Crucible of Command

by William C. Davis

  He knew a few prominent men in town. H. H. Houghton, the editor of the Galena Gazette, was one of his closest friends, as was W. R. Rowley, clerk of the circuit court, and his neighbor the rising young attorney John A. Rawlins.31 Rawlins represented the Grant store, and he had already heard a good deal about this new Grant brother from Hannah Grant’s local half-sister, whose favorite topic was her nephew who went to Mexico and became a hero. Rawlins and Grant met just a few days after ’Lys arrived and they became fast friends, Rawlins joining the others in rapt attention when the Captain sat on the store counter and spoke of Mexico.32 Grant also had a passing acquaintance with Washburne, who observed that he often seemed deep in thought on some abstract topic, impressing him as a man who was intelligent, reflective, and “large-minded.”33

  Otherwise, Grant seldom went out, and spent evenings at home with the newspaper, playing with the children, often reading aloud to Julia. Probably for the first time in his life, he frequently attended Galena’s Methodist church where he enjoyed what he called, “feeling discourses from the pulpit” by the Reverend John H. Vincent.34 He certainly favored freedom of faith, as his rejection of the Know Nothings showed, but whatever religious views he held he kept to himself and his family, and always would.35 “Mostly he was a man of silence,” said a friend, and another averred that he said “but little, and that to the point.” One acquaintance thought him “utterly wanting in those characteristics which develop into greatness.”36 It was hard living on $40 a month, and generally Grant failed to make it work. Some described him as broken down, yet admired the fact that he did not give up.37

  By late summer Grant believed that “I have become pretty well iniciated into the Leather business and like it well.” Moreover, the store thrived and he saw a fair hope of elevating himself “entirely above the frowns of the world, pecuniarily” in a few years.38 He learned much and quickly, and by year’s end hoped his father would make him a partner. “I am sanguine that a competency, at least, can be made at the business,” he told a friend on the eve of 1861, and meanwhile he strove to keep expenses at a minimum to save enough to redeem his remaining obligations in the year ahead. That old abhorrence of debt never left him. “It is a matter that worries me incessantly that I should owe anything without the means of paying,” he told one creditor, “but such is my position now and will be for some months to come.”39 Still, after several years of trial and failure, Grant’s essential optimism and entrepreneurial spirit remained undimmed. His future looked brighter. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the Union.

  The Democratic Party split in convention into two wings in 1860: a Southern one supporting the Dred Scott decision and standing for the right of slave owners to take their property into the territories, with a reluctant John C. Breckinridge as its nominee; and a Northern wing championed by Stephen Douglas on a platform upholding the Union and asserting that a territory could determine the issue of slavery for itself when it framed its territorial constitution, and not just at the statehood stage. With a scattering of old Whigs and Know Nothings nominating John Bell as candidate of the head-in-the-sand Constitutional Union Party, the Republican nominee Abraham Lincoln was all but guaranteed victory as his opposition divided.

  “I think the Democratic party want a little purifying,” Grant told a friend in August, “and nothing will do it so effectually as a defeat.” Galena was largely a pro-Douglas community, and Grant liked the “Little Giant’s” stand for Union, but knew he could not win. He felt no sympathy for the Breckinridge wing, unlike his father-in-law Dent. The radicalism of some of the Republicans like Francis Preston Blair of Missouri put him off, and he told a Democrat friend that “I dont like to see a Republican beat the party.” In the end, Grant could not vote because he had not been in Illinois long enough to establish residency, and he found being freed from having to make a choice something of a relief.40 He took less interest in the national election than he did in the contest back in Missouri, where Barret ran for reelection against the former incumbent Blair. “I feel anxious to hear of Blair’s defeat,” Grant wrote the day after voters in his old district went to the polls, and early reports put Barret ahead, though Blair retook his seat.41 Once again, as in 1856, Grant hoped that the defeat of the Republicans would at least preserve the Union for another four years, giving the sections time for passion to subside and to find some means of coexistence.

  In such a politically charged year, Grant’s friends felt curious about his leanings, yet had little idea of where he stood.42 Rawlins found that “he was not an arguer on politics.” Grant did say he had followed the Illinois senatorial contest in 1858 that produced the electrifying debates between Lincoln and Douglas, though he could not say for himself which of the two he thought got the better of the other. He admitted his generally Whig leanings, but also that he voted for Buchanan in 1856. Rawlins politicked in Galena and the county for Douglas, and he counted on Grant to vote as a Douglas Democrat, even though Grant confessed that he felt some admiration for Lincoln, if not the Republicans generally. In fact, Rawlins believed that Grant was somewhat disposed to be a Democrat and support Douglas, until he read some of the Little Giant’s campaign speeches.43 Yet Grant’s father and his brother Orville were Republicans, and family pressure to follow suit must have been strong, for Grant was reported to have told a friend that he did not like to oppose his father’s wishes.44

  As just one instance of the seeming contradictions in Grant’s political makeup, while he favored Douglas, but shared some of the old Whig ideas once prevalent with the Know Nothings, the man known in St. Louis for his Democratic associations spent rather a lot of time in the company of Republicans. Frequent torchlight parades by Douglas and Lincoln adherents cast shadows across Galena’s evenings during the campaign. Grant’s jeweler friend Smith secretly organized a paramilitary band of Republicans on the pattern of the national group calling themselves “Wide-Awakes,” and boldly paraded them in Galena to protect the polls and make sure that Republican voters were not intimidated. That mortified the dominant local Democrats, who organized their own Douglas Guard in response. Knowing Grant’s military training, Rawlins and a committee called on him and asked him to train them as “sergeant,” but he declined. An army officer, even one not serving, should not hold such a position in a political organization, he said, and besides, he was still new at his business and could not be distracted.45 In fact, he secretly met with the Wide Awakes a few times and gave them instruction instead.46

  When election day came, some townsmen believed Grant voted for Douglas, while others thought he voted Republican with his family. Of course, he did not vote at all.47 That did not prevent him from spending the evening of election day at the store with several others watching for the election returns as they came into town on the telegraph.48 Through it all he felt a growing apprehension over what lay ahead.

  Similar currents made Robert E. Lee even more unsettled at his choice of trade. Now when others won promotion, he felt torn between pleasure at their good fortune and mild resentment. His reaction to Joseph E. Johnston’s recent promotion was complex, for Johnston’s had been a career of wire-pulling and politicking for rank.49 “In proportion to his services he has been advanced beyond anyone in the Army,” Lee grumbled in April 1860, “& has thrown more discredit than ever on the system of favouritism.”50 Knowing that Secretary of War John B. Floyd had virtually adopted Johnston’s orphaned niece, Lee concluded that Floyd gave Johnston the promotion “for his gratification,” regarding it as an example that “much may be affected by influence.”51

  Then the position of quartermaster-general opened. General Scott recommended Albert Sidney Johnston, Joseph E. Johnston, Lee, and Charles F. Smith for consideration. Lee at least said he believed the first Johnston to be the best man, denying that his opinion was influenced by the fact that Johnston’s elevation would put Lee in command of the 2d Cavalry and in line for promotion to full colonel. Not surprisingly, Secretary Floyd gave the post to his favor
ite, the other Johnston. Such army politics discouraged Lee, but by now he had no objection to a little discrete politicking on his own behalf. In October 1860, he told Custis to tell friends to “give me all the promotion they can.”52

  Lee might have hoped that his return to Texas in February 1860 would keep him away from the political turmoil, and Washington seemingly ignored his department. The Democratic breakup and the ensuing campaign were so far away in distance and time thanks to slow news that Lee might as well have been on another planet. He said little of the campaign other than a wish that if the Democrats would reunite behind Breckinridge, Douglas might withdraw and give them a chance to beat Lincoln. But then, as he said, “politicians I fear are too selfish to become martyrs.”53 His low opinion of the nation’s statecraft only accelerated its downward march. Deploring what he called “policy, or tact, or expediency or any other end that was ever devised to conceal or mystify a deviation from a straight line,” Lee blamed the radicals for the nation’s disease. “Politicians are more or less so warped by party feeling, by selfishness, or prejudices, that their minds are not altogether truly balanced,” he jotted to himself. “They are the most difficult to cure of all insane people, politics having so much excitement in them.”54

  As Lincoln’s certain victory by a purely Northern vote approached, Lee feared the Southern reaction. “My little personal troubles sink into insignificance when I contemplate the condition of the country,” he wrote Mildred in October, “& I feel as if I could easily lay down my life for its safety.” He saw the lone-star flag of Texas flying everywhere in token of resistance, and angry Texans holding meetings to arouse themselves to action.55 Following Lincoln’s election Lee feared that “the Southern States seem to be in a convulsion.” He could not foretell the outcome, he said, “but I hope all will end well.”56 Only half in jest he said his daughter Agnes, an emancipationist at heart, might be captured by the abolitionists during a visit to the North, “if she has been expressing any opinions inimical to their theories.”57

  Lee had no intention of remaining in the United States Army if there was a complete breakup. “If the Union is dissolved, which God in his mercy forbid, I shall return to you,” he told Custis in October. He would go home to Virginia on leave of absence, or resign if he could not get leave.58 A month after the election his new department commander, Major General David E. Twiggs, just arrived in San Antonio, told Lee he expected the Union to be dissolved in six weeks. Still, Lee did not yet abandon hope, or he would have left Texas immediately to go home. “I hope however the wisdom & patriotism of the country will devise some way of saving it,” he wrote Custis, “& that kind Providence has not yet turned the current of his blessings from us.” Buchanan’s message to Congress on December 4 began with a contradictory declaration that secession was unconstitutional, but that the government had no authority to prevent it. He proposed appeasement, a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to own slaves and to take them into all of the territories, the repeal of personal liberty laws in the free states, and a reaffirmation of the Fugitive Slave Law. That meant the theoretical possibility of future new slave states. Lee believed the North and West would balk at such an amendment, but saw it as the last hope, vowing “I will cling to it to the last.”

  Admitting that he was educated to believe he owed his primary allegiance to Virginia, Lee saw fault and blamed extremists on both sides. He resented the North’s efforts to deny the territories to slaveholders, and at the same time condemned the “selfish & dictatorial bearing” of the Deep South states, especially South Carolina when it threatened border states like Virginia with economic retaliation if they did not join in secession. If forced to choose a side, he would stand with Virginia, which it seemed had enemies in both camps, and that being the case he must do what he thought best for the Old Dominion. Meanwhile, his family should be prudent. “We must all take the risks of affairs, & lessen them to the extent of our means,” he advised Custis. Expecting economic chaos in secession’s wake, Lee kept most of his modest wealth liquid, to have something in case banks and shares collapsed. He cleared as much debt as possible to preserve his credit and secure property against seizure, realizing that the crisis could also interfere with selling part of the Custis estate and delay completing the emancipation of the Custis slaves. Fatalistic to the end, he could only conclude, “Gods will be done!”59

  “I am not pleased with the course of the Cotton States,” Lee wrote on December 14, a week before South Carolina’s state convention was to meet to debate secession.60 “I prize the Union very highly,” he told Rooney, but now for the first time he added a condition. He would make any sacrifice to preserve it, “save that of honour.”61 Through more than thirty years of service to his country one fixed point in his universe was unwavering loyalty to the Union, but that was now conditional. “Save that of honour.” He did not say what, related to honor, might make the exception, but that was coming.

  There was no bright prospect to the new year. Lee saw everything “clouded by sad forebodings.”62 In mid-January he told a cousin that “if the Union is dissolved, I shall return to Virginia to share the fortune of my people.” He believed that no state should go out unless the North rejected a fair proposal of the South’s just demands. Equal rights to settle the territories was surely the greatest issue, but he believed the South should think before abandoning all the other benefits of the Union for the sake of that. “I am for maintaining all our rights, not for abandoning all for the sake of one—our national rights, liberty at home and security abroad, our lands, navy, forts, dock-yards, arsenals and institutions of every kind.” If denied those rights, then “we can, with a clear conscience, separate,” but he held no illusions of the consequence. “It will result in war, I know, fierce, bloody war,” he predicted. “But so will secession, for it is revolution and war at last, and cannot be otherwise, and we might as well look at it in its true character.” Again he would give all but his honor to see the nation preserved, “for I cannot anticipate so great a calamity to the nation as the dissolution of the Union.63

  By January 1861 the Union was already dissolved, given that four states—South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida—had seceded, Georgia stood at the verge, and conventions in Louisiana and Texas would certainly follow. Something more than the secession of those states constituted dissolution to Lee, but he did not say what, nor did he say in what capacity he would return to Virginia, though the only inference is that he would no longer be a soldier. A week later, with Georgia seceded, he cleared the matter when he declared that “if a disruption takes place, I shall go back in sorrow to my people & share in the misery of my native state.” He did not say why Virginia should be miserable because other states had seceded. The only meaning that fits is the contingency that Virginia herself might secede. That was “dissolution” to Lee. His Union was broken when Virginia seceded, and that severed his allegiance. He removed all doubt when he added that, except in Virginia’s defense, “there will be one soldier less in the world than now.” Should Virginia secede, he would be that “one soldier less.”

  The immensity of the crisis struck him all the more as he saw lifelong friends in the army resigning to join what he derisively called “the Army of the Southern Republic!” It came home to him when Custis and Mary’s cousin William Orton Williams told him they hoped for commissions in that new army, though as yet the seceding states had formed no confederation. Lee still believed no issue justified disunion, let alone civil war, but that resolve was weakening. “God alone can save us from our folly, selfishness & short sightedness,” he told Williams’s mother. “We have barely escaped anarchy to be plunged into civil war.” He could not foresee the outcome, but knew that “a fearful calamity is upon us.” They were about to destroy what the Founding Fathers had fought to create, and for that sin the country must suffer “a fiery ordeal.” Lee wanted no government, no flag, no other song than “Hail Columbia.” Yet honor was his line in the sand, and he could n
ot betray his home and his ancestors.

  He felt anxious to be home to protect his family and their property if an explosion came, but duty kept him in Texas, and as always, “we must all endeavor to do our whole duty,” he said, “however far we know we fall short of it.”64 Then at the end of the month he told Rooney that “save in her [Virginia’s] defense, I will draw my sword no more.” Finally and unequivocally Lee affirmed that if Virginia seceded, and the Union should attempt by force to keep her, he would fight if he must against men now his comrades, and the flag he had served all his life. He would stay in the army for now, hoping for some providential accommodation to spare the Union, Virginia, and a career in a service he loved. “Secession is nothing but revolution,” he told Rooney. In the early days of his father’s republic it had been considered treason. “What can it be now?” he protested.65

  The crisis occupied Lee’s mind so much that he spoke of little else. “I feel the aggression” of the North, he said, but the territorial issue was one that could be settled by constitutional means; the nation should be able to survive this. Disunion was not a solution but “an accumulation of all the evils we complain of.” Still, he set a price on his loyalty to that Union. He would not see men of one section denied a right extended to another solely because of the kind of property they owned. Yet he rejected secession as a remedy. The Constitution could not be “broken by every member of the Confederacy at will.” He believed that the Founding Fathers intended a “perpetual union,” not a mere compact, as Lincoln himself would say in his coming inaugural. The Union could only be dissolved lawfully by a convention of all the people, or else by revolution, and he thought “it is idle to talk of secession.”66 It might establish “anarchy,” but not a government. Still, he told Custis, “a Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets, and in which strife and civil war are to take the place of brotherly love and kindness, has no charm for me.”67 He had just read Edward Everett’s The Life of George Washington, and wondered how the “father of his country” would feel if he could see his child now. “We are between a state of anarchy & civil war,” he told Mary. He often spoke of anarchy. To a man with his passion for order, nothing could be worse.