CHAPTER XVI.
FOR FLAG AND COUNTRY.
Ulysses S. Grant—Recruits from all Classes—Senator Garfield appointed Colonel Of a Regiment—Asking for Guidance.
The Union was saved, but the struggle was not over. During the earlier years of the war the strong men of the North had been slowly coming to the front. One of these was a stubborn, silent soldier named Grant, who, after an early training as a military cadet, and some experience in the Mexican war, had settled down to a clerkship in a leather shop in Illinois.
When war broke out, Ulysses S. Grant recruited a regiment of Illinois men, of which he was made commander, and then entered upon that military career which at length ranked him among the two or three greatest soldiers of the age, and finally placed him in the presidential chair.
To General Grant more than to any man belongs the honour of the triumph of the Federal armies. But Grant was strong because of the innate nobleness of the men he commanded, and the magnificent steadfastness of the people who supported him. That support was given with a liberal hand. Probably never since the days when the people of Israel stripped themselves of their jewels to build the tabernacle, did a nation contribute of their treasures so eagerly and whole-heartedly as the American nation at this crisis.
Private individuals subscribed vast sums of money, teachers of schools voluntarily gave up a fixed proportion of their salary, churches and societies made regular collections, farmers carried their produce into the camps, and women devoted their skill to nursing the sick and wounded.
The highest honour that men could claim was to serve in the ranks of the army; and rich and poor alike shouldered the musket and slept side by side upon the field of battle.
On one occasion the money which was needed for the pay of a New England regiment was delayed, and it was feared that the families of the soldiers, as well as the soldiers themselves, might in consequence be placed in distress. Elias Howe, the inventor of the sewing-machine, who was serving as a private in the ranks, stepped forward, pulled out his cheque-book, and wrote on the spot a cheque for 20,000 pounds, which he handed to his colonel for the use of his comrades.
The army was composed not only of the strongest, but also of the noblest men of the nation. Ministers led their congregations into battle. Teachers gathered their young men together, and went with them to fight for the country; and among the first of these, James Garfield, the young principal of the Hiram Institute, marched at the head of a hundred students of his college, and with their help gained the earliest victory of the Federal army.