While a large force of men was in arms not much had been done by Un-ion Gen-er-als. Mc-Clel-lan’s great ar-my grew less and less. Hordes of men were ill. Mc-Clel-lan had no plan for his troops to move. Hal-leck was in charge in Mis-sou-ri and Gen. Bu-ell in Ken-tuc-ky.
Pres-i-dent Lin-coln saw that a un-ion must be brought a-bout be-tween the moves of these three lead-ers. He wrote to them, but they did not care to do what he thought best.
U-lys-ses S. Grant, though a West Point man who had fought in the war with Mex-i-co in 1843, had left the ar-my and gone to a small farm near St. Lou-is. He was poor, but he built a small house of hewn logs for his fam-i-ly, did his own work on the land, and lived a life of peace.
A chance came to go to Ga-le-na, in the State of Il-li-nois. There Grant was a clerk in a store where they sold hides. There he was when the war broke out, and the South and the North, which had been as one, were now two, and full of hate.
Four days af-ter Lin-coln’s call for troops went through the land, U. S. Grant be-gan to drill some of the men in his place in the use of the gun. In a few days he set off with them for Spring-field, Ill. From there he wrote to a man who held a high post at Wash-ing-ton and told him that he would like to be of use and help save the land from its foe.
No word came back. But Grant kept on, staid in the same cit-y, and gave his time to the drill of all the troops he could find.
In five weeks’ time Cap-tain Grant was made Colo-nel and sent off to the seat of war at the head of the 21st Il-li-nois. He went first to Mis-sou-ri and then to Cai-ro. Soon, with-out ask-ing for the post, he was made Brig-a-dier-Gen-er-al.
A force of the foe, led by Gen. Polk, went up the Mis-sis-sip-pi from Mem-phis and took the high bluffs at Co-lum-bus, in Ken-tuc-ky.
A man from Co-lum-bus said, “The Con-fed-er-ates are get-ting read-y to seize Pa-du-cah!” Pa-du-cah was a place which would be of great worth to the side which first got hold of it. If the guns of the foe were put there they would stop steam-boats from pass-ing that point.
Gen. Grant saw that he must act at once. There was no time in which to wait for or-ders from the head of the troops in the West. The ver-y next morn-ing the folks who lived in Pa-du-cah were great-ly sur-prised to see a fleet of steam-boats full of Un-ion troops made fast at the wharf. The na-tives had been told that the for-ces of the South were to be there that day, and they had gone to the quay to greet Gen. Thom-as who was to lead those troops.