CHAPTER X

ULYSSES S. GRANT

My last commander, and clearly greatest of them all— one of the greatest soldiers that ever lived (I say it advisedly) was General Grant. I first met him in January, 1864, at Nashville, Tenn., after the victory at Chattanooga and the relief of Knoxville. He had gone from Chattanooga to Knoxville; and, when he found Burnside safe and sound, had ridden with part of his staff in raw winter weather, with the thermometer at zero, through Cumberland Gap to Lexington, Ky., and there taken the railroad to Louisville; whence he had come down to Nashville, then headquarters of the Military Division of the Mississippi, which embraced all that region from the Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains, and from the Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.

I need scarcely add that he arrived in Nashville weather-stained and travel-worn. He was then about forty years of age, and looked it easily. He had dark sandy hair, light blue eyes, a bearded face, and a general indifference but not slouchiness of figure, anything but soldierly, as Eastern officers understood things. It is true he wore a major general's uniform (and right well had he earned it); but it was rusty and seedy. His coat was open, and the lapels were buttoned back; his hat bore a gold cord, but was battered and worn; he went about unattended, with his head down and hands much in his pockets; and he looked for all the world more like a country storekeeper or Western farmer, than the illustrious conqueror of Vicksburg and Chattanooga, and the commander in chief now of half a million of men.

He was a West Pointer, indeed, and had distinguished himself in Mexico as a lieutenant. But he looked little like our traditional cadet, natty and "well set up," or usual regular officer; and to my Eastern eye was a decided disappointment. I had been accustomed to such trim and soldierly figures as McClellan, Burnside, Hooker, and Meade, all of whom looked the officer and army commander. But here was a man of different caliber, evidently intent on everything but show.

On second glance, however, he clearly improved. As you caught his eye, you found it clear and penetrating, and saw it could be hard as flint as well as soft as dew, and it was easy to perceive that there was a grip and grit in his face and jaw that would enable him to dare great things, and hold on mightily, and toil terribly, "when the hour had struck and the time had come." When he came to talk, you found him few of words and slow of speech; but he knew exactly what he wanted, and why and when he wanted it. And when And when you left his presence you could not help feeling, that here was a man of grave and serious purpose, gentle in manner, but bent on great things; cast in the mold of a Cromwell or Wellington rather than a Napoleon. And you instinctively felt he would be loyal to the end, and could be trusted all through.

He took a rebel house at Nashville, and was soon settled down and hard at work. His staff was small and his

headquarters void of show. He attended few parades and reviews. He hated long letters and prolix reports. But he had the telegraph brought into his quarters, and every day with a telegrapher by his side would talk all over his great military division and with Washington, and every night he knew precisely where the enemy was, and what he was doing, and what we were able to do and dare. In other words, he knew the value of time, and in an hour or so would accomplish by telegraph what some

other commanders would waste days in doing by pen and paper. So, also, he knew how to decide.

One day my chief, General Donaldson, went to him with a report and estimate, relating to the campaign of 1864, that involved millions of money and property, and when he had glanced it over he silently approved and ordered it. Hesitating, because of the vast expense, General Donaldson ventured to call his attention again to the figures, and to inquire whether he was quite sure he was right?

"No, I am not," was Grant's reply; "but in war anything is better than indecision. We must decide. If I am wrong, we shall soon find it out, and can do the other thing. But not to decide wastes both time and money, and may ruin everything."

Here unquestionably was one great secret of his immense success, and the key to many of his brilliant achievements.

Soon Mrs. Grant came down from "God's country," as we then called all north of the Ohio, and spent several weeks at Nashville. She did not see much of General Grant during the week-he was too busily engaged at headquarters, or was off in the saddle inspecting troops and forts or hospitals. But on Sunday they went regularly to the humble Methodist Episcopal church there together, and his devout example told for righteousness on all our forces in his Military Division. Before and after church he was often at headquarters, indeed; but not unless "the situation" demanded it, and his aids and orderlies were early excused from Sunday duty, unless their further presence was imperatively required.

As a military commander, his success was so phenomenal and his career so great that I hardly know how to speak of him further, within the limits of a chapter like this. He resigned from the regular army as captain in

1854, for want of something to do in our then “piping times of peace." First he tried farming near St. Louis, and then tanning at Galena, and barely earned a scanty support for himself and family. His total income was only about eight hundred dollars per year when the war broke out, with poor prospect of increase. Now he raised a company of volunteers, and hastened with it to Springfield, but failed of a command. Next he went to Cincinnati, and sought service under McClellan (then commanding there, and whom he had known in Mexico); but failed even to see him. Then he wrote to the War Department, and tendered his services there or anywhere, but was not even answered. But now, at last, Illinois had a regiment, mutinous and insubordinate, that she knew not what to do with, and tendered him its command; and then he began to show the real grip and temper of his mind and character. That regiment, it goes without saying, soon learned to "obey orders!"

His first great opportunity came in February, 1862, when he got tardy permission from Halleck (then commanding at St. Louis) to move on Forts Henry and Donelson, and the results were his signal victories there-over fifteen thousand prisoners, sixty-five cannon, and seventeen thousand muskets-that so thrilled the North at the time, and wrote his name down in history forever as "Unconditional Surrender Grant." I remember that his telegram announcing the surrender there was signed simply "U. S. Grant," and our adjutant in the Army of the Potomac the next evening at dress parade inadvertently read it “United States Grant," because that was our usual meaning of “U. S." then, and we had never heard of him otherwise! we got to know his name better afterward.

But

His next affair, at Pittsburg Landing or Shiloh, was unfortunate-a drawn battle, or at best a barren victory -and some clamor arose for his removal; but Mr. Lin

coln sagely replied: "We can't spare this man. He fights! he fights!" thus contrasting his vigor and virility with the inaction and supineness of McClellan and Buell. Next he moved on Vicksburg from the north, by way of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, and failed (November-December, 1862). Then he tried it by way of the Mississippi, with Sherman and Porter assisting, and again he failed (January-March, 1863). But disappointments and failures only whet the resolution of great men, while they dismay and defeat small men; and hence Grant, more determined than ever, now boldly resolved to cross the Mississippi below Vicksburg, cut loose from his base, and attack that Confederate Gibraltar from the east and rear, and to the amazement of everybody succeeded magnificently.

This was our first really great Union success, clear and significant, and coupled with Gettysburg on the same day (that ever memorable Fourth of July, 1863), raised our national fortunes to a pitch of prestige that nothing afterward could much diminish. Our other campaigns consisted largely of long marches or hard-fought battles; but Vicksburg was brilliant strategy as well as gallant tactics, and placed Grant in the very front rank of great commanders. It freed the Mississippi from Cairo to the gulf; it bisected the Confederacy as with a knife; and it really sounded the death knell of the Rebellion, had its doughty chiefs only had "ears to hear." And the honor and glory of it all belonged to Grant, and to Grant alone. For, as Sherman said to me with his own lips, one night in the fall of 1866, as we lay bivouacked by a blazing fire in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains: "Yes, it was Grant's plan, and nobody else's. I objected to it—did not 'protest,' as has been said-but tried to dissuade him from it as too big and risky. But Grant stuck to it, nevertheless, and now deserves the credit of it all. I wrote him, it is