USA > Massachusetts > Thirteenth Massachusetts Regiment [circular no. 13] > Part 9
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The news that the hero of Vicksburg was scheduled to arrive at Culpeper on March 26 had been heralded through all the camps and produced great excitement among the troops. There was a natural desire to obtain passes to go to town in order to welcome the distinguished chief, but these were curtailed to the smallest limit, Grant's distaste for demonstrations in his honor, as aforesaid, being known and duly considered.
The provost marshal had strict orders to prevent any undue gathering of soldiers or citizens in the vicinity of the railroad depot or in the streets. A detachment of the 14th Brooklyn Zouaves con- stituted the provost guard, and squads of this body patrolled the town continuously as the time for the train's approach drew near.
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Culpeper was a rabid " secesh " community, although it contained several Union families. It was an exceptional household that did not boast of having one or more of its sons in Lee's army or with Mosby's guerrilla band. The region likewise was the familiar stamp- ing ground of the latter. Perhaps these facts called for a little extra precaution.
As the train came in a double line of the zouaves, posted five paces apart, lined either side of the short street leading from the railroad station, along which the general was to pass in order to reach the headquarters, a commodious brick dwelling-house, which had been prepared for him.
The headquarters of the army of the Potomac, which was under the immediate command of General Meade, it may be said, was at Brandy station, about six miles distant. Grant had already visited Meade and consulted with him regarding future plans.
Standing on the piazza of the Virginia Hotel the writer, with sev- eral other soldiers detailed on various duties in the town, possessed an excellent point of view from which to witness the coming of the distinguished chief. There was no band, no cheers, no excited popu- lace to greet the hero of many conquered foes and stricken fields as he stepped from the train.
The only signs of anything approaching a pageant as the proces- sion formed and started from the station consisted first of Gen. John Newton, commanding the Ist army corps, whose headquarters were in the town, and a few members of his staff, who led the van, escorting two headquarters ambulances, in the first of which were Generals Grant and Meade. Gen. James S. Wadsworth, that brave white-haired veteran, who had passed unscathed through the ordeals of Bull Run, Fredericksburg and Gettysburg, but who was to seal his devotion to the cause of the Union by a heroic death at the head of his division a few weeks later, with other notables, occupied the next carriage. A squadron of the 5th regular cavalry, in war- worn service uniforms, brought up the rear.
There was scarcely a ripple of applause to greet Grant. Wonder, astonishment or disappointment seemingly rendering the onlookers dumb. He leaned well forward in answering the salutes of the zouaves, doing this oddly by carrying his hand to his hat brim, with the historic half-burned cigar between his fingers and, as it seemed
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to veteran soldiers, with an ungraceful and notably perfunctory gesture.
In contrast with the taller and more soldierly figure of Meade, who sat beside him and whose attire was particularly neat, Grant seemed dwarfed, shabby, unsoldlierlike, in a word, painfully inferior.
It was perceived as he alighted from the carriage and entered headquarters, that his uniform coat was faded, worn and ill-fitting, and that although he had' received his commission as lieutenant- general he still wore a major-general's shoulder straps, which, much tarnished, seemed endeavoring to creep under the armpits as if in an effort at self-effacement typical of their wearer, but due undoubtedly to the stoop in his shoulders.
This negligence in non-essentials was characteristic of the man, a trait that did not mean in him a disdainful disregard of propriety or convention, but rather, it seemed, an absence of sensibility as to their importance.
That it was a fixed idiosyncracy was proved time and again after- ward when he would visit the camps or advanced lines, his upper garment a rusty army blouse, and crowned with an old war-worn hat ; and more remarkable yet, in that momentous first interview at Appomattox with General Lee, who was got up in brand new finery and must have looked a splendid figure compared with his victorious adversary who, swordless and clad in this same old busi- ness-like blouse, offered, more with the air of a Lazarus in the presence of Dives than a puissant conqueror, the most magnanimous terms of capitulation ever tendered a fallen and helpless foe.
But when Grant returned from a hasty trip to Washington a few days after his coming to Culpeper he was arrayed in a bright new and well-fitting uniform and three brilliant stars glittered on either shoulder. He seemed a different man altogether. This new " tog- gery," however, was only worn on special occasions, and the loose but more comfortable blouse was generally much more in evidence.
Two days after his arrival General Grant began to reorganize the army of the Potomac. The old and nearly decimated Ist corps was consolidated with the 5th, and our well-liked commander, General Newton, was superseded by Gen. G. K. Warren. The latter formed his staff principally from the officers composing that of the 5th, reappointing only one of Newton's, which fact enabled the writer to
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retain an agreeable, but except to himself, not over-important posi- tion at Warren's headquarters. These were located in the Virginia Hotel on the main street, and as Warren and Grant became quite " chummy " and so continued, at least up to a late period in the Petersburg campaign, when they unfortunately clashed, few days passed that the latter failed to visit our headquarters to see his sub- ordinate ; Grant, to repeat, being no stickler for ceremony himself nor exacting it with undue pomp and circumstance from others.
Warren was a brilliant corps commander and a " fighter from Fightville," as the boys used to say. And, if it would not add another to the many controversies growing out of rival claims to dis- tinction on the part of some of our generals, it might be said that it was Warren's keen eye and energetic action on the second day of Gettysburg that, foiling Longstreet's audacious and nearly successful attempt to turn our left flank, assured the final victory. What promised to be a rout was turned into a repulse thereby ; and Warren's heroic statue standing in such startling prominence, soli- tary and alone, on Little Round Top seems to supply a tacit recog- nition of the high claim. This memorial, it will be recalled, is a standing figure, not equestrian as are nearly all the statues on the battlefield. There may have been another reason for this pose, but it always seemed to me that the selection arose from a well-known personal deficiency, for Warren made a sorry figure on horseback and " couldn't ride for a cent," in the words of one of his staff officers, while Grant was at his best in appearance on horseback. The former was even shorter than Grant (who was only five feet eight inches tall) and slender, while Grant was rather stockily built, although weighing but one hundred and forty pounds. Warren was quite finicky in his dress, which fact, together with his erect figure, presented a rather notable contrast to that of his chief.
The staffs of the two generals also mingled socially, the large bar- room of the hotel - its original function, be it said, no longer operative --- affording an attractive lounging place, the window look- ing out on the main thoroughfare, which was usually thronged with the varied life that was stirring in the town.
One day General Grant came into the room alone, asked for Warren and finding the latter out chatted for a moment or two with one of the young officers and finally sauntered over to the huge fire-
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place, in which a fire of four-foot logs was burning, the day being quite cold. Lighting a cigar he seated himself and soon seemed to be lost in gazing ruminatingly into the blaze. A half hour, perhaps longer, he sat there and I have a vivid memory of that silent, huddled-up figure, sitting with his elbows on his knees, his chin rest- ing in one hand, holding between the fingers of the other his now extinguished cigar. Officers and messengers passed in and out, but nobody ventured to disturb him, each going by with a respectful salute, which, however, in his absorption, was unnoticed. What he saw in the glowing coals who could tell? Perhaps he was perfecting some elaborate plan for the undoing of Lee - perhaps considering that persistent, continuous, fatal movement by the left flank that eventually was to close round his great rival at Appomattox. At length he roused himself, relighted his cigar, and with an abstracted look and without a word left the house.
The conversation between Grant and others that involuntarily came to my ears at times, though casual and unimportant, no doubt included some bits that would have been interesting to recall. But it made so little impression on my mind that it has mostly faded, while many incidents, trivial or characteristic, associated with him, are vividly retained in memory. Though he was called " the silent man," he was a good but not voluble talker. If I can recall but few remarks of his, there returns a distinct recollection of the gentle, melodious tones of his voice, tones such as almost infallibly denote an amiable temper.
Speaking of melody, it seems singular that with such a voice he absolutely possessed no ear for music or time. And it is a remark- able coincidence that his running mate in his first election to the presidency, Schuyler Colfax, was as singularly deficient in musical sense.
The writer once heard Mr. Colfax while on a lecturing tour in the West ask the leader of a rural band that had just played " Yankee Doodle " in his honor, the name of the piece, confessing when told, and to the great relief of the bandmaster, that he knew only one tune, " Old Hundred," and he was sometimes uncertain as to that.
In passing the stable, back of headquarters, on one occasion, I came upon General Warren, engaged in the unusual employment for a corps commander of nailing a loose plank of the incline leading
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into the same. He was in fatigue dress and, kneeling upon the dirty planks, seemed to be having some difficulty with the refractory board, which apparently wouldn't " stay put." Nobody else seemed to be in sight and, saluting, I offered to help him. " I've been try- ing for a week to get somebody to fix this," he explained. " My horse stumbled and nearly threw me when I rode him in here to-day." Our combined efforts finally got the plank in place and Warren was hammering in a spike when I saw Grant and his chief of staff, Rawlins, approaching. Both were smiling at beholding Warren thus employed. He, however, did not perceive them until they were close upon him, when he arose and shook hands.
" Do you know, general. that you put me in mind of a little story," said Grant, in his gentle but penetrating voice. "One of our naval ships was at a Chinese port, and the officers gave a ball on board to some of the English and American residents. They also invited several of the Chinese dignitaries. While the dance was going at full blast, the commanding officer of the vessel approached the mandarins, or whatever their titles were, and asked what they thought of the show. One of the orientals politely replied that it was very fine and that they enjoyed themselves immensely. 'But,' he added, ' we always employ servants to do such hard work !'"
Warren, laughing heartily with the others, gave the same explana- tion he had given me, Grant rejoining by quoting Cæsar's saying that, after all, if you want a thing done, the sure way is to do it yourself.
Grant was very popular among the rank and file about the town, guards, orderlies, soldiers, etc. He was unassumedly democratic and approachable. The " old man," as they fondly, certainly not disrespectfully, called him, stood on common ground with them, and, whenever he felt like it, would stop and talk with a private soldier as freely as with a brigadier.
A son of Anak, six feet in his stockings, belonging to the head- quarters' guard and a member of the Sixteenth Maine Regiment, and who had been an Aroostook lumberman, was one day accosted by Grant in his saunterings about the streets. Learning of the Maine man's former occupation, the general opened a discussion regarding wood chopping as a fine art, and frankly owned that he had had a practical experience in that line.
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" The old man don't put on no airs," said the son of Maine, in relating the incident, " an' he's a ---- fine feller for a gin'ral. But you'd oter heered the little cuss tellin' me --- me ! how to fell a tree, when I allers did my own felling and put up my two cords a day reg'lar ! "
A set of boxwood chessmen owned by the writer and with which he used to while away a spare hour now and then, was in frequent requisition by the staff officers. One afternoon I was playing chess with one of the headquarters' clerks when Col. Ely Parker, Grant's assistant adjutant general, entered the room and for a few minutes paused to watch the game. He had some official documents in his hand and was on his way to the adjutant general's office in the next room. He was a fine-looking officer, but being a full-blooded Indian - the hereditary chief of the Six Nations and a direct descendant of the famous Red Jacket - was very dark complex- ioned. He was a polished gentleman and a cultured one, but pos- sessed little of the traditional taciturnity of his race, being on the contrary rather talkative, and exceedingly good-natured. Colonel Parker was present at Lee's surrender and transcribed for the latter the original draft of the terms agreed upon, which was in Grant's own handwriting. It is related by Gen. Horace Porter, an eye- witness, that Lee looked somewhat askance upon Parker at first, thinking apparently from his dark face that he was a negro.
A few days after the chess incident, I was alone in the office when Colonel Parker again came in, and with a pleasant word went into the adjutant's room. He soon came out and sitting down began to speak about chess, referring to the game he had witnessed on his previous visit, in the end suggesting that, as I admitted being but a novice, if I would get out my chessmen he would show me some of the openings and fine points of the queen of games. An interesting interval was passed in this diversion and then he pro- posed playing a formal game, he giving me his queen as a handicap. A move or two only had been made when I heard two or three people come into the room, but without seeing them, my back being toward the door. All at once I became conscious that somebody was looking over my shoulder, and then a mild voice I knew very well said : " Fair play, Ely, fair play ! Don't take advantage of the boy."
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It was General Grant, and with him were Warren and Rawlins.
" Ely " smiled at the playful admonishment and I drew from what was said, or subsequently explained, that Parker was about to " spring". on me the trick known to chess experts as the " scholar's mate," which is effected in the first four moves. Colonel Parker, however, deprecated having any felonious intent, explaining that he had only set the trap as a part of the process of instruction.
A short time afterwards one of Grant's aids-de-camp borrowed my chessmen, saying the general wanted to use them. They were duly returned, but in the vicissitudes of subsequent campaigning they disappeared and I was deprived of what would have been cherished as a priceless souvenir.
During the strenuous fighting days that followed I only occasion- ally saw General Grant, but his name was on the lips of " the boys in blue" much oftener than were the names of their immediate commanders, and perhaps on those of " the boys in gray " as well. It cannot be said that he was idolized as McClellan once was ; but his soldiers esteemed and admired him and they swore by him ; he satisfied their pride and they took pride in him because without sounding proclamations or theatrical splurge, he pursued the trade of war in a business-like way, showed them the path to success and frequently led the way himself.
This ariny of lions felt that at last they had got one of their breed to lead them. When they got to know him better, after the nicknaming habit of soldiers, they played all the changes possible on the inviting initials of his baptismal names; he was Uncle Sam Grant, United States Grant, Unconditional Surrender Grant and Union Soldier Grant. Various other expressive sobriquets to which those two letters lent themselves were found, but employed only in a spirit of affectionate drollery.
His campaigns were studied and discussed in the bivouacs, count- less characteristic stories about him were told and retold, many without doubt apocryphal, but most all of them illustrating the incontrovertible fact that he possessed seemingly more than mortal insensibility to fear.
Grant was indeed apparently deficient in that sense. His stoic im- perturbability amidst the very vortex of battle was phenomenal ; his self-command was never disturbed ; he always had his wits about him.
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He was quick to recognize and praise this trait in others, but was the last one to exemplify Marshal Lannes' maxim that " it is only a coward who boasts that he was never afraid." He was the one man in a million who could truthfully make that boast, and he was the last one in that million who would make it. The absence of vainglory, pardonable in some degree in a victorious general, was marked in his speech, his orders and his proclamations. His modesty and lack of self-appraisal was very nearly a blemish. He seemed to have no glimpse of his great capacity which needed the spur of necessity, the pressure of responsibility to develop what was in him, to call out the wonderful latent force, the reserved power residing uncon- sciously under a shrinking, undemonstrative demeanor.
This was the man who in 1861, out of a job and out-at-elbows, when asked why he did not apply for the colonelcy of one of the Illinois regiments then forming, replied hesitatingly: "I would rather like a regiment, yet there are few men really competent to command a thousand soldiers, and I doubt whether I am one of them."
General Grant as a rule fixed headquarters during an engagement as near to the firing line as convenience, both in affording a proper coup d'œil of manœuvres and for receiving reports, would permit. There were times, however, when he felt his immediate presence within the zone of fire expedient, and he didn't wait on the order of his going but went at once, to the discomfort of his staff very fre- quently. They used to say that he liked it, as though it was his native element. It almost seemed that it was so. There is no record that on such occasions his eye flashed electric sparks or that his old war horse, Cincinnati, smelling the battle afar off, snorted " Ha ! ha !"
One of the camp stories floating about during the Wilderness fighting was to this effect :
A young West Pointer had been assigned as an aide to the general, and had followed him on one of these venturesome excursions. The youngster had never been under fire, and the shot and shell were coming pretty thick and fast all about the spot where Grant had halted for the purpose of observing the progress of the action. - The " freshie " was a little pale and a little shaky. Observing his
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condition and sympathizing with him, his chief kindly, if somewhat bluntly, said to him :
" You are a little afraid, Lieutenant. You'll get used to it after awhile all right. Now see here ; if I had a hat in my hand contain- ing 999 white beans and one black bean, and should ask you to pick out the black one without looking, your chance of doing it would be just about as good as your chance of getting hit by one of these bullets or shells."
At the very moment one of the latter flew by so close that the wind of it was felt by both.
" Well, I almost thought that was the black bean," said Grant. " But after all you see it wasn't, Lieutenant."
The young fellow was heartened at once by his chief's sang-froid. The story was too much like Grant not to be true.
He appreciated humor, and keenly enjoyed both hearing and relating funny incidents that had no waspish sting or that directly or by innuendo would not have offended feminine delicacy. Many examples of his extreme sensibility on this score are told. He severely drew the line between Democritus and Rabelais.
An instance exemplifying his discernment and remarkable intuitive sense of topography, and which I heard a staff officer relate, occurred during the Wilderness campaign. The battle was raging all along the line. General Grant was sitting on a stump receiv- ing reports and despatching orders. The position was an exposed one, but he could not be prevailed upon to move. An aide dashed up, his manner excited, reported that General Blank required imme- diate reinforcements, his flank being assailed by overwhelming numbers. Grant raised his hand with a quick gesture for silence, and listened intently as renewed volleying was heard on the extreme right, while distant cheers, growing fainter as they seemed to recede, were borne to the ear. Then, dropping his hand, he calmly said : " General Blank does not seem to need any help. He has turned on the enemy and is driving him. That is our musketry, and those cheers are solid Yankee ones, not rebel yells. My compliments to General Blank and tell him I will come over in a few minutes to inspect his new position."
Such glimpses of his doings and sayings were caught and circu- lated throughout the army and spread an intimate knowledge of
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their leader's character. His popularity rapidly grew and he was enthusiastically hailed whenever he rode along the camps and rifle pits.
Once in a while the boys felt a temporary resentment toward him. Such perhaps, as at the time of what seemed the misjudged battle of Cold Harbor and the needless slaughter attending it, also when General Warren was relieved in so high-handed a manner by Sheri- dan, for everybody believed the latter acted under Grant's authority. But this feeling soon wore off.
The army of the Potomac had long been accustomed to useless sacrifices under other leaders. It was always ready to march, to starve, to fight, and to die, but in doing so wanted the reward it had earned and had so often been deprived of through the incapacity of those leaders - the reward of a victory not only won, but clinched. Grant seemed to assure this by his unresting progress in chasing the enemy, driving him from pillar to post and never permitting his own army to take the back track, playing his game of chess with Lee, with the forward moves all clear in his head, or if one was obstructed, forming new combinations that inexorably at last determined the checkmate at Appomattox and landed the confederacy in the last ditch.
The question has often been broached : What would Grant have done at Antietam, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg? Such specula- tions are of course idle, because if he had been in command at those battles another set of conditions and preliminaries leading up to them would probably have prevailed. The Grant of 1864 might and in all likehood would have done somewhat different from the McClellan of '62, the Hooker and the Meade of '63. At Antietam Lee would have been smashed and captured before Jackson could have got up from Harper's Ferry, and Jackson would have found the fight of his life awaiting him, or rather meeting him half way ; and if he had survived he would never have made that flank move- ment round our right at Chancellorsville, or if he had started on it Lee and Stonewall would have been beaten in detail ; while on the third day of July, when Pickett's braves, broken and demoralized, fled from the slaughter-pen of Gettysburg, leaving three thousand of their comrades soaking its soil with their blood, while Lee's army, weakened by death, wounds and fatigue, and with only ten or fifteen
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rounds of ammunition to each gun, stood on Seminary Ridge wait- ing with hopeless courage for the counter-charge that did not come - at that moment the Grant of '64 would undoubtedly have sent the reserve. lying behind the Round Tops and which had had no chance to lift a finger, though aching to, in the three days' battle - he, no question, would have hurled those fresh and splendid fighters straight upon grim but disheartened Longstreet ; and with the rest of the Union line to back up the assault, only a miracle could have made it possible for Lee's army as a whole to escape back to Virginia.
But Grant in his modest, fair-minded, honest way, settles those questions in these words, for the one instance he cites answers all. To a friend he said : " If I had taken command of this army (of the Potomac) two years ago, I should have been very likely to fail, but now I have had so much experience as colonel, brigadier- general, and major-general that I feel entire confidence in myself. McClellan's lack of that was a great cause of his failure, and any man would have lacked it under the circumstances."
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