Our Standard-Bearer; Or, The Life of General Uysses S. Grant

by Oliver Optic

The fiery Southrons ostentatiously made their preparations for a conflict which they did not believe would take place, and the North, if not unmoved, yet exercised a degree of forbearance which appeared like indifference, in the face of this parade of hostile demonstrations. The government was paralyzed by the unwonted situation; but it did not raise a finger to disturb or check the hostile operations of the rebels. The constitution and the laws were set at nought; forts, arsenals, and dock-yards were seized; the nation's property was plundered, and its honored flag insulted and trailed in the dust; but the sword of justice still rested in its scabbard. Southern fanatics howled, stormed, and blustered; yet the government only waited—waited till the fiery zeal of the South appeared to be in danger of wasting itself before the purposes of its leaders were accomplished.

It was necessary that something should be done to "fire the Southern heart," and rekindle the enthusiasm of the people, which was waxing cold under the forbearance of an insulted government. Fort Sumter was bombarded; lines of batteries encircling the devoted work poured in their rain of shot and shell, and battered down the walls of the fortress, defended by only a handful of men. Skilful officers, educated at the public expense to defend the government against which they were now raising their parricidal hands, conducted the cowardly enterprise, with the flower of Southern chivalry gathered in thousands under their command, to a successful issue. The triumph was theirs, the glory and the endless shame in one foul deed.

The South sang the pæan of victory, achieved with an odds of a hundred to one in its favor, and the Southern heart was fired. By the same deed another heart was fired. The North rose as one man to resent the base outrage, the cowardly assault. The last moment when compromise was possible, passed away with the report of the first gun aimed at Sumter. That gun awoke the slumbering North, and in every peaceful hamlet the drum-beat of preparation sounded, beginning on the St. Croix and ending far west of the Mississippi. The news that the first blow had been struck flashed through the land, silent between hope and fear, and kindled an enthusiasm which had no bound or limit. Traitors north and traitors south were marked men from that thrilling hour. There was no voice but for the nation's honor and the nation's defence, in the onslaught of a treacherous foe.

For years the military spirit in the people had been repressed and discouraged. The soldier was regarded as an obsolete necessity, and the profession of arms had become absolutely disreputable in many parts of the country. Except here and there one who had served in the Mexican war, and a superannuated veteran of 1812, there was not a soldier in the land who had any experience of actual warfare. Half a century had elapsed since the fact of war in their own midst had been realized by the people, and all their traditions were of peace and prosperity.

But in spite of their peaceful antecedents, in spite of the seeming indifference with which they had regarded the gathering storm, they flew to arms. Without any concert of action, without any startling proclamations to rouse their sleeping energies, they rallied beneath the banner of the country, and the spectacle of a united North was held up to the view of the astonished South. The proclamation of the president calling for seventy-five thousand men—an unheard-of army within our peaceful borders—immediately followed the tidings of the shock of actual conflict. The government had come out of its lethargy with the people, and both were in hearty sympathy.

To Galena came the tidings from Fort Sumter, and to Galena came the proclamation of President Lincoln. We were thrilled by the treacherous deed of those who were henceforth to be our foes. We were thrilled by the note of preparation which sounded at the same time. Our hearts beat the quickstep which was reverberating through the entire North, and from the depths of our souls we thanked the patriot president for his prompt and decided action. With an indignation which was characteristic of the man, Captain Grant read the newspaper which contained the story of the nation's dishonor. The lines which delineate on his face the force of his will seemed to deepen as he realized the fact that the first blow had actually been struck. In that cowardly army which had rained shot and shell upon a little worn-out band of regular soldiers for thirty-three hours were some of his classmates and companions in arms on the bloody fields of Mexico. They had been friends, but now they were enemies.

There was no halting or hesitation in the man. The blows which battered down Sumter reached his great heart. His country was in peril, and his patriotic soul responded to the call for her defence. He made no noisy demonstrations, but calmly and resolutely fixed his purpose and declared his intentions. There was no foam or fury in his manner; nothing was said and nothing was done to create a sensation, though the man who had won laurels in the hard-fought battles of Mexico might have been excused, on such an occasion, for a little display or a little pomposity; but that was not Grant. Actuated only by a sense of duty to his country, and not at all by a desire to serve himself or to win the honors of the profession he had first chosen, he was as gentle and modest as the humblest civilian.

The soldier, especially the trained and experienced soldier, was a mighty man in those days. The whole country was rising in arms, and his influence was potent. The nation wanted him, and his profession, maligned and treated with contempt before, suddenly elevated him above the sphere of politicians and statesmen. Grant was a soldier, and the fact that he was a graduate of West Point, and had seen service in the field, made him a man to whom others looked up with respect and admiration in the new dispensation which necessity preached to the people.

I dwell with pride and pleasure upon the deportment of Captain Grant at this exciting period. To me there was something sublime in his absolute self-negation. His antecedents, his military record, entitled him to a high position in the volunteer army which was then gathering. It would not have been immodest for him to write to the governor of Illinois, asking a position as a major general in the mustering host. He did nothing of the kind; he asked for no position. He did not thrust his rank in the regular army, which he had earned by hard fighting, into the faces of civil or military officials. He claimed nothing.