r LINCOLN, STANTON AND GRANT. LINCOLN, STANTON AND GRANT, HISTORICAL SKETCHES BY MAJOR EVAN ROWLAND JONES, UNITED STATES CONSUL, NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE. " All history resolves itself very easily into the biography of a few stout and earnest persons." EMERSON. WITH STEEL PORTRAITS. LONDON : FREDERICK WARNE AND CO. BEDFORD STREET, STRAND. NEW YORK: SCRIBNER, WELFORD AND ARMSTRONG. LONDON : SAVILL, EDWARDS AND CO., PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET, COVENT GARDEN. TO GENERAL THOMAS S. ALLEN, OF WISCONSIN, THIS VOLUME, CONTAINING MEMOIRS OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS TRIUMVIRATE, WHOSE PATRIOTISM, DEVOTION, AND ABILITY CONTRIBUTED SO LARGELY TOWARDS THE SALVATION OF OUR COUNTRY AND THE OVERTHROW OF HUMAN SLAVERY, $8 BY HIS FAITHFUL FRIEND AND FELLOW-SOLDIER, THE AUTHOR. 227181 PREFACE. IN writing this book, I have endeavoured to trace the early lives, struggles, and training of Lincoln, Stanton, and Grant with as much minuteness as my predetermined plan would admit. I have also aimed at giving inter woven with my sketches an outline of the political ques tions and differences which led to our unhappy conflict, together with a necessarily brief military history of the War for the Union. Of the measure of success which has attended me, I must allow others to judge. " As my plan did not contemplate the invention of any facts," I have drawn them from every legitimate source, and I desire to make public acknowledgment of the valuable information obtained from Colonel Ward H. Lamon s " Life of Lincoln," Hon. Henry J. Raymond s " Life, Public Services, and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln," General Badeau s " Military History of Ulysses S. Grant," the " American Conflict " by Horace Greeley, and many other works ; but more especially am I indebted to my friend W. E. Adams, of Newcastle, from whom I have received services and suggestions of a valuable character. My own personal military knowledge and experience PREFACE. are confined to the operations of the Army of the Potomac, in which I served, with musket and sword, during the entire war. And from the crossing of the Rapidan under Grant, until the surrender at Appomattox Court House, I have given my own account and description of the campaigns and battles in which I took an humble part. I have brought to this work an earnest desire to be just to friend and foe, and I trust that those who may honour my pages with a perusal will find that I have not dealt unfairly with those against whom I once fought, for I am animated by no feelings save those of kindness and con sideration towards my brave but ill-advised fellow-citizens of the " Sunny South" who served under the intrusive flag. John Rogers, the American sculptor, has offered a lasting tribute to the subjects of my sketches in his famous group of statuary, THE COUNCIL OF WAR, which, by the kind permission of the eminent sculptor, is repre sented upon the cover of this volume. EVAN R. JONES. UNITED STATES CONSULATE, NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE, August ist, 1875. CONTENTS. TAGK ABRAHAM LINCOLN .... . .3 Sarah Lincoln . . . . . . . .5 " The Black Hawk War ",..... 9 Studying Law . . . . . . . .11 His Character as a Lawyer 13 Trial of Young Armstrong . ... . .15 Debates with Douglas . . . . . -19 The Kansas Nebraska Bill 21 His Anti-Nebraska Speech . . . . . 23 Kansas Elections 25 False Logic Exposed 27 Defeated for the Senate . . . . . .29 The Irrepressible Conflict . . . . . -31 Nominated for President . . . . . -33 The Lincoln Cabinet . . ... . . -35 Journey to Washington . . . . . -37 Speech at Philadelphia 39 Inaugural Address . . . . . . .41 Interview with Sherman . . . . . -43 Treason in High Places . . . . . 45 The Christian Statesman ... ... . -47 Emancipation . . . . . . . .49 Battle of Gettysburg . ... . . .51 His Gettysburg Speech . . . . . -53 Anecdotes . . . . . . . -55 "A Copperhead Lie!" . . /. . . .57 Re-elected President . . . . . . -59 Inaugural Address . . ; . . . .61 Lincoln and Greeley . 63 Letter to Greeley . . . . . . -65 Peace Commissioners . . . . . -67 Difference with Sumner 69 CONTENTS. PAGE Feeling in the South . . . . . .75 National Grief -77 EDWIN M. STANTON 81 Democrats and the War 83 Admitted to the Bar 87 First Meeting with Lincoln . . . . .89 Anderson Occupies Sumpter 91 Stormy Cabinet Meeting 93 Becomes Secretary of War . . . . -95 Lincoln and McClellan 97 Stan ton s War Orders 99 Stanton and McClellan 101 The Seven Days Fight 103 McClellan as a General . . . . . .105 Fairchild and Stanton 107 " Political Generals " . . . . . .109 Stanton and Grant . . . . . . 1 1 1 Characteristic Despatch . . 113 Rosecrans Superseded . . . . . . 1 1 5 Clamour against Stanton iij~ He Reproves Lincoln . . . . . .119 Tenders his Resignation . . . . . .121 His Quarrel with Sherman . . . . .123 Sherman s Mistake 125 Sherman s Treaty Rejected 127 A Forced March 129 Disbanding the Army 131 Stanton s Report . . . . . 133 Discord in the Cabinet . . . . . .135 The Impeachment Trial 137 His Health Impaired . 139 His Honourable Poverty 141 Stanton and Carnot . .... 143 ULYSSES S. GRANT 149 Albert Sidney Johnston 151 Childhood of Grant . . . . . . .153 The Lone Star Republic 157 Grant and Lee in Mexico . . . . . .159 Votes against Lincoln 161 Made Brigadier-General . . . . . .163 CONTENTS. Kentucky Neutrality 165 Capture of Paducah . . . . . .167 The Battle of Belmont 169 Surrender of Fort Henry . . . . . 173 Battle of Fort Donelson 177 Strange Conduct of Floyd 179 Surrender of Donelson . . . . . .181 Grant Superseded 185 Halleck and Grant . . . . . . .187 Grant and his former Tutor 189 Grant s Line at Shiloh 191 The Battle of Shiloh 193 Arrival of Buell ....... 197 Second Day s Fight ....... 199 Evidence of the Victory 201 -Grant under a Cloud ...... 203 Halleck Commander-in-Chief . . . . .205 Slavery in the War . .... . . . 207 Union Generals and Slavery . . . .209 Grant and Slavery 211 Beauregard and the Black Flag 213 Grant and Negro Soldiers .215 Sherman attacks Vicksburg . . . . .217 Grant and his Subordinates 219 Estimate of McClernand . . . . . .221 Grierson s Raid 225 Passing Vicksburg . . . . . . . 227 Crossing the Mississippi . . . . .229 Grant s Baggage . .. . . . . .231 Battle of Raymond 233 Battle of Champion Hill . . . . . . 235 Battle of Black River Bridge 237 Grant Repulsed . " 239 The Siege of Vicksburg 243 Grant and Pemberton ...... 245 Surrender of Vicksburg 247 A Brilliant Campaign . ... . . . 249 The President s Letter 251 " The Monroe Doctrine " ..... 253 "Grant s New Command 255 Grant at Chattanooga - . 257 CONTENTS. I AGE The Midnight Charge . 259 Orchard Ridge Carried 261 Battle of Chattanooga 263 Knoxville Relieved 265 Lieu tenant-General . . . . . . .267 Letter to Sherman 269 Death of McPherson 271 Grant and Rebel Generals . . . . .273 Battle of the Wilderness . . . . .275 Second Day s Fighting . . . . . .277 Grant Advances . . . . . . .279 Battle of Spottsylvania . . . . . .281 Losses of the Campaign . . . . . 285 Sheridan in the Valley 287 Arrival of Sheridan . . . . . . .289 Sheridan s Raid . . . . . . .293 The Last Campaign 295 Lee s Lines Broken . . . . . . .297 Flight of President Davis . . . . . .299 Grant asks Lee to Surrender 301 Lee s Last Charge 305 The Surrender ........ 307 Meeting of Grant and Lee ..... 309 APPENDIX . . 311 Lincoln s Favourite Poem . . . . . -311 Lincoln First Emancipation Proclamation . . .314 Lincoln s Proclamation making the Slaves Free . .319 The " Monroe Doctrine " 322 Secretary Stanton s Letter to Charles Francis Adams, United States Minister, London, announcing the Death of President Lincoln, and the Attempt to take the Life of Secretary Seward . . . . .324 Speech of Senator Douglas 327 Sherman and the Vicksburg Campaign . . .331 Bragg s Report of the Battle of Chattanooga . . 334 Grant s Farewell to his Army . . . . .341 ABRAHAM LINCOLN ABRAHAM LINCOLN. . . . . " God gave us the one leader whose control secured not only the downfall of the Rebellion, but the eternal overthrow of human slavery under the flag of the Great Republic." HORACE GREELEY. . . . . "In one of the severest trials which ever tested the moral qualities of man, he fulfilled his duty with simplicity and strength." DISRAELI, in the House of Commons. HERE is something eminently satisfactory in the thought, that when the new faith " That all men are created equal," and that " Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed " was finally assailed by the slave power of America, and had to pass the ordeal of four years of war, a man, low in origin, deficient in education, unused to the etiquette of courts, and untutored in the art of diplomacy and deception, had been selected by the people of the United States to become the representative of the new faith, and the defender of the Government established upon it. This man was Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, whose life and character we propose to consider. Abraham was born in a small log cabin in Hardin B 2 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. County, Kentucky, in 1809. Here he spent the first eight years of his life, amid poverty and privations. Indeed, the lives of the pioneers of the West are generally, nay, always, attended by hardships and sufferings, and for the first few years great energy and persevering industry are required to enable them to furnish their rude board with the plainest, coarsest food. We do not find that Thomas Lincoln, Abraham s father, possessed any of the qualifi cations cited as absolutely necessary in those leading a frontier life. Young Abe was but ten years of age when his mother died, and though the historians of the noted son have but little to say of the humble mother, it is to be recorded to her undying honour, that while struggling against poverty in the wild regions of Kentucky and Indiana, with wolves and bears for her neighbours, and in a district where churches and schools were unknown, she taught her son to read his Bible before the curtain dropped upon the scenes of her home in the wilderness. Young Lincoln was deprived of his mother at an age, and under circumstances, when he could but ill afford to sustain the loss. He was old enough, however, to mourn her death, and to write some kind of a letter to a travelling preacher a friend of his mother asking him to come and deliver a sermon over her grave. Yet we find, what is almost a curiosity in history, that his stepmother, and not his own mother, was made the recipient of the tender praise of his maturer years. President Lincoln spoke of this old lady as " a saintly mother " " an angel of a mother," who " first made him feel like a human being." SARAH LINCOLN. The first fee of any considerable sum which he received while practising at the Illinois bar was one of $5> and he remarked to a friend that, if he could only add $250 to it, he would buy a " quarter section" of land and present it to his stepmother. The friend suggested that a settlement of the land upon the old lady, during her lifetime, would be the politic thing to do ; but Lincoln cut the conversation short by replying with energy : " I shall do no such thing ; it is a poor return at the best for all the good woman s devotion and fidelity to me, and there isn t going to be any half-way work about it." And during those anxious days which immediately followed his election to the Presidency, he spared a few days to pay a visit to this good \voman, then living in a remote part of the State. The meeting was most touching ; stepmother and stepson clasped each other in fond embrace, while tears of affection ran down their cheeks. Why should we wonder that Sarah Lincoln occupied so consecrated a place in the honest heart of " Old Abe" ? She found him a ragged urchin, living in a log hut with neither doors nor windows. She insisted that his father should make their cabin home as comfortable as possible ; and out of her few extra articles of dress she clothed this little fellow, though not her own son. To satisfy ourselves that the sacred affection was mutual, let us quote a single paragraph taken from the lips of this second mother. She says : " Abe was dutiful to me always ; I think he loved me truly. I had a son John, who was raised with Abe ; both were good boys, but I must say that Abe was the best boy I ever saw or expect to see." Here we witness ABRAHAM LINCOLN. duty, fidelity, and truth on both sides, maturing into a most sincere attachment, which continued uninterruptedly until our " Honest Old Abe " was taken away from us. Follow Abraham Lincoln where you will, from the cradle to the grave, and you will find honesty and kindness ever distinguishing him. In his boyhood, among boys, he was always fighting the battle of the offended and the weak ; in early manhood, protecting the fugitive from an angry mob at the peril of his own life, and thrashing bullies without losing his temper, " for their own good ;" as a lawyer, saving the widow s son from the gallows, without money and without price, and declining the rich fee of an unrighteous cause ; as a public debater, the fairest ever met in the political arena ; and, as President of the Republic, honest to his convictions and kind to his bitterest enemies. " I ve scanned the actions of his daily life With all the industrious malice of a foe ; And nothing meets mine eyes but deeds of honour." We doubt if there is a man in our time, or in history from its earliest period, who reached anything approaching such an elevated and honourable position, under difficulties and disadvantages so immense, as the subject of these remarks. Cincinnatus was a Roman, and Rome was the great seat of learning even in his time. A country sparsely populated, where books were few and far between, was Lincoln s habitation. Rienzi, though the son of a washerwoman, had the advantage of some education, and finally of the aid of all the Greek and Latin his torians, philosophers, and poets. " If a stranger, supposed EDUCATING HIMSELF. to understand Latin," sojourned in Lincoln s neigh bourhood, " he was looked upon as a wizard." So wrote Lincoln himself in his autobiography of two and a half pages. Cromwell was the grandson of Sir Henry, " the Golden Knight," and was educated at Cambridge, one of the first Universities in the world. Lincoln was the son of an indifferent farmer, and never was six months at school in his life. Our own Washington came from wealthy parents, and learnt surveying at school. Lincoln was penniless, and by the use of a single book, and the occasional assistance of a village schoolmaster, became an expert surveyor in six weeks. But we may safely rest our researches here, for history would become exhausted ere we found a parallel. When twenty-one years of age Lincoln accompanied his father and family to Illinois. By the way, it would seem as if the old gentleman was never happy excepting when on the move, hewing his way through primeval forests. Up to this time, Abe had read all the books he could borrow in the neighbourhood ; and the contribution of Spencer County towards his culture and edification consisted of " yEsop s Fables," " Robinson Crusoe," the " Pilgrim s Progress," a " History of the United States," and the "Life of Washington." From these works it was his custom to make extracts, which he often copied on boards and afterwards committed to memory. After perusing the "Life of Washington" till very late one night, he placed it on a shelf. During the night it rained heavily, the wind blew the water into the cabin between the logs, and in the ABRAHAM LINCOLN. morning Abe found the precious book soaking wet. When he took it back to the person from whom he had bor rowed it, with a thousand apologies for its damaged con dition, the churlish lender insisted that he should be reimbursed for his loss. Abe had no money, and the matter was compromised by Lincoln rendering three days work for the book, which he did cheerfully proud, no doubt, of the opportunity. One morning, when seated at the breakfast-table of his employer a general storekeeper in Illinois Lincoln learnt that one Mr. Vaner, living six miles distant, had in his possession a copy of the English Grammar. He left the table at once, stepped over to Mr. Vaner s, and borrowed the book. He used to peruse it whenever he had a moment s leisure ; and during the long winter evenings the future President of the United States was generally to be found at the village cooper s shop, poring over the pages of this grammar ; studying the science of language the theory of human speech and qualifying himself to be come the author of one of the three great State Papers of modern times by the light of burning shavings ! Lincoln was now past maturity and had left his father s roof. Here we will assume is the end of that "early life," particulars of which, in more glorious times, he refused to furnish to a campaign biographer, inasmuch as they could prove of no interest, said Lincoln, " being but the short and simple annals of the poor." About this period 1832 Black Hawk, the celebrated Indian chief, having first formed an alliance with the chiefs of several other tribes, made war upon the pale- THE BLACK HAWK faced stranger for the possession of the hunting-grounds of his forefathers. He was in his sixty-seventh year when he crossed the Mississippi to regain the Rock River Valley, the scenes of his early trials and triumphs, the resting-place of his father, " the rallying place of his affections." He said he had come to plant corn, to win a few victories, and then to sit down in his old age to see the corn grow as he had seen it in his youth. Abraham Lincoln served as captain of volunteers during this war a position to which the company elected him over a comparatively wealthy competitor " a success," wrote Lincoln in 1859, "which gave me more pleasure than any I have had since." One day during this campaign, a solitary, weary, hungry Indian found his way into Lincoln s camp. He was taken for a spy, and the inconsiderate, undisciplined men were in favour of shooting him without ceremony. In the nick of time Lincoln came to the rescue, and with a face full of fire and determination, he said to the angry mob : " This must not be done. He must not be killed nor shot by us." And the passion of the men was subdued. Though in arms against Black Hawk s lawless invasion, Abraham Lincoln proved a friend in need to the indi vidual Indian. When the war was over Lincoln returned to New Salem, his home in Illinois, and after an unsuccessful attempt as a merchant in a small way, he commenced the study of the law, a profession for which he was by nature adapted, and one from whose ranks so many have risen, and continue to rise, to eminence, especially to political 10 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. fame. " Lincoln possessed a strong, honest, logical mind. The law, though often mystified by ambiguous terms, and made subservient to wrong in the hands of unscrupulous, wicked men, still has for its object the vindication of justice, and is based upon sound reasoning and common sense. Lincoln prosecuted his legal studies with the same degree of earnestness and industry as characterized all his labours. His scanty means were inadequate for the pur chase of the necessary elementary law books ; but, for tunately, his friend and future partner, John F. Stuart, * The following American Presidents were members of the bar : Peyton Randolph John Jay Samuel Huntington Thomas McKean Elias Boudinot Cyrus Griffin John Adams Thomas Jefferson (author of the Declaration of Independence) James Madison James Monroe John Quincy Adams Andrew Jackson Martin Van Buren John Tyler James K. Polk Millard Fillmore Franklin Pierce James Buchanan Abraham Lincoln (author of the Emancipation Proclamation) Presidents of the Confederacy prior to the adoption of the Constitution framed A.D. 1787. Presidents of the United States. STUDYING LAW. cheerfully supplied the wants of the ambitious student. Lincoln used to read law, according to Mr. Me Henry, " in the shade of a tree, and would grind around with the shade." One day Squire Godbey saw him seated on a pile of wood absorbed in a book, when, according to the squire, the following dialogue ensued : " Says I, Abe, what are you studying ? Law, says he. Great God Almighty/ responded I." Studying law, astride of a wood pile, probably barefooted, was too great a shock for the squire s susceptible system. Lincoln soon began to represent clients before the Justices of the Peace of his county, for the sake of experience ; but considering this pettifogging, this prac tising without a qualification, a little at variance with the code of honour of an honest man, he never accepted a penny for services rendered before he was admitted to the bar in 1836. Such were the early advantages and training of the man who afterwards became one of the first lawyers of the Western bar a bar that can proudly point to its Carpenter, its Trumbull, its Ryan, and its Davies. Judge Davies now on the supreme bench of the United States a man spotless alike upon the throne of justice and in his daily walk, was upon intimate terms with Lincoln for upwards of twenty years, and during more than half of that period sat upon the judicial bench before which Lincoln most frequently practised. No one enjoyed such advantages for estimating his character and abilities as a lawyer as Judge Davies ; no one is abler to form and pronounce so impartial a judgment. Speaking 1 2 A BRAHA M LINCOLN. at Indianopolis, soon after the death of his friend, Judge Davies said : "In 1848, when I first went on the bench, the circuit embraced fourteen counties, and Mr. Lincoln went with the court to every county. Railroads were not then in use, and our mode of travel was either on horseback or in buggies. This simple life he loved, preferring it to the practice of the law in a city, where, although the remuneration would be greater, the opportunity would be less for mixing with the great body of the people, who loved him, and whom he loved. * # # * # " He was great both at nisi priits and before an appellate tribunal. He seized the strong points of a case, and presented them with clearness and great compactness. His mind was logical and direct, and he did not indulge in extraneous discussion. Generalities and platitudes had no charms for him. An unfailing vein of humour never deserted him, and he was always able to chain the atten tion of court and jury, when the cause was the most uninteresting, by the appropriateness of his anecdotes. * -jf -x- * * " The framework of his mental and moral being was honesty, and a wrong cause was poorly defended by him. The ability which some eminent lawyers possess of ex plaining away the bad points of a cause by ingenious sophistry was denied him. In order to bring into full activity his great powers, it was necessary that he should be convinced of the right and justice of the matter which HIS CHARACTER AS A LAWYER. 13 he advocated. When so convinced, whether the cause was great or small, he was usually successful. " He hated wrong and oppression everywhere, and many a man whose fraudulent conduct was undergoing review in a court of justice has writhed under his terrific in dignation and rebukes. He was the most simple and unostentatious of men in his habits, having few wants, and those easily supplied." Judge Drummond said of Lincoln, that he was one of the best jury lawyers they ever had in Illinois ; that he never intentionally misrepresented the evidence of a witness, nor the argument of an opponent. Like all lawyers and all men, he was not always at his best, and occasionally, doubtless, he failed to come up to public estimation and expectations ; but let him once feel that he was right that he was doing battle for a just prin ciple and he would, says Judge Drummond, " come out with an earnestness of conviction, a power of argument, and a wealth of illustration, that I have never seen surpassed." Such, in brief, was Abraham Lincoln as a lawyer, according to the testimony of men of refined learning, acknowledged abilities, and spotless fame. Let us conclude this part of our subject with one or two illustrations, intended further to show Lincoln s character as a lawyer. A client once came to him with an important land claim case, and it was found necessary to make a tender of $30,000. " But," said the man, " I haven t the $30,000 to make it with." " O ! that s it," replied Lincoln ; "just step over to the bank with me, and I ll get it." To the 14 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. bank they went, when Lincoln accosted the cashier " We just want $30,000 to make a legal tender with. I ll bring it back in an hour or two." Without note or security of any kind Lincoln obtained the money, and when he had made his tender, returned it with the same degree of honest simplicity and apparent indifference as if he were re turning a borrowed frying-pan during his Indian campaign. He was once associated with Mr. Swett in defending a man accused of murder. He listened to the testimony which witness after witness gave against his client, until his honest heart could stand it no longer ; then, turning to his associate, he said : " Swett, the man is guilty. You defend him ; I can t." Swett did defend him, and the man was acquitted. When proffered his share of the large fee, Lincoln most emphatically declined it on the ground that " all of it belonged to Mr. Swett, whose ardour and eloquence saved a guilty man from justice." At another time, when a would-be client had stated the facts of his case, Lincoln replied : " Yes, there is no reasonable doubt but I can gain your case for you. I can set a whole neighbourhood at loggerheads ; I can distress a widowed mother and her six fatherless children, and thereby get for you $600, which rightfully belongs, it appears to me, as much to the woman and her children as it does to you. You must remember that some things that are legally right are not morally right. I shall not take your case, but will give you a little advice, for which I will charge you nothing. You seem to be a sprightly, energetic man : I would advise you to try your hand at making $600 some other way." TRIAL OF YOUNG ARMSTRONG. Lincoln s most eloquent address to a jury was that which in all likelihood saved the life of a young man named Armstrong, whose parents had been kind to Lincoln in former times. The evidence seemed abundant and conclusive against the accused. One of the witnesses swore that he saw the fatal blow struck by a slung-shot in the hands of the prisoner, at about eleven o clock at night, by the light of the moon, which, being nearly full, was then standing at a position approximating that of the sun at ten o clock in the morning. Lincoln in his address to the jury showed by an almanac that at eleven o clock on the night in question there was no moon visible. This took the jury by storm. He then proceeded to unravel the other testimony, and to open his heaviest artillery upon the theory of the prosecution, till finally the structure, which but one short hour previously was looked upon as indestructible, fell in ruins at his feet. The jury sat as if in a trance, with their eyes riveted upon the advocate s terribly earnest face ; and when Lincoln had finished the most eloquent peroration he ever made, their feelings found relief in sobs. The prisoner was acquitted ; he was in all human probability innocent. The grateful mother asked her benefactor what his charges were, and for the first time since the commencement of the trial he seemed bewildered. " Why, Hannah," said Lincoln, " I sha n t charge you one cent ; never." Abraham Lincoln was twenty-six years of age, and a member of the popular branch of the Illinois Legislature, when an attachment grew up between him and Ann Rutledsfe, a lair, sweet-tempered, intelligent young lady, 16 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. whose memory ever lived in his tenderest, most sacred thoughts. They were engaged to be married ; but with the summer came the destroyer, and the idol of his heart passed away from this life. Lincoln became insane, lost all self-control, and had to be carefully watched for months, especially during snowstorms and gloomy weather, when he would rave and weep piteously, and declare in a most heartrending tone : " I can never be reconciled to have the snow, rains, and storms to beat upon her grave." Careful nursing, great kindness and attention from his numerous friends, and a change of scenery, enabled his strong constitution to dispel the cloud from his faculties. This illness left him haggard, thin, and emaciated, a remnant of his former self. Lincoln was subject to fits of despondency from his youth ; but for many years after this mental derangement they assumed such a serious aspect as to alarm his friends. Indeed, he was never the same man again. Lincoln formed other attachments after a lapse of years ; but the word " love" he never used again when addressing a young lady. "Yours affectionately" he never subscribed more. Those endearing terms were regarded as sacred to the memory of his first love, " in whose grave," as he used to say in after life, " my heart lies buried." His choice passages from the poets clearly indicate that the memory of Ann Rutledge was hovering around him to the last. " Immortality,"* that poem so closely associated with his * For this poem see Appendix A. HIS At A RRIA GE. \ ^ name, points unerringly to her grave, while this favourite verse of his from " The Last Leaf," by Oliver Wendell Holmes, suggests a similar train of thought ; " The mossy marbles rest On the lips that he has pressed In their bloom, And the names he loved to hear Have been carved for many a year On the tomb." Ann Rutledge was his life " The ocean to the river of his thoughts, Which terminated all." The gifted and accomplished Miss Mary Todd became the wife of Abraham Lincoln by private marriage, solem nized at Springfield, Illinois, on the 4th of November, 1842. Lincoln was ambitious of political distinction. He could not bear the thought that he should pass away from this earthly stage without having performed a part that would live in the annals of the Republic. A seat in the United States Senate seems to have been the objective point of his lifelong labour and ambition. Speaking of a Democratic senator (to whom we shall presently return), he said : " I affect no contempt for the high eminence he has reached so reached, that the op pressed of my species might have shared vvith me in the elevation. I would rather stand on that eminence than wear the richest crown that ever pressed a monarch s brow." He aspired to have his name associated in the history c 1 8 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. and traditions of his country with George Washington, and not with Benedict Arnold ; with Thomas Jefferson, and not with Aaron Burr ; with Daniel Webster, and not with John C. Calhoun ; with the defenders of his country, and not with its destroyers ; with the benefactors, and not with the oppressors of his fellow-man. . Naturally opposed to slavery, he cast his lot with the Whig party, and his voice was clear and loud upon the hustings in favour of the principles of his party, including non-extension of slavery into the Territories during its various efforts to gain the ascendancy ; but being gene rally doomed to defeat, the party and Lincoln had to " learn to labour and to wait." Lincoln s personal popularity secured his election to the State Legislature in 1834. During the canvass he was staying with his friend Herndon, a wealthy farmer residing in the contested district. After dinner one day they visited the men, about thirty in number, engaged in the harvest-field, to whom Lincoln was introduced as a candidate for legis lative honours anxious to secure their suffrages. The leader of the men responded that the candidate who should receive their votes must be competent to hold his own as a field-hand. At this Lincoln, with a good-natured smile upon his face, took up a cradle and led the way around the patch with the greatest ease. Every one of these thirty harvesters voted for him. During the session of 1836 Lincoln for the first time met Stephen A. Douglas, a man of extraordinary powers, and one of the readiest of the American debaters of his time. "The Little Giant" for such was the title DEBATES WITH DOUGLAS. 19 given Mr. Douglas soon assumed the leadership of the Democrats in Illinois, while Lincoln became the standard- bearer of the Whigs. When party platforms were pro mulgated, upon the eve of important contests, these two statesmen by the unanimous consent of their supporters were selected to debate the merits of their respective political creeds before the people. A series of joint dis cussions were arranged to take place in the various im portant towns of the State. The assemblages were large, and composed of men of all parties. The discussion opened with a speech of an hour from one of the debaters ; the other replied in an address of an hour and a half; a rejoinder of half an hour brought the discussion to a close. At the next meeting the order of speaking was reversed, and by this arrangement the "last word" was indulged in alternately by each debater. This is a political feature peculiarly American, and in the opinion of some it is among the best of our peculiarities. The masses are thus made conversant with both sides of questions at issue, and are educated in the affairs of the nation. If false assertions are made, or erroneous con clusions drawn by either speaker, the other has an oppor tunity to correct the misstatement of his adversary, and expose the fallacy of his conclusions. Reference will now have to be made to the Nebraska Bill, and Lincoln s connexion with it. Let us therefore give an outline of the measure before we proceed further. It was held by that school of Southern politicians which was ably represented at various times by Calhoun and Hayne, Breckinridge and Davis, that "the citizen C 2 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. of any State has a right to migrate to any Territory, taking with him anything which is property by the law of his own State, and hold, enjoy, and be protected in the use of such property in said Territory," and that " Congress is bound to render such protection, whenever necessary, whether with or without the co-operation of the Territorial Legislature."* The Anti-Slavery party of the North, under various names, such as Whigs, Freesoilers, the Anti-Nebraska party, and finally the Republican party, always denied this proposition. They maintained that slavery was wrong, socially, morally, and politically ; that by virtue of the Ordinance of 1787, it could not legally exist North-West of the river Ohio ; and that it was the duty of Congress to prevent the spread of slavery into the Territories. In the year 1821 Missouri was admitted into the Union as a Slave State, by what has ever since been known as the Missouri Compromise. This was a Slave States measure concocted the preceding year. It was encouraged by President Monroe and his Cabinet, and supported by all the senators and by a majority of the representatives of the Southern States in Congress. By the provisions of this Bill, slavery and involuntary servitude otherwise than in punishment of crime legally proved was prohibited in all that land ceded by France * The position upon which Mr. Breckinridge stood when a candi date for the Presidency against Lincoln, Douglas, and Bell, in 1860. Greeley s " American Conflict," vol. i. p. 322. THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA BILL. 21 to the United States, and lying North of 36 degrees 30 minutes. On the 4th of January, 1854, Stephen A. Douglas, from the Committee on Territories, reported a Bill in the Senate in favour of forming the Territory of Nebraska out of these possessions. It was recommitted, and upon its second appearance the measure was found to be entirely remodelled. She new Bill provided for the formation of two Territories, Kansas and Nebraska ; but, like its predecessor, it stipulated that the question of slavery should be left to be decided by the people of the embryo States. This was in violation of the com promise under which Missouri was admitted into the family of States with a slave constitution. The Southern delegation in Congress voted in favour of the compromise measure of 1820 with great unanimity. In 1854, with approaching unanimity, they voted to abrogate that sacred pledge. Friends of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill would have us believe "the true intent and meaning of the Act" to be, " not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom ; but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institu tions their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States." To this clause Senator Chase of Ohio moved to add as follows : " Under which the people of the Territory, through their appropriate repre sentatives, may, if they see fit, prohibit the existence of slavery therein." This amendment was defeated by the crushing vote of 36 to 10. We therefore conclude that the "true intent and meaning" of the measure as a 22 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. whole, was that the people should not have a right to exclude slavery from the Territories, even if they saw fit. Lincoln penetrated the disguise, foresaw the disgrace, and foretold the bloody conflict which followed the passage of the measure ; and in a series of speeches of great power and eloquence he stirred up the people of Illinois into opposition to this Bill, championed and backed by Douglas and Shields, then representing their State in the Senate. This unholy measure was prompted by the lust of place and of power. Its passage omened ill for the Republic. On the 24th day of May, 1854, it became part of the law of the land. Referring to Douglas s return from Congress, after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, Colonel Lamon in his " Life of Lincoln," says : " Mr. Douglas attempted to speak at Chicago, but he was not heard, and being hissed and hooted by the populace of the city, betook himself to more complaisant audiences in the country. Early in October, the State Fair being in progress there, he spoke at Springfield. His speech was ingenious, and on the whole able : but he was on the defensive ; and the consciousness of the fact, both on his own part and that of the audience, made him seem weaker than he really was. By common con sent the Anti-Nebraska men put up Lincoln (for he was the acknowledged leader of the Anti-Nebraska party of Illinois) to reply ; and he did reply with such power as he had never exhibited before. " He felt that he was addressing the people on a living and vital question, not merely for the sake of speaking, HIS ANTI-NEBRASKA SPEECH. 23 but to produce conviction, and achieve a great practical result How he succeeded in his object may be gathered in the following extracts from a leading editorial in the Springfield Journal, written by Mr. Herndon * " This Anti-Nebraska speech of Mr. Lincoln s was the profoundest, in our opinion, that he has made in his whole life. He felt upon his soul the truths burn which he uttered, and all present felt that he was true to his own soul. His feelings once or twice swelled within, and came near stifling utterance He quivered with emotion. The whole House was as still as death. " He attacked the Nebraska Bill with unusual warmth and energy ; and all felt that a man of strength was its enemy, and that he intended to blast it if he could by strong and manly efforts. He was most successful, and the House approved the glorious triumph of truth by loud and continued huzzas. Women waved their white hand kerchiefs in token of woman s silent but heartfelt assent. Douglas felt the sting : the animal within was roused, for he frequently interrupted Mr. Lincoln. His friends felt that he was crushed by Mr. Lincoln s powerful argument, manly logic, and illustrations from nature around us. The Nebraska Bill was shivered, and, like a tree of the forest, was torn and ren-t asunder by hot bolts of truth Mr. Lincoln exhibited Douglas in all the attitudes he could be placed in a friendly debate. He exhibited the Bill in all its aspects to show its humbuggery and falsehood ; and when thus torn to rags, cut into slips, * Mr. Herndon was Lincoln s law partner at Springfield. 24 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. held up to the gaze of the vast crowd, a kind of scorn and mockery was visible upon the face of the crowd and upon the lips of the most eloquent speaker At the conclusion of this speech, every man, woman, and child felt that it was unanswerable He took the heart captive, and broke like a sun over the understanding. " Mr. Douglas rose to reply. He was excited, angry, imperious in his tone and manner, and his voice loud and shrill. Shaking his forefinger at the Democratic mal contents with furious energy, and declaiming rather than debating, he occupied to little purpose the brief interval remaining until the adjournment for supper. Then, promising to resume his address in the evening, he went his way, and that audience saw him no more. Evening came, but not the orator. "* The Kansas-Nebraska Bill had no sooner received the signature of the President, than members of the Pro-Slavery Societies of Missouri crossed their State border into Kansas Territory. They made pre-emptions of Govern ment lands, held public meetings at which resolutions were adopted favouring the introduction of slaves, and discouraging the immigration of anti-slavery men into the embryo State. The FREE-KANSAS men and women of the North were also " up and doing." The New England Immigrant Aid Society was established for the purpose of procuring actual settlers for the Territory, thus laying the foundation of permanent success in the end. The struggle in Kansas was continued during the Lamon s " Life of Lincoln," vol. i. pp. 349, 350. KANSAS ELECTIONS. presidential terms of both Pierce and Buchanan. The Pro-Slavery party had the advantage of the undisguised sympathy and support of these Administrations. Territorial elections were for a long time carried by the Slave party by the help of reinforcements sent across the Missouri border for these occasions. Upon the eve of one of the elections, The Western Reporter of Missouri said : " Our minds are already made up as to the result of the election in Kansas to-morrow. The Pro-Slavery party will be triumphant, we presume, in nearly every precinct. Should the Pro-Slavery party fail in this contest, it will not be because Missouri has failed to do her duty to assist her friends. It is a safe calculation that two thousand squatters have passed over into the promised land from this part of the State within four days." The chief executive of the Territory was appointed by President Pierce, and if the Southern party had shown even a semblance of honesty and fair play, Governor Reeder, in all probability, would have favoured their side in the struggle ; but when the vote of a given election exceeded the legal vote of the Territory by 6320 to 831,* it rather startled him. Unfortunately for the " Border Ruffians," Governor Reeder had a conscience, for which reason The Bruns- wicker of Missouri said, " This infernal scoundrel will have to be hemped yet" We have already been induced to trace this Kansas struggle beyond the limit which a desire for some degree Election of March 3Oth, 1.855. 26 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. of harmony in our work prescribes. Let us therefore bring the subject to a close by observing, that after a bloody and protracted conflict between the Freesoil men on the one side, and the Slave party, North and South backed by the President and his Cabinet on the other, Kansas, with a free constitution in her hand, was admitted into the Union, on the motion of William H. Seward, Senator from New York, on the 2ist of January, I 86 1 the day upon which Jefferson Davis and others left their seats in Congress to take part in the Slave holders Rebellion ! During the various joint discussions held between the eloquent political orators who were chosen to represent the Anti-Slavery and Democratic parties, we may fairly assert that Lincoln opposed, while Judge Douglas de fended, directly or indirectly, the slave interests of the country. Lincoln always felt that slavery was wrong and disgraceful, and in seeking a remedy for the existing evil, he followed in the footprints of Henry Clay. He advocated gradual emancipation, with the consent of the people of the Slave States, and at the expense of the general Government. " His faith in reason as a moral force was so implicit," that he expected the Southern people would eventually consent to the abolition of slavery by compensation ; but, whenever or wherever physical rebellion was encouraged, or even hinted at, he opposed it with all the ardour of his great heart. Mr. Herndon, Lincoln s law partner, was an enthusiastic Abolitionist ; and during the Kansas troubles LOGIC EXPOSED, 27 itical creed commenced organizing ig armed resistance to the Slave s by the Government at Washing- the promoters of this extreme, .i-for they were his friends in such once and for ever all thoughts of 28 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. just leave her alone. In some respects she is certainly not my equal, but in her natural right to eat the bread she earns with her own hands, without asking leave of any one else, she is my equal, and the equal of all others." Lincoln served one term in the House of Represen tatives, where he acted with his party in opposing the Mexican War, but he voted for the Appropriation Bill, which enabled the Government to feed and clothe our soldiers. He was twice a prominent candidate for the United States Senate. The first time was in 1855, when he suffered defeat through a compromise which he favoured, and which resulted in the election of Lyman Trumbull, a moderate Democrat, known to be opposed to the Nebraska Bill. Lincoln looked upon the event as a victory in a small way for the principles he held most dear ; and, therefore, he urged his friends to drop his name from the contest, and support the candidature of Mr. Trumbull, though at that time his supporters in the Legislature numbered forty, while those favouring Mr. Trumbull counted five only. The Republican party had been formed from the ruins of the old Whig party and the acquisition of the Aboli tionists, and was thoroughly organized in all the Free and Border States prior to the Presidential Election of 1856. In 1858 Lincoln received the unanimous nomination of the new party for the Senate, with Judge Douglas for his adversary ; and after the most thorough and excitable canvass ever witnessed in Illinois, DEFEATED FOR THE SENATE. 29 Lincoln was again defeated, receiving 46 votes against 54 for Mr. Douglas, upon a joint ballot of the Legis lature. Lincoln felt aggrieved and disappointed at this defeat, for he had carried the popular vote of the State by nearly 4000* majority. When questioned by a friend upon this delicate point, he replied " that he felt like the boy that stumped his toe it hurt him too much to laugh, and he was too big to cry." As the guardian of free speech, fair elections, and good order at public meetings, Lincoln was deservedly famed. His fellow- townsmen always looked to him for relief when their rights and privileges were threatened. Colonel Baker, the gallant officer who fellf at Ball s Bluff, fighting the enemies of his country, was addressing a political meeting at Springfield in 1 840, and was in danger of violence from his audience, when Lincoln made his appearance upon the speaker s platform. After com manding attention by the wave of his hand, he said : " Gentlemen, let us not disgrace the age and country in which we live. This is a land where freedom of speech is guaranteed. Mr. Baker has a right to speak, and ought to be permitted to do so. / am here to protect him, and no man shall take him from this stand if I can pre vent it" Peace and order were restored, and Colonel Baker finished his speech without further interruption. * Lincoln candidates polled 124,698 votes, Douglas 121,130 votes, t Killed October 2ist, 1861. 30 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Upon one occasion a band of ruffians had taken pos session of the polls, in the interest of political tricksters, for the purpose of preventing citizens not of their party from voting. Lincoln was sent for, and immediately hastened to the scene of disorder and disgrace, taking in his hand an axe-helve, which he procured from a shop on his way. The cowards for all blackguards are cowards trembled at his sight, wavered, and finally gave way before the mighty arm and the fearless heart of Abraham Lincoln, the rail-splitter.* During the existence of the old party Lincoln had been considered a Conservative Whig, but years of con stant meditation upon political principles worked out its inevitable convictions upon his mind, and the Conservative Whig became a Radical Republican. In his speech at Springfield, with which the campaign of 1858 was opened, he made the trimmers and compromisers of his party tremble by enunciating a doctrine which they said provoked defeat. We quote what they considered the most obnoxious passage. Lincoln said : " A house divided against itself cannot stand ; I believe this Government cannot permanently endure, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved ; I do not ex pect the house to fall ; but I do expect it will cease to be * Lincoln was one of the most powerful men America ever had. He could lift a weight of 1200 pounds. He was fond of wrestling through all his early life ; courted combatants, yet he never met but one man who could even dispute a fall with him. In all his trials of strength he never lost his temper. THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT. 31 divided. It will become all one thing or all the other ; either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States old as well as new, North as well as South." These prophetic words were spoken by a man born in the Slave State of Kentucky. It was the truth, boldly, fearlessly uttered uttered in advance of even the acknowledged leader of the Republican party, Governor Seward."* His candour cost him that prize he so * Lincoln s speech was delivered at Springfield, 111., June i/th, 1858. The "Irrepressible Conflict" speech of Mr. Seward was not made until the 25th October of the same year, when he said : " These antagonistic systems are continually coming into closer contact, and collision results. Shall I tell you what this collision means ? They who think that it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake the case alto gether. // is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must and will sooner or later become either a slaveholding nation, or entirely a free labour nation. Either the cotton and rice-fields of South Carolina, and the sugar plantations of Louisiana, will ultimately be tilled by free labour, and Charleston and New Orleans become marts for legitimate mer chandize alone, or else the rye-fields and wheat-fields of Massachusetts and New York must again be surrendered by their farmers to slave culture, and to the production of slaves, and Boston and New York become once more markets for trade in the bodies and souls of men. It is the failure to apprehend this great truth that induces so many unsuccessful attempts at final compromise between the Slave and Free States ; and it is the existence of this great fact that renders all such pretended compromises, when made, vain and ephemeral." 32 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. much coveted a seat in the United States Senate. But by 1860 the PEOPLE, following in the path made through the forest of error by a pioneer in the cause of truth, came to similar conclusions, and they made " Honest Old Abe" Chief Magistrate of the Re public. The Republican Convention of Illinois met at Decatur on the gth of May, 1860, for the purpose of electing delegates to attend the National Convention of the party, to be held at Chicago on the 1 6th following. The State was fully represented by able men and clear-headed poli ticians. Lincoln attended simply as an observer. He was soon espied by Governor Oglesby, who informed the assemblage that a distinguished citizen of Illinois was present, and moved that he be invited to a seat on the platform. The Convention waited for the name, which the Governor purposely withheld for a few seconds ; but when " Abraham Lincoln" was pronounced, so loud and continuous was the applause that the Wigwam shook to its very foundation. This is but an example of the enthusiasm with which his name was received throughout the North, from the day of his nomination at Chicago until the polls closed on the evening of the 6th of November. After Lincoln had taken his seat upon the plat form at the Illinois Convention, two of the veritable rails which he had split at Sangamon Bottom in early man hood were brought in, and received amid great cheering. Lincoln was loudly called for, and in the course of his brief speech said that he didn t think the rails were a NOMINA TED FOR PRESIDENT. 33 credit to the maker ; " but," continued he, " I made rails then, and I think I could make better ones than those now." The delegates of the Republican party of Illinois were instructed to cast the vote of the State as a unit for Abraham Lincoln, as their choice for the Presidency, at the Chicago Convention. The contest for the nomination lay between William H. Seward, of New York, and Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois ; but after a spirited and close contest Lincoln was nominated on the third ballot, on the i8th of May, the third day of the Convention. When the joyful news reached Springfield the citizens turned out en masse to congratulate their esteemed fellow- townsman ; and while compliments and handshaking were being freely indulged in, Lincoln good-humouredly said : " Well, gentlemen, there s a little woman down at our house who would like to hear this ; I ll go down and tell her." The little woman was Mrs. Lincoln, whose youthful aspirations were to become the wife of a Presi dent of the United States, and her husband knew that the tidings of so important a step towards the realization of her early dreams would not be unwelcome. Weeks of excitement and anxiety were followed by the gratification of his brightest hopes, and his heart was full of joy and gladness ; his eye sparkled with mingled mirth and goodness ; but as is the case with most men, and was especially so with Lincoln, great despondency followed great joy ; and he became dejected and painfully sensible of the great responsibilities inseparable from the high D 34 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. office which he foresaw he was in all probability destined to occupy.* The time between the election and Lincoln s departure to take the reins of Government was occupied in the selection of his Cabinet ; and nothing could transcend the disinterested patriotism which governed his conduct in this important matter. His kind, honest heart conceived the idea of calling several leading Southern Democrats to his Ministry. He commissioned a personal friend to offer the Treasury Department to Mr. Guthrie of Ken tucky. Mr. Thurlow Weed was authorized to place another portfolio at the disposal of Mr. Gilmore of North Carolina. Why, he seriously contemplated taking Alexander H. Stevensf as one of his confidential advisers that prodigy who at one moment tells a large audience of his fellow-citizens of Georgia, that if they took the fatal step of secession, " instead of becoming greater, more peaceful, prosperous, and happy, instead of becoming gods, they would become demons, and at no distant day * The vote of the Presidential election of 1860 stood as follows : Lincoln. Douglas. Breckinridge. Bell. Free States . 1,831,180 1,128,049 279,211 130,151 Slave . 26,430 163,525 570,871 515,973 Grand total . 1,857,610 1,291,574 850,082 646,124 Lincoln s majority over Douglas was 566,036 ; over Bell, 1,211,486 ; over Breckinridge, 1,007,528. Lincoln had less than all his opponents combined by 930,170 votes. Breckinridge had in the Slave States over Bell, 54,898 votes ; over Douglas, 407,346 ; over Douglas and Lincoln, 380,916. Breckinridge lacked of a majority in the Slave States, 135,057 votes, t Evidence of the forgiving spirit of the North is found in the fact that Mr. Stevens is now (1875) a member of Congress. THE LINCOLN CABINET. 35 commence cutting each other s throats," and at the next is found installed Vice-President* of the Secession Con federacy. Abraham Lincoln explored the whole country, totally ignored personal and party considerations, and with a single purpose the nation s weal he called around him an array of talent and genius seldom found in a single Ministry ; Seward and Chase, Stanton and Bates, all now gone to their reward names to be cherished by the American people while the Republic has a place among the nations of the earth. On the morning of the iith of February, 1861, Lin coln bade a last farewell to his home of a quarter of a * Mr. Stevens talked of our country and its institutions as the paradise of the universe in November ; Vice-President Stevens, while addressing the same audience a few months afterwards, made the following strange declaration :. "The prevailing ideas entertained by Jefferson, and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the forma tion of the old Constitution, were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature ; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with ; but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. Our new Government," con tinued Mr. Stevens, " is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas ; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man, that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural normal condition? Future ages will contemplate with surprise the boldness and audacity of a man who could offer such an insult to the Christianity and civilization of our time, to the honoured memory of George Washington and Earl Grey, of William Wilberforce and Henry Clay. Strange to say, a Government established upon this novel, barbarous doctrine, found friends in Christendom ! U 2 36 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. century : it was indeed a solemn parting between the sympathetic " OH Abe" and the people of Springfield, who knew him and loved him so well. Having walked through the dense crowd shaking hands by the way he appeared upon the platform of a railway car, looking sad and pale. Uncovering his head in the fast-falling rain, with tearful eye and quivering lip, he pronounced his brief and touching adieu with a faltering voice. He said : " My friends, no one not in my position can appreciate the sadness I feel at this parting. To this people I owe all that I am. Here I have lived more than a quarter of a century ; here my children were born, and here one of them lies buried. I know not how soon I shall see you again. A duty devolves upon me which is, perhaps, greater than that which has devolved upon any other man since the days of Washington. He never would have succeeded except for the aid of Divine Providence, upon which he at all times relied. I feel that I cannot succeed without the same Divine aid which sustained him, and on the same Almighty Being I place my reliance for support ; and I hope you, my friends, will all pray that I may receive that Divine assistance, without which I cannot succeed, but with which success is certain. Again I bid you all an affectionate farewell." The President-elect was welcomed at the various stations en route for Washington by the lusty cheers of loyal men. He spoke briefly to the people assembled to greet him wherever the train stopped, and made more lengthy addresses to the citizens of the large towns through which he passed, by whom he was accorded enthusiastic receptions amid gorgeous display. While JOURNEY TO WASHINGTON. 37 speaking at North-East Station, he stated that during the political campaign which terminated with his election to the Presidency, he had received a letter from a young lady resident of that town, in which she advised the speaker to allow his whiskers to grow ; and now that he had acted upon the suggestion of his fair correspondent, he expressed a wish to see her if she was in the crowd. The young damsel gallantly made her way through the throng, was helped upon the platform of the car, and was kissed by the man whose personal appearance had so interested hen The pretensions of this volume do not admit of a reproduction of many of the interesting speeches delivered by the President-elect during his journey to Washington. However, in the limited space dedicated to these addresses, we cannot deny admission to the follow ing little effusion delivered at Utica, N.Y. : " Ladies and Gentlemen, I have no speech to make to you, and no time to speak in. I appear before you that I may see you, and that you may see me ; and I am willing to admit, that so far as the ladies are concerned, I have the best of the bargain, though I wish it to be under stood that I do not make the same acknowledgment concerning the men." Lincoln s entry into Philadelphia was the signal for a grand ovation. The people in thousands followed him to the hotel, where he was welcomed in a speech by Mayor Henry, to which he made a fitting response. But the great event of his visit was the raising of the Star-spangled Banner over Independence Hall, from whence the Declara tion of Independence was sent forth in 1776. On arriving 38 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. at the Hall, Mr. Theodore Cuyler received the newly- elected President in a cordial speech, which elicited the following reply : " Mr. Cuyler, I am filled with deep emotion at finding myself standing here in this place, where were collected together the wisdom, the patriotism, the devotion to prin ciple, from which sprang the institutions under which we live. You have kindly suggested to me that in my hands is the task of restoring peace to the present distracted condition of the country. I can say in return, sir, that all the political sentiments I entertain have been drawn, so far as I have been able to draw them, from the senti ments which originated in and were given to the world from this Hall. I have never had a feeling, politically, that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. I have pondered over the toils that were endured by the officers and soldiers of the army who achieved that independence. I have often inquired of myself what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the Colonies from the mother-land, but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I hope, to the world, for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weight would be lifted from the shoulders of all men. This is the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence. Now, my friends, can this country be saved upon that basis ? If it can, I shall consider myself one of the happiest men in the world if I can help to SPEECH A T PHILADELPHIA. 39 save it. If it cannot be saved upon that principle, it will be truly awful. But if this country cannot be saved with out giving up that principle, I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it. Now, in my view of the present aspect of affairs, there need be no bloodshed or war. There is no necessity for it. I am not in favour of such a course ; and I may say in advance, that there will be no bloodshed unless it be forced upon the Government, and then it will be compelled to act in self-defence. My friends, this is wholly an unexpected speech, and I did not expect to be called upon to say a word when I came here. I supposed it was merely to do something towards raising the flag ; I may, therefore, have said something indiscreet. I have said nothing but what I am willing to live by, and, if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, die by." The flag-raising ceremony was performed from a plat form in front of Independence Hall, and was witnessed by an immense multitude of people. On the day fol lowing, February 22nd, Lincoln reached Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania, where he addressed the members of the State Legislature. During the course of his speech, and while referring to the flag-raising ceremony performed the day previous, he said : " And when the flag went up, I was pleased that it went to its place by the strength of my own feeble arm. When, according to the arrangement, the cord was pulled, and it floated gloriously to the winds without an accident, in the light, glowing sunshine of the morning, I could not help hoping that there was in the entire success of 40 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. that beautiful ceremony, at least something of an omen of what is to come. How could I help feeling then as I often have felt ? In the whole of that proceeding I was a very humble instrument. I had not provided the flag ; I had not made the arrangements for elevating it to its place ; I had applied but a very small portion of my feeble strength in raising it. In the whole transaction I was in the hands of the people who had arranged it ; and if I can have the same generous co-operation of the people of the nation, I think the flag of our own country may yet be kept flaunting gloriously !" Harrisburg is on the Slave State border, and here, for the first time, the chill, unwelcome breath of the Curse was felt. While at Harrisburg telegraphic despatches were received, assuring the President that an organized band of assassins awaited his arrival at Baltimore, deter mined to take his life ; and Abraham Lincoln, a duly and constitutionally elected President of the United States, passed through Baltimore and reached the seat of Govern ment by a night train and in disguise. All along the route Lincoln had preached the gospel of confidence, conciliation, and peace ; but alas ! long ere this treason, dark and deep, had been plotted in the very capital of the nation, by men high in authority, and sworn to support the Constitution of the United States. The men of the South were arming and drilling all over that land for the openly avowed object of sever ing the Union. Yet notwithstanding the ominous signs of the times, Lincoln had such an abiding faith in the people as to believe that the guarantees of all their rights INAUGURAL ADDRESS. under the Constitution, of non-intervention with the in stitution of slavery where it existed, and the assurance of a most friendly spirit on the part of the new President, which his carefully-prepared Inaugural Address contained, would calm their heated passion and reinstal reason, would reclaim States already in secession, and retain the rest of the Cotton States under the banner of the Union. As evidence of the lingering hope, and as an instance of the tender heart of the President, we quote from Lin coln s Inaugural Address referred to : " In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. " The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors ; you can have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government ; while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect, and defend it. " I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds of affection. " The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." Soon after the Inauguration, General Sherman called upon the newly-elected President, and was much sur prised at finding that Lincoln still anticipated a peaceful issue out of the fast-gathering storm. The General had but recently returned from the State of Louisiana, where 42 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. during several years he had filled the position of Super intendent of the State Military Academy. Finding that State preparing for secession and war, Sherman resigned his position as Superintendent of the Academy in a letter which sheds undying lustre upon his name. " If Louisiana withdraw from the Federal Union," he wrote to the Gover nor, " I prefer to maintain my allegiance to the Constitution as long as a fragment of it survives, and my longer stay here would be wrong in every sense of the word. On no earthly account would I do any act or think any thought hostile to or in advance of the old Government of the United States." Sherman, in his " Memoirs," gives the following vigorous account of his interview with President Lincoln : " John" [Senator Sherman], says the General, " walked up, shook hands, and took a chair near Lincoln, holding in his hand some papers referring to minor appointments. He turned to me, and said, Mr. President, my brother, Colonel Sherman, who is just up from Louisiana. He may give you some information you want. Ah ! said Mr. Lincoln, how are they getting along down there ? I said, They think they are getting along swimmingly ; they are preparing for war. Oh, well, said he, I guess we will manage to keep house. I was silenced, said no more to him, and we soon left. I was sadly disappointed, and remember that I broke out on John, the politicians generally ; saying, You have got things in a - of a fix, and you may get them out as you best can ; adding that the country was sleeping on a volcano that might burst forth any moment, but that I was going to INTERVIEW WITH SHERMAN. 43 St. Louis to take care of my family, and would have nothing more to do with it. " What the General meant when he said. " You have got things in a - of a fix," is not quite obvious. The Anti-Slavery party of the United States had legally, peacefully, and constitutionally elected for President an eminently kind, charitable man, of blameless life. This was the measure of our offending. Lincoln took the helm of Government in more dangerous times, and under more difficult and embar rassing circumstances, than any of the fifteen Presi dents who preceded him. The ship of Union was built and launched under the superintendence of Wash ington, and he guided her safely for eight years amid the perils and dangers of unknown seas without an accident. " He knew what master laid her keel, What workmen wrought her ribs of steel, Who made each mast, and sail and rope, What anvils rang, what hammers beat, In what a forge and what a heat Were shaped the anchors of her hope." Washington was the new vessel s first commander, and selected for his first crew men who had formed her model and assisted at her building. And they were all on board, able seamen fit for duty, when with a joyous bound she glided into the ocean s arms. During succeed ing generations, inefficient hands were occasionally shipped to take the place of worn-out members of the original crew. Occasionally the vessel was put out of her course to serve the personal ends of this or that sailor. Mutiny broke out amongst the passengers, headed by John 44 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. C. Calhoun, of South Carolina ;* and, finally, a man ignorant in the science of astronomy and navigation, feeble alike in heart and arm, became nominally commander, but * " The eighty-seventh anniversary of the birthday of Thomas Jefferson was celebrated by a grand dinner at the city of Washington. It was attended by the President and Vice-President of the United States ; members of the Cabinet, by members of both Houses of Con gress, and by many distinguished private citizens. The first volunteer toast was given by the President of the United States, General Jack son : Our Federal Union : it must be preserved. Mr. Calhoun (the Vice-President) gave the next toast ; it did not at all allay the suspicions which were crowding every bosom. It was this, The Union : next to our liberty the most dear ; may we all remember that it can only be preserved by respecting the rights of the States, and distribut ing equally the benefit and burthen of the Union. This toast touched all the tender parts of the new question liberty before Union only to be preserved state rights inequality of burthen and benefits. These phrases, connecting themselves with Mr. Hayne s speech, and with proceedings and publications in South Carolina, unveiled NULLI FICATION as a new and distinct doctrine in the United States, with Mr. Calhoun for its apostle, and a new party in the field of which he was the leader. The proceedings of the day put an end to all doubt about the justice of Mr. Webster s grand peroration, and revealed to the public mind the fact of an actual design tending to dissolve the Union." Benton s " Thirty Years View" (anno 1830), vol. i. p. 148. Calhoun and his band of Nullifiers undertook to make the unsullied name of Jefferson the anchor of their scheme of disunion disgraceful means to accomplish dishonourable ends. The peroration referred to by Colonel Benton was made by Mr. Webster while replying to a speech of Senator Hayne s in support of the proposition that a State had a right to annul Acts of Congress when in the opinion of the State such acts were unconstitutional. Mr. Webster concluded his remarks as follows : " When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonoured fragments of a once glorious Union ; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent ; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, TREASON IN HIGH PL A CES. 45 really the cat s-paw of his crew, at whose bidding the ship was steered. When Abraham Lincoln was called to the helm, he found the once staunch, strong vessel in a leaky, damaged condition, with her compasses deranged, her rudder injured, and the luminous star by which Washington steered dimmed by a cloud of disunion and doubt. When all hopes for peace were banished for ever by the firing upon Fort Sumpter, the Government was found to be all but strangled in the slimy coils of the serpent Treason. Our navy had been sent to the most distant seas ; our little army to Texas ; our arms and ammunition were already transferred to Southern arsenals, to be taken possession of by the Rebels when required. National armouries, forts, and mints situated in the Cotton States, together with American vessels lying in Southern waters, were seized by order of the Confederacy : nearly 200 officers, educated at the expense of the nation, resigned their commissions in our army to serve the Rebellion : traitors still lingered in Congress according to their deep-laid plot the better in fraternal blood ! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honoured throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as, What is all this worth? nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first and Union afterwards ; but everywhere spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea, and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart Liberty and Union, now and for ever, one and inseparable !" 46 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. to serve their cause ; while lukewarm patriots were in great abundance in every department of the Government. The veteran General Scott was old, infirm, and unequal to the task of manoeuvring our forces against the Johnsons and Lees. Lincoln was without military education or ex perience, while the more polished President of the Con federacy had been educated by the Union at West Point, one of the best of military colleges. What had the North against such an array of advan tages as these ? It had a just cause ; a President with a mind honest and strong as the oak of his native forest, who relied on God and the People, who had faith that right made might, who possessed a determination to do his duty as he understood it. Throughout the North could be found a million of men whose hearts beat in unison with their chief, who never once doubted the result of the conflict : slow to take up arms against their countrymen, but willing to die if needs be that their country might live."* The manner in which President Lincoln conducted the affairs of the Government during the Rebellion, forms an * When Beauregard opened fire upon Fort Sumpter, the North, till then but passive lookers-on, became enraged and enthusiastic ; the President s call for 75,000 men was promptly responded to ; men from all grades of society enlisted as privates ; processions of teams loaded with farmers, their sons and labourers, came streaming into cities and towns to enlist, many of whom, on finding the quota already filled, turned homeward with faces presenting unmistakable evidence of disappointment. The Government could have raised a million of men at this time without the least difficulty. THE CHRISTIAN STATESAIAN. 47 important chapter in the history of the world for that period : it is still fresh in the minds of all, and need not now be recounted. The wise, reassuring, pacific policy which enabled him to retain the Border States in the Union, indicates the far-seeing statesman : the formation and ratification of a treaty with the English Government for the prohibition of Slave Trade, and the abolition by compensation of slavery in the district of Columbia, were the acts of a Christian and a statesman. The uniform kindness and patience shown to that small army of delegations, politicians, and other individuals with whom the White House was daily invaded, and the continued forbearance towards the fault-finding McClellan, stamp him as a philosopher who could weigh with candour and fairness the wisdom of others, and yet tenaciously adhere to the judgment matured and formed by his own logical brains : who could pocket insults,* and sink all personal feelings and considerations, when he deemed it necessary for his country s good. It was Midsummer, 1862, when the President convened his Cabinet for the purpose of submitting for their con- * " The Marquis of Hartington wore a Secession badge at a public ball in New York. In a civilized country he might have been roughly handled ; but here, where the bienstances are not so well understood, of course nobody minded it. One of Mr. Lincoln s neatest strokes of humour was his treatment of this gentleman, when a laudable curiosity induced him to be presented to the President of the Broken Bubble. Mr. Lincoln persisted in calling him Mr. Partington. Surely the refinement of good-breeding could go no further. Giving the young man his real name (already notorious in the newspapers) would have made his visit an insult." Lowell s " Study Windows." 48 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. sideration the subject matter of an Emancipation Procla mation. The country was in a depressed state of mind at the time, owing to recent reverses to our arms, and at the suggestion of Secretary Seward the President put his draft of the Proclamation aside to await a victory. Emboldened by continued successes in Virginia, Lee invaded Maryland and Pennsylvania early in September. Having been driven back from the various passes in South Mountain, he concentrated his army on Antietam Creek, where was fought the decisive battle of the campaign, and one of the bloodiest of the war. It was a victory for the Union arms. Within a few days after this success, satisfied that the time had at last arrived, and that public opinion was ripe for it, and having made a solemn vow before God that if Lee was driven back from Pennsylvania he would do it,"* Lincoln proclaimedf that slavery would be abolished in all the States found in rebellion against * " Mr. Chase told me (F. B. Carpenter) that at the Cabinet meet ing immediately after the battle of Antietam, and just prior to the issue of the September Proclamation, the President entered upon the business before them by saying that the time for the annunciation of the Emancipation policy could no longer be delayed. Public senti ment/ he thought, would sustain it, many of his warmest friends and supporters demanded it and he had promised his God that he would do //. The last part of this was uttered in a low tone, and appeared to be heard by no one but Secretary Chase, who was sitting near him. He asked the President if he correctly understood him. Mr. Lincoln replied, I made a solemn vow before God that, if General Lee were driven back from Pennsylvania, I would crown the result by the de claration of freedom to the slaves. " Raymond s "Life and State Papers of Lincoln," p. 765. t See Appendix B. EMANCIPA TION. 49 the Government on the 1st of January, 1863 ; and, true to his promise, the immortal document* appeared on that day. The engrossed copy of the Proclamation was carried by the Assistant-Secretary of State to Lincoln to sign. According to the American custom on New Year s Day, the President had been shaking hands all the morning, and his writing was cramped and unsteady. He looked at it for a moment, and then, with a smile on his face, exclaimed : " When people see that shaky signature they will say, See how uncertain he was ! But I was never surer of anything in my life." The Proclamation made glad the hearts of millions, while it further embittered a large section of our people against the Administration and the war a section of Southern sympathizers and believers in the Divine institution of slavery. This humane and just promise to liberate four million slaves, to wipe out a nation s disgrace, was followed by the darkest and most doubtful days in the history of America. Grant, now in the lowlands of Louisiana, surrounded by insurmountable obstacles, was endeavouring to open the Mississippi ; labouring incessantly to get at the enemy, trying every plan which promised the least hope of success, even to the gigantic undertaking of turning the mighty Mississippi from her course ; but with all his energy and perseverance he accomplished nothing. McClellan s habit of growling at the President, and over-estimating his enemy, had be come intolerable. He was removed, and Burnside placed in command of the Army of the Potomac. Burnside advanced * See Appendix C, E So ABRAHAM LINCOLN. against Lee, strongly posted at Fredericksburg, and was defeated with a loss of 14,000 killed and wounded. The army soon broke camp for another campaign, but was overtaken by a severe storm of rain, snow, and sleet ; the roads became impassable, and for several days the army was actually stuck in the mud. Burnside was now relieved, and Hooker took command. The soldiers were dis heartened, and thousands were deserting to their homes in the North. The President s Proclamation freeing the slaves, while he was without the power to enforce it, was a dead letter and was characterized as a huge joke. But with Independence Day, 1863, there came a break in the cloud, and the star of Liberty and Union appeared upon the distant sky as a covenant that God had not forsaken the Prophet of the West the Redeemer of the Slave. Taking advantage of the condition of our army, and the disaffection in the North, Lee, at the head of the Army of Northern Virginia, over 100,000 strong, and with 280 guns, invaded the Free State of Pennsylvania. The Rebel commander was met by the brave, unfortunate, and now outnumbered Army of the Potomac, commanded by General Meade, strongly posted in a position selected by General Hancock, on Round Top and other hills near Gettysburg. There was heavy fighting on the 1st and 2nd of July ; but the final, decisive, desperate effort was made on the afternoon of the 3rd, when General Long- street made an able and gallant effort to dislodge Hancock s corps, posted on Cemetery Hill, cut our army in two, and gain possession of the Baltimore road. At one o clock in the day, 115 guns from Hill and Long- BA TTLE OF GE TTYSB UR G. street s front opened fire upon our centre position. A hundred pieces from the Union lines responded to the challenge, and kept up this terrific artillery fight, until finally our gunners were ordered to cease firing to allow the cannons to cool in time for the expected onslaught. It was approaching four o clock when Pickett s division of Longstreet s corps the flower of the Rebel army moved forward to the charge. Pickett s command was formed three lines deep ; their flanks were protected by "wings" of two brigades under General Pettigrew ; the whole advanced in fine order, with steady ranks and measured tread, and with their banners floating proudly and de fiantly aloft, on that awful summer day. Hancock and Doubleday s men, silent, breathless, and anxious, watched this bold advance upon their position from behind their hastily constructed breastworks. The Union guns cool by this time began to send shot and shell whizzing into the ranks of the advancing foe ; but on and on they came. The fate of the day. of the invasion, if not of the Confederacy, was staked upon the issue. The gallant Hancock was wounded ; Gibbon assumed the command. The men were ordered to reserve their fire until they could see the white of the Rebel eye ; our skirmishers were driven in, and took their places in the Union lines. On reaching the Emmitsburg road the enemy delivered their first fire, and marched steadily on as if to certain victory. Calm, yet anxious/ with finger on the trigger, awaiting the order to fire, stood the men of the North. It came at last, and from 20,000 muskets the deadly Minie was sent upon its cruel mission ; the earth trembled, and E 2 52 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. thousands of brave men fell to rise no more. The enemy s first line melted away, yet the second and third came sweeping along and our advance line was hurled back. The "wings," intended to protect the flanks of the charging force, became separated from that body ; Stannard s brigade of Doubleday s corps moved forward into the gap, and took Pickett s men in flank ; our artillery mowed them down at short range ; the veterans of the Potomac Army now charged the enemy in front, and finished the work ; the rebels threw down their arms in thousands, for escape was hopeless. " Thus the day was won, and the country saved." For once Lee found himself in an enemy s country, and most gladly left it, after a loss of 30,000 men. Grant had by this time obtained a foothold on dry land, abandoned his base, and cut off all communications with the outer world ; had pushed himself between two armies, which together greatly outnumbered him, whipped first the one and then the other, winning five victories, culminating with the capture of Vicksburg and the open ing of the Mississippi. During this brilliant campaign, he captured over 40,000 prisoners. Tidings of the fall of Vicksburg and the victory at Gettysburg reached the country on the 4th of July, and great was the rejoicing in the North. A portion of the battlefield of Gettysburg was set apart as a resting-place for the brave men who fell on that bloody ground, and the 23rd of November following the victory was appointed as the day upon which the ceremony of dedication and consecration should take place. Edward HIS GETTYSBURG SPEECH. 53 Everett, the orator and scholar, was there to deliver the address. The President and his Cabinet, governors, generals, and other officers, both civil and military, were in attendance. A large force of military was also present on the field where their comrades had fallen to give proper effect to the ceremonies. Mr. Everett had delivered his eloquent, finished address, when Lincoln uttered the memorable and touching speech which is already placed among the classics of our language. " Fourscore and ten years ago," said Lincoln, " our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting- place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. " It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honoured dead we take increased devotion to 54 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion ; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain ; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom ; and that government of the people, by the people and for the people, shall not perish from the earth." It is supposed by the general public that Lincoln was a man overflowing with jokes and witticisms ; one who was continually telling " little stories," intended to produce mirth. Nothing could be more foreign to the truth. The President was the most melancholy of men ; and the stones and reminiscences, of which he possessed such a store, were used as means to drive away the everlasting mist of dejection which found relief neither in deep sighs nor floods of tears. The anecdotes and reminiscences of Lincoln are pointed, appropriate, and characteristic of the man. No sketch of his life would be complete unless it contained some of them. The writer of these pages has heard principally in the army a sufficient number to fill a small volume. Only a few of these will here be reproduced. The others have been selected from the collection of Mr. Frank B. Carpenter, published in Raymond s " Life, Public Services, and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln," and from other reliable sources. A delegation from the West waited upon the President one day for the purpose of pointing out the errors and shortcomings of his Administration. The President heard them patiently, and then replied as follows : " Gentlemen, suppose all the property you were worth ANECDOTES. 5$ was in gold, and you had put it in the hands of Blondin to carry across the Niagara Falls on a rope, would you shake the cable, or keep shouting out to him, Blondin, stand up a little straighter ; Blondin, stoop a little more, go a little faster lean a little more to the North lean a little more to the South ? No, you would hold your breath as well as your tongue, and keep your hands off until he was safe over. The Government are carrying an immense weight. Untold treasures are in their hands. They are doing the very best they can. Don t badger them. Keep silence, and we ll get you safe across." During a public reception, a farmer from Virginia told the President that the Union soldiers, in passing his farm, had helped themselves, not only to his hay, but to his horse, and he hoped the President would urge the proper officer to consider his claim immediately. Lincoln said that this reminded him of an old acquaintance of his, Jack Chase, who used to be a lumberman on the Illinois, a steady, sober man, and the best raftsman on the river. When the first steamer was put on, Jack was made captain of her. He always used to take the wheel going through the rapids. One day, when the boat was plunging and wallowing along the boiling current, and Jack s utmost vigilance was being exercised to keep her in the narrow channel, a boy pulled his coat-tail and hailed him with, " Say, Mister Captain, I wish you would just stop your boat a minute ; I ve lost my apple overboard." A deputation of temperance men once complained to the President of the immoderate use of stimulants by one of our most successful generals. Lincoln asked the $6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. speaker if he had ascertained what kind of liquor the general drank. The question discomfited the delegate, and he requested to know why it was asked. " Because," replied the President, " I should like to send a barrel or two of the same stuff to each of my generals." On being informed of the death of the Rebel General Morgan, Lincoln said : " Well, I don t crow over any body s death, but I can take this as resignedly as any dispensation of Providence." " One night Vice-President Colfax left all other busi ness to ask Lincoln to respite the son of a constituent, who was sentenced to be shot for desertion. He heard the story with his usual patience, though he was wearied out with incessant calls, and then replied : Some of our generals complain that I impair discipline and subordina tion in the army by my pardons and respites ; but it makes me rested after a hard day s work if I can find some good excuse for saving a man s life, and I go to bed happy as I think how joyous the signing of my name will make him and his family and his friends. And with a happy smiie beaming over that care-furrowed face, he signed that name that saved that life? " On Thursday of a certain week two ladies from Ten nessee came before the President, asking the release of their husbands, held as prisoners of war at Johnson s Island. They were put off until Friday, when they came again, and were again put off until Saturday. At each of the interviews one of the ladies urged that her husband was a religious man. On Saturday, when the President ordered the release of the prisoner, he said to the lady : " A COPPERHEAD LIE!" 57 You say your husband is a religious man ? Tell him, when you meet him, that I say I am not much of a judge of religion, but that, in my opinion, the religion which sets men to rebel and fight against their Government, because, as they think, the Government does not sufficiently help some men to eat their bread in the sweat of other men s faces, is not the sort of religion upon which people can get to Heaven." " One day the Hon. Thaddeus Stevens called with an elderly lady in great trouble, whose son had been in the army, but for some offence had been court-martialled, and sentenced either to death or imprisonment at hard labour for a long term, I do not recollect which. There were some extenuating circumstances, and after a full hearing the President turned to the representative, and said : Mr. Stevens, do you think this is a case which will warrant my interference ? With my knowledge of the facts and the parties, was the reply, I should have no hesitation in granting a pardon. Then, returned Mr. Lincoln, I will pardon him, and he proceeded forthwith to execute the paper. The gratitude of the mother was too deep for expression, save by her tears ; and not a word was said between her and Mr. Stevens until they were halfway down the stairs on their passage out, when she suddenly broke forth in an excited manner with the words : I knew it was a Copperhead lie ! What do you refer to, madam ? asked Mr. Stevens. Why, they told me he was an ugly-looking man, she replied with vehemence ; he is the handsomest man I ever saw in my life ! " A telegram from Cumberland Gap reached Lincoln, 58 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. on one occasion, containing the news that " firing was heard in the direction of Knoxville." He remarked that he was " glad of it." Some person present, who had the perils of Burnside s position uppermost in his mind, could not see why Mr. Lincoln should be glad of it, and so expressed himself. " Why, you see," responded the President, " it reminds me of Mistress Salie Ward, a neighbour of mine, who had a very large family. Occa sionally one of her numerous progeny would be heard crying in some out-of-the-way place, upon which Mrs. Ward would exclaim, * There s one of my children that isn t dead yet ! " Considerable opposition was manifested to the nomi nation of Lincoln for the Presidency for a second term, by men of marked ability and influence in his own party. The disaffected and disappointed nominated General Fremont as their standard-bearer, upon the plat form of the suppression of the Rebellion, the Monroe Doctrine,"* and the election of President and Vice-President by the direct vote of the people, and for one term only. The Democratic party declared the war for the Union a failure,f and very properly nominated Geo. B. McClellan * For what is known as the " Monroe Doctrine " see Appen dix D. t The second resolution on the Democratic platform on which McClellan stood, ran as follows : " Resolved, that the Convention does explicitly declare, as the sense of the American people, that after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, during which, under the pretence of military necessity or war power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been dis regarded in every part, and public liberty and private right alike RE-ELECTED PRESIDENT. 59 as their choice for the Presidency. McClellan took a long time before he formally accepted the nomination ; and in conversation upon the subject Lincoln suggested to some friends that the general was entrenching. During the evening of the day following Lincoln s nomination, a committee from the National Union League waited upon him ; and in concluding his reply to the congratulatory address of the chairman the President said : " I have not permitted myself, gentlemen, to conclude that I am the best man in the country ; but I am reminded, in this con nexion, of a story of an old Dutch farmer, who remarked to a companion once, that it was not best to swap horses when crossing a stream. " Lincoln was. re-elected by a greater majority* than was ever given before to a candidate for the Presidency. trodden down, and the material prosperity of the country essentially impaired, justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate Convention of the States, or other peaceable means, to the end that, at the earliest practicable moment, peace may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union of the States." * General McClellan carried the States of New Jersey, Delaware, and Kentucky, counting together TWENTY-ONE ELECTORAL VOTES. The following named States gave majorities for Lincoln : Maine Maryland Wisconsin New Hampshire Ohio Minnesota Massachusetts Indiana California Rhode Island Illinois Oregon Connecticut Missouri Kansas Vermont Michigan West Virginia New York Iowa Nevada. Pennsylvania Making in all TWO HUNDRED AND TWELVE ELECTORAL VOTES. Lincoln s popular majority over McClellan was 411,428. 60 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. On the 4th of March, 1865, Lincoln again appeared on the platform in front of the Capitol to take the required oath, and deliver that memorable Inaugural Address, so brief and yet so pregnant with solemn religious truths, one of the ablest State Papers to be found in the archives of America. We give it in full : " Fellow-countrymen, At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed very fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. "The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured. " On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it ; all sought to avoid it. While the Inaugural Address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war seeking to dissolve the Union and divide the effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 61 nation survive, and the other would rather accept war than let it perish, and the war came. " One-eighth of the whole population were coloured slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves con stituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest, was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. " Neither party expected for the war the magnitude nor the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. " Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God ; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men s faces ; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. Woe unto the world because of offences, for it must needs be that offences come ; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh. If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of these offences, which in the providence of God must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills 62 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offence cometh, shall we discover therein any departure from those Divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him ? Fondly do we hope, fer vently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may soon pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid with another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, The judg ments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. With malice toward none, with charity to all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in ; to bind up the nation s wounds ; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and for his orphans ; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." Four years previously Lincoln delivered his first address, and assumed the reins of Government an untried man ; now he was known and venerated as the faithful servant, the beloved of the people, whose word carried with it the influence of a man speaking the nation s will. He was then scoffed at, caricatured, called awkward and ungainly. Some people made use of that very fashionable impertinence, " He s not a gentleman." They found fault with his dress, precisely as the British LINCOLN AND ORE E LEY. 63 ambassador found fault with the dress of the author of the Declaration of Independence. Merry is long since forgotten. Jefferson will live while a Government of the people, by the people and for the people, endures. They turned up their noses because Lincoln told jokes. Palmerston was lauded for the same reason. While he lived, Abraham Lincoln was ill-used, abused shamefully by the people and press of the land of his forefathers a land against which he never wrote or spoke an unfriendly word. Not until the shot was fired ; not until the blood of the just the ransom of the slave- was spilt, did England, Europe, throw off the cloak of prejudice, and acknowledge " This hind of princes peer, This rail-splitter a true-born king of men." The good, impetuous Horace Greeley caused the Presi dent great anxiety upon several occasions. The country believed in the honesty and purity of motives of the founder of the Tribune. That gentleman wielded a mighty pen, and when he addressed the President of the United States through the columns of his paper the nation listened. Mr. Greeley was of opinion that the Act of Congress for the confiscation of Rebel property including slaves was not carried out in its integrity, and on the 1 9th of August, 1862, a soul-stirring letter from his pen appeared in the Tribune, entitled " The Prayer of Twenty Millions." It summed up as follows : " I close, as I began, with the statement that what an immense majority of the loyal millions of your country- 64 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. men require of you is a frank, declared, unqualified, un grudging execution of the laws of the land, more especially of the Confiscation Act. That Act gives freedom to the slaves of Rebels coming within our lines, or whom those lines may at any time enclose we ask you to render it due obedience by publicly requiring all your subordinates to recognise and obey it The Rebels are everywhere using the late anti-negro riots in the North as they have long used your officers treatment of negroes in the South to convince the slaves that they have nothing to hope from a Union success that we mean in that case to sell them into a bitter bondage to defray the cost of the war. Let them impress this as a truth on the great mass of their ignorant and credulous bondmen, and the Union will never be restored never. We can not conquer ten millions of people united in solid phalanx against us, powerfully aided by Northern sympathizers and European allies. We must have scouts, guides, spies, cooks, teamsters, diggers, and choppers from the blacks of the South whether we allow them to fight for us or not or we shall be baffled and repelled. As one of the millions who would gladly have avoided this struggle at any sacri fice but that of principle and honour, but who now feel that the triumph of the Union is indispensable, not only to the existence of our country, but to the well-being of man kind, I entreat you to render a hearty and unequivocal obedience to the law of the land. " Yours, " HORACE GREELEY." LETTER TO G REE LEY. 65 We give the President s reply in full, because it is thoroughly characteristic of the writer. It is also a clear and concise statement of his position then in regard to Slavery and the Union. " EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, Aug. 22, l862. " HON. HORACE GREELEY. " DEAR SIR, I have just read yours of the instant, addressed to myself through T/te New York Tribune. " If there be in it any statements or assumptions of fact which I may know to be erroneous, I do not now and here controvert them. " If there be any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here argue against them. " If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dicta torial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend whose heart I have always supposed to be right. " As to the policy I seem to be pursuing, as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. I would save the Union. I would save it in the shortest way under the constitution. " The sooner the national authority can be restored, the nearer the Union will be the Union as it was. " If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. " If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. F 66 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. " My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery. " If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. " What I do about slavery and the coloured race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union ; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. " I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I believe doing more will help the cause. " I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. " I have here stated my purpose according to my views of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft- expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free. " Yours, " A. LINCOLN." Horace Greeley never did things by halves. In the summer of 1864 we find him an enthusiastic advocate of peace, urging the President to confer with the so-called Rebel Peace Commissioners then on the Canada side of Niagara Falls, and submitting a plan of adjustment for the consideration of the Chief Magistrate. Lincoln replied that, if Mr. Greeley could find any person anywhere pro- PEACE COMMISSIONERS. 67 fessing to have any proposition of Jefferson Davis, in writing, for peace, " embracing the restoration of the Union and abandonment of slavery" to bring him or them to Washington. Suffice it to say, that the Niagara Falls Commissioners were not authorized to treat for peace upon Lincoln s only terms, and that the fiasco ended in annoy ance and smoke. Lincoln and Greeley differed widely and frequently as to the means to be applied towards securing the desired end, and yet Greeley mourned the loss of a friend when the President was struck down. " Mr. Lincoln died for his country," says Greeley, " as truly as any soldier who fell fighting in the ranks of her armies. He was not merely killed for her sake be cause of the high responsibilities which had a second time devolved upon him, and the fidelity wherewith he fulfilled them he was worn out in her service, and would not, I judge, have lived out his official term had no one sought his immolation. When I last saw him, a few weeks before his death, I was struck by his haggard, care-fraught face, so different from the sunny, gladsome countenance he first brought from Illinois. I felt that his life hung by so slender a thread that any new access of trouble or excess of effort might suddenly close his career. I had ceased to apprehend his assassination had ceased even to think of it ; yet the sunset of life was plainly looking out of his kindly eyes and gleaming from his weather-beaten visage. * * * * * " Greater men our country has produced, but not another whom, humanly speaking, she could so ill spare, F 2 68 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. when she lost him as the victim of Wilkes Booth s mur derous aim."* No one understood the character of Charles Sumner better than the keen-witted President. And while he believed the senator to be a somewhat impractical states man while he believed that he was unnecessarily harsh in debate, with those colleagues who happened to differ with him he knew that the senator from Massachusetts was patriotic, sincere, and true ; faithful in his friendships, and unassailable by corruption. Lincoln and Sumner became warm friends during the first Presidential term, and they remained such to the end. Both were men of strong convictions, and they necessarily differed occa sionally upon questions of State. Towards the close of Lincoln s career they were found in opposition upon an important question. The President had recommended to Congress a certain plan for the reconstruction of the State of Louisiana. He was particularly solicitous that his views, as embodied in an Act then claiming the attention of Congress, should become law prior to the adjournment of that body on the 4th of March. Sumner opposed the Bill because, in his opinion, it did not suffi ciently guard the interests of the freedmen of the State. The friends of the measure were sufficiently strong to carry it through the Senate, could they but bring the question to a vote ; but in this they failed through the action of the senator and a few of his friends, who con sumed all the unexpired time of the session in debate Greeley s " Recollections of a Busy Life," pp. 407-9. DIFFERENCE WITH SUMNER. 69 and otherwise, thus effecting the defeat of the measure by parliamentary manoeuvres. The President felt dis appointed and displeased at the defeat of his cherished measure, as well as at the conduct of his friend the senator towards it. It was supposed that a quarrel would ensue. The press proclaimed to the country that the difference between Lincoln and Sumner was serious ; that their friendship was at an end. However, they soon discovered that Lincoln did not withdraw his friendship on account of an honest difference of opinion. The President was inaugurated on the 4th of March ; on the evening of the 6th the usual Inaugural Ball took place. Mr. Sumner had never attended one of these fashionable State occa sions, and did not intend doing so at this time until the afternoon, when he received the following note from the President : "DEAR MR. SUMNER, "Unless you send me word to the contrary, I shall this evening call with my carriage at your house, to take you with me to the Inauguration Ball. " Sincerely yours, "ABRAHAM LINCOLN." The heart of the scholar and Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee beat with warmer glow than ever towards Nature s Diplomat, the Pioneer of the West, as he read this magnanimous missive. Sumner entered the ball-room with Mrs. Lincoln on his arm, and took his seat by the side of the President. They passed the evening 70 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. pleasantly together amid this gay and joyous throng, com posed of the tlite of Washington society, without even a remote reference being made to their recent difference. " It was thus that Abraham Lincoln composed his quarrels with his friends, and at his bedside when he died there was no mourner more deeply afflicted than Charles Sumner."* By the spring of 1865 the Government established upon the sandy foundation of slavery, as the normal con dition of the coloured race, was tottering to its ruin under the mighty blows of Grant and his lieutenants. The Pre sident was at City Point receiving the General s despatches, and transmitting them to the country through the Secretary of War, when Petersburg and Richmond fell. He entered the late Rebel Capital on foot, accompanied by Admiral Porter. He was recognised by the coloured troops, and received the blessings and witnessed the grateful tears of thousands of the race he had redeemed from bondage and disgrace. The war was virtually over, and the President s mind and heart were full of kind and charitable thoughts towards the conquered South. By his command Rebel generals were allowed to escape to Northern ports ; and, had he been spared, Jefferson Davisf would have found his way to Europe without any real difficulty, there to be lionized perchance as one who * Schurz s oration on Sumner, delivered at Boston, April 29, 1874. t "As to Jefferson Davis," says General Sherman, while speaking of his interview with the President at City Point, Virginia, in his " Memoirs," " Mr. Lincoln was hardly at liberty to speak his mind fully, but inti- "HE SPOKE KINDLY OF LEE." 71 had made a perilous hair s-breadth escape, hotly pursued by Lincoln s cavalry. At a Cabinet meeting convened April the 1 4th, for the purpose of receiving the report of the surrender of Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia, from General Grant in person, the President spoke in a kind, forgiving spirit of those officers who had deserted the flag of their country in her trying hour, and by their abilities in the conduct of an unholy war had caused every brook in Virginia to run crimson to the sea. " He spoke kindly of General Lee," whose great powers had been exercised for four years in an effort to destroy the Government which Lincoln was sworn to " preserve, protect, and defend." At this Cabinet Council a policy to be adopted by the Administration towards the conquered South was submitted by the President ; and the ministers then assembled, to gether with General Grant, yielded a hearty concurrence to the fair, charitable measures proposed by the Chief Magistrate. During the day the President listened to a recital of the surrender at Appomattox Court-house by his son, Captain mated that he had better clear out, escape the country, only it would not do for him to say so openly. As usual, he illustrated his meaning by a story. A man who once had taken the total abstinence pledge, when visiting a friend, was invited to take a drink, but declined on the score of his pledge, when his friend suggested lemonade, which was accepted. In preparing the lemonade the friend pointed to the brandy bottle, and said that the lemonade would be more palatable if he were to pour in a little brandy, and his guest said if he could do so unbe known to him he would not object ; from which illustration I inferred that Mr. Davis was to escape unbeknown to him." 72 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Robert T. Lincoln, who, being a member of Grant s mili tary family, was present at that memorable scene. He also gave audience to several public men, including Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the House of Representatives ; the Hon. George Ashmun, of Massachusetts, the gentleman who presided at the Republican Convention which nominated Lincoln for the Presidency in 1860; and the Hon. John P. Hale, then on the eve of departure to represent his Government at the Spanish Court. It was arranged that the President and General Grant should attend Ford s Theatre in the evening, where Miss Laura Keene was fulfilling an engagement. The weighty cares and constant anxiety inseparable from the responsible positions held by Lincoln and Grant, especially during the grand, final campaign in Virginia, entitled them to an evening of amusement and relaxation at the play. They were announced as probable visitors by the manager, but the pressing duties of the General compelled him to forego the pleasure. In conversation with Mr. Colfax, the Presi dent said he would be glad to remain at home, but inas much as the people expected both him and General Grant, and as the General had been compelled to leave town, " he did not like to disappoint them altogether." Therefore, at eight o clock, the President and Mrs. Lincoln drove off in their carriage, and after calling at the residence of Senator Harris, where they were joined by Major H. R. Rathbone and Miss Clara W. Harris, they proceeded to the theatre, and were ushered into the private box engaged for the party. Pure and kind in heart and mind himself, Lincoln pro- HIS ASSASSINATION. 73 bably never seriously believed that any man contemplated treacherously to take away his life ; and though warnings against assassination had reached him in large numbers, both from Europe and from different parts of his own country, his unsuspicious nature would not permit him to believe that any harm was intended. Indeed, during his interview with Colfax and Ashmun in the afternoon, the conversation turned upon his recent visit to the late Rebel Capital ; and when he learned that great anxiety had been felt in the North for his safety, he replied that " he should have felt the same fears concerning any one else under the same circumstances, but he could not feel that he himself was in any danger whatever." While Lincoln thus spoke, John Wilkes Booth, born in Baltimore, in the Slave State of Mary land, and brought up an actor, was engaged with others in making preparations to assassinate him and several members of his Cabinet. | Taking advantage of the freedom generally accorded to members of the theatrical profession, Booth entered Ford s Theatre at a quarter past ten, showed a card to the President s messenger, and within a few minutes entered the vestibule of the box where Lincoln, his wife, and friends were seated. Booth fastened the door with a plank ; then, drawing his pistol and dag ger, he stepped through the inner door, and as the President was leaning forward, looking at. the audience, the assassin, with his Deringer close to his victim, shot him through the head. Lincoln s head fell slightly for ward, and from that moment until death ensued, at twenty minutes past seven on the following morning, at the resi dence of Mr. Peterson, opposite the theatre, he was never 74 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. conscious. He probably never knew on this side of the grave by what foul deed he was taken away. Major Rathbone instantly clutched the assassin ; but Booth, being a strong, desperate, armed man, tore away from his grasp, struck at him with his dagger, and inflicted a deep wound in his left arm near the shoulder. Rushing to the front of the box, Booth flourished his bloody weapon, and theatri cally exclaimed, " Sic semper tyrannis /" Then putting his hand upon the railing in front of the box, he sprang for the stage ; but one of his spurred heels caught in the American flag, which had been placed across the front of the box in honour of the President, and he fell and sprained his ankle. Booth immediately regained his feet, turned towards the audience, and flourishing the dagger, shouted, " The South is avenged /" The assassin now hastened to the rear of the theatre, mounted a horse there awaiting him, and made his escape via Anacosta Bridge, across the east branch of the Potomac, into Lower Mary land. His sprained ankle prevented his escape southward, and furnished a clue which eventuated in his discovery and death.i Simultaneously with Booth s bloody work, a murderous assault was made by Lewis Payne Powell upon Secretary Seward,* then confined to his bed through a recent accident. This, however, did not prove fatal. John Wilkes Booth was a fair, though somewhat ex treme, specimen of that band of rebels who skulked around Northern and Canadian cities and towns during * For further particulars of the assassination of Lincoln, and the attempt upon the life of Seward, see Secretary Stanton s letter to Mr. Adams, Appendix E. FEELING IN THE SOUTH. 75 the war, contemplating and plotting monstrous and bar barous deeds of pillage, arson, and murder. But the more honourable men, who shouldered their muskets and faced the music on many a well-fought field, are in no way responsible for the black page these conspirators have written in the Southern record. We sincerely believe that George Gary Eggleston, in his " Rebel s Recollections," expresses the sentiments of the soldiers of the fallen Con federacy when he says : " I think nobody in my neigh bourhood believed the rumour of Mr. Lincoln s assassination until it was confirmed by a Federal soldier, whom I ques tioned upon the subject one day, a week or two after the event. When we knew that the rumour was true, we deemed it the worst news we had heard since the surrender. We distrusted President Johnson more than any one else. Regarding him as a renegade Southerner, we thought it probable that he would endeavour to prove his loyalty to the Union by extra severity to the South, and we con fidently believed he would revoke the terms offered us in Mr. Lincoln s amnesty proclamation ; wherefore there was a general haste to take the oath, and so to secure the benefit of the dead President s clemency before his suc cessor should establish harder conditions. We should have regarded Mr. Lincoln s death as a calamity, even if it had come about by natural means, and coming as it did through a crime committed in our name, it seemed doubly a disaster." And we are told in Sherman s " Memoirs" that General Joseph E. Johnston was quite appalled when he heard of the terrible deed. At the conference held by Sherman 76 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. with the Rebel General, looking to the surrender of the army under Johnston, and when the two officers were alone, Sherman handed to Johnston the telegram announcing the assassination of Lincoln, and watched him closely as he read it. The perspiration came out in large drops on the forehead of the Southern commander ; his distress was heartfelt and great ; and he denounced the act as a disgrace to the age in which we live. When the assassin struck down the first American of his time, he dethroned at the same instant the reason of Lincoln s life-companion and widow. And after wandering through the world for ten years, a victim to many halluci nations, Mrs. Lincoln was finally committed to an insane asylum at Batavia, Illinois, by order of the County Court at Chicago. The legal proceedings were instituted by the unfortunate lady s heart-stricken son, Robert T. Lincoln, who was driven to take this painful step through anxiety for the safety of his mother. Abraham Lincoln had finished the glorious work which he was called to perform, when it pleased Providence that his name should be added to the noble list of martyrs in the cause of liberty who had preceded him to the New Jerusalem. The downfall of the rebellion was hailed with the merry peals of bells, the joyous strains of bands, the gay display of the banner of the Union, the booming of peaceful cannons, the cordial greeting, the pressing of hands, and the grand hurrah for Lincoln, Grant, and the Union, which from Maine to California rent the air. Within one short week, how changed is all this ! A NATIONAL GRIEF. 77 dark, sad cloud overshadows the land ; from end to end the North is draped in mourning ; in the palace and the cot, in the forum, at the anvil, the heartfelt tear stands in every eye for the people s faithful Chief has fallen ! " Shroud the banner, rear the cross ; Consecrate a nation s loss ; Gaze on that majestic sleep ; Stand beside the bier to weep ; Lay the gentle son of toil Proudly in his native soil ; Crowned with honour to his rest Bear the Prophet of the West." EDWIN M. STANTON P^A (A A* Vyc\AA>^A/v\ V/VA LONDON. FREDERICK. WA.KNE &. C< EDWIN M. STANTON. "The heroic soul does not sell its justice and its nobleness. It does not ask to dine nicely and to sleep warm. The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough. Poverty is its ornament. It does not need plenty, and can very well abide its loss." EMERSON. " His name will be remembered with the names of the demigods and the heroes, who, through an unprecedented conflict, saved the Republic alive." HON. JOHN A. BINGHAM. HEN the Civil War broke out in America in 1 86 1, the country was being ruled by a Democratic Administration, with James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, as President. Of the original Cabinet of President Buchanan, three members hailed from the Free and four from the Slave States. They were all pro-slavery men. The opinions of the Northern Ministers upon the question of secession were in harmony with those of their chief; they maintained that no power existed under the Constitu tion by which a State could be kept in the Union against her will. There is little doubt but that the views of these men upon this question operated strongly in favour of G 82 EDWIN M. STANTON. assigning to them three important portfolios in the Cabinet. The Southern members of the Administration were seces sionists of the strictest character ; and during their terms of office they rendered the cause of the South very valuable services, by transferring the gold and silver, the arms and ammunition of the Federal Government, to the mints, forts, and arsenals, situated in the Cotton States, to be seized by the malcontents when required. John B. Floyd was Secretary of War from the commencement of Buchanan s Presidency until the end of 1860, when he resigned. In his exodus from Washington into the Rebel Camp, Floyd was preceded by Howell Cobb, of Georgia, Secretary of the Treasury, and followed by Jacob Thompson, of Mississippi, Secretary of the Interior. All three were subsequently made general officers of the Confederate Army. They never answered the purpose of their creation. We need not here point out the calamity which necessarily ensued to the country from having such men at such a time in charge of such important depart ments. Lewis Cass, of Michigan, was Buchanan s Secre tary of State. Cass had been, throughout a long and successful political career, an advocate of Southern pro- slavery views. But when at last the light broke in upon him ; when he fully realized to what a terrible state of chaos and danger the promises and compromises, which he and the Northern wing of the Democratic party had ever been only too glad to yield to the South, had finally brought the country ; when he . found treason openly advocated in the supreme council of the nation, and the Chief Magistrate hesitating in his plain, open duty, he DEMOCRA TS AND THE WAR. 83 resigned his seat in the Cabinet at a period when Buchanan s Administration was about to close its disgrace ful career. Upon the resignation of the weak-kneed and the recreant, John A. Dix, of New York, Joseph Holt, of Kentucky, and Edwin M. Stanton, of Pennsylvania, were called to fill the vacant seats in the Ministry. They were Democrats of the Jackson school, and like the hero-general, whose political opinions they professed, they were true to their country in her hour of peril. It is with pleasure that we here bear testimony to the loyalty of the rank and file of the Democratic party in the North during the Rebellion. When the oft-repeated threat of secession was finally put into execution by the firing upon Sumpter, party differences were forgotten, and the higher and more sacred allegiance to the Union filled the hearts of the great mass of the people. When the war began, the Federal Army numbered, in round numbers, 15,500 men; within a short period it numbered three quarters of a million. " Modern history does not record another popular uprising of dimensions so huge, of enthu siasm so intense." In a comparative sense, we cannot say that the leaders of the Democratic party were either so true or so unselfish. Governor Seymour, of New York, was not disloyal according to the ordinary acceptation of that word ; yet his support of the Administration of President Lincoln, when engaged in the Herculean task of saving the Union, was cold, hesitating, censorious. He has since had reasons to believe that the people did not appre- G 2 84 EDWIN M. STANTON. ciate his conduct* What we have said of Horatio Seymour is true in a greater or less degree of too many of the very first men of the Democratic party in all the Northern States. It is not pleasant to recount these undeniable facts ; but a sense of duty, a deep gratitude to that band of nobler souls who trampled upon the bonds of prejudice and party, and with voice, pen, and sword combated the enemies of their country, prompts us to recall the conduct of both sections of the Democratic leaders to the undying honour of the faithful. While considering the life and character of the first of our triumvirate, we have been called upon to censure the political actions and question the political motives of the Hon. Stephen A. Douglas. Let it here be recorded that when the stability of the Constitution the life of the nation was imperilled, Douglas threw his whole heart and soul on the side of the Union.f He died when the country was sadly in need of his great abilities and courage. Senator Carpenter, of Wisconsin, also cut the cable which held him to the old party at this time ; and when the barriers of policy and expediency were swept away by the overthrow of human slavery, he became the friend and advocate of the down-trodden everywhere. The struggling, bleeding patriots of the Pearl of the Antilles have found their ablest, most fearless friend in the silver- tongued orator of the West. We should be pleased to * Reference is here made to the overwhelming defeat of Seymour when a candidate for the Presidency against Grant in 1868. t For a speech delivered by Mr. Douglas at Chicago, at the out break of the war, see Appendix F. HIS ANCESTORS. 85 add to the few enumerated many other worthy names from the long list of Northern pro-slavery men who arrayed themselves on the side of the Union and the Constitution of their country during the dark days of the Republic, but our sketch must be confined to a single name from that illustrious band the LlON OF BUCHANAN S CABINET, and the co-labourer of Lincoln and Grant for the suppression of the Great Rebellion. Edwin Macy Stanton was born at Steubenville, Ohio, on the I Qth of December, 1815. His ancestors, like those of Abraham Lincoln, were Quakers. His father, Dr. David Stanton, was a native of the State of Rhode Island, and during the early childhood of Edwin he was a highly- respected member of the medical profession and of society in his adopted State. Benjamin Stanton, grandfather of the Secretary, was a Virginia slaveholder ; but he directed by his will, " that all the poor black people that ever belonged to me be entirely free, wherever the laws of the land will allow it : until which time my executors I leave as guardians to protect them, and see that they be not deprived of their right or any way misused." Edwin s mother was a Miss Norman, the daughter of a Virginia planter, who owned the farm upon which the battle of Cedar Mountain was fought in 1862. The wife of the humane Benjamin Stanton, and the grandmother of Edwin on the father s side, was a Miss Macy, a descendant of Thomas Macy, the persecuted Quaker, celebrated in the traditions of New England as the first white settler of Nantucket, and in the poetry of 86 EDWIN M. STANTON. our time as the hero of " The Exiles," a very interesting poem by Whittier. The story is graphically told by the poet how, in the days of religious bigotry and intolerance, a Quaker sought shelter from the storm, and a hiding- place from his hunters, under the roof of goodman Macy. Here the fugitive was overtaken and handcuffed by the priest and sheriff. Macy and his wife were also to be taken into custody ; but they flew to the river-bank, reached their boat, and were in mid-stream when the officers reached the water s edge. " In the King s name " the sheriff commanded Macy to surrender. The Friend sneeringly rejoined by advising the fussy official to ** Whip women on the village green, But meddle not with men" From this stock of " Quakers of the olden time" came the War Secretary. Left an orphan, and " the eldest of a family of orphan children," while yet a child, Edwin was early taught the lesson of industry and self-reliance. At the age of thir teen he left the village school and his native town to become the juvenile clerk of a Columbus bookseller. Childish play had no charms for him ; and the. leisure hours of young Stanton, during the three years spent in the book-store, were devoted to improving his scanty education, and with such success that he was enabled to enter Kenyon College in 1831. Like so many of the young talent of America, Stanton aspired to become a member of the bar, and with this end in view he left Kenyon after the brief collegiate course of two years, and ADMITTED TO THE BAR. 87 began the study of the law at the office of his friend and guardian, Daniel L. Collier. Here he spent five years in thorough, constant, and eager study. At the end of that time Edwin M. Stanton was admitted as a member of the Columbus bar, and, notwithstanding the irregularity of his preparatory training, he was considered by those who knew him to be a young man of great promise as a lawyer. Cadiz, a small town in his native State, was selected by Stanton as the place in which he should launch his pro fessional bark. His superior abilities and great force of character brought success in its train, for within a year We find Stanton occupying the honourable position of Prosecuting Attorney of Harrison County the county in which Cadiz is situated. This evidence of the good opinion of both the bar and the people of Harrison County must have been gratifying to a young man of twenty-three years of age, while the small but certain income attached to the office was none the less welcome, for it enabled him to keep out of debt while his practice was accumu lating, as well as to contribute towards the maintenance and education of the orphan children, of whom Edwin Macy was the elder brother and protector. In the dis charge of his duties as Prosecuting Attorney, Stanton was inflexible and just careful that the law should be enforced against the guilty, and that the innocent should go un harmed. The name of Stanton as a sound, thorough, and pains taking lawyer soon acquired a State reputation, and by 1842 we find him removed to his native town of EDWIN M. ST ANTON. Steubenville, enjoying a large practice, and performing the functions of Reporter of the Supreme Court of Ohio. During his professional career at this place, Mr. Stanton was connected with many of the most important cases then being tried before the higher courts of the country. He defended Mr. M Nulty, Clerk of the Lower House of Congress, charged by the American Government with embezzlement, and obtained a verdict for his client, and additional laurels for himself. About the year 1848 Mr. Stanton became the partner of the Hon. Charles Shaler, at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, a large and growing town, rich in the best coal and iron deposits yet discovered in the United States, and situated at the confluence of the Alleghany and Monongahela rivers. In a very brief period he became the acknowledged leader of the bar of that city. Mr. Stanton soon took his position among the foremost men practising before the Supreme Court at Washington, and many of the cases committed to his charge were of national celebrity. Conspicuous among these were the litigations which grew out of what is known as the " First Erie War," the Wheeling Bridge case, and the Manney and M Cormick reaping-machine contest. The last-men tioned suit was tried at Cincinnati, Ohio.* Mr. Stanton was leading counsel, with Abraham Lincoln as one of his associates, and it is to be regretted that the first meeting * In 1859, a f ter Stanton had taken up his residence at Washington, D.C. FIRST MEETING WITH LINCOLN. 89 of two men, destined to become so closely connected within three years from that time, was by no means harmonious. Each was a master-mind, eminent at the bar, and yet widely different. One was great while pleading for the right before a jury of his countrymen ; the other while arguing a cause before a bench of judges. Lincoln was a man whose sympathies were with the people and the oppressed of his race ; Stanton was a Democrat, who believed in domestic slavery, not on prin ciple, but as an evil which should receive the protection of the law, because it was sanctioned by the Constitution of the country. One was kind, simple, and the most unostentatious of men ; the other reserved, exacting, and terribly in earnest. Lincoln, like Washington, conquered all opposition, not by his abilities alone, but also through the confidence which the people had in his honesty and love for his fellow-man, which made him, when once known, venerated and obeyed everywhere ; Stanton, more like Cato, reached his high station through his great intellect, severe virtues, and influence over men, acquired by power and superiority alone. Constitutionally, socially, and politically, Lincoln and Stanton stood upon opposite shores. The more gentle heart and feelings of the former were hurt and offended by the severe bearing of the latter, and he found himself compelled to withdraw from the Manney-M Cormick suit. But when a greater and a severer case, for a higher and a holier stake, came to be tried a few years later, and with Lincoln as leading counsel this time, the man by whom he had been " so 90 EDWIN M. STAN TON. brutally treated"* was assigned an important part in the conduct of the trial. In 1859 the question which Lincoln asked himself was : " Ought I to submit to this discourtesy?" In 1862 it was : " Is not Edwin M. Stanton the best man to organize armies to fight the enemies of our common country ?" Stanton was at different times engaged by Attorney- General Black, one of the ablest of American lawyers, to look after the interest of the Government in important actions at law ; and so favourable was the opinion formed of his abilities by Mr. Black and the President, that upon the resignation of General Cassf as Secretary of State, and the promotion of Jeremiah S. Black to that high office, Stanton was proffered the Attorney Generalship, and became a member of the Dolphin coloured Cabinet of James Buchanan. The advent of Stanton into the Ministry was hailed by the guast-tr altars of that body as a gain for their side ; for was he not a member of their political party, and had he not been called amongst them by Buchanan and Black ? He was not "sounded" upon the question of "the right * " In the summer of 1859, Mr. Lincoln went to Cincinnati to argue the celebrated M Cormick reaping-machine suit. Mr. Edwin M. Stanton, whom he never saw before, was one of his colleagues, arid the leading counsel in the case ; and although the other gentlemen engaged received him with proper respect, Mr. Stanton treated him with such marked and habitual discourtesy, that he was compelled to withdraw from the case. When he reached home he said that he had never been so brutally treated as by that man Stanton ; and the facts justified the statement." Lamon s " Life of Lincoln," vol. i. P- 332. t Dec. 14, 1869. ANDERSON OCCUPIES SUMPTER. 91 of secession." It is well for the country that no man dare "sound" Stanton. The traitors counted without their host, and soon learned, to their great consternation and dismay, that the new Minister was for " Liberty and Union, now and for ever, one and inseparable !" When South Carolina passed the Ordinance of Seces sion,* Major Robert Anderson, of the U.S. Army, was in charge of the small garrison that looked after the Government forts in Charleston harbour. The men were quartered in Fort Moultrie, on the mainland, and were carefully watched by land and sea. It had already become impossible to reinforce or provision Moultrie. It had not become impossible to send material aid to Fort Sumpter, situated on its island rock, in the bay ; therefore, on the night of December 26, while no one even suspected the contemplated movement, Major Anderson transferred his garrison, ammunition, and supplies to Sumpter. This very prudent step, conducted with marked ability and discretion, gave great offence to the friends of secession. It transpired afterwards that John B. Floyd, Secretary of War, had promised the authorities of South Carolina that no change, detrimental to their movement, should be made in Charleston harbour ; it is therefore not surprising that the Charleston Courier should speak of the transfer as follows : " Major Anderson has achieved the unenviable dis tinction of opening civil war between American citizens by an act of gross breach of faith." When the despatches of Major Anderson, conveying * Dec. 20 1860. 92 EDWIN M. STANTON. the particulars of the change he had made, were received by the President, he convened a Cabinet Council. Referring to this meeting, Mr. Stanton once said : " I shall never forget our coming together that night. Buchanan sat in his armchair, in a corner of the room, as white as a sheet, with a stump of a cigar in his mouth. The despatches were laid before us, and so much violence ensued that he had to turn us all out of doors." Floyd stormed at the old, feeble, and compromised President, and urged him, not only to order Major Anderson and his brave little band back to Fort Moultrie, there to starve or surrender at dis cretion, but also to withdraw all national troops from Charleston harbour. In these modest demands he was warmly supported by his fellow-traitors. The bravado threats of the Southrons were numerous and taunting. The spirit of Brooks, who made the cowardly assault on Charles Sumner, and of Rust, who struck the kind and benevolent Greeley, was fairly represented by Floyd and Thompson ; indeed, that kind of thing seemed congenial to the soil of the South during the existence of slavery. But in the newly-appointed Attorney-General they found a man who knew not fear, who never " consented to wear a mask for fashion s sake." In him they found a foeman worthy of their steel, who heeded not their froth. We can well imagine with what impatience Stanton listened to the treasonable propositions of his perjured colleagues ; and how at last, impelled by the memory of Jefferson, who laid the corner-stone of the Union ; of Washington, who led the brave, half-starved Continental Army to battle and to the victories which made us a nation ; of Jackson, S TORMY CABINE T MEE TING. 93 who shook the halter over the heads of the South Carolina Nullifiers ; how at last, conscious of his great obligation, trembling under the mightiest passion, he raised his clenched fist on high, and said to the enemies of his country : " Dare you, within these walls made sacred by the presence of Washington, and Hamilton, and Adams, and Clay, in more honourable days advocate the disrup tion and destruction of the Union which they created and protected, and left for us a heritage to perpetuate ? And are you, sir" (addressing Floyd), " who, during your years of office, have violated the sacred trust which an over- indulgent nation bestowed upon you, by dismantling the forts and robbing the arsenals of the Union,* for the pur pose of destroying that Union are you a fit man to talk in this hall, and in my presence, of your honour and your patriotism ? And yet, sir, you have the impudence to ask the Chief Magistrate to disapprove of the only act of patriotism performed since you have disgraced the War * " It had been supposed that the Southern people, poor in manu factures as they were, and in the haste for the mighty contest that was to ensue, would find themselves but ill provided with arms to contend with an enemy rich in the means and munitions of war. This advan tage had been provided against by the timely act of one man. Mr. Floyd, of Virginia, when Secretary of War under Mr. Buchanan s Administration, had, by a single order, effected the transfer of 115,000 improved muskets and rifles from the Springfield Armoury and Watero- liet Arsenal to different arsenals at the South. Adding to these the number of arms distributed by the Federal Government to the States in preceding years of our history, and those purchased by the States and citizens, it was safely estimated that the South entered upon the war with 150,000 small arms of the most approved modern pattern and the best in the world." Pollard s " Southern History of the War." 94 EDWIN M. STANTON. Office. You are adding insult to injury, sir ; your conduct would cause Aaron Burr to hide his head ; your treason would bring the blush of shame to the cheek of Benedict Arnold." Having failed to obtain permission " to vindicate our honour and prevent civil war" by the withdrawal of the Federal garrison from Charleston harbour, Floyd resigned the office of Secretary of War, a position which he could no longer hold, as he stated, " under my convictions of patriotism, nor with honour He was succeeded in the War Office by Joseph Holt,* of Kentucky, a faithful and vigilant officer. Supported by Holt and Dix who became Secretary of the Treasury, January, 1861 Stanton did all that a man could do under the circumstances towards the salvation of his country during the unexpired term of Buchanan s Administration. In Lincoln s original Cabinet, the Hon. Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, held the portfolio of the War Office. After nearly a year of faithful service that gentle man retired, when Stanton was again called f from the law-courts to fill that most important during war of Cabinet offices.J This step was considered by the loyal colleagues of Stanton in the Buchanan Ministry as the * Afterwards Judge Advocate-General under President Lincoln, t January 13, 1862. " The Secretary of War superintends all matters regarding the army and the national defences ; all commissions are countersigned by liim ; he directs, under the President, the -movements of troops, and attends to their payment and maintenance. The bureau of the General Commanding-in-Chief, of the Adjutant, Quartermaster, Pay- BECOMES SECRETARY OF WAR. 95 most important step taken towards the suppression of the Rebellion. Mr. Greeley tells us, in his valuable work on the war, that " the country hailed the new appointment as pf auspicious augury !" Some of the President s friends intimated that the impulsive nature and outspoken manner of Stanton were rather objectionable traits in the character of a Cabinet officer. " Mr. Lincoln replied with one of those quaint stories with which he used to answer friends and enemies alike. Well/ said he, we may have to treat him as they are sometimes obliged to treat a Methodist master, Commissary, and Surgeon-Generals, of the Ordnance, Engi neering, and Topography, are under his general management. The General Commanding-in-Chief has his head-quarters at Washington, in the building of the War Department ; he is quite subordinate to the orders of the Secretary of War, as the organ of the President, and under those orders he directs the movement of the army, the recruit ing service, and the military discipline, and enforces the army regulations. It may here be remarked that the exigences of the state of affairs existing at the South during and after the war demanded the formation of certain extraordinary bureaux. The bureau of refugees, freedmen, and abandoned lands, established in 1865, was devoted to remedying the disorders existing in the South consequent upon the long and disastrous contest, and the immense social change involved in the extinction of slavery. It was charged with the protection, education, and employment of the poor negroes freed from their ancient thraldom ; with collecting the moneys due to soldiers and sailors ; with the management of the lands, in town and country, abandoned, con fiscated, or captured ; with the distribution of certain public lands to the freedmen ; with supplying relief to the destitute of every class in the South ; and with the establishment and superintendence of schools. This bureau was placed in charge of army officers, and under the supervision of the Secretary of War. Its practical good works may be judged from the fact that for a period of four months, according to a report, corn and meat were distributed to 58,343 persons daily. " Towle s "American Society," vol. i. pp. 41-43. 96 EDWIN M. STAN TON. minister I know of out West. He gets wrought up so high, in his prayers and exhortations, that they are obliged to put bricks in his pockets to keep him down. We may be obliged to serve Stanton the same way, but I guess we ll let him jump awhile first. "* Unfortunately for the success of the Union Army, there were too many political generals upon its rolls. Some were prone to assume responsibilities, properly belonging to the President, by jumping at conclusions upon constitu tional questions, involving confiscation and emancipation ; while others trimmed their ships so as to ride into the Presidential haven upon the high wave of military fame and popularity. Stanton considered these traits out of harmony with military genius ; and while he supported to the utmost every officer engaged in the discharge of his proper functions, he insisted, as far as it was possible, that every officer should perform his own and his whole duty, and in no way interfere with matters and duties not his. The line of conduct required to carry out this wise policy, created among our general officers many personal enemies for the Secretary of War. Foremost among disaffected officers stood General George B. McClellan. Indeed, President Lincoln s difficulties with the " Young Napoleon " had commenced before Stanton became a member of the Cabinet ; they were, probably, hastened to a crisis by the influence and example of the Minister, who measured every public servant by his acts, and who spared no man if he failed to perform the duties assigned to him. * Mrs. Stowe s " Men of Our Times. LINCOLN AND McCLELLAN. 97 It was on the loth of January, 1862, that the President, becoming alarmed at the loss of public credit, the delicate condition of our foreign relations, the unsatisfactory news from the armies in the West, but, more than all, the sickness of General McClellan, convened a meeting, composed of general officers and Cabinet Ministers, for the purpose of considering the state of the country, with a view of improving it, if possible. General McDowell, one of the officers consulted, afterwards prepared a Memo randum of the interview, from which we quote : " The President said he was in great distress, and, as he had been to General McClellan s house, and the General did not ask to see him, and as he must talk to somebody, he had sent for General Franklin and myself (General McDowell), to obtain our opinion as to the possibility of soon commencing active operations with the Army of the Potomac. To use his own expression, if something was not soon done, the bottom would be out of the whole affair ; and if General McClellan did not want to use the army, he would like to borrow it, provided he could see how it could be made to do something."* A similar conference was held three days later, at which General McClellan was present. Upon this occasion at the request of the President General McDowell explained a plan of operations against Richmond, which Lincoln pre ferred to that understood to be intended by McClellan. * General McDowell s Memorandum, published in Raymond s " Life, State Papers, and Public Services of Abraham Lincoln." The italics in the quotation are ours. H 98 EDWIN M. STANTON. The latter general did not deign to offer a word of comment either for or against the plan which the Chief Magistrate favoured. In reply to the President s inquiries of how and when anything was to be done, McClellan said " that the case was so clear a blind man could see it." The President finally asked the General " if he had counted upon any particular time ; he did not ask what that time was ; but had he in his own mind any particular time fixed when a movement could be commenced ? He replied he had ; then, rejoined the President, I will adjourn this meeting. " The President, Commander-in- Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, painfully alive to the great necessities of a victory towards regaining the national credit at home and abroad, without one word from McClellan an officer of his own creation intended to satisfy his honest, anxious mind, adjourned this meet ing, leaving the young General master of the situation. Was there ever a head of a great nation so unselfish, so indulgent, before ? Upon the day of the last conference,f Stanton entered the Cabinet to become the President s principal adviser in all matters relating to the army ; and so great was his influence over the mind of his chief, that within two weeks of the time when Lincoln kissed the rod of McClellan at the deliberation upon the state of the country, the first of the President s War Orders was issued. These orders were signed by Abraham Lincoln, but they were undoubtedly * McDowell s Memorandum. The italics are ours. t January 13, 1862. STANTOATS WAR ORDERS. 99 devised and promulgated through the influence of Edwin M. Stanton. The new Secretary of War soon grew impatient of delays and of evasions, amounting in the mind of such a strict disciplinarian to disobedience of orders. He believed our army to be equal in quality and superior in numbers to that of the enemy, and he was eager to afford it an opportunity to perform its mission. The better to illustrate the influence wrought upon the mind of the President by Stanton, we give War Order No. i in full. " EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, "January 27, 1862. " Ordered, That the twenty-second day of February, 1862, be the day for a general movement of the land and naval forces of the United States against the insurgent forces. That, especially the army at and about Fortress Monroe, the Army of the Potomac, the Army of Western Virginia, the army near Munfordsville, Kentucky, the army and flotilla at Cairo, and the naval force in the Gulf of Mexico, be ready to move on that day. " That all other forces, both land and naval, with their respective commanders, obey existing orders for the time, and be ready to obey additional orders when given. " That the heads of departments, and especially the Secretaries of War and of the Navy, with all their subordinates, and the General-in-Chief, with all other commanders and subordinates of land and naval forces, will severally be held to their strict and full responsibilities for prompt execution of this order. "ABRAHAM LINCOLN." H 2 ioo EDWIN M. STAN TON. The petted child of the Republic was surprised by the appearance of this order. Another order directed to him self, and commanding an advance on Richmond by way of Manassas Junction by the Army of the Potomac, reached him four days later. General McClellan, in a long letter to the Secretary of War, disapproved of the line of advance indicated by this War Order, and advocated his own plan of a campaign viz., vid the Peninsula (formed by the York and James rivers), with Fortress Monroe as a base of operations. The General eventually carried his point. It is to be regretted that McClellan was more successful while carrying on a war of words with Lincoln and Stanton, than when engaged in armed conflict with Johnston and Lee. George B. McClellan was a scholar. He left the Military Academy at West Point with honours. His conduct during the Mexican War had called forth the encomiums of the general under whom he served. He had been an eyewitness to the Crimean War. He had studied European warfare. His works on " The Armies of Europe," " European Cavalry," and other military sub jects, indicated merit. And now, at the early age of thirty-five, he found himself occupying the first military position in the United States, and the commander of the largest army ever seen in the Western world. During his residence at Washington, while Commander-in-Chief of the army, McClellan at once became the military and political idol of Democratic politicians in Congress. The selfish praise of political demagogues, acting upon a nature vain and ambitious, together with his sudden elevation to STANTON AND McCLELLAN: 101 the position honoured by Washington, and just made vacant by the resignation of the veteran Scott, caused McClellan to commit the trifling mistake of considering himself the greatest man in the country. He little suspected that a Star was rising in the West, whose superior brightness would soon dim the lustre of his temporary and questionable fame. General McClellan may have thought that his true mission in the Rebellion was to issue war orders ; it must be admitted that he seldom, if ever, obeyed such orders, in the prompt hearty manner of the patriot warrior. The far-seeing wisdom of Stanton recognised in the fault-finding despatches of McClellan a mind labouring under the hallucination that the Government did not wish to sustain him ; and that this ridiculous and lamen table mental illusion had been partly brought about by the agency of politicians. Those who have a proper con ception of the character of Stanton do not require to be told, that to make favourites from among the general officers was not an error which he was very likely to com mit. Yet do we find him writing* to the young com mander of the Potomac Army one month after the General took the field in the noble spirit of a forgiving father to an over-sensitive and still offending son. Mr. Stanton said : " Be assured, General, that there never has been a moment when my desire has been otherwise than to aid you with my whole heart, mind, and strength, since the hour we first met ; and whatever others may say for their * June nth, 1862. 102 EDWIN M. STANTON. own purposes, you have never had, and never can have, any one more truly your friend, or more anxious to support you, or more joyful than I shall be at the success which, I have no doubt, will soon be achieved by your arms." These charitable words were wasted on the young General, who continued as he had begun, with delays, excuses, complaints, and extravagant over-estimates of the forces opposing him. In a despatch to the Secretary of War, telegraphed on the 25th of June, he said : " The Rebel force is stated at 200,000 men I regret my great inferiority of numbers, but feel that I am in no way responsible for it, as I have not failed to represent repeatedly the necessity of reinforcements If the result of the action, which will probably occur to-morrow, or within a short time, is a disaster, the responsibility cannot be thrown on my shoulders ; it must rest where it belongs. .... I feel that there is no use in again asking for re inforcements." The despatch from which we have quoted was shown to the President, who replied to it as follows : "WASHINGTON, June 26th, 1862. " Your three despatches of yesterday in relation to the affair, ending with the statement that you completely succeeded in making your point, are very gratifying. The latter one, suggesting the probability of your being over whelmed by 200,000 men, and talking of to whom the responsibility will belong, pains me very much. I give you all I can, and act on the presumption that you will do the best you can with what you have ; while you con- THE SE VEN DA YS FIGHT. 103 tinue ungenerously, I think to assume that I could give you more if I would. I have omitted, I shall omit, no opportunity to send you reinforcements whenever I can." General Robert E. Lee succeeded General Joseph E. Johnston in the command of the Army of Northern Virginia at this time. He called to his standard all available forces, including "Stonewall" Jackson from the Shenandoah Valley, making in all, not the "force stated at 200,000 men" which never existed, save in the prolific imagination of McClellan but a brave army, ably handled, numbering about 70,000 men.* With this force General Lee took the initiative, and raised the siege of Richmond by a series of hard-fought battles, known as the " Seven Days Fighting before Richmond," when the Union Army far superior in numbers, and equal in every respect, save in its leader, to that of the enemy was made to fight by day, retreat by night, and witness the destruction of food, clothing, arms, and ammu nition, which had cost the nation a million of money. It was during the course of this retreat that McClellan found timef to indite that egotistical and highly-offensive despatch to the Secretary of War, which closes with these words : " If I save this army now, I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to you, nor to any other person in Washing ton. YOU HAVE DONE YOUR BEST TO SACRIFICE THIS ARMY." Stanton watched over and provided for this * The Army of the Potomac on the Peninsula numbered upwards of 1 20,000 men at this time. t Dated Savage Station, June 28th, 1862. 104 EDWIN M. STANTON. noble army with a father s care. It was armed with the most destructive weapons then in use ; it was clothed comfortably, and fed abundantly. What alone it needed was a Sheridan to lead it to battle and to victory. Lord Raglan was the pupil and companion-in-arms of Wellington. His blood had been spilt upon the plains of Waterloo, he had filled distinguished positions at foreign Courts, and was very deservedly admired and trusted by his countrymen. Lord Raglan had real cause for com plaint during the Crimean War. Notwithstanding all this, had he written to Mr. Fox Maule or Lord Aberdeen in the spirit and language of McClellan, while depicting fanciful grievances, his immediate recall would have en sued. The triumphant march of Bonaparte through Italy established his fame throughout France and Europe ; and yet had he, in the midst of his victories, assumed towards the French Directory the attitude which was painfully visible in the conduct of McClellan towards Lincoln and Stanton in the night of defeat, dismissal, and probably the dungeon, would have been his reward. It may with safety be asserted, that never before was an officer permitted to use such language towards his superior as that quoted from the despatch of McClellan to Stanton, without immediate arrest. Yet General McClellan retained his command. General W. H. Halleck became Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the United States on the 23rd of July less than a month after McClellan penned the obnoxious despatch and from that time all communications from the War Office, intended for the Commander of the McCLELLAN AS A GENERAL. 105 Potomac Army, were made through General Halleck, until the /th of November following, when, failing to endure longer his delays and fault-findings, the President relieved McClellan from command. Thus terminated the military career of George B. McClellan, a general of moderate abilities and great pre tensions. He was too much of a book-soldier for actual warfare. His besetting weakness, which almost amounted to idiosyncrasy, was over-cautiousness, and this could not be better illustrated than by his conduct before Yorktown, where General Magruder, with only 7500 men, held him in check for thirty days at the head of an army over 100,000 strong. For his skill in reorganizing the Army of the Potomac, after its first and crashing defeat at Bull Run, he is entitled to great credit ; and in forming an estimate of his qualities as a general, it should be borne in mind that in all his severe battles he was opposed by one of the first captains of the age. He was also a very young man, viewed in the light of his elevated and important station ; and yet he had passed the age of Hannibal when he crossed the Graian Alps ; he was older than Wolfe when he stormed Quebec ; and he was the senior of Bonaparte when he divided the Allied Army at Millesimo, and conquered at Lodi. It must also be admitted that none of these great soldiers enjoyed oppor tunities for military triumphs equal to those of McClellan. As an engineer officer on the staff of a fighting general- such as Grant or Sherman, Hancock or Sheridan McClellan would have ranked high ; but as the com mander of an invading army, or as the master-spirit of a 106 EDWIN M. STAN TON. battlefield, he is not to be classed with generals of real merit in either ancient or modern times. Stanton would not permit the sympathies and desires of the heart to supersede the dictates of reason ; he would rather offend every officer in the army and out of it, than compromise, in the least degree, his sense of duty to the army and to the country at large. A letter which the writer has received from a general officer who served under Stanton during the Rebellion, and who became intimate with the Secretary when the war was over, illustrates very correctly his virtuous severity. The gallant General Fairchild, ex-Governor of Wisconsin, and at present the able Consular Representative of the United States at Liverpool, writes as follows : " When we lay at Fredericks- burg, in 1862, it became very necessary for me to have a few days at Madison, so the generals all joined in asking that I be sent there to try and get some of the drafted men for our Wisconsin regiments in the Iron Brigade, and General McDowell, commanding the army, went with me to Mr. Stanton s office. Mr. Stanton, when the matter was made known to him, spoke with very great sharpness, refusing the request. I thought he was unnecessarily harsh in his tone and manner, and I was a little provoked as well as grieved to be thus ungraciously refused. I said to him quickly that I had no desire to leave my regiment for a day if there was any prospect of a fight or work, where upon he turned and took me by both hands (I had two then), and in a very soft, kindly tone, said, Then, young gentleman, you want to be with your regiment. His whole manner changed, and he appeared to be then a man FAIRCHILD AND STANTON. 107 with a big heart, bent on doing his duty thoroughly, no matter who suffered ; but it seemed to me that his head was harder than his heart. When I was Governor, I met Mr. Stanton again, and pleasantly referred to the time when he had almost snapped my head off with his sharp refusal of my little request. Of course he had no remem brance of the matter. He answered, Yes, I know it must have been hard on you ; but, Governor, I was obliged to do a great many seemingly harsh things in the war times; and as he spoke his face was as kindly and pleasant as a summer morning. My impression is that Edwin M. Stanton was a good-hearted, amiable man, with too much strong character to allow his heart to control his head to the detriment of public business." Stanton found himself at the head of the War Depart ment when duties had to be performed such as no man had been called upon to face before. Politicians clamoured, and enemies denounced ; generals grumbled, and friends despaired ; but he laboured on, with that abiding faith in the ultimate triumph of our arms which characterized Lincoln, and which, in Grant, has been likened unto the faith " a Christian has in the Saviour."* Edwin M. Stanton devoted every energy of mind and body to his great task ; he sacrificed every hour of his time, and every pleasure of his life, for the salvation of his country. He slept at the War Office for months ; he laboured till two or three o clock in the morning, and after a brief repose he would be at his desk again ere the rising sun had shed its golden * Sherman s letter to Grant. lo8 EDWIN M. STANTON. rays over our troubled land. The Assistant-Secretaries of War were men of energy and strength, but one after another they were compelled to succumb from overwork ; their chief never yielded, never wavered, but performed his overwhelming duties with a courage, a resolution, and an ability hitherto unexampled in the history of the world. No wonder that this man should fall short in the civilities expected from the Cabinet Minister. He was too much engrossed in the business of organizing victories to afford a single thought to that terror of weak minds, called etiquette. Hear him dispose of the request of a brother Minister. It was Mr. Usher, the Secretary of the Interior, who once asked Stanton to appoint a young friend to the position of paymaster in the army. " * How old is he ? asked Stanton, in a curt manner. About twenty-one, I believe/ said Mr. Usher ; he is of good family and of excellent character. Usher, exclaimed Stanton, in peremptory reply, I would not appoint the Angel Gabriel a pay master if he was only twenty-one. "* Stanton was an aggressive man, born to lead in a storm ; he could brook no interference ; he could tolerate no remissness. The darling idea for which he laboured, and for which he died, was the salvation of his country, and whosoever or whatsoever stood between him and his goal, was dashed away with a terrible, rude hand. " No wonder that such a man left enemies : it will be one of his chief titles to historic renown that among those enemies were all the enemies of his country,"f * Mrs. Stowe s " Men of Our Times." f Grace Greenwood, in the New York Tribune. POLITICAL GENERALS." 109 We now turn with pleasure to a chapter free from all disputes, irritations, and fault-findings. Between Stanton and Grant all was confidence, co-operation, and respect, from the commencement of their official intercourse, till, all too soon, when the struggle was over, the victory won, when his enormous task had been accomplished, and comparative repose was at hand, death claimed for its own what alone can ever die of the great War Secretary. It has already been remarked, that the appointment to important military positions of men better intended to achieve distinction in political life, was among the evils against which the Union Army had to contend. President Lincoln occasionally favoured the claims and supported the pretensions of this class of aspirants. It must be admitted that, during the first years of the war, the Presi dent had but little reason for looking with more favour upon the graduates of our National Military School than upon those not brought up to the profession of arms. West Point officers, on the contrary, looked with doubt and suspicion, if not with jealousy, upon what they termed Political Generals, especially when such officers were placed in important commands. Even General Grant, never given to fault-finding, shared in these feelings. In a letter to General Sherman, written after the victory of Fort Donelson, he said : " I care nothing for promotion, so long as our arms are successful, and no political appoint ments are made." Stanton, while carrying out the in structions of the President, was sometimes obliged to act contrary to the judgment and wishes of Grant in these " political appointments." Again, during nearly all the time Halleck remained the I io EDWIN M. STANTON. ranking officer, he treated Grant in a strange, inexplicable manner. To censure a commander in the hour of victory ; to ignore the plans and suggestions of a successful gene ral ; to recommend a subordinate for promotion, after a battle won through the remarkable foresight and by the sole direction of the commanding officer : these are curiosities in military history ; yet General Halleck did all this in his treatment of General Grant. His conduct was certainly not intended to elevate the silent Soldier of the West in the estimation of the President and his Secretary for War. But from Donelson to Appomattox, under various fortunes, difficult and embarrassing circumstances, Stanton never lost faith in Grant, nor failed to do him justice. Halleck succeeded Fremont in the command of the Western Department in November, 1861. Two months later Stanton took charge of the War Department. He was not installed in his high office a day too soon. On the I 5th and i6th of February, 1862, the battle of Fort Donelson was fought. Halleck failed to recognise in this brilliant victory an occasion for congratulating the officer who commanded our forces ; and within three days after the enemy surrendered, the Commander of the Western Department, following his peculiar policy towards Grant, recommended a division commander, General C. F. Smith,* for promotion. General Halleck s recommendation was * General Smith was a brave, deserving officer, but at Fort Donel son, in charging the enemy s works, he simply obeyed the orders of Grant, who afterwards recommended him for a major-generalcy. STANTON AND GRAN7\ in as follows : " Smith, by his coolness and bravery at Fort Donelson, when the battle was against us, turned the tide, and carried the enemy s outworks. Make him a Major- General. You can t get a better one. Honour him for this victory, and the whole country will applaud." This recommendation must have surprised Stanton ; possibly it may have shaken his confidence in the officer who made it ; certainly it did not influence his conduct in the slightest degree, for on the same day upon which the telegram was received, he recommended to the United States Senate Brigadier-General U. S. Grant to be Major-General of Volunteers. The nomination was confirmed the same day. When victories were achieved by the National arms, Stanton often communicated them to the country in the form of stirring bulletins, intended to create enthusiasm and unity in the North for the cause of the Union. After the fall of Fort Donelson, one of these patriotic papers was published, in which General Grant received the highest compliment which the Secretary of War could bestow upon him. "What, under the blessing of Providence," said Stanton, " I conceive to be the true organization of victory and military combination to end this war, was declared in a few words by General Grant s message to General Buckner : I propose to move immediately on your works. " We have the authority of Lincoln himself for saying that he never wished to decide an important question without first consulting the Secretary of War. This being true upon questions generally, we can scarcely over-estimate 112 EDWIN M. STANTON. the weight of his influence with the President in matters connected with the army. During the spring of 1863 great pressure was brought to bear upon Lincoln for the removal of General Grant. The country was crying for action. The Government needed victory. The Commander of the army near Vicksburg was pronounced incompetent and dilatory. His personal character was assailed. The friends of ambitious officers were industrious, unrelenting, in their efforts for the displacement of Grant, while the supporters of that officer were deserting him day by day. At last, one of the General s most fervent admirers in Congress abandoned him to the fate which seemed to await him. In conver sation with the President, this gentleman declared that the interest of the country demanded that Grant should be superseded. It was upon this occasion that " Honest Old Abe" uttered those simple yet portentous words, let ters of gold for his country s good " I RATHER LIKE THE MAN," said Lincoln ; " I THINK WE LL TRY HIM A LITTLE LONGER." McClernand was probably the officer with whom it was intended to replace Grant. That gentleman had served in the popular branch of Congress from 1843 to 1851. Mr. McClernand was again the representative of his district in that body in 1 860. When the war broke out he resigned his seat in Congress, and was among the first in Illinois to enter the army. He was a brave soldier and a personal friend of the President. He possessed great influence among politicians in Washington, and was looked upon by many as the " com. ng man." General McClernand applied for CHAR A CTERISTIC DESPA TCH. 1 1 3 the command of an expedition having for its object the opening of the Mississippi river. President Lincoln favoured his suit, and approved of his plan of operations. The Secretary of War complied with the wishes of the President in the premises, and carried out his instructions. McClernand, the officer whom the President had so favoured, gave Grant, his superior in command, a great deal of trouble and annoyance by his insubordinate con duct. The daring campaign for the capture of Vicksburg had been commenced, and without thorough co-operation on the part of all the corps and division commanders, the movement might prove a great disaster. Grant had but little confidence in McClernand, but still he desired to avoid a rupture with an officer high in the good opinion of the President. However, the course pursued by General McClernand became known to Stanton ; he disapproved of it most emphatically, as will be seen by the following telegram to Mr. Dana,* an officer of the War Depart ment with Grant s army at the time : "WASHINGTON, D.C., May 6, 1863. " General Grant has full and absolute authority to enforce his own commands, and to remove any person who, by ignorance in action or any cause, interferes with or delays his operations. He has the full confidence of the Government, is expected to enforce his authority, and will be firmly and heartily supported, but he will be responsible for any failure to exert his powers. You may communi cate this to him." * Afterwards Assistant- Secretary of War. I 114 EDWIN M. ST ANTON. The want of co-operation between the commanders of the different armies operating in the South-West, had long been a source of anxiety at Washington, and in November, 1863, Secretary Stanton determined to over come the difficulty by creating the Military Division of the Mississippi, embracing the Departments of the Cum berland, the Ohio, and the Tennessee, and placing General Grant in supreme command. The General was summoned to Louisville, Kentucky, to meet an officer of the War Department, and while en route for that place Grant and Stanton came together at Indianapolis. At Louisville the General was invested with his new and enlarged authority, and a conference was held between him and the Secretary. Concerning the consolidation of these three depart ments into one, and the appointment of General Grant to the chief command, General Badeau* says : " Grant was to be allowed to make his own campaigns, to use the troops to accomplish his own purposes. It was a great responsibility to put upon him, but there was nothing better to do ; no other general had accomplished so much as he ; his past successes were the best gua rantee for future ones ; the danger at Chattanooga was imminent and increasing daily ; it was necessary to act at once ; and tremblingly, doubtless, but still almost hopeful, the great trust was committed to his hands. " The Secretary of War brought also two other orders (besides the one creating the Military Division of the Mississippi and placing Grant at its head), which he showed " Military History of Grant. ROSECRANS SUPERS ED ED. 115 to Grant. One of these left Rosecrans in his previous command of the Army and Department of the Cumber land ; and the other relieved him, and substituted Major General Geo. H. Thomas, the next in rank in that army. Grant was offered his choice of the orders, and did not hesitate a moment ; his past experience with Rosecrans made him certain that he could get no complete co-opera tion from that officer, and he asked at once for his removal. The Government, indeed, preferred this. The defeat of Rosecrans had been so disastrous, and its results were so alarming, that the confidence felt in his talent and military character was shaken, perhaps even more than was deserved."* Intense anxiety was entertained lest he should abandon Chattanooga, or even surrender his army, now in the closest straits ; and Grant s action was fully approved. He was directed to proceed at once to his new command. " The Secretary of War accompanied him as far as Louisville ; there both remained a day, discussing the situation of affairs, and Grant gathering the views of the Government. During this day the Minister received a despatch from Mr. C. A. Dana, his subordinate at Chat tanooga, intimating that the danger of an abandonment of Chattanooga was instant ; that Rosecrans was abso lutely preparing for such a movement. The Secretary [of War] at once directed Grant to immediately assume his new command, and to relieve Rosecrans before it was possible for the apprehended mischief to be consummated. * Greeley says that General Rosecrans was " made the necessary scapegrace of others mistakes as well as own." "American Conflict." I 2 Ii6 EDWIN M. STANTON. Grant accordingly telegraphed to Rosecrans and Thomas, from Louisville, assuming command of the Military Divi sion. He sent atso, at the same time, an order assigning Thomas to the Department of the Cumberland. On the 1 9th of October he started, by rail, for Chattanooga." By thus placing the three armies under one able leader, Stanton brought order out of chaos, harmony out of discord, and confidence out of gloom and despair. Grant, in return for the trust " tremblingly " placed in his hands, thrilled the heart of the nation by his brilliant victories around Chattanooga. Through sleepless nights and days of toil, Stanton protected his army against incompetent friends and wily foes. He furnished it with food, clothing, arms and ammunition, as no army had been furnished before. It was the object of his constant care, for it was the means for the salvation of his country. The writer can bear testimony to the efficiency of the commissary, quarter master, and medical departments ; but the economy of life effected, as compared with other wars, is the best and most accurate test to which Stanton s care can be put. Disease robbed Wellington s armies of 1 1 3 per i ooo annually. The ravages made by sickness in the Crimean War amounted to 600 per 1000 per annum during seven months. The American volunteers in Mexico lost 152 per i ooo. The loss of the Union Army, however, was less than 50 per 1000.* Through over four years struggle, disappointed officers Robert Mackenzie. CLAMO UR A GATNST STANTON. 1 1 7 clamoured loudly against the War Minister ; his political opponents re-echoed the cry that came from the Cave of Adullam. But their voices were not heeded by loyal men ; their testimony against Stanton was written in sand. General Grant, while replying to a kind letter from President Lincoln, written on the eve of the Wilder ness campaign, dealt a stinging blow against these self- proclaimed heroes, the deriders of Stanton, while paying a high tribute to the Secretary. The General said : " From my first entrance into the volunteer service of the country to the present day, I have never had cause of complaint ; have never expressed or implied a complaint against the Administration or the Secretary of War, for throwing any embarrassment in the way of my vigorously prosecuting what appeared to be my duty. Indeed, since the promotion which placed me in command of all the armies, and in view of the great responsibility and importance of success, I have been astonished at the readiness with which everything asked for has been yielded, without even an explanation being asked." Grant is sparing of compliments : this he volunteered- We will not offend the memory of Stanton by adding to it. He was faithful when friends were few under Buchanan ; he was firm when, with military dash, McClellan strove to ride him down ; he was just to subordinate officers against the advice of one high in authority. When defeat followed defeat, and patriots trembled for their country ; when the enemy was sanguine, and sympathizers with Rebellion were filled with joy, Stanton, resolute as fate itself, stood erect in the Council of the Administration a strong ii8 EDWIN M. STANTON. pillar upon which weaker spirits could lean for sup port. The record of his labours for the suppression of the Re bellion runs through the history of that period, like a thread of gold, to illuminate its pages while the volume endures. In the illustrious Cabinet of President Lincoln, Stanton occupied the very foremost position in the estimation of the Chief Magistrate. Edward Everett, in one of his masterly orations,* says : " If there lived a man whom Washington loved, it was Lafayette." Strange as it may seem to many, who do not consider that the Secretary of War was a lovable man, we believe that if there lived a man whom Lincoln loved, it was Stanton. Called together to determine no less a question than how to save the Republic, the intercourse of these two men was more frequent from the nature of the struggle, and their respective offices than that between the President and any other of his Ministers. Lincoln formed a very high opinion of the wisdom, fidelity, industry, and energy of the Secretary of War. The keen-eyed President penetrated beyond the " iron aspect," beyond the stern courageous countenance deep into the recesses of a heart full of love, and sympathy, and tenderness. His respect and admiration ripened into the most intimate and affectionate friendship, which was never once interrupted until the murderous aim of John Wilkes Booth robbed the people of their faithful Representative, and mankind of their best friend. The following incident shows the deference which the President paid to the admonitions of his Secretary of Eulogy on Lafayette, delivered at Boston, September 6th, 1834. HE RE PR VES LINCOLN. 1 1 9 War : it also proves that, in the consideration of questions of national importance, Stanton was controlled by the dictates of the head, rather than by the suggestions of the heart. On the night previous to the second inauguration of President Lincoln, a despatch was received from Grant, in which the General spoke of an application made by Lee for an interview for the purpose of considering the possibility of a return to peace. The President favoured the interview between the two commanders, and from his over-generous heart he spoke of allowing General Grant to negotiate peace upon terms most favourable to the enemy. The reticent habits of the Secretary were over powered, and he reproved the President of the United States with great earnestness. " Mr. President," said Stanton, " to-morrow is Inauguration Day. If you are not to be President of an obedient and united people, you had better not be inaugurated. Your work is already done. If any other authority than yours is for one moment to be recognised, or any terms made that do not signify that you are the supreme head of this nation ; if generals in the field are to negotiate peace, or any other Chief Magistrate is to be acknowledged on this continent, then you are not needed, and you had better not take the oath of office." " Stanton, you are right," said the President ; then calling for a pen he indited a letter to General Grant directing him to " have no conference with General Lee, unless it be for the capitulation of Lee s army, or on some minor or purely military matter."* Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe tells us, in her " Men of * Mrs. Stowe s " Men of Our Times." 120 EDWIN M. ST ANTON. Our Times," that while the President was on his way home from the Army of the Potomac, during the last days of the Rebellion, an important despatch requiring his personal attention was received at the War Office. It was impossible to communicate with Lincoln, and, un fortunately, the whereabouts of the Secretary could not be ascertained at the moment. The nature of the message admitted of no further delay, and the anxious officer who had the important telegram in charge sent a reply in the name of the President. Stanton soon returned to the office, and was informed of what had transpired during his absence. He approved of the answer sent, though he intimated that the responsibility assumed by the major, of replying in the name of the President, was a step which he should have been reluctant to take. Stanton then advised that officer to call upon the President in the morning, and lay the case, with all its circumstances, before him. The major was by this time painfully alive to the magnitude of what he had done, and with an anxious mind he presented himself before Lincoln the next morning. The despatch was shown him, and the action upon it stated frankly and briefly. The President thought a moment, and then said, " Did you consult the Secretary of War, major ?" The absence of the Secretary at the important moment was then related to Mr. Lincoln, with the subsequent remark of Mr. Stanton, that he thought the right answer had been given, but that the Secretary himself would have shrunk from the responsibility. Mr. Lincoln, on hearing the story, rose, crossed the room, and, taking the officer by the hand, thanked him TENDERS HIS RESIGN A TION. \ 2 1 cordially, and then spoke of Mr. Stanton as follows : " Hereafter, major, when you have Mr. Stanton s sanction in any matter, you have mine ; for so great is my con fidence in his judgment and patriotism, that I never wish to take an important step without first consulting him." When the Secretary of War saw the Rebellion crushed, he desired to deliver up to the President the trust con fided to him four years before, and to return to his prac tice at the bar. The close friendship existing between him and Lincoln was touchingly exemplified on this occasion. Mr. Carpenter, the artist, shall relate the circum stances : "A few days before the President s death, Secretary Stanton tendered his resignation of the War Department. He accompanied the act with a most heartfelt tribute to Mr. Lincoln s constant friendship, and faithful devotion to the country, saying also that he, as Secretary, had accepted the position to hold it only until the war should end ; and that now he felt his work was done, and his duty was to resign. Mr. Lincoln was greatly moved by the Secretary s words, and tearing in pieces the paper containing the resignation, and throwing his arms around the Secretary, he said : Stanton, you have been a good friend and a faithful public servant, and it is not for you to say when you will no longer be needed here. Several friends of both parties were present on the occasion, and there was not a dry eye that witnessed the scene." Our renowned triumvirate Lincoln, Stanton, and Grant met for the last time on the morning of the fatal 122 EDWIN M. STANTON. Friday* at a Cabinet Council. That night the horrid deed against which the President had so often been warned and cautioned, especially by his Secretary of War, was com mitted, and Stanton stood beside the deathbed of the victim and martyr of the Rebellion. Secretary Seward was not expected to survive the bloody attempt upon his life. Andrew Johnson, the Vice-President, assumed the functions of Chief Magistrate on the following day. He was called to his high station suddenly, under an ill- omening star. He could know but little of the duties of a President. It was to the well-known patriotism, wisdom, and firmness of Stanton that the country turned with confidence during the days of horror and confusion which followed Booth s atrocious act. With commendable good taste, most of the writers on the war and its heroes have passed over the unfortunate controversy between Stanton and Sherman with a bare mention ; men who have done so much for the salvation of their country have a strong claim upon the chanty of historians. Sherman himself, however, has at last spoken. In patronizing style, and with the stride of the Colossus, General Sherman has sallied forth in his " Memoirs," offend ing or compromising, at every step, the memory of the great dead and the well-earned fame of eminent defenders of the Union still living. Indeed, it seems strange that any man could be found upon the American continent willing to make boast and history of the fact that he had * April 1 4th, 1865. HIS QUARREL WITH SHERMAN. 123 rejected the proffered hand of Stanton,* It is doubly strange that General Sherman, after the lapse of a decade, and while the great War Secretary is silent in the grave, should refresh the minds of a charitable and forgiving people concerning the particulars of a quarrel which all good men regretted then and still deplore. But to the cause and merits of the controversy. General Sherman was resting and rationing his army at Goldsboro , North Carolina, confronted by Johnston, whose army of 40,000 men was in position at Smithfield, protecting Raleigh, when the news of the surrender at Appomattox reached him. On the following morning, April loth, the Union commander made a determined advance upon the enemy. Johnston, however, avoided an engagement by retiring from day to day. On the I4th he despatched a commu nication to Sherman, asking for a " suspension of active operations, the object being to permit the civil authorities to enter into the needful arrangements to terminate the war." General Sherman promptly responded to the peaceful overture of the Rebel commander, granting his * General Sherman, while giving an account of the grand review of his army at Washington when the war was over, says : " We hurried on steadily, passed the President, saluting with our swords. All on the stand arose and acknowledged the salute. Then, turning into the gate of the Presidential grounds, we left our horses and orderlies and went upon the stand, where I found Mrs. Sherman, with her father and son. Passing them, I shook hands with the President, General Grant, and each member of the Cabinet. As I approached Mr. Stanton he offered me his hand, but I declined it publicly, and the fact was univer sally noticed." 124 EDWIN M. STAN TON. request for a suspension of hostilities, and offering to " abide by the same terms and conditions as were made by Generals Grant and Lee at Appomattox Court House." Copies of the correspondence were sent by General Sher man to the War Department with the following letter : " I send copies of a correspondence begun with General Johnston, which I think will be followed by terms of capitulation. I will accept the same terms as General Grant gave General Lee, and be careful not to complicate any points of civil policy." Had the Union General adhered to his good resolution not to " complicate any points of civil policy," all would have been well ; but here the great commander failed. " Webster s contempt for cash is equalled only by his contempt for creditors," said Rufus Choate upon one occasion to a law student* Sherman is strongly pre judiced against politics and politicians ; and when ques tions of an important diplomatic nature came to be con sidered, it is not surprising that he should be found wanting. John C. Breckinridge, Secretary of War for the Confederacy, was at Johnston s head-quarters while the terms of the Sherman-Johnston treaty of peace were being discussed, and the Union General was persuaded to sign a document which gave the dying Confederacy a status hitherto persistently withheld from it both by the Govern ment at Washington and by the Union commanders in the field. We give in full the unfortunate * Ex-Senator Carpenter, of Wisconsin. SHERMAN S MISTAKE. 125 BASIS OF AGREEMENT. " ist. The contending armies now in the field to main tain the status quo until notice is given by the Commanding General of any one to his opponent, and reasonable time say forty-eight hours allowed. " 2nd. The Confederate Armies now in existence to be disbanded, and conducted to their several State capitals, there to deposit their arms and public property in the State arsenal ; and each officer and man to execute and file an agreement to cease from acts of war, and to abide the action of both State and Federal authorities. The number of arms and munitions of war to be reported to the Chief of Ordnance at Washington City, subject to the future action of the Congress of the United States, and in the meantime to be used solely to maintain peace and order within the borders of the States respectively. " 3rd. The recognition, by the Executive of the United States, of the several State Governments, on their officers and legislatures taking the oath prescribed by the Consti tution of the United States ; and when conflicting State Governments have resulted from the war, the legitimacy of all shall be submitted to the Supreme Court of the United States. " 4th. The re-establishment of all Federal courts in the several States, with powers as defined by the Constitution and the laws of Congress. " 5th. The people and inhabitants of all States to be guaranteed, so far as the Executive can, their political 1 26 ED WIN M. ST ANTON. rights and franchises, as well as their rights of person and property, as defined by the Constitution of the United States and of the States respectively. " 6th. The Executive Authority or Government of the United States not to disturb any of the people, by reason of the late war, so long as they live in peace and quiet, and abstain from acts of armed hostility, and obey the laws in existence at the place of their residence. " /th. In general terms, it is announced that the war is to cease ; a general amnesty, so far as the Executive of the United States can command, on condition of the dis- bandment of the Confederate Armies, the distribution of arms, and the resumption of peaceful pursuits by officers and men hitherto composing said armies. Not being fully empowered by our respective principals to fulfil these terms, we individually and officially pledge ourselves to promptly obtain authority, and will endeavour to carry out the above programme. " W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General, "Commanding Army of the U.S. in North Carolina. " J. E. JOHNSTON, General, " Commanding Confederate States Army in North " Carolina." The terms accorded General Lee by the Commander- in-Chief were of a most generous character ; they were, however, ratified with great enthusiasm by the soldiers and people of the Union, who never entertained vindictive feel ings towards their rebellious fellow-countrymen. But since the surrender at Appomattox, the fatal shot which SHERMAN S TREATY REJECTED. 127 robbed the nation of a beloved Chief Magistrate had been fired ; the spirit of charity and forgiveness, which till then welled up spontaneously and to overflowing, was checked ; the North was angry ; the new President was for a time exacting ; Stanton opposed the treaty, and it was rejected. Sherman is one of the ablest of generals ; but in regard to the conditions of surrender which he conceded to Johnston, he overstepped the bounds of national mag nanimity, and Stanton was justified in throwing the weight of his great influence in such matters for the rejection of the Sherman-Johnston treaty. This, however, was not the work of the Secretary of War alone. The terms of the cartel were discussed by President Johnson and his Ministers at a council convened for that purpose. The Cabinet, without a dissenting voice, rejected them ; and in this the Ministry received the hearty concurrence of General Grant and of the people. Why the agreement favoured by General Sherman was declined, is set forth by Stanton as follows : " 1st. It was an exercise of authority not vested in General Sherman, and on its face shows that both he and Johnston knew that General Sherman had no authority to enter into any such arrangements. " 2nd. It was a practical acknowledgment of the Rebel Government. " 3rd. It undertook to re-establish Rebel State Govern ments that had been overthrown at the sacrifice of many thousand loyal lives and immense treasure, and placed arms and munitions of war in the hands of Rebels at their respective capitals, which might be used as soon as the 128 EDWIN M. ST ANTON. armies of the United States were disbanded, and used to conquer and subdue Loyal States. " 4th. By the restoration of Rebel authority in their respective States, they would be enabled to re-establish slavery. " 5th. It might furnish a ground of responsibility on the part of the Federal Government to pay the Rebel debt, and certainly subjects loyal citizens of Rebel States to debts contracted by Rebels in the name of the State. " 6th. It puts in dispute the existence of Loyal State Governments, and the new State of West Virginia, which had been recognised by every department of the United States Government. " 7th. It practically abolished confiscation laws, and relieved Rebels of every degree, who had slaughtered our people, from all pains and penalties for their crimes. " 8th. It gave terms that had been deliberately, re peatedly, and solemnly rejected by President Lincoln, and better terms than the Rebels had ever asked in their most prosperous condition. " Qth. It formed no basis of true and lasting peace, but relieved Rebels from the presence of our victorious armies, and left them in a condition to renew their efforts to over throw the United States Government, and subdue the Loyal States whenever their strength was recruited and any opportunity should offer." The War Secretary was impatient with Sherman for the blunder he had committed. Grant was immediately sent to North Carolina to watch the situation, with authority to relieve Sherman from command ; an authority, however, A FORCED MARCH. 129 which he never exercised. On the contrary, Grant urged his valued friend and great subordinate to conclude the terms of surrender with Johnston himself. Sherman did so accordingly ; and on the 26th of April the second army of the Confederacy passed out of existence upon the terms previously granted to General Lee by the Commander-in- Chief. Had Stanton communicated to General Sherman the result of the Cabinet deliberation at which the treaty was rejected, instructing him at the same time what terms to exact from Johnston, there is no reason for believing otherwise than that the General would have obeyed the mandate implicitly. It is to be regretted, considering the fame and great services of Sherman, that the Secretary of War did not adopt this course. But it was foreign to his nature to tolerate blunders or to deal leniently with those who committed them ; therefore, Grant was sent to North Carolina, and the Sixth Corps was impelled from the neighbourhood of Petersburg towards Danville with all speed the troops marching over one hundred miles in four days. Stanton was determined to place the capture or capitulation of Johnston s army beyond the province of doubt ; not to injure Sherman, but to serve his country. " If never to be deluded by foolish measures, nor ever to be deceived by cunning men, be among the highest per fections of the practical statesman, where shall we look for any one who proffered stronger claims to this character ?"* One after another, the armies of Secession surrendered to * Brougham on Talleyrand. K 130 EDWIN M. STANTON. the forces of the Union,* and on the 26th of May the last of the Rebel Armies passed out of existence. The work of mustering out our huge army now com manded the attention of the Secretary of War. On the ist of March, 1865, our forces numbered 965,556 men.f * Lee s army surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, April 9th, 1865. Johnston s army surrendered to Sherman at Raleigh, North Carolina, April 26th, 1865. Taylor s army surrendered to Canby at Citronelle, Alabama, May 4th, 1865. Kirby Smith s army surrendered to Osterhous (acting for Canby) at Baton Rouge, May 26th, 1865. t " The whole number of men from time to time called into the National service during the war was 2,688,523 ; enlisted as follows : For three months 191,985 For six months 19,076 For nine months 87,558 For one year 394>959 For two years 43>H3 For three years 1,950,792 For four years 1,040 " As many of these were mustered in twice, and some thrice, while hundreds of thousands deserted who were never under fire, it is pro bable that not more than 1,500,000 effectively participated in sup pressing the Rebellion. The total population whence these were drawn, including the available portion of the Southern Blacks, cannot be computed higher than 25,000,000, so more than one-tenth of the entire male population of the United States who were not Rebels must have actively participated in the suppression of the Rebellion. " Of the 1,500,000 who fought on our side, 56,000 fell dead on the field, and 35,000 more are recorded as dying in hospital of wounds, while 184,000 perished there by disease. It is probable that enough more died after their discharge, of diseases or infirmities contracted in the service, to swell our aggregate loss by the war from 275,000 to 300,000. Of our Whites enlisted, one-tenth died in the service ; of the DISBANDING THE ARMY. 131 The machinery connected with such an army had to be reversed; and by the I5th of October, 785,205 men had returned to private life, " to take their places in the tranquil path of industry and thrift, melting back by regiments into quiet citizenship, with nothing to dis tinguish them from others but the proud consciousness of having served and saved their country." In his comprehensive report to Congress, Stanton sums up the agencies which brought about the downfall of the Rebellion as follows : " 1st. The steadfast adherence of the President to the measure of emancipating the slaves in the Rebel States. Slavery was avowed by the leaders of the Rebellion to be its corner-stone. By that system millions of people, con stituting nearly the whole working population of the South, were employed in producing supplies on the plantation, in the workshops and manufactories, and wherever labour was required ; thus enabling the white 180,000 Blacks, 29,298 died, or nearly one in six. Of these, eight in every nine died in hospital ; proving the Blacks either less hardy than Whites, or their exposure far greater. Probably, their employment to garrison posts in the South-West, specially subject to miasmatic influences, may have enlarged their bills of mortality ; but the com parative idleness of garrison life often proves more fatal than the exposures and hardships of active campaigning. "If we may presume the losses of the Rebels equal to those of the Unionists (and the percentage of mortality among their wounded was probably greater, because of their inferior hospital service and sanitary arrangements), the actual aggregate loss of life because of the war is swelled to 600,000. Add 400,000 crippled or permanently disabled by disease, and the total subtraction from the productive force of our country because of the Rebellion, reaches the stupendous aggregate of 1,000,000 men."- Grceley s " American Conflict," vol. ii. p. 759- K 2 132 EDWIN M. STAN TON. population to fill the Rebel Armies. The hopes of freedom kindled by the Emancipation Proclamation paralysed the industrial power of the Rebellion. Slaves seized their chances to escape ; discontent and distrust were engen dered ; the hopes of the slave and the fears of the master, stimulated by the success of the Federal arms, shook each day more and more the fabric built on human slavery. " 2. The resolute purpose of Congress to maintain the Federal Union at all hazards, manifested by its legis lation, was an efficient cause of our success. Ample supplies appropriated for the army and. navy, revenue laws for supplying the treasury, careful revision and amendment of the laws for recruiting the army and en forcing the draft, gave practical direction to the patriotic purpose of the people to maintain a national existence that should afford protection and respect by means of the Federal Union. " 3. Patriotic measures adopted by the governors of the Loyal States, and the efficient aid they rendered the War Department in filling up the ranks of the army, and furnishing succour and relief to the sick and wounded, largely contributed to the national preservation. Of these measures, one of the most important was the aid tendered by the Governors of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wis consin, and Michigan, in the opening of the campaign of 1864. On the 2 1st day of April, 1864, Governors Brough, Morton, Yates, Stone, and Lewis made an offer to the President to the following effect : That these States should furnish for the approaching campaign in fantry troops : 30,000 from Ohio, 20,000 from Indiana, ST ANTON S REPORT. 133 the same number from Illinois, 10,000 from Iowa, and 5000 from Wisconsin. The term of service to be one hundred days ; the whole number to be furnished within twenty days. The troops to be armed, equipped, and transported as other troops, but no bounty to be paid, or any credit on any draft, and the pending draft to go on until the State quota was filled. After full considera tion and conference with the Lieutenant-General, this offer was accepted by President Lincoln. The State of Ohio organized within four weeks and placed in the field 35,646 officers and men, being 5646 troops more than the stipulated quota. Other States, less able to meet the contingency, contributed with alacrity all that could be raised. Although experience had shown that troops raised for a short time were more expensive and of less value than those raised for a longer period, these troops did important service in the campaign. They supplied garrisons and held posts for which experienced troops would have been required, and these were relieved so as to join the armies in the field. In several instances the three months troops, at their own entreaty, were sent to the front, and displayed their gallantry in the hardest battles of the campaign. "4. The result of the Presidential election of 1864 exerted an important influence upon the war. Intercepted letters and despatches between the Rebel leaders showed that their hopes of success rested greatly upon the Pre sidential election. If the Union party prevailed, the prosecution of the war until the national authority should be restored appeared inevitable, and the Rebel cause 134 EDWIN M. STANTON. desperate. Even on the battlefield the influence of the election was felt. The overwhelming voice of the people at the Presidential election encouraged the heroic daring of our own troops, and dismayed those who were fighting in a hopeless cause. " 5. The faith of the people in the national success, as manifested by their support of the Government credit, also contributed much to the auspicious result. While thousands upon thousands of brave men filled the ranks of the army, millions of money were required for the treasury. These were furnished by the people, who ad vanced their money upon Government securities, and freely staked their fortunes for the national defence, " Looking to the causes that have accomplished the national deliverance, there seems no room henceforth to doubt the stability of the Federal Union. These causes are permanent, and must always have an active existence. The majesty of national power has been exhibited in the courage and faith of our citizens, and the ignominy of rebellion is witnessed by the hopeless end of the Great Rebellion." Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, supported the Union cause in the Senate of the United States with ability, great boldness, and enthusiasm, when his Southern colleagues were preparing to leave for Rebeldom. After wards, in the capacity of Military Governor of his State, he served his country faithfully and well. When Lincoln was renominated for the Presidency, the second place on the ticket was assigned to Mr. Johnson ; but, without detracting a word from what has been said of his patriotism DISCORD IN THE CABINET. 135 and services, it must be admitted that the fact of his being a Southern man exercised the most potent influence in the Baltimore Convention for doing so great an honour to the ex-Senator from Tennessee. The American people never would have selected Andrew Johnson for the highest office in the gift of the Republic. He reached that elevated station through an occurrence which touched the heart of nations and draped the civilized world in mourning. Soon after Mr. Johnson became President, the unfor tunate collision between the Legislative and the Executive branches of the Government commenced. The several measures adopted by Congress for the protection of the race made free by the war, such as the Freedmen s Bureau Bill, the Civil Rights Bill, as well as all those Acts then known as the Reconstruction Acts, were warmly supported by Stanton, while they met with a bitter opposition from the President. Discord in the Cabinet resulted from this great difference of opinion, and the Secretary of War was given to understand that his resignation would be accepted. Congress was not then in session, and Stanton considered it his duty, under the circumstances, to remain in his un pleasant position until the meeting of that body. On the 5th of August, 1867, Mr. Johnson s great anxiety to get rid of the Secretary of War took form in the following note, addressed to the Minister : " SIR, Public considerations of a high character con strain me to say that your resignation as Secretary of War will be accepted. " ANDREW JOHNSON." 136 EDWIN M. ST ANTON. To this note Stanton replied as follows : *###** " I have the honour to say that public considera tions of a high character, which alone have induced me to continue at the head of this department, constrain me not to resign the office of Secretary of War before the next meeting of Congress." On the I 2th of December following the President sent a lengthy message to the Senate then in session, assigning his reasons for the suspension of the Secretary of War. The Senate replied to the communication of Johnson in the following resolution : " IN EXECUTIVE SESSION, SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, January i$th, 1868. " Resolved, That having considered the evidence and reasons given by the President in his report of the 1 2th of December, 1867, for the suspension from the office of Secretary of War of Edwin M. Stanton, the Senate do not concur in such suspension." This resolution was communicated to the Commander- in-Chief by order of the Senate, and General Grant, who had been acting Secretary of War ad interim, gave possession of the War Office to Secretary Stanton, to the great discomfiture of President Johnson. In defiance of the law, and of the law-making power of the country then in session, the President persisted in his efforts to remove the War Minister. General Sherman was asked to accept the appointment of Secretary of War temporarily. The offer, however, was declined. A willing THE IMPEACHMENT TRIAL. 137 agent was found in Adjutant-General Lorenzo Thomas,* who accepted the office on the 2 I st of February. This act of the President was communicated to the Senate on the same day : that body again non-concurring. The loyal citizens of the country were heartily ashamed of President Johnson. They disapproved of his conduct in appointing ex-Rebels and their less valiant Northern sympathizers to high offices. They were disgusted with his conduct and his speeches while en route for Chicago, to do honour to the memory of Senator Douglas. They condemned him for his open defiance of the law ; and on the 25th of February President Johnson was impeached at the bar of the Senate by the House of Representatives, in the name of the people, of high crimes and mis demeanours in office. After a protracted trial, conducted with great learning and ability on both sides, the vote of the Senate upon the articles of impeachment was taken, and stood 35 for conviction, against 1 9 for acquittal. A " two-thirds vote " being necessary for conviction, President Johnson was declared NOT GUILTY of the charges brought against him by the House of Representatives. He escaped the penalty of the law, but he will take his place in history as one of the very few men who ever disgraced the Presi dential chair of America. We cannot more appropriately close this part of our subject than by quoting the words of an illustrious Senator of untarnished fame, now no more. Charles * Let not the late General George H. Thomas to confounded with this officer. 138 EDWIN M. STAN TON. Sumner, the champion of liberty and the friend of Stanton, says : " The people cannot witness with indifference the aban donment of the great Secretary, who organized their armies against the Rebellion and then organized victory. Following him gratefully through the trials of the war, they found new occasion for gratitude when he stood out alone against that wickedness which was lifted to power on the pistol of an assassin. During the latter days, while tyrannical prerogative invaded all, he has kept the bridge. When at a similar crisis of English history, Hampden stood out against the power of the Crown, it is recorded by the contemporary historian, Clarendon, that he became the arguments of all tongues ; every man inquiring who and what he was that durst at his own charge support the liberty and property of the kingdom, and rescue his country from being made a prey to the Crown. Such things are also said with equal force of our Secretary. Nor is it forgotten that the Senate, by two solemn votes of more than two-thirds, has twice instructed him to stay at the War Department, the President to the contrary notwithstanding. The people will not easily understand on what principle of Constitution, law, or morals the Senate can twice instruct the Secretary to stay, and then, by another vote, deliberately surrender him a prey to Pre sidential tyranny. Talk of a summersault talk of self- stultification ; are not both here ? God save me from participation in this disastrous wrong, and may He temper it kindly to our afflicted country."* Impeachment of Andrew Johnson/ vol. iii. pp. 280-1. HIS HEALTH IMPAIRED. 1 39 As soon as the result of the Impeachment Trial was made known, Stanton yielded up the office rendered illustrious through his connexion with it. He entered the Cabinet of Lincoln in 1861, a strong man, of Websterian solidity, in perfect health. His hair was brown and his eyes brilliant. He was vigorous in mind and of mighty presence. The amount of work which he could and did accomplish was marvellous, equal perhaps to that of any man of his time. But when the Secretary retired from the War Office, his face was furrowed with care, and his hair had grown grey " under various kinds of fortune, bright and troublous." His intellect was still clear and active, his presence mighty and commanding ; but his bodily health was ruined. His powerful constitution had been shattered while performing Herculean labours, by night and day, through four years of war. Upon his retirement from public life Stanton again resumed his practice at the bar, and one of the ablest arguments he ever made was delivered before Associate Justice Swayne, within ten days of his death. It was only at intervals, however, that Stanton s affected chest permitted him to attend the courts and argue causes. Complete rest from labour, a change of air and scenery, was what his impaired constitution required. Alas ! that poverty should compel him to continue at the wheel. While contemplating the field of history, how sad it is to find that the latter days of so many of the great and good of the earth have been embittered by poverty and disappointment. The immortal Lord Chancellor Bacon is reported to have begged for a cup of beer in vain, while the snows of the December of life were upon his brow. 140 EDWIN M. STANTON. Milton was driven by poverty to part with the great offspring of his genius, and the first literary production of his own or any other age, for five sovereigns. Marvell suffered long and died poor. The discoverer of the Western Hemisphere, and the greatest navigator the world has ever seen, was persecuted during his lifetime, and died in the midst of privation, a victim of the in gratitude of Ferdinand. Lewis Morris, after pledging his great wealth, and exercising his financial abilities with such good results in the cause of the struggling colonies, died at last in a debtors prison. The author of the Declaration of Independence escaped impecuniosity by the sale of his private library. Ex-President Monroe did not leave money enough behind him to pay funeral expenses. And Stanton, who contributed so much for the salvation of his country, and who had controlled an expenditure of nearly two millions of dollars a day, died a poor man. The dust of the discoverer of America has mingled with the clay for upwards of three hundred and fifty years ; the pen of Jefferson is still, and the voice ol Stanton is hushed ; but the lofty spirit which prompted their noble efforts, and sustained them throughout the struggle, will live on for ever. " These shall resist the triumph of decay, When time is o er, and worlds have passed away ; Cold in the dust the perished heart may lie, But that which warmed it once can never die." About a year before his death, feeling the need of rest from professional labours, Stanton was compelled to ask for a loan from a personal friend. The fact became HIS HONOURABLE POVERTY. 141 known to a gentleman residing in Cleveland, Ohio, who very generously sent the ex-Secretary a cheque for $5000, and begged him to accept it, as a token of gratitude for the invaluable services he had rendered the country. As soon as Stanton had sufficiently recovered, he replied in the following letter, which shows that, in the midst of his severe illness and honourable poverty, he did not lose his manly spirit of independence and self-reliance : "WASHINGTON CITY, Jan. 29, 1869. " MY DEAR FRIEND, I regret to learn by Mr. H. s note, received this morning, that your illness mentioned by Mr. continues to afflict you. My own severe indis position has delayed the grateful acknowledgment of your unexampled and disinterested kindness to one who had no claim upon your personal generosity. It surprised me beyond measure, as the first and only practical apprecia tion, among many thousand verbal and sincere words of affectionate respect that I have received. But, my dear friend, I cannot suffer even your kindness to have the form you desire. Never a rich man, but toiling for livelihood from childhood the eldest of a family of orphan children, with many heavy burdens of duty upon me Providence has always enabled me to win support for myself and those dependent upon me, without being a borrower or owing any debt. For the chance of restoring my health, by a few months rest from labour, my application was made to Mr. as it would have been to a brother. Your kindness and respect, developed in this unexampled manner and by accident, affords me more joy than could 142 EDWIN M. STAN TON. gold and silver, even for the purpose of my present wants. But one thing more is needed. While your generous friendship will be cherished among the most pleasant events of my life, with the remembrance of your disin terested contribution to the efforts at its preservation from disease, even in the hour of your own suffering, yet I must beg you to take my note at twelve months for the amount, which I have forwarded with this to Mr. - for delivery. " If my life be spared and health restored, I hope to find no trouble in making payments out of the gains of my profession. If my time has come, or I am called while the debt is outstanding, my estate will have enough to pay it. And, my dear friend, this will in no degree diminish the obligation imposed by your friendship. That is too precious ever to change or fade from my heart. My health improved for some time from the con dition it was in at Cleveland, and gave promise of full restoration, but recent exposure in crossing the mountains, and professional labour at Wheeling, has occasioned some trouble, from which I am now recovering. I hope, my dear friend, that you and those who love you may soon rejoice at the restoration of your health, and among them all no heart will be more sincerely glad than mine. " EDWIN M. STANTON." The far-seeing eye of Carnot discovered the superior military genius of the young artillery officer at the siege of Toulon, and in his arrangements for fighting the battle of the Sections, and he made Bonaparte commander STAN TON AND C A KNOT. 143 of the great army of Italy. We have seen how, after the battles of Fort Donelson and before Vicksburg, Stanton sustained the Western General, and how he afterwards assigned him to the command of the Department of the Mississippi, with its three large armies. When the Star of Corsica reached the zenith of its glory, Carnot had no place in the councils of France : gratitude was too heavenly a virtue to find a home in the steeled breast of the tyrant and the conqueror. But when the Iron Duke brought his victorious eagles to the dust upon the plains of Waterloo, the Child of Destiny began to realize how great a soldier, statesman, and patriot was the War Minister of the French Republic, who first recognised his merits as a commander, and whom he afterwards, as First Consul and as Emperor, disregarded and set aside. As Napoleon was leaving Paris after his final defeat, he con fessed his blindness in the memorable words : " Carnot, je vous ai connu trop tard." Not so with Grant and Stanton. The General knew and appreciated the ex- Secretary. He knew that he was spotless in character, incorruptible in integrity, great in talent and learning, and a fit object of unhesitating trust ;* and when Grant became President of the Republic he presented Stanton, upon his birthday, with the appointment of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The nomination was confirmed by the Senate, without making the customary reference to the Judiciary Committee. A greater mark of confidence and respect the Upper House * Webster on the character of Washington. 144 EDWIN M. STANTON. of Congress could not have paid the distinguished citizen. But alas ! the days of the War Secretary were already numbered. His seat upon the Supreme Bench he never filled, for within a few days of the confirmation of the appointment the chest disease contracted in the War Office took a fatal turn, and at three o clock on Friday morning December 24th, the giant spirit passed from earth away, at the comparatively early age of fifty-four.* " Leaves have their time to fall, And flowers to wither at the North wind s breath, And stars to set ; but all Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death !" * President Grant issued the following order relative to the death of Secretary Stanton : " EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, D.C. Dec. 24, 1869. " The painful duty devolves upon the President of announcing to the people of the United States the death of one of its most distin guished citizens and faithful servants, the Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, which occurred in this city at an early hour this morning. He was distinguished in the councils of the nation during the entire period of its recent struggle for national existence ; first as Attorney-General, and afterwards as Secretary of War. He was unceasing in his labours, earnest and fearless in the assumption of responsibilities necessary for his country s success ; respected by all good men, and feared by wrongdoers. In his death the bar, the bench, and the nation sustains a great loss, which will be mourned by all. " As a mark of respect to his memory, it is ordered that the Executive Mansion and the several departments at Washington be draped in mourning, and that all business be suspended on the^day of the funeral. " U. S. GRANT." HIS PLACE IN HISTORY. 145 The great part which Stanton played in the American Rebellion is not yet sufficiently well known to be fully appreciated. It will, however, at no distant day be universally acknowledged that his labours and accom plishments were greater than those of any other patriot outside of our triumvirate, and not inferior even to those of Lincoln and Grant, for the salvation of his country and the overthrow of slavery for ever from the land of Washington. L ULYSSES S. GRANT. L 2 >ON. i R-. ULYSSES S. GRANT. "Nothing is more certain than that a commander who is over anxious to square his proceedings by written rules, will never do any thing great." MACDONALD S " Campaigns of Hannibal." " When Grant resolved to go beyond the books, to make precedents rather than be chained by them, he struck the keynote that sounded the death-knell of the Rebellion. When he packed his base of supplies in his soldier s haversack and cartridge-boxes, and started for the battlefield, a chapter of strategy was written that only needed to be followed at Chattanooga, the march to the sea, and Peters burg, and the war was at an end." GENERAL LEGGETT S Address at Madison. |OST of the great military and political leaders of the world s history have been drawn from their retirement by the great struggles for ever to be associated with their names. It is also altogether pro bable that during ordinary times, and under ordinary circumstances, many of those characters who now loom above their fellows would have spent their days in comparative obscurity. Extraordinary emergencies are often necessary to develop the extraordinary powers of the world s master- spirits. Hannibal went forth at an early age to redeem the vows of his childhood, and Scipio 150 ULYSSES S. GRANT. became "the height of Rome."* The usurpation of Charles lifted Cromwell and Hampden into power and fame. The French Revolution made a subordinate artillery officer the first soldier of modern times. Napoleonic tyranny developed the wonderful powers of the Iron Duke. Taxation without representation in the Western colonies gave Hancock and Adams a world-wide celebrity. The War for Independence brought Washington from the banks of the Potomac to become the purest and noblest character to be found in all the pages of history. The struggle for Italian freedom gave Garibaldi the oppor tunities to distinguish himself as one of the bravest and most unselfish of patriots. And the grand effort to destroy the Federal Union, and establish a Slaveholders Government on the American continent, summoned Grant from his peaceful pursuits at Galena, to draw the conquer ing sword, to earn his country s laurels, and to dispute with Moltke and Lee the first place in the military annals of our time. A large majority of the ablest and most experienced officers on the roll of the American army, at the out break of the Rebellion, retired from that service when their respective States seceded from the Union. Many of them were conscientious believers in the State Rights heresy ; they were political disciples of Calhoun and Breckinridge ; they saw in the flag of Secession the banner of their newborn country ; and with the sword of Jefferson Davis they defended that flag with a courage, * Milton. ALBER T SIDNE Y JOHNS TON. 1 5 1 an ability, and a self-denial seldom surpassed.* Albert Sidney Johnston was by far the most competent military commander on the American continent at this time. He was by nature brave and able. Moreover, he was educated to the profession of arms, and enjoyed the advantages of a varied military experience, running through thirty-five years. He participated in the Black Hawk and Texas troubles ; distinguished himself in the war with Mexico ; was commandant of the United States troops in Utah ; and when our struggle commenced he was in charge of the Military Department of the Pacific, where he made an unavailing attempt to turn California into the Confederate compact. The early fall of General Johnston at the battle of Pittsburg Landing was a heavy blow to the army and the cause of the Confederacy. Joseph E. Johnston was also an able and experienced officer, holding the rank of Brigadier-General in the army of the Union when the war began. That he was highly estimated by Davis and his associates is established by the fact, that his name stood second on the list for the grade of general in the Rebel Army. General Johnston proved himself worthy of the preference. The great Virginian graduated with high honours at the National Military School. His conduct during the * Most of the Southern officers did indeed retire from the Federal Army, under a conviction of duty, but some of them deserted their honour and their country simultaneously. For instance, Colonel Magruder afterwards a Rebel general called upon the newly-elected President Lincoln, and said : " Every one else may desert you, but 1 never will." Magruder was in the Rebel camp within two days. 152 ULYSSES S. GRANT. war with Mexico, and especially his marvellous " eye for position," were made the subject of merited praise by his commanding General. He sprang from a distinguished family of revolutionary memory, and through his marriage with the daughter of the adopted son* of Washington he had become, in some sense, the representative of the " father of his country." Robert E. Lee was a colonel in the cavalry branch of the United States service, when a mistaken allegiance to a province impelled him to draw the mighty sword which all but severed the land of Washington in twain. Of those who proved faithful to their country when night came, and distinguished themselves during the struggle for national life, Thomas was a colonel and Sedgewick a major ; Hancock and Sheridan were captains, and Macpherson only a lieutenant in the Union Army. Sherman retired from the service in 1853, and was engaged in the capacity of superintendent of a military college in the Slave State of Louisiana ; Grant resigned his captaincy in the army about a year later, and was a member of a firm doing business in Galena, Illinois, when the people of South Carolina fired upon the American flag. The first of President Grant s ancestors immigrated to the American colonies as far back as 1630, for early in that year Matthew Grant sailed from Plymouth, England, in the ship Mary and John, and reached Nantucket in * General Lee was married to Mary Custis, daughter of George Custis, the adopted son of Washington. CHILDHOOD OF GRANT. 153 safety in the glorious month of May. The genealogist who with great care has traced the lineage of the American soldier back to England, informs us that by successive marriages the blood of many of the best families in the colonies have intermingled in the veins of the Grants. Noah Grant, a descendant of Matthew, served as a captain in the old French war. One of the grand sons of the captain was named after Jesse Root, Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Connecticut, and Ulysses S. Grant, eighteenth President of the United States, is the son of this Jesse Root Grant. Ulysses* was born at Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, on the 2/th of April, 1822. As a child he was courageous and resolute ; and though not what might be termed a " bright lad," he was always able to take care of himself. He received his elementary training at the village school of Georgetown, in his native State. The freaks of temper and flashes of genius which marked the boyhood of Napoleon, and the uniform superiority of Washington over lads of his own age, are not visible during the early training of Grant He was an industrious student and an average scholar ; he was no one s " fag," and fought his own battles. Washington and Franklin * General Grant was christened Hiram Ulysses, but Mr. Hamer, the member of Congress who obtained his appointment as a cadet in the National Military School, West Point, sent in his name as Ulysses Simpson by a mistake. Young Grant endeavoured to have the error corrected, but without success ; and when he found upon leaving the school that both his diploma and brevet commission styled him Ulysses S., he surrendered at discretion, and accepted the accidental name. 154 ULYSSES S. GRANT. are the patterns generally held up to American boys by their parents. It would seem that Ulysses was not an exception to the rule, and that his good and pious mother had impressed upon the mind of her firstborn thoughts of love and admiration for George Washington, for among the anecdotes of Ulysses at the village school is one of his having thrashed a schoolfellow who traduced the name of the great American. The predominating feature in the character of young Ulysses, was his great fondness for horses, and while yet a lad he displayed remarkable skill in their management. When eight years old he used to drive " a pair " around his father s farm, and two years later he was frequently entrusted with a " team " on a journey to Cincinnati, a distance of forty miles. At West Point he was peerless as an equestrian, and during the Mexican war the horse manship of Lieutenant Grant was famous throughout the army. As an accomplished horseman, he is superior to all the great captains of modern times. Wellington was never a good rider, and a trial at driving " four-in-hand " was attended with serious results to Napoleon. Wash ington, however, was a skilful horseman, and rode grace fully and well. Equestrianism, while desirable, is not an absolutely necessary qualification in a military commander ; but to Jesse Root Grant, driven from his trade by failing health, in the struggle with that poverty and suffering experienced by nearly all " new settlers " in the forests of the W r est, the remarkable facility for managing horses possessed by his son was a great assistance in bringing the virgin soil under subjection, if not towards keeping the wolf HIS MILITARY TASTE. 155 from the cabin-door. Upon one occasion his father sent Ulysses with the " team " to a certain place in the woods, where he was to meet men to load his waggon with logs. The boy drove to the spot where the timber was, but failed to find the men, and after waiting a short time, he unhitched his horses, and cleverly managed to get the logs loaded by horse-power. Seeing the boy returning with the logs, and unattended by the labourers, his father asked what had become of the men. " I don t know, and I don t care," said Ulysses ; " I got the load without them."* Ohio was a young State, and Georgetown but a remote Western village, surrounded by primeval forests, during the boyhood of Ulysses. Facilities for education were irregular and inferior. The parents of young Grant could not possibly afford the outlay attending a course in one of the colleges of the old States. The youth had fre quently expressed his preference for a military career over any other, and his father, probably more with a view of securing educational advantages at once superior and gratuitous for his son, than of gratifying his taste for army life, sought the influence of Senator Morris, of Ohio, to wards procuring the appointment of his eldest son as a cadet in the Government Military School, situated on the Hudson. Finally, an application made by Congressman Hamer was favourably considered. Grant was found equal to the preliminary examination, and became a student at West Point when seventeen years of age. Here Ulysses S. Grant first came in contact with the * See " Tanner Boy." 156 ULYSSES S. GRANT. young aristocracy of his country an aristocracy based upon property in man. Copying from the Old World, in common with their class, the students from the Slave- holding States looked upon labour as degrading. The cadet from Ohio was a tanner s son, and the guilt of the father that of being a worker in leather- was visited upon the son in haughty sneers. The good temper of Grant is now a matter of history ; his uniform good-nature at West Point led some of the cadets to say that in the event of war he could not be " kicked into a fight ;" yet the sons of toil were never better represented among the heirs to broad acres than by the freshman from the West at the National College. His uniform good conduct, and his plain dignified bearing, entitled him to respect, and this he insisted upon, when necessary, "by a stalwart good right arm, which nobody cared to bring down in anger." Grant was not distinguished as a scholar at West Point, and took only a fair position among the graduates of his year. He was twenty-first in the graduating class of 1843, composed of thirty-nine members. Among the class-mates of Grant were Ripley, French, Holloway, and Gardner, all afterwards general officers in the Rebel Army. Gardner had command of Port Hudson on the Mississippi, and surrendered to General Banks when he learned that Vicksburg had fallen into the hands of his old college associate. Of those who fought for the Union there were Augur, Franklin, Hamilton, and the gallant Reynolds, who fell at Gettysburg in defence of his native State, and almost within sight of his own home. Upon leaving THE LONE STAR REPUBLIC. 157 West Point, Grant was assigned to duty in the Fourth Infantry Regiment. He was commissioned brevet second lieutenant, which placed him at the foot of the ladder. But a war was already brewing. Under the adventurous leadership of Sam Houston, Texas had already been wrested from Mexico. The Lone Star Republic was recognised by several European nations, as well as by the United States, and in 1 844 during the Administration of President Tyler the new government applied for admission into the Federal Union, and " Texas annexation" became an important question in American politics. President Tyler was an open advocate of annexa tion. He was succeeded in the Chief Magistracy of the country by James K. Polk, who, in common with the Democratic party, North and South, was for admitting Texas into the Union. It was not pretended that the United States required more territory, but the dominant Pro-Slavery party believed that Texas, and all other ter ritory that could be procured or acquired from Mexico, would, in all human probability, be added to the already spacious dominions of the Slave Power ; so justice was violated, and Texas was annexed. In the summer of 1845 General Zachary Taylor, with a force of 1500 men, embarked at New Orleans for the recently- acquired State. He landed at Corpus Christi, on Arkansas Bay, in the month of August, and established his camp on the banks of the river Neuces, forming the acknowledged western boundary of Texas. Reinforcements were sent to General Taylor ; he was also given to un derstand that an advance to the Rio Grande would not 158 ULYSSES S. GRANT. be disapproved by the Administration. The General, however, would not take so serious a step amounting to invasion (for the district lying between the Neuces and the Rio Grande could scarcely be considered disputed territory) without positive orders. Early in March* the necessary orders came, and Taylor s column, with our brevet second lieutenant in the van, crossed the Neuces, and commenced its tedious march over the arid waste, reaching the Rio Grande, opposite Mattamoras, on the 25th, having marched over 100 miles, General Taylor declined to retire to the eastern banks of the Neuces, as requested by the Mexican commander at Mattamoras, and was attacked early in May by Arista, at the head of 6000 men. The Americans, numbering only 2300, fought with great courage and audacity, and the battle of Palo Alto the initiatory contest of the Mexican war was a complete victory for Taylor. This was Lieutenant Grant s " baptism of fire ;" and though in too subordinate a position to attract special notice, he fought with coolness, and evinced that entire absence of fear which, in another war and on bloodier fields, com manded the universal admiration of the soldiery. He took part in every battle fought in Mexico, excepting Buena Vista. For his gallant conduct at Moline del Rey Grant was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant on the field. At Chepultepic, the slope leading to the castle walls was stubbornly held by the Mexicans, and the victorious advance entirely checked, when Lieutenant Grant, in conjunction with Captain Brookes, rallied his * March 9th, 1846. GRANT AND LEE IN MEXICO. 159 baffled men ; then, after making a detour to the left, he attacked the enemy in flank with great spirit, compelling the Mexicans to give ground. Lieutenant Grant was made captain by brevet, as an acknowledgment for the conspicuous part taken by him in this successful manoeuvre. The conduct of Lieutenant Grant during the Mexican war was that of a cool, unostentatious, fearless soldier. He was mentioned in terms of commendation upon several occasions ; and by Colonel Garland, in his final report of the operations of his command during the war, in the following terms : " I must not omit to mention Lieu tenant Grant, who acquitted himself most nobly upon several occasions under my observation." Grant and Lee met for the first time during the campaign in Mexico, when the fast-rising Virginian was serving as colonel on the staff of General Scott ; their second meeting was at Appomattox Court House. At the close of the Mexican war Captain Grant was married to Miss Julia T. Dent, eldest daughter of Frederick Dent, of St. Louis. The full grade of captain was not accorded him until August, 1853, an d within a year he retired* from the army, having served his country for ten years. Grant now returned to labours kindred to those he had performed in boyhood. He settled upon a small farm near St. Louis, where he struggled manfully, but with indifferent success, to support his young family. He derived his chief income from hauling cord-wood to St. Louis, where he found for it a ready market. Among the Resigned July jist, 1854. 1 60 ULYSSES S. GRANT. city customers of the ex-captain was the Hon. Henry T. Blow. The meeting of these old friends, after Grant had become the head of the American Army and the most popular man in the United States, is thus stated in Hedley s " Life of Grant." " Mr. Blow," says the writer, "was elected to the Thirty-ninth Congress, and on one occasion went with his wife to one of General Grant s popular receptions. Mrs. Blow wondered if General Grant would recognise her as an old friend or acquain tance, under the different circumstances of their relative situations in life. Well, Mrs. Blow had not been long at the General s before he came to her and said, Mrs. Blow, I remember you well. What great changes have taken place since we last met. Yes, General/ said Mrs. Blow, the war is over. ( I did not mean that, he replied, I mean with myself. Do you recollect when I used to supply your husband with wood, and pile it myself, and measure it too, and go to his office for ? my pay ? Oh yes, General, your face was familiar in those days. Mrs. Blow, those were happy days ; for I was doing all I could to support my family. " In various ways Grant endeavoured to improve his position ; he acted in the spirit of Pope s noble words " Honour and shame from no condition rise." As a debt collector, house agent, and as candidate for county engineer, he struggled for success, but it came not ; and in 1859 Grant left Missouri for Illinois to become a partner with his father and younger brother in the business of tanners and leather dealers at Galena. The new undertaking prospered well, and the ex-captain VO TES A GAINST LINCOLN. 1 6 1 with his wife and four children lived happily together in an unpretending little house situated upon one of the hills whereon Galena is built. So far as could be judged, Grant was without ambition ; he took no part in public affairs, and his first vote for a Presidential candidate was polled during the election of 1860, when he voted against his future friend and chief, Abraham Lincoln. Beyond the circle of his private friends and business acquaintances, Grant s was an unknown name when the magic sound of South Carolina s first hostile gun summoned the North to arms. The idea that the cry of " Secession " was but the usual false alarm that would end with abuse, after its fashion, now vanished for ever, and " men who made a conscience of the matter," from all grades of society, were enrolling for the national defence. President Lincoln made his first call for troops on the I 5 th of April ; within ten days, Grant had organized a company of volunteers, and had taken them to Springfield, the capital of Illinois, where they were mustered into the service of the General Govern ment. In offering his sword to the country, through the Governor of his State, Captain Grant modestly said that "he would esteem it a privilege to be assigned to any position where he could be useful." His military education and experience, it was thought, would be of great advantage in organizing the volunteers of the State for the service of the country, and Captain Grant was assigned to that duty by Governor Yates. Speaking of Grant, while occupying this quasi staff appointment under him, the Governor said : " The plain, straightforward demeanour M 1 62 ULYSSES S. GRANT. of the man, and the modesty and earnestness which characterized his offer of assistance, at once awakened a lively interest in him, and impressed me with a desire to secure his counsel for the benefit of volunteer organization then forming for Government service. At first I assigned him a desk in the Executive office ; and his familiarity with military organization and regulations made him an invaluable assistant in my own and the office of the Adjutant-General. Soon his admirable qualities as a military commander became apparent, and I assigned him the command of the camps of organization The 2 1st Regiment of Illinois Volunteers .... had be come very much demoralized under the thirty days experiment, and doubts arose in relation to their acceptance for a longer period. I was much perplexed to find an efficient and experienced officer to take command of the regiment, and take it into three years service I decided to offer the command to Captain Grant at Coving- ton, Kentucky, tendering him the colonelcy. He imme diately reported, accepting the commission, taking rank as colonel of that regiment from the 1 5th of June, 1861. Thirty days previous to that time, the regiment numbered over one thousand men ; but in consequence of laxity of discipline of the first commanding officer, and other dis couraging obstacles connected with the acceptance of troops at that time, but six hundred and three were found willing to enter the three years service. In less than ten days Colonel Grant filled the regiment to the maximum standard, and brought it to a state of discipline seldom attained in the volunteer service in so short a time. His MADE BRIGADIER-GENERAL. 163 was the only regiment that left the camp of organization on foot." At this early stage of the war, George B. McClellan was a Major-General in command of the volunteer forces of Ohio. Captain Grant had known him in the old army, and twice visited the head-quarters of the young General at Cincinnati, in the expectation that a staff appointment would be proffered him. Fortunately for the country and himself, Grant failed to see his old fellow-officer, and returned to Illinois, where soon after* Governor Yates gave him the colonelcy of the 2ist Regiment. Colonel Grant first served under General Pope, by whom he was stationed at Mexico, Missouri. Here Grant was prevailed upon by several inexperienced volunteer colonels to act as a Brigadier-General, until an officer of that grade should arrive. On the /th of August, at the unanimous request of the Illinois delegation in Congress, Grant was made a Brigadier-General of Volunteers, to date from the i/th of May. The first intimation of this promotion reached him at Mexico, through the news papers. The green officers who first begged of Grant to act as a general officer, were gratified to find that the man of their choice had been established in the higher grade by the President. On the ist of September General Fremont, command ing the Western Department, assigned to Grant the com mand of the district of South-Eastern Missouri, including Southern Illinois and portions of Tennessee and Kentucky. * June, 1861. M 2 164 ULYSSES S. GRANT. The important junctions of the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers with the Ohio, and of the latter stream with the Mississippi, would be within the limits of General Grant s district, as soon as the banks of the Ohio could be cleared of Rebels. The General established his head-quarters at Cairo on the Illinois shore of the Mississippi, and at the confluence of the Ohio with the " Father of Waters." That we may fully appreciate the difficulties which harassed the operations of the District Commander at this time, the delicate and peculiar position of Kentucky should be made clear. Kentucky was a Slave and a Border State ; many of her public men were open Secessionists, who had exhausted every possible scheme for carrying the State into the Con federacy. Conspicuous among truant Kentuckians were Go vernor BeriahMagoffin, John C. Breckinridge, United States Senator, and S. B. Buckner, Commander of the State Guards. The popular will having decided against Seces sion at the ballot-box, Magoffin and his associates, as a last resort, preached State Neutrality with great earnestness. They originated the idea that a section of a country may remain neutral, while the National Government is engaged in war. A Union Legislature had already been elected by the State, but would not assemble until the early part of September ; therefore, to do the national cause as much harm as possible before his hands were tied by the repre sentatives of the people, Governor Magoffin addressed* a lengthy letter to President Lincoln, wherein he said : " Recently a large body of soldiers have been enlisted * August 19, 1 86 1. KENTUCKY NEUTRALITY. 165 in the United States Army, and collected in military camps, in the central portion of Kentucky. This move ment was preceded by the active organization of com panies, regiments, &c., consisting of men sworn into the United States service, under officers holding commissions from yourself. Ordnance, arms, munitions, and supplies of war are being transported into the State, and placed in large quantities in these camps. In a word, an army is now being organized and quartered within the State, supplied with all the appliances of war, without the consent or advice of the authorities of the State, and without consul tation with those most prominently known and recognised as loyal citizens " Now, therefore, as Governor of the State of Kentucky, and in the name of the people I have the honour to re present, and with the single and earnest desire to avert from their peaceful homes the horrors of war, I urge the removal from the limits of Kentucky of the military force now organized and in camp within the State." The message from which we have quoted was trans mitted by the hands of two " Commissioners," to whom the sharp-witted Lincoln would not give audience in their new and novel capacity ; they were finally admitted as private citizens. President Lincoln sent the Governor a fitting reply by the hands of these gentlemen. He said : " In all I have done in the premises, I have acted upon the urgent solicitation of many Kentuckians, and in accor dance with what I believed, and still believe, to be the wish of a majority of all the Union-loving people of Kentucky. . . . " I most cordially sympathize with your Excellency 1 66 ULYSSES S. GRANT. in the wish to preserve the peace of my own native State, Kentucky ; but it is with regret I search for and cannot find, in your not very short letter, any declaration or in timation that you entertain any desire for the preservation of the Federal Union." Meanwhile, General Grant had been keeping a close watch upon the enemy s movements along the Kentucky shores, and no sooner had the new Legislature been organized, * than he completely took the wind out of the neutrality sails of Governor Magoffin by a despatch in forming the State Parliament that their Commonwealth had been invaded, and that Rebel forces were fortifying positions on Kentucky soil. By this message Grant had prepared the minds of the State authorities for his own contemplated movements. On the same day he tele graphed to General Fremont that, unless prevented by him, he would start for Paducah that night. By half- past ten he was steaming up the river with two regiments of infantry and a battery of artillery, and at nine o clock on the following morning he took possession of Paducah ; a small Rebel force including General Tighlman and his staff retiring as he entered the town. Large supplies of cooked rations, and a considerable quantity of LEATHER intended for the Rebel Army, were among the first captures of the Tanner General. Paducah was taken without firing a gun, and the free navigation of the Ohio river was guaranteed. Having taken possession of the town, General Grant issued the following proclamation to the inhabitants : * Sept. 5th. CAPTURE OF PADUCAH. 167 " I have come among you, not as an enemy, but as your fellow-citizen ; not to maltreat or annoy you, but to respect and enforce the rights of all loyal citizens. An enemy, in rebellion against our common Government, has taken possession of, and planted his guns on the soil of Kentucky, and fired upon you. Columbus and Hickman are in his hands. He is moving upon your city. I am here to defend you against this enemy ; to assist the authority and sovereignty of your Government. I have nothing to do with opinions, and shall deal only with armed rebellion and its aiders and abettors. You can pursue your usual avocations without fear. The strong arm of the Government is here to protect its friends and punish its enemies. Whenever it is manifest that you are able to defend yourselves, maintain the authority of the Government, and protect the rights of loyal citizens, I shall withdraw the forces under my command. " U. S. GRANT, " Brigadier-General Commanding." The Legislature of Kentucky took side with the Union at once. And in spite of the veto-power of Governor Magoffin, they passed a series of resolutions condemning the Rebels for invading their soil ; calling out the military force of the State " to expel and drive out the invaders ;" invoking national aid as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States ; and appealing to the people of the State to assist in expelling and driving out " the lawless invaders of our soil." The position of the State of Henry Clay was no longer in doubt. None of those able captains who were afterwards asso- 1 68 ULYSSES S. GRANT. ciated with Grant in the West were with him at this time. The capture of Paducah was a trivial success compared with the later achievements of the Western soldier, yet this first step clearly foreshadowed the coming General ; it was Grant in miniature. He was from the first an advocate of prompt and vigorous action, believing, says his military biographer,* " that, when neither party is well disciplined, there is nothing to gain in the matter of disci pline by delay. The enemy organizes and improves as rapidly as yourself, and all the advantages of prompt movement are lost." Within four days after the fall of Paducah, Grant wrotef to the Department Commander as follows : " If it were discretionary with me, with a little addition to my present force, I would take Columbus." To t this General Fremont made no reply. The main army of the department was in South-Western Missouri, confronted by Rebel forces under General Price. Learning that Bishop Polk,J commanding at Columbus, was despatching reinforcements to Price, Fremont instructed Grant to make a demonstration against that town. The order was received on the 5th of November; by the following night General Grant, with a force of 3000 men, convoyed by the gunboats Lexington and Tyler, was sailing down towards Columbus. At two o clock on the morning of the 7th Grant learnt that on the previous * General Badeau. t Sept. loth. I A Bishop of the Episcopal Church and a General in the Con federate Army. ^ THE BATTLE OF BEL MONT. 169 day Polk had sent a large detachment to Belmont, on the Missouri side of the river, to cut off a force sent out by Grant, under Colonel Oglesby, on the 3rd. He therefore determined to convert the demonstration against Columbus into an attack upon the Rebel forces at Belmont. At seven o clock in the morning the expedition debarked at Hunter s Point, three miles north of Belmont. The com mand (leaving one regiment to guard the landing) was formed and gallantly led to the attack by Grant, assisted by General McClernand, Colonels Logan, Fouke, and others. The enemy was driven from point to point behind a rudely-made abattis ; and finally, by a charge of the Union forces, Pillow s command was entirely broken up, driven over the river bank or captured. The entire camp, with its artillery and equipages, was thus snatched away from under the very muzzles of Folk s guns at Columbus. Grant had no intention of remaining at Belmont, for the position was commanded by the higher ground on the Kentucky side of the river. The object of the exploit had been fully accomplished, and Grant was endeavouring to reform his command and return to the transports. Here he found a difficulty : officers and men, alike inexperienced in warfare, had become thoroughly demoralized by their victory. The men deserted their organizations, and fell to plundering the captured camp, while some of the officers were engaged in making en thusiastic speeches for the Union. The Rebel Commander at Columbus, completely overlooking the operations at Belmont, was now sending reinforcements to his roughly- handled detachment as fast as boats could convey them. 1 70 ULYSSES S. GRANT. Grant saw this, and ordered his staff officers to set fire to the camp. The enemy s guns across the river now opened upon the Union troops. Three regiments of Folk s rein forcements were forming in the woods between Grant and his transports. " We are surrounded !" said one of the General s staff officers truthfully. "Well, if that is so," calmly responded Grant, " we must cut our way out as we cut our way in." The troops, by this time sensible of their critical situation, gallantly responded to their commander s orders to cut their way out, and though hotly and closely pursued, they reached the transports and embarked in safety. While the troops were getting on board the boats, the commanding General, accompanied by a single staff officer, rode off to withdraw the regiment placed in position in the morning to protect the landing. The regimental commander had already retired without orders, upon seeing the rest of the expedition embarking. While on his way back, Grant discovered the newly- formed Rebel line not over fifty yards distant from the knoll upon which he stood. He quietly withdrew from his conspicuous position, and afterwards hastened to the landing. " The Rebel fire was now hot, and the trans ports were about pushing off, leaving Grant ashore. He, however, rode rapidly up, and a plank was put out for him, over which he trotted his horse aboard, under a heavy musketry fire."* Always indifferent in the matter of dress, the General wore a private s overcoat during the Belmont engagement. As he sat upon his horse on the knoll watching the enemy s formation, he was taken for BadcriU. CASUAL TIES A T B ELMO NT. \ 7 1 an ordinary soldier ; and although General Polk called the attention of his men to the solitary " Yankee," they were too intent upon firing at the transports to notice him. The private s overcoat saved Grant to the country. Upon gaining a sufficient distance from the river bank, the gunboat sent grape and canister into the ranks of the exultant enemy, which soon induced them to retire. The Federal loss in killed, wounded, and missing was a little under 500. Pollard, the war historian of the South, who is not in the habit of overstating Rebel losses, gives the casualties on that side as 623. Colonel Wright, of Ten nessee, was mortally wounded. He had represented his State in Congress for many years, and at the close of the session of 1 860-61, he said to his personal friend and colleague, Hon. P. B. Fouke, of Illinois : " Phil, I expect the next time we meet it will be on the battlefield." And it was so. Sixty of Wright s men were taken prisoners by Colonel Fouke s regiment. In a letter written to his father after the battle of Bel- mont, General Grant said : " The object of the expedition was to prevent the enemy from sending a force into Missouri to cut off troops I had sent there for a special purpose, and to prevent reinforcing Price. " Besides being well fortified at Columbus, their number far exceeded ours, and it would have been folly to attack them. We found the Confederates well armed and brave. On our return, stragglers that had been left in our rear (now front) fired into us, and more recrossed the river, and gave us battle for a full mile, and afterwards at the boats, when we were embarking. 172 ULYSSES S. GRANT. " There was no hasty retreating or running away. Taking into account the object of the expedition, the victory was complete. It has given confidence in the officers and men of this command that will enable us to lead them in any future action without fear of the result. General McClernand (who, by the way, acted with great coolness and courage throughout) and myself each had our horses shot under us. Most of the field officers met with the same loss, besides one-third of them being them selves killed or wounded." While General Fremont had command of the Western Department, he held Grant in severe subordination : meantime, arrogating to himself those dictatorial powers which influenced his removal. General Halleck superseded Fremont on the gih of November. By his timely occupation of Paducah, Grant had secured the mouths of the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers ; but the navigation of these streams was stopped, about sixty miles above, by Fort Donelson on the Cumberland, and Fort Henry on the Tennessee. Grant was impatient to overcome these obstructions. On the 23rd of January, 1862, he paid a visit to Department head-quarters, by permission, when he undertook to lay before General Halleck a plan for reducing the forts. He was checked by his chief in a peremptory and discourteous manner. This was the initiatory step in that trying ordeal which the inexplicable conduct of Halleck compelled Grant to pass through. The views of the subordinate regarding the capture of Fort Henry were strongly seconded by Commodore Foote always a faithful friend and co- SURRENDER OF FOR T HENR Y. \ 73 operator of Grant in a letter* to the Department Com mander at St. Louis. Permission to take the fort came on the i st of February, and General Grant started on the following day. Fort Henry, situated on the eastern banks of the Tennessee, was a strong field-work, mounting seventeen heavy guns. Approaches on the land side were guarded by rifle-pits and entrenchments, and the position was defended by 2600 men under General Tighlman. Grant s expedition for subduing this stronghold con sisted of 17,000 men on transports, and a fleet of seven gunboats under Foote. Before noon on the 6th the troops had been debarked at Bailey s Ferry, three miles below the fort, and were advancing preparatory to storm ing the works as soon as the Rebel guns were silenced by the fleet. Commodore Foote steamed up, and commenced the bombardment, and after a feeble resistance, lasting a little over an hour, General Tighlman surrendered Fort Henry to the commander of the fleet. General Grant with his infantry had been delayed in building corduroy roads through the otherwise impassable over-flooded country, and did not reach the scene of action until half * "CAIRO, January 28, 1862. " Major-General H. W. Halleck, St. Louis, Mo. " Commanding-General Grant and myself are of opinion that Fort Henry, on the Tennessee river, can be carried with four iron-clad gunboats, and troops to permanently occupy. Have we your authority to move for that purpose when ready ? " A. H. FOOTE, Flag Officer." 174 ULYSSES S. GRANT. an hour after all was over. The sad condition of the roads had not been anticipated ; neither did the General expect such a miserable defence. At the approach of the Union Army, Tighlman despatched the garrison to Fort Donelson, about twelve miles off, keeping less than 100 men to assist him in working the guns. The Rebel Commander and his gunners were made prisoners. General Grant at once telegraphed to Halleck : " Fort Henry is ours. ... I shall take and destroy Fort Donelson on the 8th." Halleck, in return, congratulated Commodore Foote upon the success of the expedition. He had no word for Grant. The Cumberland joins the Ohio at Smithland, a few miles north-east of Paducah, where her twin river, the Tennessee, flows into the Ohio also. The Tennessee pursues a northerly course, through the State of the same name, and through Kentucky, until she is lost in the greater stream. The Cumberland, after pursuing a capricious course, generally westward, until she approaches within twelve miles of the Tennessee, likewise takes the northerly direction from a point opposite Dover, Tennessee. Near this point, on the west bank of the Cumberland, and com manding the navigation of that river, Fort Donelson was situated. It was twelve miles distant, directly eastward, from Fort Henry, standing on \\\zeast side of the Tennessee river. General Grant s advance upon Donelson was delayed for several days by the bad state of the roads, which made it impossible to move artillery and ammunition waggons. By the 1 2th, however, Grant s column, 15,000 strong, was marching upon the Rebel stronghold. FOR T DONELSON INVESTED. 1 75 Fort Donelson was situated upon a plateau of nearly 100 acres, on the summit of a bluff 100 feet high, which commanded every approach by land and water. The main fort mounted fifteen heavy guns and two carronades. Two water batteries of nine and three guns of heavy calibre, all admirably placed, controlled the river navigation. Including the lighter guns, there were sixty-five pieces of artillery within the enemy s works at Donelson. Nature had contributed in various ways towards the strength of this boast of the South. Deep ravines and streamlets impeded advance ; the primitive forest and undergrowth had been felled and slashed to form an abattis, all but impossible to traverse at many points. From the proud fortress and the lines of parapet and rifle-pits which surrounded the bluff, 21,000 men looked down upon the gallant advance of the Union General at the head of 15,000 volunteers. By nightfall, Grant s lines, three miles long, encircled the Rebel works ; his flanks rested as near the river as the floods would allow, and Fort Donelson was invested by an inferior force. General Grant s plan of battle consisted of a fierce bombardment of the fort by the fleet under Commodore Foote, which, if successful in silencing the Rebel guns, would be followed by an assault from the land side. Early in the morning of the I4th Foote arrived with his gun boats, and with large infantry reinforcements for Grant ; at three o clock in the afternoon he steamed up to his allotted task, and opened the ball. The fleet, composed of four iron- clad and two wooden gunboats, bravely advanced, 176 ULYSSES S. GRANT. and engaged the water batteries at 400 yards. A severe artillery duel lasting an hour and a half ensued, and the gallant Foote was compelled to retire out of harm s way, himself wounded, the wheel of his flagship* shot away, and the little fleet badly crippled. Having ascertained the amount of damage sustained by his vessels, Foote wrote that night to General Grant, requesting a conference on board the flagship, as he was " disabled from walking," and could not therefore visit Grant s head-quarters. The note of the wounded Commodore reached the General at two o clock the following morning, and before daybreak Grant was on board the St. Louis. Reinforcements had reached the Union Army until it now numbered 22,000 men. Grant had been judiciously strengthening the weak points of his lines ; the ill fate of the fleet had forced upon him the conviction that the Rebel stronghold could only be taken by regular siege. He acted upon this conviction ; wrote for ammunition for his heavy guns, and said : " I fear the result of an attempt to carry the place by storm with new troops. I feel great confidence, however, of ultimately reducing the place." The Union forces already outnumbered the enemy, and reinforcements were arriving fast and regular. The chances of escape became more perilous with each suc ceeding day, and General Floyd, commanding at Fort Donelson, decided to strike while his men were still elated with their victory over our gunboats, and thus * The flagship St. Louis received fifty-nine shots during the en gagement. BA TTLE OF FORT DO NELSON. 1 77 open the way to Nashville. Grant s lines were formed with McClernand on the right, Wallace in the centre, and Smith on the left. Massing heavily on his left under General Pillow, Floyd made a determined attack on the Federal right, where, after a stubborn resistance of over two hours, he managed to drive McClernand back towards the centre position. Several regiments were by this time badly broken, while others had quite exhausted their cartridges. Wallace reinforced the hard-pressed flank with two brigades ; cartridge-boxes were re plenished ; the furious advance of the enemy was checked, and there was a lull in the storm. At nine o clock in the morning Grant was returning to his army, when he met a fast-riding messenger who brought him the evil tidings from McClernand s front. Soon after, he met General C. F. Smith, commanding the left division, from whom he obtained additional particulars. The left had not been engaged, and Smith was ordered by General Grant to hold his command in readiness to assault the Rebel works in his front. The Commander and his staff now galloped off towards the beaten right. Here Grant ascertained that the Rebels had three days rations in their haversacks, and he at once exclaimed " They mean to cut their way out !" The right and centre -were re formed, and fought with renewed vigour, in the light of their commander s theory of the desperate character of the enemy s assault, which Grant and his staff took care to spread along the lines on their way to the Union left. Commodore Foote was urged to make a feint of renew ing the attack upon the fort, which was done. The N !78 ULYSSES S. GRANT. grand assault of Grant s left was now ordered, when the veteran General Smith led his men over the broken ground, up the steep hill, in the face of a galling fire of infantry and artillery, into the Rebel works. The key position to Fort Donelson was wrested from the enemy, and Smith could hold his ground. Wallace and McCler- nand also advanced upon the enemy in their respective fronts, driving them foot by foot, recapturing a battery of six guns taken from them in the morning by a cavalry charge under Colonel Forrest, and occupying at nightfall a position in advance of that held at the opening of the fight. " So closed the work of that bloody day !" The weather, which at first had been propitious for the season, had for two days and nights been extremely cold, the glass showing ten degrees of frost, and snow falling at intervals. Upon the frozen conquered ground General Smith, already past the age of active campaigning, laid down for such moments of rest or sleep as the severe frost and wily foe would yield him. Grant found indif ferent shelter in a Negro hut close at hand. The enemy had been fighting or constantly watching for days ; their clothing and shelter, always indifferent, were here miserable ; their falling fortunes kept them under arms. The Union Army was entirely without tents ; the close proximity of the hostile lines forbade fires in Grant s frozen camp. The varying fortunes of the fight left hundreds of wounded, friend and foe, beyond the means of the scanty aid at hand, to die from the piercing north-west wind. It was a night of untold suffering for both armies. During the night, General Floyd, Secretary of War STRANGE COND UCT OF FLOYD. 179 under Buchanan, convened his generals in council to consider what should be done under their adverse fate. General Buckner stated that his position had become untenable through the successful charge of Smith ; that it would certainly be attacked in the morning, and could not be held half an hour. A proposition to cut their way out was met with disfavour, and nothing remained but sur render. Floyd, the ranking general at Donelson, in sisted that he would never surrender to the Yankees, and turned over the command to General Pillow, who at once passed the worthless honours to Buckner,^ where it re mained for a few anxious hours. In the grey of the morning the ex-Secretary f and his confrere Pillow skulked away in steamboats, accompanied by about 3000 men (principally of Floyd s own brigade), amid the well-deserved * General Simon B. Buckner, hereinbefore referred to as Com mander of the State Guard of his own State, Kentucky, and as one of those who used their influence to carry the State out of the Union. Referring to this class of men, the Louisville Journal of October I2th, 1861, rather forcibly said: "Hundreds of those exceedingly sensitive Kentuckians, who so eloquently proclaimed that they could never take up arms against the Southern States, inasmuch as those States were Kentucky s sisters, have now taken up arms for the con quest of Kentucky herself. Isn t that enough to make the devil himself laugh ?" t General Floyd, in a report to the Confederate Government, after giving an account of the circumstances attending his escape from Fort Donelson, said : " By this precise mode I effected my escape, and after leaving the wharf, the Department will be pleased to hear, that I encountered no danger whatever from the enemy." We cannot restrain ourselves from repeating the query of the Louisville Jorirnal, given above " Isn t that enough to make the devil himself laugh ?" J N 2 i8o ULYSSES S. GRANT. curses and hisses of the braver officers and men they were deserting. Grant was in the saddle at daylight in the morning, preparing to follow up the advantages of the previous evening, when the clear bugle-note was heard, the white flag displayed, and the following communication re ceived : "HEAD-QUARTERS, FORT DONELSON, "February \6th, 1862. " SIR, In consideration of all the circumstances govern ing the present situation of affairs at this station, I pro pose to the commanding officer of the Federal forces the appointment of commissioners to agree upon terms of capitulation of the forces at this post under my command. In that view, I suggest an armistice until twelve o clock to-day. " I am, very respectfully, " Your obedient Servant, " S. B. BUCKNER, " Brigadier-General C.S.A. " Brig.-Gen. U. S. Grant." This overture elicited from General Grant an answer that will live in history, inseparable from his name and military character. He said : " No terms except uncon ditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I pro pose to move immediately on your works." The following rejoinder from General Buckner closed the correspondence : SURRENDER OF DONELSON. 181 " HEAD-QUARTERS, DOVER (TENN.), "Feb. i6M, 1862. " Brig.-Gen. U. S. Grant. " SIR, The distribution of the forces under my com mand incident to an unexpected change of commanders, and the overwhelming force under your command, compel me, notwithstanding the brilliant success of the Con federate arms, to accept the ungenerous and unchivalrous terms which you propose. " I am, Sir, your Servant, " S. B. BUCKNER, " Brigadier-General C.S.A." The " unconditional surrender " clause in Grant s note was too much for the more diplomatic Buckner in his trying position, and he seems to have lost Fort Donelson and his temper simultaneously. These two officers were fellow-students at the National Military School ; and Grant, having secured his great prize, rode over to General Buckner s head-quarters, where he disabused the Kentuckian s mind as to " the ungenerous and unchival rous terms " by allowing officers and men to retain side- arms and personal baggage, and assuring the Rebel General that humiliating his prisoners formed no part of his policy. The conqueror breakfasted with the con quered ; and a few days later, when Buckner with his brigade were about to sail northward as prisoners of war, Grant, at the request of the captive officer, went to see the men. Buckner told them of the kindness and mag nanimity of the Union Commander, " and bade them 1 82 ULYSSES S. GRANT. remember this, if ever the fortune of war allowed them to show him, or any of his soldiers, the same treatment which they now received." The capture of Fort Donelson was the first strong blow given to any of the armies of the Rebellion. The fruits of battle were 65 pieces of artillery, 17,500 small arms, and nearly 15,000 prisoners. Bowling Green, Nashville, and Columbus, important strategic points of the Confederacy, could no longer be held with safety, and were evacuated amid scenes of plunder, destruction, and confusion without parallel.* * "The Rebels," says the author of "The American Conflict," while speaking of the evacuation of Columbus, " had left .... after burning 18,000 bushels of corn, 5000 tons of hay, their cavalry stables, and much other property ; while many of their heavy guns, which they were unable to take away, had been rolled off the bluff, here 1 50 feet high, into the river." Speaking of the abandonment of Bowling Green, Greeley said : "Johnston commenced his retreat on Nashville, so that when Mitchell had reached the north bank of Barren river, and looked across into Bowling Green, sending over Colonel Turchin s brigade during the night, at a ferry a mile and a half below, he found the railroad depot on fire, with seven locomotives, and a large amount of corn and other provisions, with the bridges of course destroyed, and the last of the Rebel Army, consisting of Texas Rangers, just moving off on a railroad train which had been retained for the purpose. The river, being wide and at a high stage, could not here be crossed till next day, so that Mitchell s forced march of forty-two miles in thirty-seven hours, clearing his road of trees which had been felled across it, wa s rewarded by very moderate captures, including a brass 6-pounder, and some $5000 worth of commissary stores ; but it was computed that the Rebels had been compelled to destroy not less than half a million dollars worth of munitions, including many arms." Pollard, the Southern historian, draws the following lively picture of Nashville soon after the fall of Fort Donelson : " UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER." 183 The victorious General was rechristened by the accla mation of loyal people, " Unconditional Surrender " Grant. His praises were upon every faithful tongue. Stanton announced the fall of Donelson to the country in a bulletin, and referred to Grant in terms of the strongest approbation. The Secretary of War nominated him for Major-General of Volunteers ; the President, approving 1 heartily, at once sent the name to the Upper House of Congress ; and the Senate confirmed the nomination on the same day. The verdict of the North was unani mous ; Halleck alone held his peace. Major-General H. W. Halleck, the immediate com mander of Grant at this time, was born in Oneida Co., New York State, in 1814. He was the grandson of Peter Halleck, of Revolutionary memory, and the son of Hon. Joseph Halleck. Henry Wager was a graduate of the West Point Military School, and a very accomplished " In the first wild excitement of the panic, the storehouses had been thrown open to the poor. They were besieged by a mob ravenous for spoils, and who had to be dispersed from the commissariat by jets of water from a steam fire-engine. Women and children even were seen scudding through the streets under loads of greasy pork which they had taken as prizes from the storehouses. It is believed that hundreds of families among the lower orders of the population secured and secreted Government stores enough to open respectable groceries. It was with the greatest difficulty that General Floyd could restore order and get his martial law into anythmg like an effective system. Blacks and Whites had to be chased and captured and forced to help the movement of Government stores. One man, who, after a long chase, was captured, offered fight, and was in consequence shot and badly wounded. Not less than one million of dollars in stores was lost through the acts of the cowardly and ravenous mob of Nashville." 1 84 UL YSSES S. GRA NT. scholar. During the Mexican War he served in Cali fornia and on the Pacific coast, and greatly distinguished himself for skill and courage in several engagements. He became Secretary of the Territory of California in 1847, and had a large share in the formation of the constitution under which California was admitted into the Union. On the 1st of August, 1854, he resigned his position as captain in the United States Engineer Service, and com menced the practice of the law in San Francisco, where he became a member of the largest law firm on the Pacific coast, and, finally, one of the most influential citizens of California. General Halleck was the author of several military and scientific works, and a translator of books from the French and Spanish languages. When the War of Secession broke out, he took the side of the Union, and President Lincoln made him a Major-General in the United States Army, his commission dating August iQth, 1861. General Halleck has passed over to the unknown land, and we would deal gently with his name ; but in some small sense we are writing history, and therefore com pelled " To give every man his own." Halleck s disposition towards his vigorous and relentless subordinate has already been foreshadowed. He with held his congratulations after the capture of Fort Henry, and awarded to another* the measure of praise due to Grant for the victory at Donelson. Let us now recount the ungarnished facts attending the * See Sketch of Stanton, p. no. GRANT SUPERSEDED. 185 continuation of a policy at once unwise and unjust. Grant received* instructions from his superior to organize an expedition for operations up the Tennessee, and within two days the troops were in motion for that river, and the General himself was again at Fort Henry. While Grant was thus vigorously carrying out the instructions of General Halleck, that officer sentf a telegram to McClellan, then Commander-in-Chief, in which he said : " I have had no communication with General Grant for more than a week. He left his command without my authority, and went to Nashville. His army seems to be as much demoralized by the victory of Fort Donelson as was that of the Potomac by the defeat of Bull Run. It is hard to cen sure a successful general immediately after a victory, but I think he richly deserves it. I can get no returns, no reports, no information of any kind from him. Satisfied with his victory, he sits down and enjoys it, without any regard to the future. I am worn out and tired by this neglect and inefficiency." On March the 4th orders were issued to Grant to place General Smith in command of the Tennessee River Expedition, and remain himself with the small garrison at Fort Henry. " Why do you not obey my orders to report strength and position of your command ?" asked Halleck at this time. Upon one occasion President Lincoln said of the W T estern General : " I judge he is not easily excited which is a great element in an officer." Grant must have felt offended * March 2nd. f March 3rd. 1 86 ULYSSES S. GRANT. at Halleck s discourtesy towards him from the first ; he had not knowingly or wilfully sacrificed the good opinions of those in authority over him ; he was now de prived of his command and unceremoniously set aside, and yet the spirit which pervades his reply to General Halleck s high-handed telegram shows how accurate was Lincoln s estimate of Grant s character. " Your despatch of yester day is just received," said the General. " Troops will be sent under command of Major-General Smith, as directed. I had prepared a different plan, intending General Smith to command the forces which should go to Paris and Humboldt, while I would command the expedition upon Eastport, Corinth, and Jackson in person I am not aware of ever having disobeyed any order from your head-quarters certainly never intended such a thing. I have reported almost daily the condition of my command, and reported every position occupied You may rely on my carrying out your instructions in every parti cular to the best of my ability." When the command of the District of West Tennessee was given to Grant, the territorial limits of his authority were not defined ; therefore, when General Buell s army was arriving at Nashville from Bowling Green, he paid a flying visit to the city, in order that the boundary of his own and Buell s military districts might be agreed upon, and that he might confer with that General as to future movements. General Grant had made known his intentions to visit Nashville unless prevented by General Halleck s order to the Chief of Staff of the Department on the 25th. The visit was made on the 2/th, and he returned HALLECK AND GRANT. 187 to camp on the 28th. In a telegram to Grant despatched on the 6th of March, General Halleck refers to the fact as follows : u Your going to Nashville without authority, and when your presence with your troops was of the utmost importance, was a matter of serious complaint at Washington ; so much so, that I was advised to arrest you on your return." Though " not easily excited," Grant s patience . was now all but exhausted. He an swered this additional thrust at once, saying : " If my course is not satisfactory, remove me at once. I do not wish in any way to impede the progress of our arms. . . . . My going to Nashville was strictly intended for the good of the service, and not to gratify any desire of my own. Believing sincerely that 1 must have enemies between you and myself, who are trying to impair my usefulness, I respectfully ask to be relieved from further duty in the department." One after the other, the fault-finding messages of Hal leck were showered upon the hero of Donelson, now in his position of seeming disgrace at Fort Henry. The tiger had been successfully hunted for a considerable time ; he now turned upon his assailant. On the 9th, General Grant said : " I renew my application to be relieved from duty." Writing to his Department Commander two days later, he repeated the request in these words : " There is such a disposition to find fault with me that I again ask to be relieved from duty, until I can be placed right in the estimation of those higher in authority." Grant had, indeed, resolved to demand an investigation into his conduct ; and it would seem from the change of 1 88 ULYSSES S. GRANT. front indicated by the following language used by General Halleck on the I3th, that he was not at all eager for a court of inquiry into the questions in dispute between himself and one of his district commanders. Halleck said : " You cannot be relieved from your command. There is no good reason for it. I am certain that all which the authorities at Washington ask. is that you enforce dis cipline, and punish the disorderly Instead of relieving you, I wish you, as soon as your new army is in the field, to assume the immediate command, and lead it on to new victories." Grant accepted the olive-branch from General Halleck in a noble patriotic spirit, which does him infinite honour. It would seem as if the mantle of the Saviour of Europe* had fallen upon one who was destined to become the Saviour of the American Republic. " I will again assume command," said Grant, " and give every effort to the success of our cause. Under the worst circumstances I would do the same." The relations between General Grant and his immediate subordinate in spite of the delicacy of their respective positions, made doubly so through the conduct of Halleck is in marked contrast with the miserable chapter just closed. General C. S. Smith was a much older man than Grant, * The friends of Wellington expressed themselves as surprised that he could put up with a single brigade after having commanded armies of 40,000 in the field. " The real fact is," Sir Arthur would say, " that I am nem-muk-wallah, as we say in the East, that is, I have eaten the King s salt. On that account, I believe it to be my duty to serve without hesitation, zealously and actively, whenever the King and his Government may find it convenient to employ me/ GRANT AND HIS FORMER TUTOR. 189 and had been his commandant and instructor at the National Military School. Priority of appointment made Grant the ranking officer, and he felt great delicacy in issuing orders to his former chief and tutor. Smith, a noble man and a thorough soldier, soon discovered Grant s commendable embarrassment, and said to him : " I am now a subaltern, and I know a soldier s duty. I hope you will feel no awkwardness about our new relations." Smith, it will be remembered, was the officer to whom General Grant turned over the command of the river expedition, by order of Halleck. In doing so Grant congratulated General Smith upon his richly-deserved elevation. After wards by letter he gave assurance of co-operation towards the success of the expedition in every way within his power to control. When General Smith learned that Grant had been reinstated, he wrote to him expressing the pleasure it afforded him to find that he was again to resume his old command " from which," said he, " you were so unceremoniously, and, as I think, so unjustly stricken down." A few more commanders working with so much zeal and so little self-regard for the salvation of the American Union as Generals Grant and Smith, and not quite so many officers of " grand combinations," not quite so much petty jealousies between West Point graduates and volunteers, between Generals of the East and those of the West, and " the Union as it was " might have been restored in eighteen months. But that " Divinity that shapes our ends " had ordained for us a fuller deliverance through rivers of the best blood in the land. 190 ULYSSES S. GRANT. When the objects of Smith s expedition up the Ten nessee had been accomplished, that General assembled his forces near Pittsburg Landing, on the west side of the river. A little south of west, and three miles distant from the Landing, stood the Church of Shiloh. The inter vening country is for the most part covered by primitive forests ; it is also traversed by a number of creeks running capriciously in various directions, to lose themselves finally in the Tennessee on the east. Pittsburg Landing is an embryo village and boat landing, and the surround ing country is but thinly settled. The Unoin encamp ment looked towards Corinth in a south-westerly direction ; the right of the army rested on Owl and the left on Lick creeks, making the line about three miles long. The strength of the Army of the Tennessee was 33,000 men, independent of the division of General Lewis Wallace, 5000 strong, which was in position at Crump s Landing, four miles down the river, within easy supporting distance in case of emergency. Here, and to this army, General Grant came, when ordered by Halleck, to resume his old command. Corinth, an important junction of railways, was the point to be advanced upon when Buell and the Army of the Ohio then daily expected should arrive. The position occupied by the army, and the fact that not a sod had been cut for defence, have been subjected to criticism by many fairly-disposed minds, and by a legion of less honourable writers, who saw in this and other military points less worthy of censure opportunities for traducing the name of Grant. If the maxim that you should never fight with a river GRANTS LINE A T SHIL OH. 191 or defile in your rear be a good one, it should certainly be respected by the commander of an army outnumbered by the enemy, and fergely composed of raw troops ; and this was the case with General Grant s army at Shiloh, for the Rebel General, Albert Sidney Johnston, com manding at Corinth, had a force of 50,000 men, or 12,000 more than the Union General had. But Grant is pre-eminently an aggressive general, and had Buell been less tardy the Army of the Union, and not that of Secession, would have been the first to strike. Upon the question, merely touched by us, let one of the most competent of living authorities on the subject speak. General Sherman says : " If there were any error in putting that army on the west side of the Tennessee, exposed to the superior force of the enemy, also assembling at Corinth, the mistake was not General Grant s. But there was no mistake. It was- necessary that a combat, fierce and bitter, to test the manhood of the two armies, should come off, and that was as good a place as any. It was not then a question of military skill and strategy, but of courage and pluck ; and I am convinced that every life lost that day to us was necessary, for otherwise at Corinth, at Memphis, at Vicksburg we would have found harder resistance had we not shown our enemies that, rude and untutored as we then were, we could fight as well as they." Grant was growing impatient of delay. Buell s army was arriving in the neighbourhood, and the General him self hourly expected. The Commander of the Army of the Tennessee, with his staff, was breakfasting early at 192 ULYSSES S. GRANT. Savannah, intending to ride out to meet General Buell, when the well-known thunder from the front brought Grant to his feet, and foretold the bloody work of that springtime Sabbath day.* An order was at once de spatched to General Nelson, commanding the advance division of the Army of the Ohio, bivouacked within eight miles of the battlefield, to proceed up the river to a point opposite the Landing. Information of the attack by the enemy was next sent to meet General Buell, and Grant hastened for the battlefield by steamboat,f where he arrived at eight in the morning. At this comparatively early hour the Union Commander found his entire army en gaged, and the battle raging furiously. The Rebel Commander moved from Corinth at daylight on the 3rd, expecting to make his attack upon Grant s army on the morning of the 5th. Heavy rains fell on the 4th ; the movement of troops, and especially of artil lery, became difficult ; and the grand assault was not made until Sunday morning, the 6th. Although an attack by the enemy was not seriously anticipated, such an event was quite possible, and measures against a surprise were taken. The pickets on Prentiss s front were pushed out a mile and a half on the day before the battle, and at five A.M. on the 5th they opened fire upon the enemy s ad vancing skirmishers. The reserves were rapidly brought forward, and the Union safeguards, thus augmented, * Sunday, April 6, 1862. t General Grant stopped at Crump s Landing, and ordered General Wallace to hold his command in readiness for such orders as would be sent him from the front. THE BATTLE OF SHILOH. 193 advanced up a slight rise of ground to a log fence, where they stirred up, not a skirmish line, but Johnston s first line of battle, who delivered their fires flash in the very faces of the Wisconsin and Missouri men.* Sherman, holding our right near Shiloh Church, hurried his men into line as soon as firing on the outposts was heard ; Prentiss, in the centre and somewhat advanced, was in line of battle forty rods to the front of his encampment, when the pickets were driven in upon the main body, and closely followed by the whole Rebel Army. Johnston s command advanced rapidly, in three lines of battle, under Generals Hardee, Bragg, and Polk. Prentiss was the first to receive the shock of overwhelming numbers. The fierce rattle of musketry soon extended along Sherman s front ; Stuart, on our left, was also assailed. Sherman s left brigade broke before the impetuous advance of the enemy ; Prentiss s right also gave way. McClernand s division, to the left and rear of Sherman, now advanced to stem the victorious wave, and for a time was successful. Prentiss s remaining right was now fighting at right angles with his former line, and was soon compelled to fall back. Sher man, with the courage and ability which characterize him, had thus far baffled Johnston s repeated assaults upon his right. He withdrew his left for protection. Regular formation no longer existed. A stubborn resistance was everywhere made by Grant s undisciplined army, but the Rebels were everywhere gaining ground, Sherman at last * Heavy detachment from the i6th Wisconsin and the 2ist Mis souri Regiments. O 194 ULYSSES S. GRAXT. withdrew his right, now far in advance of the left and centre. He, however, still protected the crossing on Snake Creek, over which Wallace s division was so anxiously expected. The delinquent officer never reached the field till midnight, though his distance was scarcely five miles. He first took the wrong road, and when set right by Grant s staff, he actually countermarched his entire command, instead of facing it about ; and all this when he knew full well that his comrades were being slaughtered and hurled back from point to point by over whelming numbers. " Had General Wallace been relieved from duty in the morning," said General Grant, in a letter to the War Department " and the same orders communicated to Brigadier-General Morgan L. Smith, who would have been his successor, I do not doubt but the division would have been on the field of battle and in the engagement by one o clock of that eventful 6th of April. There is no estimating the difference this might have made in our casualties." Early in the day the three advance divisions of the Union Army had been worsted by Johnston s legions ; the commands of Generals Hurlbut and W. H. L. Wallace were still intact These were now brought into position by the Commanding General, with Hurlbut on the main Corinth road and Wallace on his right Prentiss s much reduced band was in position between these two divisions. Grant here exerted every effort of mind and body in placing his lines, re-establishing his silenced batteries, and reinforcing the flanks by battalions formed of the fugitives in the rear. With courage and resolution never surpassed* THE BATTLE OF SHJLOH. 195 Sherman " kept the bridge." Wallace and Hurlbut were in good positions ; the latter on the edge of timber over looking open fields, well controlled by his guns. At ten in the morning the re-formed enemy, mad with victory, came sweeping down upon the fresh troops ; bravely they charged across the uncovered ground in Hurlbut s front ; but before the artillery at short range, and the still more deadly infantry fire, the lines of the brave men in grey one after another melted away. Three separate charges were made and repulsed with awful slaughter. During this grand effort to pierce the Union centre, General John ston, Commander of the Rebel Army, was struck in the thigh by a shell fragment, and after sitting silently on his horse for several minutes, he was taken from the saddle to die. The assault upon Wallace s position was equally determined and sanguinary ; four gallant charges were repulsed, and two counter-charges were made. Wallace set the noble example, and the men fought like veterans. Hurlbut s division, after six hours desperate righting, was forced back, and Wallace judiciously withdrew. Prentiss doggedly refused to fall back, and in consequence was soon surrounded, and at 4 P.M. he was compelled to sur render with 2 200 brave men, sadly needed in Grant s last defiant line. The men of the Army of the Tennessee were in their last position before five o clock ; the left was near the landing, resting on the river, and protected in front by a deep ravine ; the right, under Sherman, still held the bridge over Snake Creek. Colonel Webster, with Napoleonic faith in heavy guns, had planted several batteries of o 2 196 ULYSSES S. GRANT. artillery upon the bluff on which our left rested, in time to receive Beauregard in his last desperate attempt to "water his horse in the Tennessee." The day s hard fighting had by this time exhausted the enthusiasm of the enemy. Their advance after the divisions of Hurlbut and Wallace was cautious and slow ; but before six o clock their artillery opened upon Grant s last line and last hope. Rebel infantry soon made a desperate rush upon our position, but they found our men full of fight. Webster s twenty-two guns belched forth their grape and canister, while a deadly musketry fire staggered the gallant worn- out foe. The gunboats Lexington and Tyler now took part in the fight ; 64-pound shot and /-inch shell were sent tearing up the ravine towards the Rebel lines. The curtain of night was now falling upon the bloody drama, and Buell s men were crossing the Tennessee. Buell reached Pittsburg Landing during the afternoon, and in conversation with Grant, he asked, " What prepa rations have you made for retreating, General ?" " I haven t despaired of whipping them yet," was the reply. Buell exerted himself to the utmost in getting his army up as rapidly as possible ; and Ammen s brigade* of the Army of the Ohio had the honour and satisfaction of firing a few volleys on the night of the first day s battle. Grant was with General Sherman on the right about five o clock. " We agreed," says Sherman, " that the enemy had expended the furore of his attack, and we estimated * Nelson s division. ARRIVAL OF BUELL. 197 our loss and approximated our then strength, including Lewis Wallace s fresh division, expected each minute. He then ordered me to get all things ready, and at daylight the next day to assume the offensive. That was before General Buell had arrived, but he was known to be near at hand. General Buell s troops took no essential part in the first day s fight, and Grant s army, though collected together hastily, green as militia, some regiments arriving without cartridges even, and nearly all hearing the dread sound of battle for the first time, had successfully with stood and repelled the first day s terrific onset of a superior enemy, well commanded and well handled. I know I had orders from General Grant to assume the offensive before I knew General Buell was on the west side of the Ten nessee .... I remember the fact better from General Grant s anecdote of his Donelson battle, which he told me then for the first time that, at a certain period of the battle he saw that either side was ready to give way, if the other showed a bold front, and he determined to do that very thing, to advance on the enemy, when, as he prognosticated, the enemy surrendered." Later in the night, the Commanding General visited each of his division officers, and gave them the necessary instructions for assuming the offensive in the morning. Nelson s division was now being ferried across the river ; Lewis Wallace s command, so anxiously expected and sadly needed throughout the entire day, was near to the battlefield at last. McCook s men were hastening on the road from Savannah ; the rain was falling in torrents ; the missiles from the heavy guns on the boats went screeching 198 UL YSSES S. GRANT. through the air at intervals ; and Grant laid down upon the ground in the pelting rain, and with his head against the stump of a tree he enjoyed a few hours refreshing sleep. On the first day Grant was outnumbered by not less than 1 7,000 men ; the panic in the morning greatly increased the odds against him. During Sunday night, however, 25,000 fresh troops reached the battlefield to succour their hard-pressed C9mrades ; and if we estimate the casualties of the contending armies as about equal, Grant s combined force would outnumber Beauregard s by 8000 men on Monday morning. The Union Army was in line of battle by daylight, Buell s fresh troops forming the left, and the remnant of the Army of the Tennessee the right wing of the Federal line. Beauregard received no reinforcements during the night, and a reserve force of 3000 men was all the additional strength he could offer his weary worn-out lines. Accord ing to the Rebel Commander, it was six o clock on Monday morning when the Union troops opened upon his position; this was the first evidence or intimation Beauregard had of the arrival of Buell. Why had he not advanced with a view of finishing up " General Grant s scattered fugitive forces " before this comparatively late hour ? We suspect that the work of " capture and destruction," so flippantly spoken of in his report of the battle, did not then seem such an easy task. Grant renewed the conflict on Mon- day by advancing his left and centre, composed of Buell s divisions. Lewis Wallace s command had been placed in position on the extreme right, and went early and heartily into the fight under the immediate direction of Grant. SECOND DA Y S FIGHT. 199 The vigour with which this flank was forged ahead soon changed the formation of the Union lines ; the right, which during the night ran parallel, was soon brought at right angles with the Tennessee. Sherman, now farther to the left, moved forward when he heard Buell s guns on the main Corinth road. The enemy disputed every position stubbornly, but from one bluff after another they were forced back all along the line. Sherman was soon in sight of his old position, and having directed McAllister s battery to silence some Rebel guns which menaced his advance, he moved upon the coveted spot with three brigades, and swept the field. Buell s army under Generals McCook, Crittenden, and Nelson, displayed great courage every where. Early in the day Colonel Smith s (temporary) brigade of Crittenden s division was ordered to take the New Orleans battery, supported by the Crescent City brigade, and occupying a commanding ridge in their front. The charge was gallantly made and the Rebel guns taken. The enemy immediately rallied and re captured their battery, but not until one of the guns had been spiked. Three times during the day this feat was repeated and with the same result. Finally, at the fourth charge, the 14th Wisconsin held the battery, and the Rebels were driven from the field. As a trophy of the battle, the State of Wisconsin retains one of these guns, which in the first charge was spiked arid rendered unserviceable by Lieutenant Staley of the 1 4th regiment. And thus the battle raged from Nelson s left to Wallace s right, until three o clock in the afternoon, when ULYSSES S. GRANT. the Union Army was everywhere advancing and the Rebels in full retreat. A charge of the 1st Ohio Regi ment, led by General Grant himself, carried one of the last important positions on the field of Shiloh. The Union Commander was for making hot pursuit of the retreating Rebels, but some of his subordinates opposed the design. The roads were badly broken up ; rain and sleet were falling heavily ; his own Army of the Tennessee was in no condition for further marching or fighting, while Buell s troops were also worn out with recent marching, want of sleep, and a hard day s struggle ; so pursuit was not ordered. Nightfall found the Army of the Tennessee " tenting on the old camp ground.""* Beauregard in his flight left all his dead and hundreds of wounded in the hands of the victorious army, and on the day following he wrote to Grantf asking permission * During the engagement the Rebel General Hindman s horse was struck by a shell, which tore the animal to pieces, and threw the rider ten feet in the air. He fell, and was supposed to be dead, but the General at once got up and called for " another horse." t "HEAD-QUARTERS, ARMY OF THE MISSISSIPPI, "Monday, April Zth, 1862. " SIR, At the close of the conflict yesterday, my forces being exhausted by the extraordinary length of time during which they were engaged with yours on that and the preceding day, and it being apparent that you had received and were still receiving reinforce ments, I felt it my duty to withdraw my troops from the immediate scene of conflict. " Under these circumstances, in accordance with the usages of war, I shall transmit this under a flag of truce, to ask permission to send a mounted party to the battlefield of Shiloh, for the purpose of giving decent interment to my dead. " Certain gentlemen wishing to avail themselves of this to remove EVIDENCE OF THE VICTORY. 201 to give the slain a decent burial. But this act had already been performed by the Union General. The completeness of the victory is proved by another circumstance. Colonel Allen of the 4th Louisiana (Rebel), in his report of the second day s fight, says : " After having my wound dressed, I was about lying down in order to take a little rest, when a general stampede began of waggons, ambu lances, and men. I mounted my horse immediately, and rode after the disgraceful refugees. I succeeded in putting a stop to the stampede, and placed cavalry in the rear, with orders to cut down all who attempted to pass. Here I met an aide of General Bragg, who ordered me to rally all the stragglers and form them in line. This I did. After forming a battalion, Lieut- Col. Barrow, command ing the i ith Louisiana, came to me with the remnant of the remains of their sons and friends, I must request for them the pri vilege of accompanying the burial party ; and in this connexion I deem it proper to say, I am asking only what I have extended to your own countrymen under similar circumstances. " G. T. BEAUREGARD, General Commanding. " Major-General U. S. Grant." [GRANT S REPLY.] "April^ 1862. " GENERAL, Your despatch of yesterday just received. Owing to the warmth of the weather, I deemed it advisable to have all the dead of both parties buried immediately. Heavy details were made for this purpose, and it is now accomplished. There cannot therefore be any necessity of admitting within our lines the parties you desire to send on the grounds asked. I shall always be glad to extend any courtesy consistent with duty, especially so when dictated by humanity. " U. S. GRANT, Major-General. " General G. T. Beauregard." UL YSSES S. GRANT. his regiment, and placed himself and regiment under my command. This force, together with the remnants of two Alabama and one Tennessee regiment, made a large body of men, who stood firm in front of the hospitals, ready to receive the advancing column of the enemy." In the face of such conclusive evidences of defeat as these, and upon the very day on which he asked permis sion to send a mounted party to bury his dead, General Beauregard sent the following remarkable despatch to Richmond : "CORINTH, Tuesday, April %th, 1862. " To the Secretary of War, Richmond. " We have gained a great and glorious victory. Eight to ten thousand prisoners and 36 pieces of cannon. Buell reinforced Grant, and we retired to our intrenchments at Corinth, which we can hold. Loss heavy on both sides. " BEAUREGARD." On the Qth General Halleck arrived at Pittsburg Landing, and assumed command of the combined armies. The advantage of prompt advance upon the defeated, and now greatly outnumbered enemy, was lost. Halleck would not stir a peg excepting behind breastworks ; and thus he crawled along at the average speed of three miles a week, till he reached the Rebel works at Corinth, with an army 120,000 strong. General Grant, supposed to be in command of the Army of the Tennessee, was quite ignored by his chief. Orders to division commanders were sent direct to those officers, instead of, as prompted by both justice and usage, GRANT UNDER A CLOUD. 203 through Grant s head-quarters. Halleck, in fact, had re sumed the work of persecution. The inactivity of the army after the battle, caused the North to believe, what the Rebels and their allies loudly proclaimed, that Grant had sustained a great defeat at Shiloh. The gentlemen of the press generally profound strategists criticised his qualities as a General. A report was circulated that he had been drunk during the first day s fighting at Shiloh. Politicians demanded the removal of so incom petent an officer, and the Star of Donelson was on the wane. A correspondent who was with Grant s head-quarters during these days of humiliation, writes : " When the army began to creep forward, I messed at Grant s head-quarters with his chief of staff, and around the evening camp fires I saw much of the General. " He rarely uttered a word upon the political bearing of the war. Indeed, he said little on any subject. With his eternal cigar and his head thrown to one side, for hours he would silently sit before the fire, or walk back and forth with eyes upon the ground, or look at our whist- table, now and then making a suggestion about the play. At almost every head-quarters one heard general denun ciations of rival commanders. Grant was above this mis chievous, vile sin of chiding. I never heard him speak unkindly of a brother officer." General Grant was at army head -quarters, when the probability of Beauregard evacuating Corinth was being discussed. He suggested to General Halleck that an 204 ULYSSES S. GRANT. assault be made on the Rebel lines near Sherman s front, where he considered the works were weak and defective. " Halleck scouted the idea, intimating that Grant s opinions need not be expressed until they were called for. In accordance with this intimation, Grant did not again obtrude them."* He, however, replied to this uncivil re mark in stronger language "than he had ever used before to any one, and expected to be arrested and tried for it."t Beauregard was most successful in deceiving Halleck, for while the Rebel General was making his escape from Corinth, the Union Commander was marshalling his army to receive an expected attack. Later in the day,J how ever, it was ascertained that Corinth had been evacuated. After entering the deserted works, Grant " rode to the Rebel left, and satisfied himself beyond all doubt that, had an assault on Sherman s front been ordered, a good general could have demolished the Rebel Army. This was by far the weakest point of Beauregard s line, and in exactly the position to be susceptible to such an attack as Grant had recommended in vain." The offensive attitude of General McClellan towards the President and the Secretary of War, manifested during his inglorious Peninsular Campaign, demanded either the removal of the Commander of the Army of the Potomac, or the appointment of a military officer to the chief command of the United States Army, through whom the Secretary of War, as the representative of the * Badeau, vol. i. p. 102. f President Grant s father. May 30. Badeau. HALLECK COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 205 President, could communicate with McClellan. It was also deemed advisable to have a man of military education and experience at Washington, with whom counsel could be taken, and who, under the President, should direct the movements of all our forces. The latter course was adopted, and General Halleck was summoned* from the West to assume the important duties of Commander-in-Chief. It will scarcely be credited that, before leaving Corinth, General Halleck offered the command of the Army of the Tennessee to Colonel Allen, Chief Commissary of the Western Department, who with great good sense and rare self-denial declined this very remarkable offer. Buell and the Army of the Ohio had already started towards Chattanooga, and Grant was left in command of the district of West Tennessee and of his old army. Memphis on the Mississippi had fallen into our hands after a short and spirited naval engagement,f and Grant looked down the great river with longing eyes towards Vicksburg, the Gibraltar of the South. But his army had been reduced to strengthen Buell s ; he had large towns and important railway junctions to protect, and was in a defensive attitude for the only time during the war. The coming into power of a political party that believed Slavery to be a moral and political wrong, which ought to be restricted to the territory it then possessed, was made the pretence of secession and war. The Republican party, with Abraham Lincoln at its head, had "no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of * July 17, 1862, f Fought June 6, 1862. 206 ULYSSES S. GRANT. Slavery in the States where it existed ;" it had neither the constitutional right nor the desire to do so. But when war was declared and entered into on the part of a majority of the Southern States, for the destruction of the Federal Union, the power to confiscate, and declare free, the slaves in the revolting States fell into the hands of the legislative and executive branches of the Government. Before the " more perfect Union " was formed, and while speaking to this question before an audience of Virginians and Slaveholders, against the adoption of the Federal Constitution, Patrick Henry, the eloquent revolutionary patriot, said : " And have they not, sir ? Have they not power to provide for the general defence and welfare ? May they not think that these call for the abolition of Slavery ? May they not pronounce all slaves free ? and will they not be warranted by that power ? There is no ambiguous ampli fication or logical deduction. The paper speaks to the point. They have the power, in clear, unequivocal terms, and will clearly and certainly exercise it." Another great authority* upon constitutional questions, speaking from his place in Congress during the Texas War, substantially endorsed the views of Mr. Henry. " From the instant," said Mr. Adams, " that your Slave- holding States become the theatre of war civil, servile, or foreign from that instant the war powers of Congress extend to interference with the institution of Slavery in every way by which it can be interfered with, from a * John Quincy Adams. SLAVERY IN THE WAR. 207 claim of indemnity for slaves taken or destroyed, to the cession of the State burdened with Slavery to a foreign Power." Again, in 1842, when the annexation of Texas was contemplated, and a consequent war with Mexico was probable, the representative from Massachusetts, already quoted, spoke as follows : " I lay this down as the law of nations. I say that the military authority takes for the time the place of all municipal institutions, and of Slavery among the rest ; and that, under that state of things, so far from its being true that the States, where Slavery exists, have the exclusive management of the subject, not only the President of the United States, but the com mander of the army, has power to order the universal emancipation of the slaves." This question of Slavery in the war was one requiring careful and delicate treatment. It was a source of constant trouble and anxiety to President Lincoln. The apologists of the Slavocracy in Europe complained because the President did not abolish Slavery at the outbreak of the Rebellion. Such a step, taken at that time, would have driven the Border States into the Confederate compact ; the Pro-Slavery party in the North would have openly opposed war ; and it is altogether probable that it would have assured the independence of the South. Nearly every General in the field, holding an inde pendent command, entertained original views upon the Slavery question, and promulgated them to the inhabitants within his district by proclamation. This was generally done without the advice or authority of the constitutional 2 o8 UL YSSES S. GRANT. head of the Government, to his great annoyance and embarrassment. General McClellan, upon his advance into Western Virginia during the first summer of the war, issued a proclamation to the inhabitants, wherein he said : " All your rights shall be religiously respected. Notwith standing all that has been said by the traitors to induce you to believe that our advent among you will be signalized by interference with your slaves, understand one thing clearly not only will we abstain from all such interference, but we will, on the contrary, with an iron hand, crush any attempt at insurrection on their part." General Butler, a shrewd and able lawyer, declared the escaped Blacks to be " contraband of war," and set them to work upon fortifications. General Fremont, entertaining strong Anti-Slavery views, took a more advanced position, and proclaimed to the people of Missouri that " the property, real and personal, of all persons in the State who shall take up arms against the United States, or shall be directly proven to have taken active part with their enemies in the field, is declared to be confiscated to the public use ; and their slaves, if any they have, are hereby declared free men."* General Dix endeavoured - to create and foster Union sentiments by the coaxing and reassuring policy which never paid the printer anywhere. His address to the Virginians within his district ran as follows : " The military forces of the United States are about to enter your counties as a * This proclamation was modified by the President. UNION GENERALS AND SLAVERY. 209 part of the Union. They will go among you as friends, and with the earnest hope that they may not, by your own acts, be forced to become your enemies. They will invade no rights of person or property. On the contrary, your laws, your institutions, your usages, will be scrupulously respected. There need be no fear that the quietude of any fireside will be disturbed, unless the disturbance is caused by yourselves. Special directions have been given not to interfere with the condition of any person held to domestic service ; and in order that there may be no ground for mistake, or pretext for misrepresentation, com manders of regiments and corps have been instructed not to permit any such persons to come within their lines." General Halleck, upon taking command of the Western Department, vice Fremont removed, went the full length of the cable in the interests of slave-owners, in an order from which we quote : " It has been represented that im portant information respecting the number and condition of our forces is conveyed to the enemy by means of fugitive slaves who are admitted within our lines. In order to remedy this evil, it is directed that no such persons be hereafter permitted to enter the lines of any camp, or of any forces on the march ; and that any now within such lines be immediately excluded there from." It is but simple justice to say that a more groundless accusation was never laid at the threshold of an unfor tunate race. General Hooker gave permission to mounted civilians to search his camp for runaway slaves. One of these un- p 210 ULYSSES S. GRANT. fortunates was fired upon while endeavouring to escape. This high-handed act created ill-feeling among the troops, and the mounted party was ordered out of camp by General Sickles. General Doubleday treated the escaped slaves as men ; and for the following very sensible reasons he declined to exclude them from his lines. " The question has been asked," wrote the General, " whether it would not be better to exclude negroes alto gether from the lines. The General is of opinion that they bring much valuable information, which cannot be obtained from any other source. They are acquainted with all the roads, paths, fords, and other natural features of the country, and they make excellent guides. They also know, and have frequently exposed, the haunts of Secession spies and traitors, and the existence of Rebel organizations. They will not, therefore, be excluded." General Buell s Provost-Marshal, by the authority of his chief it is presumed, issued an order at Louisville, Kentucky, for his mounted guard to flog " all the blacks, free or slave, whom they should find in the streets after dark ; and for weeks the spectacle was exhibited, to the admiration of the thousands of active and passive Rebels in that city, of this chivalric provost-guard, wearing the National uniform, chasing scores of unquestionably loyal and harmless persons at nightfall through the streets, over the pavements, and down the lanes and alleys of that city, cutting and slashing them with cowhide and cat, while their screams of fright and agony made merry music for traitors of every degree. Many were lashed GRANT AND SLA VER Y. 211 unmercifully ; but with no obvious advantage to the National cause, nor even to the improvement of the dubious loyalty of those whom the exhibition most de lighted and edified. "* General Grant was one of the few officers in important command who did not interfere with the political features of the Rebellion. He left questions of emancipation and confiscation to be settled by Congress and the President, and whatever the Administration decreed was carried out with fidelity by Grant and those under his authority. In common with thousands of others, the Western General expected to see " the Union as it was" restored after a few hard-fought battles ; and to avoid troubles and com plications in the future, he desired to see the slaves remain with their old masters. However, he was never guilty of employing one-third of his army to protect the property of Rebel officers and soldiers ; neither did the business of hunting fugitive slaves, and driving them back into captivity, find an advocate and a servant in General Grant. The battle of Pittsburg Landing entirely changed this commander s opinion of the war and its duration. The idea of a speedy peace through compromise gave way to a conviction that the Rebel leaders were determined to establish an independent government ; that they had counted the cost, and were prepared to make the sacrifice. He became convinced that the South was to be neither bribed nor bullied from their purpose, and he resolved to Greeley s " American Conflict," vol. ii. p. 245. P 2 ULYSSES S. GRANT. destroy their resources and demolish their armies by all the means of civilized warfare. General Grant was a Pro-Slavery Democrat before the war. Lincoln was an open, uncompromising enemy of the " Divine Institution" from the date of his first en trance into public life at an early age. With great care he studied the War Power of the President ; he satisfied himself that legally and constitutionally he had the right to declare the slave free, and after the battle of Antietam Freedom s banner was unfurled. Human Slavery and the Southern Confederacy became inseparable, and after the 1st of January, 1863, the existence of one and the other was staked upon the issue of battle. It now became the policy of the Administration to enlist Freedmen in their own cause. Lincoln would have the black men carry the Emancipation Proclamation on the point of the bayonet through the heart of the South, that their sable-skinned brethren might know that the days of unrequited toil had ceased upon the American Continent. Without sharing in the President s great expectations from negro soldiers, as an element to end the Rebellion, General Grant accepted the new policy of the Govern ment in a spirit of subordination and perfect good faith. In a general order upon the subject, he said : " It is ex pected that all commanders will specially exert them selves in carrying out the policy of the Administration, not only in organizing coloured regiments and rendering them effective, but also in removing prejudice against them! * The italics are not Grant s. BEA URE CARD AND THE BLA CK FLA G. 213 Once sworn into the service of the United States, and clothed in the uniform of the Federal Army, General Grant recognised the coloured man as an American soldier, subject to the same regulations, and entitled to the same protection, as the white man. The Confederate Congress and President Davis thought otherwise. Before a gun was fired in the War of Secession, negroes were employed in the construction of Rebel fortifications ; and during the first year of the struggle black men were armed by the South, as will be seen by the following despatch which appeared in the Confederate press at the time : " NEW ORLEANS, Nov. 2yd, 1861. " Over 28,000 troops were reviewed to-day by Governor Moore, Major-General Lovell, and Brigadier-General Ruggles. The line was over seven miles long. One regiment comprised 1 400 free coloured men! At Lynchburg and Mobile free negroes were also enrolled to fight, under the Confederate flag, long before Lincoln s Proclamation was given to the country, and before coloured troops would have been tolerated in the North. Yet the President s warning to the revolting States, that if they were still in rebellion against the Government on the 1st day of January following, their slaves would be declared free for evermore, was met by threats of retaliation and vengeance. General Beauregard, in a despatch* to a member of the Rebel Congress, said : " Has the bill for the execution of Abolition prisoners * Dated Charleston, S.C., Oct. 13, 1862. 214 ULYSSES S. GRANT. after January next been passed ? Do it, and England will be stirred into action. It is high time to proclaim the black flag after that period. Let the execution be with the garrote." Did the land of Wilberforce deserve this slanderous imputation ? The organs of the upper classes of England had deceived the Rebel Captain concerning the will of the nation ; but the great masses of the countrymen of John Bright and Henry Richard were faithful to the cause of Union and Liberty throughout the bloody strife. Jefferson Davis, in a message to the Confederate Congress, spoke of Lincoln s Proclamation as " a measure by which several millions of human beings of an inferior race are doomed to extermination," &c. The Confederate Congress at Richmond promptly responded to the suggestions of General Beauregard, President Davis, and a legion of kindred spirits by enact ing : " That every white person, being a commissioned officer, or acting as such, who, during the present war, shall command negroes or mulattoes in arms against the Confederate States .... shall, if captured, be put to death, or otherwise punished at the discretion of the Court." The appalling butchery at Fort Pillow was but the natural sequence of this deliberate act of the law-making power. Milliken s Bend, in General Grant s department, was garrisoned in part by coloured troops. The enemy, under General McCulloch, with superior force rushed upon the place, and gained a temporary advantage ; their cry was " No quarter." It was afterwards reported to General GRANT AND NEGRO SOLDIERS. 215 Grant that a white officer and some negro soldiers, taken by the Rebels during the fight, had been hung, where upon Grant wrote to General Taylor, whose forces had committed the lawless act, saying : " I feel no inclination to retaliate for the offences of irresponsible persons ; but, if it is the policy of any General entrusted with the command of troops to show no quarter, or to punish with death prisoners taken in battle, I will accept the issue. It may be you propose a different line of policy towards black troops and officers commanding them to that prac tised towards white troops. If so, I can assure you that these coloured troops are regularly mustered into the service of the United States. The Government, and all officers under the Government, are bound to give the same protection to these troops that they do to any other troops." The Rebel Commander s reply does him credit ; he stigmatized the acts complained of as " disgraceful alike to humanity and the reputation of soldiers." This affair at Milliken s Bend was the first and last attempt at butchery on Grant s front. The enemy knew his terms, and that he would be as good as his word, for his name was by this time a terror in the Confederacy. In following out this question of Slavery in the Rebel lion, dates have been anticipated, and the operations of the Army of the Tennessee left far behind. Let us retrace our steps. New Orleans had already fallen* before Farragut s fleet ; the Mississippi was clear of obstructions from the * April 26, 1862. 216 ULYSSES S. GRANT. Gulf to Port Hudson, and from its source to Vicksburg. Between these points the commercial artery of the South- West was locked up by Rebel guns. Vicksburg, once the boast of the Confederacy, is built upon one of the range of hills from which the town takes its name. This promontory rises abruptly to an elevation of 200 feet above the river on the east, and commands the neighbouring ridges. In 1860 Vicksburg had a popula tion of 4600. It was the centre of the richest and best cultivated cotton region in the South. Slaves greatly outnumbered the free population, and Secession was ad vocated with enthusiasm by the " superior race." General Grant had been reinforced, and was strong enough to resume the offensive towards the close of 1862. He had been authorized to do so by the General-in-Chief, and a campaign against Vicksburg was inaugurated. Sherman, with a force of 30,000 men, was to sail down the river from Memphis, land on the Yazoo river, nine miles north of the stronghold, and make a direct assault ; while Grant, with the remainder of his available forces, was to move down the Mississippi Central Railroad, in the rear of the town, and possibly compel the enemy to abandon it. Preparatory to this campaign, the Union Commander had gathered large quantities of supplies at Holly Spring. Colonel Murphy was placed in command, with a force of infantry strong enough to protect the town against a cavalry raid. General Grant had warned this officer of the necessity of keeping a sharp look-out, lest he should be surprised ; but the Colonel took no pre cautionary steps, and on the 2Oth of December Van Dorn, SHERMAN ATTACKS VICKSBURG. 217 at the head of a cavalry force, dashed into the town, captured two-thirds of the garrison, destroyed the rich stores intended for Grant s army,* and compelled the Union General to abandon his movement landward upon Vicksburg, and fall back upon Grand Junction. f Sherman, ignorant of the misfortune of his chief, with whom communications had been destroyed by Van Dorn, sailed down the Mississippi with 40,000 men, ascended the Yazoo twelve miles, and debarked j at Johnston s Landing. The country over which his army had to advance upon the enemy s position, protecting Vicksburg on the north, was a boggy thicket, through which troops could not possibly march in proper formation. The few narrow strips of dry land running from the bluffs towards the Yazoo were commanded by strong fortifications and rifle-pits, thrown up by negro labour months before. The disaster at Holly Spring had enabled Pemberton, the Rebel Commander, to withdraw from Grant s front ; and General Sherman found Vicksburg defended, not by a force of 15,000 men as anticipated, but by an army numerically superior to his own. Under all these dis- * A correspondent of the Richmond Dispatch, writing after this exploit, draws the following vivid picture : " The scene was wild, exciting, tumultuous. Yankees running ; torches flaming ; Confe derates shouting; guns popping; sabres clanking ; Abolitionists beg ging for mercy ; Rebels shouting exultingly ; women, en deshabille, clapping their hands, frantic with joy, crying, Kill them ! kill them ! a heterogeneous mass of excited, frantic, frightened human beings presented an indescribable picture, adapted to the pencil of Hogarth." t Murphy was dismissed from the service. Dec. 26. 218 ULYSSES S. GRANT. advantages the right wing of the Army of the Tennessee gallantly and repeatedly charged the Rebel works, but were everywhere driven back ; and Sherman withdrew from a hopeless task, having sustained a loss of nearly 2000 men. General McClernand, who had been assigned by the President to command the Mississippi expedition, reached Sherman s army at this time and assumed the supreme direction. The expedition now returned up the river, seemingly towards Memphis ; but when the mouth of Arkansas river was reached, the two Generals turned up that stream and successfully assailed* Arkansas Post, making 5000 prisoners and capturing seventeen pieces of artillery. This victory more than compensated for Sher man s repulse at Vicksburg. The expedition again dropped down the Mississippi, by order of General Grant, and debarked at Young s Point, opposite the mouth of the Yazoo. The forces at Memphis followed soon after. On the 29th of January Grant arrived at Young s Point, and took the immediate direction of the army. His rela tions with McClernand had not been cordial since that General came down the Mississippi, clothed with special favours from the President.f The open quarrel now began. General McClernand, and several other officers who served under Grant in the South-West, assumed the attitude of superiors towards their less pretentious Commander, j * Jan. ii, 1863. t See pp. 112-113. $ " The truth is, that Grant s extreme simplicity of behaviour and directness of expression imposed on various officers, both above and below him. They thought him a good, plain man, who had blundered GRANT AND HIS SUBORDINATES. 219 Many of his subordinates considered him entirely out of place at the head of a large army, and consequently deemed themselves justified in following their own judg ment upon military questions, in violation of orders from General Grant. His unexampled reticence upon military subjects ; the entire absence of eloquence and display upon the battlefield ; the noble simplicity of character, style, and manners in the Western General, seem to have misled most officers brought into contact with him during the first two years of the war. Even his steadfast friend, General Sherman, entertained some misgivings as to his entire fitness for important command. In a letter to his chief written when General Grant s claim to military genius was far removed from the province of doubt or question Sherman said : " My only point of doubt was in your knowledge of grand strategy, and of books of science and history ; but, I confess, your common-sense seems to have supplied all these." President Lincoln had expressed his desire that General McClernand should have the immediate command into one or two successes, and who therefore could not be imme diately removed ; but they deemed it unnecessary to regard his judg ment, or to count upon his ability. His superiors made their plans invariably without consulting him, and his subordinates sometimes sought to carry out their own campaigns, in opposition or indifference to his orders, not doubting that, with their superior intelligence, they could conceive and execute triumphs which would excuse or even vin dicate their course. It is impossible to understand the early history of the war without taking it into account, that neither the Govern ment nor its important commanders gave Grant credit for intellectual ability or military genius." Badeau s " Military History of Grant," pp. 1 20- 1. 220 UL YSSES S. GRANT. of the expedition against Vicksburg, under Grant s direc tion. McClernand was a brave soldier ; General Grant had commended him for his gallant conduct upon the battlefield, in his despatches to the War Department. But unfortunately this volunteer officer was insubordinate ; his communications to his superior were offensive and dictatorial in tone ; he was not educated for the army, and Grant s Corps Commanders had no confidence in what they styled a political general. Sherman, McPherson, and Admiral Porter urged upon General Grant to take the direct command. He was authorized to do so by a communication from the General-in-Chief, and on the 3Oth of January he assumed the immediate direction of the expedition for opening the Mississippi in a General Order. In a letter to Halleck, enclosing the unpleasant correspondence with McClernand, who protested against the step, General Grant said : " It is due to myself to state that I am not ambitious to have this or any other command ; I am willing to do all in my power in any position assigned me. General McClernand was assigned to duty in this Department, with instructions to me to assign him to any corps on the Mississippi river, and to give him the chief command under my direction. This I did ; but subsequently receiving authority to assign the command to any one I thought most competent, or to take it myself, I determined at least to be present with the expedition. " If General Sherman had been left in command here, such is my confidence in him that I would not have thought my presence necessary. But whether I do in- ESTIMATE OF McCLERNAND. 221 justice to General McClernand or not, I have not confi dence in his ability as a soldier to conduct an expedition of the magnitude of this successfully. In- this opinion I have no doubt but that I am borne out by a majority of the officers of the expedition, though I have not questioned one of them on the subject. " I respectfully submit this whole matter to the General-in Chief and the President Whatever the decision made by them, I will cheerfully submit to and give a hearty support" General Grant s action was sustained by the President and the Commander-in Chief. Directly opposite Vicksburg a peninsula, three and a half miles long and a mile and a quarter wide, is formed by the bendings of the great river. General Grant made an attempt to change the course of the " Father of Waters," by cutting a canal across this neck of land. Indeed, such a cutting had been commenced at a former period by General Williams. President Lincoln, whose experience in river navigation during early life had given him some practical knowledge upon the subject, " attached much importance " to the scheme. If the Mississippi could be induced to accept the new channel, Vicksburg would become an unimportant inland town ; the fleet could pass southward unmolested, and transport the army to a more favourable position for offensive operations below the stronghold. Thousands of men soldiers and negroes were set to work upon the new cutting ; dredges were used to deepen the channel ; dams were built, and the river embankment 222 ULYSSES S. GRANT. was cut. Every human effort was exhausted upon this gigantic undertaking, and at last success seemed probable, when a sudden rise in the Mississippi swept away the dams and placed the accomplishment of the task beyond hope. While the work on the canal was in progress, General Grant endeavoured to form a navigable route by which reinforcements could be sent to General Banks, who was operating against Port Hudson. It was sought to accom plish this object by joining the Mississippi and Lake Providence by a canal, and then form a channel for the navigation of light vessels along Bayous Baxter and Ma^on, the rivers Tensas, Washita, and Red river, which empties into the Mississippi nearly 500 miles from Lake Providence. This undertaking also eventuated in a failure. An attempt was next made to secure a landing for the army on Raines s Bluff, about ten miles north of Vicksburg. For this purpose a passage was cut from the Mississippi into Moon Lake. An expedition then undertook to pass down from the Lake along the rivers Coldwater, Tallahatchee, Yallabusha, and the Yazoo, to the coveted high ground on Raines s Bluff, a total distance of nearly 900 miles. But the enemy was wide-awake. Thousands of negroes were set at work to impede the navigation of these rivers ; rafts were constructed, trees were felled, and obstructions of every possible nature were thrown in front and rear of the enterprising fleet ; and this scheme in turn at one time so promising had to be aban doned. Another and final attempt at navigating the inland CRITICAL POSITION. 223 streams, lakes, and bayous of the Mississippi valley was made vid Duckport canal and bayou from Milliken s Bend to New Carthage. One steamer passed through this route in safety, when the water in the great river suddenly fell, and all further passage was stopped. One after another Grant s various schemes having failed, nothing now remained but either to return to Memphis and inaugurate a campaign against Vicksburg, with Yallabusha as a base, or to march the army below the stronghold and run the gauntlet of the Rebel guns with the fleet. Grant resolved upon the latter plan. The country had grown impatient at the want of success on the Mississippi, and Grant was frequently re minded of the anxiety of the Administration. The press was hostile, and loudly called for the removal of the Com mander of the Army of the Tennessee ; his public capacity and private character were assailed. Rival officers were pressing their claims for the supreme command on the Mississippi with fair prospects of attaining their object. The General s " friends at Court," those who had come to his standard after Belmont and Donelson, were deserting him now. Indeed some of his warmest and most constant supporters in Congress demanded his removal in the interest of the country. But Lincoln " rather liked the man," and replied that he would " try him a little longer." General Grant s inability to take the " Gibraltar of America" was the boast of the Southern Army and Con federacy. Yet, in spite of all, the Union Commander pursued the even tenor of his way ; the universal cry 224 ULYSSES S. GRANT. against him as an officer, or the unjust assaults upon his private character, failed to influence his actions as a general, or his demeanour as a man, in the slightest degree. But the cup of opposition was not quite full. When Grant s plan of campaign was made known to his lieutenants, it was disapproved. McPherson, the accom plished captain and Grant s beloved friend, could not concur with the views of his chief. The bold conception involved the possibility of Grant s line of communication becoming overflooded. The venture of running the batteries had already been made with sad experience. The idea of passing through a shower of Rebel shot and shell, extending over fifteen miles, was not popular in the fleet. General Sherman, whose military renown is now world-wide, opposed the scheme of the Commanding General with great ability, both verbally and in writing. In a letter to the Adjutant-General of the army, Sherman suggested that " General Grant should call on his corps commanders for their opinions, concise and positive, on the best general plan of campaign." The General then gave his own views in a clear, able manner, in favour of prosecuting the campaign from the North, with the Yalla- busha as a base, and concluded this interesting letter as follows : " I make these suggestions with the request that General Grant simply read them and give them, as I know he will, a share of his thoughts. I would prefer he should not answer them, but merely give them as much or as little weight as they deserve. " Whatever plan of action he may adopt will receive GRIERSON S RAID. 225 from me the same zealous co-operation and energetic support as though conceived by myself."* Among all the able minds of the Army of the Tennessee, Grant s plan of campaign found not a single response ; yet he was true to his own convictions. He was quite alone, and his fame was declining, but he was as resolute as fate. Doubts and fears were soon removed, and Sher man s letter was forgotten amid the roar of victorious guns. General Grant assembled his forces 50,000 strong at Milliken s Bend, and on the 2Qth of March the advance moved out for New Carthage, forty miles below Vicks- burg. The roads were inconceivably bad ; the country over which the troops traversed was flooded ; bridges, some of them 200 feet in length, had to be built ; and the head of Grant s column did not reach New Carthage until the 6th of April. Writing to the General-in-Chief at this time, Grant said : " The embarrassment I have to contend against on account of extreme high water, cannot be appreciated by any one not present to witness it." General Grant believed the interior of the State of Mississippi to be free of armed Rebels ; and in order to create a diversion in favour of his own contemplated movement, he impelled f Colonel Grierson with 1700 cavalry from La Grange, Tennessee, on a raid, which caused great consternation in the district. Grierson and * For the letter in full, see Appendix G. t April 17. Q ULYSSES S. GRANT. his troopers rode 600 miles in sixteen days ;* destroying fifty miles of railway track, many bridges, stations, tele graph wires, arms, and supplies along their line of march, and finally entering the Union lines under General Banks near Port Hudson. Means for conveying the troops to the Vicksburg side of the Mississippi were now required below. The co operation of the gunboats was also essential for the reduction of Grand Gulf, but the perilous journey under the Vicksburg guns had to be made before these wants could be supplied. Porter s fleet must run the Rebel batteries, else General Grant s plan of action would prove fruitless, if not disastrous. A dark nightf was selected for the undertaking upon which the fate of Vicksburg depended, and an eyewitness has thus described the scene : " Porter led the way on the Benton, and reached the first batteries without being discovered ; but at sixteen past eleven the artillery opened from the bluffs, the Admiral at once responding with a rapid fire. The ves sels of the squadron, all in line, followed his example, while the transports hugged the Louisiana shore, and sought to hurry by under cover of the smoke. Grant remained on a transport just above the bend, where he * In an account of his visit to the camp of General Lee, and while speaking of the Confederate Cavalry, Sir Garnet Wolseley said : "All the men rode well, in which particular they present a striking contrast to the Northern Cavalry, who can scarcely sit their horses even when trotting? Grierson s Raiders would be amused at this. t April 1 6. PASSING VICKSBURG. 227 could watch the operations within range. Shot and shell fell thick around him. " The night was dark, but houses were speedily set on fire by the Rebels along the shore on either side, and the bright glare thrown across the water made it light as day. When the fleet got opposite the city, the men at the batteries and in the streets of Vicksburg could be plainly seen. The first transports arrived opposite the Court House at twenty minutes past twelve. It was here they received the heaviest fire ; each vessel became a target to the Rebel shot, and a storm of projectiles of every variety and size came crashing over them, cutting the ropes and chimney-guys, bursting in the pilot-houses, and shivering the machinery. Men were stationed in the holds to put cotton-bags into such openings as were made by the Rebel shot ; and soon after getting under fire the barges were cut loose, some of them sweeping down in the current even below New Carthage. " Every transport was struck, and two were drawn into the eddy, and ran over a part of the distance in front of Vicksburg no less than three times. The Forest Queen was disabled by a round-shot, and drifted down opposite the lower picket stations, where the gunboat Tuscumbia took her in tow, and landed her just above the crevasse at New Carthage. The Henry Clay also became disabled, and was in a sinking condition soon after coming within range of the upper batteries ; she had in tow a barge with soldiers aboard, which was cast loose, and floated down the stream. Not long afterwards the boat itself took fire, from the explosion of a shell, and burned to the Q 2 228 ULYSSES S. GRANT. water s edge, drifting along with the current, a flaming mass. General Sherman was in a small boat, watching the bombardment, and picked up the pilot as he floated from the wreck. The crew pushed off in yawls to the Louisiana side, where they landed, and hid themselves behind an old levee during the cannonade. After it had ceased, they made their way back through the submerged swamps to the camp. " The light streamed up from the blazing hull of the Henry Clay, and threw into strong relief against the shadows of night the other transports and the gunboats at their fiery work. The currents were strong, and dan gerous eddies delayed the vessels ; the lights glaring in every direction, and the smoke, enveloping the squadron, confused the pilots ; the bulwarks even of the ironclads were crushed, and the uproar of artillery, re-echoing from the hills, was incessant. One of the heaviest guns of the enemy was seen to burst in the streets of Vicks- burg, and the whole population was awake and out of doors, watching the scene on which its destinies depended. For two hours and forty minutes the pilots were under fire. But at last the transports and gunboats had all got out of range, the blazing beacons on the hills and on the stream burned low, the array of batteries belching flame and noise from the embattled bluffs had ceased their utterance, and silence and darkness resumed their sway over the beleaguered city and the swamps and rivers that encircle Vicksburg."* Badeau s " Military History of Grant," vol. i. pp. 191-2. CROSSING THE MISSISSIPPI. 229 The 1 3th Corps of Grant s Army was at Hard Times, opposite Grand Gulf, by April the 2Qth. The Union Commander expected the fleet to silence the Rebel bat teries at Grand Gulf, when the infantry would be ferried across the Mississippi to carry the place by storm. The naval attack was made, but proved unavailing, owing to the high elevation of the enemy s guns ; and at the request of General Grant the Admiral ran his fleet past this second barrier of the river on the night of the attack. It was ascertained that a good road led into the interior from Bruinsburg, ten miles below Grand Gulf, on the east or Vicksburg side of the river, and by daylight next morning* every available craft in the fleet, including the gunboats, was engaged in conveying McClernand s corps across the Mississippi, and Grant had "passed the Rubicon." Upon reaching the Mississippi side of the river, the haversacks of the troops were filled, and they were pushed forward rapidly to gain the high ground in the interior. McClernand came upon the enemy a little after mid- night.f Major-General Bowen, with 7000 men from Vicksburg, had selected a good position across the road to Port Gibson. He was well protected by ridges and ravines, and the ground in his front was covered by bamboo vines and magnolia trees, which greatly impeded McClernand s development and advance. The contending forces be came hotly engaged soon after sunrise, and by ten o clock General Grant reached the battlefield upon a borrowed * April 30. t May I, 2 A.M. 230 UL YSSES S. GRANT. horse, and took the personal direction of his forces. By midday McPherson s corps was arriving on the battle field ; the enemy was greatly outnumbered, and driven from the field before sunset. The battle of Port Gib son was won, and a loss inflicted upon the enemy of 1 2OO men and six guns.* Pursuit was kept up until nightfall ; Grant s final order to the commander of the advance being to " push the enemy with skirmishers well thrown out until it gets too dark to see him." Sherman with his corps was still above Vicksburg ; and on the day of the battle of Port Gibson he made a feint on Haines s Bluff by direction of Grant. Pemberton, in command at Vicksburg, was probably deceived by this manoeuvre : otherwise the Union advance would have been disputed by a stronger column than the one so ably handled by Bowen. The bridges over bayou Pierre, burnt by the retreating enemy, were rapidly repaired by the victorious invaders. While this work was going on, McPherson and Logan forded the south fork of the bayou, driving the Rebels through Willow Springs, and following so closely upon their heels as to prevent the destruction of the bridge over the Big Black, at Hankinson s Ferry. This was the third day since Grant crossed the Mississippi, and Grand Gulf was already turned. The rapidity of the movements of the Union Army rendered it " impracticable to withdraw the heavy guns"t from this Rebel stronghold, and thirteen fell into the hands of General Grant. * Union loss, 130 killed and 718 wounded, t Pemberton s Report. GRANTS BAGGAGE. 231 The Union Commander now rode into Grand Gulf, and established it as his base of supplies. So much depended upon the celerity of his initiatory movements that but little rest was afforded Grant during the first days of this campaign. He left Hard Times, according to a gentle man who accompanied him,* with " neither a horse, nor an orderly, nor a camp chest, nor an overcoat, nor a blanket, nor even a clean shirt. His entire baggage for six days was a toothbrush." Grant found Admiral Porter in posses sion of Grand Gulf, and his sanitary wants were supplied. Grant knew that this campaign was all his own, that his views were not approved by any of his able subordinates, and he took upon himself not only the direction of his forces, but the management of the Commissary and Quartermaster Departments of the Army as well. His orders and directions fell thick and fast around him ; rations were issued, night and day, without the prescribed requisitions ; horses and waggons found in the surround ing country were pressed into his service ; negroes became expert teamsters as by magic ; mills were seized, corn was gathered, and millers were detailed from the regiments to work the mills and turn out flour for the army ; the district was scoured for cattle, and fresh meat rations were issued. Officers and men partook of the spirit and energy of their commander, and worked with heart and soul for the success of the movement they did not understand. As soon as Grant obtained a foothold on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi, he sent word to Sherman to follow him * Hon. E. B. Washburne, the present United States Minister in Paris. 232 ULYSSES S. GRANT. with the least possible delay. The subordinate with his corps crossed the great river on the 8th, and found Grand Gulf in a state of wild excitement and enthusiasm. He was still uneasy concerning the fate of the army, and the fame of his friend and chief. He urged upon Grant to stop his army until some order could be effected. " This road will be jammed as sure as life," wrote Sherman, " if you attempt to supply 50,000 men by one single road." Grant depended upon the enemy s country for the support of his army, and so he told the General. "If Blair was up now," continued he, " I believe we could be in Vicksburg in seven days Bring Blair s two brigades up as soon as possible." On the 1 1 th of May General Halleck wrote to Grant directing him to return, and co-operate with General Banks for the reduction of Port Hudson. By a singular coincidence Grant wrote to the General-in-Chief on the same day, intimating, for the first time, his intention to abandon his base of supplies. " I shall communicate with Grand Gulf no more," said he, " except it becomes neces sary to send a train with heavy escort. You may not hear from me again for several days." Pemberton was concentrating at Edward s Station, between Vicksburg and Jackson, the capital of the State of Mississippi, where he expected to be assailed. The Rebel General Gregg, with 6000 men from Johnston s Army,* was at Raymond, threatening Grant s right, and * This was May I2th ; General J. E. Johnston arrived at Jackson on the day following, and assumed command of the army. BATTLE OF RAYMOND. 233 covering Jackson on the south-west. He "was ordered not to attack the enemy (Grant) until he was engaged at Edward s or the bridge, but to be ready to fall on his rear or flank at any moment."* To encourage Pemberton in the delusion that an attack on Edward s Station was intended, Grant ordered General McClernand, commanding his left, " to keep up appearances of moving on that place." McPherson in the meantime was impelled, " with all activity, into Raymond." The Union Commander started before daylight on the I3th, and came up with the enemy at eleven o clock. Gregg was in strong position across the Raymond road, with about 6000 men and two batteries, well placed. General Logan s division of McPherson corps was in the advance, and by two o clock the formation was complete, and a general advance was ordered. The fight was spirited and decisive, for in less than two hours the enemy was in full retreat through Raymond towards Jackson. McPherson captured two guns and 400 prisoners. On the following day General Johnston, one of the ablest of Southern commanders, arrived at the State capital. It was Grant s business to prevent his junction with Pemberton, and defeat him before he could develop plans, or receive additional reinforcements from the East. Pemberton was still at Edward s, and on the I2th he telegraphed to President Davis, " That will be the battle field." Grant thought otherwise, and at four o clock A.M. on the 1 3th the bulk of his army was in motion towards * Pemberton s Report. 234 ULYSSES S. GRANT. Jackson. One division of McClernand s corps, confront ing Pemberton, was drawn up in line to further deceive the Rebel General, and enable the rest of the command to move off and take part in the defeat of Johnston. Pemberton was left in the rear of the Union Army. Sherman and McPherson came upon the enemy outside of Jackson early on the I4th. A charge of the 1 3th Corps drove the Rebels precipitately behind their intrenchments ; and Johnston, seeing the hopelessness of defending the town against such overwhelming numbers, beat a hasty retreat, leaving seventeen heavy guns to Grant as the fruits of victory. At four o clock in the evening the American flag was waving over the Capitol of the State of Jefferson Davis, and the Union General was giving orders to his subordinates at the State House of Missis sippi. Grant directed General Sherman to destroy all the military stores and arsenals, to blow up bridges, and tear up railway tracks in all directions. The work was effec tually done. Johnston retreated towards Canton, northward, when he was driven out of Jackson ; and while this battle was going on Pemberton was making preparations to march upon Dillon, southward, and destroy Grant s supposed base of supplies. The Union General had abandoned his base, and was " making war sustain war." He was now assembling his forces at Bolton, directly between the two hostile armies. Twice had Johnston ordered Pemberton to attack Grant s rear orders which that remarkable General saw fit to disobey. On the I5th Johnston again wrote to BA TTLE OF CHAMPION HILL. 235 Pemberton, saying : " The only mode by which we can unite is by your moving directly to Clinton." Upon receipt of this message,* Pemberton, with eighty regiments of infantry and ten batteries of artillery, set his column in motion for the place of junction. Grant had reached Clinton on the previous afternoon ; he had already learned that Pemberton, with an army of 25,000 men, was ad vancing upon his rear. He determined to anticipate the enemy s blow, and become himself the aggressor. Orders were sent, on the morning of the i6th, for his Corps Commanders to move with all celerity towards Edward s Station, whence Pemberton was advancing. Smith, moving by the Raymond road, met the Rebels returning from Dillon, whither they had marched early in the morning to cut off Grant s imaginary lines of communication ; while Hovey, advancing from Bolton on the direct route from Jackson, brought Pemberton s movement to a halt at 6.30 A.M. The Rebel Commander, seeing that an engagement could not be avoided, developed his army on Champion Hill, and across the main road to Vicksburg. The position was well chosen ; a thick forest concealed the movements of infantry, while the hill-tops, being clear of timber, offered an advantageous position for artillery. Grant was on the field, and directed the movements of his forces in person. The enemy outnumbered him by about 5000 men, for McClernand, with four divisions, deceived by a small force in his front, was over-cautious, and never reached the battlefield. McPherson s command and Hovey s division, * Received at 6.30 A.M. on the i6th. 236 UL YSSES S. GRANT. well handled and without a man in reserve, fought with great courage and enthusiasm, but without much advan tage. Finally, Logan s division, moving on the double- quick around the enemy s left, charged them in rear, and decided the fortunes of the day. By this brilliant movement, Loring s division was cut off from Pemberton s main army, and was never able to join it again. Grant was now preparing to charge the enemy in front and rear, but upon advancing he found them in full and disorderly retreat towards Vicksburg. The day was won early in the afternoon ; thirty cannons and 3000 prisoners were taken.* Pursuit was continued until dark. Sherman reached the vicinity of the battlefield about midnight, having marched from Jackson, a distance of twenty miles, since noon. After a few hours rest he was impelled towards Bridgeport, on the Big Black, and directly north of Edward s Station. This movement would enable Sherman to cross the river, move down the west bank of the Big Black, and take the enemy in flank and rear, should they make a stand at the bridge some eight miles below. Early on the morning of the i/th McClernand came upon the enemy in position, protecting Black River Bridge. At this point the river makes a westward bend, and across the neck of land thus formed the enemy, behind parapet, awaited the Union advance. " So strong was the position," says Pemberton in his Report, " that my greatest, * Grant s loss was 421 killed, 1842 wounded, and 189 missing. Pember s loss in killed and wounded was about 3000. BATTLE OF BLACK RIVER BRIDGE. 237 almost only, apprehension was a flank movement by Bridgeport or Baldwin s Ferry." The Rebel front was pro tected by a bayou of stagnant water, into which trees had been felled in all directions. Before this formidable position, defended by 4000 men all that could be of service and twenty pieces of artillery, McClernand paused for several hours. At last, Brigadier-General Lawler, " who was rushing around without a coat," stole up to the Rebel left, along the river bank, and by marching his men four abreast he crossed the ditch, and reached the parapet. The troops in line responded to this daring exploit by a charge along the front, when a panic seized the enemy, and "it very soon became a matter sauve qui pent" according to General Pemberton. One entire brigade surrendered ; a grand rush was made for the bridge ; but the contagion had already reached the west side of the river, and the only means of escape was soon ablaze. The fugitives now plunged into the river, helter-skelter ; some reached the opposite shore, while too many, alas ! found a watery grave in the river they sought to defend. Grant had but twenty- nine killed and 240 wounded, during this brilliant affair. He captured I 700 prisoners, five Rebel colours, eighteen guns, besides thousands of small arms and large quantities of commissary stores. But all the bridges were burnt ; pursuit could not be made, otherwise Vicksburg would have fallen upon the same day. The banks of the Big Black presented an animated scene on the night of the i/th of May. The sound of axe, hammer, pick, and spade made the night merry ; and by eight o clock in the morning the victorious army 238 ULYSSES S. GRANT. was crossing the river over bridges made during the night with such material as could be found in the neighbour hood. Pemberton, with the remnant of the once defiant Vicks- burg Army, and with only two guns out of the fine park of artillery with which he moved out of the citadel a few days previously, was, like poor Goldsmith s hare, panting " for the place from whence at first he flew." The unfortunate General Johnston advanced to Vernor on the 1 8th, hoping that Pemberton would cut his way out and join him, but it was too late now. Grant was already closing in upon Jefferson Davis s " Gibraltar of America," and Vicksburg and her garrison were doomed. Before ten o clock in the morning Sherman s advance was within a few miles of Vicksburg. " Grant was with Sherman when his column struck the Walnut Hills. As they rode together up the farthest height, where it looks down on the Yazoo river and stood upon the very bluff from which Sherman had been repulsed six months before, the two soldiers gazed for a moment on the long-wished- for goal of the campaign the high, dry ground on the north of Vicksburg, and the base for their supplies. Sherman at last turned abruptly round and exclaimed to Grant, Until this moment I never thought your expedi tion a success. I never could see the end clearly until now. But this is a campaign ; this is a success, if we never take the town. The other, as usual, smoked his cigar and made no reply."* * Badeau, who was at this time on Sherman s staff. GRANT REPULSED. 239 Early on the morning of the iQth Grant s army encircled the stronghold, with Sherman on the right, M Clernand on the left, and McPherson in the centre. The Vicksburg garrison outnumbered the besiegers, but the Union men were flushed with repeated victories ; they were accus tomed to see the back of the foe ; they believed that they could march straight into Vicksburg. This spirit ani mated both officers and men, and Grant ordered a general assault. " Push forward carefully," said the General to his subordinates, " and gain position as close as possible to the enemy s works, until two o clock P.M. ; at that hour they will fire three volleys of artillery from all the pieces .in position. This will be the signal for a general charge along the whole line. The assault was gallantly made by all the forces that could possibly get into position by the time indicated in Grant s order. The Rebel works were reached, and even entered in a few instances, but the assault was unsuccessful, and the Army of the Tennessee withdrew from the more advanced positions under cover of darkness. Neither commander nor soldier was satisfied with the issue of this assault. Only a part of the army par ticipated in it ; distances to the Rebel works were not positively known, and the troops were ignorant of the nature of the ground over which they had to traverse during the first attack. As the result of the attempt to carry the Rebel works on the I Qth, the assaulting columns could now form within a few hundred yards of the enemy s parapet. Grant believed that he could penetrate the Rebel works with a sufficiently heavy force to make a 240 UL YSSES S. GRANT. permanent lodgment without sustaining serious loss, for nowhere along his lines would he have over 400 yards to advance ere he struck the entrenchments. The men were equally sanguine of success. They still felt " as if they could march straight through Vicksburg, and up to their waists in the Mississippi," and a second charge was there fore ordered. With characteristic confidence and thoroughness Grant made his preparations for the second attack upon Vicksburg. Ten o clock in the morning was designated as the time for the assaulting columns to move forward ; Corps Commanders set their time by Grant s to avoid the possi bility of a moment s difference in making the assault. All through the night preceding the storming day the mortars of Porter s fleet showered shell incessantly into the unfortunate city, and with the first dawn of morning every gun along Grant s front belched forth its angry, destruc tive salute towards the Rebel stronghold. Advance upon the enemy s position in anything approaching proper formation was impossible, owing to the ravines and ridges by which the ground between the two lines was cut up, while felled trees and entanglements contributed to retard the Union march. The army could only advance by fours or in columns of platoons. A moment before the charge was made the Rebel works seemed quite deserted ; not a sentinel or a sharpshooter could anywhere be discovered. At the appointed moment, the men of the West moved boldly onward to their bloody work, when there rose from behind the hostile entrenchments a double line of infantry, desperate in their last ditch, and resolved to hold THE SECOND REPULSE. 241 their stronghold. From their safe elevated position the defenders poured such a tempest of lead into the Union ranks as no courage, no enthusiasm could long withstand ; grape and canister mowed them down, every possible line of advance was enfiladed ; but these gallant men were unaccustomed to defeat, and they continued their onward course ; they reached the Rebel parapet, but could go no farther, and were finally compelled to seek shelter behind logs, stumps, and wherever it could be found. In only one instance did the Union troops reach the Rebel works. A part of the 22nd Iowa entered the entrenchments, when a hand-to-hand conflict, lasting several minutes, ensued ; but the Iowa men were overpowered, and only one member of the party answered his name at roll-call on the following morning.* General McClernand mistook this unfortunate affair for an occupation of the enemy s entrenchments, and sent despatches to that effect to Grant a mischievous despatch which prompted the Commanding General to order a renewal of the assault by McPherson and Sherman, and which caused a great sacri fice of brave men, after it had become but too clear to both * " Every man in the party but one was shot down. Sergeant Joseph Griffith, of the 22nd Iowa, fell at the same time with his comrades, stunned, but not seriously hurt. On his recovery he found a Rebel lieutenant and sixteen men lying in the outwork still unwounded, though exposed to the fire of both friend and foe. He rose and bade them follow him out of the place, too hot for any man to stay and live. The Rebels obeyed, and calling to the troops out side to cease their firing, Griffith brought his prisoners over the parapet under a storm of Rebel shot that killed four of those so. willing to surrender." Badeau. R 242 ULYSSES S. GRANT. officers and soldiers that Vicksburg could not be taken by storm. The Army of the Tennessee retired to its old position after nightfall, having sustained a loss during the day of 3000 men. This second assault was gallantly made by brave men ; the result was failure. To storm a strong hold without great preponderance in numbers had not been undertaken in modern times. Grant charged the stronghold of the Mississippi, garrisoned by an army numerically equal to his own, and signally failed. Why this second assault was ordered is very reasonably and satisfactorily set forth by Grant in his report. He says : " I believed an assault from the position gained by this time could be made successfully. It was known that Johnston was at Canton with the force taken by him from Jackson, reinforced by other troops from the east, and that more were daily reaching him. With the force I had a short time must have enabled him to attack me in the rear, and possibly to succeed in raising the siege. Possession of Vicksburg at that time would have enabled me to have turned upon Johnston and driven him from the State, and possess myself of all the railroads and practical military highways, thus effectually securing to ourselves all territory west of the Tombigbee, and this before the season was too far advanced for campaigning in this latitude. It would have saved Government send ing large reinforcements, much needed elsewhere ; and, finally, the troops themselves were impatient to possess Vicksburg, and would not have worked in the trenches with the same zeal, believing it unnecessary, that they did after THE SIEGE OF VICKSBURG. 243 their failure to carry the enemy s works. . . . After the failure of the 22nd, I determined upon a regular siege. The troops now, being fully awake to the necessity of this, worked diligently and cheerfully. The work pro gressed rapidly and satisfactorily until the 3rd of July, when all was about ready for a final assault." Grant s position was now of the most critical nature, for while investing Vicksburg he was himself threatened in the rear by Johnston, one of the ablest captains of the Confederacy, with an army which, towards the end of June, numbered 26,000 men. The Union Commander gathered reinforcements from all directions, till his army numbered not less than 75,000 men. With the aid of Porter s fleet operating above and below the town, Vicks burg was enclosed by Union guns. Sherman, with nearly half of Grant s effective force, was defending the rear along the Big Black, with the understanding that Johnston was to be " whipped at least fifteen miles off, if possible." By night and day Grant exercised the utmost vigilance, lest through a combined attack by Johnston and Pemberton the Vicksburg garrison should escape his grasp. On the 3rd of July Johnston despatched a messenger to Pemberton, informing that officer that an attempt to create a diversion would be made to enable him to cut his way out, and that he hoped to attack the enemy about the 7th. Grant s saps had already reached the Rebel works ; the men were now conversing across the enemy s parapet ; and the final assault was to be made on the 6th, one day before Johnston could even promise to come to the rescue of the garrison. R 2 244 ULYSSES S. GRANT. Meanwhile, famine had been crushing the spirits of the defenders. Pemberton recognised the hopelessness of longer holding out against starvation and a certain doom. He wisely decided to end the misery of his army and the citizens of Vicksburg by sueing for terms of capitu lation ; and on the morning of the 3rd of July he displayed the white flag, and sent the following note to the Union Commander by the hands of General Bowen : " I have the honour to propose to you an armistice of - hours, with a view to arranging terms for the capitu lation of Vicksburg. To this end, if agreeable to you, I will appoint three commissioners, to meet a like number to be named by yourself, at such place and hour as you may find convenient. I make this proposition to save the further effusion of blood, which must otherwise be shed to a frightful extent, feeling myself fully able to maintain my position for a yet indefinite period. This commu nication will be handed you, under a flag of truce, by Major-General John S. Bowen." General Bowen requested an interview with Grant, which was declined. It was, however, arranged that the Commanders of the contending forces should meet between the lines on McPherson s front at three o clock in the afternoon. In his reply to Pemberton s note General Grant said : " The useless effusion of blood you propose stopping can be ended at any time you may choose by the unconditional surrender of the city and garrison." At the appointed time Grant and Pemberton met at the place designated. " The two Generals shook hands," says GRANT AND PEMBERTON. 245 an eyewitness, " and Pemberton inquired what terms of capitulation would be allowed him. Grant replied, Those that had been expressed in his letter in the morning ; whereupon Pemberton haughtily declared, If this were all, the conference might terminate, and hostilities be re sumed immediately. Very well, said Grant, and he turned away." The interview, however, did not terminate thus abruptly ; and it was finally agreed that Grant should send the terms under which he would receive the surrender of Vicksburg and its garrison to the Rebel Commander that evening. They were sent accordingly by General John A. Logan, in the following letter : " HEAD-QUARTERS, DEPARTMENT OF TENNESSEE, NEAR VICKSBURG, July ^rd, 1863. " Lieut-Gen. J. C. Pemberton, Commanding Confederate Forces, Vicksburg, Miss. " GENERAL, In conformity with the agreement of this afternoon, I will submit the following propositions for the surrender of the city of Vicksburg, public stores, &c. On your accepting the terms proposed, I will march in one division as a guard, and take possession at eight A.M. to morrow. As soon as paroles can be made out and signed by the officers and men, you will be allowed to march out of our lines ; the officers taking with them their side-arms and clothing, and the field, staff, and cavalry officers one horse each. The rank and file will be allowed all their clothing, but no other property. If these conditions are accepted, any amount of rations you may deem necessary can be taken from the stores you now have, and also the necessary 246 ULYSSES S. GRANT. cooking utensils for preparing them. Thirty waggons also, counting two two-horse or mule teams as one, will be allowed you to transport such articles as cannot be carried along. The same conditions will be allowed to all sick and wounded officers and soldiers, as fast as they become able to travel. The paroles of these latter must be signed, however, whilst officers are present authorized to sign the roll of prisoners. " I am, General, very respectfully, " Your obedient Servant, " U. S. GRANT, Major-General." Pemberton replied as follows : " HEAD-QUARTERS, VICKSBURG, July yd, 1863. " Maj.-Gen. Grant, Commanding U.S. Forces. " GENERAL, I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of this date, proposing terms for the surrender of this garrison and post. In the main your terms are accepted ; but in justice both to the honour and spirit of my troops, manifested in the defence of Vicksburg, I have the honour to submit the following 1 amendments, which, if acceded to by you, will perfect the agreement between us. At ten o clock A.M. to-morrow I propose to evacuate the works in and around Vicksburg, and to surrender the city and garrison under my com mand, by marching out with my colours and arms, and stacking them in front of my present lines after which SURRENDER OF VICKSBURG. 247 you will take possession ; officers to retain their side- arms and personal property, and the rights and property of citizens to be respected. " I am, General, " Yours very respectfully, " J. C. PEMBERTON, Lieut-General." In his rejoinder, dated the 4th of July for it was after midnight when Pemberton s answer reached him Grant said : " It will be necessary to furnish every officer and man with a parole signed by himself, which, with the completion of the roll of prisoners, will take some time. Again, I can make no stipulations with regard to the treatment of citizens and their private property. While I do not propose to cause them any undue annoyance or loss, I cannot consent to leave myself under any restraint by stipulations. The property which officers will be allowed to take with them will be as stated in my propo sition of last evening ; that is, officers will be allowed their private baggage and side-arms, and mounted officers one horse each. . . . Should no notification be received of your acceptance of my terms by nine o clock A.M., I shall regard them as having been rejected, and shall act accordingly." Grant s terms were accepted ; and the victorious General, attended by his staff, rode into Vicksburg at the head of a division of his army. He sought the Rebel Com mander, and found him seated under the verandah of a house in the outskirts of the town the head-quarters of a 248 UL YSSES S. GRANT. subordinate General. Pemberton wore the full uniform of a Lieutenant-General of the Confederate service, and was surrounded by the members of his military family. He received the Union Commander with studied stiffness, and treated him during their brief interview with marked discourtesy. Grant had whipped and out-generalled Pem berton in a series of battles and manoeuvres, which at last compelled him to fly like a fugitive to his citadel. There is not, and cannot be, doubt or question as to the great superiority of the Union over the Secession leader. And yet, at this conference, the first after the surrender, Pem berton by his haughty bearing and patronizing airs affected a pre-eminence over the plain-dressed, unosten tatious Western General, which, in the light of the situa tion and all the circumstances, but ill became him. During the interview of the two Commanders, held between the lines to discuss the terms of capitulation, Pemberton had proposed that his army be paroled and marched out with eight days rations drawn from their own stores. At this second conference, held after the surrender, the captive General requested Grant to supply the garrison with rations. Pemberton and his 32,000 men were almost entirely without food ; the Union General cheerfully con sented to replenish their mess-chests and haversacks ; and yet, when he asked for a drink of water, not a man in Pemberton s following offered to procure it for him. He groped through the dark passage into the strange house, and the cooling draught was furnished him by the willing hands of a negro woman, a slave now no more ; for there before her grateful eyes, in simple garb of blue, with A BRILLIANT CAMPAIGN. 249 nothing to distinguish him from a common soldier but the unmounted silver stars upon his shoulder, stood the man whose mighty sword had severed for ever the links which held her in bondage. Grant was duly sensible of the undeserved rudeness with which he was treated by both Pemberton and his staff, but no word of censure or complaint passed from this most tranquil of commanders. Towards the close of this sketch we shall have occasion to notice the conduct of an officer, abler and nobler than Pemberton, under more trying and embarrassing circum stances. General Logan with his division took possession of Vicksburg on Saturday morning, the 4th of July. The strange banner was hauled down from the Court House, and the tattered battle-flag of a Western regiment* waved in triumph over the great stronghold of the Mississippi on Independence Day. Below and around stood the soldiers of the Union, celebrating the National Anniversary, by singing the popular Army song " Yes, we ll rally round the flag, boys, We ll rally once again, Shouting the battle cry of Freedom." Thirty-two thousand prisoners and a hundred and seventy cannon fell into the hands of Grant upon this triumphant day a fitting climax to a campaign which, for boldness of conception and brilliancy of execution, was not equalled during the great Rebellion, and has not been excelled in any of the campaigns of modern times. * 45th Illinois Volunteers. 250 ULYSSES S. GRANT. The losses of the Union Army, from the day it crossed the Mississippi until the fall of Vicksburg, were 1242 killed, 7095 wounded, and 535 missing; total, 8872. Grant, in his report, sums up the enemy s losses as fol lows : " The result of this campaign has been the defeat of the enemy in five battles outside of Vicksburg, the occu pation of Jackson, the capital of the State of Mississippi, and the capture of Vicksburg and its garrison and munitions of war ; a loss to the enemy of 37,000 prisoners, among whom were fifteen general officers ; at least 10,000 killed and wounded, and among the killed Generals Tracy, Tighlman, and Green, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of stragglers, who can never be col lected and reorganized. Arms and munitions of war for an army of 60,000 men have fallen into our hands, besides a large amount of other public property, con sisting of railroads, locomotives, cars, steamboats, cot ton, &c. ; and much was destroyed to prevent our capturing it." When the news of the surrender of Vicksburg reached the North, honours and presents were showered upon the Union Commander, and the praises of " Unconditional Surrender" Grant were again sounded. Halleck at last acknowledged him as a captain of more than ordinary merit. Writing to his subordinate, after receiving his report of the campaign, the General-in-Chief said : " Your narration of the campaign, like the operations themselves, is brief, soldierly, and in every respect creditable and satisfactory. In boldness of plan, rapidity THE PRESIDENTS LETTER. 251 of execution, and brilliancy of routes, these operations will compare most favourably with those of Napoleon about Ulm. You and your army have well deserved the gratitude of your country, and it will be the boast of your children that their fathers were of the heroic army which opened the Mississippi river." When General Grant landed at Bruinsburg, the Presi dent and General Halleck expected him to march down the river and unite his army with that of General Banks, near Port Hudson. When Grant turned northward, and plunged into the rear of Vicksburg, it was believed at Washington that he had committed a mistake. Presi dent Lincoln refers to these questions in the following letter : " EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, July i3//z, 1863. " Major-General Grant. " MY DEAR GENERAL, I do not remember that you and I ever met personally. I write this note as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service you have done the country. I write to say a word further. When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I thought you should do what you finally did march the troops across the neck, run the batteries with the transports, and thus go below ; and I never had any faith, except a general hope that you knew better than I, that the Yazoo Pass Expedition, and the like, would 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 ; and when you turned northward, east of the Big 252 ULYSSES S. GRANT. Black, I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make the personal acknowledgment that you were right and I was wrong. " Yours truly, " A. LINCOLN." Port Hudson fell four days after the surrender of Vicks- burg. The Mississippi became open from St. Louis to the Gulf, and the new flag was no longer seen upon the bosom of the " Father of Waters." Grant and the soldiers of his army treated the Southern troops with great kindness and consideration ; and during the few days necessarily occupied in preparing the paroles and issuing rations to the prisoners, Union and Rebel soldiers became quite friendly, for they bore each other no personal hatred, and the blue and the grey were frequently seen walking arm-in-arm along the desolate streets of Vicksburg. Grant gave orders to his subordi nates to " instruct the commands to be orderly and quiet as these prisoners pass," and " to make no offensive remarks." And his mandate found a hearty response from the soldiers. When, on the iith of July, Pember- ton s paroled army filed out of the stronghold which they had defended so long and so well, they heard not a harsh word ; their wandering gaze fell upon kindly eyes ; not a single cheer went up from the victors as their misguided countrymen marched away from the Mississippi with heavy hearts and tearful eyes. As soon as the country in rear of Vicksburg was freed of armed Rebels, Grant issued rations with a bountiful " THE MONROE DOCTRINE." 253 hand to those made poor indeed, through the presence of friend and foe. Having asserted the supremacy and authority of the Union, General Grant next endeavoured to conciliate the enemies of the Government by considerate measures and benevolent deeds. " Let us have peace," was ever his policy towards conquered Rebels. Jackson was evacuated on the night of July 16. Two days later Grant, in a despatch to General Halleck, said : " It seems to me now that Mobile should be captured. In this opinion General Grant was not sustained. Con siderations of a political nature influenced the Adminis tration to " re-establish National authority in Texas as soon as possible."* Union troops could then be stationed along the eastern banks of the Rio Grande, ready in case of emergency. The friendly neutrality of England and France was looked upon with suspicion. The undisguised scheme of Napoleon the Third, looking towards the establishment of a Latin Empire upon the American Continent, contrary to the well-known policy of the United States, could not be permitted to bear fruit. The " Monroe Doctrine,"f while it forms no part of the law of the land, is the undoubted policy not of any party but of the people of the United States. And the people would not willingly allow an European power to impose a foreign prince j upon the * President Lincoln to General Grant. t For what is known as the " Monroe Doctrine," see Appendix D. J We are aware that Maximilian did sit upon a thorny throne for a short time, and we deplore his sad end. 254 ULYSSES S. GRANT. Mexican people by force of arms. Mobile was not disturbed. On the 2Oth of September* the Army of the Cumber land, under General Rosecrans, suffered defeat at Chicka- mauga, in a sanguinary engagement with the Rebel Army commanded by Bragg. Rosecrans fell back upon Chatta nooga (the Eagle s Nest), in the Tennessee mountains. Supplies for the Union Army had to be hauled sixty miles over the worst of roads. Horses and mules were dying in thousands from overwork and insufficient forage. The troops were sadly in need of blankets and clothing, and short rations were being issued. The only remaining avenue of communication was in danger of being cut off by General Bragg, who occupied the hills which surround Chattanooga, and a cloud of want and despair had settled upon the Army of the Cumberland. The Army of the Ohio, under General Burnside, held Knoxville, in East Tennessee, 1 1 o miles up the Tennessee river from Chattanooga. Burnside had also ceased to issue full rations to the troops. Rosecrans and Burnside received their orders direct from Washington ; there was no concert of action between the two commanders. Here the Government had two armies under separate and independent command on the same theatre of operations, contrary to sound military principles. The first law of success was violated, and defeat was on the threshold. The War Department finally appreciated the perils 1863. GRANTS NEW COMMAND. 255 which threatened the armies operating in Tennessee. The Secretary of War decided upon consolidating the De partments of the Cumberland, the Ohio, and the Tennessee into the Military Division of the Mississippi, and General Grant was summoned from Vicksburg to take the direc tion of the new and important command.*" While Stanton and Grant were in conference at Louisville, the Secretary received a despatch from a subordinate of the War Office, then with Rosecrans army, intimating that preparations were being made to abandon Chattanooga. Chattanooga was one of the most vital strategic positions in the Southern Confederacy. It was all-important as a junction of railways, as a base of operations southward, and as the centre of a district whence the Rebellion received coals, grain, and nitre in large quantities. At the request of the Secretary of War, Grant assumedf the direction of the new Military Division immediately. Rosecrans was relieved, and Thomas was placed in charge of the army. Grant at once telegraphed the new Chief of the Cumberland Army to " hold Chattanooga at all hazard ; I will be there as soon as possible." " I will hold on till we starve," was the reply of the Commander of the hungry army. While reviewing the command of General Banks, intended for the " Red River Expedition," Grant was un fortunate in falling from a strange horse. This accident confined him to his bed for twenty days. And when he started from Louisville J to Chattanooga, though he rode with comparative ease, walking was both painful and See pp. 114-15. t Oct. 1 8. J Oct. 20. 256 UL YSSES S. GRANT. difficult to him. Arriving at Bridgeport, on the Tennessee, Grant and his party proceeded by horse for Thomas s besieged camp. The mountain roads to be traversed had become almost impassable by the late and continued heavy rains. Commander and escort were frequently obliged to dismount in order to pass dangerous places along the hill sides, where recent floods had swept away the road ; and Grant was carried in the arms of his soldiers to save the Army of the Cumberland. Grant reached Thomas s head-quarters late at night* On the following day a reconnaissance of the position was made, and a plan for relieving Chattanooga decided upon. Hooker recently arrived in Tennessee, with two corps from the Army of the Potomac was to advance from Bridgeport into Lookout Valley, and threaten Bragg s left. A position was to be secured on the ridge overlooking the Tennessee from the west, and commanding Brown s Ferry, four miles below Chattanooga. A force thus disposed of would enable Hooker, if successful in forcing a passage through Lookout Valley, to join the Army of the Cumberland by his left. Kelly s Ferry, only eight miles down the river from Chattanooga, would be covered by Hooker, and would become Grant s new and much-needed base of supplies. Hooker started from Bridgeport on the 26th. That night was dark as Erebus, and well intended to veil the operations for the possession of Brown s Ferry. It was about midnight, when sixty pontoon boats, containing thirty armed men each, pushed out from their concealment * Oct. 23. GRANT A T CHA TTANOOGA. 257 at Chattanooga. Upon reaching the strong current of the Tennessee they were carried swiftly and noiselessly along, passing the Rebel pickets at the base of Lookout Mountain unobserved. As the expedition neared the point of landing, the dark floating masses were suspected, and fired upon by the enemy. General Hazen imme diately ordered the men to pull for the shore, and upon reaching the river bank the troops were rapidly formed and pushed forward towards the hill commanding the ferry. The coveted position was secured with a trifling loss of four or five wounded. Simultaneously with the movement on the river, a force of 4000 men was marched across the narrow neck of land,* opposite to, and directly west of, Chattanooga, and ferried over the river to co-operate in securing the height. Before daybreak a rude breastwork had been thrown up across the ridge, and Brown s Ferry was secure. Hooker, after fighting and flanking small forces of the enemy for three days, went into camp within a mile of the ferry, at six o clock P.M. on the 28th, his left within supporting distance of Grant s new position. The Rebel Commander was out-manoeuvred, and the tide of his destruction had commenced to flow. Longstreet commanded Bragg s left on Lookout Moun tain, and from his towering position he saw every dis position made by Hooker for the night. Geary sf division bivouacked at Wauhatchie, covering the road to Grant s future base of supplies. About midnight Lee s great * Formed by the bendings of the river, and called Moccasin Point. t Afterwards Governor of Pennsylvania. S 258 ULYSSES S. GRANT. lieutenant moved down with his entire corps upon the defenceless camp of the Pennsylvanian. It was a desperate resolve, and the destruction of Geary s division was con fidently expected. Longstreet s disposition almost girdled the Union camp, and with the well-known yell the men rushed to the charge. The first rifle crack on the picket line summoned the Union men to their feet, and the Rebel onslaught was everywhere met by a withering fire. Long- street was repulsed, and finally Geary s division charged over the unknown ground and drove the enemy from their front. As soon as this musketry fire was heard on the left, Howard on Hooker s left was directed to move a division to the support of Geary. Falling in with a force of the enemy which commanded his line of march, Howard was delayed and obliged to deploy for battle. Another division of the 1 2th Corps now came up ; a charge was ordered, and the hill intervening between Geary and assistance was carried with the bayonet by the light of the moon. By four o clock in the morning the enemy had been driven from every part of the battle-ground, and was climbing back to his camp on the mountain. The follow ing incident of this unseasonable conflict is given by Grant s military historian : " The strange echoes of the cannon among the hills, and the muttering of musketry from every quarter, alarmed the teamsters of Geary s waggon-train, who deserted their mules, and in the darkness and noise the animals became more frightened than their drivers ; they soon broke loose, and with their tackle dangling and rattling about their heels rushed in a body directly towards the enemy. This THE MIDNIGHT CHARGE. 259 augmented the confusion of the Rebels, who supposed it to be an attack of cavalry, and their route was rendered inglorious by the assistance of a pack of mules." The losses were not heavy, and were estimated at 400 on each side. General Geary deserved well of his country and the army for his gallant repulse of the enemy in overwhelming numbers, upon a vital position, in the dead of the night ; but a share in the rejoicings of the men of the Potomac over the issue of their first struggle in the West was denied him, for his son was among the slain. General Bragg, who but a few days previously had nearly completed the investment of Chattanooga, was now obliged to assume the defensive. His position, high aloft along Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, " was one which ought to have been held by a line of skir mishers against any assaulting column."* He therefore despatched Longstreet with his corps of veterans to co operate with the forces already threatening Burnside. The fate of Knoxville and the Army of the Ohio depended upon the result of battle at Chattanooga. Grant knew this, and the preparations for an assault upon the enemy s position were pushed forward vigorously by night and day. Meanwhile he kept urging Burnside to hold out. In a despatch to that officer, sent November I 5th, General Grant said : " I do not know how to impress on you the necessity of holding on to East Tennessee in strong enough terms. * See Bragg s Report in Appendix H. S 2 260 ULYSSES S. GRANT. Hold on to Knoxville and that portion of the valley which you will necessarily possess holding to that point. Should Longstreet move his whole force across the Little Tennessee river, an effort should be made to cut his pontoons on the stream ; even if it sacrificed half the cavalry of the Ohio A rmy, I will not attempt to lay out a line of retreat. I would harass and embarrass progress in every way possible." Sherman and his corps, now hastening to reinforce the army at Chattanooga, were greatly delayed by floods and bad roads. Grant s newly-constructed bridges over the various creeks around Chattanooga were frequently swept away by the great rise of water in these mountain streams, and the preliminary movements of the Commander were greatly harassed and delayed in consequence. The elements seemed to conspire with the enemy for the defeat of Burnside ; all communications with him were cut off, and the anxiety for the safety of Knoxville and its garrison was painful and intense. When Sherman finally arrived,* he went into position on the extreme right, in order to deceive the Rebel Commander, for his point of attack would be the north end of Missionary Ridge, opposite the Union left. Grant s arrangements for the assault upon the Rebel position were frustrated from day to day by the high water, and he became anxious and fearful lest Bragg should abandon his position before the blow could be struck. The suspicions of the Union General as to * Nov. 1 8. ORCHARD RIDGE CARRIED. 261 Bragg s intentions to withdraw were confirmed by the following shallow message : " HEAD-QUARTERS, ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE, IN THE FIELD, Nov. 20, 1863. " Major-General U. S. Grant, Commanding U.S. Forces at Chattanooga. " GENERAL, As there may still be some non-com batants in Chattanooga, I deem it proper to notify you that prudence would dictate their early withdrawal. " I am, General, very respectfully, " Your obedient Servant, "BRAXTON BRAGG, Gen. Com." Movements of troops were made in full view of the Rebel Army for the special benefit of General Bragg, while the real manoeuvres were executed behind hills and through ravines well intended for concealment. By the 23rd Grant was ready to attack, and early on that morning his artillery opened upon the enemy s assailable positions, while the Rebel guns from their towering height dropped their destructive missiles among the Union lines. At two o clock Grainger s corps, led by Sheridan and Wood, made the first move. At a given signal 20,000 bayonets glistening in the autumn sun moved upon the enemy s first line of entrenchments, driving them everywhere, and meeting with but a feeble resistance. Many prisoners were captured, and Orchard Ridge, an important position for future operations, was taken and held. During the night breastworks were 262 UL YSSES S. GRANT. thrown up and artillery placed in position along the ridge. At daybreak next morning Hooker was preparing for the coming fight. Lookout Creek had become swollen and was unfordable. The work of building bridges de tained the advance, but by eleven o clock Hooker s men were ascending the western slope of Lookout Mountain, over cliffs and chasms, logs and boulders, in the face of Rebel rifles and under the muzzles of Rebel cannon. By mutual consent the Union lines would halt at intervals for breath, and again with lusty cheer resume their onward course, crowding the enemy backward and upward until two o clock, when the cloud-capped summit was reached, and the enemy was hurled down the eastern declivity of the mountain. By a combination of circumstances, brought about through the manifold difficulties of this brilliant campaign, three divisions, representing the Armies of the Potomac, the Tennessee, and the Cumberland, formed the gallant band who scaled this lofty peak. And proud to-day are those who fought " with Hooker above the clouds." Simultaneously with the victory on Lookout Mountain, Sherman, who had by this time crossed the Tennessee, pushed vigorously forward and established himself firmly on the north end of Missionary Ridge. Grant announced the results of his preliminary movements to the War Department. The President at once responded : " Well done. Many thanks to all. REMEMBER BURNSIDE." At early dawn the following morning Hooker was moving down from Lookout Mountain to strike Bragg s BATTLE OF CHATTANOOGA. 263 left, now on Missionary Ridge. Sherman attacked the enemy s right soon after sunrise. Grant was with Thomas in the centre, anxiously looking for the head of Hooker s column advancing from the right. That General was again delayed, through having his bridges carried away by the flood. Bragg from his commanding elevation on Missionary Ridge watched every movement of the con tending forces. He believed that the grand effort to crush him would come from Grant s left, where Sherman was gradually driving the enemy. Bragg sought to strengthen his right at the cost of his centre. Now was the golden opportunity anxious moments for Grant, who discovered the Rebel manoeuvre from Orchard Knoll. Hooker had at last crossed Chattanooga Creek ; his messenger reached the Union Commander at this critical moment, and the grand assault on the Rebel centre by four divisions of the Army of the Cumberland was ordered. Speaking of this grand charge, which saved Burnside and destroyed Bragg, General Grant in his official report says : " These troops moved forward, drove the enemy from the rifle-pits at the base of the ridge like bees from a hive, stopped but a moment until the whole were in line, and commenced the ascent of the mountain from right to left almost simultaneously, following closely the retreating enemy without further orders. They encountered a fear ful volley of grape and canister from near thirty pieces of artillery and musketry from still well-filled rifle-pits on the summit of the ridge. Not a waver, however, was seen in all that line of brave men. Their progress was 264 UL YSSES S. GRANT. steadily onward until the summit was in their possession. In this charge the casualties were remarkably few for the fire encountered. I can account for this only on the theory that the enemy s surprise at the audacity of such a charge caused confusion and purposeless aiming of their pieces." The bewildered enemyfell back in great disorder. Stuart s division, while endeavouring to escape towards Greysville, encountered Hooker s forces advancing by way of Ross- ville, who drove them in great disorder nearer the crest of the hill, where they were met by another portion of Hooker s command. These troops in turn hurled the unfortunate foe in the face of Johnson s division of the Army of the Cumberland, by whom they were nearly all made prisoners. Night closed upon a complete victory, with the enemy defeated, demoralized, and in full retreat. Bragg had 45,000 men engaged at the battle of Chat tanooga; but his grand position* abundantly counterpoised the odds of 15,000 men against him. The Rebel Army lost forty pieces of artillery and 10,000 men in killed, wounded, and prisoners. Grant lost 5 6 1 6 men. A column under Sherman was at once set in motion for the relief of Knoxville, now besieged by an army of 20,000 men under Longstreet Upon learning of the approach of Sherman, the Rebel Commander decided to carry the town by storm, if possible, before the relieving column would arrive. The assault was gallantly made ; but Burnside s 1 2,000 fought desperately, and Longstreet s * See Bragg s Report in Appendix H. KNOXVILLE RELIEVED. 265 repulse was bloody and decisive. To avoid contact with Sherman s forces Longstreet raised the siege, and fell back rapidly. East Tennessee, the only spot faithful to the Union throughout Rebeldom, was freed from the presence of the enemy ; the road to Atalanta was opened, and the great campaign that has rendered Sherman illustrious the grand march " from Atalanta to the sea" was made possible. The praises of Grant were again sounded. Congress passed a vote of thanks to him and the army under his command ; Lincoln sent him his " God bless you all," and the tree planted by Jefferson Davis trembled in every leaf and limb. The want of a General in supreme command of the Armies of the Union equal to the great emergency had long been felt by the Government and throughout the North. Those officers who emulated and endeavoured to imitate the great captains of Europe, who in nearly every engage ment could estimate the strength of their adversaries and scrutinize their position and defences through their glasses upon the field of battle, were not the men to conduct campaigns and win victories amid the primeval forests of America, where the enemy was concealed and his move ments screened by woods and mountains. This had been fully exemplified by the careers of McClellan and Halleck. The country required a soldier with a mind original, capable, and eminently American, who would give the books to the worms, and fight the battles of the Union on his own plans. The Armies of the East and West had been acting independently " like a balky team, 266 UL YSSES S. GRANT. no two ever pulling together, enabling the enemy to use to great advantage his interior lines of communication for transporting troops from East to West, reinforcing the army most vigorously pressed."* The superior strength and resources of the North were counterbalanced by these movements of the enemy, made possible by the want of co-operation on the part of the Federal Armies. A commander was needed who could fight our armies in concert. To meet these requirements Congress revived the grade of Lieutenant-General, on the motion of Hon. E. B. Washburne of Illinois, and Grant was summoned from the West to be installed in the high and sacred grade, hitherto accorded to Washington only.t On the 9th of March, accompanied by his eldest son, Mr. Wash burne, and two members of his staff, Grant proceeded to the White House. President Lincoln introduced the General to the members of his Cabinet, and then addressed him as follows : " General Grant, the Nation s appreciation of what you have already done, and its reliance upon you for what still remains to be done in the existing great struggle, are now presented with this commission, constituting you Lieutenant-General of the Armies of the United States. With this high honour devolves upon you a corresponding responsibility. " As the country herein trusts you, so, under God, it will * Grant s Report, t Scott was but a Brevet Lieutenant-General. LIEUTENANT-GENERAL. 267 sustain you. I scarcely need to add that, with what I here speak for the Nation, goes my own hearty personal concurrence." Grant made the following reply : " Mr. President, I accept the commission with gratitude for the high honour conferred. With the aid of the noble armies that have fought on so many battlefields for our common country, it will be my earnest endeavour not to disappoint your expectations. I feel the full weight of the responsibilities now devolving on me, and I know that, if they are properly met, it will be due to those armies, and above all to the favour of that Provi dence which leads both nations and men." Grant had now reached " a position of almost dangerous elevation." His advancement followed his victories, step by step, and it can truly be said of General Grant that he earned his promotions. No man in Congress or elsewhere furthered his elevation with his knowledge or consent. When compared with other commanders of note, Grant s progress in the service was slow. He entered the old army as a Brevet Second Lieutenant, and after fighting against the Mexicans with distinguished gallantry for two years and a half, he only reached the grade of First Lieu tenant. The great Napoleon reached the supreme com mand of the Grand Army of Italy with the rush of a comet. Wellington was a Lieutenant-Colonel before he ever saw an enemy. Lee and the Johnstons were Generals of the Army of the Confederacy before they drew a sword in the conflict. Halleck was made a Major-General in the 268 UL YSSES S. GRANT. Regular Army as a matter of course, when he offered his services to the country. McClellan became Commander- in-Chief of the Armies of the United States before the North fully realized that we were upon the brink of a terrible war. Grant took up the career where he left it upon his retirement from the army. He organized a company of men to fight for the Union ; this entitled him to a commission as its commanding officer, and Ulysses S. Grant became a captain in the volunteer service of his country. He marched steadily onward, left every rival far behind, and became the first of Union Generals, if not the foremost Captain who ever fought on the American Continent. When Grant was summoned to Washington to accept the new and momentous trust, he wrote a letter to his faithful subordinates and friends, the like of which was never before sent by a commander to generals serving under him. " There is nothing a military biographer could offer," says Col. Chesney, " more honourable to the character of Grant than the terms in which he now took leave of his great lieutenants." We give the letter in full. General Grant wrote as follows : " DEAR SHERMAN, The bill reviving the grade of Lieutenant-General in the Army has become a law, and my name has been sent to the Senate for the place. I now receive orders to report to Washington immediately, in person, which indicates a confirmation, or a likelihood of confirmation. I start in the morning to comply with the order. " Whilst I have been eminently successful in the war, LETTER TO SHERMAN. 269 in at least gaining the confidence of the public, no one feels more than I 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 occupying subordinate positions under me. " There are many officers to whom these remarks are applicable to a greater or less degree, proportionate 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 to you to do entitles you to the reward I am receiving, you cannot know as well as I. " I feel all the gratitude this letter would express, giving it the most flattering construction. " The word you I use in the plural, intending it for McPherson also. I should write to him, and will some day ; but, starting in the morning, I do not know that I will find time just now. " Your friend, " U. S. GRANT, Major-General." Sherman answered as follows : " DEAR GENERAL, I have your more than kind and characteristic letter of the 4th instant. I will send a copy to General McPherson at once. " You do yourself injustice, and us too much honour, 270 UL YSSES S. GRANT. in assigning to us too large a share of the merits which have led to your high advancement. I know you approve the friendship I have ever professed to you, and will permit me to continue, as heretofore, to manifest it on all proper occasions. " You are now Washington s legitimate successor, and occupy a position of almost dangerous elevation ; but if you can continue, as heretofore, to be yourself simple, honest, and unpretending-: you will enjoy through life the respect and love of friends, and the homage of millions of human beings, that will award you a large share in securing to them and their descendants a government of law and stability. " I repeat, you do General McPherson and myself too much honour. At Belmont you manifested your traits, neither of us being near. At Donelson, also, you illus trated your whole character. I was not near, and General McPherson in too subordinate a capacity to influence you. " Until you had won Donelson I confess I was almost cowed by the terrible array of anarchical elements that presented themselves at every point ; but that admitted a ray of light I have followed since. I believe you are as brave, patriotic, and just as the great prototype Wash ington as unselfish, kindhearted, 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 a Christian has in the Saviour. " This faith gave you victory at Shiloh and Vicksburg. Also, when you have completed your best preparations, DEA TH OF McPHERSON. 27 1 you go into battle without hesitation, as at Chattanooga no doubts, no reserves ; 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. #**** " Your sincere friend, "W. T. SHERMAN. * Sherman was consulted, trusted, and admired by General Grant, but McPherson was the "well-beloved" of his chief. What La Fayette was to Washington, what Ney was to Napoleon, the brilliant McPherson was to Grant. This young soldier first served in a subordinate position on the staff of General Grant, who at once recognised his extraordinary abilities and rare accomplishments. McPherson shared in the trials and triumphs of his chief, who never failed in justice to those who served under him. When Grant became Commander-in-Chief of all the Union Armies, Sherman was assigned to the Military Division of the Mississippi, and Grant s old Army of the Tennessee was placed under the command of McPherson, who achieved this high distinction at the early age of thirty-three. The courage and captivating dash of this young soldier inspired men to deeds of valour upon many a well-fought field ; his happy and ever present smile stood the test of the doubtful moments at Shiloh, and the dark and cloudy days amid the swamps of the Mississippi valley ; and when the tidings of his death before Atalanta reached the North, every true soldier and 272 ULYSSES S. GRANT. citizen of the Union mourned, as if a near and a dear friend had fallen. The biographers of Wellington tell us how the Saviour of Europe sobbed aloud when the roll of honour was read to him after Waterloo. And so it was with our Wellington. When Grant learned that McPherson was no more, he exclaimed, " The country has lost one of its ablest soldiers, and I have lost my best friend." And the man that never " made sacrifice to the god of fear" retired to his tent to weep. A letter from Mrs. Slocum, the grandmother of McPher son, elicited the following heartfelt tribute from Grant : " HEAD-QUARTERS, ARMIES OF THE U.S., CITY POINT, VA., Aug. loth, 1864. " Mrs. Lydia Slocum. " MY DEAR MADAM, Your very welcome letter of the 3rd instant has reached me. I am glad to know that the relatives of the lamented Major-General McPherson are aware of the more than friendship existing between him and myself. A nation grieves at the loss of one so dear to our nation s cause. It is a selfish grief, because the nation had more to expect from him than from almost any one living. I join in this selfish grief, and add the grief of personal love for the departed. He formed for some time one of my military family. I knew him well : to know him was to love. It may be some consolation to you, his aged grandmother, to know that every officer and every soldier who served under your grandson felt the highest reverence for his patriotism, his zeal, his great almost unequalled ability, and all the manly virtues that GRANT AND REBEL GENERALS. 273 can adorn a commander. Your bereavement is great, but cannot exceed mine. " Yours truly, " U. S. GRANT." Every Rebel Commander hitherto brought in contact with Grant was either captured or conquered. Floyd and Pillow escaped from Donelson to disgrace, and Buckner went North a prisoner of war. Albert Sidney Johnston fell at Shiloh, and Beauregard was superseded in the command of the Rebel Army of the Mississippi soon after the battle. Joseph E. Johnston was foiled in his plans of uniting his forces with those of Pemberton in rear ot Vicksburg, and was finally driven out of the State of Mississippi, while Pemberton shared the fate of the stronghold he defended. Bragg was thoroughly whipped at Chattanooga, and the Government of Jefferson Davis no longer deemed him competent to guard " the heart of the Confederacy." A greater than any of these had now to be met and overcome. At a conference held at Nashville between Grant and Sherman, it was decided that the movements against Richmond and Atalanta should commence simultaneously ; and after visiting the Commanders of the three armies constituting Sherman s military division, Grant returned to the Army of the Potomac to superintend the prepara tions for his own immediate task. The Union and Rebel Armies were reorganized re spectively into three corps. Sedgewick, Hancock, and Warren, under Meade, were Grant s lieutenants ; Long- T 274 ULYSSES S. GRANT. street, Ewell, and Hill were to lead the forces of Lee. All being in readiness, Grant set his columns in motion for the Rapidan on the 4th of May, moving by his left. Sedgewick and Warren crossed at Germania Ford, and Hancock further down the river, at Ely s Ford. The Army of the Potomac, over 100,000 strong, passed the Rapidan in safety, and bivouacked for the night in " the Wilderness," a tract of land entirely covered by dwarfish trees and brushwood, cut up by ravines and narrow streams, and running southward for miles, until the high ground in the neighbourhood of Spottsylvania Court House is reached. At the same time, and in co-operation with Grant s advance, Butler with 30,000 men moved up the James river for the purpose of destroying Lee s communications with the South, whence came his supplies. Seigel and Crook in the Shenandoah and Kanawha valleys, with an aggregate force of 20,000 men, also sounded the advance upon the devoted capital of the Rebellion during the first days in May. Grant s feint on the enemy s left had deceived the Rebel Commander on the Rapidan, and the Union Army crossed the river unopposed. The Union General fully expected to get through the Wilderness, reach the vicinity of Spottsylvania and secure a position, threatening Lee s communications with Richmond, before that General could interfere with the movement. The vigilant Virginian, however, discovered Grant s plan, and his .entire army, over 70,000 strong, was hurried down towards the Union position ; Lee determined to assail Grant s columns in this awful labyrinth, where neither BATTLE OF THE WILDERNESS. 275 cavalry nor artillery could be used against him, and where the knowledge possessed by himself and his army of the ground, its runs, roads, and by-paths, would more than counterbalance his disparity in numbers. Early on the morning of the 5th our army resumed its march, when suddenly and unexpectedly the heads of columns were struck by Ewell and Hill, for Longstreet had not yet arrived, and Grant had no choice but to fight Hancock s advance towards Shady Grove Church was arrested, and he was ordered to come into position on Warren s left. Hill endeavoured to prevent the junction by charging that flank of the 5th Corps. Hancock was in the nick of time. By moving rapidly to the right he connected with Warren s left, the 2nd Corps now becoming the left of the Union line. Grant ordered up Getty s division of the 6th Corps, from the right, to support the hard-pressed left, and Lee s attempt to crowd back Hancock was foiled. Sedgewick, on the right, was deploying his corps, when Ewell s men, concealed by the thick foliage, opened a brisk musketry fire at close range. Our line, preceded by skirmishers, advanced rapidly into the thicket. The men looked anxiously in the direction of the Rebel firing, for not a man or a musket could be seen. Indeed, it was some time before the troops began to realize that their safety required them to fire at the sound, for the want of ocular proof of the presence of their old foe. By three o clock P.M. the 6th Corps was driving the Rebel left. Gordon s division now sought to regain the lost ground, and with partial, though but temporary, advantage, Some of the troops towards the left of the 6th Corps line gave T 2 276 ULYSSES S. GRANT. ground, and the enemy, following up their success, marched triumphantly forward, leaving Russel s brigade in their rear. The right wing of the 5th Wisconsin under Major Totten, in double-skirmish line formation, having checked the enemy s attack on their front, and seeing the Rebels marching past them, came up in rear of the regiment on the enemy s outer flank, and called upon it to surrender. The bewildered Rebels concluded that they were surrounded, threw down their arms, and the 25th Virginia with their colours were marched to the rear as prisoners. Losses were heavy on both sides, in cluding many general officers, but victory could not here be claimed by either army. Night closed in, and the bloody conflict between invisible foes ceased. Grant and Lee were both determined to assault with the morning light. The Union Commander had issued orders for a general advance at five A.M. Lee, however, opened the ball by an effort to turn our right flank, held by the 1st division of the 6th Corps. The attempt, though twice made, was easily repulsed. Our men were driving the enemy everywhere along the line, slowly and for a few hundred yards only on Sedgewick s front, but with more vigour and success by our left under Hancock, where Hill was crowded back nearly two miles. At this critical period, Longstreet s corps from Charlottesville reached the battlefield, and our advance was checked. After a brief pause for reformation, the forces of Hill and Long- street assailed our left furiously, driving Hancock from his conquered ground. Burnside, who had arrived during the night, came to the relief of the 2nd Corps, and Hancock SECOND DA Y S FIGHTING. 277 once more sounded the advance, Hill and Longstreet in turn giving ground, and the latter falling seriously wounded.* The Rebel position was all-important ; the safety of the Army of Northern Virginia demanded that the Union left should be checked. Lee was with his struggling right ; the men, inspired by the presence of their idolized chief, bravely returned to the charge, and Hancock was again driven back. General Wadsworth, a noble son of New York, fell while endeavouring to stem the advancing tide at this point. Burnside now came into position between Hancock and Warren. Another grand assault was made by the Rebel right ; a division of Burn- side s raw troops gave way, and Grant s line was pierced. The enemy rushed through the gap, and the gth Corps was forced back upon the Union centre. The gallant Hancock was again equal to the crisis. He sent a brigade under Carroll to strike the enemy s outer flank; the Rebel lines were rolled up, and hurled back in confusion and with great slaughter. The Union lines were again intact, holding the position whence the advance was made at five o clock in the morning. It was now growing dark ; the most terriffic musketry firing ever heard on the American Continent was gradually dying away, and the Army of the Potomac supposed that the day s bloody work was over. In the meantime, the Rebel General Gordon was forming for a grand final assault on the Union right, his lines virtually enveloping that flank. All was now quiet, * By the fire of his own men, say Rebel reports ; but how any one could know this it is difficult to conjecture. 278 ULYSSES S. GRANT. and the men were endeavouring to recruit their wasted energies with hard bread and uncooked pork, when the well-known yell of defiance broke the comparative still ness of coming night. Seymour s provisional division was vigorously assailed in flank and rear, and quickly disposed of. Shaler s brigade of Wright s division recoiled after receiving the first shock of Gordon s impetuous onset. Sedgewick exerted himself to the utmost to reform what remained of his shattered right. Russel s brigade was rapidly moved into position to receive the triumphant foe; the 5th Wisconsin and 6th Maine, companion regi ments since the summer of 6 1, formed the front line. Gordon s men in grey came rolling along like a wave through the brushwood. " Don t be in a hurry, boys ; let them come well up before you let them have it," said Major Totten. "All right, Major," responded the Western veterans. The alarm, crack ! crack ! is at last sounded by Russel s vedettes. Loud and piercing, the defiant Rebel yell goes forth once more. The well-aimed fire is delivered from Sedgewick s line ; the enemy is staggered, but the second line marches boldly onward. The rattle of musketry is incessant, and Gordon at last recoils. The Union cheer now re-echoed through the dense, forest, and the Rebels are driven from our front. Thus was the right saved ;* and so closed the bloody drama of the 6th of May. * Colonel Chesney, an able English military writer, struggling to be just in spite of his prejudices, while speaking of Gordon s coup de main, in his essay on Grant, says : " As the day closed, however, General Gordon, whose troops formed their extreme left, stole up to GRANT ADVANCES. 279 General Lee forced Grant to accept battle in the Wil derness. The Rebel Commander expected to so cripple the Union Army on his well-chosen ground as to render its withdrawal across the Rapidan imperative upon Grant. Hardly a man in the Army of Northern Virginia " ex pected to see the Federal force on their side of the river at daybreak next morning."* Lee s aggressive war fare had signally failed in its object, for Grant still held his original position, and recrossing the Rapidan occupied no portion of his thoughts. In the morning our skirmishers advanced, and discovered that Lee had retired behind his entrenchments. Leaving the Rebel Army within its works, Grant set his columns in motion for Spottsylvania, to the great and universal satisfaction of the troops, who never relished the retrograde marches which they had made too often. In spite of hunger and fatigue the army was in the best of spirits, and upon reaching the turnpike leading towards Spottsyl vania many of the regiments struck up the old familiar the breastworks which covered Sedgewick s right near the Rapidan, and carried them by a swift surprise, made before the picquets were posted for the night. Great part of two Federal brigades were cap tured, and the rest of the division fled" Shaler s brigade of the 1st Division gave way. The 3rd or Russel s brigade next met the Rebel onslaught, and successfully checked it until Upton s brigade came up and assisted in driving Gordon back. Therefore, the state ment that " the rest of the division fled" is a mistake. It reflects most unjustly on the courage of men as brave as any who ever fought. We know that Colonel Chesney would not consciously state what is not true. * See " A Rebel s Recollections." 280 ULYSSES S. GRANT. negro song, " Ain t I glad to get out of the wilderness ?" The men fervently hoped that they were not again to return till they marched in triumph, to the music of the Union, through the capital of the Rebellion. And so it was. Grant s advance was greatly delayed by obstruc tions in the roads, and Lee, having the inside track, reached the cross-roads at Spottsylvania first. The hostile armies were again facing each other on the Qth : Hancock holding the right, Sedgewick the left, and Warren the centre. Considerable fighting and continuous skirmishing was kept up for two days. Sedgewick fell from the bullet of a concealed rifleman on the Qth, and the 6th Corps lost its able and loved chief. General Wright succeeded to the command, but " Uncle John " was never replaced in the confidence and affection of his men. An unsuccessful effort to turn the enemy s left was made on the loth. Towards evening a more determined assault was made on Lee s right centre by the I st Division of the 6th Corps. The brigades of Russel and Upton moved gallantly forward, and carried the enemy s first line of works, capturing many guns and about I ooo prisoners. But the promised support was not forthcoming, and the victors could do no more than hold their own. Upon being strengthened the Rebels charged down upon this isolated band to recover their ground, and a hand-to-hand conflict ensued, the men fighting with clubbed muskets over the breastwork, and firing between the logs in the parapet. Russel and Upton held their own until darkness BATTLE OF SPOTTSYLVANIA. 281 enabled them to withdraw, when with thinned ranks and heavy hearts, bearing their stunned and wounded with them, the men retired from dearly-bought ground,* and the gallant Totten went bleeding to the rear. On the morning of the I ith General Grant sent to the War Department a bulletin, which has since become famous. It was as follows : " HEAD-QUARTERS IN THE FIELD, May n, 1864, 8 A.M. " We have now ended the sixth day of very heavy fighting. The result to this time is much in our favour. " Our losses have been heavy as well as those of the enemy. I think the loss of the enemy must be greater. * As a few of the soldiers of the 5th Wisconsin were bearing their Sergeant- Major, who was mortally wounded, to the 6th Corps hos pital, they passed Grant, seated upon a log, writing. Just at that instant a shell struck within a few feet of the General ; he coolly looked up, and then went on with his despatch. The men afterwards used to say, " Ulysses don t scare worth a d n." Sergeant-Major Strong was repeatedly wounded during this day s fighting, but refused to leave the field. At last his thighbone was fractured by rifle-balls in two places, and he was carried to the rear as stated. He was recklessly brave on the battlefield ; kind and tender hearted as a woman in camp ; true as steel in his friendship ; and the universal favourite of his regiment. Every effort was made to save his life and limb. The most experienced medical officers of the ist Division conferred over him, and did what was for the best. God bless them for it. A friend was permitted to accompany young Strong to Fredericksburg, where he was placed under the care of the Assistant- Surgeon of his own regiment, and all went well until one night a drunken attendant took the bandage and other appliances from his mangled limb, and death ensued soon after. A brilliant and pro mising young man, and the writer s best friend, was sacrificed through the influence of the accursed drink. 282 UL YSSES S. GRANT. " We have taken over 5000 prisoners by battle, while he has taken from us but few, except stragglers. " I PROPOSE TO FIGHT IT OUT ON THIS LINE, IF IT TAKES ALL SUMMER. " U. S. GRANT, " Lieut.-General Commanding the Armies of the United States." Burnside had by this time arrived, and taken his position on the left of Wright, forming the left of the Union line. Grant spent this day in reconnoitring and feeling for a vulnerable point in the enemy s lines. At last a plan of attack was adopted. Hancock withdrew from the right about midnight, and marched his command to the left of the 6th Corps, and opposite to a sharp angle in the enemy s works on the right under Ewell. Covered by a thick forest, the formation was made for the charge in the morning. All through the night it rained heavily, and the men were drenched to the skin. By daybreak it had ceased to rain, and a thick cloud of fog had settled upon the contending armies. With the first dawn of day, and veiled by the heavy mist, Hancock advanced cautiously through the woods until the open plain in front of the Rebel works was reached, when, with a lusty cheer, the men of the 2nd Corps made a grand spring for the coveted prize. Lee s lines were now broken, Generals Johnson and Stewart, with between three and four thousand prisoners, were captured, together with thirty guns. Indeed, the Rebel Commander himself but barely escaped being made a prisoner. In a despatch to Grant, Hancock, Commander of the 2nd Corps, said : " I ADVANCE TO THE NORTH ANNA. 283 have captured thirty or forty guns ; I have finished up Johnson, and am going into Early." Grant was ready for the emergency. The 6th Corps was at once hastened to the support of the gallant Pennsylvanian. Warren and Burnside were ordered to charge in their respective fronts, but though bravely made these assaults were unsuccessful. The surprise on the Rebel right was now over ; troops were hurried up to recover the lost ground. Hancock went " into Early," but no further progress could be made. Lee now took the offensive, and in five successive charges he sought to dislodge Hancock ; the fighting was here most terrific ; the men characterized it " a perfect hell." Lee failed to recover his lost position, for the 2nd and 6th Corps would not be driven. The Rebel General contracted and strengthened his lines. Grant saw that the position could not be carried by assault, and leaving Lee behind his entrenchments again moved forward* by his left towards North Anna river. The enemy, always occupying a higher elevation than Grant, was able to watch his movements and commence the counter-movement nearly simultaneously with his. Lee s distance from one strategic position to another, on the road to Richmond, was much shorter than Grant s, who was compelled to make wide detours, as well as accommodate the march of his columns to miserable country roads ; therefore the Rebel General could easily reach the coveted position first, even if starting several hours later than Grant. The passage of the North Anna was * Movement commenced on the night of May 2Oth. 284 UL YSSES S. GRANT. effected, and considerable fighting, with varying fortune but without substantial results, took place. The old familiar foe was again found across the high road to the Rebel capital, and ready to dispute with Grant his right of way. Lee s army was strongly posted along the high grounds south of the river and overlooking it. His right flank was protected by an impassable swamp, his left rested on a considerable stream. The position could not be successfully assailed, and Grant withdrew at nightfall* The skill displayed by the Union Commander in manoeu vring a large army in the presence of a vigilant enemy establishes his claim to be ranked among great captains beyond question. Grant again moved by his left, and on the ist of June the 6th Corps reached the vicinity of Cold Harbour, a few miles north of the Chickahominy. The Army of the Potomac was once more amid the scenes of its struggles under McClellan ; but, alas ! how few of the men of 61 answered to their names at roll-call in the summer of 64. The Army of Northern Virginia was found in strong position across the high road to Richmond. Grant and Meade now decided upon an assault, and before sunrise on the 3rd of June the awful charge was made " bravely, firmly, swiftly made and as swiftly repulsed, with terrible slaughter."f Considerable ground was gained by the Union Army, but this was only a trivial reward for over I 3,000 men placed hors de combat. The advanced positions were hastily though but indifferently strength ened, tin plates and bayonets doing duty as picks and * May 26. t Greeley. LOSSES OF THE CAMPAIGN. 285 shovels. Seeing the weakness of these would-be breast works, Lee made a night attack upon Grant s lines, but was easily repulsed. Satisfied that Lee s naturally strong and well-entrenched position could not be carried by storm, Grant resolved to cross the Chickahominy and James rivers, leaving the Rebel Army between him and Washington. It was a bold venture, and caused great anxiety to the Government ; but the Union Commander clearly saw that Lee could not afford to abandon Richmond in order to capture Wash ington, for such a movement would eventuate in the loss of his army. The flank movement across the James was commenced on Sunday night,* and by Wed nesday morning the whole army had passed the river in safety. The separate campaign on the James and in the Shenan- doah Valley, organized to co-operate with Grant s advance, were miserable failures, and the service of 50,000 men were frittered away to no purpose. With Hancock on the James, and Sheridan in the Valley, Richmond would have fallen. From the time he crossed the Rapidanf till he rested his army in front of Petersburg^ his lines extending from the Appomattox river to Hatcher s Run, and holding the Weldon Railroad and the Boyndton Plankroad, by this time wrested from the enemy Grant s losses had reached the appalling aggregate of 70,000 men ; while General Lee, generally fighting behind breastworks, lost June 12. t May 4. J Oct. 28. 286 UL YSSES S. GRANT. only about 40,000 men. Grant captured thirty-two guns, and lost twenty-five. The men lost by Lee could not be replaced without freeing the negroes and making soldiers of them " a thing," says Mr. Eggleston, in his " Rebel s Recollections," " the Confederate Congress was altogether too loftily sen timental to think of for a moment." The North was still strong both in men and supplies. Grant was just where Lee wished him not to be. Communications between the Rebel capital and the South were in constant peril from Grant s designing, dangerous left, and the fate of Rich mond and its army was but a question of time. Towards the end of June General Lee planned another Northern invasion, with a view to forcing Grant to raise the siege of Richmond, his strong defensive lines en abling Lee to hold his own against superior force, and to despatch Early with 20,000 men to scour the Shenandoah Valley, and threaten the Union capital. Driving our small forces before him, Early crossed the Potomac on the 3rd of July. Plundering expeditions were sent out in all directions ; towns were laid under heavy money contributions, while others were burnt to the ground. " The Early bird had caught the Pennsylvania worm :" so went the joke of the day. Maryland Rebels were rejoicing at the near approach of their deliverers. Towards the middle of the month the various detachments from Early s army were con verging upon Washington, expecting to take it at a canter. Crippled and feeble soldiers from hospitals and offices were formed into " Home Guards ;" and by the side of faithful citizens and the garrison they manned the SHERIDAN IN THE VALLEY. 287 defences as best they could, until finally the 6th Corps arrived from Petersburg. These " old soldiers" from the front were loudly cheered as they marched up Fourteenth Street to meet Early. The 6th Corps had always been in the enemy s country ; they expected nothing but sulks from civilians ; and this friendly greeting was welcome music to their ears, and imparted firmness and elasticity to the veteran s tread. Early retired with over 7000 horses and cattle before the superior force of General Wright. The campaign in the Valley was feebly conducted on the side of the Union, until Grant, growing heartily tired of the situation on the Potomac and Shenandoah, placed Sheridan upon the scene at the head of 30,000 men, and gave him the brief, portentous order, " Go IN." Sheridan obeyed the mandate, and sent Early "whirling down the Valley," first from Opequan Creek,* and next from the strongest position in the Valley, on Fisher s Hill,f where the Rebels were thoroughly routed with a loss of nearly all their artillery. The pursuit was vigorous and relent less, and Early and his scattered fugitives were compelled to take to the mountains for safety. Believing the enemy to be now completely whipped, Sheridan encamped his army near the scene of his victory, and went on a flying visit to Washington. Meanwhile, Early, strongly reinforced, and embittered by his recent disasters, again advanced, determined on revenge. Having taken every precaution that all should be done as noise- * Sept. 1 9th. General David A. Russel, who contributed largely to save the Union right in the Wilderness on the 6th of May, was killed on this field. t Sept. 21. 288 ULYSSES S. GRANT. lessly as possible, even to ordering the men to leave their canteens behind, on the night of the 1 8th of October his army, divided into two columns, was moved stealthily, breathlessly, over rugged paths, along the hill-sides, reach ing their respective positions on our flanks and rear with out mishap before daybreak ; while the Federal troops were peacefully sleeping, not even dreaming that an enemy was within miles of Fisher s Hill. Sheridan had returned as far as Winchester, " twenty miles away," little suspecting that Early had crept like a panther around his army, and was then anxiously awaiting the light by which to destroy it. This was the state of affairs when, with a thundering volley, the enemy was hurled against our flanks, taking possession of the rifle- pits, and capturing many prisoners before Sheridan s men were out of their tents. Brigades were hurriedly formed and thrown forward to check the enemy while the 6th Corps formed. Our flanks fell back fighting. General Wright next determined and ordered that the entire army should retire to a more favourable position. By this time we had lost many prisoners and twenty-four pieces of artillery. The favourable breeze in the early morn had brought to Sheridan s experienced ear the sound of cannon, the evidence of battle. He was immediately on his horse, making in all haste for the front, where he arrived by ten o clock. " What was done, what to do, a glance told him both Then striking his spurs with a terrible oath, He dashed down the lines mid a storm of huzzas, And the wave of retreat was checked there, because The sight of the master compelled it to pause." ARRIVAL OF SHERIDAN. 289 The men were electrified by his appearance : he was a host within himself. "Face the other way, boys," said Sheridan, good-naturedly, "we are going back to our old camps ; this would not have happened if I had been with you." And this the troops firmly believed. Having completed his arrangements for a general advance, his cavalry massed on the flanks, ready for the emergency which he expected ; our right wheeled towards the left, while the left and centre moved steadily on. The enemy s first line was soon driven in, and a temporary halt for reformation was ordered. During this pause Sheridan rode along the lines, using strong terms to assure the men of coming victory. Now came the general charge, and the lines moved on with a loud cheer in the face of fifty pieces of artillery, including nearly all the Union guns captured in the morning, and a perfect sheet of infantry fire. The Rebel lines were broken and hurled back in dismay, when our cavalry came down like a torrent upon the retreating foe, and the rout was complete. Our army captured everything on wheels, and destroyed Early s command. Thus did Sheridan, without any reinforcements, turn a decided defeat into a complete and brilliant victory. As the results of these decisive battles in the fertile and beautiful valley of the Shenandoah, gold fell in the market, the credit of the Government improved both at home and abroad, volunteers again swelled the ranks of the Union Army, and the contemplated conscription became unnecessary ; while the Commander of the U 290 ULYSSES S. GRANT. victorious troops was recognised as " one of the ablest of generals." In a despatch to the Secretary of War, dated City Point, Thursday, October 2Oth, Grant said : " I had a salute of one hundred guns from each of the armies here fired in honour of Sheridan s last victory. Turning what bid fair to be a disaster into a glorious victory, stamps Sheridan, what I always thought him, one of the ablest of generals? The overwhelming defeat of McClellan by President Lincoln in the Presidential election of 1864 is the most convincing proof that could be adduced of the determina tion of the North to carry on the war for the Union to a successful issue. At no period since the outbreak of the Rebellion had the Government been so strong as during the winter of 1864-5. The President possessed the con fidence of the people absolutely, and Grant was looked up to by the army and the country as the first of our generals, who thoroughly disbelieved in any rose-water treatment for the pretending Government and its armed forces. Whipping the enemy into a compromise never entered into Grant s thoughts or plans. The soldiers felt this and were inspired ; they confidently believed that the campaign of 1865 would witness the ultimate triumph of our arms. If the press of the South may be taken as an index of Southern opinion, they believed that the independence of the Confederacy would come with the balmy breezes of spring. As early as September, 1864, the Wytheville Dispatch said : " Believing as we do that the war of sub- SOUTHERN PRESS AND THE WAR. 291 jugation is virtually over, we deem it not improper to make a few suggestions relative to the treatment of Yankees after tlie war is over. Our soldiers know how to treat them now, but tJun a different treatment will be necessary," &c. And in the Richmond Examiner of October 7, 1864, we find the following : " Let who will be Yankee President, with the failure of Grant and Sherman this year the war ends. And with Sherman s army already isolated and cut off in Georgia, and Grant unable either to take or besiege Richmond, we have only to make one month s exertion in improving our advantages, and then it may safely be said that the fourth year s campaign, and with it the war itself, is one gigantic failure." And that Pro- Slavery patriot, John Mitchell, in writing the obituary notice of the editor of the Richmond Examiner, after Lee s lines around Petersburg had been broken, " expressed regret that the great Virginian (J. M. Daniel) had passed away just as the decisive victory was likely to give the turning-point to the success of the Southern Confederacy."* Mitchell wrote while under the delusion that Lee had achieved a great triumph over Grant. More faithful was Grant s portrayal of the condition of the South as the end drew near. " They have robbed the cradle and the grave equally," said he in a letter to Washburne, " to get their present force. Besides what they lose in frequent skirmishes and battles, they are now losing from desertions and other causes at least one regiment per day. With this drain upon them the * Headley s " Life of Grant." U 2 292 UL YSSES S. GRANT. end is not far distant, if we will only be true to our selves." The cloud of despondency was indeed lowering upon the Rebel camp. The men saw that the salvation of their cause was beyond the reach of human aid, and called for the interposition of Almighty God. A great " revival " spread like wildfire over the camp of the Army of Northern Virginia. The Southern officer already quoted says : " Prayer-meetings were held in every tent. Testaments were in every hand, and a sort of religious ecstasy took possession of the army. The men had ceased to rely upon the skill of our leaders or the strength of our army for success, and not a few of them hoped now for a miraculous interposition of supernatural power in our behalf. " What cared they for the failure of mere human efforts, when they were persuaded that through such failures God was leading us to ultimate victory ? Disaster seemed only to strengthen the faith of many. They saw in it a needed lesson in humility, and an additional reason for believing that God meant to bring about victory by His own and not by human strength." The last campaign of the war in Virginia was in augurated by Sheridan and his 10,000 horse, in the Shenandoah Valley. By command of Grant he started from Winchester on the 2/th of February, upon a raid against Lee s communications southward, with the under standing that he should join Sherman s army, by this time in North Carolina, if he deemed such a movement practi cable. SHERIDAN S RAID. 293 By pushing rapidly up the valley, the great Northern Cavalier overtook poor Early at Waynesboro , and com pletely annihilated his command of 3000 men, capturing two-thirds of the Rebel force, eleven guns, and seventeen battle-flags. He then struck boldly onward, destroying the James River Canal, the Lynchburg railroad, factories, depots, and bridges ; and finally, having failed to reach Sherman in North Carolina on account of high water in the James, he joined Grant before Petersburg by way of White House. President Lincoln was with the Commander-in-Chief at this time and until Richmond fell, and he witnessed the Union raiders crossing the James to join the Army of the Potomac, and to take a prominent part in the final over throw of Lee and his army. Sherman left Goldsbro upon a visit to Grant s head quarters at City Point, where a conference was held by the President and his Generals concerning the spring campaign, after which Sherman at once returned to his army. The withdrawal of Lee from his defences protecting the capital of the Confederacy, and his junction with Joe Johnston confronting Sherman, was what Grant feared, and determined to prevent if possible. He issued his orders for a general movement by his left, to commence on the 2 Qth, for the purpose of severing Lee s communications southward. Lee anticipated the movement. That he remained on the James long after the safety of his army demanded the abandonment of that line, is incontrovertible. At last he decided to strike a blow, intended to insure his escape. At early morning, on the 25th of March, a force 294 ULYSSES S. GRANT. under General Gordon charged across the narrow space which separated the hostile lines, and surprised and captured Fort Steedman. But Lee s reserve force of 20,000 men failed to support the assaulting column, and the temporary advantage proved a permanent loss. The Union guns from the right and left were at once turned upon the captured fort. And when Hartranft s division charged and recaptured the Federal fort, 2000 of Gordon s men surrendered rather than run the gauntlet to their own lines over ground enfiladed by Grant s artillery. The advance of the Union Army commenced as intended on the 29th. Three divisions under Ord were withdrawn from north of the James river two days previously, to participate in the campaign, leaving Weitzel with three divisions to threaten Longstreet " to speak daggers, but to use none." The Qth Corps, under General Parke, was left to guard the entire line of works then held by the Army of the Potomac, while the bulk of the army moved towards the left, " for the double purpose of turning the enemy out of his position around Petersburg, and to insure the success of the cavalry under General Sheridan, who will start at the same time, in his efforts to reach and destroy the south side railroads."* Sheridan, with 10,000 cavalry, acting under special instructions from Grant, reached Dun- widdie Court House, where he remained till morning, while the 2nd and 5th Corps struggled resolutely through the dense forests in search of Lee s right. Some heavy skirmishing was the extent of this day s fighting. By a * Grant s order for the campaign. THE LAST CAMPAIGN. 295 sudden inspiration, which is indeed the evidence of genius, Grant now ordered his lieutenant to abandon the raid upon the southern railroads. In his note to Sheridan, com municating his change of plan, he said : " / now feel like ending the matter, if it is possible to do so, before going back. I do not want you, therefore, to cut loose and go after the enemy s roads .at present. In the morning push around the enemy and get on his right rear. We will act together as one army here, until it is seen what can be done with the enemy." Early next morning Sheridan moved his columns in ward, driving the enemy without much fighting to Five Forks, where he was found too strongly entrenched to warrant an assault, and the Union General rode back to Dunwiddie Court House for the night. The infantry manoeuvres were made under the personal direction of Grant. Warren was ordered to support the cavalry move ment, and by Grant s order his corps became a part of Sheridan s force, and subject to his orders, for the time being. Grant s object was to get a hold of the enemy s right. Upon discovering the designs of his adversary, Lee stripped his lines to the lowest point consistent with the safety of his defence, and hastened to the support of his right. Sheridan again advanced* with infantry and cavalry upon Five Forks, and carried this important junc tion of roads. Lee s reinforcements had arrived ere this, and as Warren was advancing to take possession of White Oak Road his divisions under Ayres and Crawford were * March 31. 296 UL YSSES S. GRANT. successively taken in flank and thrown back in disorder. The Rebel onset next fell on Griffin s division, in position on more open ground, and the enemy in turn recoiled before a deadly fire. A counter-charge was now made by Warren s men, supported by an attack upon the Rebel left by a division of the 2nd Corps ; the enemy was driven back to his entrenchments along White Oak Road, with a loss of four flags and many prisoners. Lee now turned his attention to Sheridan, by this time in possession of Five Forks, and drove the Union cavalry from the position. The enemy, under Pickett and Johnson, followed up their advantages vigorously, and Devin s cavalry division was cut off and pursued. Sheridan now charged the Rebel rear with two brigades of cavalry demanding the attention of the enemy, and enabling Devin to rejoin the main force un molested. Sheridan was now assailed, but by dismount ing his cavalry he held the Rebels in check, and reached his hurriedly-built breastworks, where, fighting dismounted, Sheridan s troopers repelled a determined assault made by a greatly superior force of infantry equal to the best in the Rebel Army. Lee s movement had severed Sheridan s connexion with his infantry support, and the safety of his subordinate caused great anxiety to Grant. Warren was ordered to the rescue, and Ayres s division reached Sheridan s lines about one o clock A.M.,* after a tedious march over muddy roads and through swollen streams ; for rain had been falling during most of the time since * April i. LEES LINES BROKEN. 297 Grant s advance began. The enemy commenced to fall back towards their entrenched position at Five Forks soon after midnight. Sheridan followed vigorously at daylight, and was threatening the Rebel position at Five Forks by two P.M. Warren s corps was again with the cavalry, and formed so as to strike the left of the Rebel position. A division of horse was sent to harass the enemy s right, while dismounted cavalry pressed the centre. The enemy, conscious of his critical situation, refused both flanks and entrenched ; but at dark the 5th Corps assailed the Rebel left, crowding that wing back in confusion ; the cavalry responded by charging over the front and outer flank, completely routing the forces of Pickett and Johnson with a loss of several batteries and over 5000 prisoners ; and Lee s right was wrenched from him by Grant s relentless efforts. This was the beginning of the end. That night the Union guns opened along the entire line. The sky was fairly illuminated by shot and shell, as they went screech ing through the air with lightning speed upon their mission of destruction. Men stood around in silent groups watching the fiery arches formed by these messengers of death, whilst others discussed the probable nature of the hot work evidently at hand. At eleven o clock the corps of Wright, Parke, and Ord were marched outside the lines in their respective fronts, and formed for the grand assault upon the enemy s defences around Petersburg. The sound of artillery had entirely ceased ; nothing but an occasional crack from the anxious and ever-vigilant picket disturbed the stillness of the night, as the heavy, black masses of 298 UL YSSES S. GRANT. armed men awaited the order to spring upon the Rebel works. With the grey of the morning the sudden sound of the signal-gun brought the troops to " attention ;" and, with a loud, continued cheer, they swept over the open space, the 6th Corps rushing through or tearing away the lines of abattis, and finally crowning the Rebel works, capturing many guns and thousands of prisoners. Parke and Ord were also successful. Lee s position was no longer tenable, and he telegraphed to the President of the tottering Confederacy these portentous words : " My lines are broken in three places. Richmond must be evacuated this evening." The message was handed to Mr. Davis in church during morning service. No prophet was here necessary to decipher the handwriting. The conscience of the ambitious man whispered in his ear, " God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it." As if by magic, Richmond became the scene of plunder, pillage, and confusion. Late in the night warehouses and bridges were fired, and the steamboats on the James were blown to the skies, by order of Rebel General Ewell. The heart of the city of Richmond was one immense con flagration. General Weitzel, commanding Grant s forces north of the James, entered the town with his troops on the following morning. The fire was extinguished by Federal soldiers, and the flag hauled down at Sumter was unfurled over the late Rebel Capitol. Lee directed his shattered retreating columns, now reduced to less than 40,000 men, to concentrate on Amelia Court House, where a train of provisions had been collected by the General for his ill-rationed army. FLIGHT OF PRESIDENT DA VIS. 299 " But the President and his followers," says an officer of Lee s army, " were in haste to leave the capital, and needed the train ; wherefore it was not allowed to remain at Amelia Court House long enough to be unloaded, but was hurried on to Richmond, where its cargo was thrown out to facilitate the flight of the President and his personal followers, while the starving army was left to suffer in an utterly exhausted country, with no source of supply any where within its reach. The surrender of the army was already inevitable, it is true, but that fact in no way justifies this last crowning act of selfishness and cruelty." Lee remained at Amelia Court House during the 4th and 5th, endeavouring to procure food for his half-starved followers. Meanwhile Sheridan, leaving the enemy on his right, pushed forward to Jetersville, and entrenched himself across Lee s road to Danville. Grant, with two corps of infantry, joined Sheridan before dark. During the night, the enemy, well knowing every road and path, by a wide detour to the right passed Grant s left and continued the retreat. But Sheridan s sleepless vigilance and un paralleled vigour would not be baulked. Forging ahead with his cavalry, he charged the Rebel infantry with a single brigade, and compelled them to make a stand. A mounted division under Custer was now impelled forward. Lee s line was pierced, with a loss of four hundred waggons and sixteen guns, and Ewell s corps was cut ofT. By forced marches, continued through the previous night, with empty stomachs and still emptier haversacks, Wright s corps reached Sailors Creek on the afternoon of the 6th. Ewell s position was well chosen, along a ridge covered with 300 UL YSSES S. GRANT, timber and brush, and skirted by a swamp. A charge was at once made. The genial and gallant Wheaton crowded back the enemy from the ridge in the most approved style. The third brigade, upon gaining a strip of timber extending to the enemy s left, drove in that flank. Ewell and his staff, seeing the hopelessness of resistance, endeavoured to escape, but were overhauled by the skirmishers of the 5th Wisconsin. Custer s cavalry now charged from the rear, down through the hard wood forest, and over six thousand Rebels threw down their arms. The resolution of Grant and the enthusiasm of Sheridan were emulated by every subordinate officer and soldier. As Edwards s (Russel s old) brigade was advancing in line upon the enemy s position, the troops passed Sheridan and Wright standing by an old ruin, with not even a picket line between them and Ewell s skirmishers close at hand. General Allen rode his horse in front of his line in the thickest of the fight, and the regimental colours were borne swiftly onward to the skirmish line in spite of every caution to keep in the line of battle. Lee crossed the Appomattox near Farmville that night, but the 2nd Corps overtook him at daybreak, in time to save the bridge and cause him to abandon eighteen pieces of artillery. Satisfied that the fate of the Army of Northern Vir ginia was sealed, Grant despatched a considerate note to Lee asking for its surrender, thus sparing Lee the humilia tion of being the first to broach a subject so fraught with pain and anguish. Grant wrote as follows : GRANT ASKS LEE TO SURRENDER. 301 " April Jth, 1865. " GENERAL, The result of the last week must con vince you of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia in this struggle. " I feel that it is so, and regard it as my duty to shift from myself the responsibility of any further effusion of blood by asking of you the surrender of that portion of the Confederate States Army, known as the Army of Northern Virginia. " U. S. GRANT, Lieut-General. " General R. E. Lee." Grant s note reached Lee that night soon after he had repelled a charge by the Union advance under Humphrey. The Rebel Commander made the following reply, and then resumed the retreat towards Lynchburg : "April >jth, 1865. " GENERAL, I have received your note of this date. Though not entirely of the opinion you express of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia, I reciprocate your desire to avoid useless effusion of blood, and therefore, before considering your proposition, ask the terms you will offer on condition of its surrender. " R. E. LEE, General." Grant immediately replied as follows : " April Stk, 1865. " GENERAL, Your note of last evening in reply to mine of same date, asking the conditions on which I will 302 ULYSSES S. GRANT. accept the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, is just received. " In reply I would say that, peace being my first desire, there is but one condition that I insist upon, viz. : " That the men surrendered shall be disqualified for taking up arms against the Government of the United States until properly exchanged. " I will meet you, or designate officers to meet any officers you may name for the same purpose, at any point agreeable to you for the purpose of arranging definitely the terms upon which the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia will be received. " U. S. GRANT, Lieut-General. " General R. E. Lee." Sheridan deceived for a time with the idea that Dan ville was Lee s objective point was again in front of the enemy on the 8th, while Grant hastened up the infantry. Supplies for Lee s army had reached Appomattox station. Sheridan knew this through his well-organized scouts, and a mounted force under Custer by a swift march of twenty- eight miles surrounded the station, and captured and secured the supply train. The combined forces of Custer and Devin now hastened back towards the main body, but soon fell in with the retreating forces. Sharp fighting ensued, and Lee s van guard was driven back, losing twenty-five guns and many prisoners. LEE ON THE SITUATION. 303 In the evening Lee sent the following response to Grant s letter of that morning : " April Wi, 1865. " GENERAL, I received at a late hour your note of to-day. In mine of yesterday I did not intend to pro pose the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, but to ask the terms of your proposition. To be frank, I do not think the emergency has arisen to call for the surrender of this army ; but, as the restoration of peace should be the sole object of all, I desire to know whether your proposals would tend to that end. I cannot, therefore, meet you with a view to surrender the Army of Northern Virginia ; but, as far as your proposal may affect the Confederate States forces under my command, and tend to the restoration of peace, I should be pleased to meet you at ten A.M. to-morrow on the old stage-road to Richmond, between the picket lines of the two armies. " R. E. LEE, General C.S.A. " Lieut-General U. S. Grant." If General Lee was " frank" in saying that the emer gency calling for the surrender of his Army had not arisen, he was about the only man in either army who entertained those views. A council of his chief officers had considered the chances of escape on the night of the 6th, and concluded that a surrender was inevitable. General Pendleton conveyed the judgment of the council to the Confederate Commander. Grant broke through the Rebel lines on the 2nd. Within two days Lee s army was " entirely without food." At 304 ULYSSES S. GRANT. Richmond, at Danville, at Lynchburg, there were stores in abundance, and yet the Army of Northern Virginia commenced its retreat with empty haversacks. Who was to blame ? When the campaign began Lee had 64,000 men on his rolls. Within a week s time his army was thoroughly demoralized and disorganized. " Companies were mixed together," says a Southern officer and an eyewitness, "parts of each being separated by detach ments of others. . . . Many commanders marched heed lessly on without orders, and seemingly without a thought of whither they were going. Others mistook the mean ing of their orders, and still others had instructions which it was impossible to obey in any case." Lee was the descendant of a noble name of Revolutionary memory ; he was beyond question an able captain, and as a defensive General his superior was probably never seen. During a career in the Union Army extending through the entire war, and from the close of the struggle to the present day, we never heard an unkind word spoken of Robert E. Lee by a Union soldier; and yet we fail to see the hand of Hannibal, or Napoleon, or Caesar, or Blucher* in this needlessly hungry army, already dis organized into a crowd : a brave crowd, well we know and cheerfully we admit, but a crowd notwithstanding. Grant pressed forward his infantry all through the night ; he had reached the appointed spot near the memorable Court House within supporting distance of Sheridan, and was at last ready for the work of capture English military writers make these comparisons. LEE S LAST CHARGE, 305 or destruction, which he sought to avoid. Before daylight he made the following reply to Lee ; " April 9th, 1865. " GENERAL, Your note of yesterday is received. As I have no authority to treat upon the subject of peace, the meeting proposed for ten A.M. could lead to no good. I will state, however, General, that I am equally anxious for peace with yourself, and the whole North entertains the same feeling. The terms upon which peace can be had are well understood. By the South laying down their arms they will hasten that most desirable event, save thousands of human lives, and hundreds of millions of property not yet destroyed. Seriously hoping that all our difficulties will be settled without the loss of another life, I subscribe myself, &c., " U. S. GRANT, " Lieut-General U.S. Army. " General R. E. Lee." Lee, with the sad remnant of a once proud army, was at Appomattox Court House, with his retreat cut off, and confronted by Sheridan fighting dismounted. It was here that the great Virginian ordered his LAST CHARGE, to drive the Federals from his path and front. Gordon advanced gallantly, but was stubbornly held by our dismounted cavalry, who, as soon as our infantry were formed, assem bled on the right. At the sight of our double lines of glistening bayonets, the brave, overpowered foe recoiled ; X 306 UL YSSES S. GRANT, the white flag was displayed, and General Lee requested an interview in the following letter, which Grant received when riding to Sheridan s head-quarters : * " April gth, 1865. " GENERAL, I received your note of this morning on the picket line whither I had come to meet you, and ascer tain definitely what terms were embraced in your pro position of yesterday with reference to the surrender of this army. " I now request an interview in accordance with the offer contained in your letter of yesterday for that purpose. " R. E. LEE, General. " To General U. S. Grant. Grant replied immediately as follows : " April gtk, 1865. "GENERAL, Your note of this date is but this moment, 11.50 A.M., received. " In consequence of my having passed from the Rich mond and Lynchburg road to the Farmville and Rich mond road, I am at this writing about four miles west of Walter s Church, and will push forward to the front for the purpose of meeting you, " Notice sent to me, on this road, w r here you wish the interview to take place will meet me. " U. S. GRANT, Lieut-General. " General R. E. Lee." THE SURRENDER. 307 The Confederate Commander was resting under the historic apple-tree, attended by Colonel Marshall of his staff, when Colonel Babcock rode up and stated that Grant was coming up the road and would soon join them. Lee directed Colonel Marshall to find a house in which to receive the Union General. And the memorable meeting between the great commanders took place in the unpre tending dwelling of Mr. W. McLean, near the Court House. Grant was attended by Sheridan and several of the officers of his staff. Observing that Lee wore his sword, Grant said : " I must apologize, General, for not wearing my sword ; it had gone off with my baggage when I received your note." The business of the sur render was then treated, ably and frankly ; and was con cluded by the following letters : "APPOMATTOX COURT HOUSE, April yh, 1865. " General R. E. Lee, Commanding C.S.A. " GENERAL, In accordance with the substance of my letters to you of the 8th inst, I propose to receive the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia on the following terms, to wit : " Rolls of all the officers and men to be made in duplicate, one copy to be given to an officer designated by me, the other to be retained by such officer or officers as you may designate. " The officers to give their individual paroles not to take arms against the United States until properly exchanged ; X 2 3o8 ULYSSES S. GRANT, and each company or regimental commander sign a like parole for the men of their commands. " The arms, artillery, and public property to be parked and stacked, and turned over to the officers appointed by me to receive them. " This will not embrace the side-arms of the officers, nor their private horses or baggage. " This done, each officer and man will be allowed to return to his home, not to be disturbed by the United States authority so long as they observe their paroles and the laws in force where they may reside. " Very respectfully, " U. S. GRANT, Lieut.-General." General Lee s reply was as follows : " HEAD-QUARTERS ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA, April qth, 1865. " Lieut.-General U. S. Grant, Commanding U.S.A. " GENERAL, I have received your letter of this date, containing the terms of surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, as proposed by you. " As they are substantially the same as those ex pressed in your letter of the 8th inst, they are accepted. I will proceed to designate the proper officers to carry the stipulations into effect. " R. E. LEE, General." MEETING OF GRANT AND LEE. 309 Lee received Grant with the great respect due to his fame and position ; and while the letters the drafts of which the Generals had written out were being copied, the two Commanders talked familiarly over old friends and other fields in the Union Army, and their hearts warmed, for they had fought together under the same flag, far away in the past, before the fatal policy propagated by South Carolina came to lead good men astray. The kindness and delicacy with which Grant acted towards the conquered General sheds an undying lustre upon the conqueror s name. And his bounteous generosity towards his prisoners is still held in grateful remembrance by the men whom he fed, and to whom he furnished transporta tion to their homes, and to the anxious hearts awaiting them, all over the " sunny South." Lee took leave of his army in the following manly words : " Men, we have fought through the War together. I have done the best that I could for you."* And as he turned away, there was not a dry eye in the Army of Northern Virginia. Grant s task was accomplished. The Slave Power was crushed, and millions were made free ; the " State Rights " heresy was blasted, never more to raise its suicidal head ; Government of the People was vindicated, and the supremacy of the Union maintained. The military genius of Hannibal and Napoleon we cannot claim for the Western General. With Washington, the * For Grant s farewell address to his army, see Appendix I. 3io ULYSSES S. GRANT. founder of America, and Wellington, the saviour of Europe, better men and names to freemen dearer, Grant will find a place. And from this illustrious company his light will shine down through future ages, a warning to conspirators, to freemen a pledge, and to the oppressed a beacon of hope. The grade of General was created by the American Congress for the purpose of doing honour to Grant, and the new rank was conferred upon the most successful soldier of the war July 25th, 1866. He was inaugurated President of the United States March 4th, 1869, and re- inaugurated March 4th, 1873. APPENDIX. A. LINCOLN S FAVOURITE POEM. IMMORTALITY, BY WILLIAM KNOX. OH ! why should the spirit of mortal be proud ? Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, He passeth from life to his rest in the grave. The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, Be scattered around, and together be laid ; And the young and the old, and the low and the high, Shall moulder to dust, and together shall lie. The infant a mother attended and loved ; The mother, that infant s affection who proved ; The husband, that mother and infant who blest, Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest. The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye, Shone beauty and pleasure her triumphs are by ; And the memory of those who loved her and praised, Are alike from the minds of the living erased. 312 APPENDIX. The hand of the king, that the sceptre hath borne, The brow of the priest, that the mitre hath worn, The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave, Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave. The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap, The herdsman who climbed with his goats up the steep, The beggar who wandered in search of his bread, Have faded away like the grass that we tread. The saint, who enjoyed the communion of heaven, The sinner, who dared to remain unforgiven, The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just, Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust. So the multitude goes like the flower or the weed, That withers away to let others succeed ; So the multitude comes even those we behold, To repeat every tale that has often been told. For we are the same our fathers have been ; We see the same sights our fathers have seen, We drink the same stream, we view the same sun, And run the same course our fathers have run. The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think ; From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink : To the life we are clinging, they also would cling But it speeds from us all like a bird on the wing. They loved but the story we cannot unfold ; They scorned but the heart of the haughty is cold ; They grieved but no wail from their slumber will come ; They joyed but the tongue of their gladness is dumb. They died ay, they died we things that are now, That walk on the turf that lies over their brow, APPENDIX. 313 And make in their dwellings a transient abode, Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road. Yea ! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain, Are mingled together in sunshine and rain ; And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge, Still follow each other, like surge upon surge. Tis the wink of an eye tis the draught of a breath, From the blossom of health to the paleness of death, From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud Oh ! why should the spirit of mortal be proud ? 3H APPENDIX. B. LINCOLN S FIRST EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. I, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States of America, and Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy thereof, do hereby proclaim and declare that here after, as heretofore, the war will be prosecuted for the object of practically restoring the constitutional relation between the United States and each of the States, and the people thereof, in which States that relation is or may be suspended or disturbed. That it is my purpose, upon the next meeting of Congress, to again recommend the adoption of a practical measure tendering pecuniary aid to the free acceptance or rejection of all Slave States, so called, the people whereof may not then be in rebellion against the United States, and which States may then have voluntarily adopted, or thereafter may voluntarily adopt, immediate or gradual abolishment of slavery within their respective limits ; and that the effort to colonize persons of African descent, with their consent, upon this continent or else where, with the previously obtained consent of the governments existing there, will be continued. That on the 1st day of January, in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all APPENDIX. 315 persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thence forward, and for ever free ; and the Executive Govern ment of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognise and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. That the Executive will, on the 1st day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof respectively shall then be in rebellion against the United States ; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States, by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States. That attention is hereby called to an Act of Congress, entitled " An Act to make an additional Article of War," approved March I3th, 1862, and which Act is in the words and figures following : "Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Represen tatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That hereafter the following shall be pro mulgated as an additional Article of War for the govern- APPENDIX. ment of the Army of the United States, and shall be obeyed and observed as such : "SECTION i. All officers or persons in the military or naval service of the United States are prohibited from employing any of the forces under their respective com mands, for the purpose of returning fugitives from service or labour, who may have escaped from any persons to whom such service or labour is claimed to be due ; and any officer who shall be found guilty by a court-martial of violating this article shall be dismissed from the ser vice. " SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That this Act shall take effect from and after its passage." Also, to the Qth and I oth Sections of an Act, entitled "An Act to suppress Insurrection, to punish Treason and Rebellion, to Seize and Confiscate Property of Rebels, and for other purposes," approved July i6th, 1862, and which sections are in the words and figures following : " SEC. 9. And be it further enacted, That all slaves of persons who shall hereafter be engaged in rebellion against the Government of the United States, or who shall in any way give aid or comfort thereto, escaping from such persons and taking refuge within the lines of the army ; and all slaves captured from such persons, or deserted by them and coming under the control of the Government of the United States ; and all slaves of such persons found on [or] being within any place occupied by Rebel forces and afterwards occupied by forces of the United States, shall be deemed captives of war, and shall be for APPENDIX. 317 ever free of their servitude, and not again held as slaves. "SEC. 10. And be it further enacted, That no slave escaping into any State, Territory, or the District of Columbia, from any other State, shall be delivered up, or in any way impeded or hindered of his liberty, except for crime, or some offence against the laws, unless the person claiming said fugitive shall first make oath that the person to whom the labour or service of such fugitive is alleged to be due is his lawful owner, and has not borne arms against the United States in the present Rebellion, nor in any way given aid and comfort thereto ; and no person engaged in the military or naval service of the United States shall, under any pretence whatever, assume to decide on the validity of the claim of any person to the service or labour of any other person, or surrender up any such person to the claimant, on pain of being dismissed from the service." And I do hereby enjoin upon and order all persons engaged in the military and naval service of the United States to observe, obey, and enforce, within their re spective spheres of service, the Act and Sections above recited. And the Executive will, in due time, recommend that all citizens of the United States who shall have remained loyal thereto throughout the Rebellion, shall (upon the restoration of the constitutional relation between the United States and their respective States and people, if that relation shall have been suspended or disturbed) be com- 3i8 APPENDIX, pensated for all losses by acts of the United States, in cluding the loss of slaves. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the city of Washington, this . Twenty-second day of September, in the year 1^<$M of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-seventh. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, By the President : WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State, APPENDIX. 319 c. LINCOLN S PROCLAMATION MAKING THE SLAVES FREE. WHEREAS, on the 22nd day of September, in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit : " That on the I st day of January, in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and for ever free ; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognise and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. " That the Executive will, on the I st day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof respectively shall then be in rebellion against the United States ; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States, by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have 320 APPENDIX. participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States." Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and Government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebel lion, do, on this 1st day of January, in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly pro claimed for the full period of one hundred days from the day first above-mentioned, order and designate, as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit : Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jeffer son, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assump tion, Terre Bonne, Lafourche, Ste. Marie, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued. APPENDIX. 321 And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be, free ; and that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognise and maintain the freedom of said persons : And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence ; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labour faithfully for reasonable wages : And I further declare and make known that such per sons, of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States, to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service : And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military neces sity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favour of Almighty God. In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my name, and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this 1st day of January, in the year of our Lord MLS?) O ne thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-seventh. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By the President : WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State. Y 322 APPENDIX. D. THE "MONROE DOCTRINE." Extract from PRESIDENT MONROE S Annual Message, Washington, Dec. 2, 1823. " IN the wars of the European Powers, in matters relating to themselves, we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy so to do. It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparations for our defence. With the movements in this hemisphere we are, of necessity, more immediately connected, and by causes which must be obvious to all enlightened and impartial observers. The political system of the Allied Powers is essentially different in this respect from that of America. This difference proceeds from that which exists in their respective Governments ; and to the defence of our own, which has been achieved by the loss of so much blood and treasure, and matured by the wisdom of their most enlightened citizens, and under which we have enjoyed unexampled felicity, this whole nation is devoted. " We owe it, therefore, to candotir, and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those Powers, to declare that we shotild consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere, as dangerous to our peace and safety* The italics are ours. APPENDIX. 323 " With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European Power we have not interfered, and shall not interfere ; but with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose in dependence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any inter position for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European Power, in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States. " In the war between those new Governments and Spain, we declared our neutrality at the time of their recognition ; and to this we have adhered, and shall continue to adhere, provided no change shall occur which, in the judgment of the competent authorities of this Government, shall make a corresponding change on the part of the United States indispensable to their security." Y 2 324 APPENDIX. E. SECRETARY STANTON S Letter to CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, United States Minister, London, announcing the Death of President Lincoln, and the A ttempt to take the Life of Secretary Seward. " SIR, It has become my distressing duty to announce to you that last night his Excellency Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, was assassinated about the hour of half-past ten o clock, in his private box at Ford s Theatre in this city. The President, about eight o clock, accompanied Mrs. Lincoln to the theatre. Another lady and gentleman were with them in the box. About half- past ten, during a pause in the performance, the assassin entered the box, the door of which was unguarded, hastily approached the President from behind, and discharged a pistol at his head. The bullet entered the back of his head, and penetrated nearly through. The assassin then leaped from the box upon the stage, brandishing a large knife or dagger, and exclaiming, Sic semper tyrannis f and escaped in the rear of the theatre. Immediately upon the discharge, the President fell to the floor insensible, and continued in that state until twenty minutes past seven o clock this morning, when he breathed his last. About the same time the murder was being committed at the theatre, another assassin presented himself at the door of Mr. Seward s residence, gained admission by representing he had a prescription from Mr. Seward s physician, which he was directed to see administered, and APPENDIX. 325 hurried up to the third-storey chamber, where Mr. Seward was lying. He here discovered Mr. Frederick Seward, struck him over the head, inflicting several wounds, and fracturing his skull in two places, inflicting, it is feared, mortal wounds. He then rushed into the room where Mr. Seward was in bed, attended by a young daughter and a male nurse ; the male attendant was stabbed through the lungs, and it is believed will die. The assassin then struck Mr. Seward with a knife or dagger twice in the throat and twice in the face, inflicting terrible wounds. By this time Major Seward, eldest son of the Secretary, and another attendant, reached the room, and rushed to the rescue of the Secretary ; they were also wounded in the conflict, and the assassin escaped. No artery or important bloodvessel was severed by any of the wounds inflicted upon him, but he was for a long time insensible from the loss of blood. Some hope of his possible recovery is entertained. Immediately upon the death of the Presi dent, notice was given to Vice-President Johnson, who happened to be in the city, and upon whom the office of President now devolves. He will take the office and assume the functions of President to-day. The murderer of the President has been discovered, and evidence obtained that these horrible crimes were committed in execution of a conspiracy deliberately planned and set on foot by Rebels, under pretence of avenging the South and aiding the Rebel cause ; but it is hoped that the imme diate perpetrators will be caught. The feeling occasioned by these outrageous crimes is so great, sudden, and over whelming, that I cannot at present do more than commu- 326 APPENDIX. nicate them to you. At the earliest moment yesterday the President called a Cabinet meeting, at which General Grant was present. He was more cheerful and happy than I had ever seen him, rejoiced at the near prospect of firm and durable peace at home and abroad, manifested in a marked degree the kindness and humanity of his dis position, and the tender and forgiving spirit that so emi nently distinguished him. Public notice had been given that he and General Grant would be present at the theatre, and the opportunity of adding the Lieutenant- General to the number of victims to be murdered was no doubt seized for the fitting occasion of executing the plans that appear to have been in preparation for some weeks ; but General Grant was compelled to be absent, and thus escaped the designs upon him. It is needless for me to say anything in regard to the influence which this atrocious murder of the President may exercise upon the affairs of this country ; but I will only add that, horrible as are the atrocities that have been resorted to by the enemies of the country, they are not likely in any degree to impair the public spirit or postpone the complete final overthrow of the Rebellion. In profound grief for the events which it is my duty to communicate to you, " I have the honour to be, " Very respectfully, " Your obedient Servant, " EDWIN M. STANTON. " To Charles Francis Adams, London." APPENDIX. 327 F. SPEECH OF SENATOR DOUGLAS. In a speech delivered at Chicago, May ist, 1861, Mr. Douglas said : ". . . . I will not conceal gratification at the incontro vertible test this vast audience presents that what political differences or party questions may have divided us, yet you all had a conviction that when the country should be in danger, my loyalty could be relied on. That the present danger is imminent no man can conceal. If war must come if the bayonet must be used to maintain the Constitution I can say before God my conscience is clear. I have struggled long for a peaceful solution of the difficulty. I have not only tendered those States what was theirs of right, but I have gone to the very extreme of magnanimity. " The return we receive is war, armies marched upon our capital, obstructions and dangers to our navigation, letters of marque to invite pirates to prey upon our com merce, a concerted movement to blot out the United States of America from the map of the globe. The ques tion is, Are we to maintain the country of our fathers, or allow it to be stricken down by those who, when they can no longer govern, threaten to destroy ? # # * * # " There has never been a time, from the day that 328 APPENDIX. Washington was inaugurated first President of these United States, when the rights of the Southern States stood firmer under the laws of the land than they do now; there never was a time when they had not as good a cause for disunion as they have to-day. What good cause have they now that has not existed under every Administra tion ? " If they say the Territorial Question now, for the first time, there is no Act of Congress prohibiting Slavery anywhere. If it be the non-enforcement of the laws, the only complaints that I have heard have been of the too vigorous and faithful fulfilment of the Fugitive Slave Law. Then what reason have they ? " The Slavery question is a mere excuse. The election of Lincoln is a mere pretext. The present Secession movement is the result of an enormous conspiracy formed more than a year since formed by leaders in the Southern Confederacy more than twelve months ago. " They use the Slavery question as a means to aid the accomplishment of their ends. They desired the election of a Northern candidate by a sectional vote in order to show that the two sections cannot live together. When the history of the two years from the Lecompton Charter down to the Presidential Election shall be written, it will be shown that the scheme was deliberately made to break up the Union. " But this is no time for a detail of causes. The con spiracy is now known. Armies have been raised, war is levied to accomplish it. There are only two sides to the question. APPENDIX. 329 " Every man must be for the United States or against it. There can be no neutrals in this war ; only patriots or traitors. " Thank God, Illinois is not divided on this question. " I know they expected to present a united South against a divided North. They hoped in the Northern States party questions would bring civil war between Democrats and Republicans, when the South would step in with her cohorts, aid one party to conquer the other, and then make easy prey of the victors. Their scheme was carnage and civil war in the North. " There is but one way to defeat this. In Illinois it is being so defeated by closing up the ranks. War will thus be prevented on our own soil. While there was a hope of peace, I was ready for any reasonable sacrifice or com promise to maintain it. But when the question comes of war in the cotton-fields of the South, or the cornfields of Illinois, I say the farther off the better. " We cannot close our eyes to the sad and solemn fact that war does exist. The Government must be main tained, its enemies overthrown, and the more stupendous our preparations the less the bloodshed and the shorter the struggle. * * * * * "We must not invade Constitutional rights. The innocent must not suffer, nor women and children be the victims. Savages must not be let loose. But while I sanction no war on the rights of others, I will implore my countrymen not to lay down their arms until our own rights are recognised. 330 APPENDIX. " The Constitution and its guarantees are our birth right, and I am ready to enforce that inalienable right to the last extent. We cannot recognise secession. Re cognise it once, and you have not only dissolved Govern ment, but you have destroyed social order upturned the foundations of society. You have inaugurated anarchy in its worst form, and will shortly experience all the horrors of the French Revolution. " Then we have a solemn duty to maintain the Government. The greater our unanimity, the speedier the day of peace. We have prejudices to overcome from the few short months since of a fierce party contest. Yet these must be allayed. Let us lay aside all criminations and recriminations as to the origin of these difficulties. When we shall have again a country with the United States flag floating over it, and respected on every inch of American soil, it will then be time enough to ask who and what brought all this upon us. " I have said more than I intended to say. (Cries of " Go on.") It is a sad task to discuss questions so fearful as civil war ; but, sad as it is, bloody and disastrous as I expect it will be, I express it as my conviction before God, that it is the duty of every American citizen to rally around the flag of his country. " I thank you again for this magnificent demonstration. By it you show you have laid aside party strife. Illinois has a proud position united, firm, determined never to permit the Government to be destroyed." APPENDIX. 331 G. SHERMAN AND THE VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN. " HEAD-QUARTERS, FIFTEENTH ARMY CORPS, CAMP, NEAR VICKSBURG, April 8, 1863. " Colonel J. A. Rawlins, A.A.G., to General Grant. " SIR, I would most respectfully suggest, for reasons which I will not name, that General Grant call on his Corps Commanders for their opinions, concise and positive, on the best general plan of campaign. Unless this be done there are men who will, in any result falling below the popular standard, claim that their advice was unheeded, v and that fatal consequences resulted therefrom. My own opinions are : " i. That the Army of the Tennessee is far in advance of the other grand armies. " 2. That a corps from Missouri should forthwith be moved from St. Louis to the vicinity of Little Rock, Arkansas, supplies collected while the river is full, and land communication with Memphis opened via Des Ark on the White, and Madison on the St. Francis rivers. " 3. That as much of Yazoo Pass, Coldwater, and Tallahatchie rivers as can be gained and fortified be held, and the main army be transported thither by land and water ; that the road back to Memphis be secured and re opened ; and as soon as the waters subside, Grenada be attacked, and the swamp road across to Helena be patrolled by cavalry. 332 APPENDIX. " 4. That the line of the Yallabusha be the base from which to operate against the points where the Mississippi Central crosses Big Black above Canton, and lastly where the Vicksburg and Jackson railroad crosses the same river. " The capture of Vicksburg would result. " 5. That a force be left in this vicinity not to exceed 10,000 men, with only enough steamboats to float and transport them to any direct point. This force to be held always near enough to act with the gunboats, when the main army is known to be near Vicksburg, Raines s Bluff, or Yazoo city. " 6. I do doubt the capacity of Willow Bayou (which I estimate to be fifty miles long and very tortuous) for a military channel, capable of supporting an army large enough to operate against Jackson, Mississippi, or Black River Bridge ; and such a channel will be very valuable to a force coming from the west, which we must expect. Yet this canal will be most useful as the way to convey coals and supplies to a fleet that should navigate the reach between Vicksburg and Red River. " 7. The chief reason for operating solely by water was the season of the year and high water in Tallahatchie and Yallabusha. The spring is now here, and soon these streams will be no serious obstacle, save the ambuscades of the forest, and whatever works the enemy may have erected at or near Grenada. North Mississippi is too valuable to allow them to hold and make crops. " I make these suggestions with the request that General Grant simply read them, and give them, as I know he APPENDIX. 333 will, a share of his thoughts. I would prefer he should not answer them, but merely give them as much or as little weight as they deserve. " Whatever plan of action he may adopt will receive from me the same zealous co-operation and energetic support as though conceived by myself. * * * * * " I am, &c. " W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General" 334 APPENDIX. H. BRAGG S REPORT OF THE BATTLE OF CHATTANOOGA. " HEAD-QUARTERS, ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE, D ALTON, GA., Nov. 3oM, 1863. "SIR, On Monday, the 23rd, the enemy advanced in heavy force, and drove in our picket line in front of Mis sionary Ridge, but made no further effort. On Tuesday morning early, they threw over the river a heavy force opposite the north end of the ridge, and just below the mouth of the Chicamauga, at the same time displaying a heavy force in our immediate front. " After visiting the right and making dispositions there for the new development in that direction, I returned towards the left, to find a heavy cannonading going on from the enemy s batteries on our forces occupying the slope of Lookout Mountain, between the crest and the river. A very heavy force soon advanced to the assault, and was met by one brigade only Walthall s which made a desperate resistance, but was finally compelled to yield ground. Why this command was not sustained is yet unexplained. The commander on that part of the field, Major-General Stevenson, had six brigades at his disposal. Upon his urgent appeal, another brigade was despatched in the afternoon to his support, though it appeared his own forces had not been brought into action, and I proceeded to the scene. APPENDIX. 335 " Arriving just before sunset, I found we had lost all the advantages of the position. Orders were immediately given for the ground to be disputed until we could with draw our forces across Chattanooga Creek, and the move ment was commenced. This having been successfully accomplished our whole forces were concentrated on the ridge, and extended to the right to meet the movement in that direction. " On Wednesday, the 25th, I again visited the extreme right, now under Lieutenant-General Hardee, and threat ened by a heavy force, whilst strong columns could be seen marching in that direction. A very heavy force in line of battle confronted our left and centre. " On my return to this point, about eleven A.M., the enemy s forces were being moved in heavy masses from Lookout, and beyond, to our front, whilst those in front extended to our right. They formed their lines with great deliberation, just beyond the range of our guns, and in plain view of our position. " Though greatly outnumbered, such was the strength of our position, that no doubt was entertained of our ability to hold it, and every disposition was made for that purpose. " During this time they had made several attempts on our extreme right, and had been handsomely repulsed with very heavy loss by Major-General Cleburne s command, under the immediate direction of Lieutenant-General Hardee. " By the road across the ridge at Rossville, far to our left, a route was open to our rear. Major-General Breckinridge, commanding on the left, had occupied this 336 APPENDIX. with two regiments and a battery. It being reported to me that a force of the enemy had moved in that direction, the General was ordered to have it reconnoitred, and to make every disposition necessary to secure his flank, which he proceeded to do. " About three and a half P.M., the immense force in the front of our left and centre advanced in three lines, pre ceded by heavy skirmishers. Our batteries opened with fine effect, and much confusion was produced before they reached musket range. " In a short time the war of musketry became very heavy, and it was soon apparent that the enemy had been repulsed in my immediate front. u Whilst riding along the crest, congratulating the troops, intelligence reached me that our line was broken on my right, and the enemy had crowned the ridge. Assistance was promptly despatched to that point under Brigadier- General Bate, who had so successfully maintained the ground in my front, and I proceeded to the rear of the broken line to rally our retiring troops and return them to the crest to drive the enemy back. General Bate found the disaster so great that his small force could not repair it. " About this time I learned that our extreme left had also given way, and that my position was almost surrounded. Bate was immediately directed to form a second line in the rear, where by the efforts of my staff a nucleus of stragglers had been formed upon which to rally. Lieutenant-General Hardee, leaving Major-General Cleburne in command on the extreme right, moved to- APPENDIX. 337 wards the left, when he heard the heavy firing in that direction. He reached the right of Anderson s division just in time to find it had nearly all fallen back, com mencing on its left where the enemy had first crowned the ridge. By a prompt and judicious movement he threw a portion of CheathanVs division directly across the ridge facing the enemy, who was now moving a strong force immediately on his left flank. By a decided stand here the enemy was entirely checked, and that portion of our force to the right remained intact. " All to the left, however, except a portion of Bate s division, was entirely routed and in rapid flight, nearly all the artillery having been shamefully abandoned by its in fantry support. Every effort which could be made by myself and staff, and by many other mounted officers, availed but little. A panic, which I had never before witnessed, seemed to have seized upon officers and men, and each seemed to be struggling for his personal safety, regardless of his duty or his character. " In this distressing and alarming state of affairs, General Bate was ordered to hold his position, covering the road for the retreat of Breckinridge s command ; and orders were immediately sent to Generals Hardee and Breckin- ridge to retire their forces upon the depot at Chicka- mauga. " Fortunately it was now near nightfall, and the country and roads in our reach were fully known to us, but equally unknown to the enemy. "The routed left made its way back in great disorder, effectually covered, however, by Bate s small command, z 338 APPENDIX. which had a sharp conflict with the enemy s advance, driving it back. After night, all being quiet, Bate retired in good order the enemy attempting no pursuit. " Lieutenant-General Hardee s command, under his judicious management, retired in good order and un molested. " As soon as all the troops had crossed, the bridges over the Chickamauga were destroyed to impede the enemy, though the stream was fordable at several places. " No satisfactory excuse can possibly be given for the shameful conduct of our troops on the left in allowing their line to be penetrated. The position was one which ought to have been held by a line of skirmishers against any assaulting column ; and wherever resistance was made, the enemy fled in disorder after suffering heavy loss. Those who reached the ridge did so in a condition of exhaustion from the great physical exertion in climbing, which rendered them powerless ; and the slightest effort would have destroyed them. " Having secured much of our artillery they soon availed themselves of our panic, and turning our guns upon us, enfiladed the lines both right and left, rendering them entirely untenable. " Had all parts of the line been maintained with equal gallantry and persistence, no enemy could ever have dislodged us ; and but one possible reason presents itself to my mind, in explanation of this bad conduct in veteran troops, who had never before failed in any duty assigned them, however difficult and hazardous. " They had for two days confronted the enemy, mar- APPENDIX. 339 shalling his immense forces in plain view, and exhibiting to their sight such a superiority in numbers, as may have intimidated weak minds and untried soldiers. " But our veterans had so often encountered similar hosts, when the strength of position was against us, and with perfect success, that not a doubt crossed my mind. "As yet I am not fully informed as to the commands which first fled, and brought this great disaster and disgrace upon our arms. Investigation will bring out the truth, however, and full justice shall be done to the good and the bad. " After arriving at Chickamauga, and informing myself of the full condition of affairs, it was decided to put the army in motion for a point further removed from a powerful and victorious army, that we might have some little time to replenish and recuperate for another struggle. The enemy made pursuit as far as Ringgold, but was so handsomely checked by Major-General Cleburne and Brigadier-General Gist, in command of their respective divisions, that he gave us but little annoyance. " Lieutenant-General Hardee, as usual, is entitled to my warmest thanks and high commendation for his gallant and judicious conduct during the whole of the trying scenes through which we passed. " Major-General Cleburne, whose command defeated the enemy in every assault on the 25th, and who eventually charged and routed him on that day, capturing several stands of colours and several hundred prisoners, and who afterwards brought up our rear with great success, again charging and routing the pursuing column at Ringgold, on 340 APPENDIX. the 27th, is commended to the special notice of the Government. " Brigadier-Generals Gist and Bate, commanding divi sions ; Gumming, Walthal, and Polk, commanding brigades, were distinguished for coolness, gallantry, and successful conduct throughout the engagements, and in the rear guard on the retreat. " To my staff, personal and general, my thanks are specially due for their gallant and zealous efforts, under fire, to rally the broken troops and restore order ; and for their laborious services in conducting successfully the many and arduous duties of the retreat. " Our losses are not yet ascertained, but in killed and wounded it is known to have been very small. In prisoners and stragglers I fear it is much larger. " The Chief of Artillery reports the loss of forty pieces. " I am, Sir, very respectfully, " Your obedient Servant, " BRAXTON BRAGG, General Commanding." APPENDIX. 341 I. GRANT S FAREWELL TO HIS ARMY. "WAR DEPARTMENT, ADJUTANT-GENERAL S OFFICE, WASHINGTON, B.C., June 2nd, 1865. " SOLDIERS OF THE ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES, By your patriotic devotion to your country in the hour of danger and alarm, your magnificent fighting, bravery, and endurance, you have maintained the supremacy of the Union and the Constitution, overthrown all armed opposition to the enforcement of the laws and of the proclamations for ever abolishing Slavery the cause and pretext of the Rebellion and opened the way to the rightful authorities to restore order and inaugurate peace on a permanent and enduring basis on every foot of American soil. Your marches, sieges, and battles, in distance, duration, resolution, and brilliancy of results, dim the lustre of the world s past military achievements, and will be the patriot s precedent in defence of liberty and right in all time to come. In obedience to your country s call, you left your homes and families, and volun teered in her defence. Victory has crowned your valour and secured the purpose of your patriotic hearts ; and, with the gratitude of your countrymen and the highest honours a free nation can accord, you will soon be permitted to return to your homes and families, conscious of having discharged the highest duty of American citizens. To achieve these glorious triumphs, and secure to yourselves, 342 APPENDIX. your fellow-countrymen, and posterity, the blessings of free institutions, tens of thousands of your gallant com rades have fallen, and sealed the priceless legacy with their blood. 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