Crucible of Command

by William C. Davis

  6Providence, RI, Evening Press, August 23, 1865; United States Census, 1860, Jo Daviess County, IL. George A. Townsend in Philadelphia Press, as given in Augusta, GA, Chronicle, December 28, 1879, says Grant paid $125 a year, or a little more than $10 per month.

  7George A. Townsend in Philadelphia Press, as given in Augusta, GA, Chronicle, December 28, 1879.

  8A Galena correspondent in San Francisco, Bulletin, November 12, 1879.

  9Chicago, Herald, August 16, 1891; Burke memoir, 1896, Garland Papers; PMUSG, 1, p. 212.

  10Newark, NJ, Centinel of Freedom, December 15, 1874. Another source, George A. Townsend writing in the Philadelphia Press, as quoted in the Augusta, GA, Chronicle, December 28, 1879, said Grant was paid $50 monthly.

  11New York, Tribune, in Providence, RI, Evening Press, August 23, 1865.

  12Newark, NJ, Centinel of Freedom, December 15, 1874; New York, Tribune, in Providence, RI, Evening Press, August 23, 1865; George A. Townsend in Philadelphia Press, as given in Augusta, GA, Chronicle, December 28, 1879.

  13USG to Julia, December 31, 1860, PUSG, 1, p. 358; PMUSG, 1, p. 222.

  14PMUSG, 1, p. 233.

  15George A. Townsend in Philadelphia Press, as given in Augusta, GA, Chronicle, December 28, 1879; John E. Smith in Philadelphia, Inquirer, July 3, 1865.

  16New Orleans, Times, September 24, 1865.

  17Providence, RI, Evening Press, August 23, 1865.

  18New York, Herald, November 22, 1878.

  19New Orleans, Times, September 24, 1865.

  20Philadelphia, Inquirer, July 3, 1865; George A. Townsend in Philadelphia Press, as given in Augusta, GA, Chronicle, December 28, 1879.

  21Newark, NJ, Centinel of Freedom, December 15, 1874.

  22John A. Rawlins in San Francisco, Bulletin, September 26, 1868.

  23Letter from Galena in Newark, NJ, Centinel of Freedom, December 15, 1874; Philadelphia, Inquirer, July 3, 1865.

  24New York, Tribune, in Providence, RI, Evening Press, August 23, 1865; Cleveland, Plain Dealer, February 6, 1868; Macon, GA, Weekly Telegraph, August 30, 1867.

  25Cleveland, Plain Dealer, February 6, 1868; Providence, RI, Evening Press, August 23, 1865; Macon, GA, Weekly Telegraph, August 30, 1867.

  26New Orleans, Times, September 24, 1865; Letter from Galena in Newark, NJ, Centinel of Freedom, December 15, 1874.

  27Macon, GA, Weekly Telegraph, August 30, 1867.

  28New Orleans, Times, September 24, 1865.

  29Cincinnati, Daily Enquirer, January 23, 1874; Letter from Galena in Newark, NJ, Centinel of Freedom, December 15, 1874; Providence, RI, Evening Press, August 23, 1865; George A. Townsend in Philadelphia Press, as given in Augusta, GA, Chronicle, December 28, 1879.

  30Chicago, Herald, August 16, 1891; Burke Memoir, Garland Papers. It is interesting that there are absolutely no religious references in any of his letters to Julia, and he only mentions attending church once while on the Pacific Coast.

  31Providence, RI, Evening Press, August 23, 1865.

  32San Francisco, Bulletin, September 26, 1868.

  33George A. Townsend in Philadelphia Press, as given in Augusta, GA, Chronicle, December 28, 1879; Providence, RI, Evening Press, August 23, 1865.

  34USG to John H. Vincent, May 25, 1862, PUSG, 5, p. 132.

  35Chicago, Herald, August 16, 1891; Burke Memoir, Garland Papers; Augustus L. Chetlain, Recollections of Seventy Years (Galena, IL: Galena Gazette, 1899), p. 66.

  36Providence, RI, Evening Press, August 23, 1865; Letter from Galena in Newark, NJ, Centinel of Freedom, December 15, 1874.

  37Providence, RI, Evening Press, August 23, 1865.

  38USG to Mr. Davis, August 7, 1860, PUSG, 1, p. 357.

  39USG to Charles Ford, December 10, 1860, PUSG, 32, p. 16.

  40PMUSG, 1, p. 216.

  41USG to Mr. Davis, August 7, 1860, PUSG, 1, p. 357.

  42Providence, RI, Evening Press, August 23, 1865.

  43San Francisco, Bulletin, September 26, 1868. Rawlins says in this interview that Grant slowly began to lean toward the Republicans after hearing Douglas speak in Galena in 1860, but Douglas did not make a speech there, and Rawlins, speaking in 1868, was probably retroactively trying to make the earlier Grant more of a Republican than he had been, if at all. Grant was more honest in his memoirs.

  44Cleveland, Plain Dealer, February 6, 1868.

  45San Francisco, Bulletin, September 26, 1868; Providence, RI, Evening Press, August 23, 1865.

  46PMUSG, 1, p. 217.

  47Cleveland, Plain Dealer, February 6, 1868.

  48George A. Townsend in Philadelphia, Press, as given in Augusta, GA, Chronicle, December 28, 1879.

  49For a full explanation of the twisted and confusing business of Johnston’s brevet ranks, see Robert K. Krick, “ ’Snarl and Sneer and Quarrel’: General Joseph E. Johnston and an Obsession with Rank,” Gary W. Gallagher and Joseph T. Glatthaar, eds., Leaders of the Lost Cause: New Perspectives on the Confederate High Command (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole, 2004), pp. 172–73 and notes.

  50REL to GWCL, April 16, 1860, Adams, Letters, pp. 612–13.

  51REL to Earl Van Dorn, June 27, 1860, ibid., pp. 661–63.

  52REL to Custis Lee, October 2, 1860, ibid., p. 704.

  53REL to Van Dorn, July 1860, ibid., p. 671.

  54Thoughts on Politicians, n.d., Robert E. Lee Headquarters Papers, 1850–1876, VHS. While this is undated, it most aptly fits Lee’s thoughts during the 1860–1861 crisis. It does not appear to have been part of a letter or other document, but three separate yet related musings.

  55REL to Mildred Lee, October 2, 1860, Adams, Letters, p. 697.

  56REL to GWCL, November 24, 1860, ibid., p. 693.

  57REL to GWCL, December 5, 1860, ibid., p. 703.

  58REL to GWCL, October 2, 1860, ibid., p. 704.

  59REL to GWCL, December 5, 1860, ibid., p. 702, December 14, 1860, pp. 710–11; Charles Anderson, Texas, Before and on the Eve of the Rebellion (Cincinnati: Peter G. Thompson, 1884), pp. 27–31.

  60REL to GWCL, December 14, 1860, ibid., pp. 710–11.

  61REL to WHFL, December 3, 1860, Lee Family Papers, VHS.

  62REL to Nellie Whitely, January 1, 1861, Adams, Letters, p. 714.

  63REL to Annette Carter, January 16, 1861, San Francisco, Bulletin, May 3, 1875.

  64REL to Martha Williams, January 22, 1861, Adams, Letters, pp. 717–19.

  65REL to WHFL, January 29, 1861, Lee Family Papers, VHS.

  66REL to GWCL, February 23, 1861 [misdated January 23], Adams, Letters, pp. 721–22.

  67Ibid.

  68Ibid., pp. 723–25.

  69REL to Agnes Lee, January 29, 1861, ibid., p. 728–29, REL to MCL, February 23, 1861 [misdated January 23, 1861], pp. 723–25, REL to GWCL, January 30, 1861, pp. 737–38.

  70REL to Agnes Lee, January 29, 1861, ibid., p. 728–29, REL to MCL, February 23, 1861 [misdated January 23], pp. 723–25.

  71REL to GWCL, February 1, 1861 Ibid., pp. 741–42.

  72REL to MCL, February 23, 1861 [misdated January 23], ibid., pp. 723–24.

  73Lee, 1, p. 432, speculates on a range of discussion when the two met, but all based on much later testimony, none of it from Lee or Scott. Lee did not have to come to Washington just to receive his promotion, of course, but he was also being transferred to a different regiment in a different department. That was sufficient cause for Lee to be called to see Scott, though of course it may not have been Scott’s only reason.

  74REL to Lorenzo Thomas, March 30, 1861, File L60, 1861, Letters Received by the Office of the Adjutant General, 1861–1870, M619, Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, RG 94, NA.

  75REL to Mildred Lee, April 1, 1861, Adams, Letters, pp. 746–47.

  76Leroy P. Walker to REL, March 15, 1861, United States War Department, War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1880–1901), Series IV, 1, pp. 165–66. A quarter century later John H. Harmon, one-time Democratic mayor of Detroit and editor o
f its influential paper the Free Press, recalled this season in Washington. He spent that congressional session in the city mainly as a hanger-on with Southern politicians, and much of it imbibing more than was good for him. He claimed that in December, as was their wont, a group of Southern senators gathered at Arlington after the close of the Friday session to dine and socialize as the Lees’ guests. Harmon and Jesse D. Bright of Indiana were the only Northerners in the group, which included Senators James Mason of Virginia, John Slidell of Louisiana, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, Clement C. Clay of Alabama, Robert Toombs of Georgia, Congressman William Smith of Virginia, Governor John Letcher of Virginia, and former governor Henry A. Wise, Secretary of the Interior Jacob Thompson of Mississippi, Secretary of the Treasury Howell Cobb of Georgia, Secretary of War John B. Floyd of Virginia, Vice President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, and others. Over dinner Slidell said that in the wake of Lincoln’s election, all Southern members of Congress ought to resign. Harmon recalled Lee’s shock at the suggestion, and he responded temperately, admitting that things looked gloomy, but that he believed when Lincoln took office he would not unlawfully interfere with slavery where it existed. Some of the more radical men at the table disagreed, and began peppering Lee with questions on what Virginia would do, finally forcing him to admit that as a Virginian and a believer in the state-rights doctrine, he would go with his state if she left the Union. Breckinridge tearfully spoke against secession, but admitted that he would follow Kentucky. Davis did not urge secession, but spoke of a more general revolution. Some spoke of a new confederation, while Toombs said that if they did not resign, they would all be expelled anyhow as their states seceded. No one spoke of war as a serious possibility, while some averred that there might be one battle and that would decide the issue. Slidell and Mason joked that all Southerners would need to whip the Yankees with a good supply of broomsticks.

  Of course, no such dinner took place. Lee was in Texas that December, and had been for months, and did not return to Arlington until February 1861, by which time many of the men named had already resigned and gone home. Yet in Lee’s response to Slidell’s proposition there may be a germ of genuine recollection, for surely this was Lee’s posture that winter. New Orleans, Times-Picayune, August 25, 1884. This is a portion of Harmon’s memoirs being published in the summer of 1884 in the Detroit, Free Press (Cleveland, Plain Dealer, December 31, 1884).

  77Alexandria, Gazette, October 18, 1872.

  78Washington, Evening Star, April 18, 1861; Alexandria, Gazette, April 18, 1861.

  79William W. Averell speech, ca. 1887, Alexander Autographs Catalog, October 14, 2006 sale, #item 57.

  80Benson Lossing, notes on conversation with Winfield Scott, August 5, 1864, Alexander Autographs Catalog for May 13, 2009, sale item #206.

  81REL to Sydney Smith Lee, April 20, 1861, Adams, Letters, pp. 752–53.

  82Anna Maria Mason Lee to Daniel Murray Lee, May 27, 1861, Lee and Ficklin Family Archives, Robert K. Krick, Fredericksburg, VA.

  83John S. Mosby, Memoirs of Colonel John S. Mosby (Boston: Little, Brown, 1917), 379.

  84REL to Sydney Smith Lee, April 20, 1861, Adams, Letters, pp. 752–53.

  85REL to Simon Cameron, April 20, 1861, File L60, RG94, NA.

  86REL to Winfield Scott, April 20, 1861, Wartime Papers, p. 9.

  87REL to Sydney Smith Lee, April 20, 1861, Adams, Letters, pp. 752–53.

  88Mary Custis Lee to Charles Marshall, January-February 1871, Mary Custis Lee Papers, VHS.

  89REL to Anne Marshall, April 20, 1861, Wartime Papers, p. 10.

  90REL to Roger Jones, April 20, 1861, Adams, Letters, p. 756.

  91REL to Anne Marshall, April 20, 1861, Wartime Papers, p. 10.

  92Ludwell Lee Montague, ed., “Memoir of Mrs. Harriotte Lee Taliaferro Concerning Events in Virginia, April 11–21, 1861,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 57 (October 1949), pp. 416–20.

  93Statement by Ward Burke for the Southern Claims Commission, Portland, Oregonian, November 15, 1872.

  94Benjamin Hallowell letter, n.d., in Mason, Popular Life, p. 26.

  95REL to P. G. T. Beauregard, October 3, 1865, DeButts-Ely Collection, LC.

  96REL to MCL, November 8, 1856, Adams, Letters, p. 202.

  97Alexandria, Gazette, October 18, 1872.

  98Thoughts on Politicians, n.d., Robert E. Lee Headquarters Papers, 1850–1876, VHS.

  99PMJDG, pp. 86–87; George A. Townsend in Philadelphia Press, as given in Augusta, GA, Chronicle, December 28, 1879; San Francisco, Bulletin, September 26, 1868.

  100USG to Charles Ford, December 10, 1860, PUSG, 32, pp. 16–17.

  101George A. Townsend in Philadelphia Press, as given in Augusta, GA, Chronicle, December 28, 1879; San Francisco, Bulletin, September 26, 1868.

  102San Francisco, Bulletin, September 26, 1868; Providence, RI, Evening Press, August 23, 1865.

  103PUSG, 2, p. 7n; Newark, NJ, Centinel of Freedom, December 15, 1874. Both Rawlins in his 1868 interview and Grant in PMUSG conflate events of this meeting with the one that followed on April 18.

  104PMUSG, 1, pp. 230–31.

  105Ibid., p. 231.

  106San Francisco, Bulletin, September 26, 1868. Rawlins said that getting command of a regiment was all Grant talked about at this time.

  107Ibid.; Chetlain, Recollections, p. 71.

  108USG to Frederick Dent, Sr., April 19, 1861, PUSG, 2, pp. 3–4, USG to Jesse Grant, April 21, 1861, pp. 6–7.

  109Philadelphia, Inquirer, July 3, 1865.

  110USG to Jesse Grant, April 21, 1861, PUSG, 2, pp. 6–7.

  111Chetlain, Recollections, p. 72.

  112Ibid., p. 72; PMUSG, 1, pp. 231–32.

  113Chetlain, Recollections, pp. 72–73.

  114San Francisco, Bulletin, September 26, 1868.

  CHAPTER 6: “WHAT HAS BECOME OF GEN. LEE?” — “WHO IS GENERAL GRANT?”

  1USG to Julia, April 27, 1861, PUSG, 2, p. 9.

  2Chetlain, Recollections, p. 73.

  3USG to Julia, April 27, 1861, PUSG, 2, p. 9, USG to Richard Yates, April 29, 1861, p. 12.

  4USG to Julia, May 1, 1861, ibid., p. 16; Chetlain, Recollections, p. 73.

  5PMUSG, 1, p. 233; USG to Julia, May 3, 1861, PUSG, 2, p. 19; Chetlain, Recollections, p. 75; Providence, RI, Evening Press, August 23, 1865.

  6USG to Julia, May 3, 1861, PUSG, 2, p. 19.

  7USG to Jesse Grant, May 2, 1861, ibid., p. 18, May 6, 1861, p. 21.

  8USG to Julia, April 27, 1861, ibid., p. 9.

  9USG to Jesse Grant, May 6, 1861, ibid., p. 21–22, USG to Julia, May 6, 1861, p. 24.

  10USG to Jesse Grant, May 6, 1861, ibid., pp. 21–22, USG to Julia, May 6, 1861, p. 24.

  11USG to Julia, May 10, 1861, p. 26, May 15, 1864, ibid., pp. 31–32.

  12USG to Julia, May 10, 1861, ibid., pp. 26, 28.

  13PMUSG, 1, pp. 234–38.

  14USG to Thomas, May 24, 1861, PUSG, 2, pp. 35–36.

  15USG to Jesse Grant, May 30, 1861, ibid., p. 37, August 3, 1861, p. 81, USG to Julia, June 6, 1861, pp. 38–39.

  16Cleveland, Leader, June 10, 1861.

  17Quincy, IL, Whig, August 19, 1868, as republished in St. Paul, Daily Press, August 30, 1868. The other man is identified only as “Colonel W.” Of the Ohio regiments then in service, only the 2d Ohio had a colonel or lieutenant colonel whose surname fits, Lewis Wilson, and in May his regiment was in Pennsylvania. Mace told this story in Lafayette in the winter of 1865–66, and it was related to the Whig by an unidentified officer who heard Mace tell it on that occasion.

  18This Reynolds family tradition originally appeared in Robert R. Hitt, “A Historic Yule-tide,” Springfield, Daily Illinois State Journal, December 24, 1905, and was later included in Richard Patten DeHart, Past and Present of Tippecanoe County, Indiana (Indianapolis: B. F. Bowen, 1909). 1, pp. 227–28. In PMUSG, 1, pp. 240–41, Grant recalled some uncertainty of his fitness to lead a regiment.

  19USG to Julia, June 17, 1861, PUSG, 2, p. 42.

  20P
hiladelphia, Inquirer, July 3, 1865.

  21PUSG, 2, pp. 44–45n; Cleveland, Plain Dealer, February 6, 1868.

  22Springfield, Daily Illinois State Journal, June 19, 1861.

  23PUSG, 2, pp. 46–47.

  24Orders No. 14, June 26, 1861, ibid., p. 48.

  25Orders, July 6, 1861, ibid., pp. 58–59, USG to Julia, July 7, 1861, pp. 59–60.

  26Springfield, Daily Illinois State Journal, June 29, 1861.

  27PUSG, 2, p. 59n.

  28Springfield, Daily Illinois State Journal, June 19, 1861.

  29USG to Jesse Grant, July 13, 1861, PUSG, 2, pp. 66–67.

  30USG to Stephen A. Hurlbut, July 16, 1861, ibid., p. 71.

  31USG to Julia, July 19, 1861, ibid., p. 73; PMUSG, 1, pp. 249–50.

  32USG to Julia, August 3, 1861, PUSG, 2, p. 83.

  33USG to Mary Grant, August 12, 1861, ibid., p. 105.

  34USG to Mary Grant, August 12, 1861, ibid., p. 105, USG to John C. Kelton, August 12, 1861, p. 102, USG to Warren E. McMackin, August 12, 1861, p. 104, USG to Peter E. Bland, August 16, 1861.

  35USG to Kelton, August 14, 1861, ibid., pp. 111–12.

  36USG to Jesse Grant, August 3, 1861, ibid., pp. 80–81.

  37In a somewhat confused secondhand account, Logan said in 1864 that Grant was one of several Illinois men put forward by the caucus, and that everyone in the delegation voted in his favor. Philadelphia, Inquirer, July 3, 1864.

  38San Francisco, Bulletin, September 26, 1868.

  39USG to Julia, August 10, 1861, PUSG, 2, p. 96, USG to McMackin, August 12, 1861, p. 104.

  40USG to Julia, August 15, 1861, ibid., p. 115.

  41The orders detailing these movements are in Ibid., pp. 106–121. See also, PMUSG, 1, p. 257.

  42USG to Jesse Grant, August 31, 1861, PUSG, 2, p. 158.

  43USG to Prentiss, September 2, 1861, ibid., p. 169, USG to Frémont, September 2, 1861, pp. 173–75.

  44USG to Kelton, September 2, 1861, ibid., p. 175, USG to Prentiss, September 3, 1861, p. 177.