During the winter-campaign in Mississippi and the siege of Vicksburg, Logan’s bravery was proverbial. He was given command of a division in McPherson’s corps, and made a major-general in the army, within a year of entrance.
During the summer of 1862 he was repeatedly urged to “run for congress,” but his reply was worthy a hero: “I have entered the field to die, if need be, for this Government, and never expect to return to peaceful pursuits until the object of this war of preservation has become a fact established.”
His personal bravery and military skill were so conspicuous in Grant’s Northern Mississippi movements, where he commanded a division of the Seventeenth Army Corps, under General McPherson, he was promoted to the rank of major-general Nov. 26, 1862. He was present in every fight, his daring bravery animating his men at Fort Gibson, Raymond, Jackson, Champion Hill, and Vicksburg. He was in command of McPherson’s centre, June 25th, when the assault upon Vicksburg was made. His column led the entrance into the city, and he became its first military governor.
In November, 1863, he was called to succeed General Sherman in command of his famous Fifteenth Army Corps. The following May he joined Sherman as the Georgia campaign was opening. It was Logan who led the advance of the Army of the Tennessee at Resaca, who whipped Hardee’s trained veterans at Dallas, and drove the enemy from Kenesaw Mountain.
On July 22d he was in the fierce assault before Atlanta. In this desperate attack upon Hood, Logan fought as he never fought before, and when McPherson fell he took command of the Army of the Tennessee, and with resistless fury avenged the death of the beloved commander.
After the fall of Atlanta he returned to Illinois, temporarily, to take part in the presidential campaign. It was our privilege to hear him then, and never, it would seem, did such withering scorn, such utter denunciation, such infinite contempt, show themselves, as he manifested in a great speech, full of vim and fire, not for the brave, honest rebel in arms, but for the cowardly copperheads in the rear.
He was less than forty years of age, only thirty-eight, but his name and fame as a soldier were a tower of strength, and he drew together immense crowds.
Soon after Mr. Lincoln’s second election he returns to the front, and joins Sherman in his march to the sea, and continued with him until the surrender of Gen. Joseph Johnston, on April 26, 1865. After the surrender he marched his men to Alexandria, and rode at their head in the grand review in Washington. He had taken command of the Army of the Tennessee, Oct. 23, 1864, and tendered his resignation when active service was over, being unwilling to draw pay unless on duty in the field.
President Johnson tendered him the mission to Mexico, but he declined it, and returning home was elected successively to the fortieth, the forty-first, and the forty-second congresses. He was selected as one of a committee of seven to represent the House in the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson.
Before he had taken his seat in the forty-second congress, the legislature of Illinois elected him to the United States senate for the full term from March 4, 1871, to succeed the Hon. Richard Yates, the gallant war-governor of that state. He was again chosen for the senate, and took his seat the second time March 18, 1879. His present term expires March 3, 1885. He led the delegation of his state in the national convention of 1880, and was one of the most determined of the “three hundred and six” who followed the fortunes of “the old commander,” General Grant.