regular army rather than to take command 
 of volunteers. When the sought-for oppor- 
 tunity did not appear, he accepted the place 
 that was offered, a place in which he was 
 needed ; for the first colonel, selected by the 
 regiment itself, had already by his conduct 
 lost their confidence. They exchanged him 
 for Grant with high satisfaction. 
 
CHAPTER Vin 
 
 FROM SPRINGFIELD TO FORT DONELSON 
 
 The regiment remained at the camp, near 
 Springfield, until the 3d of July, being then 
 in a good state of discipline, and officers and 
 men having become acquainted with com- 
 pany drill. It was then ordered to Quincy, 
 on the Mississippi River, and Colonel Grant, 
 for reasons of instruction, decided to march 
 his regiment instead of going by the rail- 
 road. So began his advance, which ended 
 less than four years later at Appomattox, 
 when he was the captain of all the victorious 
 Union armies, — holding a military rank 
 none had held since Washington, — and a 
 sure fame with the great captains of the 
 world's history. The details of this wonder- 
 ful progress can only be sketched in this lit- 
 tle volume. It was not without its periods 
 of gloom, and doubt, and check ; but, on the 
 whole, it was steadily on and up. 
 
SPRINGFIELD TO FORT DONELSON 47 
 
 His orders were changed at different times, 
 until finally he was directed to proceed with 
 all dispatch to the relief of an Illinois regi- 
 ment, reported to be surrounded by rebels 
 near Palmyra, Mo. Before the place was 
 reached, the imperiled regiment had deliv- 
 ered itself by retreating. He next expected 
 to give battle at a place near the little 
 town of Florida, in Missouri. As the regi- 
 ment toiled over the hill beyond which the 
 enemy was supposed to be waiting for him, 
 he " would have given anything to be back 
 in Illinois." Never having had the respon- 
 sibility of command in a fight, he really dis- 
 trusted his untried ability. When the top 
 of the hill was reached, only a deserted 
 camp appeared in front. " It occurred to me 
 at once that Harris had been as much afraid 
 of me as I had been of him. . . . From that 
 event to the close of the war," he says in his 
 book, " I never experienced trepidation upon 
 confronting an enemy, though I always felt 
 more or less anxiety. I never forgot that 
 he had as much reason to fear my forces as 
 I had [to fear] his." 
 
48 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 On August 7 he was appointed by the 
 President a brigadier-general of volunteers, 
 upon the unanimous recommendation of the 
 congressmen from Illinois, most of whom 
 were unknown to him. He had not won 
 promotion by any fighting ; but generals 
 were at that time made with haste to meet 
 exigent requirement, a proportional num- 
 ber being selected from each loyal State. 
 Among those whom General Grant ap- 
 pointed on his staff was John A. Rawlins, 
 the Galena lawyer, who was made adjutant- 
 general, with the rank of captain, and who 
 as long as he lived continued near Grant in 
 some capacity, dying while serving as Secre- 
 tary of War in the first term of Grant's pre- 
 sidency. He was an officer of high ability and 
 personal loyalty. He alone had the audacity 
 to interpose a resolute no, when his chief was 
 disposed to over-indulgence in liquor. He did 
 not always prevent him, but it is doubtful 
 whether Grant would not have fallen by the 
 way without the constant, imperative watch- 
 fulness of his faithful friend. There were 
 times when both army and people were im- 
 
SPRINGFIELD TO FORT DONELSON 49 
 
 patient with him, not wholly without reason. 
 Nothing saved him then but President Lin- 
 coln's confidence and charity. The reply to 
 all complaints was : " This man fights ; he 
 cannot be spared." 
 
 In the last days of August, having been 
 occupied, meantime, in reducing to order dis- 
 tracted and disaffected communities in Mis- 
 souri, he was assigned to command of a 
 military district embracing all southwestern 
 Missouri and southern Illinois. He estab- 
 lished his headquarters at Cairo, early in 
 September, and from there he promptly led 
 an expedition that forestalled the hostile in- 
 tention of seizing Paducah, a strategical point 
 at the mouth of the Tennessee River. This 
 was his first important military movement, 
 and it was begun upon his own initiative. 
 His first battle was fought at Belmont, Mo., 
 opposite Columbus, Ky., on the Mississippi 
 River, on November 7, 1861. Grant, in 
 command of a force of about 3000 men, 
 was demonstrating against Columbus, held 
 by the enemy. Learning that a force had 
 been sent across the river to Belmont, he dis- 
 
50 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 embarked his troops from their transports 
 and attacked. The men were under fire for 
 the first time, but they drove the enemy and 
 captured the camp. They came near being 
 cut off, however, through the inexperience 
 and silly recklessness of subordinate officers. 
 By dint of hard work and great personal 
 risk on the part of their commander, they 
 were got safely away. It was an all-day 
 struggle, during which General Grant had a 
 horse shot under him, and made several nar- 
 row escapes, being the last man to reem- 
 bark. The Union losses were 485 killed, 
 wounded, and missing. The loss of the 
 enemy was officially reported as 632. This 
 battle was criticised at the time as unneces- 
 sary ; but General Grant always asserted the 
 contrary. The enemy was prevented from 
 detaching troops from Columbus, and the 
 national forces acquired a confidence in them- 
 selves that was of great value ever after- 
 wards. Grant's governing maxim was, to 
 strike the enemy whenever possible, and 
 keep doing it. 
 
 From the battle of Belmont until Febru- 
 
SPRINGFIELD TO FORT DONELSON 51 
 
 ary, 1862, there was no fighting by Grant's 
 army. Troops were concentrated at Cairo 
 for future operations — not yet decided upon. 
 Major-General H. W. Halleck superseded 
 General Fremont in command of the depart- 
 ment of Missouri. Halleck was an able 
 man, having a high reputation as theoretical 
 master of the art of war, one of those who 
 put a large part of all their energy into the 
 business of preparing to do some great task, 
 only to find frequently, when they are com- 
 pletely ready, that the occasion has gone by. 
 When he was first approached with a propo- 
 sition to capture Forts Henry and Donelson, 
 the first on the Tennessee River, the other 
 on the Cumberland River, where the rivers 
 are only a few miles apart near the southern 
 border of Kentucky, he thought that it 
 would require an army of "not less than 
 60,000 effective men," which could not be 
 collected at Cairo " before the middle or last 
 of February." 
 
 Early in January General Grant went to 
 St. Louis to explain his ideas of a campaign 
 against these forts to Halleck, who told him 
 
52 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 his scheme was " preposterous." On the 
 28th he ventured again to suggest to Hal- 
 leck by telegraph that, if permitted, he could 
 take and hold Fort Henry on the Tennessee. 
 His application was seconded by flag officer 
 Foote of the navy, who then had command 
 of several gunboats at Cairo. On February 
 1, he received instructions to go ahead, and 
 the expedition, all preparations having been 
 made beforehand, started the next day, the 
 gunboats and about 9000 men on transports 
 going up the Ohio and the Tennessee to a 
 point a few miles below Fort Henry. After 
 the troops were disembarked the transports 
 went back to Paducah for the remainder of 
 the force of 17,000 constituting the expe- 
 ditionary army. The attack was made on 
 the 6th, but the garrison had evacuated, 
 going toward Fort Donelson, to escape the 
 fire of the gunboats. General Tilghman, 
 commanding the fort, his staff, and about 
 120 men were captured, with many guns and 
 a large quantity of stores. The principal 
 loss on the Union side was the scalding of 
 29 men on the gunboat Essex by the explo- 
 
SPRINGFIELD TO FORT DONELSON 53 
 
 sion of her boiler, pierced by a shell from 
 the fort. 
 
 Grant had no instructions to attack Fort 
 Donelson, but he had none forbidding him 
 to do it. He straightway moved nearly his 
 whole force over the eleven miles of dread- 
 ful roads, and on the 12th began investing 
 the stronghold, an earthwork inclosing about 
 100 acres, with outworks on the land and 
 water sides, and defended by more than 
 20,000 men commanded by General Floyd, 
 who had been President Buchanan's Secre- 
 tary of War. The investing force had its 
 right near the river above the fort. The 
 weather was alternately wet and freezing 
 cold. The troops had no shelter, and suf- 
 fered greatly. On the 14th, without serious 
 opposition, the investment was completed. 
 At three o'clock in the afternoon of the 
 14th, flag officer Foote began the attack, the 
 fleet of gunboats steaming up the river and 
 firing as rapidly as possible; but several 
 were disabled by the enemy's fire, and all 
 had to fall back before nightfall. The 
 enemy telegraphed to Richmond that a great 
 victory had been achieved. 
 
54 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 On the next day, Grant, riding several 
 miles to the river, met Foote on his gun- 
 boat, to which he was confined by a wound 
 received the day before. Returning, he 
 found that a large force from the fort had 
 made a sortie upon a part of his line, but 
 had been driven back after a severe contest. 
 It was found that the haversacks of the 
 Confederates left on the field contained 
 three days' rations. Instantly, Grant rea- 
 soned that the intention was not so much to 
 drive him away as to break through his line 
 and escape. He ordered a division that had 
 not been engaged to advance at once, and 
 before night it had established a position 
 within the outer lines of defense. Surrender 
 or capture the next day was the fate of the 
 Confederates. 
 
 During the night General Floyd and 
 General Pillow, next in command, and Gen- 
 eral Forest made their escape with about 
 4000 men. Before light the next morning, 
 General Grant received a note from General 
 S. B. Buckner, who was left in command of 
 the fort, suggesting the appointment of com- 
 
SPRINGFIELD TO FORT DONELSON 55 
 
 missioners to agree upon terms of capitula- 
 tion, and meanwhile an armistice until noon. 
 To this note General Grant sent the curt 
 reply : " No terms except an unconditional 
 and immediate surrender can be accepted. 
 I propose to move immediately upon your 
 works." General Buckner sent back word 
 that he was compelled by circumstances " to 
 accept the ungenerous and unchivalrous 
 terms " which had been proposed. 
 
 This victory electrified the whole North, 
 then greatly in need of cheer. General 
 Grant became the hero of the hour. His 
 name was honored and his exploit lauded 
 from one end of the country to the other. 
 It was not yet a year since he had been an 
 obscure citizen of an obscure town. Already 
 many regarded him as the nation's hope. 
 A phrase from his note to General Buckner 
 was fitted to his initials, and he was every- 
 where hailed as " Unconditional Surrender " 
 Grant. 
 
 In this campaign he first revealed the pe- 
 culiar traits of his military genius, clear 
 discernment of possibilities, comprehension 
 
56 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 of the requirements of the situation, strate- 
 gical instinct, accurate estimate of the 
 enemy's motive and plan, sagacious prompt- 
 ness of action in exigencies, staunch resolu- 
 tion, inspiring energy, invincible poise. For 
 his achievement he was promoted to be a 
 major-general of volunteers. He had found 
 himself now. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 SHILOH, CORINTH, IUKA 
 
 On the 4th of March, sixteen days after 
 his victory, he was in disgrace. General 
 Halleck ordered him to turn over the com- 
 mand of the army to General C. F. Smith and 
 to remain himself at Fort Henry. This action 
 of Halleck was the consequence partly of 
 accidents which had prevented communica- 
 tion between them and caused Halleck to 
 think him insubordinate, partly of false re- 
 ports to Halleck that Grant was drinking to 
 excess, partly of Halleck's dislike of Grant, 
 — a temperamental incapacity of appreci- 
 ation. After Donelson he issued a general 
 order of congratulation of Grant and Foote 
 for the victory, but he sent no personal con- 
 gratulations, and reported to Washington 
 that the victory was due to General Smith, 
 whose promotion, not Grant's, he recom- 
 mended. As to the reports of Grant's 
 
58 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 drinking, they were decisively contradicted 
 by Rawlins, to whom the authorities in 
 Washington applied for information. He 
 asserted that Grant had drunk no liquor 
 during the campaign except a little, by the 
 surgeon's prescription, on one occasion when 
 attacked by ague. The fault of failing to 
 report his movements and to answer inquiries 
 was later found to be due to a telegraph 
 operator hostile to the Union cause, who did 
 not forward Grant's reports to Halleck nor 
 Halleck's orders to Grant. 
 
 Grant's mortification was intense. Since 
 the fall of Donelson he had been full of ac- 
 tivities. The enemy had fallen back, his 
 first line being broken, and Grant was 
 scheming to follow up his advantage by 
 pushing on through Tennessee, driving the 
 discouraged Confederate forces before him. 
 He had visited Nashville to confer with 
 General Buell, who had reached that city, 
 and it was on his return that he received 
 Halleck's dispatch of removal. For several 
 days he was in dreadful distress of mind, and 
 contemplated resigning his commission. It 
 
SHILOH, CORINTH, IUKA 59 
 
 seemed as if Fate had cut off his career just 
 as it had gloriously begun. But he made 
 no public complaint. He obeyed orders and 
 waited at Fort Henry. To some of his 
 friends he said that he would never wear a 
 sword again. But on the 13th he was re- 
 stored to command. Halleck became aware 
 of the facts, and made a report vindicating 
 Grant's conduct, of which he sent him a copy. 
 It was not until after the war that Grant 
 learned that Halleck's previous reports had 
 caused his degradation. 
 
 His first battle after restoration to com- 
 mand was an unfortunate one in the begin- 
 ning, but was turned into a victory. He 
 was advancing on Corinth, Miss., a railroad 
 centre of the Southwest, where a large Con- 
 federate army under General Albert Sidney 
 Johnston was collecting. All the available 
 Union forces in the West were gathering* 
 to meet it. Grant had selected Pittsburg 
 Landing on the Tennessee River, twenty 
 miles from Corinth, as the place for landing 
 his forces, and Hamburg Landing, four miles 
 up the river, as the starting point for Buell's 
 
60 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 army in marching on Corinth. Buell was 
 hastening to the rendezvous, coming through 
 Tennessee with a large force. On the 4th 
 of April Grant's horse fell while he was 
 reconnoitring at night, and the general's leg 
 was badly bruised but not broken. 
 
 Expecting to make an offensive campaign 
 and meet the enemy at Corinth, he had not 
 enjoined intrenchment of the temporary 
 camp. So great was the confidence that 
 Johnston would await attack that the enemy's 
 proximity in force was discovered too late. 
 Johnston led his whole army out of Cor- 
 inth, and early on the morning of the 6th of 
 April surprised Sherman's division encamped 
 at Shiloh, three miles from Pittsburg Land- 
 ing, attacking with a largely superior force. 
 The battle raged all day, with heavy losses 
 on both sides, the Union army being gradu- 
 ally forced back to Pittsburg Landing. 
 Five divisions were engaged, three of them 
 composed of raw troops, and many regiments 
 were in a demoralized condition at night. 
 
 On the next day the Union army, rein- 
 forced by Buell's 20,000 men, advanced, at- 
 
SHILOH, CORINTH, IUKA 61 
 
 tacking the enemy early in the morning, with 
 furious determination. The Confederate 
 forces, although weakened, were determined 
 not to lose the advantage gained, and fought 
 with desperate stubbornness. But it was 
 in vain. A necessity of vindicating their 
 courage was felt by officers and men of the 
 Union Army. They had fully recovered 
 from the effects of the surprise, and pressed 
 forward with zealous assurance. Before the 
 day was done Grant had won the field 
 and compelled a disorderly retreat. In this 
 battle the commander of the Confederate 
 army, General Albert Sidney Johnston, was 
 killed in the first day's fighting, the com- 
 mand devolving on General G. T. Beaure- 
 gard. On the first day the Union forces on 
 the field numbered about 33,000 against the 
 enemy's above 40,000. On the second day 
 the Union forces were superior. The Union 
 losses in the two days were 1754 killed, 8408 
 wounded, and 2885 missing ; total 13,047. 
 Beauregard reported a total loss of 10,694, 
 of whom 1723 were killed. General Grant 
 says that the Union army buried more of the 
 
62 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 enemy's dead than is here reported in front 
 of Sherman's and McClernand's divisions 
 alone, and that the total number buried was 
 estimated at 4000. 
 
 The battles of Shiloh and Pittsburg Land- 
 ing together constitute one of the critical 
 conflicts of the long war. Had the Con- 
 federate success of the first day been re- 
 peated and completed on the second day, it 
 woidd have been difficult, if not impossible, 
 to prevent the enemy from possessing Ten- 
 nessee and a large part of Kentucky. 
 
 After this battle General Halleck came 
 to Pittsburg Landing and took command of 
 all the armies in that department. Although 
 General Grant was second in command, he 
 was not in General Halleck's confidence, and 
 was contemptuously disregarded in the direc- 
 tion of affairs. Halleck proceeded to make 
 a safe campaign against Corinth by road- 
 building and parallel intrenchments. He 
 got there and captured it, indeed, having 
 been a month on the way, but the rebel 
 army, with all its equipments, guns, and 
 stores, had escaped beforehand. Grant's po- 
 
SHILOH, CORINTH, IUKA 63 
 
 sit ion was so embarrassing that during Hal- 
 leck's advance he made several earnest ap- 
 plications to be relieved. Halleck would 
 not let him go, apparently thinking that he 
 needed to be instructed by an opportunity 
 of observing how a great soldier made war. 
 What Grant really learned was how not to 
 make war. 
 
 After the fall of Corinth he was permit- 
 ted to make his headquarters at Memphis, 
 while Halleck proceeded to construct defen- 
 sive works on an immense scale. But in 
 July Halleck was appointed commander-in- 
 chief of all the armies, with his headquar- 
 ters in Washington, and Grant returned to 
 Corinth. He was the ranking officer in the 
 department, but was not formally assigned 
 to the command until October. The inter- 
 mediate time was spent, for the most part, in 
 defensive operations in the enemy's country, 
 the great army that entered Corinth having 
 been scattered east, north, and west to vari- 
 ous points. Two important battles were 
 fought, by one of which an attempt to retake 
 Corinth was defeated. The other was at 
 
64 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 Iuka, in Mississippi, where a considerable 
 Confederate force was defeated. 
 
 In this period the energy and resource- 
 fulness of General Grant were conspicuous, 
 although nothing that occurred added largely 
 to his reputation. He was, however, gather- 
 ing stores of useful experience while operat- 
 ing in the heart of the enemy's country, 
 where every inhabitant, except the negroes, 
 was hostile. Both of the battles mentioned 
 above were nearly lost by failure of his sub- 
 ordinates to render expected service accord- 
 ing to orders ; but he suffered no defeat. The 
 service was wearing, but he was equal to all 
 demands made upon him. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 VICKSBURG 
 
 Vicksburg had long been the hard mili- 
 tary problem of the Southwest. The city, 
 which had been made a fortress, was at the 
 summit of a range of high bluffs, two hun- 
 dred and fifty feet above the east bank of 
 the Mississippi River, near the mouth of the 
 Yazoo. It was provided with batteries along 
 the river front and on the bank of the Ya- 
 zoo to Haines's Bluff. A continuous line of 
 fortifications surrounded the city on the crest 
 of the hill. This hill, the slopes of which 
 were cut by deep ravines, was difficult of 
 ascent in any part in the face of hostile de- 
 fenders. The back country was swampy 
 bottom land, covered with a rank growth of 
 timber, intersected with lagoons and almost 
 impassable except by a few rude roads. The 
 opposite side of the river was an extensive 
 wooded morass. 
 
66 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 In May, 1862, flag officer Farragut, com- 
 ing up the Mississippi from New Orleans, 
 had demanded the surrender of the city and 
 been refused. In the latter part of June he 
 returned with flag officer Porter's mortar 
 flotilla and bombarded the city for four 
 weeks without gaining his end. In Novem- 
 ber, 1862, General Grant started with an 
 army from Grand Junction, intending to 
 approach Vicksburg by the way of the Yazoo 
 River and attack it in the rear. But Gen- 
 eral Van Dorn captured Holly Springs, his 
 depot of supplies, and the project was aban- 
 doned. 
 
 The narration, with any approach to com- 
 pleteness, of the story of the campaign 
 against Vicksburg would require a volume. 
 It was a protracted, baffling, desperate 
 undertaking to obtain possession of the for- 
 tifications that commanded the Mississippi 
 River at that point. Grant was not una- 
 ware of the magnitude of the work, nor was 
 he eager to attempt it under the conditions 
 existing. He believed that, in order to their 
 greatest efficiency, all the armies operating 
 
VICKSBURG 67 
 
 between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi 
 should be subject to one commander, and he 
 made this suggestion to the War Department, 
 at the same time testifying his disinterested- 
 ness by declining in advance to take the 
 supreme command himself. His suggestion 
 was not immediately adopted. On the 2 2d 
 of December, 1862, General Grant, whose 
 headquarters were then at Holly Springs, 
 reorganized his army into four corps, the 
 13th, 15th, 16th, and 17th, commanded 
 respectively by Major-Generals John A. 
 McClernand, William T. Sherman, S. A. 
 Hurlbut, and J. B. McPherson. Soon after- 
 wards he established his headquarters at 
 Memphis, and in January began the move 
 on Vicksburg, which, after immense labors 
 and various failures of plans, resulted in the 
 surrender of that fortress on July 4, 1863. 
 He first sent Sherman, in whose enter- 
 prise and ability to take care of himself 
 he had full confidence, giving him only 
 general instructions. Sherman landed his 
 army on the east side of the river, above 
 Vicksburg, and made a direct assault, which 
 
68 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 proved unsuccessful, and he was compelled 
 to reembark his defeated troops* The im- 
 practicability of successful assault on the 
 north side was then accepted. General Mc- 
 Clernand's corps on the 11th of January, 
 aided by the navy under Admiral Porter, 
 captured Arkansas Post on the White River, 
 taking 6000 prisoners, 17 guns, and a large 
 amount of military stores. 
 
 On the 17th, Grant went to the front and 
 had a conference with Sherman, McCler- 
 nand, and Porter, the upshot of which was 
 a direction to rendezvous on the west bank 
 in the vicinity of Vicksburg. McClernand 
 was disaffected, having sought at Washing- 
 ton the command of an expedition against 
 Vicksburg and been led to exj>ect it. He 
 wrote a letter to Grant so insolent that the 
 latter was advised to relieve him of all com- 
 mand and send him to the rear. Instead of 
 doing so, he gave him every possible favor 
 and opportunity ; but months afterwards, in 
 front of Vicksburg, McClernand was guilty 
 of a breach of discipline which could not be 
 overlooked, and he was deprived of his com- 
 mand. 
 
VICKSBURG 69 
 
 Throughout the war Grant was notably 
 considerate and charitable in respect of the 
 mistakes and the temper of subordinates if 
 he thought them to be patriotic and capable. 
 His rapid rise excited the jealousy and per- 
 sonal hostility of many ambitious generals. 
 Of this he was conscious, but he did not 
 suffer himself to be affected by it so long as 
 there was no failure in duty. The reply he 
 made to those who asked him to remove 
 McClernand revealed the principle of his 
 action : " No. I cannot afford to quarrel 
 with a man whom I have to command." 
 
 The Union army, having embarked at 
 Memphis, was landed on the west bank of 
 the Mississippi River, and the first work un- 
 dertaken was the digging of a canal across 
 a peninsula that would allow passage of the 
 transports to the Mississippi below Vicks- 
 burg, where they could be used to ferry the 
 army across the river, there being higher 
 ground south of the city from which it could 
 be approached more easily than from any 
 other point. After weeks of labor, the 
 scheme had to be abandoned as impracti- 
 
70 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 cable. Then various devices for opening 
 and connecting bayous were tried, none of 
 them proving useful. The army not en- 
 gaged in digging or in cutting through ob- 
 structing timbers was encamped along the 
 narrow levee, the only dry land available in 
 the season of flood. Thus three months 
 were seemingly wasted without result. The 
 aspect of affairs was gloomy and desperate. 
 The North became impatient and began 
 grumbling against the general, doubting his 
 ability, even clamoring for his removal. He 
 made no reply, nor suffered his friends to 
 defend him. He simply worked on in si- 
 lence. Stories of his incapacity on account 
 of drinking were rife, and it may have been 
 the case that under the dreary circumstances 
 and intense strain he did sometimes yield to 
 this temptation. But he never yielded his 
 aim, never relaxed his grim purpose. Vicks- 
 burg must fall. As soon as one plan failed 
 of success another was put in operation. 
 When every scheme of getting the vessels 
 through the by-ways failed, one thing re- 
 mained, — to send the gunboats and trans- 
 
VICKSBURG 71 
 
 ports past Vicksburg by the river, defy- 
 ing the frowning batteries and whatever 
 impediments might be met. Six gunboats 
 and several steamers ran by the batteries on 
 the night of April 16th, under a tremendous 
 fire, the river being lighted up by burning 
 houses on the shore. Barges and flatboats 
 followed on other nights. Then Grant's 
 way to reach Vicksburg was found ; but it 
 was not an easy one, nor unopposed. A 
 place of landing on the east side was to be 
 sought. The navy failed to silence the Con- 
 federate batteries at Grand Gulf, twenty 
 miles below Vicksburg, so that a landing 
 could be effected there, and the fleet ran 
 past it, as it had run by Vicksburg. Ten 
 miles farther down the river a landing place 
 was found at Bruinsburg. By daylight, on 
 the 1st of May, McClernand's corps and 
 part of McPherson's had been ferried across, 
 leaving behind all impedimenta, even the 
 officers' horses, and fighting had already be- 
 gun in rear of Port Gibson, about eight 
 miles from the landing. The enemy made 
 a desperate stand, but was defeated with 
 
72 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 heavy loss. Grand Gulf was evacuated that 
 night, and the place became thenceforth a 
 base of operations. Grant had defeated the 
 enemy's calculation by the celerity with 
 which he had transferred a large force. He 
 slept on the ground with his soldiers, with- 
 out a tent or even an overcoat for covering. 
 
 General Joseph E. Johnston had super- 
 seded General Beauregard in command of 
 all the Confederate forces of the Southwest. 
 His business was to succor General Peniber- 
 ton and drive Grant back into the river. 
 Sherman with his corps joined Grant on the 
 8th. Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, a 
 Confederate railroad centre and depot of 
 supplies, was captured on the 14th, the de- 
 fense being made by Johnston himself. Then 
 Pemberton's whole army from Vicksburg, 
 25,000 men, was encountered, defeated, and 
 forced to retire into the fortress, after losing 
 nearly 5000 men and 18 guns. On the 
 18th of May Grant's army reached Vicks- 
 burg and the actual siege began. 
 
 Since May 1, Grant had won five hard 
 battles, killed and wounded 5200 of the 
 
VICKSBURG 73 
 
 enemy, captured 40 field guns, nearly 5000 
 prisoners, and a fortified city, compelled the 
 abandonment of Grand Gulf and Haines's 
 Bluff, with their 20 heavy guns, destroyed 
 all the railroads and bridges available by 
 the enemy, separated their armies, which 
 altogether numbered 60,000 men, while his 
 own numbered but 45,000, and had com- 
 pletely invested Vicksburg. It was an as- 
 tonishing exhibition of courage, energy, and 
 military genius, calculated to confound his 
 critics and reestablish him in the confidence 
 of the people. It has been said that there 
 is nothing in history since Hannibal invaded 
 Italy that is comparable with it. 
 
 The incidents of the siege, abounding in 
 difficult and heroic action, including an 
 early unsuccessful assault, must be passed 
 over. Preparations had been made and 
 directions given for a general assault on 
 the works on the morning of July 5. But 
 on the 3d General Pemberton sent out a 
 flag of truce asking, as Buckner did at Don- 
 elson, for the appointment of commissioners 
 to arrange terms of capitulation. Grant de- 
 
74 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 clined to appoint commissioners or to accept 
 any terms but unconditional surrender, with 
 humane treatment of all prisoners of war. 
 He, however, offered to meet Pemberton 
 himself, who had been at West Point and 
 in Mexico with him, and confer regarding 
 details. This meeting was held, and on the 
 4th of July Grant took possession of the 
 city. The Confederates surrendered about 
 30,000 men, 172 cannon, and 50,000 small 
 arms, besides military stores ; but there was 
 little food left. Grant's losses during the 
 whole campaign were 1415 killed, 7395 
 wounded, 453 missing. When the paroled 
 prisoners were ready to march out, Grant 
 ordered the Union soldiers "to be orderly 
 and quiet as these prisoners pass," and " to 
 make no offensive remarks." 
 
 This great victory was coincident with the 
 repulse of Lee at Gettysburg, and the effect 
 of the two events was a wonderfully in- 
 spiriting influence upon the country. Pre- 
 sident Lincoln wrote to General Grant a 
 characteristic letter " as a grateful acknow- 
 ledgment of the almost inestimable service 
 
VICKSBURG 75 
 
 you have done the country." In it he said : 
 " I never had any faith, except a general 
 hope that you knew better than I, that the 
 Yazoo Pass expedition and the like could 
 succeed. When you got below and took 
 Port Gibson, Grand Gulf, and vicinity, I 
 thought you should go down the river and 
 join General Banks [besieging Port Hud- 
 son] ; and when you turned northward, east 
 of the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. 
 I now wish to make a personal acknow- 
 ledgment that you were right and I was 
 wrong." 
 
 Port Hudson surrendered to General 
 Banks, to whom Grant sent reinforcements 
 as soon as Vicksburg fell, on the 8 th of 
 July, with 10,000 more prisoners and 50 
 guns. This put the Union forces in posses- 
 sion of the Mississippi River all the way to 
 the Gulf. 
 
 Grant now appeared to the nation as the 
 foremost hero of the war. The disparage- 
 ments and personal scandals so rife a few 
 months before were silenced and forgotten. 
 He was believed to be invincible. That he 
 
76 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 never boasted, never publicly resented criti- 
 cism, never courted applause, never quar- 
 reled with his superiors, but endured, toiled, 
 and fought in calm fidelity, consulting chiefly 
 with himself, never wholly baffled, and al- 
 ways triumphant in the end, had shown the 
 nation a man of a kind the people had 
 longed for and in whom they proudly re- 
 joiced. The hopes to which Donelson had 
 given birth were confirmed in the hero of 
 Vicksburg, who was straightway made a 
 major-general in the regular army, from 
 which, when a first lieutenant, he had re- 
 signed nine years before. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 NEW KESPONSIBILITIES CHATTANOOGA 
 
 Halleck, issuing orders from Washing- 
 ton, proceeded to disperse Grant's army 
 hither and yon as he thought fractions of 
 it to be needed. Grant wanted to move on 
 Mobile from Lake Pontchartrain, but was 
 not permitted to do it. Having gone to 
 New Orleans in obedience to a necessity of 
 conference with General Banks, he suffered 
 a severe injury by the fall of a fractious 
 horse, as he was returning from a review of 
 Banks's army. For a long time he was 
 unconscious. As soon as he could be moved 
 he was taken on a bed to a steamer. For 
 several days after reaching Vicksburg he 
 was unable to leave his bed. Meantime he 
 was repeatedly called upon to send reinforce- 
 ments to Rosecrans, in Chattanooga, to 
 which place the latter had retreated after 
 the repulse of his army at Chickamauga, 
 
78 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 September 19 and 20. On October 3, 
 Grant was directed to go to Cairo and re- 
 port by telegraph to the Secretary of War 
 as soon as he was able to take the field. He 
 started on the same day, ill as he still was. 
 On arriving in Cairo he was ordered to pro- 
 ceed to Louisville. He was met at Indi- 
 anapolis by Secretary Stanton, whom he 
 had never before seen, and they proceeded 
 together. 
 
 On the train Secretary Stanton handed 
 him two orders, telling him to take his 
 choice of them. Both created the military 
 division of the Mississippi, including all the 
 territory between the Alleghanies and the 
 Mississippi Eiver, north of General Banks's 
 department, and assigning command of it to 
 Grant. One order left the commanders of 
 the three departments, the Ohio, the Cum- 
 berland, and the Tennessee, as they were, 
 the other relieved General Rosecrans, com- 
 manding the Army of the Cumberland, and 
 assigned Gen. George H. Thomas to his 
 place. General Grant accepted the latter. 
 This consolidation was a late compliance 
 
CHATTANOOGA 79 
 
 with his earnest, unselfish counsel given be- 
 fore the Vicksburg campaign. Its wisdom 
 had become apparent. 
 
 The centre of interest and anxiety now 
 was Chattanooga, in East Tennessee, near 
 the border of Georgia. The Confederates 
 had been striving to retrieve the ground 
 lost, since the fall of Fort Henry, by push- 
 ing northward in this direction. Halleck's 
 dispersion of forces had sent Buell to this 
 section, and Buell had been superseded by 
 Rosecrans, a zealous and patriotic but unfor- 
 tunate commander. The repulse at Chick- 
 amauga might have proved disastrous to his 
 army but for the splendid behavior of the 
 division under General Thomas, an officer 
 not unlike Grant in the mould of his mili- 
 tary talent, who there earned the sobriquet, 
 " The Rock of Chickamauga." 
 
 The army of Rosecrans had been gath- 
 ered again at Chattanooga, where it was 
 confronted by Bragg, whose force surrounded 
 it in an irregular semicircle from the Ten- 
 nessee River to the river again, occupying 
 Missionary Ridge on one flank and Lookout 
 
80 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 Mountain on the other, with its centre 
 where these two ridges come nearly together. 
 Chattanooga was in the valley between, near 
 the centre of which, behind the town, was an 
 elevation, Orchard Knob, held by the enemy. 
 Bragg commanded the river and the rail- 
 roads. The route for supplies was circuit- 
 ous, inadequate, and insecure, over mountain 
 roads that had become horrible. Horses and 
 mules had perished by thousands. The sol- 
 diers were on half rations. Word came to 
 Grant in Louisville, that Kosecrans was con- 
 templating a retreat. He at once issued an 
 order assuming his new command, notified 
 Eosecrans that he was relieved, and in- 
 structed Thomas to hold the place at all 
 hazards until he reached the front. 
 
 Still so lame that he could not walk with- 
 out crutches, and had to be carried in arms 
 over places where it was not safe to go on 
 horseback, he left Louisville on the 21st of 
 October, and reached Chattanooga on the 
 evening of the 23d. Then began a work of 
 masterly activity and preparation, in which 
 his genius again asserted its supreme qual- 
 
CHATTANOOGA 81 
 
 ity. Sherman with his army was ordered 
 to join Grant. In five days the river road 
 to Bridgeport was opened, the enemy being 
 driven from the banks, two bridges were 
 built, and Hooker's army added to his force. 
 The enemy, having a much superior force, 
 and assuming the surrender of the Army of 
 the Cumberland to be only a question of time 
 and famine, sent Longstreet with 15,000 
 men to reinforce the army of Johnston, 
 holding Burnside in Knoxville, to the relief 
 of whom the enemy supposed Sherman to 
 be marching. Grant waited for Sherman, 
 who was coming on between Longstreet and 
 Bragg. All general orders for the battle 
 were prepared in advance, except their dates. 
 Sherman reached Chattanooga on the even- 
 ing of the 15th, and with Grant inspected 
 the field on the 16th. Sherman's army, 
 holding the left, was to cross to the south 
 side of the river and assail Missionary Ridge. 
 Hooker, on the right, was to press through 
 from Lookout valley into Chattanooga val- 
 ley. Thomas, in the centre, was to press 
 forward through the valley and strike the 
 
82 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 enemy's centre while his wings were thus 
 fully engaged, or as soon as Hooker's sup- 
 port was available. 
 
 The battle began on the afternoon of Octo- 
 ber 23. Orchard Knob, in the centre of the 
 great amphitheatre, was attacked and cap- 
 tured, and became the Union headquarters. 
 On the 24th Sherman crossed the river and 
 established his army on the north end of 
 Missionary Ridge. On the morning of the 
 same day Hooker assailed Lookout Mountain, 
 and after a long climbing fight, lasting far 
 into the night, secured his position ; and the 
 enemy, who had occupied the mountain, re- 
 treated across the valley at its upper end to 
 Missionary Ridge. Grant's forces were now 
 in touch from right to left. Everything so 
 far had gone well. 
 
 Early on the next morning Sherman opened 
 the attack. The ridge in his front was ex- 
 ceedingly favorable for defense, and during 
 the whole night the enemy had been at work 
 strengthening the position. Sherman's first 
 assault failed, but he continued pressing the 
 enemy with resolution, although making little 
 
CHATTANOOGA 83 
 
 progress. From Grant's place on Orchard 
 Knob he watched the struggle. At three 
 o'clock he saw Sherman's right repulsed. 
 Then he gave to Thomas, standing at his 
 side, the order to advance. Six guns were 
 fired as a signal, and the Army of the Cum- 
 berland moved forward in splendid array to 
 avenge Chickamauga. The immediate pur- 
 pose was to carry the rebel rifle pits at the 
 foot of the Ridge. This done, the soldiers 
 were subjected to a galling fire from the line 
 800 feet above them. As by inspiration, they 
 rushed on, climbing as they could, by aid of 
 rocks and bushes, and using their guns as 
 staves. They reached the crest and swept it 
 in a mighty fury. It was the decisive action. 
 All the columns now converged on the dis- 
 tracted foe who fled before them. Grant gal- 
 loped to the front with all speed, urging on 
 the pursuit and exposing himself to every 
 hazard of the fight. 
 
 So Chattanooga was added to Grant's 
 lengthening score of brilliant victories ; and 
 again, as at Donelson and at Vicksburg, he 
 had been the instrument of relieving a tense 
 
84 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 oppression of anxiety that had settled upon 
 the nation. Sherman, with two corps, was 
 at once sent to the relief of Knoxville ; but 
 Longstreet, having heard of Bragg 1 s defeat, 
 made an unsuccessful assault and retreated 
 into Virginia. By the administration in 
 Washington, and by the people of the 
 North, General Grant's preeminence was 
 conceded. His star shone brightest of all. 
 Congress voted a gold medal for him. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 LIEUTENANT-GENERAL, COMMANDER OF ALL 
 THE ARMIES 
 
 During the winter, after the Chattanooga 
 victory, General Grant made his headquar- 
 ters at Nashville, and devoted himself to ac- 
 quiring an intimate knowledge of the condi- 
 tion of the large region now under his com- 
 mand, to the reorganization of his own lines 
 of transportation, and the destruction of those 
 of the enemy. He made a perilous journey 
 to Knoxville in the dead of winter, and a 
 brief trip to St. Louis, on account of the 
 dangerous illness of his son there. On this 
 trip he wore citizen's clothes, traveled as 
 quietly as possible, declined all public hon- 
 ors, and made no delays. The whole route 
 might have been a continuous enthusiastic 
 ovation ; but he would not have it so. His 
 work was not done, and he sternly discoun- 
 tenanced all premature glorification. Too 
 
86 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 many generals had fallen from a high estate 
 in the popular judgment, for him to court a 
 similar fate. The promotions that gave him 
 greater opportunity of service he accepted ; 
 but he preferred to keep his capital of popu- 
 larity, whatever it might be, on deposit and 
 accumulating while he stuck to his unaccom- 
 plished task, instead of drawing upon it as 
 he went along for purposes of vanity and 
 display. Of vulgar vanity he had as little 
 as any soldier in the army. 
 
 Nashville was the base of supplies for all 
 the operations in his military division. Its 
 lines of transportation had been worn out 
 and broken down, largely through incompe- 
 tent management. He put them in charge 
 of new men, who reconstructed and equipped 
 them. While engaged in this necessary 
 work he dispatched Sherman on an expedi- 
 tion through Mississippi, which he hoped 
 would reach Mobile ; but it terminated at 
 Meriden, through failure of a cavalry force 
 to join it. But it did a work in destruction 
 of railroads and railroad property, that in- 
 flicted immense damage on the Confederacy. 
 
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL 87 
 
 Throughout the winter Grant worked as if 
 his reputation was yet to be made, and to 
 be made in that military division. 
 
 Meanwhile Congress and the country were 
 pondering his deserts, and his ability for still 
 greater responsibilities. The result of this 
 deliberation was the passage of the act, ap- 
 proved March 1, 1864, reestablishing the 
 grade of lieutenant-general in the regular 
 army. The next day President Lincoln 
 nominated General Grant to the rank, and 
 the nomination was promptly confirmed. He 
 was ordered to Washington to receive the 
 supreme commission. It was his first visit 
 to the national capital ; his first personal in- 
 troduction to the President, although he had 
 heard him make a speech many years be- 
 fore ; his first meeting with the leading men 
 in civil official life, who were sustaining the 
 armies and guiding the nation in its imper- 
 iled way. He came crowned with the glory 
 of victories second in magnitude and sig- 
 nificance to none, since Wellington defeated 
 Napoleon at Waterloo. Everybody desired 
 to see him, and to honor him. 
 
88 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 Yet he journeyed to Washington as sim- 
 ply and quietly as possible, avoiding demon- 
 stration. He arrived on the 8th of March, 
 and going to a hotel waited, unrecognized, 
 until the throng of travelers had registered, 
 and then wrote, simply, "U. S. Grant and 
 son, Galena." The next day, at 1 o'clock, 
 he was received by President Lincoln in the 
 cabinet-room of the White House. There 
 were present, by the President's invitation, 
 the members of the cabinet, General Hal- 
 leck, and a few other distinguished men. 
 After introductions the President addressed 
 him as follows : — 
 
 " General Grant, — The expression of 
 the nation's approbation of what you have 
 already done, and its reliance on you for 
 what remains to be done in the existing 
 great struggle, are now presented with this 
 commission, constituting you lieutenant-gen- 
 eral in the army of the United States. 
 With the high honor, devolves on you an 
 additional responsibility. As the country 
 herein trusts you, so, under God, it will sus- 
 tain you. I scarcely need to add, that with 
 
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL 89 
 
 what I here speak for the nation goes my 
 own hearty personal concurrence." 
 
 General Grant made the following re- 
 
 pty : — 
 
 " Mr. President, — I accept the com- 
 mission with gratitude for the high honor 
 conferred. With the aid of the noble armies 
 that have fought on so many battlefields for 
 our common country, it will be my earnest 
 endeavor not to disappoint your expecta- 
 tions. I feel the full weight of the responsi- 
 bilities now devolving upon me ; and I know 
 that if they are met, it will be due to those 
 armies ; and, above all, to the favor of that 
 Providence which leads both nations and 
 men." 
 
 The next day he was assigned to the com- 
 mand of all the armies, with headquarters in 
 the field. He made a hurried trip to Cul- 
 peper Court House for a conference with 
 General Meade, commanding the Army of 
 the Potomac ; but would not linger in Wash- 
 ington to be praised and feted. He hastened 
 back to Nashville, where, on the 17th, he 
 issued an order assuming command of the 
 
90 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 armies of the United States, announcing 
 that until further notice, his headquarters 
 would be with the Army of the Potomac. 
 General Halleck was relieved from duty as 
 general-in-chief ; but was assigned by Grant 
 to duty in Washington, as chief-of-staff of 
 the army. Sherman was assigned to com- 
 mand the military division of the Missis- 
 sippi, which was enlarged, and McPherson 
 took Sherman's place as commander of the 
 Army of the Tennessee ; Thomas remaining 
 in command of the Army of the Cumber- 
 land. On the 23d Grant was again in Wash- 
 ington, accompanied by his family and his 
 personal staff. On the next day he took ac- 
 tual command, and immediately reorganized 
 the Army of the Potomac in three corps, — 
 the Second, Fifth, and Sixth, — commanded 
 by Major-Generals Hancock, Warren, and 
 Sedgwick; Major-General Meade retaining 
 the supreme command. The cavalry was 
 consolidated into a corps under Sheridan. 
 Burnside commanded the Ninth Corps, which 
 for a brief time acted independently. 
 
 This crisis of Grant's life should not be 
 
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL 91 
 
 passed over without allusion to the remark- 
 able letters that passed between Grant and 
 Sherman before he left Nashville to receive 
 his new commission. Grant wrote to Sher- 
 man as follows : — 
 
 " Whilst I have been eminently success- 
 ful in this war, in at least gaining the confi- 
 dence of the public, no one feels more than 
 I do how much of this success is due to the 
 energy, skill, and the harmonious putting 
 forth of that energy and skill, of those whom 
 it has been my good fortune to have occupy- 
 ing subordinate positions under me. There 
 are many officers to whom these remarks are 
 applicable to a greater or less degree, pro- 
 portionate to their ability as soldiers ; but 
 what I want is to express my thanks to you 
 and McPherson as the men to whom, above 
 all others, I feel indebted for whatever I 
 have had of success. How far your advice 
 and assistance have been of help to me, you 
 know ; how far your execution of whatever 
 has been given you to do entitles you to the 
 reward I am receiving you cannot know as 
 well as I. I feel all the gratitude this let- 
 
92 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 ter would express, giving it the most flatter- 
 ing construction." 
 
 Grant's modesty, generosity, and magna- 
 nimity shine in this acknowledgment. If 
 there were no other record illustrating these 
 qualities, this alone would be an irrefragable 
 testimony to his possession of them. There 
 can be no appeal from its transparent, cor- 
 dial sincerity. 
 
 Sherman's reply is too long to be quoted 
 fully, but the parts of it that reveal his esti- 
 mate of Grant's qualities and his confidence 
 in him are important with reference to the 
 purpose of this sketch : — 
 
 " You do yourself injustice and us too 
 much honor in assigning to us too large a 
 share of the merits which have led to your 
 high advancement. . . . You are now Wash- 
 ington's legitimate successor, and occupy a 
 position of almost dangerous elevation ; but 
 if you can continue, as heretofore, to be your- 
 self, simple, honest, and unpretending, you 
 will enjoy through life the respect and love 
 of friends, and the homage of millions of hu- 
 man beings that will award you a large 
 
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL 93 
 
 share in securing to them and their descend- 
 ants a government of law and stability. . . . 
 I believe you are as brave, patriotic, and just 
 as the great prototype, Washington, as un- 
 selfish, kind-hearted, and honest as a man 
 should be ; but the chief characteristic is 
 the simple faith in success you have always 
 manifested, which I can liken to nothing 
 else than the faith the Christian has in his 
 Saviour. This faith gave you victory at 
 Shiloh and Vicksburg. Also, when you 
 have completed your preparations, you go 
 into battle without hesitation, as at Chat- 
 tanooga, — no doubts, no answers, — and I 
 tell you it was this that made us act with 
 confidence. I knew, wherever I was, that 
 you thought of me ; and if I got in a tight 
 place you would help me out if alive." 
 
 He besought Grant not to stay in Wash- 
 ington, but to come back to the Mississippi 
 Valley, " the seat of coming empire, and 
 from the West where [when?] our task is 
 done, we will make short work of Charles- 
 ton and Richmond and the impoverished 
 coast of the Atlantic.' , But Grant was 
 
94 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 wiser. He felt that the duty to which his 
 new commission called him was to try con- 
 clusions with General Lee, the most illustri- 
 ous and successful of the Confederate com- 
 manders, whom he had not yet encountered 
 and vanquished. His new rank gave him 
 an authority and prestige which would en- 
 able him, he trusted, to overcome the dis- 
 couragements and discontents of the noble 
 Army of the Potomac, and wield its uni- 
 fied force with victorious might. He knew, 
 moreover, that the government and the peo- 
 ple trusted him and would sustain him, as 
 they trusted and would sustain no other, in 
 a fresh and final attempt to destroy the 
 Army of Northern Virginia, upon which the 
 hopes of the Confederacy were staked. Not 
 so much ambition as duty determined him to 
 make his headquarters with the Army of the 
 Potomac. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE WILDERNESS AND SPOTTSYLVANIA 
 
 Wherever Grant had control in the 
 West, and in all his counsels, his distinct pur- 
 pose was to mass the Union forces and not 
 scatter them, and to get at the enemy. With 
 what ideas and intention he began the new 
 task he set forth definitely in his report 
 made in July, 1865. 
 
 " From an early period in the rebellion, I 
 had been impressed with the idea that the 
 active and continuous operations of all the 
 troops that could be brought into the field, 
 regardless of season and weather, were ne- 
 cessary to a speedy termination of the war. 
 ... I therefore determined, first, to use the 
 greatest number of troops practicable against 
 the armed force of the enemy, preventing 
 him from using the same force at different 
 seasons against first one and then another 
 of our armies, and the possibility of repose 
 
96 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 for refitting and producing necessary sup- 
 plies for carrying on resistance ; second, to 
 hammer continuously against the armed 
 force of the enemy and his resources, until 
 by mere attrition, if in no other way, there 
 should be nothing left to him but an equal 
 submission with the loyal sections of our 
 common country to the Constitution and 
 laws of the land." 
 
 Grant instructed General Butler, who had 
 a large army at Fortress Monroe, to make 
 Richmond his objective point. He in- 
 structed General Meade, commanding the 
 Army of the Potomac, that Lee's army 
 " would be his objective point, and wherever 
 Lee went he would go also." He hoped to 
 defeat and capture Lee, or to drive him back 
 on Richmond, following close and estab- 
 lishing a connection with Butler's army 
 there, if Butler had succeeded in advancing 
 so far. Sherman was to move against 
 Johnston's army, and Sigel, with a strong 
 force, was to protect West Virginia and 
 Pennsylvania from incursions. This, with 
 plans for keeping all the other armies of the 
 
WILDERNESS, SPOTTSYLVANI A 97 
 
 Confederacy so occupied that Lee could not 
 draw from them, constituted the grand 
 strategy of the campaign. 
 
 The theatre of operations of the Army of 
 the Potomac was a region of country lying 
 west of a nearly north-and-south line pass- 
 ing through Richmond and Washington. 
 It was about 120 miles long, from the Poto- 
 mac on the north to the James on the south, 
 and from 30 to 60 miles wide, intersected 
 by several rivers flowing into Chesapeake 
 Bay. The headquarters of the Union army 
 were at Culpeper Court House, about 70 
 miles southwest of Washington, with which 
 it was connected by railroad. This was the 
 starting point. Lee's army was about fif- 
 teen miles away, with the Rapidan, a river 
 difficult of passage, in front of it, the foot- 
 hills of the Blue Ridge on its left, and on 
 its right a densely wooded tract of scrub 
 pines and various low growths, almost path- 
 less, known as " the Wilderness." 
 
 Two courses were open to Grant, — to 
 march by the right, cross the upper fords, 
 and attack Lee on his left flank, or march by 
 
98 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 the left, crossing the lower fords, and mak- 
 ing into the Wilderness. Grant chose the 
 latter way, as, on the whole, most favorable 
 to keeping open communications. For Gen- 
 eral Grant, as commander of all the armies, 
 was bound to avoid being shut up or leaving 
 Washington imperiled. And it may pro- 
 perly be said here that his plan contemplated 
 leaving General Meade free in his tactics, 
 giving him only general directions regarding 
 what he desired to have accomplished, the 
 actual fighting to be done under Meade's 
 orders. 
 
 The official reports to the Adjutant-Gen- 
 eral's office in Washington show that on the 
 20th of April the Army of the Potomac 
 numbered 81,864 men present and fit for 
 duty. Burnside's corps, which joined in the 
 Wilderness, added to this force 19,250 men, 
 making a total of 101,114 men. After the 
 Wilderness, a division numbering 7000 or 
 8000 men under General Tyler joined it. 
 When the Chickahominy was reached, a junc- 
 tion with Butler's army, 25,000 strong, was 
 made. Lee had on the 20th of April pres- 
 
WILDERNESS, SPOTTSYLVANIA 99 
 
 ent for duty, armed and equipped, 53,891. 
 A few days later he was reinforced by Long- 
 street's corps, which on the date given num- 
 bered 18,387, making a total of 72,278. 
 Grant's army outnumbered Lee's, but he 
 was to make an offensive campaign in the 
 enemy's country, operating on exterior lines, 
 and keeping long lines of communication 
 open. Defending Richmond and Petersburg 
 there were other Confederate forces, under 
 Beauregard, Hill, and Hoke, estimated to 
 amount to nearly 30,000 men, and Brecken- 
 ridge commanded still another army in the 
 Shenandoah Valley. In Grant's command, 
 but not of the Army of the Potomac, were 
 the garrison of Washington and the force in 
 West Virginia. 
 
 On the 3d of May the order to move was 
 given, and at midnight the start was made. 
 The advance guard crossed the river before 
 four in the morning of the 4th, and on the 
 morning of the 5th Grant's army, nearly a 
 hundred thousand strong, was disposed in 
 the Wilderness. Lee had discovered the 
 movement promptly, and had moved his 
 LoJC. 
 
100 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 whole army to the right, determined to fall 
 upon Grant in that unfavorable place. As 
 soon as the Union army began a movement 
 in the morning, it encountered the enemy, 
 who attacked with tremendous and confi- 
 dent vigor. The fighting continued all day, 
 with indecisive results. Early the next 
 morning the battle was renewed, and contin- 
 ued with varying fortunes, at one time one 
 army, and at another time the opposing 
 army, having the advantage. There was, in 
 fact, a series of desperate battles between 
 different portions of the two armies which 
 did not end until the night was far advanced. 
 The advantage, on the whole, was with the 
 Union army. It had not been forced back 
 over the Rapidan. It stood fast. But it 
 had inflicted no such defeat on the enemy as 
 Grant had hoped to do in the first encounter. 
 The losses of both sides had been very large, 
 those of the Union Army being 3288 killed, 
 19,278 wounded, 6784 missing. 
 
 The next morning it was discovered that 
 the Confederates had retired to their in- 
 trenchments, and were not seeking battle. 
 
WILDERNESS, SPOTTSYLVANIA 101 
 
 Then Grant gave the order that was de- 
 cisive, and revealed to the Army of the Po- 
 tomac that it had a new spirit over it. The 
 order was, " Forward to Spottsylvania ! " 
 No more turning back, no more resting on a 
 doubtful result. " Forward ! " to the finish. 
 But Lee, controlling shorter lines, was at 
 Spottsylvania beforehand, and had seized the 
 roads and fortified himself. Here again was 
 bloody fighting of a most determined charac- 
 ter, lasting several days. Here Hancock, 
 by a daring assault, captured an angle of 
 the enemy's works, with a large number of 
 guns and prisoners ; and it was held, despite 
 the repeated endeavors of the enemy to re- 
 capture it. Here General Sedgwick was 
 killed. Here Upton made a famous assault 
 on the enemy's line and broke through it, 
 want of timely and vigorous support pre- 
 venting this exploit from making an end of 
 Lee's army then and there. But the Union 
 losses at Spottsylvania, while not so large 
 as in the Wilderness, were very heavy, and 
 made a painful impression upon the people 
 of the North. 
 
102 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 Undoubtedly Grant was disappointed by 
 the failure to vanquish his opponent. Un- 
 doubtedly Lee was disappointed by his fail- 
 ure to repulse the Union army in the Wil- 
 derness and at Spottsylvania as he had done 
 formerly at Chancellorsville and Fredericks- 
 burg, when it had come into the same terri- 
 tory. Each had underestimated the other's 
 quality. From Spottsylvania, on the 11th 
 of May, after six days of continuous fight- 
 ing, with an advance of scarcely a dozen 
 miles, and an experience of checks and losses 
 that would have disheartened any one but the 
 hero of Vicksburg, he sent this bulletin to 
 the War Department : " We have now ended 
 the sixth day of very heavy fighting. The 
 result to this time is much in our favor. 
 But our losses have been heavy, as well as 
 those of the enemy. We have lost to this 
 time 11 general officers killed, wounded, and 
 missing, and probably 20,000 men. ... I 
 am now sending back to Belle Plain all my 
 wagons for a fresh supply of provisions and 
 ammunition, and propose to fight it out on 
 this line if it takes all summer." 
 
WILDERNESS, SPOTTSYLVANIA 103 
 
 The indomitable spirit of the last sen- 
 tence electrified the country. It did take 
 all summer, and all winter, too, — eleven 
 full months from the date of this dispatch, 
 and more, before General Lee, driven into 
 Richmond, forced to evacuate the doomed 
 city, his escape into the South cut off, his 
 soldiers exhausted, ragged, starving, rein- 
 forcements out of the question, surrendered 
 at Appomattox the Army of Northern Vir- 
 ginia, the reliance of the Confederacy, to the 
 general whom he expected to defeat by his 
 furious assault in the Wilderness. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 FKOM SPOTTSYLVANIA TO KICHMOND 
 
 The story of this campaign is too long to 
 be narrated in particular. On both sides it 
 is a record of magnificent valor, endurance, 
 and resolution, to which the world affords 
 no parallel, when it is remembered that the 
 armies were recruited from the free citizen- 
 ship of the nation. As the weeks and 
 months wore on, General's Grant's visage, it 
 is said, settled into an unrelaxing expression 
 of grim resolve. He carried the nation on 
 his shoulders in those days. If he had 
 wearied or yielded, hope might have van- 
 ished. He did not yield nor faint. He 
 planned and toiled and -fought, keeping his 
 own counsel, bearing patiently the disap- 
 pointment, the misunderstanding, the doubt, 
 the criticism, the woe of millions who had 
 no other hope but in his success and were 
 often on the verge of despair. He beheld 
 
SPOTTSYLVANIA TO RICHMOND 105 
 
 his plans defeated by the incompetence or 
 errors of subordinates whom he trusted, and 
 let the blame be laid upon himself without 
 protest or murmuring. He knew better 
 than any one else the terrible cost of life 
 which his unrelenting purpose demanded ; 
 but he knew also that the price of relenting, 
 involving the discouragement of failure, the 
 cost of another campaign after the enemy 
 had got breath and new equipment, the pos- 
 sible refusal of the North to try again, was 
 far greater and more humiliating. Little 
 wonder that he was oppressed and silent 
 and moody. Yet he ruled his own spirit 
 in accordance with the habit of his life. No 
 folly or disappointment provoked him to 
 utter an oath. General Horace Porter, of 
 his staff, a member of his intimate military 
 family, says that the strongest expression of 
 vexation that ever escaped his lips was: 
 " Confound it ! " He alone had the genius 
 to be master of the situation at all times, 
 and the " simple faith in success " that 
 would not let him be swerved from his aim. 
 So he pressed on from the Wilderness to 
 
106 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 Spottsylvania, to North Anna, to South 
 Anna, to the Pamunky, to Cold Harbor, to 
 the Chickahominy, fighting and flanking all 
 the way, until at the end of the month he 
 had pressed Lee back to the immediate vi- 
 cinity of Richmond. The bloodiest of all 
 these battles was the ill-judged attack, for 
 which Grant has been much criticised, on 
 the strongly intrenched rebel lines at Cold 
 Harbor. If he could have dislodged Lee 
 here he could have compelled him to re- 
 treat into the immediate fortifications of 
 Richmond. But Lee's position was impreg- 
 nable : the assault failed. In less than an 
 hour Grant lost 13,000 men killed, wounded, 
 and missing, and gained nothing substantial. 
 General Butler had signally failed to ac- 
 complish the work given him to do. Instead 
 of taking Petersburg, destroying the rail- 
 roads connecting Richmond with the south, 
 and laying siege to that city, he had, after 
 some ineffectual manoeuvring, got his army 
 hemmed in, "bottled up," Grant called it, 
 at Bermuda Hundred, where he was almost 
 completely out of the offensive movement for 
 
SPOTTSYLVANIA TO RICHMOND 107 
 
 months. Sigel had been worsted in the 
 North, and had been relieved by Hunter, 
 who had won measurable success in the 
 Shenandoah Valley. 
 
 Grant, checked on the east and north of 
 Richmond, crossed the Chickahominy and 
 the James with his whole army by a series 
 of masterly manoeuvres, regarding the mean- 
 ing of which his opponent was brilliantly 
 deceived. Then followed the unsuccessful 
 attempt to capture Petersburg before it 
 could be reinforced, unsuccessful by reason 
 of the want of persistence on the part of 
 the general intrusted with the duty. This 
 failure involved a long siege of that place, 
 which the Confederates made impregnable 
 to assault. A breach in the defences was 
 made by the explosion of a mine constructed 
 with vast labor, but there was failure to 
 follow up the advantage with sufficient 
 promptness. Here the Army of the Potomac 
 passed the winter, except the part of the 
 army that was detached to protect Washing- 
 ton from threatened attack, and with which 
 Sheridan made his great fame in the Shen- 
 
108 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 andoah Valley. Meanwhile Sherman, in the 
 West, had taken Atlanta, and leaving Hood's 
 army to be taken care of by Thomas, who 
 defeated it at Nashville, had marched across 
 Georgia, and was making his way through 
 the Carolinas northward toward Richmond, 
 an army under Johnston disputing his way 
 by annoyance, impediment, and occasional 
 battle. Another incident of the winter was 
 the two attempts on Fort Fisher, near Wil- 
 mington, North Carolina, — the first, under 
 General Butler, a failure ; the second, under 
 General Terry, a brilliant success. All these 
 movements were in execution of plans and 
 directions given by the lieutenant-general. 
 
 It was the 29th of March when, all prepa- 
 rations having been made, Grant began the 
 final movement. He threw a large part of 
 his army into the region west of Petersburg 
 and south of Richmond, and at Five Forks, 
 four days later, Sheridan fought a bril- 
 liant and decisive battle, which compelled 
 Lee to abandon both Petersburg and Rich- 
 mond, and to attempt to save his army by 
 running away and joining Johnston. All 
 
SPOTTSYLVANIA TO RICHMOND 109 
 
 his movements were baffled by the eager 
 Union generals, flushed with the conscious- 
 ness that the end was near. 
 
 On the 7th of April Grant wrote to 
 Lee : "I regard it as my duty to shift from 
 myself responsibility for any further effusion 
 of human blood by asking of you the sur- 
 render of that portion of the Confederate 
 States army, known as the Army of Northern 
 Virginia." Lee replied at once, asking the 
 terms that would be offered on condition of 
 surrender. His letter reached Grant on the 
 8th, who replied : " Peace being my great 
 desire, there is but one condition I would 
 insist upon, namely : that the men and offi- 
 cers surrendered shall be disqualified for 
 taking up arms again against the govern- 
 ment of the United States until properly 
 exchanged." He offered to meet Lee or 
 any officers deputed by him for arranging 
 definite terms. Lee replied the same even- 
 ing somewhat evasively, setting forth that 
 he desired to treat for peace, and that the 
 surrender of his army would be considered 
 as a means to that end. 
 
110 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 To this Grant responded on the 9th, hav- 
 ing set his army in motion to Appomattox 
 Court House, that he had no authority to 
 treat for peace ; but added some plain 
 words to the effect that the shortest road to 
 peace would be surrender. Lee immediately 
 asked for an interview. Grant received 
 this communication while on the road, and 
 returned word that he would push on and 
 meet him wherever he might designate. 
 When Grant arrived at the village of Ap- 
 pomattox Court House he was directed to 
 a small house where Lee awaited him. 
 Within a short time the conditions were 
 drafted by Grant and accepted by Lee, who 
 was grateful that the officers were permitted 
 to keep their side-arms, and officers and 
 men to retain the horses which they owned 
 and their private baggage. 
 
 The number of men surrendered at Ap- 
 pomattox was 27,416. During the ten days' 
 previous fighting 22,079 of Lee's army had 
 been captured, and about 12,000 killed and 
 wounded. It is estimated that as many as 
 12,000 deserted on the road to Appomattox. 
 
SPOTTSYLVANIA TO RICHMOND 111 
 
 From May 1, 1864, to April 9, 1865, the 
 Armies of the Potomac and the James took 
 66,512 prisoners and captured 245 flags, 
 251 guns, and 22,633 stands of small arms. 
 Their losses from the Wilderness to Appo- 
 mattox were 12,561 killed, 64,452 wounded, 
 and 26,988 missing, an aggregate of 104,001. 
 It would be idle adulation to say that in 
 all points during this long conflict with Lee 
 General Grant always did the best thing, 
 making no mistakes. The essential point is, 
 and it suffices to establish his military fame 
 on secure foundations, that he made no fatal 
 mistake, that progress toward the great re- 
 sult in view was constant, slower than he ex- 
 pected, slower than the country expected, but 
 finally everywhere victorious, substantially 
 on the lines contemplated in the beginning. 
 After Lee's experience in the Wilderness 
 and at Spottsylvania he seldom assumed 
 the offensive against Grant. He became 
 prudent, adopted a defensive policy, fought 
 behind intrenchments or just in front of for- 
 tifications to which he could retire for safety, 
 and waited to be attacked. Watchful and 
 
112 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 alert as lie was, lie was deceived by Grant 
 oftener than lie deceived him, and except 
 that he managed to postpone the end by 
 skill fid tactics, he did not challenge the 
 military superiority of his foe. He made 
 Grant's victory costly and difficult, but he 
 did not prevent it. He retreated with de- 
 sperate reluctance, but he was forced back. 
 He could not protect his capital ; he could 
 not save his army. When Lee measured 
 powers with Grant, his cause was lost. 
 
 There are incidents of the campaign that 
 mitigate its stern and in some sense savage 
 features. When the imperturbable soldier 
 learned of the death of his dear friend Mc- 
 Pherson, who fell in one of Sherman's bat- 
 tles, he retired to his tent and wept bitterly. 
 When Lincoln, visiting Grant at City Point, 
 before the general departed on what was 
 expected to be the last stage of the cam- 
 paign, said to him that he had expected he 
 would order Sherman's army to reinforce 
 the Army of the Potomac for the final strug- 
 gle, the reply was that the Army of the 
 Potomac had fought the Army of Virginia 
 through four long years, and it would not 
 
SPOTTSYLVANIA TO RICHMOND 113 
 
 be just to require it to share the honors of 
 victory with any other army. It was ob- 
 served that when he bade good-by to his wife 
 at this departure his adieus, always affec- 
 tionate, were especially tender and linger- 
 ing, as if presentiment of a crisis in his life 
 oppressed him. Lincoln accompanied him 
 to the train. " The President," said Grant, 
 after they had parted, "is one of the few 
 who have not attempted to extract from me 
 a knowledge of my movements, although 
 he is the only one who has a right to know 
 them." Long before, Lincoln had written 
 to him : " The particulars of your campaign 
 I neither know nor seek to know. I wish 
 not to intrude any restraints or constraints 
 upon you." Grant's reply to this confidence 
 was: "Should my success be less than I 
 desire or expect, the least I can say is, the 
 fault is not yours." These two understood 
 each other by a magnanimous sympathy 
 that had no need of particular confidences. 
 That Lincoln respected Grant as one whom 
 it was not becoming for him to presume to 
 question is in itself impressive evidence of 
 Grant's greatness. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 IN WASHINGTON AMONG POLITICIANS 
 
 Within a few weeks after the surrender 
 of Lee, every army and fragment of an 
 army opposed to the Union was dissolved. 
 But meantime Lincoln had been assassi- 
 nated, and the executive administration of 
 the nation had devolved upon Andrew John- 
 son. This wrought an immense change in 
 the aspect of national affairs. Lincoln was 
 a strong, wise, conservative, magnanimous 
 soul. Johnson was arrogant, vain, narrow, 
 and contentious. Grant soon established 
 his headquarters at the War Department, 
 and devoted himself with characteristic en- 
 ergy to the work of discharging from the 
 military service the great armies of volun- 
 teers no longer needed. Their work as sol- 
 diers was gloriously complete. Within a 
 few months they were once more simple cit- 
 izens of the Republic, following the ways of 
 
IN WASHINGTON 115 
 
 industry and peace. The suddenness of the 
 transformation by which at the outbreak of 
 hostilities hundreds of thousands of citizens 
 left their homes and their occupations of 
 peace to become willing soldiers of the Union 
 and liberty, was paralleled by the alacrity 
 of their return, the moment the danger was 
 passed, to the stations and the manner of life 
 they had abandoned. 
 
 General Grant was the central figure in 
 the national rejoicing and pride. The de- 
 sire to do him honor was universal. But he 
 bore himself through all with dignity and 
 modesty, avoiding as much as he could, with- 
 out seeming inappreciation and disdain, the 
 lavish popular applause that greeted him 
 on every possible occasion. In July, 1866, 
 Congress created the grade of general, to 
 which he was at once promoted, thus attain- 
 ing a rank never before granted to a soldier 
 of the United States. His great lieutenant, 
 Sherman, succeeded him in this office, which 
 was then permitted to lapse, though it was 
 revived later as a special honor for General 
 Sheridan. In further token of gratitude, 
 
116 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 some of the wealthier citizens purchased and 
 presented to Grant a house in Washington. 
 Resolutions of gratitude, honorary degrees, 
 presents of value and significance, came to 
 him in abundance. Through it all, he main- 
 tained his reputation as a man of few words, 
 devoid of ostentation, and with no ambition 
 to court public favor by any act of denia- 
 goguism. 
 
 But a great and bitter trial confronted 
 him. He had never been a politician. Now 
 he was caught in a maelstrom of ungenerous 
 and malignant politics. All his influence 
 and effort had been addressed to promote 
 the calming of the passions of the war, and 
 a reunion in fact as well as in form. The 
 President, professing an intention of carry- 
 ing out the policy of his predecessor, began 
 a method of reconstructing civil governments 
 in the States that had seceded which pro- 
 duced great dissatisfaction. Upon his own 
 initiative, without authority of Congress, he 
 proceeded to encourage and abet those who 
 were lately in arms against the Union to 
 make new constitutions for their States, and 
 
IN WASHINGTON 117 
 
 institute civil governments therein, as if they 
 alone were to be considered. The freedmen, 
 who had been of so great service to our ar- 
 mies, whom by every requirement of honor 
 and gratitude we were bound to protect, were 
 left to the hardly restricted guardianship of 
 their former masters, who, having no faith 
 in their manhood or their development, de- 
 vised for them a condition with few rights 
 or hopes, and little removed from the slavery 
 out of which they had been delivered. 
 
 This policy found little favor with those 
 in the North who had borne the heat and 
 burden of the war. In the elections of 1866 
 the people repudiated President Johnson's 
 policy by emphatic majorities. When the 
 hostile Congress met, the governments John- 
 son had instituted were declared to be pro- 
 visional only, and it set about the work of 
 reconstruction in its own way, imbedding 
 the changed conditions, the fruits of the 
 war, in proposed amendments of the Consti- 
 tution of the United States, which were ulti- 
 mately ratified by a sufficient number of 
 States to make them part of the organic 
 frame of government of the Republic. 
 
118 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 In these days of storm and stress, General 
 Grant took neither side as a partisan. He 
 stuck to his professional work until he was 
 forced to be a participator in a political war, 
 strange to his knowledge and his habits. 
 Congress directed the Southern States to be 
 divided into five military districts, with a 
 military commander of each, and all subor- 
 dinate to the general of the army, who was 
 charged with keeping the peace, until civil 
 governments in the States should be estab- 
 lished by the legislative department of na- 
 tional authority. 
 
 Congress, before adjourning in 1866, 
 passed a tenure-of-office act, — overriding 
 in this, as in other legislation, the Presi- 
 dent's veto. The motive was to prevent 
 the President from using the patronage to 
 strengthen his policy. This act required the 
 President to make report to the Senate of 
 all removals during the recess, with his rea- 
 sons therefor. All appointments to vacan- 
 cies so created were to be ad interim ap- 
 pointments. If the Senate disapproved of 
 the removals, the officer suspended at once 
 
IN WASHINGTON , 119 
 
 became again the incumbent. Severe penal- 
 ties were provided for infraction of the law. 
 During the recess the President removed 
 Stanton, and appointed General Grant to be 
 Secretary of War. Grant did not desire the 
 office, but under advice accepted it, lest a 
 worse thing for the country might happen. 
 
 Johnson hoped to win Grant to his side, 
 and in any event to use him in his strife 
 with Congress to defeat the purpose of the 
 law. While the Senate had Stanton's case 
 under consideration in January, 1867, Grant 
 was called into a cabinet meeting and ques- 
 tioned regarding what he would do. He 
 said that he was not familiar with the law, 
 but would examine it and notify the Presi- 
 dent. The next day he notified him that he 
 would obey the law. Therefore, when the 
 Senate disapproved of the reasons assigned 
 for the removal of Stanton, Grant at once 
 vacated the office, to the intense mortifica- 
 tion and anger of the President, who made 
 a public accusation that Grant had promised 
 to stay in office and oppose Stanton's re- 
 sumption of it. 
 
120 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 The charge made a great scandal, but it 
 did not seriously impair Grant's good repute. 
 Johnson was not believed, and the testimony 
 of the members of his cabinet, regarding 
 what happened, was so conflicting that it 
 failed to convince anybody who did not seek 
 to be convinced. 
 
 There is reason to believe that Johnson 
 never contemplated retaining Grant in the 
 office, except to use his name and fame to 
 break down the tenure-of -office act. General 
 Grant's plain common sense delivered him 
 from the snare spread for him by wily and 
 desperate politicians. On February 3, he 
 closed an unsatisfactory correspondence with 
 President Johnson, with these severe words : 
 " I can but regard this whole business, from 
 the beginning to the end, as an attempt to 
 involve me in the resistance of law, for which 
 you hesitated to assume the responsibility in 
 orders, and thus to destroy my character be- 
 fore the country. I am, in a measure, con- 
 firmed in this conclusion by your recent 
 order, directing me to disobey orders from 
 the Secretary of War, my superior and your 
 
IN WASHINGTON 121 
 
 subordinate, without having countermanded 
 his authority to issue the orders I am to 
 disobey." 
 
 When Johnson was impeached by the 
 House of Representatives, General Grant 
 might, if he had chosen to do so, have con- 
 tributed much to embarrass the President ; 
 but he held aloof, discharging his duties as 
 general-in-chief with constant devotion. He 
 was instrumental in instituting many econo- 
 mies and improvements of army manage- 
 ment. He greatly advanced the work of 
 reconstruction, and civil governments were 
 firmly established on the congressional plan 
 in a majority of the Southern States before 
 he became the chosen leader of the Repub- 
 lican party. 
 
 Grant had not yet distinctly committed 
 himself as between the Democratic and the 
 Republican parties, although from the time of 
 his break with Johnson, he was more drawn 
 to the Republicans. So far as he had any 
 politics he might have been classed as a War 
 Democrat. Had he definitely proclaimed 
 himself a Democrat, no doubt he could have 
 
122 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 had that party's nomination for the presi- 
 dency. He was the first citizen of the na- 
 tion in popularity, of which he had marked 
 tokens, and of which both parties were anx- 
 ious to avail themselves. It is little won- 
 der that he came to think that the presi- 
 dency was an honor to which he might fitly 
 aspire, and an office in which he could fur- 
 ther serve his country, by promoting good 
 feeling between the sections. In May, 1868, 
 he was placed in nomination, first by a con- 
 vention of Union soldiers and sailors, and 
 afterwards by the Eepublican party, in both 
 instances by acclamation. His Democratic 
 opponent was Horatio Seymour, of New 
 York. In the election he had a popular 
 majority of 305,456. He received 214 elec- 
 toral votes, and Seymour received 80. Three 
 of the Southern States, not being fully re- 
 stored to the Union, had no voice in the 
 election. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 HIS FIRST ADMINISTRATION 
 
 Immediately after General Grant's inau- 
 guration as President, an incident occurred 
 which revealed his inexperience in states- 
 manship. Among the names sent to the 
 Senate as members of the cabinet was that 
 of Alexander T. Stewart, of New York, the 
 leading merchant of the country, for Secre- 
 tary of the Treasury. Grant was unaware 
 of the existence of his disqualification by a 
 statute passed in 1789, on account of being 
 engaged in trade and commerce. His igno- 
 rance is hardly surprising in view of the 
 fact that the Senate confirmed the nomina- 
 tion without discovering its illegality. The 
 point was soon made, however, and the rea- 
 sonableness of the law was apparent to all 
 except the President, who sent a message to 
 the Senate suggesting that Mr. Stewart be 
 exempted from its application to him by a 
 
124 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 joint resolution of Congress. This breaking 
 down of a sound principle of government 
 for the pleasure of the President was not 
 favored, and George S. Boutwell of Massa- 
 chusetts was substituted, Mr. Stewart hav- 
 ing declined, in order to relieve the Presi- 
 dent of embarrassment. 
 
 For the rest, the cabinet was a peculiar 
 one. It appeared to be made up without 
 consultation or political sagacity, in accord- 
 ance with the personal reasons by which a 
 general selects his staff. Elihu B. Wash- 
 burn, of Illinois, his firm congressional 
 friend during the war, was Secretary of 
 State ; General Jacob D. Cox, of Ohio, 
 Secretary of the Interior; Adolph E. Boise, 
 of Pennsylvania, Secretary of the Navy; 
 General John M. Schofield, of Illinois, 
 Secretary of War; John A. J. Cresswell, 
 of Maryland, Postmaster-General; and E. 
 Rockwood Hoar, of Massachusetts, Attor- 
 ney-General. It did not long endure in this 
 form. Mr. Washburn was soon appointed 
 Minister to France, and was succeeded by 
 Hamilton Fish, of New York, in the State 
 
HIS FIRST ADMINISTRATION 125 
 
 Department. General Schofield was suc- 
 ceeded in the War Department by General 
 John A. Rawlins, who died in September, 
 and was succeeded by General William W. 
 Belknap, of Iowa. Mr. Boise gave way in 
 June to George M. Robeson, of New Jersey. 
 In July, 1870, Mr. Hoar was succeeded by 
 A. T. Akerman, of Georgia, and he, in 
 December, 1871, by George H. Williams, 
 of Oregon. General Cox resigned in Novem- 
 ber, 1870, and was succeeded by Columbus 
 Delano. Some of these changes, like that 
 of Washburn to Fish, were good ones, and 
 many of them were exceedingly bad ones, 
 — men of high character and ability, like 
 Judge Hoar and General Cox, conscientious 
 and faithful even to the point of remon- 
 strance with their headstrong chief, being 
 succeeded by compliant men of a distinctly 
 lower strain. Fish and Boutwell achieved 
 high reputation by their conduct of their 
 offices. The death of Rawlins deprived the 
 President of a wise and staunch personal 
 friend at a time when he was never more 
 in need of his controlling influence. 
 
126 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 Early in 1871 the work of reconstruction 
 was completed, so far as the establishment 
 of State governments and representation in 
 Congress was concerned. But later in the 
 year, the outrages upon the colored popula- 
 tion in certain States were so general and 
 cruel that Congress passed what became 
 known as the " Ku-Klux Act," which was 
 followed by a presidential proclamation ex- 
 horting to obedience of the law. On Octo- 
 ber 17, the outrages continuing, suspension 
 of the writ of habeas corpus was proclaimed 
 in certain counties of South Carolina, and 
 many offenders were convicted in the United 
 States courts. This severe proceeding had 
 a deterring influence throughout the South, 
 which understood quite well that General 
 Grant was not a person to be defied with 
 impunity. 
 
 In 1870 he sent to the Senate a treaty 
 that the administration had negotiated with 
 President Baez for the annexation of Santo 
 Domingo as a territory of the United States, 
 and also one for leasing to the United States 
 the peninsula and bay of Samana. These 
 
HIS FIRST ADMINISTRATION 127 
 
 treaties, it was said, had already been rati- 
 fied by a popular vote early in 1870. The 
 scheme precipitated a conflict that divided 
 the Republican party into administration 
 and anti-administration factions, the latter 
 being led by Charles Sumner and Carl 
 Schurz. Sumner had long been chairman of 
 the Senate committee on foreign relations, 
 but he was degraded through the influence 
 of the President's friends in the Senate. 
 Bitter personal animosities were aroused in 
 this contest which never were healed. It 
 was alleged that the sentiment of the people 
 of Santo Domingo had not been fairly taken, 
 and that they were in fact opposed to annex- 
 ation. A commission composed of B. F. 
 Wade, of Ohio, Andrew D. White, of New 
 York, and Samuel G. Howe, of Massachu- 
 setts, was sent on a naval vessel to investi- 
 gate the actual conditions. This committee 
 reported in favor of annexation; but the 
 hostile sentiment in Congress and among 
 the people was so strong that the treaties 
 were never ratified. By many it was con- 
 sidered a wrong to the colored race to so 
 
128 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 extinguish the experiment of negro self-gov- 
 ernment. Others were opposed to annexing 
 such a population, thinking this country 
 already had race troubles enough. Others 
 regarded the whole business as a speculation 
 of jobbers, and the stain of jobbery then 
 pervading government circles was so notori- 
 ous that the presumption was not without 
 warrant. The annexation scheme brought 
 to a head and gave occasion for an outbreak 
 of indignant hostile criticism of the Presi- 
 dent and the administration. 
 
 In this term Grant appointed the first 
 board of civil service commissioners, with 
 George William Curtis at its head. The 
 commissioners were to inquire into the condi- 
 tion of the civil service and devise a scheme 
 to increase its efficiency. This they did ; 
 but later the President himself balked at 
 the enforcement of their rules, and, in 1873, 
 Mr. Curtis resigned. 
 
 The most conspicuous achievement of 
 General Grant's first term was the settle- 
 ment of the controversy with Great Britain 
 growing out of the destruction of American 
 
HIS FIRST ADMINISTRATION 129 
 
 commerce by Confederate States cruisers 
 during the war. A joint high commission 
 of five British and five American members 
 met in Washington, February 17, 1871, and 
 on May 8 a treaty was completed and signed, 
 providing peaceable means for a settlement 
 of the several questions arising out of the 
 coast fisheries, the northwestern boundary 
 line, and the " Alabama Claims." The last 
 and most important subject was referred to 
 an international court of arbitration, which 
 met at Geneva, Switzerland, and on Septem- 
 ber 14, 1872, awarded to the United States 
 a gross sum of 815,500,000, which was paid 
 by Great Britain. This was the most im- 
 portant international issue that had ever 
 been settled by voluntary submission to arbi- 
 tration. It was long regarded as the har- 
 binger of peace between nations. 
 
 Other important things done were the 
 establishment of the first weather bureau ; 
 the honorable settlement of the outrage of 
 Spain in the case of the Virginius, an al- 
 leged filibustering vessel which Spain seized, 
 executing a large part of its crew in Cuba ; 
 
130 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 and the settlement of the northwest boun- 
 dary question. It should be said also that 
 the President made a firm stand in behalf of 
 national financial integrity. 
 
 But during the four years there was a 
 steady deterioration in the tone of official 
 life, and a steady growth of corruption and 
 abuses in the administration of government. 
 The President exhibited a strange lack of 
 moral perception and stamina in the sphere 
 of politics. Unprincipled flatterers, adven- 
 turers, and speculators gained a surprising 
 influence with him. His native obstinacy 
 showed itself especially in insistence upon 
 his personal, ill-instructed will. He became 
 intractable to counsels of wisdom, and seemed 
 to be a radically different man from the sin- 
 cere, modest soldier of the civil war. He 
 affected the society of the rich, whom he 
 never before had opportunity of knowing. 
 He accepted with an indiscreet eagerness 
 presents and particular favors from persons 
 of whose motives he should have been sus- 
 picious. Jay Gould and James Fisk used 
 him in preparing the conditions for the 
 
HIS FIRST ADMINISTRATION 131 
 
 corner of the gold market that culminated 
 in " Black Friday." He provided fat offices 
 for his relatives with a liberal hand, and 
 prostituted the civil service to accomplish 
 his aims and reward his supporters. 
 
 In consequence of these things there was 
 great disaffection in the Republican party, 
 which culminated in open revolt. Yet he 
 was supported by the majority. The Demo- 
 cratic party, meantime, making a virtue of 
 necessity, proclaimed a purpose to accept 
 the results of the war, including the consti- 
 tutional amendments, as accomplished facts 
 not to be disturbed or further opposed. This 
 made an opportunity for a union of all ele- 
 ments opposed to the reelection of Grant, 
 leading Democrats having given assurance 
 of support to a candidate to be nominated 
 by what had come to be called the " Liberal 
 Reform" party. That party held its con- 
 vention in Cincinnati early in May, and 
 named Horace Greeley as its candidate, a 
 nomination which wrecked whatever chance 
 the party had seemed to have. Grant was 
 renominated by acclamation in the Republi- 
 
132 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 can convention. The Democratic conven- 
 tion nominated Greeley on the Cincinnati 
 convention platform, but without enthusiasm. 
 General Grant was elected by a popular 
 majority of more than three quarters of a 
 million, and a vote in the electoral college 
 of 286 to 63 for all others, the opposing 
 vote being scattered on account of the death 
 of Mr. Greeley in November, soon after his 
 mortifying defeat. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 HIS SECOND ADMINISTRATION 
 
 The storm of criticism and calumny 
 through which President Grant passed dur- 
 ing the election canvass of 1872 had no ef- 
 fect to change his general course or open his 
 eyes to the true sentiment of the nation. In- 
 stead of realizing that he was reelected, not 
 because his administration was approved, but 
 because circumstances prevented an effective 
 combination of the various elements of sin- 
 cere opposition, he and his friends accepted 
 the result as popular approbation of their 
 past conduct and warrant for its continu- 
 ance. Things went from bad to worse with 
 a pell-mell rapidity that made good men 
 shudder. 
 
 In the four years there were but two exhi- 
 bitions of conspicuously courageous and hon- 
 orable statesmanship. One was the passage 
 of the Resumption Act of January 14, 1875, 
 
134 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 which promised the resumption of specie 
 payments on January 1, 1879, and gave the 
 Secretary of the Treasury adequate power to 
 make the performance of the promise possi- 
 ble. This was one result of the collapse in 
 1873 of the enormous speculation promoted 
 by a fluctuating currency and fictitious val- 
 ues. The demand for a currency of stable 
 value enabled the conservative statesmen 
 in Congress to take this action. Grant's 
 approval of this act and his veto in the 
 previous year of the " inflation bill " must 
 always be regarded as highly commendable 
 public services. 
 
 The only immediate change in the cabi- 
 net was the appointment of William A. 
 Richardson to succeed George S. Bout well 
 as Secretary of the Treasury. Mr. Rich- 
 ardson had some qualifications of experience 
 for the place, but wanted the essential traits 
 of firmness and high motive. In the next 
 year after taking office he was forced to 
 resign, on account of a report of the commit- 
 tee of ways and means condemning him for 
 his part in making a contract, while acting 
 
HIS SECOND ADMINISTRATION 135 
 
 Secretary of the Treasury, with one Sanborn, 
 for collecting for the Treasury, on shares, 
 taxes which it was the business of regular 
 officers of the government to collect. Im- 
 mense power was given by the contract, and 
 the resources of the Treasury Department 
 were put at the service of a crew of irre- 
 sponsible inquisitors before whom the busi- 
 ness community trembled. They extorted 
 immense sums in dishonorable ways which 
 aroused popular resentment. The Presi- 
 dent saw no wrong, and accepted Secretary 
 Richardson's resignation unwillingly, at once 
 nominating him to be Chief Justice of the 
 Court of Claims, a reward for malfeasance 
 which amazed the country, although the ad- 
 ministration supporters in the Senate con- 
 firmed it. 
 
 General Benjamin H. Bristow, of Ken- 
 tucky, became Secretary of the Treasury, a 
 man of superior ability, aggressive honesty, 
 and moral firmness. He quickly uncovered 
 a mass of various wrongdoing, — the safe- 
 burglary frauds of the corrupt ring govern- 
 ing Washington, the seal-lock frauds, the 
 
136 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 subsidy frauds, and, most formidable of all, the 
 frauds of the powerful whiskey ring having 
 headquarters in St. Louis. The administra- 
 tion of the Treasury Department, especially 
 the Internal Eevenue Bureau, was permeated 
 with corruption. The worst feature of it all 
 was that officers who desired to be upright 
 found themselves powerless against the in- 
 trigues and the potent political influence of 
 the rascals at the headquarters of executive 
 authority. When the evidence of wrongdo- 
 ing accumulated by the new Secretary of the 
 Treasury was laid before the President he 
 was dumfounded by its wickedness and ex- 
 tent, but showed himself resolute and vigor- 
 ous in supporting his able and resourceful 
 Secretary. The trap was sprung in May, 
 1875. Indictments were found against 150 
 private citizens and 86 government officers, 
 among the latter the chief clerk in the 
 Treasury Department, and the President's 
 private secretary, General O. E. Babcock. 
 All the principal defendants were convicted 
 except Babcock, and he was dismissed by 
 the President. 
 
HIS SECOND ADMINISTRATION 137 
 
 During all these proceedings, in spite of 
 the President's professions, the Treasury De- 
 partment was beset by subtle hostile influ- 
 ences and impediments. The politicians who 
 had the President's ear made him believe 
 that it was the ruin of himself and his house- 
 hold that the investigators sought. Only 
 the enthusiastic popular approval of Secre- 
 tary Bristow's brave course prevented yield- 
 ing to the political backers of the corrup- 
 tion. When in the spring of 1876 Bristow 
 initiated a similar campaign against the cor- 
 ruptions rife on the Pacific coast, the Sec- 
 retary was overruled and the government 
 prosecutors were recalled. Whereupon the 
 Secretary resigned, and no less than seven 
 high Treasury officials, who had been ac- 
 tive in the crusade of reform, left the de- 
 partment at the same time. Mr. Bristow 
 was succeeded by an honorable man, — the 
 President had to appoint a man known to be 
 pure, — Lot M. Morrill, of Maine ; but he 
 was infirm, and all aggressive reform work 
 ceased. 
 
 In the War Department, Secretary Bel- 
 
138 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 knap, sustained by the President, stripped 
 General Sherman of the rights and duties 
 properly pertaining to his rank, of which 
 Grant himself, in the same place during John- 
 son's administration, had protested against 
 being deprived. Sherman was subjected to 
 such humiliations by his old commander, 
 turned politician, that he abandoned Wash- 
 ington and retired to St. Louis. Congress 
 was a subservient participator in this shame, 
 repealing the law that required all orders to 
 the army to go through its general. But 
 in February, 1876, it was discovered that 
 Belknap had been enriching himself by cor- 
 rupt partnership with contractors in his de- 
 partment, and he hurriedly resigned, the 
 President strangely accepting the resignation 
 before Congress could act. He was im- 
 peached, notwithstanding. He set up the 
 defense that being no longer an official, he 
 could not be impeached, and this being over- 
 ruled, he was tried, but was not convicted. 
 Of his guilt the country had no doubt. 
 Then Alphonso Taft, an Ohio judge, was 
 made Secretary of War. He was soon trans- 
 
HIS SECOND ADMINISTRATION 139 
 
 ferred to the Attorney-General's office, and 
 was succeeded by Don Cameron, already his 
 father's lieutenant in control of the Republi- 
 can party of Pennsylvania. 
 
 Columbus Delano, Secretary of the In- 
 terior, had so mismanaged affairs, especially 
 in the Indian Bureau, which teemed with 
 flagrant abuses, that public opinion turned 
 against him with great force, and in 1875 
 he had to abandon the office, in which he 
 was succeeded by Zachariah Chandler, 
 against whom no scandalous charge was 
 made, although he was a rank partisan of 
 the President. 
 
 Marshall Jewell, of Connecticut, became 
 Postmaster-General in 1874. He was a suc- 
 cessful business man, and on taking the office 
 he declared his purpose to conduct it on 
 business principles. He attacked effectively 
 a system long in vogue known as " straw- 
 bids" for mail-carrying contracts. He in- 
 troduced the railway post-office system, 
 that has been of so much use in facilitating 
 promptness of transmitting correspondence. 
 But he also insisted on conducting his office 
 
140 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 with respect of its personnel as a business man 
 would, that is, by making appointments and 
 promotions for merit rather than for political 
 influence. This was intolerable to the spoils- 
 men in politics ; and within two years he was 
 summarily dismissed in a manner as graceless 
 and cruel as any President, no matter how 
 unfortunately bred, was ever guilty of. Jew- 
 ell was succeeded by James N. Tyner, an 
 entirely complaisant official. In 1875 Con- 
 gress neglected to make any appropriation 
 for the civil service reform commission, and 
 its work was suspended. 
 
 During this time affairs in the Southern 
 States were, as a rule, growing worse and 
 worse. The unreasonable arrogance and op- 
 pressive extravagance of the freedmen where 
 they were in control, under the leadership 
 of reckless carpet-baggers, and still more 
 reckless and malicious white natives, had 
 produced a revulsion in the minds of all at 
 the North who regarded justice, honor, and 
 honesty as essentials of good government. 
 There were exceptions, like oases in the 
 desert of ignorance and vice. The adminis- 
 
HIS SECOND ADMINISTRATION 141 
 
 tration of Governor Chamberlain in South 
 Carolina was an instance of an earnest and 
 partially successful endeavor to educe good 
 government from desperate conditions. The 
 colored race abused its privilege of the bal- 
 lot with suicidal persistency. The experi- 
 ment of maintaining bad State governments 
 by the presence and activity of federal 
 troops did not tend to social pacification. 
 Reconstruction in its earlier fruits was an 
 obvious failure ; and again, if the apparent 
 paradox can be understood, lawless violence 
 began asserting itself as the only hopeful 
 means of preserving property, civil rights, 
 and civilization itself. 
 
 During the second term the report was 
 persistently circulated that Grant and those 
 who followed his star were scheming for 
 another term, in order to give him in civil 
 office, as in military rank, a distinction higher 
 than Washington or any American had ob- 
 tained. The proposal shocked the public 
 sense of propriety; but its treatment by 
 those who alone could repudiate it became 
 ominous. The Republican State Conven- 
 
142 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 tion of 1875 in Pennsylvania boldly de- 
 clared unalterable opposition to the third- 
 term idea. Grant then spoke. In a letter 
 to the convention's chairman he said : " Now, 
 for the third term, I do not want it any 
 more than I did the first." After calling 
 attention to the fact that the Constitution 
 did not forbid a third term, and that an oc- 
 casion might arise when a third term might 
 be wisely given, he said that he was not 
 a candidate for a third nomination, and 
 " would not accept it, if tendered, unless 
 under such circumstances as to make it an 
 imperative duty — circumstances not likely 
 to arise." 
 
 This was justly regarded as a politician's 
 letter, and increased alarm instead of allay- 
 ing it. The national House of Representa- 
 tives (which the elections of 1874 had made 
 a Democratic body), by a vote of 234 to 18, 
 passed the following resolution : " That in 
 the opinion of this House the precedent, es- 
 tablished by Washington and other Presi- 
 dents of the United States after their second 
 term, has become, by universal consent, a 
 
HIS SECOND ADMINISTRATION 143 
 
 part of our republican system of govern- 
 ment, and that any departure from this 
 time-honored custom would be unwise, un- 
 patriotic, and fraught with peril to our free 
 institutions." As 70 Eepublicans voted for 
 this resolution, it was practically the voice 
 of both parties, and it dispelled the spectre 
 of " Caesarism," as the third-term idea was 
 called. There is reason to believe that if it 
 had caused less alarm it would have assumed 
 a more substantial aspect. 
 
 During the excited and perilous four 
 months after the election of 1876, when 
 civil war and anarchy were imminent on 
 account of the disputed result of the peo- 
 ple's suffrage, the conduct of the President 
 was admirable. He let it be understood 
 that violence would be suppressed, without 
 hesitation, at any cost. He preserved the 
 status quo, and compelled peaceful patience. 
 The condition was one which summoned 
 into action his genius of supreme command, 
 and it shone with its former splendor of au- 
 thority. On the 4th of March, 1877, he 
 became a private citizen. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE TOUR OF THE WORLD 
 
 Upon leaving the presidency General 
 Grant retained the distinction of first citi- 
 zen of the nation. There was no fame of 
 living man that could vie with his. His old 
 form of modesty and simplicity was resumed. 
 As soon as he stepped down from the pedes- 
 tal of power the criticism of duty and the 
 criticism of malice both ceased. A gener- 
 ous people was glad to forget his errors and 
 remember only his patriotism and his tran- 
 scendent successes in arms. Even those 
 who had most deprecated his mistakes as a 
 civil magistrate were hardly sorry that he 
 had been repeatedly rewarded for his great 
 services by the highest honor popular suf- 
 frage could bestow. They were ready to 
 believe, as, indeed, was true, that in most of 
 the things deserving reprobation he was the 
 victim of his innocence of selfish politics and 
 
THE TOUR OF THE WORLD 145 
 
 his unwary friendships, of which baser men 
 had taken foul advantage. They were glad 
 for his sake, as much as for their own, that 
 he was no longer President Grant, but again 
 General Grant, a title purely reminiscent and 
 complimentary, for he was no longer an offi- 
 cer of the army. With all his honors about 
 him, he stood on the common level of citi- 
 zenship, as when he was a farmer in Mis- 
 souri or a tanner's clerk in Galena. 
 
 There came to him then the desire to 
 see other lands and peoples and to meet the 
 renowned commanders in other wars, the 
 actors in other statesmanship. It was de- 
 termined that he should have all the oppor- 
 tunities and advantages which the national 
 prestige could command for its foremost 
 unofficial representative. No other Ameri- 
 can had gone abroad whose achievements 
 bespoke for him so respectful a welcome 
 among the great. Every aid was availed 
 of to make it apparent that our nation ex- 
 pected him to be entertained as its beloved 
 hero. He sailed from Philadelphia on May 
 17, 1877, and, returning, he landed in San 
 
146 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 Francisco September 20, 1879, having made 
 the circuit of the globe. 
 
 Of such another progress there is no record. 
 He visited nearly every country of Europe, 
 the Holy Land, Egypt, Syria, India, Burmah, 
 China, Siam, and Japan, being everywhere 
 received as the guest of their rulers, and wel- 
 comed by the chief representatives of their 
 statesmanship, their learning, and their social 
 life. He was received with high courtesies 
 by Queen Victoria of England, President 
 McMahon and President Grevy of France, 
 the emperors of Germany, Russia, and Aus- 
 tria, the kings of Belgium, Italy, Holland, 
 Sweden, and Spain, Pope Leo XIII., the 
 Sultan of Turkey, the Khedive of Egypt, 
 the Duke of Wellington, Prince Bismarck, 
 M. Gambetta, Lord Lytton, Viceroy of India, 
 King Thebau of Burmah, Prince Kung of 
 China, the Emperor of Siam, the Mikado of 
 Japan, and many others only less famous. 
 With few exceptions he met under the most 
 favorable circumstances all persons of note 
 in all the lands he visited. Extraordinary 
 pains were taken to promote the comfort of 
 
THE TOUR OF THE WORLD 147 
 
 his party, and to enable its members to see 
 whatever was most worth seeing. 
 
 The recipient of all this flattering atten- 
 tion bore himself with a simple dignity that 
 won the respect of the high and the low alike. 
 He was neither awed nor abashed among the 
 great, nor was he haughty or presuming 
 among the common people. The nation at 
 home followed his progress with pride and 
 gratification. When he landed in San Fran- 
 cisco, he was welcomed as a favorite who 
 had achieved new distinction for himself and 
 his land, and his leisurely way across the con- 
 tinent was marked by a series of ovations all 
 the way to New York. To complete his 
 itinerary, he soon made a tour of the West 
 Indies and of Mexico, visiting the scenes 
 where he had won his first laurels, as Lieu- 
 tenant Grant, thirty years before. He was 
 honored as the warrior whose victories, be- 
 sides uniting and exalting his native land, 
 had delivered Mexico from the imposition of 
 an alien imperialism. 
 
 Unfortunately, this revived popularity of 
 General Grant was taken advantage of by a 
 
148 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 faction of the Eepublican party to urge again 
 his reelection to the presidency. New York, 
 Pennsylvania, and Illinois were committed 
 to his support by the influence of their pow- 
 erful Republican leaders ; but not unani- 
 mously. The movement is supposed to have 
 been undertaken without consultation with 
 Grant ; but he did nothing to discourage it, 
 and to this extent he consented to it. The 
 attempt failed. Prudent people had no mind 
 to have their hero's good name again made 
 opprobrious by fresh scandals, which they 
 could not but dread. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 REVERSES OF FORTUNE ILL HEALTH 
 
 HIS LAST VICTORY THE END 
 
 General Grant now made his home in 
 the city of New York. He was not wealthy, 
 and he desired to be. The only persons he 
 seemed to envy, and particularly to court, 
 were those who had great possessions. He 
 coveted a fortune that should place his family 
 beyond any chance of poverty. This weak- 
 ness was his undoing. He became the pri- 
 vate partner of an unscrupulous schemer and 
 robber, and intrusted to him all that he had, 
 and more, to be adventured in speculation. 
 His name was dishonored in Wall Street 
 by association with a scoundrel whom pru- 
 dent financiers distrusted and shunned. He 
 was warned, but would not heed the warn- 
 ings. The charitable view is that he was 
 deceived by repayments which he was told 
 were profits. On May 6, 1884, a crisis 
 came and Grant was ruined. 
 
150 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 He gave up everything he possessed in 
 the struggle to redeem his honor, even the 
 presents and trophies which had been lav- 
 ishly bestowed upon him. This savior of his 
 country and recipient of its grateful gener- 
 osity, who was but lately the guest of the 
 princes of the earth, became dependent upon 
 pitying friends for shelter and bread, until 
 enterprising editors of magazines began com- 
 peting for contributions from his pen. 
 
 And, as if his misfortunes were not yet 
 sufficiently desperate, illness came. A ma- 
 lignant, incurable cancer appeared in his 
 mouth. He stood face to face with the last 
 enemy, the always victorious one, and real- 
 ized that the rest of life was but a few 
 months of increasing torture. Then the 
 magnificent courage of his soul asserted 
 itself in fortitude unequaled at Donelson, or 
 Vicksburg, or Chattanooga, or the Wilder- 
 ness. No eye saw him quail ; no ear heard 
 him complain. 
 
 It was suggested that if he would write a 
 book, an autobiographical memoir, the profit 
 of it, doubtless, would place his family above 
 
HIS LAST VICTORY 151 
 
 want. Nothing can be imagined more un- 
 acceptable to General Grant's native dis- 
 position than the narration for the public of 
 his own life story. But in his circumstances, 
 the question was not one of sentiment, but 
 only of duty to those who were dependent 
 upon him. The task was undertaken reso- 
 lutely, and, in spite of physical weakness and 
 suffering, was carried on with as high and 
 faithful energy as he had shown in any cam- 
 paign of the war. On March 3, 1885, he 
 was restored to the army with the rank of 
 general on the retired list with full pay. He 
 was glad ; but in his feebleness joy was as 
 hard to bear as grief. He began failing 
 more rapidly. 
 
 In June he was taken to the sweet tonic 
 air of a cottage on Mount McGregor, near 
 Saratoga. Here, in pleasant weather, he could 
 sit in the open air and enjoy the agreeable 
 prospect. But whether indoors or out, he 
 toiled at the book in every possible moment, 
 writing with a pencil on tablets while he had 
 strength, then dictating in almost inaudible 
 whispers, little by little, to an amanuensis. 
 
152 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 
 
 So, toilsomely, through intense suffering, 
 sustained by indomitable will, this legacy to 
 his family and the world was completed to 
 the end of the war. His last battle was won. 
 Four days after the victory, he died, July 
 23, 1885. The book had a success beyond 
 all sanguine expectations, and accomplished 
 the purpose of its author. To his country- 
 men it was a revelation of the heart of the 
 man, Ulysses Grant, in its nobility, its sim- 
 plicity, and its charity, that has endeared 
 him beyond any knowledge afforded by the 
 outward manifestations of his life. 
 
 His conversations in his last days, as 
 reported by visitors to Mount McGregor 
 (among these was General Buckner, who 
 surrendered Fort Donelson), show a soul se- 
 rene and cheerful, devoted to his country, to 
 humanity, and to peace. No experiences of 
 malevolence and injury had shaken his trust 
 in the goodness of the great majority of 
 mankind. 
 
 When the great soldier died he owned no 
 uniform in which he could be suitably at- 
 tired for the grave, no sword to be laid on 
 
THE END 153 
 
 his coffin. His body lies in the magnificent 
 tomb, erected by the voluntary contributions 
 of admiring citizens, the commanding attrac- 
 tion of a beautiful park overlooking the 
 broad Hudson as it sweeps past the nation's 
 chief city. Already this resting place has 
 become a veritable shrine of patriotism. 
 Military and naval pageants make it their 
 proper goal, as when, after Santiago, the re- 
 turning battleships moved in stately proces- 
 sion up the Hudson to the tomb of our 
 national military hero, there to thunder 
 forth the triumphant salute, like a summons 
 to his spirit to bestow an approval. 
 
May- 7. 1901 
 
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 WILLIAM PENN, by George Hodges 
 GENERAL GRANT, by Walter Allen. 
 MERIWETHER LEWIS AND WILLIAM 
 
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