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

by Oliver Optic

Grant was accused of bad generalship, of incompetency, of being a butcher, a drunkard, and a sheep-stealer, for aught I know. His generalship was certainly of a different order from that which had been exhibited to the waiting nation by the commanders of the Union, who marched, countermarched, felt of the enemy, and then retired to recruit for three or six months, rarely fighting a battle, unless compelled to do so by the pertinacity of the enemy. It was Grant's policy to attack, and not wait to be attacked—his policy from the beginning to the end; and with what success it was attended is known now if it was not then.

Cowards and poltroons who had deserted the ranks at Shiloh told exaggerated tales of the misfortunes of the battle. They were frightened and demoralized—Grant was not. Those who believed in carrying on war as a game of chess is played stood aghast at the real battle which the hero fought. But his mode of operations will appear so decidedly advantageous in contrast with that which immediately followed under the leadership of one who believed only in "brilliant strategy," in chess-board movements, that it is not necessary to dwell upon his defence.

Kid-glove critics, civilian correspondents of newspapers, and the advocates of the checker-board theory, howled because Grant established his camp on the left, instead of the right, bank of the Tennessee—on the same side as the enemy, instead of on the opposite side. Certainly the eastern shore was the safe side; but the invincible conqueror went down in Tennessee for the purpose of capturing Corinth, and breaking the line of the rebel railroad communication, and he had no idea of posting himself where he could not get at the enemy. He knew very well that he was able to defend himself; and when he fought the great battle, though the enemy brought it on, he fought it for the possession of Corinth; and if he had had his own way, he would have taken Corinth within a fortnight after Shiloh. The position was selected by General C.F. Smith, the veteran soldier; it was indorsed and retained by Grant; and the result fully justifies his course.

The personal habits of the hero were maliciously stated to be bad. It was affirmed that he was a drunkard—that he was intoxicated in the field. Mr. Washburne was able to say at that time, "There is no more temperate man in the army than General Grant. He never indulges in the use of intoxicating liquors at all. He is an example of courage, honor, fortitude, activity, temperance, and modesty; for he is as modest as he is brave and incorruptible."

I have before shown that Grant was not surprised—for if his army had been surprised, the fault would have been as justly chargeable to him as though he had been personally present on the ground. He had been to the front himself the night before and examined the situation; he had placed Sherman—the tried and the true as he knew him then—in the most advanced position. Grant himself says, "As to the talk of our being surprised, nothing could be more false. If the enemy had sent us word where and when they would attack, we could not have been better prepared."

It was undeniable that the brave general, the successful commander, was again under a cloud. All the false rumors were in time disproved; but if there had been no malignant, jealous enemies, dreading a total eclipse of their own farthing candles in his department, the country would have believed in Grant after Shiloh, as they did after Donelson. An effort was made to relieve him entirely from command, and to extinguish the star which was steadily rising.

General Halleck painfully went through the necessary form of thanking Generals Grant and Buell for their conduct at Shiloh, and immediately repaired to the scene of operations to take command of the united armies of Grant and Buell in person, now called "The Grand Army of the Tennessee." It was largely reënforced, and numbered one hundred and twenty thousand men. It was divided into three corps, under Thomas, Pope, and Buell, with McClernand in the reserve. Grant was nominally in command of the Tennessee district; but his army was placed beyond his control, and orders were transmitted to his subordinates without any knowledge on his part of their purport.

Grant was second in command, without power or influence in the camp. Halleck consoled him with a sarcastic bit of philosophy, declaring that the second in command, in case the chief was killed, ought not to be embarrassed with the immediate control of a body of troops. Grant did not appreciate the situation, and evidently believed that there was no danger of his superior's falling in battle. The man who had won Donelson and Shiloh so heroically could not be winked entirely out of sight, or doubtless he would not have been permitted to retain even a complimentary position. Grant was practically in disgrace, and was so regarded in the army. His situation was intensely disagreeable, and nothing but his unselfish devotion to the cause prevented him from retiring in disgust from the field where he was insultingly ignored.

The grand army of the Tennessee, under Halleck, felt its way, behind a series of intrenchments, to a position in front of Corinth, using up six weeks in a progress of fifteen miles. Probably Beauregard at Corinth had seventy thousand men, though he stated his force as below fifty. The grand army was evidently superior in numbers, and both officers and men were anxious to strike a blow, confident of their ability to annihilate the rebel army. It made our blood boil to see these glorious opportunities slipping away from us. Halleck only waited and waited for the rebels to come out and attack him; but Beauregard had been educated up to the point of prudence by Grant, and he stuck to his works as closely as Halleck did. In a word, while Grant was shelved as a second in command, the farce of Manassas was repeated to the satisfaction of the admiring rebels, and to the disgust and mortification of the loyal people.