USA > New Mexico > Men of our day; or, biographical sketches of patriots, orators, statemen, generals, reformers, financiers and merchants, now on the stage of action > Part 4
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He was popular with his schoolfellows and the boys of his age, and though not a talker or boaster, not tyrannical or im- perious, not quarrelsome or violent, he fell naturally into his place as a leader among the boys. He was not remarkable as a scholar, though fond of mathematics and maintaining a, creditable position in his studies generally. For the rest, he was a manly, active, industrious boy, with a clear head, a kind heart, a well balanced judgment, fond of all outdoor sports and labors, and with a well knit frame and a constitution of great vitality and endurance.
Though always ready to work, he had a special dislike for the tanning business, and whenever called upon to do any work in connection with the tannery, he would find something else to do, and hire a boy to work there in his place. When he was a little more than sixteen years of age, his father called upon him one day to work with him in the beam-room of the tannery. He obeyed, but expressed to his father the strong
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dislike he felt for the business, and his determination hot to follow it after he came of age. His father replied that he did not wish him to work at it unless he was disposed to follow it in after life, and inquired what business he would like to enter upon. He answered that he would like either to be a farmer, a down-the-river trader, or to get an education. The first two avocations his father thought out of the question, as he was then situated, but inquired how he would like to go to the Military Academy at West Point. This suited the boy exactly, and the father hearing that there was a vacancy in his own Congressional District, then represented by the Hon. (afterward General) Thomas S. Hamer, made application, and Ulysses was appointed immediately, and in the summer of 1839, was adınit- ted as a cadet in the Military Academy. The standard of admission at West Point was then very low, and he was below most of his eighty-seven classmates in scholarship. Several of them had graduated from college before entering the Academy, and all had enjoyed much better advantages than he, yet at the end of the four years' course, only thirty-nine graduated, and among these Ulysses S. Grant stood twenty-first-midway of the class. He ranked high in mathematics and in all cavalry exercises, and had made good progress in engineering and fortification studies. His demerits were almost wholly of a trivial character, violations of some of the minor regulations of etiquette, in the buttoning of his coat, the tying of his cravat or shoes, or matters of that sort.
Dr. Coppée, now President of Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, who was at West Point with Grant, says of him : "I remember him as a plain, common sense, straight-forward youth ; quiet, rather of the old head on the young shoulders order; shunning notoriety ; quite contented while others were grumbling; taking to his military duties in a very business-like
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manner ; not a prominent man in the corps, but respected by all and very popular with his friends. The soubriquet of "Uncle Sam" was given him there, where every good fellow has a nick- name, from these very qualities; indeed he was a very uncle- like sort of youth. He was then and always an excellent horseman, and his picture rises before me as I write, in the old torn-coat, obsolescent leather gig-top, loose riding pantaloons with spurs buckled over them, going with his clanging saber to the drill-hall. He exhibited but little enthusiasm in any thing; his best standing was in the mathematical branches and their application to tactics and military engineering."
On his graduation in 1843, cadet Grant was assigned a posi- tion as brevet second lieutenant of the fourth regiment, United States Infantry, and joined his regiment in the autumn of that year, at Jefferson Barracks, near St. Louis, Missouri. He had a classmate, Frederick T. Dent, who was from St. Louis, and who had been assigned like himself to the fourth infantry. The two were warm friends, and Lieutenant Dent (now Brigadier- General Dent, on General Grant's staff) took his classmate to his own home, whenever they could obtain leave. Here he formed the acquaintance of the estimable lady, then Miss Maria Dent, whom five years subsequently he married. His stay at Jeffer- son Barracks was not long. In less than a year he was ordered to Camp Salubrity, Natchitoches, Louisiana, and a year later to the Mexican frontier, under the order for military occupation of Texas. There, on the 30th of September, 1845, he attained his commission as second lieutenant, and by special favor, was allowed to remain in the fourth infantry, though his appoint- ment was originally made out to the seventh. When the war with Mexico at last commenced, the fourth infantry formed a part of General Zachary Taylor's army of occupation, and Lieutenant Grant took as active a part as his rank and position
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permitted, in the battles of Palo Alto, May 8, 1846,-Resaca de la Palma, May 9,-Monterey, September 21-23, where his gallant conduct received honorable mention from his comman- der, and in the siege of Vera Cruz, March 9-29, 1847. On the 1st of April, he was appointed quartermaster of the fourth infantry, preparatory to the long and difficult march upon the city of Mexico, and he held this position from that time, to July 23, 1848, after the close of the Mexican war. But though his early experiences qualified him to fill this position with great ability, he did not, as by the army regulations he might, consider himself excused from service in the field. He was in nearly every battle of the campaign ; at Cerro Gordo, April 17- 18, 1847, at San Antonio, August 20, at Churubusco, the same day, at Molino del Rey, September 8, where his gallant and meritorious conduct procured him a brevet of first lieutenant, and the praise of his commander, at the storming of Chapultepec, September 13, where he won a brevet of captain and the encomiums of that stern old soldier General Worth, and at the assault and capture of the city of Mexico, September 13-18, 1847, where he obtained the more substantial honor of a promotion, two days later, to the first lieutenancy in his regi- ment. After the war, he was assigned to garrison duty at Sackett's Harbor, New York, for a year, then again made quartermaster of his regiment, which position he held for four years, to September 30, 1853. He had married in 1848, soon after his return from Mexico, and the next four years were passed in quiet garrison duty, at Sackett's Harbor, Detroit, Michigan, again at Sackett's Harbor, and at Fort Columbus, New York. But in 1852, he was assigned to duty at Benicia, California, and subsequently at Columbia Barracks, and at Fort Vancouver, Oregon, and Fort Humboldt, California. In August, 1853, he attained to a captaincy, and after another year's service
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MEN OF OUR DAY.
on the Pacific slope, he resigned his commission, July 31, 1854 He was prompted to this step by several considerations. It was a time of peace, and the prospect of rapid promotion was slight, especially to a man who had not thus far developed those brilliant qualities, which sometimes enable a man to mount rapidly, even in peace, the ladder of promotion; the pay of a captain in the regular army, especially with the great cost of every thing on the Pacific coast at that time, was not sufficient to furnish more than a bare support to a man with a family ; he was liable to be assigned almost constantly, as he had been for two years already, to duty on frontier posts, where he could not take his family, and where the associations were unpleasant. He was now thirty-two years old, and if he was to be any thing more than a poor, army captain, it was time that he should make a beginning. Such are the reasons assigned by his family for this step, which seemed for a time to be an unfortunate one. Shall we add another, which there is every reason for believing to be true, and which, rightly considered, does him honor ? In the monotony and tedium of barrack and garrison life, and surrounded by rough associates, he had formed the habit, it is said, of drinking freely, and that habit was becoming so marked, that the War Department had thought it necessary to reprove him for it. By abandoning his associates and the associations in which he had been thrown on the Pacific coast, there was an opportunity for him to enter upon a new life, and to abstain thenceforward from this ruinous indulgence. He returned to the east, and having rejoined his family, who had remained at his father's, during his absence on the Pacific, he removed to the vicinity of St. Louis, where his father-in-law had given his wife a small farm, and his father had stocked it. Captain Grant put in practice his resolution to abandon all intoxicating drinks, and labored zealously on his farm for four years. President
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Coppée speaks of having met him at St. Louis in his farmer's rig, whip in hand, and having enjoyed a very pleasant inter- view with him, at which Joseph J. Reynolds, Don Carlos Buell, and Major Chapman of the cavalry were also present. He adds, " If Grant had ever used spirits, as is not unlikely, I distinctly remember that, upon the proposal being made to drink, Grant said, 'I will go in and look at you, for I never drink any thing ;' and the other officers who saw him frequently, afterward told me that he drank nothing but water."
But he was not destined to succeed as a farmer. He was industrious, steady, and economical, but it was all in vain. In 1858, he relinquished the farm and moved into St. Louis, and at first undertook the real-estate business with a man named Boggs, but after a few months' trial, finding that the business was not sufficient to support both families, he relinquished it to his partner and sought for something else. He next obtained a position in the custom house, but the death of the collector who appointed him, caused him to lose that in a few months. He had endeavored while on his farm to eke out his scanty income by occasionally acting as collector, as auctioneer, etc., but with- out any considerable success.
Meanwhile, his father had been prospering, and had, in con- nection with two of his younger sons, established a leather and harness store at Galena, Illinois. He now offered Ulysses a posi- tion and interest in this store, which was gladly and thankfully accepted. For two years he continued in this business, which seemed better suited to his tastes than the farm.
It is said, that up to this time he had been a Democrat in his political views. With his father's strong Whig and Republican sentiments, this hardly seems probable. It is more credible that, as he himself is reported to have said, he had not voted for years, and had taken very little interest in national affairs
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MEN OF OUR DAY.
The education and general tone of feeling among the officers of the army, had made them, to a great extent, sympathizers with the South, pro-slavery in their views, and opposed to the Republicans, whom they regarded as, in some sort, the Abolitionists under a new name. How far Captain Grant shared these feelings, is uncertain.
One thing we know, he possessed that fine soldierly instinct of honor and loyalty, which was wanting in so many of his for- mer comrades. When the Southern troops fired on the nation- al flag at Sumter, he only knew that it was his country which was assailed, and thenceforward there was no question of poli- tics. "On that morning of April 15, 1861," says a lady friend, who was in his family, " he laid down the paper containing the account of the bombardment, walked round the counter, and drew on his coat, saying : 'I am for the war to put down this wicked rebellion. The Government educated me for the army, and though I served faithfully through one war, I feel still a little in debt for my education, and am ready to discharge the obligation.'" He went out into the streets of Galena, aided in organizing and drilling a company of volunteers, with whom he marched to Springfield, the capital of the State. He had no ambition to serve as commander of this company, and hence declined their nomination of him for captain. Hon. E. B. Washburne, then member of Congress from the Galena District, and his firm friend, then and since, accompanied him to Spring- field, and introduced him to Governor Yates, who at once of- fered him the position of adjutant-general, which he accepted, nd filled very successfully. When the first quotas from Illinois had been organized, and mostly mustered into service, Adjutant- General Grant made a flying visit to his father at Covington, Kentucky, and while there, Governor Yates, finding that the colonel of the 21st Illinois volunteer regiment was entirely
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GENERAL ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT.
unfit for his position, removed him, and telegraphed Grant that he had appointed him to the vacancy. He was on his way to Springfield at that time, and immediately assumed com- mand. In a short time they were under most admirable disci- pline, and an alarm occurring in regard to a Rebel attack upon Quincy, Illinois, he marched them thither on foot, a distance of one hundred and twenty miles, a feat at that time considered most extraordinary.
The first service to which the 21st Illinois was assigned, was to guard the Hannibal and St. Joseph railroad. Several regi- ments having been ordered to this service, it was necessary that one of the regimental commanders should become acting brig- adier-general, and control the whole, as no brigadier-general had been assigned to the command. For this office Grant, who, though the youngest colonel on the ground, was the only gra- duate of West Point, was selected, and took command at Mexico, Missouri, July 31, 1861. On the 9th of August, Colonel Grant was commissioned brigadier-general (his commission dating from the 17th of May), and sent with an adequate force to southern Missouri, where the rebel General Jeff. Thompson was threatening an advance. He visited Ironton, superintended the erection of fortifications there and at Marble creek, and, leaving a garrison in each place to defend it, hastened to Jefferson City, which was also threatened, and protected it from rebel attacks for ten days, when Thompson, having abandoned his purpose, General Grant left the Missouri capital to enter upon the com- mand of the important district of Cairo.
It was while he was in southern Missouri, his biographers say, that he issued his famous special order concerning Mrs. Selvidge's pie. The incident, which illustrates somewhat forci- bly the quiet humor which is a marked characteristic of the general, was something like this:
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In the rapid marches of his force in Southern Missouri their rations were often scanty, and not very palatable, but the region was poor and sparsely settled, and, for the most part, there was no chance of procuring food from the inhabitants of the country through which they were passing. At length, however, they emerged into a better and more cultivated section, and Lieute- nant Wickham, of an Indianą cavalry regiment, who was in command of the advanced guard of eighty men, halted at a farm-house of somewhat more comfortable appearance than any which they had passed, and entered the building with two second lieutenants. Pretending to be Brigadier-General Grant, he demanded food for himself and his staff. The family, whose loyalty was somewhat doubtful, alarmed at the idea of the Union general being on their premises, hastily brought forward the best their house afforded, at the same time loudly protesting their attachment to the Union cause. The lieutenants ate their ill, and, offering to compensate their hosts, were told that there was nothing to pay ; whereupon they went on their way, chuck- ling at their adroitness in getting so good a dinner for nothing. Soon after, General Grant, who had halted his army for a short rest a few miles further back, came up, and being rather favor- ably impressed with the appearance of the farm-house, rode up to the door and asked them if they would cook him a meal. The woman, who grudged the food already furnished to the self-styled general and his staff, replied gruffly, "No! General Grant and his staff have just been here, and eaten every thing in the house, except one pumpkin-pie."
"Ah !" said Grant; "what is your name ?"
" Selvidge," answered the woman.
Tossing her a half-dollar, the general asked, " Will you keep that pie until I send an officer for it ?"
"I will," said the woman.
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GENERAL ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT.
The general and staff rode on, and soon a camping ground was selected, and the regiments were notified that there would be a grand parade at half-past six for orders. This was unusual, and neither officers nor men could imagine what was coming. The parade was formed, however, ten columns deep, and a quar- ter of a mile in length. After the usual review, the assistant adjutant-general read the following :
"HEADQUARTERS, ARMY IN THE FIELD. " Special Order, No. -.
"Lieutenant Wickham, of the Indiana Cavalry, having on this day eaten every thing in Mrs. Selvidge's house, at the cross- ing of the Ironton and Pocahontas and Black river and Cape Girardeau roads, except one pumpkin pie, Lieutenant Wickham is hereby ordered to return with an escort of one hundred cavalry, and eat that pie also.
"U. S. GRANT, "Brigadier-general commanding."
The attempt to evade this order was useless, and at seven o'clock the lieutenant filed out of camp with his hundred men, amid the cheers of the whole army. The escort witnessed the eating of the pie, the whole of which the lieutenant succeeded in devouring, and returned to camp.
The post of Cairo, the headquarters of the district to the command of which General Grant was now ordered, was one, from its position, of great importance to the Union cause. It commanded both the Ohio and the Upper Mississippi, and was the depot of supplies for an extensive region above, and subse- quently below. Grant's command extended along the shores of the Mississippi as far as Cape Girardeau, and on the Ohio to the mouth of Green river, and included western Kentucky. That State, at this time, was trying to maintain a neutral posi- tion, favoring neither the Union nor the rebels, a position which was as absurd as it was soon found to be impossible.
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The rebels were the first to cross the lines, and take possession of the important towns of Columbus and Hickman, on the Mississippi, and Bowling Green, on the Green river, all of which they fortified. General Grant was apprized of these vio- lations of Kentucky's professed neutrality, and as they afforded him ample justification for occupying positions within the State, he quietly sent a body of troops, on the 6th of September, up the Ohio to Paducah, a town at the mouth of the Tennessee, and took possession of it at the time when the secessionists there were looking for the entry of the rebel troops, who were marching to occupy it. The rage of these enemies of the coun- try can be better imagined than described. Rebel flags were flaunted in the faces of our troops, and they were told that they should not long retain possession of the town.
This did not, however, in the least disturb the equanimity of General Grant. He issued a proclamation to the inhabitants in- forming them of his reasons for taking possession of the town, and that he was prepared to defend the citizens against the en- emy; and added, significantly, that he had nothing to do with opinions, but should deal only with armed rebellion, and its aiders and abettors.
On the 25th of September he dispatched a force to Smithland at the mouth of the Cumberland river, and took possession of that town also. The principal avenues through which the re- bels had obtained supplies of food, clothing, arms, and ammuni- tion, from the North, were thus effectually closed.
When General Grant was assigned to the command at Cairo, General McClernand's brigade and some other troops were added to his own brigade. Having taken possession of Paducah and Smithland, he now began to turn his attention to Colum- bus, Kentucky, an important position, held by the rebel Major- General Polk (a former bishop of the Protestant Episcopal
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Church), with a force of twenty thousand men. He had nearly completed his arrangements for attacking this post, when the Government ordered him to send five of his regiments to St. Louis. This left him too weak to make the attack with any hope of success.
On the 16th of October, General Grant, having learned that the rebel General Jeff. Thompson was approaching Pilot Knob, Missouri, and evidently purposing an extensive raid through southeastern Missouri, ordered fifteen hundred men, under Colonel Plummer, then stationed at Cape Girardeau, to move towards Fredericktown, Missouri, by way of Jackson and Dal- las, forming a junction at the latter place with Colonel Carlin, who had been ordered to move with three thousand men from another point, and, pursuing Thompson, to defeat and rout his force. The expeditions were successful. Thompson was found on the 21st of October, not far from Dallas, on the Greenville road, and, after an action of two and a half hours, defeated and routed with very heavy loss. Colonel Plummer captured in this engagement forty-two prisoners and one twelve-pounder.
By this expedition, General Grant ascertained the position and strength of Jeff. Thompson's forces, and learned also that the rebels were concentrating a considerable force at Belmont, Missouri, nearly opposite Columbus, Kentucky, with a view to blockade the Mississippi river, and to move speedily upon his position at Cairo. Having received orders to that effect from his superior officers, General Grant resolved to break up this camp, although aware that the rebels could be reinforced to al- most any extent from Columbus, Kentucky.
On the evening of the 6th of November, General Grant em- barked two brigades, in all about two thousand eight hundred and fifty men, under his own and General McClernand's com- mand, on board river steamers, and moved down the Missis-
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sippi. He had previously detached small bodies of troops to threaten Columbus from different directions, and to deceive the rebels as to his intentions. The ruse was successful, and the force which he commanded in person reached the vicinity of Belmont, and landed before the enemy had comprehended their intention. The Union troops, disembarking with great prompt- ness, marched rapidly towards the rebel camp, a distance of about two and a half miles, and, forcing their way through a dense abatis and other obstructions, charged through the camp, capturing their camp equipage, artillery, and small-arms, and burned the tents, blankets, etc. They also took a large number of prisoners. The rebel force at the camp was not far from 4000, but General Polk, learning of the attack, sent over as re- inforcements eight regiments, or somewhat more than 4000 more troops, under the command of Generals Pillow and Cheat- ham, and finally crossed the river himself and took command. General Grant having accomplished all, and more than he ex- pected, and being aware that Belmont was covered by the bat- teries at Columbus, and that heavy reinforcements could be read- ily sent from thence, made no attempt to hold the position, but withdrew in good order. On their way to their transports, the Union troops were confronted by the fresh rebel force under Polk's command, and a severe battle ensued, during which a considerable number of the rebel prisoners made their escape; and there were heavy losses in killed and wounded on both sides, the Union loss amounting to nearly one hundred killed, and four hundred or five hundred wounded and missing, the larger part of whom were prisoners. What was the exact rebel loss has never transpired, but it is known to have been larger than this, the number of prisoners alone exceeding the total Union loss. The Union troops at length succeeded in reaching their transports and re-embarking, under the protection of the
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gunboats Tyler and Lexington, which had convoyed them, bringing with them two cannon which they had captured, and spiking two others, which they were obliged to abandon.
On the 20th of December, General Halleck, who was then in command of the western department, reorganized the districts of his command, and enlarged the district of Cairo, including in it all the southern portion of Illinois, all of Kentucky west of the Cumberland river, and the southern counties of Missouri, and appointed Brigadier-General Grant commander of the new district. The large numbers of troops newly mustered in, which were pouring into the district, kept the commander and his sub- ordinate officers very busy for five or six weeks in organizing, training, and distributing them to the points where their ser- vices were required. Desirous of testing the capacity and en- durance of his raw troops, for the severe work which was be- fore them, Brigadier-General Grant made, on the 14th of Janu- ary, 1862, a reconnoissance in force into southeastern Missouri, which proved successful in all respects. He next, while keep- ing up a feint of attacking Columbus, Kentucky, prepared to co-operate with the gunboat flotilla, under the command of Flag Officer A. H. Foote, in an attack upon the two rebel forts on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, Forts Henry and Donelson. This attack was first suggested by that able officer, General Charles F. Smith, who died shortly after the battle of Shiloh, but it was pressed upon General Halleck, then in command of the Department of the Mississippi, by General Grant, with such pertinacity and earnestness, that it was finally ordered by that officer. The attack on Fort Henry, a small but strong work on the Tennessee river, was first in the order of time, and General Grant's part in it was delayed by the condition of the roads so much that General Tilghman, who was in command had time to send off most of his troops to Fort Donelson, and surrendered 3
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