by Bruce Catton
9.
Grant’s General Orders No. 11, dated December 17, 1862, in O. R., Vol. XVII, Part Two, p. 424. The visit of Jesse and the Macks, and Grant’s response to it, is described in Cadwallader, pp. 45–50.
10.
O. R., Vol. XVII, Part Two, pp. 330, 337, 421–422.
11.
Dana, Recollections, p. 18; Hovey to Brig. Gen. Fred F. Steele, December 5, 1862, in O. R., Vol. XVII, Part One, p. 532. Sherman’s correspondence, and that of other Army officers for this period, bristles with references to the activities of “Jewish traders.”
12.
Chicago Tribune for April 9, 1885, an interview with Rabbi Browne, who quoted his own diary entry for an interview with Grant on Aug. 27, 1875.
13.
The details as to Colonel Dubois are in the Chicago Tribune for December 18, 1862, in a dispatch from Oxford, Mississippi. See also J. R. Grant’s letter to Washburne dated Jan. 20, 1863, in the Washburne Papers; undated clipping from the Cincinnati Commercial, apparently for early January, 1863, in the Lloyd Lewis Papers; New York World, August 18, 1863; Otto Eisenschiml, “Anti-Semitism in Lincoln’s Times,” in the Chicago Forum, Vol. I, No. I, p. 11.
14.
O. R., Vol. XVII, Part Two, pp. 530, 544; Vol. XIV, Part One, p. 9.
15.
Washburne to Lincoln, dated January 6, 1863, in the R. T. Lincoln Collection, Library of Congress.
16.
John Eaton, Grant, Lincoln and the Freedmen (cited hereafter as Eaton), pp. 2–3; Chicago Times, June 3, 1863; John Beatty, The Citizen Soldier.
17.
O. R., Vol. XVII, Part One, p. 481; Vol. LII, Part One, p. 323; O. R., Series Three, Vol. II, pp. 569, 663.
18.
Eaton, pp. 5–6.
19.
The whole of this account of the work for the contrabands is taken from Eaton, pp. 18–39. The book is recommended as an absorbing narrative by a conscientious and thoughtful observer. For a sample of the average soldier’s reaction, see Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 83: “I don’t care a damn for the darkies, and you know that they are better off with their masters 50 times over than with us, but of course you know I couldn’t help to send a runaway nigger back.”
20.
Benjamin A. Quarles, The Negro in the Civil War, pp. 108–119, 166; Dudley Taylor Cornish, The Sable Arm: Negro Troops in the Union Army, 1861–1865, pp. 46–47, 50.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Winter of Discontent
1.
Oran Perry, pamphlet, Recollections of the Civil War, p. 17; letter of J. Russell Jones to Washburne, dated January 28, 1863, in the Washburne Papers.
2.
Army Memoirs of Lucius W. Barber, p. 74; Lieutenant W. H. Bentley, History of the 77th Illinois Volunteer Infantry; Joseph Grecian, History of the 83rd Regiment Indiana Volunteer Infantry, p. 22; H. Allen Gosnell, Guns on the Western Waters, p. 146; Charles Beneulyn Johnson, Muskets and Medicine; or, Army Life in the Sixties, pp. 60–61; Ms. letter of George L. Lang of the 12th Wisconsin, dated January 1, 1863; B. F. Stevenson, Letters from the Army, pp. 178, 184.
3.
Ms. letter of Isaac Jackson, of the 83rd Ohio, dated March 23, 1863; Reminiscences of the Civil War: from Diaries of Members of the 103rd Illinois Volunteer Infantry, p. 18.
4.
New York World, issues dated January 14, January 15, January 20 and January 26, 1863; New York Times, issue dated February 23, 1863.
5.
Letter of Joseph Medill to E. H. Washburne, dated January 16, 1863, in the Washburne Papers.
6.
Shortly after Grant’s arrival on the Mississippi, Russ Jones saw him “out on the point with 1½ miles of the city” and reported, “with a glass everything is perfectly distinct.” Letter of Jones to Washburne, dated January 29, 1863, in the Washburne Papers.
7.
Grant’s Memoirs, Vol. I, p. 435; Badeau, Vol. I, pp. 140–141; Charles A. Dana and James H. Wilson, The Life of Ulysses S. Grant, pp. 98–99.
8.
O. R., Vol. XVII, Part Two, p. 542.
9.
Department of Tennessee returns for January 31, 1863, O. R., Vol. XXIV, Part Three, p. 20.
10.
Chicago Journal for February 23, 1863, printing a Vicksburg dispatch dated February 15.
11.
Letter of General Washburn to Congressman Washburne, dated January 28, 1863, from Gaillard Hunt, Israel, Elihu and Cadwallader Washburne: a Chapter in American Biography, p. 340; O. R., Vol. XVII, Part Two: Sherman to Grant, January 17, pp. 570–571; Grant to Halleck, January 18, p. 573.
12.
Grant’s order, and the exchange between Grant and McClernand, are in O. R., Vol. XXIV, Part One, pp. 11–13; and Part Three, p. 19. For a slightly earlier note in which Lincoln warned McClernand, “I have too many family controversies (so to speak) already on my hands, to voluntarily, or so long as I can avoid it, take up another,” see Basler, Collected Works, Vol. VI, p. 155.
13.
Badeau, Vol. I, pp. 163–165; Greene, pp. 21–23. Oddly enough, the Mississippi did break through the peninsula some years after the war, although it did not precisely follow the canal on which Grant’s soldiers worked so hard. The hairpin bend no longer exists, and the main channel of the river no longer flows by the Vicksburg waterfront.
14.
Grant to Porter, O. R., Vol. XXIV, Part Three, p. 17; Greene, pp. 95–96. Grant’s geography was hazy. In going from Lake Providence to the Red River, one would not navigate the Ouachita River.
15.
O. R., Vol. XXIV, Part Three: Grant to McPherson, p. 33; Sherman to Grant, p. 32.
16.
James H. Wilson, Under the Old Flag, Vol. I, pp. 133 ff.; Greene, p. 97. Grant’s attitude toward this venture is expressed in a letter he wrote to Sherman on March 27, in which he said he had banked so heavily on the Yazoo project “that I have made really but little calculation upon reaching Vicksburg by any other than Haynes Bluff.” (O. R., Vol. XXIV, Part Three, p. 127.) Grant’s note to McClernand is in the same volume, p. 7. Throughout the campaign, Federal officers uniformly confused Snyder’s Bluff, the site of the Confederate strongpoint, with Haynes Bluff, which lay three miles further upstream and was only lightly fortified.
17.
Letters of W. T. Sherman to Mrs. Sherman, dated January 28 and February 15, in the Sherman Papers; Badeau, Vol. I, p. 165.
18.
Edmund Newsome, Experiences in the War, diary entry for February 23; William W. Belknap, ed., History of the 15th Regiment Iowa Veteran Volunteer Infantry, pp. 245–247; Badeau, Vol. I, pp. 167–168. For Grant’s unavailing effort to get enough small boats to carry his army through the Lake Providence route, see O. R., Vol. XXIV, Part Three, pp. 102–103, 115, 117, 131.
19.
Wilson, Under the Old Flag, Vol. I, pp. 15–52; O. R., Vol. XXIV, Part One, p. 374; letter of J. Russell Jones to Washburne, dated February 5, in the Washburne Papers.
20.
Badeau, Vol. I, pp. 169–171; O. R., Vol. XXIV, Part Three, pp. 35–36.
21.
O. R., Vol. XXIV, Part One, pp. 379–381; Badeau, Vol. I, p. 172; A. T. Mahan, “The Gulf and Inland Waters,” pp. 141–146. For Porter’s account, see his Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War, pp. 139–141. (Hereafter cited as Porter.)
22.
Porter, pp. 145–171; Badeau, Vol. I, pp. 173–178.
23.
Grant to Washburne, letter dated March 10, 1863, in the Grant Papers, Illinois State Historical Library; Grant to Banks, letter dated March 22, in O. R., Vol. XXIV, Part Three, p. 126; C. C. Washburn to E. H. Washburne, letter dated April 11, in Gaillard Hunt, pp. 341–342.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Man on the River
1.
Charles A. Dana, Recollections of the Civil War, pp. 20–30; Three Years with Grant, p. 61. There is a good sketch of Dana by Allan Nevins in the Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. V. Grant’s shift of
his headquarters to Milliken’s Bend is noted in a dispatch to the Chicago Times, printed on April 13, 1863.
2.
Dana, pp. 61–62.
3.
New York World of February 20, 1863, printing a dispatch dated February 13; New York Times for June 21, with a dispatch dated June 4.
4.
Interview with Dr. E. A. Duncan, McPherson’s former medical officer, printed in the National Republican, August 9, 1886; A. O. Marshall, Army Life, pp. 274–276.
5.
Interview with W. T. Sherman in the New York Tribune for August 2, 1885; Marshall, Army Life, p. 275.
6.
There is no way to document this, yet I think that anyone who plows through the endless pages of dispatches and reports in the Official Records (O. R.) will find that early in the winter of 1863 Grant’s dispatches become recognizable. The reader can identify them without looking for the signature; suddenly, Grant’s writings become unmistakably Grant. Here, in the midst of barren acres of official jargon, are things written by a man who knows exactly what he is doing and exactly what he wants to say.
7.
Mary Livermore, My Story of the War, p. 310 ff.
8.
Chicago Tribune for September 28, 1885, printing a letter from Halstead to Chase dated February 19, 1863.
9.
Letters of C. S. Hamilton to Senator Doolittle, dated October 22, 1862, January 30, 1863, and February 11, 1863; in the Doolittle Papers. Hamilton’s friendly letter to Grant is in O. R., Vol. XXIV, Part Three, p. 41; for Grant’s letter to Halleck, and additional correspondence on the matter, see the same volume, pp. 137–151.
10.
Eaton, pp. 64, 89–90. Lincoln’s remark about Grant’s whisky has come to be regarded as myth, apparently because similar stories have been told about other soldiers in earlier wars. Eaton, however, is accepted as a reliable source on other matters; the story is precisely the sort of story Lincoln would tell; and this writer can see no good reason for doubting its authenticity.
11.
Emmet Crozier, pp. 292–305, gives an extended account of the Knox affair. The documents in the case are in O. R., Vol. XVII, Part Two, p. 890 ff. See also Sylvanus Cadwallader, Three Years with Grant, pp. 45–46.
12.
Sylvanus Cadwallader, Three Years with Grant, pp. 19–22.
13.
New York World for March 12, April 10, 1863; Chicago Journal dated March 20; New York Times for April 4 and April 13.
14.
Richardson, p. 295. McPherson was a man of character, deeply devoted to Grant. If he could casually invite the General to stop working and have a drink, the old legend that the inner circle at headquarters conspired tirelessly to keep Grant away from the bottle must have a flaw in it. Rawlins was a dedicated teetotaler, to be sure—and his unremitting campaign to protect Grant left a lasting stain on Grant’s name by making it appear that if left to himself Grant would give way to an appetite he could not control. McPherson appears not to have had this feeling; the obvious implication is that he found Grant to be like most other generals—a man who could occasionally enjoy a drink without immediately lapsing into drunkenness.
15.
Grant to Hurlbut, January 3, 1863; O. R., Vol. XVII, Part Two, p. 525.
16.
Grant’s Special Field Orders No. 2, dated February 12, in O. R., Vol. XXIV, Part Three, pp. 46–47; also Grant to McPherson, p. 105; Halleck to Grant, p. 157.
17.
O. R., Vol. XXIV, Part Three, pp. 186–187.
18.
George W. Williams, A History of the Negro Troops in the War of the Rebellion, p. 110.
19.
History of the 53rd Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, p. 103; Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, pp. 166–167, 183–184.
20.
Grant’s General Orders No. 25, dated April 22, in O. R., Vol. XXIV, Part Three, p. 220.
21.
O. R., Series Two, Vol. IV, pp. 857, 916; Series Four, Vol. II, p. 345.
CHAPTER TWENTY
An End to Worry
1.
On April 2 Halleck notified Grant that President Lincoln “seems to be rather impatient” about the Vicksburg campaign, and asked if Grant could not co-operate with Banks in an assault on Port Hudson. (Badeau, Vol. I, p. 181.)
2.
O. R. Vol. XXIV, Part Three: Grant to Banks, dated March 22, p. 125; Grant to Farragut, March 23, p. 131. See also the report of Col. L. B. Parsons, p. 115.
3.
There is an engaging account of this advance in Oran Perry’s pamphlet, Recollections of the Civil War, pp. 20–23.
4.
O. R., Vol. XXIV, Part Three: McClernand to Grant, April 4, pp. 170–71; Grant to Porter, March 29, pp. 151–152.
5.
O. R., Vol. XXIV, Part Three: Porter to Grant, March 29, p. 152; Grant to Porter, April 2, p. 168. Grant continues to refer to Snyder’s Bluff as “Haynes’.”
6.
J. D. Ringwalt, “Anecdotes of General Grant,” pp. 63–64; Dana, pp. 32–33; Sherman to Grant, April 8, O. R., Vol. XXIV, Part Three, p. 180; Badeau, Vol. I, pp. 183, 616–618. Sherman’s profound distrust of McClernand caused him to urge Rawlins that corps commanders should be required to go on record, in writing, before the new campaign began. “There are men,” wrote Sherman, most certainly thinking of McClernand, “who will, in any result falling below the popular standard, claim that their advice was unheeded and that fatal consequences resulted therefrom.”
It is interesting to note that Frank Blair had just written to his brother Montgomery that Sherman “is the only man of brains in this army,” adding that Grant usually did as Sherman advised. He went on to say that Grant “is surrounded by a bunch of fools” who tried to undercut Sherman’s good ideas. (Blair Family Papers, Library of Congress: letter of Frank Blair to “Dear Judge” dated March 10, 1863.)
7.
General John B. Sanborn, “The Campaign Against Vicksburg,” in Vol. II, Glimpses of the Nation’s Struggle, p. 122.
8.
A. T. Mahan, The Gulf and Inland Waters, pp. 154–156; Porter, pp. 175–177; Pen and Powder, by Franc B. Wilkie; Dana, pp. 36–37; Wilson, Under the Old Flag, Vol. I, pp. 163–164; Brevet Brigadier General Joseph Stockton, War Diary, pamphlet; Sherman’s Memoirs, Vol. I, p. 318; Badeau, Vol. I, pp. 190–191.
9.
Wilson, Under the Old Flag, Vol. I, p. 164; O. R., Vol. XXIV, Part Three, p. 190; Grant’s Memoirs, Vol. I, pp. 466, 471.
10.
Greene, pp. 110–112; O. R., Vol. XXIV, Part Three, pp. 188, 201, 205, 211, 212–213; Confidential Correspondence of Gustavus V. Fox, Vol. I, p. 170.
11.
William Conant Church, “U. S. Grant and the Period of National Preservation and Reconstruction,” p. 160.
12.
General John B. Sanborn, p. 126; Muskets and Medicine, pp. 73–74; Downing’s War Diary, p. 113; History of the 16th Battery of Ohio Volunteer Light Infantry, compiled by a committee, p. 30; manuscript letters of Abram S. Funk of the 35th Iowa Volunteers.
13.
Wilson, Under the Old Flag, Vol. I, pp. 168–169; History of the 16th Battery of Ohio Volunteer Light Artillery, p. 33; “Story of the Service of Company E and of the 12th Wisconsin Regiment, written by One of the Boys,” p. 179; O. R., Vol. XXIV, Part One, p. 47.
14.
S. H. M. Byers, “Some Recollections of Grant,” in The Annals of the War Written by Leading Participants, pp. 342–343.
15.
Sanborn, p. 125; Dana, pp. 43–44.
16.
O. R., Vol. XXIV, Part Three, p. 231.
17.
On February 13, Grant notified Hurlbut at Memphis to give some thought to this project, and he specified Grierson as a good man to lead the expedition. (O. R., Vol. XXIV, Part Three, pp. 50, 95.) For a detailed account of the raid, see D. Alexander Brown, Grierson’s Raid.
18.
O. R., Vol. XXIV, Part Three: Grant to
Sherman, p. 240; Sherman to Grant, pp. 242–244; W. L. B. Jenney, “Personal Recollections of Vicksburg,” in Military Essays and Recollections, Vol. III, p. 258.
19.
Apparently no Federal soldier in the war was ever able to transcribe Negro speech accurately. Invariably, the scribe has the Negro saying “dese” and “dar” in one sentence, and “these” and “there” in the next; and no writer felt that he was presenting the slave properly unless he reduced at least part of his speech to a gumbo. The account followed here is from General Isaac H. Elliott, History of the 33rd Illinois Veteran Volunteer Infantry, p. 236. In his Memoirs, Vol. I p. 478, Grant tells of the help given him by this Negro. For the bombardment at Grand Gulf, see B. & L., Vol. III, pp. 567–568.
20.
Grant’s Memoirs, Vol. I, pp. 480–481.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Hardtack! Hardtack!”
1.
For the early exchange of messages between Pemberton and Major Gen. C. L. Stevenson, see O. R., Vol. XXIV, Part Three, p. 800.
2.
Grant to Halleck, O. R., Vol. XXIV, Part One, pp. 32–33; Greene, pp. 125–133; interview with S. H. M. Byers in the Washington Post, July 26, 1885; Jenkin Lloyd Jones, An Artilleryman’s Diary, entry for May 2, 1863; Grant’s Memoirs, Vol. I, pp. 482–484; Grant to McClernand, O. R., Vol. XXIV, Part Three, p. 260.
