Chapter X: Part 10

Captain Grant was now asked by Governor Yates, of Illinois, to go into the adjutant-general's office, and render such assistance as he could, which position he accepted, but he modestly says, "I was no clerk, nor had I any capacity to become one. The only place I ever found in my life to put a paper so as to find it again was either a side coat-pocket or the hands of a clerk or secretary more careful than myself. But I had been quartermaster, commissary, and adjutant in the field. The army forms were familiar to me, and I could direct how they should be made out."

Though a man of few words, those few could be effective if Grant chose to use them. Meeting in St. Louis, in a street-car, a young braggart, who said to him, "Where I came from, if a man dares to say a word in favor of the Union we hang him to a limb of the first tree we come to," Grant replied, "We are not so intolerant in St. Louis as we might be. I have not seen a single rebel hung yet, nor heard of one. There are plenty of them who ought to be, however." The young man did not continue the conversation. In May, 1861, Grant wrote a letter to the adjutant-general of the army at Washington, saying that, as he had been in the regular army for fifteen years, and educated at government expense, he tendered his services for the war. No notice was ever taken of the letter, and, of course, no answer was returned. Soon after he spent a week with his parents, in Covington, Kentucky. Twice he called upon Major-General McClellan, at Cincinnati, just across the river, whom he had known slightly in the Mexican War, with the hope that he would be offered a position on his staff. But he failed to see the general, and returned to Illinois. He was not to serve under McClellan. A different destiny awaited him.

President Lincoln now called for three hundred thousand men to enlist for three years or the war. Governor Yates appointed Grant colonel of the Twenty-First Illinois regiment. Another separation from wife and children had come; the beginning of a great career had come also. The regiment repaired to Springfield, Illinois, and, after some time spent in drill, was ordered to move against Colonel Thomas Harris, encamped at the little town of Florida. There was no bravado in the man who had fought so bravely in all the battles of the Mexican War. He says: "As we approached the brow of the hill from which it was expected we could see Harris' camp, and possibly find his men ready formed to meet us, my heart kept getting higher and higher until it felt to me as though it was in my throat. I would have given anything then to have been back in Illinois, but I had not the moral courage to halt and consider what to do; I kept right on. When we reached a point from which the valley below was in full view, I halted. The place where Harris had been encamped a few days before was still there, and the marks of a recent encampment were plainly visible, but the troops were gone. My heart resumed its place. It occurred to me at once that Harris had been as much afraid of me as I had been of him. This was a view of the question I had never taken before, but it was one I never forgot afterwards. From that event to the close of the war, I never experienced trepidation upon confronting an enemy, though I always felt more or less anxiety. I never forgot that he had as much reason to fear my forces as I had his. The lesson was valuable."

Soon after this Lincoln asked the Illinois delegation in Congress to recommend some citizens of the State for the position of brigadier-general, and Grant, to his great surprise, was recommended first on a list of seven. After his appointment he spent several weeks in Missouri, whither he had been ordered. His first battle was at Belmont, where, in a severe engagement of four hours, the loss on our side was 485, and the Confederate loss 642. Grant's horse was shot under him. After the battle the Confederates received reenforcements, and there was danger that our men could not return to the transports on which they had come to Belmont. "We are surrounded," they cried.

"Well," said their cool leader, "if that be so, we must cut our way out as we cut our way in;" and so they did.

Grant, meantime, rode out into a cornfield alone to observe the enemy. While there, as he afterwards learned, the Southern General Polk and one of his staff saw the Union soldier, and said to their men, "There is a Yankee; you may try your marksmanship on him if you wish;" but, strangely enough, nobody fired, and Grant's valuable life was spared.

He soon perceived that he was the only man between the Confederates and the boats. His horse seemed to realize the situation. Grant says: "There was no path down the bank, and every one acquainted with the Mississippi River knows that its banks, in a natural state, do not vary at any great angle from the perpendicular. My horse put his fore feet over the bank without hesitation or urging, and, with his hind feet well under him, slid down the bank and trotted aboard the boat, twelve or fifteen feet away, over a single gangplank. I dismounted and went at once to the upper deck.... When I first went on deck I entered the captain's room, adjoining the pilot-house, and threw myself on a sofa. I did not keep that position a moment, but rose to go out on the deck to observe what was going on. I had scarcely left when a musket-ball entered the room, struck the head of the sofa, passed through it, and lodged in the boat." Thus again was his life saved.

Until February of the following year, 1862, little was done by the troops, except to become ready for the great work before them. The enemy occupied strong points on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, at Forts Henry and Donelson, points as essential to us as to them. These Grant determined to take, if possible. Truly said President Lincoln, "Wherever Grant is things move. I have noticed that from the beginning."

On February 2 the expedition started against Fort Henry, with about seventeen thousand men. Several gun-boats, under Commodore Foote, accompanied the army. At a given hour the troops and gun-boats moved together, the one to invest the garrison, the other to attack the fort. After a severe fight of an hour and a half every gun was silenced. General Lloyd Tilghman surrendered, with his seventeen heavy guns, ammunition, and stores.

Fort Donelson must now be taken, strongly fortified as it was. It stood on high ground, with rifle-pits running back two miles from the river, and was defended by fifteen heavy guns, two carronades, and sixty-five pieces of artillery. Outside the rifle-pits, trees had been felled, so that the tops lay toward the attacking army. Our men had no shelter from the snow and rain in this midwinter siege. No campfires could be allowed where the enemy could see them. In the march from Fort Henry to Fort Donelson numbers of the tired troops had thrown away their blankets and overcoats, and there was much real suffering. But war means discomfort and woe as well as death itself.

At three o'clock, February 14, Commodore Foote's gun-boats attacked the water batteries, and after a severe encounter several of them were disabled. The one upon which the commodore stood was hit about sixty times, one shot killing the pilot, carrying away the wheel, and wounding the commander. The night came on intensely cold. The next morning, the enemy, taking heart, came against the national forces to cut their way out. Then Grant rode among his men, saying, "Whichever party first attacks now will whip, and the rebels will have to be very quick if they beat me.... Fill your cartridge-boxes quick, and get into line; the enemy is trying to escape, and he must not be permitted to do so."

Our men worked their way through the abatis of trees, took the outer line of rifle-pits, and bivouacked within the enemy's lines. A driving storm of snow and hail set in, and many soldiers were frozen on that dismal night. There must have been little sleep amid the firing of the Confederate pickets and the groans of the wounded on that frozen ground.

During the night the Confederate Generals Floyd and Pillow left the fort with three thousand men and Forrest with another thousand. On the morning of February 16, Brigadier-General S. B. Buckner sent a note to General Grant, suggesting an armistice. The following reply was returned at once:--

"Sir,--Yours of this date, proposing armistice and appointment of
commissioners to settle terms of capitulation, is just received. No
terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be
accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works."

From that day U. S. Grant became to the people of the North "Unconditional Surrender" Grant; precious words, indeed, to the army as well as the people, to whom decisive action meant peace at last.

General Buckner considered the terms "ungenerous and unchivalrous," but he surrendered his sixty-five guns, seventeen thousand six hundred small arms, and nearly fifteen thousand troops. Our loss in killed, wounded, and missing was about two thousand; the Confederate loss was believed to be about twenty-five hundred.

This victory, the first great victory of the war, caused much rejoicing at the North, and Grant was at once made major-general of volunteers. Two weeks from this time he was virtually under arrest for not conforming to orders which he never received, but he was soon restored to his position. The country was to learn later, what Lincoln learned early in the war, that one head for an army is better than several heads.

The next great battle under Grant was at Shiloh, near Pittsburg Landing. On the morning of April 6, 1862, the Confederates, under General Albert Sidney Johnston and Beauregard, rushed upon the national lines. All day Sunday the battle raged, and at night the Union forces had fallen back a mile in the rear of their position in the morning. Sherman, who commanded the ridge on which stood the log meeting-house of Shiloh, was twice shot, once in the hand and once in the shoulder, a third ball passing through his hat. Grant could well say of this brave officer, "I never deemed it important to stay long with Sherman."

During the night after the desperate battle the rain fell in torrents upon the two armies, who slept upon their arms. General Grant's headquarters were under a tree, a few hundred yards back from the river. "Some time after midnight," he says, "growing restive under the storm and the continuous rain, I moved back to the log house under the bank. This had been taken as a hospital, and all night wounded men were brought in, their wounds dressed, a leg or an arm amputated, as the case might require, and everything being done to save life or alleviate suffering. The sight was more unendurable than encountering the enemy's fire, and I returned to my tree in the rain."

In battle, the great general could look on men falling about him apparently unmoved; when the battle was over, he could not bear the sight of pain. The men revered him, because, while he led them into death, he almost surely led them into victory.

On April 7 the battle raged all along the line, and the enemy were everywhere driven back. At three o'clock Grant gathered up a couple of regiments, formed them into line of battle, and marched them forward, going in front himself to prevent long-range firing. The command "Charge" was given, and it was executed with loud cheers and a run, and the enemy broke. Grant came near losing his life. A ball struck the metal scabbard of his sword, just below the hilt, and broke it nearly off. Night closed upon a victorious Union army, but the victory had been gained at a fearful cost.

"Shiloh," says General Grant, "was the severest battle fought at the West during the war, and but few in the East equalled it for hard, determined fighting. I saw an open field, in our possession on the second day, over which the Confederates had made repeated charges the day before, so covered with dead that it would have been possible to walk across the clearing, in any direction, stepping on dead bodies, without a foot touching the ground. On our side national and Confederate troops were mingled together in about equal proportions; but on the remainder of the field nearly all were Confederates. On one part, which had evidently not been ploughed for several years, probably because the land was poor, bushes had grown up, some to the height of eight or ten feet. There was not one of these left standing unpierced by bullets. The smaller ones were all cut down."

During the first day the brave Albert Sidney Johnston was wounded. He would not leave the battle-field, but continued in the saddle, giving commands, till, exhausted by loss of blood, he was taken from his horse, and died soon after. The Union loss was reported to be over thirteen thousand. Some estimate the losses as not less than fifteen thousand on each side. Up to this time, Grant had hoped that a few such victories as Fort Donelson would dishearten the South; now he saw that conquest alone could compel peace, with a brave and heroic people, of our own blood and race. From this time the work of laying waste the enemy's country began, with the hope that the sooner supplies were exhausted the sooner peace would be possible.

On October 25, the battle of Corinth having been fought October 3, General Grant was placed in command of the Department of the Tennessee, and began the Vicksburg campaign. The capture of this place would afford free navigation of the Mississippi. For three months plan after plan was tried for the reduction of this almost impregnable position. Sherman made a direct attack at the only point where a landing was practicable, and failed. Grant's army was stationed on the west bank of the river, on marshy ground, full of malaria, from recent rains. The troops were ill of fever, measles, and small-pox, and many died. There could be found scarcely enough dry land on which to pitch their tents.

It was finally decided to cut a canal across the peninsula in front of Vicksburg, that the gun-boats might safely pass through to a point below the city. Four thousand men began work on the canal, but a sudden rise in the river broke the dam and stopped the work. A second method was tried, by breaking levees and widening and connecting streams between Lake Providence, seventy miles above Vicksburg, through the Red River, into the Mississippi again four hundred miles below, but this project was soon abandoned. Meantime, the North had become restless, and many clamored for Grant's removal, declaring him incompetent, but, amid all the reproaches, he kept silent. When Lincoln was urged to make a change, he said simply, "I rather like the man; I think we'll try him a little longer!"

At length it was decided to attempt to run the gun-boats past the batteries, march the troops down the west bank of the river, cross over to the east side, and attack the rear of Vicksburg. The steamers were protected as far as possible with bales of hay, cotton, and grain, for the boilers could not bear the enemy's fire. On the 16th of April, 1863, on a dark night, the fleet was ready for the dangerous passage. As soon as the boats were discovered, the batteries opened fire, piles of combustibles being lighted along the shore that proper aim might be taken against the fleet. Every transport was struck. As fast as the shots made holes, the men put cotton bags in the openings. For nearly three hours the eight gun-boats and three steamers were under a merciless fire. The Henry Clay was disabled, and soon set on fire by the bursting of a shell in the cotton packed about her boilers. Grant watched the passage of the fleet from a steamer in the river, and felt relieved as though the victory were close at hand.

Soon after, the whole force of thirty-three thousand men were crossed below Vicksburg. Fifty miles to the east, the Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston had a large army, which must be crippled before Vicksburg could be besieged. Port Gibson, near the river, was first taken by our troops; then Raymond, May 12; Jackson, May 18; Champion Hill, May 16; and then Black River Bridge. Grant had beaten Johnston in the rear; now he must beat Pemberton with his nearly fifty thousand men shut up in Vicksburg.

On May 19, the city of Vicksburg was completely invested by our troops. Says General Grant, "Five distinct battles had been fought and won by the Union forces; the capital of the State had fallen, and its arsenals, military manufactories, and everything useful for military purposes had been destroyed; an average of about one hundred and eighty miles had been marched by the troops engaged; but five days' rations had been issued, and no forage; over six thousand prisoners had been captured, and as many more of the enemy had been killed or wounded; twenty-seven heavy cannon, and sixty-one field-pieces had fallen into our hands; and four hundred miles of the river, from Vicksburg to Port Hudson, had become ours."

And now the siege began. By June 30, there were two hundred and twenty guns in position, besides a battery of heavy guns, manned and commanded by the navy. The besiegers had no mortars, save those of the navy in front of the city, but they took tough logs, bored them out for six or twelve-pound shells, bound them with strong iron bands, and used them effectively in the trenches of the enemy.

The eyes of the whole country were centred on Vicksburg. Mines were dug by both armies, and exploded. Among the few men who reached the ground alive after having been thrown up by the explosions was a colored man, badly frightened. Some one asked how high he had gone up. "Dunno, massa; but tink 'bout t'ree mile," was the reply.

Meantime, the people in Vicksburg were living in caves and cellars to escape the shot and shell. Starvation began to stare them in the face. Flour was sold at five dollars a pound; molasses at ten and twelve dollars a gallon. Yet the brave people held out against surrender. A Confederate woman, says General Badeau, in his graphic "Military History of U. S. Grant," asked Grant, tauntingly, as he stopped at her house for water, if he ever expected to get into Vicksburg.

"Certainly," he replied.

"But when?"

"I cannot tell exactly when I shall take the town; but _I mean to stay here till I do, if it takes me thirty years_."

All through the siege, the men of both armies talked to each other; the Confederates and Unionists calling each other respectively "Yanks" and "Johnnies." "Well, Yank, when are you coming into town?"

"We propose to celebrate the Fourth of July there, Johnnie."

The Vicksburg paper said, prior to the Fourth, in speaking of the Yankee boast that they would take dinner in Vicksburg that day, "The best receipt for cooking a rabbit is, 'First ketch your rabbit!'" The last number of the paper was issued on July 4, and said, "The Yankees have caught the rabbit."

On July 3, at ten o'clock, white flags began to appear on the enemy's works, and two men were seen coming towards the Union lines, bearing a white flag. They bore a message from General Pemberton, asking that an armistice be granted, and three commissioners appointed to confer with a like number named by Grant. "I make this proposition to save the further effusion of blood," said General Pemberton, "which must otherwise be shed to a frightful extent, feeling myself fully able to maintain my position for a yet indefinite period."

To this Grant replied: "The useless effusion of blood you propose stopping by this course can be ended at any time you choose, by the unconditional surrender of the city and garrison. Men who have shown so much endurance and courage as those now in Vicksburg will always challenge the respect of an adversary, and, I can assure you, will be treated with all the respect due to prisoners of war."

In the afternoon of July 3, Grant and Pemberton met under a stunted oak-tree, a few hundred yards from the Confederate lines. They had known each other in the Mexican War. A kindly conference was held, and honorable terms of surrender agreed upon, the officers taking their side-arms and clothing, and staff and cavalry officers one horse each. When the men passed out of the works they had so gallantly defended, not a cheer went up from our men nor was a remark made that could cause pain. The garrison surrendered at Vicksburg numbered over thirty-one thousand men, with sixty thousand muskets, and over one hundred and seventy cannon. Five days later, Port Hudson, lower on the river, surrendered, with six thousand prisoners and fifty-one guns.

There was great rejoicing at the North. Lincoln wrote to Grant: "My dear general, I do not remember that you and I have ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service you have done the country. I write to say a word further. When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I thought you should do what you finally did, march the troops across the neck, run the batteries with the transports, and then go below; and I never had any faith, except a general hope that you knew better than I, that the Yazoo Pass expedition and the like could succeed. When you got below and took Port Gibson, Grand Gulf, and vicinity, I thought you should go down the river and join General Banks, and when you turned northward, east of the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. I wish now to make the personal acknowledgment that you were right and I was wrong."

Rare is that soul which is able to see itself in the wrong, and rarer still one which has the generosity to acknowledge it.

In October, Grant, who had now been made a major-general in the regular army, as he had before been appointed to the same rank in the volunteers, was placed in command of the military division of the Mississippi. Later he defeated Bragg at Chattanooga, November 24 and 25, 1863, in the memorable battles of Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain. General Halleck said in his annual report, "Considering the strength of the rebel position and the difficulty of storming his intrenchments, the battle of Chattanooga must be considered the most remarkable in history. Not only did the officers and men exhibit great skill and daring in their operations on the field, but the highest praise is due to the commanding general for his admirable dispositions for dislodging the enemy from a position apparently impregnable."

How our brave men fought at Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain has never been more graphically and touchingly told than by the late lamented Benjamin F. Taylor: "They dash out a little way and then slacken; they creep up hand over hand, loading and firing, and wavering and halting, from the first line of works to the second; they burst into a charge, with a cheer, and go over it. Sheets of flame baptize them; plunging shots tear away comrades on left and right; it is no longer shoulder to shoulder; it is God for us all! Under tree-trunks, among rocks, stumbling over the dead, struggling with the living, facing the steady fire of eight thousand infantry poured down upon their heads as if it were the old historic curse from heaven, they wrestle with the Ridge. Ten, fifteen, twenty minutes go by, like a reluctant century. The batteries roll like a drum. Between the second and last lines of rebel works is the torrid zone of the battle. The hill sways up like a wall before them at an angle of forty-five degrees, but our brave mountaineers are clambering steadily on--up--upward still!... They seem to be spurning the dull earth under their feet, and going up to do Homeric battle with the greater gods."

When this costly victory had been gained, President Lincoln appointed a day of national thanksgiving. Congress passed a unanimous vote of thanks to Grant and his officers and men, and ordered a medal to be struck in his honor: his face on one side, surrounded by a laurel wreath; on the other side, Fame seated on the American eagle, holding in her right hand a scroll with the words, Corinth, Vicksburg, Mississippi River, and Chattanooga.

Early in 1864, a distinguished honor was paid him. Since the death of Washington, only one man had been appointed a lieutenant-general in the army of the United States,--Winfield Scott. Congress now revived this grade, and on March 1, 1864, Lincoln appointed Grant to this position. On March 9, before the President and his cabinet, his commission was formally presented to him, Lincoln saying, "As the country herein trusts you, so, under God, it will sustain you." Grant now had all the Union armies under his control--over seven hundred thousand men. When he was in the Galena leather store, men said his life was a failure! Was it a failure now? And yet he was the same modest, unostentatious man as when he tried farming to support his beloved family.

Immediately Grant planned two great campaigns: one against Richmond, which was defended by Lee; the other against Atlanta, under Sherman, defended by Joseph E. Johnston. Sherman's march to the sea immortalized him; Grant's march to Richmond was the crowning success in the greatest of modern wars. President Lincoln reposed the utmost confidence in Grant. He wrote him: "The particulars of your plans I neither know nor seek to know. You are vigilant and self-reliant, and, pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any constraints or restraints upon you. While I am very anxious that any great disaster or the capture of our men in great numbers shall be avoided, I know these points are less likely to escape your attention than they would be mine. If there is anything wanting which is within my power to give, do not fail to let me know it. And now, with a brave army and a just cause, may God sustain you."

The end was coming. On May 4, 1864, Grant crossed the Rapidan with the Army of the Potomac, about one hundred and twenty thousand men, intending to put his forces between Lee and Richmond. Lee, perceiving this design, met the army at the Wilderness, a portion of country covered by a dense forest. The undergrowth was so heavy that it was scarcely possible to see more than one hundred paces in any direction. All day long, May 5, a bloody battle was waged in the woods.

Says Private Frank Wilkeson, "I heard the hum of bullets as they passed over the low trees. Then I noticed that small limbs of trees were falling in a feeble shower in advance of me. It was as though an army of squirrels were at work cutting off nut and pine-cone laden branches preparatory to laying in their winter's store of food. Then, partially obscured by a cloud of powder smoke, I saw a straggling line of men clad in blue. They were not standing as if on parade, but they were taking advantage of the cover afforded by trees, and they were firing rapidly. Their line officers were standing behind them or in line with them. The smoke drifted to and fro, and there were many rifts in it.... We had charged, and charged, and charged again, and had gone wild with battle fever. We had gained about two miles of ground. We were doing splendidly. I cast my eyes upward to see the sun, so as to judge of the time, as I was hungry, and wanted to eat, and I saw that it was still low above the trees. The Confederates seemed to be fighting more stubbornly, fighting as though their battle-line was being fed with more troops. They hung on to the ground they occupied tenaciously, and resolutely refused to fall back further. Then came a swish of bullets and a fierce exultant yell, as of thousands of infuriated tigers. Our men fell by scores. Great gaps were struck in our lines. There was a lull for an instant, and then Longstreet's men sprang to the charge. It was swiftly and bravely made, and was within an ace of being successful. There was great confusion in our line. The men wavered badly. They fired wildly. They hesitated.... The regimental officers held their men as well as they could. We could hear them close behind us, or in line with us, saying, 'Steady, men, steady, steady, steady!' as one speaks to frightened and excited horses."

Grant says, "More desperate fighting has not been witnessed on this continent than that of May 5 and 6.... The ground fought over had varied in width, but averaged three-quarters of a mile. The killed and many of the severely wounded of both armies lay within this belt where it was impossible to reach them. The woods were set on fire by the bursting shells, and the conflagration raged. The wounded who had not strength to move themselves were either suffocated or burned to death. Finally the fire communicated with our breastworks in places. Being constructed of wood, they burned with great fury. But the battle still raged, our men firing through the flames until it became too hot to remain longer."

After a loss of from fourteen to fifteen thousand men on each side, Lee remained in his intrenchments and Grant still moved on toward Richmond. The armies met at Spottsylvania Court-House, and here was fought one of the bloodiest battles of the war, with about the same loss as in the Wilderness. Sometimes the conflict was hand to hand, men using their guns as clubs, being too close to fire. In one place a tree, eighteen inches in diameter, was cut entirely down by musket balls. Grant wrote to Washington, May 11: "We have now ended the sixth day of very hard fighting. The result up to this time is much in our favor. But our losses have been heavy, as well as those of the enemy. We have lost to this time eleven general officers killed, wounded, and missing, and probably twenty thousand men. I think the loss of the enemy must be greater. We have taken over four thousand prisoners in battle, whilst he has taken from us but few except a few stragglers. I am now sending back to Belle Plain all my wagons for a fresh supply of provisions and ammunition, and purpose _to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer_."

After this came the battles of Drury's Bluff, North Anna, Totopotomoy, and Cold Harbor, with its brilliant assault and deadly repulse, with a loss of from ten to fourteen thousand men on the latter field.

Lee had now been driven so near to Richmond, and the swamps of the Chickahominy were so impassable, that Grant determined to move his army, one hundred and fifteen thousand men, south of the James River and attack Richmond in the rear. The move was hazardous, but he reached City Point safely. General Butler here joined him, and the siege of Petersburg, twenty miles below Richmond, began, and was continued through the winter and spring.

On July 30, 1864, a mine was exploded under one of the enemy's forts. The gallery to the mine was over five hundred feet long from where it entered the ground to the point where it was under the enemy's works. Eight chambers had been left, requiring a ton of powder each to charge them. It exploded at five o'clock in the morning, making a crater twenty feet deep and about one hundred feet in length. Instantly one hundred and ten cannon and fifty mortars commenced work to cover our troops as they entered the enemy's lines. "The effort," says Grant, "was a stupendous failure. It cost us about four thousand men, mostly, however, captured, and all due to inefficiency on the part of the corps commander and the incompetency of the division commander who was sent to lead the assault."

Meanwhile Sheridan had destroyed the power of the South in the Shenandoah valley. Again the army began its march toward Richmond. On April 1, 1865, the battle of Five Forks was fought, nearly six thousand Confederates being taken prisoners; then Petersburg was captured, and on April 3 General Weitzel took possession of Richmond, the enemy having evacuated it, the city having been set on fire before their departure.

For five days Lee's army was pursued with more or less fighting. On April 7, Grant wrote a letter to Lee, saying: "The results of the last week must convince you of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia in this struggle. I feel that it is so, and regard it as my duty to shift from myself the responsibility of any further effusion of blood, by asking of you the surrender of that portion of the Confederate States Army known as the Army of Northern Virginia."

Lee replied, "I reciprocate your desire to avoid useless effusion of blood, and therefore, before considering your proposition, ask the terms you will offer on condition of its surrender."

The answer came: "Peace being my great desire, there is but one condition I would insist upon, namely: that the men and officers surrendered shall be disqualified for taking up arms again against the government of the United States, until properly exchanged."

A place of meeting was designated, and on April 9 Grant and Lee met at the house of a Mr. McLean, at Appomattox Court-House. Grant says, "When I had left camp that morning, I had not expected so soon the result that was then taking place, and consequently was in rough garb, and I was without a sword, as I usually was when on horseback on the field, and wore a soldier's blouse for a coat, with the shoulder-straps of my rank to indicate to the army who I was. When I went into the house I found General Lee. We greeted each other, and, after shaking hands, took our seats. I had my staff with me, a good portion of whom were in the room during the whole of the interview.

"What General Lee's feelings were I do not know. As he was a man of much dignity, with an impassible face, it was impossible to say whether he felt inwardly glad that the end had finally come, or felt sad over the result, and was too manly to show it. Whatever his feelings, they were entirely concealed from my observation; but my own feelings, which had been quite jubilant on the receipt of his letter, were sad and depressed. I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse. I do not question, however, the sincerity of the great mass of those who were opposed to us.

"General Lee was dressed in a full uniform which was entirely new, and was wearing a sword of considerable value, very likely the sword which had been presented by the State of Virginia; at all events, it was an entirely different sword from the one that would ordinarily be worn in the field. In my rough travelling suit, the uniform of a private, with the straps of a lieutenant-general, I must have contrasted very strangely with a man so handsomely dressed, six feet high, and of faultless form. But this was not a matter that I thought of until afterwards."

When the terms of surrender were completed, Lee remarked that his men had been living for some days on parched corn exclusively, and asked for rations and forage, which were cordially granted. "When news of the surrender first reached our lines," says Grant, "our men commenced firing a salute of a hundred guns in honor of the victory. I at once sent word, however, to have it stopped. The Confederates were now our prisoners, and we did not want to exult over their downfall." True and noble spirit! Twenty-seven thousand five hundred and sixteen officers and men were paroled at Appomattox. At the North, crowds came together to pray and give thanks, in the churches, that the war was over. Mourning garb seemed to be in every house, and the joy was sanctified by tears. The Army of the Potomac marched to Washington, and was disbanded June 30.

The great war was ended. In July, 1866, Congress created the rank of general for the heroic, true-hearted, grand man, of quiet manner but indomitable will, who had saved the Union. He was now but forty-four years of age, and what a record!

Two years later, in 1868, at the Chicago Republican national convention. Grant was unanimously nominated to the presidency. After the assassination of Lincoln, and the disagreement between Congress and Andrew Johnson in the matter of reconstruction, it was believed that Grant would "settle things." To the committee from the convention who announced his nomination to him, he said, "I shall have no policy of my own to enforce against the will of the people."

During the eight years of Grant's presidency, from 1869 to 1877, the country was prosperous, save the financial depression of 1873. The Alabama claims were settled, whereby our country received from Great Britain fifteen million five hundred thousand dollars damages. Grant favored the annexation of the island of Santo Domingo, but the measure was defeated by Congress. The International Exposition was held in Philadelphia in 1876, with an average daily attendance, for five months, of over sixty-one thousand persons. While a large number of the people advocated a third term for General Grant, a nation loving freedom hesitated to establish such a precedent, and Rutherford B. Hayes was chosen President. It was well, in the exciting times preceding this election, when the number of votes for Hayes and Tilden was decided by an electoral commission, that a strong hand was on the helm of State, to keep the peace.

After all these years of labor, General Grant determined to make the tour of the world, and, with his family and a few others, sailed for Europe, May 17, 1877. From the moment they arrived on the other side of the ocean to their return, no American ever received such an ovation as Grant. Thousands crowded the docks at Liverpool, and the mayor gave an address of welcome. At Manchester, ten thousand people listened to his brief address. "As I have been aware," he said, "for years of the great amount of your manufactures, many of which find their ultimate destination in my own country, so I am aware that the sentiments of the great mass of the people of Manchester went out in sympathy to that country during the mighty struggle in which it fell to my lot to take some humble part."

In London, the present Duke of Wellington gave him a grand banquet at Apsley House. At Marlborough House, the Prince of Wales gave him private audience. The freedom of the city of London was presented to him in a gold casket, supported by golden American eagles, standing on a velvet plinth decorated with stars and stripes. He and his family dined with the Queen, at Windsor Castle.

In Scotland, the freedom of the city of Edinburgh was conferred upon him. At a grand ovation at Newcastle, between forty and fifty thousand people were gathered on the moor to see the illustrious general. To the International Arbitration Union in Birmingham he said, "Nothing would afford me greater happiness than to know, as I believe will be the case, that at some future day the nations of the earth will agree upon some sort of congress which shall take cognizance of international questions of difficulty, and whose decisions will be as binding as the decision of our Supreme Court is binding upon us." In Belgium, the king called upon him, and gave a royal banquet in his honor. In Berlin, Bismarck called twice to see him, shaking hands cordially, and saying, "Glad to welcome General Grant to Germany." In Turkey, he was presented with some beautiful Arabian horses by the Sultan. King Humbert of Italy and the Czar of Russia showed him marked attentions. In Norway and Sweden, Spain, China, Egypt, and India, he was everywhere received as the most distinguished general of the age.

On his return to America, at San Francisco and Sacramento, thousands gathered to see him. At Chicago, he said, in addressing the Army of the Tennessee, "Let us be true to ourselves, avoid all bitterness and ill-feeling, either on the part of sections or parties toward each other, and we need have no fear in future of maintaining the stand we have taken among nations, so far as opposition from foreign nations goes." In Philadelphia, where he was royally entertained by his friend Mr. George W. Childs, he said to the Grand Army of the Republic, "What I want to impress upon you is that you have a country to be proud of, and a country to fight for, and a country to die for if need be.... In no other country is the young and energetic man given such a chance by industry and frugality to acquire a competence for himself and family as in America. Abroad it is difficult for the poor man to make his way at all. All that is necessary is to know this in order that we may become better citizens." On his return to New York, he was presented by his friends with a home in that city, and also with the gift of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

He was soon prevailed upon to enter a banking firm with Ferdinand Ward and James D. Fish. The bank failed, Grant found himself financially ruined, and the two partners were sent to prison. He was now to struggle again for a living, as in the early days in the Galena leather store. A timely offer came from the _Century_ magazine, to write his experiences in the Civil War. Very simply, so that an uneducated person could understand, Grant modestly and fairly described the great battles in which he was of necessity the central figure. Unused to literary labor, he bent himself to the task, working seven and eight hours a day.

On October 22, 1884, cancer developed in the throat, and for nine months Grant fought with death, till the two great volumes of his memoirs could be completed and given to the world, that his family might not be left dependent. Early in June, 1885, as he was failing rapidly, he was taken to Mt. McGregor, near Saratoga, where a cottage had been offered him by Mr. Joseph W. Drexel. He worked now more heroically than ever, till the last page was written, with the words: "The war has made us a nation of great power and intelligence. We have but little to do to preserve peace, happiness, and prosperity at home, and the respect of other nations. Our experience ought to teach us the necessity of the first; our power secures the latter.

"I feel that we are on the eve of a new era, when there is to be great harmony between the Federal and Confederate. I cannot stay to be a living witness to the correctness of this prophecy; but I feel it within me that it is to be so. The universally kind feeling expressed for me at a time when it was supposed that each day would prove my last seemed to me the beginning of the answer to 'Let us have peace.'"

Night and day the nation watched for tidings from the bedside of the dying hero. At last, in July, when he knew that the end was near, he wrote an affectionate letter to the Julia Dent whom he had loved in his early manhood, and put it in his pocket, that she might read it after all was over. "Look after our dear children, and direct them in the paths of rectitude. It would distress me far more to think that one of them could depart from an honorable, upright, and virtuous life, than it would to know that they were prostrated on a bed of sickness from which they were never to arise alive. They have never given us any cause for alarm on their account, and I earnestly pray they never will.

"With these few injunctions and the knowledge I have of your love and affection, and of the dutiful affection of all our children, I bid you a final farewell, until we meet in another, and, I trust, a better world. You will find this on my person after my demise." Blessed home affection, that brightens all the journey, and makes human nature well-nigh divine!

On July 23, 1885, a few minutes before eight o'clock in the morning, the end came. In the midst of his children, Colonel Frederick, Ulysses, Jesse, and Nellie Grant-Sartoris, and his grandchildren, his wife bending over him, he sank to rest. In every city and town in the land there was genuine sorrow. Letters of sympathy came from all parts of the world. Before the body was put in its purple casket, the eldest son placed a plain gold ring upon the little finger of the right hand, the gift years before of his wife, but which had grown too large for the emaciated finger in life. In his pocket was placed a tiny package containing a lock of Mrs. Grant's hair, in a good-bye letter. Sweet and beautiful thought, to bury with our dead something which belongs to a loved one, that they may not sleep entirely alone!

"We shall wake, and remember, and understand." Let the world laugh at sentiment outwardly--the hearts of those who laugh are often hungering for affection!

The body, dressed in citizen's clothes, without military, was laid in the casket. Then, in the little cottage on the mountain-top, Dr. Newman, his pastor, gave a beautiful address, from the words, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." "His was the genius of common-sense, enabling him to contemplate all things in their true relations, judging what is true, useful, proper, expedient, and to adopt the best means to accomplish the largest ends. From this came his seriousness, thoughtfulness, penetration, discernment, firmness, enthusiasm, triumph.... Temperate without austerity; cautious without fear; brave without rashness; serious without melancholy, he was cheerful without frivolity. His constancy was not obstinacy; his adaptation was not fickleness. His hopefulness was not utopian. His love of justice was equalled only by his delight in compassion, and neither was sacrificed to the other.... The keenest, closest, broadest of all observers, he was the most silent of men. He lived within himself. His thought-life was most intense. His memory and his imagination were picture galleries of the world and libraries of treasured thought. He was a world to himself. His most intimate friends knew him only in part. He was fully and best known only to the wife of his bosom and the children of his loins. To them the man of iron will and nerve of steel was gentle, tender, and confiding, and to them he unfolded his beautiful religious life."

After the services, the body of the great soldier was placed upon the funeral car, and conveyed to Albany, where it lay in state at the Capitol. At midnight dirges were sung, while eager multitudes passed by looking upon the face of the dead. Arriving in New York, the casket was laid in the midst of exquisite flowers in the City Hall. On this very day memorial services were held in Westminster Abbey, Canon Farrar delivering an eloquent address.

During the first night at the City Hall, about fifteen thousand persons passed the coffin, and the next day ninety thousand; rich and poor, black and white; men, women, and little children. A man on crutches hobbled past the casket, bowed with grief. "Move on," said one of the guards of honor. "Yes," replied the old man, "as well as I can I will. I left this leg in the Wilderness." An aged woman wept as she said, "Oh! general, I gave you my husband, my sons, and my son's beautiful boys."

On August 8, General Grant was laid in his tomb at Riverside Park, on the Hudson River, a million people joining in the sad funeral ceremonies. The catafalque, with its black horses led by colored grooms, moved up the street, followed by a procession four miles long. When the tomb was reached, the casket, placed in a cedar covering, leaden lined, was again enclosed in a great steel casket, round like an immense boiler, weighing thirty-eight hundred pounds. The only touching memento left upon the coffin was a wreath of oak-leaves wrought together by his grandchild Julia, on his dying day, with the words, "To Grandpa." Guns were fired, and cannon reverberated through the valley, as the pall-bearers, Confederate and Union generals, turned their footsteps away from the resting-place of their great leader. It was fitting that North and South should unite in his burial. Here, too, will sometime be laid his wife, for before his death he exacted a promise from his oldest son: "Wherever I am buried, promise me that your mother shall be buried by my side." Already she has received over three hundred thousand dollars in royalty on the memoirs which he wrote in those last months of agony. Beautifully wrote Richard Watson Gilder:--

"All's over now; here let our captain rest,--
The conflict ended, past men's praise and blame;
Here let him rest, alone with his great fame,--
Here in the city's heart he loved the best,
And where our sons his tomb may see
To make them brave as he:--

"As brave as he,--he on whose iron arm
Our Greatest leaned, our gentlest and most wise,--
Leaned when all other help seemed mocking lies,
While this one soldier checked the tide of harm,
And they together saved the State,
And made it free and great."

JAMES A. GARFIELD.

Not far from where I write is a tall gray stone monument, in the form of a circular tower, lined with various polished marbles, and exquisite stained-glass windows. It stands on a hill-top in the centre of three acres of green lawn, looking out upon blue Lake Erie and the busy city of Cleveland, Ohio.

Within this tower rests the body of one whom the nation honors, and will honor in all time to come; one who was nurtured in the wilderness that he might have a sweet, natural boyhood; who studied in the school of poverty that he might sympathize with the sons of toil; who grew to an ideal manhood, that other American boys might learn the lessons of a grand life, and profit by them.

In the little town of Orange, Ohio, James Abram Garfield was born, November 19, 1831. The home into which he came was a log cabin, twenty by thirty feet, made of unhewn logs, laid one upon another, to the height of twelve feet or more, the space between the logs being filled with clay or mud. Three other children were in this home in the forest already; Mehetabel, Thomas, and Mary.

Abram, the father, descended from Revolutionary ancestors, was a strong-bodied, strong-brained man, who moved from Worcester, Otsego County, New York, to test his fortune in the wilderness. In his boyhood, he had played with Eliza Ballou, descended from Maturin Ballou, a Huguenot, from France. She also at fourteen moved with her family from New Hampshire, into the Ohio wilderness. Abram was more attracted to Ohio for that reason. They renewed the affection of their childhood, and were married February 3, 1821, settling first in Newburg, near Cleveland, and later buying eighty acres in Orange, at two dollars an acre. Here their four children were born, seven miles from any other cabin.