Beacon Lights of History, Volume 12: American Leaders

by John Lord

It must be observed that up to this time, in the autumn of 1863, the President had not only superintended the Army of the Potomac, but had borne the chief burden of the government and the war at large. Cabinet meetings, reports of generals, quarrels of generals, dissensions of political leaders, impertinence of editors, the premature pressure to emancipate slaves, Western campaigns, the affairs of the navy, and a thousand other things pressed upon his attention. It was his custom to follow the movements of every army with the map before him, and to be perfectly familiar with all the general, and many of the detailed, problems in every part of the vast field of the war. No man was ever more overworked. It may be a question how far he was wise in himself attending to so many details, and in giving directions to generals in high command, and sometimes against the advice of men more experienced in military matters. That is not for me to settle. He seemed to bear the government and all the armies on head and heart, as if the responsibility for everything was imposed upon him. What had been the history? In the East, two years clouded by disasters, mistakes, and national disappointments, with at last a breaking of the day,--and that, in the West.

Was ever a man more severely tried! And yet, in view of fatal errors on the part of generals, the disobedience of orders, and the unfriendly detractions of Chase,--his able, but self-important Secretary of the Treasury,--not a word of reproach had fallen from him; he was still gentle, conciliatory, patient, forgiving on all occasions, and marvellously reticent and self-sustained. His transcendent moral qualities stood out before the world unquestioned, whatever criticisms may be made as to the wisdom of all his acts.

But a brighter day was at hand. The disasters of the East--for Gettysburg was but the retrieving of a desperate situation--were compensated by great success in the West. Fort Donelson and Columbus in 1862, Vicksburg and Port Hudson in 1863, had been great achievements. The Mississippi was cleared of hostile forts upon its banks, and was opened to its mouth. New Orleans was occupied by Union troops. The finances were in good condition, for Chase had managed that great problem with brilliant effect. The national credit was restored. The navy had done wonders, and the southern coast was effectually blockaded. A war with England had been averted by the tact of Lincoln rather than the diplomacy of Seward.

Lincoln cordially sustained in his messages to Congress the financial schemes of the Secretary of the Treasury, and while he carefully watched, he did not interfere with, the orders of the Secretary of the Navy. To Farragut, Foote, and Porter was great glory due for opening the Mississippi, as much as to Grant and Sherman for cutting the Confederate States in twain. Too much praise cannot be given to Chase for the restoration of the national credit, and Lincoln bore patiently his adverse criticism in view of his transcendent services.

At this stage of public affairs, in the latter part of 1863, General Grant was called from the West to take command of the Army of the Potomac. His great military abilities were known to the whole nation. Although a graduate of West Point, who had, when young, done good service under General Scott, his mature life had been a failure; and when the war broke out he was engaged in the tanning business at Galena, Illinois, at a salary of $800. He offered his services to the governor of Illinois, and was made a colonel of volunteers. Shortly after entering active service he was made brigadier-general, and his ability as a commander was soon apparent. He gradually rose to the command of the military district of Southeast Missouri; then to the command of the great military rendezvous and depot at Cairo. Then followed his expedition, assisted by Commodore Foote, against Fort Henry on the Tennessee River, in the early part of 1862, with no encouragement from Halleck, the commanding-general at St. Louis. The capture of Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River came next, to the amazement and chagrin of the Confederate generals; for which he was made a major-general of volunteers. This was a great service, which resulted in the surrender of Generals Buckner and Johnston with 15,000 Confederate soldiers, 20,000 stands of arms, 48 pieces of artillery, and 3,000 horses. But this great success was nothing to the siege and capture of Vicksburg, July 4, 1863, which opened the Mississippi and divided the Confederacy, to say nothing of the surrender of nearly 30,000 men, 172 cannon, and 60,000 muskets. Then followed the great battle of Chattanooga, which shed glory on Thomas, Sherman, Burnside, and Hooker, and raised still higher the military fame of Grant, who had planned and directed it. No general in the war had approached him in success and ability. The eyes of the nation were now upon him. Congress revived for him the grade of lieutenant-general, and the conqueror of Vicksburg and Chattanooga received the honor on March 3, 1864, the first on whom the full rank had been conferred since Washington. The lieutenant-generalcy conferred on Winfield Scott after the Mexican War was a special brevet title of honor, that rank not existing in our army.

On the 8th of March the President met the successful and fortunate general for the first time, and was delighted with his quiet modesty; on the next day he gave him command of all the armies of the United States. Grant was given to understand that the work assigned to him personally was the capture of Richmond. But he was left to follow out his own plans, and march to the Confederate capital by any route he saw fit. Henceforth the President, feeling full confidence, ceased to concern himself with the plans of the general commanding the Army of the Potomac. He did not even ask to know them. All he and the Secretary of War could do was to forward the plans of the Lieutenant-General, and provide all the troops he wanted. Lincoln's anxieties of course remained, and he watched eagerly for news, and was seen often at the war department till late at night, waiting to learn what Grant was doing; but Grant was left with the whole military responsibility, because he was evidently competent for it; the relief to Lincoln must have been immense. The history of the war, from this time, belongs to the life of Grant rather than of Lincoln. Suggestions to that successful soldier from civilians now were like those of the Dutch Deputies when they undertook to lecture the great Marlborough on the art of war. To bring the war to a speedy close required the brain and the will and the energy of a military genius, and the rapid and concentrated efforts of veteran soldiers, disciplined by experience, and inured to the toils and dangers of war.

The only great obstacle was the difficulty of enlisting men in what was now more than ever to be dangerous work. When Grant began his march to Richmond probably half-a-million of soldiers had perished on each side, and a national debt had been contracted of over two thousand millions of dollars. In spite of patriotic calls, in spite of bounties, it became necessary to draft men into the service,--a compulsory act of power to be justified only by the exigencies of the country. In no other way could the requisite number of troops be secured. Multitudes of the survivors have been subsequently rewarded, at least partially, by pensions. The pension list, at the close of Harrison's administration in 1892, amounted to a sum greater than Germany annually expends on its gigantic army. So far as the pensioners are genuinely disabled veterans, the people make no complaint, appreciating the sacrifices which the soldiers were compelled to make in the dreadful contest. But so vast a fund for distribution attracted the inevitable horde of small lawyers and pension agents, who swelled the lists with multitudes of sham veterans and able-bodied "cripples," until many eminent ex-soldiers cried out for a purgation of that which should be a list of honor.

Nor is it disloyal or unpatriotic to shed a tear for the brave but misguided men whom the Southern leaders led to destruction without any such recompense for their wounds and hardships,--for the loss of their property, loss of military prestige, loss of political power, loss of everything but honor. At first we called them Rebels, and no penalties were deemed too severe for them to suffer; but later we called them Confederates, waging war for a cause which they honestly deemed sacred, and for which they cheerfully offered up their lives,--a monstrous delusion, indeed, but one for which we ceased to curse them, and soon learned to forgive, after their cause was lost. Resentment gave place to pity, and they became like erring brothers, whom it was our duty to forgive, and in many respects our impulse to admire,--not for their cause, but for their devotion to it. All this was foreseen and foretold by Edward Everett during the war, yet there were but few who agreed with him.

I can devote but little space to the military movements of General Grant in Virginia until Richmond surrendered and the rebellion collapsed. There was among the Southerners no contempt of this leader, fresh from the laurels of Fort Donelson, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga; and the Confederates put forth almost superhuman efforts to defend their capital against the scientific strategy of the most successful general of the war, supported as he was by almost unlimited forces, and the unreserved confidence of his government.

The new general-in-chief established his headquarters at Culpeper Court House near the end of March, 1864. His plan of operations was simple,--to advance against Lee, before proceeding to Richmond, and defeat his army if possible. Richmond, even if taken, would be comparatively valueless unless Lee were previously defeated. Grant's forces were about one hundred and fifty thousand men, and Lee's little more than half that number, but the latter were intrenched in strong positions on the interior line. It was Grant's plan to fight whenever an opportunity was presented,--since he could afford to lose two men to one of the enemy, and was thus sure to beat in the long run; as a chess-player, having a superiority of pieces, freely exchanges as he gets opportunity. There was nothing particularly brilliant in this policy adopted by Grant, except the great fact that he chose the course most likely to succeed, whatever might be his losses. Lee at first was also ready to fight, but after the dreadful slaughter on both sides in the battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, and Cold Harbor, he apparently changed his plans. One-third of his forces had melted away; he saw that he could not afford to take risks, and retreated behind his defences. Grant, too, had changed his operations, at first directed against Richmond on the northwest; and, since he found every hill and wood and morass strongly fortified, he concluded to march on Lee's flank to the James River, and attack Richmond from the south, after reducing Petersburg, and destroying the southern railroads by which the Confederates received most of their supplies.