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

by Oliver Optic

Efficient regular officers, however popular they became on the field of battle, were in perhaps a majority of instances exceedingly obnoxious to the troops in camps of organization and discipline. With the democratic ideas of the soldiers, with their republican notions of equality, it was hardly possible that it should be otherwise; for the transition of the citizen from his social rank in the city and the village to the ranks of the army was a violent and radical change to him. Doubtless, in many cases, these West Point officers were martinets, and, "armed with a little brief authority," were unnecessarily arbitrary and severe; but it was not these alone who were stigmatized as "tyrants" and "oppressors."

Without discipline, even down to the minute details of which a civilian can have no adequate conception or appreciation, an army is inefficient, and in a measure useless. The regular officers justified themselves before the enemy, if they did not sooner, not alone in the merit of their fighting capacity, but in those obnoxious details of discipline.

Grant was a regular army officer, a strict but prudent disciplinarian. Several regiments desired to elect him as their colonel, which amply vouches for his popularity before he had come into direct and intimate contact with the volunteer force. There was magic in the idea of having a commander who had not only received a regular military education, but who had won a reputation on the field of battle. It was a guaranty of the future welfare of the regiment. To maintain this respect, and keep up this popularity during the actual enforcement of arbitrary and disagreeable military regulations, was a vastly greater achievement.

The Twenty-first Illinois Infantry was a body of three months troops. In this, even more than in many other regiments, the democratic ideas of equality, so pernicious in a military organization, were prevalent to such an extent that the colonel, whose place Grant had been appointed to fill, could not manage it. Peculiar circumstances were involved in the relations of the commander and the troops; and when it is considered that the lesson of the necessity of discipline had not yet been learned, it is hardly proper to blame either party. The regiment was then in a demoralized condition, but it was composed of splendid material, and its subsequent record proves that its men were apt scholars in the school of discipline as well as in that of actual conflict.

They were proud to have a regular army officer as their leader; but when he made his appearance before them, his rather rusty clothes, and plain, matter-of-fact manner, excited their ridicule. However they soon stumbled against his iron will, and promptly realized that they had a commander who had been in the habit of being obeyed, and who intended to be in the present instance. He was not a showy man, and not one who was disposed merely to play soldier. They saw that he meant fight, and meant discipline.

Colonel Grant marched his regiment to Caseyville, where he drilled the men for four weeks, transforming them from a mob into one of the best disciplined bodies of troops in the country; indeed, the Twenty-first became noted for its drill and discipline. It was no easy thing at that time, when the private in the ranks regarded himself as the equal of the colonel, and was unwilling, even in his military relations, to sacrifice his own individual will,—it was no easy thing to bring order and regularity out of the chaos of equality and confusion. But Grant accomplished this, and more than this; and he did it so skilfully and adroitly that no heads were broken, and no man was persuaded into the belief that he was no longer an American citizen.

Grant has been nominated to the highest office in the gift of the people—a position which will make him the peer of emperors and kings; and it is important to deduce from his record the evidence of his fitness for this splendid elevation. An iron will, unmodified by other noble traits of character, is an element of weakness rather than of strength, for a merely obstinate man at the helm of state is a discordant and dangerous element. A strong will, sustained and dignified by high aims and genuine principle, is a godlike attribute; without true principle and high aims, it reduces the man to the vilest brute level: it makes him a Nero or a Caligula.

I am filled with admiration when I think of the excellent manner in which Grant managed this regiment, and raised it from disgrace and inefficiency to honor and usefulness. I do not hazard much in declaring, that, under the circumstances, it was one of his most skilful achievements. Then he was without influence; there was none of the magic in his name which time and victory have wreathed around it; his reputation as an officer hardly equalled that of hundreds of others around him. He took a disorganized, turbulent regiment, recruited it in a few days up to the maximum standard, and, in spite of all the disadvantages in the material and the surrounding circumstances, raised it to the highest state of discipline. His prompt and perfect success demonstrates his superior executive ability. He won the hearts of his men, so that they reënlisted for three years. He had entire control over them, and his influence was unbounded.

He was obliged to educate his command up to his ideas of discipline, to exterminate their republican notions of equality, so far as they interfered with complete military subordination, and to inspire their bosoms with the true spirit of a patriot army. It does not appear that he achieved this miracle by blind, injudicious severity. His modesty and his firmness were yoked together to carry him through the emergency. He used tact and skill, as well as force, in harmonizing the discordant materials, and soon blended the whole in symmetrical union, and welded himself to the mass by a bond of sympathy, a chain of influence, which none of the accidents of hard service could break. To me this marvellous influence which he obtained over his men, and which he always obtained, however his numbers swelled, is one of the most significant indications of his greatness.