later, "I am always worrying about what the enemy is going to do. Grant never gives a damn!” 1 1 General James H. Wilson says that just before the march to the sea, Sherman said to him: "Wilson, I am a damned sight smarter man than Grant; I know a great deal more about war, military history, strategy, and grand tactics than he does; I know more about organization, supply, and administration, and about everything else than he does; but I'll tell you where he beats me, and where he beats the world. He don't care a damn for what the enemy does out of his sight, but it scares me like hell!" (Under the Old Flag, vol. I, p. 17.) CHAPTER VII BRIGADIER-GENERAL JOHN C. FREMONT, the "Pathfinder," major-general by reason of a reputation picturesquely gained, a dashing figure, futile in command, yet idolized beyond all other Northern men at the beginning of the war, was at the head of the Department of the West including Illinois, Kentucky, Kansas, and Missouri, with quarters at St. Louis, which held the key to the strategical control of the Confederacy, — the waters joining there within a radius of a hundred miles to form the great flow of the Mississippi, the sole effective channels for transportation of supplies and troops. McClellan was at Cincinnati. Scott was general-inchief at Washington and under him the regulars, McDowell, Meigs, and Rosecrans. Grant under Frémont, who had a scant conception of the strategical importance of his own command, was ordered from one place to another in Missouri, knocking his regiment into shape, doing police duty at Ironton, Jefferson City, and Mexico, establishing order here and there; for Claiborne Jackson's State was desultory fighting ground by reason of the close division of the population between the sympathizers with the North and South. Without formality and by consent, because he was the only educated soldier in the lot of recently created colonels, he found himself commander of an improvised brigade, and then one day in early August, 1861, his chaplain showed him a news paragraph that Lincoln had appointed him a brigadier. "It must be some of Washburne's work," he said. Elihu B. Washburne, a "down East" Yankee, transplanted early to the West, had been the Congressman from the Galena District since 1852, one of the very earliest Free-Soilers or Republicans to get office, so that when his party gained control, with Lincoln at the head, he was a factor to be reckoned with. Shrewd, forceful, rangy, a fair type of the uncultured politician of his time, serving the public many years in Congress and as Minister to France, he is known chiefly now because Grant was his unknown neighbor at Galena when Lincoln called for troops. He saw Grant handle the Galena company, talked with him about the war and found him full of sense, gave him a note to Yates and kept an eye on him when he became a colonel. His unsought friendship was the nearest thing to "influence" Grant ever had, and Grant was right in guessing that the appointment was "some of Washburne's work." When Congress met in August and Lincoln had to send in names of officers for the new army, he gave his own State four brigadiers and asked the delegation in Washington to meet and designate the men. Grant named by Washburne topped the list, receiving every vote. The others named were Hurlbut, Prentiss, and McClernand in the order given; none of whom had a West Point training. Lincoln sent in these names on August 7, together with thirty-three other brigadiers, among whom Grant was number seventeen. Ranking him were Hunter, Heintzelman, Keyes, Fitz-John Porter, Franklin, Sherman, Stone, Buell, Lyon, Pope, Kearny, and Hooker. The majorgenerals were Scott, McClellan, Frémont, McDowell, and Halleck, regulars, with Dix, Banks, and Butler, volunteers. Thus at the outset of the war Grant was brigadier, unsponsored it is true, and guiltless of prestige, but placed without his own design with a detached command at the one key by touching which the forces could be set in motion to surround and crush the armies of the South. Others saw the military value of commanding rivers near the junction of the Ohio and the Mississippi as a first step toward controlling the Mississippi to its mouth. Grant was the only one to see the absolute necessity of doing it at once with just the implements in hand. To him must go the credit of |