Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 June 1885 — GRANT’S LIFE. [ARTICLE]

GRANT’S LIFE.

Extracts from the General’s Personal Memoirs—The Interview With Lincoln. His Peculiar Feelings Just Before the First Battle Humorously Described. • ’• '’) ■ . ’.' 4 J How Chattanooga Was Saved—The Wilderness Campaigru-Vari-ous Other Anecdotes. The crowning -work of Gen. Grant's life—his personal memoirs, written by himself—is how practically complete, and in the hands of the publishers. There will be two volumes, of 500 pages each. The first will contain the family genealogy and a history of the General’s boyhood and youth. It will have for frontispiece an eneraving of Lieut. U. S. Grant at the age of 21. The second volume deals mainly with the events of the war of the rebellion, i The text will be freely illustrated by plans and maps showing the maneuvers of the armies on the various fields of battle. The volume treats of the battle of Chattanooga, Hooker’s fight above the clouds on Lookout Mountain, and all the subsequent operations up to the great battle of the Wilderness. The capture of Atlanta, Sherman's march to the sea, and his operations in Georgia, North and South Carolina, 1 as well as Sheridan’s raid down the Shenandoah Valley and his victory at Five Forks, are described. The' Appomattox campaign, culminating with the final scene of Lee’s surrender at McLean’s house, is graphically told. The apple-tree legend and the story of Lee’s sword are authentically settled. The first volume contains little of interest. The story of Grant’s early Jife as told by himself is conventional and quite devoid of exciting incident. But in the second volume, where the memoirs deal with the thrilling events of the war, the simple, lucid style in which the workils written is pleasing, and the interest never flags. —’ From advance sheets of the work the following extracts are taken: Wrimtg of 1861, Gen. Grant says: ‘‘Going home for a day or two soon after a conversation with Gen. Pope, I wrote from. Galena the following letter to the Adjutant General of the army: —. . ' - ===*=.

- May?24,-1861-.—~ “Col. L. Thomas, Adjutant General U. 8. A., Washington, D. C.: “ Sir—Having served for fifteen years in the regular army, including four years at West Point, and feeling it the duty of every One who has been educated at the Government expense to offer his services for the support of tjjat Government, I have the honor very respectfully to tender my services until the close of tfie war in such capacity as may be offered. I would say, in view of my present age and length of service, I feel myself competent to command a regiment if the President in his judgment should see fit to intrust one to ipe. Since the first call of the President I have been serving on the staff of the Governor of this State, rendering such aid as I could in the organization of our State militia, and am still engaged in that capacity. A letter addressed to me at Springfield, 111., will reach me. l am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, U. S. Grant.” Gen. Grant, describing his first battle in the civil war, says: “As soon as the enemy saw us they decamped as fast as their horses would carry them. I kept my men in the ranks and forbade their entering any of the deserted houses oi; taking anything from them. We halted at night on the road and proceeded the next morning at an early hour. Harris had been encamped in a creek bottom for the sake of being near water. The hills on either side of the creek extend to a considerable height, possibly more than 100 feet. • As we approached the brow of the hill, from which it was expected we could see Harris’ camp and possibly find his men ready formed to meet us, my heart kept getting higher and higher, until it felt to me as though it was in my throat. I would have given anything then to have been back in Illinois, but I had not the moral courage to halt and consider what to do. I kent right bn. When we reached a point from which the valley below was in full view 1 halted. The place where Harris had been encamped a few days before was still there, and the marks of a recent encampment were plainly visible, but the troops were gone. My heart resumed its place. It occurred to me at once that Harris had been as much afraid of me as I had been of him. This was a view of the question I had never taken before, but it was one I never forgot afterward. From that event to the close of the war I never experienced trepidation on confronting an enemy. "At the battle cf Belmont, fearing that the enemy we had seen crossing the river below might be coming upon us unawares, I rode out in thc tield to our front—still entirely alone—to observe whether the enemy was passing. The field was grown up with corn so tall and thick as to cut off the view of even a person on horseback, except directly along the rows. Even in that direction, owing to the overhanging blades of corn, the view was not extensive. I had not gone more than a few hundred yards when I saw a body of troops marching past me not forty yards away. I looked at them for a moment, and then turned my horse toward the river, and started back, first in a walk, and when-1 thought myself concealed from the view of the enemy as fast as my horse could carry me. When at the river bank I still had to ride a few hundred yards to the point where the nearest transport lay. The corn-field in front of our transports terminated at the edge of a dense forest. Before I got back the enemy had entered this forest and had opened a brisk fire upon the boats. Otlr men, with the exception of details that had gone to the front after the wounded, were now either aboard the transports or very near them. Those who were not on board soon got there, and the boats pushed off. I was the only man of the national army between the rebels and our t ransports. The Captain of a boat that had just flushed out, but had not started, recognized me, and ordered the engineer not to start the fllgine. He then had a plank ran out for me. Mv horse seemed to take in the situation. There was no path down the bank, and every one acquainted with the Mis-si-sippi knows that its banks in a natural state do not vary at any great angle from the perpendicular. My horse put his fore feet over the bank without hesitation or urging, and with his hind feet well under’ him slid down the bank and trotted aboard the boat, twelve or fifteen feet away, over a single gang plank. I dismounted and went at once to the upper deck. “The description of the battle of Shiloh given by CoL William Preston Johnston is very graphic and well told. The reader will imagine that he can see at each blow struck a demoralized and broken mob of Federal soldiers, each blow sending the enemy more demoralized than ever toward the Tennessee River, which was a little more than two miles away at the beginning of the onset. If the reader does not stop to inquire why, with such Confederate success for more than twelve hours of hard fighting, the national troops were not all killed, captured, or driven into the river, he will regard the penpicture as perfect. But I witnessed the fight from the national side from 8 o’clock in the

morning until nicht closed the contest, and I see but little in the description that I can recognize. The Confederate troops fought well, and deserve commendation enough for their bravery and endurance on the 6th of April without detraction from their antagonists or claiming anything more than their due-. In an article on the battle of Shiloh which I wrote for the Century Magazine I stated that Gen. A. McD. McCook, who commanded a division of Buell's army, expressed some unwillingness to pursue the enemy Monday, April 7, because of the condition of the troops. Gen. Badeau also, in his history, makes the same statement on my authority. In justice to Gen. McCook and his command, I must say that they left a point twenty-two miles east of Savannah on the morning of the 6th. From the heavy rains of a few days previous, and the passage of trains and artillery, the roads were necessarily deep in mud, which made marching slow. The division had not only marched through this mud the day before, but it had been in the rain all night without rest. It was engaged in the battle -of the second day, and did as goM service as its position allowed. In fact, an opportunity occurred for it to perform a conspicuous act of gallantry, which elicited the highest commendation from division commanders in the Army of the Ten-. neseee. Gem Sherman, in both his memoirs and report, makes mention of this. fact. Gem McCook himself belonged to a family which furnished many volunteers to the army. 1 refer to these circumstances wi;h minuteness because I did Gem McCook injustice in my article in the Century, though not to the extent one would suppose from the public press. lam not willing to do any one an injustice, and if conrincedthat I have done one I am willing to make the fullest confession. v, “The campaign of Vicksburg was suggested ■ and developed by circumstances. The elections of 1862 > had gone against the prosecution of the war. Volunteen enlistments had nearly ceased and the draft had been re sorted to. This was resisted and a defeat or backward movement would have made its execution impossible. . A forward movement! to decisive victory was nece-sary. Accordingly, I resolved to get below unite with . Banks agajnst Port Hudson, make New Orleans

a base, and. with that baae and Grand Gulf aa a star Ing point, move our com blued forces against Vicksburg. Upon reaching Grand Gulf, after running its batteries tad figheintta battle, 1 received a letter from Banks informing me that he could not be at Port Hudson under ten days, and then with onlv fifteen thousand men. The time was worth more than the re-enforcements. I therefore determined to push into the interior »f the enemy’s country. With a large river behind us. held above and below by the enetav, rapid movements were essential to success. ' Jackson was captured the day after a new commander had arrived and when large re-enforce-ments were daily expected. A rapid movement west was made, and the garrison of Vicksburg wai met in five battles and badly defeated. The city was then successfully besieged." Following is an- account of Gen. Grant's appointment as Lieutenant General: “My commission as Lieutenant General was given to me on the 9th of March, 1864. On the following day 1 visited Gen. Meade, commanding the Army of the Potomac, at his headquarters at Biandy Station, ne&r the Rapidan. I had known Gen. Meade slightly in the Mexican war, but had not met him since until this visit. I was a stranger to most of the Army of the Potomac—l might say to all, except the officers of the regular army who had served in the Mexican war. There haa been some changes ordered in the organization of that army before my promotion.. On 4 Was the consolidation of five corps into three, thus throwing some officers of rank out of important commands. Meade evidently thought I might want to make s fill one more change not yet ordered. He said to me that I might want an officer who had served with me at the West, mentioning Sherman especially, to take his place. If so, he begged me not to hesitate about making the change." No reminiscence of war history will be read with greater interest than Gen. Grant’s account of first meeting with Mr. Lincoln, and Mr. Lincoln’s charge to him: . "Although hailjng from Illinois myself, the State of the Pres dent, I had never-met Mr. Lincoln until called to the capital to receive my commission as Lieutenant General. I knew him, however, very well and favorably from the accounts given by officers under me at theYt est who had known him all their lives. I had also read the remarkable course of debates between Lincoln knd Douglas a few years before, when they were rival candidates for the United States Senate. I was then a resident of Missouri, and by no means a ‘ Lincoln man’ in th t contest, but I recognized his great ability. In my first interview with Mr. Lincoln alone he stated that he bad never professed to be a military man or to know how campaigns should be conducted, and never wanted to interfere with tnem, but that procrastination on the part of the commanders and the pressure of the people at the North and of Congress, which, like the poor, he ‘had always with him,’ had forced him into issuing his well-known series of ‘executive orders.’ He did not know but they were all wrong, and did not doubt but some of them were. All he wanted, or ever had wanted.was that some one would take the responsibility and’act, and call on him for all the assistance needed.” Of, the Wilderness campaign the General says: “Operating as we were in an enemy s country, and supplied always from a distant base, large detachments had at all times to be sent from the front, rot only to guard the hage of supplies and the roads leading to it, out all the roads leading to our Hanks and rear. We were also operating in a country unknown to us, and without competent guides or maps showing the roads accurately. Estimating Lee's strength in the same manner as ours, the enemy had not less than eighty thousand men at the start. His re-enforcements during the campaign were about equal to ours deducting our discharged men and those sent back, Lee was on the defensive and in a country in which every stream, every road, every obstacle to the movements of troops, and every natural defense Was familiar to him and his army. The citizens were all friendly to him and his cause, and could and did furnish him with accurate reports of our every movement. Rear guards were not necessary for him, and, having always a railroad at his back, large wagon trains were not required. All circumstances considered, we did not have any advantage of numbers. Qn the morning of the 7th we sent out pickets and skirmishers along our entire front to discover the position of the enemy. Some went as far as a mile and a half ‘bef ore finding him- But Lee showed no disposition to come out. There was no battle during the day and but little firing, except in Warren's front about midday. Warren was directed to make a reconrioissance in force. This drew some sharp firing, but there was no attempt on the part of the rebels to drive them back. 'J his ended the battle of the Wilderness. More severe fighting has not been witnessed on this continent than that of the sth and 6th of May. 1864. Our victory consisted in having successfully crossed a formidable stream almost in the face of the enemy, and in getting the army together afterward as a unit. We gained an advantage on ti e morning of the Gth which, if it had been followed up. must have proven very decisive. In the evening the enetny gained an advantage, but was speedily repulsed. A 8 *«• stood at the close, the two armies were relatively in about the same condition to meet each other as when the river had divided them, but the fact of safely crossing was a victory. Our losses in the battle of the Wilderness were 2,261 killed, 8,785 wounded, and 2,902 missing-probably nearly all the lattier captured by the enemy.” ~-4>Gen. Grant thus describes Gen. Lee’s surrender: “1 found Gen. Lee had been brought into our lines and conducted to a house belonging fax a Mr. McLean, and was there with one of his staff officers waiting mv arrival. The head of his column was occupying a hill, a portion of which was an apple orchard, across the little valley from the Court House. Sheridan’s forces were drawn up in line of battle on the crest of the hill, on the south side of the same valley. Before stating what took place between Gen. Lee and myself. I will give all there is of the narrative of Gen. Lee and the famous apple tree. Wars produce many stories of fiction, some of which are told until they are believed. The war of the rebellion was fruitful in the same way. The story of the apple tree is one of those fictions, with a slight foundation of fact. “As I have said, there was an apple Orchard on the side of the hill occupied by the Confederate forces. Running diagonally up the hill Was a wagon road, which at one point ran very near one of the trees, so that the wheels on that side had cut off the roots of the tree, which made a little embankment. Gen. Babcock reported tQ,me that when he met Gen. Lee he was sitting upon the embankment, with his feet on the road, and leaning against the tree. It was then that Lee was Conducted into the house, where I first met him. I had known Gen. Lee in the old army, and had served with him in the Mexican war, but did not suppose, owing to the differences in our ages and rant that he would probably remember me, while 1 would remember him more distinctly because he was the chief .engineer on the staff of General Scott in the Mexican war. When I left camp that morning I had not expected the result so soon that was then taking place, and, consequently, was in rough garb, and without a sword, aS I usually was when on horseback on the field, wearing a soldier’s blouse for a coat, with shoulder-straps of my rank to indicate who I was to the army. When I Went into the house 1 found Gen. Lee. We greeted each other, and after shaking hands took our seats. What his feelings were Ido not know. Being a man of much dignity, and with an Impenetrable face, it was impossible to say whether he felt inwardly glad the end had finally come, or whether he felt sadly over the result and was too manly to show it. Whatever his feelings, they were entirely concealed from observation; but my own feelings, which had been quite apparent on the receipt of his letter, were sad and depressed. I felt like anything rather than rejoic ng at the downfall of a foe that had fought so long and gallantly, and had suffered so much for a cause which I believed to be one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and for which there was not the least pretext. Ido not question, however, the sincerity of the great mass of those who were opposed to u,s. Gen. Lee was dressed in full uniform, entirely new, and wearing a sword of considerable value: ( yery likely the sword that had been presented by the State of Virginia. At all events, it was an entirely different sword from the one that woulct ordinarily be worp -in the field. In my rough traveling suit, which was the uniform of a private with the straps of a General, I must have contrasted very strangely with a man so handsomely dressed, six feet high, and of faultless form. But this was not a matter that I thought of Until afterward. Gen. Lee and I soon fell into a conversation about old army times. He remarked that he remembered me very well in the old army, and I told him, as a matter of course, I remembered him perfectly, but owing to the difference In years—there being about sixteen years difference in our ages-and our rank, I thought it very likely I had not attracted his attention sufficiently to be remembered after such a long period. Our conversation grew so pleasantrthat I almost forget the object of our meeting. Gen. Lee at that time was accompanied by one or his staff officers, a Col. Mar-hall I had all of my staff with me, a good portion of whom were in the room during the interview." This is Gen. Grant’s account of how Chattanooga was saved: "On receipt of Mr. Dana’s dispatch Mr. Stanton sent for me. Finding that I was out he became nervous and excited, inquiring of every person he met, including guests of the house, whether they knew where I was, and bidding them find me and send me to him at once. About II o'clock I returned to the hotel, and on my way, when near the house, every person I met was a messenger from the Secretary, apparently partaking of his impatience to see me. I hastened to the room of the Secretary, and fdund him pacing the floor rapidly . in about the garb Mr. Jefferson Davis was wearing subsequently when he was captured—i 1 ’ .\4fe- ", ' ;

dressing gown, but without the shawl and sunbonnet. He showed the 1 dispatch, saying that the retreat must be prevented. 1 immediately wrote an order assuming command of the Military Division of the Mississppl and telegraphed It to Gen. Rosecrans. I then telegraphed him the order from Washington asslgniug to Thomas the command of the Army of the Cumberland, and to Thomas that he most hold Chattanooga at all hazards.” Here is a funny story about Gen. Bragg, which Gen. Grant tells in his characteristically simple way: “I have heard a story in the old army very characteristic of Bragg. On one occasion, when stationed at a post of several companies, commanded by a field officer, he was himself commanding one of the companies, and at the same time acting Post Quartermaster and Commissary. He was a First Lieutenant at the time, hut his Captain was detached to other duty. As commander of the com: any,! he made a reouisition upon the, Quartermaster thimselfi for something he wanted. jAs Quartermaster ha declined to fill the requisition, and indorsed on the back of it his reason for so doing. As conn any commander he responded to this, urging that his requisition called for nothing but what he was entitled to, and t hat it was the dv-ty of the Quartermaster to fill it. The Quartermaster still persisted that he was right. In this condition of affairs Bragg referred the whole matter to the commanding officer. The latter, when he snw the nature of the matter referred,exclaimed: ‘My God, Mr. Bragg, yon have quarreled with every officer in the army, and now you are quarreling with yourself!’ Lcugstreet was an entirely different man." ' -