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U. S. Grant: The Civil War Years
Grant Moves South and Grant Takes Command
Bruce Catton
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U. S. Grant: The Civil War Years
Grant Moves South and Grant Takes Command
Bruce Catton
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About This Book
Pulitzer Prizeâwinning historian Bruce Catton's acclaimed two-book biography of complex and controversial Union commander Ulysses S. Grant. In these two comprehensive and engaging volumes, preeminent Civil War historian Bruce Catton follows the wartime movements of Ulysses S. Grant, detailing the Union commander's bold tactics and his relentless dedication to achieving the North's victory in the nation's bloodiest conflict. While a succession of Union generals were losing battles and sacrificing troops due to ego, egregious errors, and incompetence in the early years of the war, an unassuming Federal army colonel was excelling in the Western theater of operations. Grant Moves South details how Grant, as commander of the Twenty-First Illinois Volunteer Infantry, though unskilled in military power politics and disregarded by his peers, was proving to be an unstoppable force. He won victory after victory at Belmont, Fort Henry, and Fort Donelson, while sagaciously avoiding near-catastrophe and ultimately triumphing at Shiloh. His decisive victory at Vicksburg would cost the Confederacy its invaluable lifeline: the Mississippi River. Grant Takes Command picks up in the summer of 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln promoted Grant to the head of the Army of the Potomac, placing nothing less than the future of an entire nation in the hands of the military leader. Grant's acute strategic thinking and unshakeable tenacity led to the crushing defeat of the Confederacy in the Overland Campaign in Virginia and the Siege of Petersburg. In the spring of 1865, Grant finally forced Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House, ending the brutal conflict. Although tragedy struck only days later when Lincoln was assassinated, Grant's triumphs on the battlefield ensured that the president's principles of unity and freedom would endure. Based in large part on military communiquĂŠs, personal eyewitness accounts, and Grant's own writings, this engrossing two-part biography offers readers an in-depth portrait of the extraordinary warrior and unparalleled strategist whose battlefield brilliance clinched the downfall of the Confederacy in the Civil War.
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Grant Takes Command
For David
Contents
Foreword
1. Political Innocent
2. The Road to Chattanooga
3. I Have Never Felt Such Restlessness Before
4. The Miracle on Missionary Ridge
5. The Enemy Have Not Got Army Enough
6. The High Place
7. Continue to Be Yourself
8. Campaign Plans and Politics
9. The Fault Is Not with You
10. In the Wilderness
11. If It Takes All Summer
12. Beyond the Bloody Angle
13. Roll On, Like a Wave
14. On the Banks of the James
15. A Question of Time
16. So Fair an Opportunity
17. Roughshod or On Tiptoe
18. The Hundred-Gun Salutes
19. I Will Work This Thing Out Yet
20. Much Is Now Expected
21. A Letter from General Lee
22. I Feel Now Like Ending the Matter
23. Our Countrymen Again
24. Stranger in a Strange Land
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index
List of Maps
Chattanooga Battlefield and the âCracker Lineâ
Cold Harbor to Petersburg
The Petersburg Battlefields
Theater of Pursuit from Petersburg to Appomattox
Foreword
After the capture of Vicksburg on July 3, 1863, Grantâs army starts a period of occupation, absorbing its conquest of the Mississippi valley. In the east, the Army of the Potomac rests after its great victory at Gettysburg. In central Tennessee, the Federal Army of the Cumberland is moving to drive Confederate forces back into Georgia. The Federal government in Washington, sensing a turning point in the war, starts to cast about for the best path to final victory. As the authorities begin this task, they realize that their most successful soldier is the one they know least about.
CHAPTER ONE
Political Innocent
Officially, John A. Rawlins went to Washington to carry dispatches telling how Vicksburg had been won. To be sure, the great victory spoke for itself so plainly that the written tale did not make much difference; but if the victory was clear the man who had won it was not. In this summer of 1863, Washington was more interested in Ulysses S. Grant than in any other man alive, but it knew very little about him. Except for a few people like Major General Henry W. Halleck, the General-in-Chief, and the industrious Illinois Congressman Elihu Washburne, hardly anyone had so much as set eyes on him. It was time to get him into better focus, and if Grant could not be present in person it would be worthwhile to talk to his right-hand man.
Rawlins got a warm reception. He reached Washington on July 30, went first to the War Department to talk with Halleck and with Halleckâs assistant adjutant general, Colonel J. C. Kelton, and he wrote happily to Grant: âIt is worth a trip here to see how delighted they are over your success. There is nothing left undone by them to make me feel that I am here properly.â They were impatient, said Rawlins, only because Grant had not yet told them which of his subordinates he wanted to have promoted; the implication being that any favors Grant asked for would be done. Rawlins also reported that Halleck heartily endorsed, âas being proper as well as wise,â the surrender terms by which Grantâs 31,000 Confederate prisoners had been released on paroleâa matter on which Halleck earlier had been somewhat critical.1 After this pleasant meeting Rawlins went to the White House to see the President and the cabinet. To President Lincoln Rawlins presented the following letter:
SIR: the bearer of this, Lieut. Col. John A. Rawlins, is the assistant adjutant-general of the Army of the Tennessee. Colonel Rawlins has been connected with this army and with me in every engagement from the battle of Belmont to the surrender of Vicksburg. Colonel Rawlins goes to Washington now by my order as bearer of the reports of the campaign just ended, and rolls and paroles of prisoners captured. I would be pleased if you could give Colonel Rawlins an interview, and I know in asking this you will feel relieved when I tell you he has not a favor to ask for himself or any other living being. Even in my position it is a great luxury to meet a gentleman who has no ax to grind, and I can appreciate that it is infinitely more so in yours.
I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
U. S. GRANT2
President and cabinet members were favorably impressed. By this time they had met a great many officers from the staffs of commanding generals, but they had not yet seen anyone quite like Rawlins. He was pale, the pallor made more striking by his burning eyes and his luxuriant dark beard; a profane ascetic Puritan whom the War Departmentâs special observer of westerners, Charles A. Dana, characterized as âa very industrious, conscientious man who never loses a moment and never gives himself any indulgence except swearing and scolding.â (Grant once told a friend that he kept Rawlins on his staff âto do my swearing for me.â) Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, who tended to be suspicious of all army officers, confessed that he was âmuch pleased with him, his frank, intelligent and interesting description of men and of army operations.â Mr. Welles went on to say that he liked Rawlinsâs âunpretending and unassuming mannersâ and said that âthe unpolished and unrefined deportment of this earnest and sincere patriot and soldier pleased me more than that of almost any other officer whom I have ever met.â Welles confessed that Rawlins âwas never at West Point and has had few educational advantages,â but he said that Rawlins was a sincere friend of General Grant, âwho I think sent him here for a purpose.â3
Welles was right. In his march toward victory on the Mississippi Grant had put a heavy foot straight through one of Abraham Lincolnâs most delicate political deals: the maneuver by which the President, in the summer of 1862, had given Major General John A. McClernand of Illinois what amounted to a promise of top command in the Vicksburg campaign. During the winter, with Halleckâs support, Grant had steadily cut McClernand down to size, making him a corps commander in Grantâs army rather than an independent commander of an army of his own; then, a few weeks before Vicksburg fell, Grant removed the man altogether, sending him back to Illinois and going on to victory without him. McClernand was full of energy, ambition and old-fashioned temper, and he had been demanding justice ever since; he was also uttering veiled threats to tell some tales that would do Grant no good. Near the end of June he had written to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton asking for âan investigation of Gen. Grantâs and my conduct as officers from the battle of Belmont to the assault of the 22nd,â and not long afterward he wrote to President Lincoln demanding an investigation of Grantâs conduct and his own from start to finish, saying that this âwould bring to light many things, both military and personal, which are unwritten or unheeded.â4
McClernand obviously was threatening to restate the old charge that General Grant now and then drank more than his situation required. But McClernand had to be obtuse as well as vengeful to suppose that at this late date the authorities would waste any time on this accusation. It had been said too often, and it meant too little, and anyway a review would simply confirm what everybody already knewâthat Grant was the most successful of all Federal generals, a man who had captured two Confederate armies en bloc. It was most unlikely that Grantâs position could be shaken by anything McClernand might say about occasional deviations from strict sobriety. Still, a little fence-mending could do no harm. Grant after all had crushed a presidential favorite and upset a presidential program, and it might be just as well to make sure that the President understood what Grant had done and why he had done it. As Welles suspected, Rawlins had been sent for a purpose. It may be that General Grant was not the utter political innocent he is sometimes thought to have been.
Army command in the Civil War was no job for a political innocent, and the McClernand case illustrates the fact. McClernand was a dedicated War Democrat, and now and then the army needed such men no matter how badly they lacked military capacity; in this war a generalâs ability to win and keep the support of friendly civilians in his rear might actually outweigh his failure to deal with the armed foes in his front. Lincoln had given McClernand a special assignment, not because he supposed that he was an especially competent soldier but because McClernandâs political influence in the West would bring the army recruits and political support which it had to have if the Mississippi valley was to be won. McClernand had done precisely what President Lincoln hoped he would do. It is possible that Grant, who discarded the general after this particular and priceless contribution had been made, had likewise carried out the Presidentâs wishes.
Anyway, Rawlins was on hand to explain everything, and Welles thought he did it very well. He gave evidence about McClernand, said Welles, proving that he was âan impracticable and unfit manâthat he has not been subordinate and intelligent but has been an embarrassment, and instead of assisting has really been an obstruction to army movements and operations.â Welles admitted that Rawlinsâs statements showed prejudice, but he felt that Rawlins did prove that âthere can hardly be a doubt McClernand is at fault, and Rawlins has been sent here by Grant to satisfy the President of the fact. In this I think he has succeeded.â5
Grant objected to McClernand for two reasons. The first was that McClernand just was not a competent general. This became obvious on May 22, when the army made a dismally unsuccessful assault on the Vicksburg lines because McClernand insisted that his corps could break through if the rest of the army supported it properlyâan argument that collapsed in blood and dust when the assault was made and failed. What was even worse, however, as Grant saw it, was that it was impossible to get along with McClernand under any circumstances. When he was not arguing with Grant McClernand was arguing with the other corps commanders, William T. Sherman and James B. McPherson, and after the May 22 disaster it was clear that there would be no harmony in the Army of the Tennessee as long as McClernand stayed there. Grant placed a high value on harmony, by this time Lincoln placed a high value on Grant ⌠and so McClernand was kept on the shelf, and to give the affair special point Sherman and McPherson were promoted; already major generals of volunteers, they were now made brigadier generals in the regular army. Rawlins was made brigadier general of volunteers, McClernandâs corps had already been taken over by Major General E. O. C. Ord, and there was no more backbiting in Grantâs army.
And that was what mattered to General Grant. An army commander had enormous powers, by the book, but this meant little unless there was a good understanding with the generals who had to carry out the commanderâs orders. No matter what the book said, in this war the man who gave the orders finally ruled by consent of the governed: a point painfully impressed on Major General Ambrose E. Burnside when he tried to use the Army of the Potomac after the disastrous battle of Fredericksburg.6 Grantâs attitude came out clearly while Rawlins was in Washington, when Secretary Stanton proposed that Grant be brought east and given command of the Army of the Potomac.
This was an assignment Grant did not want, and the big reason...