The whole field of battle, covering several square miles, is dotted with hundreds of similar memorials of many varieties. These monuments have been erected year after year by the survivors or by their friends. They indicate the positions held by regiments, brigades, and divisions, where desperate charges and equally desperate repulses occurred, or where gallant officers fell.
315. Lincoln's Masterly Address at Gettysburg.—In November, 1863, the central portion of the battlefield was set apart as a National Cemetery and dedicated with solemn ceremonies. The most important of these was the notably eloquent address by President Lincoln, which has passed into history as an event hardly less memorable than the great conflict itself. Perhaps in no language, ancient or modern, are any words found more comprehensive and eloquent than this brief speech.
Time has tested the strength of this short, simple address. After more than a quarter of a century it is still as familiar as household words.
General U. S. Grant.
316. Success of General Grant in the West.—Let us now read about a few of the great events of the war in the West during the first half of the year 1863. Here General Grant was the central figure of important military operations. He had already become prominent by the brilliant campaigns we have mentioned. His remarkable career furnishes one of the many examples of great men coming up from obscure and unpromising conditions of life.
He was born in Ohio in 1822, and received a military education at West Point. He was a successful officer in the Mexican War, having been engaged in nearly all the battles of the war, where he manifested conspicuous bravery. Returning from Mexico, he engaged a while in farming, but with discouraging results. Evidently it was not his vocation.
When the Civil War opened, Grant was employed at a small salary in his father's leather store in Galena, Illinois. He at once offered the governor his services, and was appointed a colonel of an Illinois regiment. He rose rapidly to conspicuous positions.
317. Capture of Vicksburg.—General Grant, after defeating the Confederates at the battle of Shiloh, and driving them south to Corinth, followed them to Vicksburg. This was a stronghold from which they seemed to defy every effort to dislodge them.
The city stands on a high bluff some two hundred feet above the Mississippi, and as there were heavy batteries all along the river front and on the hillsides, Grant could not attack the city with his gunboats. On the north there were miles of swamps and creeks, so that he could not approach on that side. On the east the city was heavily fortified with cannon.