CHAPTER VIII

PADUCAH, BELMONT

GENERAL LEONIDAS POLK, the fighting Bishop, commanded the Confederate forces thereabout. Working in harmony with a comprehensive military plan evolved by the trained soldiers of the South, something then lacking in the North, he had set out to gain Kentucky, a border State still split in sympathy between secession and the Union. His eye was fixed on Cairo, at the southern tip of Illinois, where the Ohio joins the Mississippi, a vantage-point of contact with three border States, and with that end in view he seized Columbus, twenty miles below, on the east bank of the Mississippi just above the boundary line between Kentucky and Tennessee. On that very day, September 4, as soon as he could do a task at which Frémont had set him in Missouri, Grant pitched his tent at Cairo.

When he learned that Polk was sending troops to seize Paducah, forty-five miles up the Ohio at the mouth of the Tennessee, to hold which meant the locking of those rivers as the Mississippi was already locked,Grant wired Frémont that he would start that night for Paducah if he received no orders to

the contrary, manned his boats, and hearing nothing from headquarters was on his way, seizing the town at daybreak of September 6, anticipating by a few hours Polk's troops which Paducah had hoped to welcome. To reassure the frightened citizens he issued a short proclamation:

I have come among you, not as an enemy, but as your friend and fellow citizen, not to injure or annoy you, but to respect the rights and to defend and enforce the rights of all loyal citizens. An enemy, in rebellion against a common government, has taken possession of and planted its guns upon the soil of Kentucky and fired upon your flag. Hickman and Columbus are in his hands. He is moving upon your city. I am here to defend you against this enemy and to assert and maintain the authority and sovereignty of your government and mine. I have nothing to do with opinions. I shall deal only with armed rebellion and its aiders and abettors. You can pursue your usual avocations without fear or hindrance. The strong arm of the government is here to protect its friends, and to punish only its enemies. Whenever it is manifest that you are able to defend yourselves, to maintain the authority of your government, and protect the rights of all its loyal citizens, I shall withdraw the forces under my command from your city.

He left troops at Paducah under General Charles F. Smith, his old commander at West Point and notified the Kentucky Legislature, then playing with "neutrality" at the state capital. The Legislature promptly adopted resolutions favorable to the Union and the State was saved; on his return to Cairo he

found Frémont's authority to take Paducah "if he felt strong enough," a reprimand for corresponding with the Legislature, and a warning against doing it again.

He could have seized Columbus then and wanted to, but Frémont kept him for two months at Cairo, and by November Polk was so intrenched that he was strong enough to hold his own against a siege and to assist the rebel forces in Missouri stirring trouble under Generals Earl Van Dorn and Sterling Price. Besides, by Frémont's order Grant had sent three thousand men under Dick Oglesby to chase guerrillas in Missouri and Oglesby must be protected in the

rear.

It was to keep Polk engaged at home that Grant sailed down the river, on November 7, with three thousand men to reconnoiter at a little camp of shanties just opposite Columbus bearing the pretentious name of Belmont, where Polk had put twenty-five hundred men who, resting under the protection of his batteries, were ready for quick expeditions. Instead of simply reconnoitering, Grant, sensing what Polk had in mind, landed with his troops, dispersed the enemy, and seized the camp - his first real fighting for the war. He would have demanded the surrender of the beaten forces and withdrawn, his task completed, had not his green troops, their heads turned by

what seemed a striking victory, become a jubilant mob, ransacking the camp for souvenirs, reddening the day with speeches, cheers, and songs, and uncontrollable till Grant, with genius born of common sense, set matches to the tents, the flames from which invited fire from the Columbus batteries and reinforcements from the fort, giving the enemy a chance to rally. His men, surrounded and attacked, were ready now for orders, but they would have surrendered had not Grant, saying grimly that they had cut their way in and could cut their way out, forced them fighting to the boats, he with a private's blouse, his horse shot under him, embarking last of all and nearly left behind.

McClernand, soldier politician, who was there with Grant, issued a vainglorious address to his command on his return to Cairo. But Grant said nothing save to his father, to whom he wrote next day: "Taking into account the object of the expedition the victory was most complete. It has given me a confidence in the officers and men of this command that will enable me to lead them in any future engagement without fear of the result." The newspapers of Illinois were filled with tales of how McClernand saved the day. Grant let him have his little glory with the folks at home and would not enter on a controversy. It was a local rivalry at best, for neither gen