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07 - Ulysses S. Grant by Owen Wister · Ulysses S. Grant

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Speaker 1: Section seven of Ulysses s. Grant by Owen Wister. This
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Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter five, Part
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Speaker 1: four On the right, Hooker was unexpectedly strengthened by a
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Speaker 1: part of Sherman's force, which the breaking of a bridge
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Speaker 1: had prevented from following. Sherman. Therefore, Grant turned Lookout Mountain
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Speaker 1: into a more serious matter than he had planned. At
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Speaker 1: the mountain's front, Hooker displayed himself, and while he thus
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Speaker 1: occupied the enemy's attention on top, from behind them, a
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Speaker 1: part of his force came somewhat upon their rear through
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Speaker 1: the drifting fog. Their picket was taken. From his post
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Speaker 1: of observation on Orchard Knob, Grant saw the enemy coming
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Speaker 1: down the mountain to oppose the advance there, but further
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Speaker 1: round the other force that had taken the picket was
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Speaker 1: pressing on and up, and suddenly the Confederates saw this
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Speaker 1: meeting invasion. They fired down uselessly, though men fell in
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Speaker 1: this steep scramble. The force came on through stones and thickets, and,
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Speaker 1: joining with a force in front, ascended out of sight
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Speaker 1: into the mist, until Grant could often only hear the
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Speaker 1: noise of the invisible guns nearer and nearer the top
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Speaker 1: of the mountain. By night, Hooker was established there. The
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Speaker 1: Wednesday morning was cold and fine. The battle's change of
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Speaker 1: shape from its original design was clear to see. Over
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Speaker 1: on Sherman's side, many troops were now massed against him. Nor,
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Speaker 1: on account of that unexpected gap between the end of
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Speaker 1: the bridge and its continuation, could he achieve his assault
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Speaker 1: with the necessary celerity. Bragg had taken his troops from
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Speaker 1: Lookout mount to oppose Sherman, and Bragg, should he see fit,
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Speaker 1: might really get away without further harm to himself. So
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Speaker 1: Hooker was ordered across from Lookout Mountain to interrupt his
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Speaker 1: possible retreat. As Sherman came fighting along Missionary Ridge from
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Speaker 1: the left, Bragg removed more and more troops from the
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Speaker 1: center of the balcony to oppose him, so that up
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Speaker 1: there the enemy's force was visibly growing thinner in the
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Speaker 1: center as it grew thicker on the left. The shape
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Speaker 1: of the battle was steadily changing. Something must be done
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Speaker 1: to divert the enemy's increasing blows from Sherman. Hooker, coming
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Speaker 1: behind them from Lookout Mountain, could do it. But no
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Speaker 1: Hooker was to be seen his speed had been checked
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Speaker 1: by a destroyed bridge. He was on his way, but
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Speaker 1: not at hand for this urgent hour. As we easily
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Speaker 1: follow a boat race or a game on land from
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Speaker 1: our arranged benches. So Grant and his staff from Orchard
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Speaker 1: Knob saw, as it has only once or twice been
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Speaker 1: seen before, the whole thunderous pageant flashing upon the hills
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Speaker 1: of Chattanooga, and up there, inaccessible to help, Sherman was
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Speaker 1: fighting the current of a gathering tide. Bragg's attention must
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Speaker 1: be distracted from him down here somehow, And so this
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Speaker 1: battle takes its final, unexpected, splendid shape, and passes like
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Speaker 1: a great song into our history. Four of our greatest,
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Speaker 1: Thomas Sherman, Sheridan Grant, stand together in it, the only
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Speaker 1: time they ever did so. A gathering of chiefs. Indeed,
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Speaker 1: and with them in their splendor, as is fit, inspired
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Speaker 1: by them to share their own renown, stands the ammer
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Speaker 1: a can volunteer, reckless at the right time, suddenly immortal
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Speaker 1: with wild, courageous wisdom. He is told by way of
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Speaker 1: experiment to advance to the base of the hill, that
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Speaker 1: center which Bragg had been thinning, and there take Bragg's
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Speaker 1: lowest line of works. Again, he goes steadily, as if
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Speaker 1: on parade, with flags flying and music playing. Then he
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Speaker 1: swiftly charges, and next finds himself master of the rifle pits,
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Speaker 1: with prisoners captured. He has not time to know how
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Speaker 1: here he has been ordered to stop, but down on
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Speaker 1: his head from the top pours such a stream of
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Speaker 1: fire that staying is death, while going back is failure.
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Speaker 1: Twenty thousand of him crouched there, twenty thousand bodies, but
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Speaker 1: one white hot spear, transfigured and resistless, without orders, he rises,
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Speaker 1: He climbs, He goes on his hands. He mounts the broken,
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Speaker 1: steep slant of hill, leading his captains as much as
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Speaker 1: they lead him, and the astonished Grant from Orchard Knob
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Speaker 1: sees him storm the crest and turn the enemy's guns
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Speaker 1: upon themselves. It is done. Bragg is split in flying pieces.
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Speaker 1: The stars and stripes wave upon missionary ridge. When Grant
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Speaker 1: rode up among this seething triumph, the men quickly found
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Speaker 1: him out and swarmed upon him by hundreds, embracing his
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Speaker 1: feet and calling his name, and among all the gifts
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Speaker 1: and tokens that presently showered upon him for this great
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Speaker 1: November twenty five. Even brighter than the gold medal voted
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Speaker 1: by Congress is the memory of that briarwood cigar given
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Speaker 1: him by a poor soldier who made it with his
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Speaker 1: pocket knife. Now he sat in the center of his
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Speaker 1: nation's bright day. Donaldson, Vicksburg, Chattanooga melted together in his fame.
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Speaker 1: Thanksgiving spread from his deed in widening circles. His message
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Speaker 1: to the government the pith of modesty. I believe I
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Speaker 1: am not premature in announcing a complete victory over Bragg.
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Speaker 1: Is enough and better than if it had been more.
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Speaker 1: And Lincoln answered, God, bless you all. And what did
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Speaker 1: sherman with his men do? Now? Having without a moment's rest,
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Speaker 1: after a march of over four hundred miles without sleep
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Speaker 1: for three successive nights, crossed the Tennessee and fought their
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Speaker 1: share of Chattanooga and pursued the enemy out of Tennessee.
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Speaker 1: They turned more than one hundred and twenty miles north
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Speaker 1: and compelled Longstreet to raise the siege of Knoxville, where
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Speaker 1: Burnside was when in a few months Grant was appointed
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Speaker 1: full lieutenant general under special Act of Congress. He was
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Speaker 1: the first since Washington Winfield Scott, being only brevet. He
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Speaker 1: wrote to Sherman, what I want is to express my
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Speaker 1: thanks to you and Macpherson, as the men to whom,
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Speaker 1: above all others, I feel indebted for whatever I have
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Speaker 1: had of success. How far your execution of whatever has
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Speaker 1: been given you to do entitles you to the reward
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Speaker 1: I am receiving. You cannot know as well as I do,
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Speaker 1: And Sherman answered, in a spirit equally noble. You do
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Speaker 1: yourself in justice and us too much honor. In these
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Speaker 1: letters the two men lay bare their best sins and
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Speaker 1: how well Sherman knew his friend. Now as to the future,
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Speaker 1: he says, do not stay in Washington. Halleck is better
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Speaker 1: qualified than you to stand the buffets of intrigue and policy.
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Speaker 1: For God's sake and your country's sake, come out of Washington.
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Speaker 1: That is why Grant did come out when he was
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Speaker 1: General in chief. Better, far better had he never gone
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Speaker 1: back as president. Assuredly Sherman knew him very well. Ceremonies
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Speaker 1: and crowds attended him after his arrival in Washington to
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Speaker 1: receive his new rank. His actual arrival with his little
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Speaker 1: boy was, according to his own inveterate modesty, unheralded from
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Speaker 1: the train in the early morning. He waited his turn
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Speaker 1: behind the more pushing travelers and reached the hotel book.
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Speaker 1: Last Chittenden had told us how the transfer fixed hotel
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Speaker 1: clerk changed his manner on reading U. S. Grant and
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Speaker 1: Son Galena, Illinois. Horace Porter records Lincoln's cry of welcome.
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Speaker 1: That evening. John Sherman writes to his brother of the
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Speaker 1: adulations in Washington and his fear that Grant will be spoiled,
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Speaker 1: and Grant's remark to Lincoln, really, mister President, I have
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Speaker 1: had enough of the show business, completes the picture. No.
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Speaker 1: Not quite one week later, when he was in Nashville
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Speaker 1: arranging with Sherman, the vast concluding process of the rebellion,
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Speaker 1: the show business in the shape of the mayor with
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Speaker 1: a rosewood box and a sword, caught him again. Sherman's
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Speaker 1: incomparably brisk pin has drawn the scene. The Mayor rose
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Speaker 1: and in a most dignified way, read a finished speech
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Speaker 1: to General Grant, who stood, as usual very awkwardly. And
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Speaker 1: the mayor closed his speech by handing him the resolutions
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Speaker 1: of the city Council, engrossed on parchment with a broad
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Speaker 1: ribbon and large seal attached. After the Mayor had fulfilled
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Speaker 1: his office so well, General Grant said, mister Mayor, as
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Speaker 1: I knew that this ceremony was to occur, and as
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Speaker 1: I am not used to speaking, I have written something
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Speaker 1: in reply. He then began to fumble in his pockets,
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Speaker 1: first his breast coat pocket, then his pants vest, and
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Speaker 1: so on, And after a considerable delay, he pulled out
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Speaker 1: a crumpled piece of common yellow cartridge paper, which he
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Speaker 1: handed to the mayor. When read, his answer was most excellent, short, concise,
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Speaker 1: and if delivered, would have been all that the occasion required.
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Speaker 1: I could not help laughing at a scene so characteristic
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Speaker 1: of the man to whom all had turned as the
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Speaker 1: only one to guide the nation in a war that
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Speaker 1: had become painfully critical. So now he faced the conclusion.
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Speaker 1: From Cairo in eighteen sixty one to Chattanooga in eighteen
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Speaker 1: sixty three, he had marched forward, narrowing the Confederacy blow
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Speaker 1: after blow. Here between Washington and Richmond, only one hundred miles,
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Speaker 1: blow after blow had narrowed nothing. In April eighteen sixty four,
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Speaker 1: they stood as they had started in April eighteen sixty one.
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Speaker 1: Richmond was still to be taken, Lee still to be crushed.
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Speaker 1: Three years, six generals and a loss of one hundred
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Speaker 1: and forty four thousand men had failed to do this.
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Speaker 1: From such failure, Grant received two great inheritances, and with
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Speaker 1: them succeeded. His inheritances were to have his own way unhampered,
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Speaker 1: and the control of a perfect instrument, the Army of
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Speaker 1: the Potomac under General Mead. Grant's detractors lay too much
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Speaker 1: stress on the first inheritance. He had his own way,
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Speaker 1: not only because Lincoln had at length learned how disastrous
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Speaker 1: meddling was, but also because Lincoln felt in his marrow
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Speaker 1: that here was a man who would go on and
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Speaker 1: do the thing. He had met no such man till now.
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Speaker 1: He had been looking for one, ceaselessly upon the Army
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Speaker 1: of the Potomac and General Mead. Too much stress cannot
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Speaker 1: be laid Without that engine and pilot. The captain would
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Speaker 1: have wrecked his vessel several times during forty eight hours
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Speaker 1: around Spotsylvania. He essayed direction of the tactics himself, and
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Speaker 1: wrought such havoc that thereafter he allowed the pilot Mead
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Speaker 1: full charge of this, we may feel sure that Grant
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Speaker 1: underratedly at the beginning, he had encountered no such genius
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Speaker 1: in the West. His remark that the army of the
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Speaker 1: Potomac had never been fought up its full capacity indicates
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Speaker 1: that he expected quicker results than he got. And the
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Speaker 1: famous sentence from his letter near Spotsylvania on May eleventh,
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Speaker 1: I propose to fight it out on this line, if
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Speaker 1: it takes all summer, plainly shows brief anticipations. It took
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Speaker 1: until the following April, and in his own report one
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Speaker 1: reads between the lines something like an apology for these
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Speaker 1: terrible battles. He says, whether they might have been better
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Speaker 1: in conception and execution is for the people who mourn
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Speaker 1: the loss of friends fallen, and who have to pay
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Speaker 1: the pecuniary cost to say. All I can say is
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Speaker 1: that what I have done has been done conscientiously, to
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Speaker 1: the best of my ability, and in what I conceived
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Speaker 1: to be for the best interests of the whole country.
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Speaker 1: His conception was to hammer continuously until by mere attrition
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Speaker 1: there should be nothing left of the enemy. He reduced
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Speaker 1: the problem not to who can win the greatest victories,
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Speaker 1: but to who can stand the heaviest losses. To state
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Speaker 1: it thus was to solve it. It was not military,
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Speaker 1: but it was deeply sagacious. It was like Columbus and
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Speaker 1: the Egg. It was also a confession of Lee's superiority.
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Speaker 1: The fact that Lee had the interior lines is not
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Speaker 1: sufficient counterbalance. These awful battles add not to Grants but
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Speaker 1: to Lee's reputation. On his side. Lee evidently underrated Grant.
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Speaker 1: He too had been used to other generals, generals who
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Speaker 1: struck a blow and then sat down. But it was
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Speaker 1: never to be like that anymore. There were two ways
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Speaker 1: for Grant to move from the Potomac on land to
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Speaker 1: Richmond by the right flank westward and inland, an easier
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Speaker 1: country to fight in a harder line of communications, to
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Speaker 1: cover by the left flank southeastward, nearer the water, a
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Speaker 1: harder country, easier communication. To move immediately south of Richmond
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Speaker 1: by water and from there cut its supporting railroads. Was
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Speaker 1: well enough Providedly would keep himself inside Richmond's fortifications while
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Speaker 1: this was going on, but it was unlikely he would
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Speaker 1: do now what he had never done before. On the contrary,
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Speaker 1: he could be expected so to enlarge his circumference of
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Speaker 1: protection that to envelop him would spread the army out
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Speaker 1: too thin and bear its extended flanks to disadvantageous attack
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Speaker 1: while fighting for possession of the radiating railroads. Moreover, since
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Speaker 1: Lee had to be bitterly encountered somewhere, it was better
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Speaker 1: to meet him further from his home and nearer our
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Speaker 1: own supplies. This too, for a while screened Washington, Grant
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Speaker 1: moved by the left flank May third, choosing a midnight start,
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Speaker 1: But Lee saw him before he could get beyond the
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Speaker 1: unpropitious country, and compelled to battle May five. On that
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Speaker 1: beginning day, the two crossed weapons, both of perfect steel.
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Speaker 1: Lee handled his like a great swordsman, Grant handled his
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Speaker 1: like a great blacksmith. Lee had some seventy thousand men,
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Speaker 1: Grant some one hundred and twenty thousand. Day and often night.
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Speaker 1: The weapons struck fire at some point day and night,
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Speaker 1: during not weeks, but months. Some of these clashes have
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Speaker 1: names forever reddened with slaughter, the wilderness Spotsylvania, Northana, Cold Harbor.
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Speaker 1: But in between them flow nameless streams of blood. Continuously,
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Speaker 1: more sublimely shines the American volunteer at Cold Harbor than
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Speaker 1: at Chattanooga, more sublime in walking calmly to visible death
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Speaker 1: than in tumultuously rushing to victory. He stood in the center,
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Speaker 1: with the enemy in a great half wheel around him, and,
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Speaker 1: knowing that some one had blundered, walked into this First
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Speaker 1: he wrote his name and home, and fastened the address
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Speaker 1: to his clothes, thus they would know whose body it was.
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Speaker 1: Then at the word he went. Six thousand and Union
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Speaker 1: soldiers were killed at Cold Harbor in one hour. In
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Speaker 1: the Book of Noble Deeds from Thermopylae down, is there
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Speaker 1: a more heroic page than this. By November one, Grant
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Speaker 1: had lost eighty thousand men, more than Lee began with
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Speaker 1: the Army of the Potomac. The weapon of fine temper
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Speaker 1: was hacked into a saw by the usage it had received.
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Speaker 1: Nor was Lee crushed yet, nor Richmond yet taken. In
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Speaker 1: Grant's pictures, the story is plain, the saddened eyes, the
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Speaker 1: worn face, the mouth shut down tight or around the
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Speaker 1: heavy strain. Heavier these months than Lincoln's, with distant campaigns
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Speaker 1: to plan near battles to fight, disloyal politics in the North,
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Speaker 1: and the usual popular imbecile clamor for a change or
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Speaker 1: a cessation bore Grant down inwardly, he carried the Union
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Speaker 1: on his back, and other generals had failed him, and
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Speaker 1: he had been a disappointment to himself. He gave in
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Speaker 1: to drink. It seems, at times discovering this, Ben Butler
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Speaker 1: appears to have blackmailed him. He had requested Butler's removal
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Speaker 1: for bad conduct at Petersburg, Butler visited him. He backed down,
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Speaker 1: not from personal fear. The Union cause was trembling. In politics,
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Speaker 1: a public tale of drink might remove the general and
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Speaker 1: split the Union forever. Presently, Sherman's and Sheridan's successes clinched
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Speaker 1: Lincoln's election. Next Butler showed incompetence again. Then Grant dismissed him.
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Speaker 1: Butler could have published as much about drink as he pleased.
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Speaker 1: The Union was safe. Wound up in this contemporaneously, rather
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Speaker 1: than logically, is General W. F. Smith's severe fate. Under
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Speaker 1: first impressions of him received at Chattanooga, Grant had thought
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Speaker 1: him worthy a high command, and at this time designed
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Speaker 1: him for Butler's successor. But in the same twenty four hours,
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Speaker 1: with Butler's blackmail, General Smith criticized to Grant's face the
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Speaker 1: Battle of Cold Harbor. Thinking this over, it struck Grant
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Speaker 1: that General Smith had meant to whip him over Mead's shoulder,
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Speaker 1: as he phrased it. He relieved his campaign of so
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Speaker 1: captious a subordinate. It was perhaps advisable, but seems harsh.
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Speaker 1: Yet if the North was dismayed by Grant's destructive battles,
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Speaker 1: still more so was the South. They felt the end coming.
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Speaker 1: Each bloody crisis saw Grant move on. Such a thing
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Speaker 1: had not been seen before. Early's almost successful attempt to
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Speaker 1: take Washington did not frighten Grant from his siege of Petersburg.
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Speaker 1: He merely let sheretan loose upon Early and broke him.
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Speaker 1: That also settled the Shenandoah Valley Secessions fertile, incubator and
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Speaker 1: truck garden sent there during three years to handle it
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Speaker 1: with gloves. Our soldiers had seen it so periodically that
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Speaker 1: they called it Harper's Weekly at length. Sheridan, though inexcusably
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Speaker 1: brutal in his barn burning yet in destroying crops and forage,
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Speaker 1: merely treated the valley as it should have been treated
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Speaker 1: at first. But secession considered that Union should fight with gloves.
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Speaker 1: When Union began to fight to a finish secession cried
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Speaker 1: out Sheridan is still denounced, but secessions massacre of Fort
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Speaker 1: Pillow and burning of Chambersburg are not mentioned. So the
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Speaker 1: South knew that in Grant's deadly grip and will was
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Speaker 1: something fateful never met till now, and that grip was
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Speaker 1: seizing it elsewhere. Besides Sheridan, Sherman was closing in upon
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Speaker 1: it in Georgia, and Thomas soon struck it heavily at Nashville.
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Speaker 1: These simultaneous strides of disaster had all been set and
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Speaker 1: kept in motion by the single central will. And no
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Speaker 1: matter what the impatient country said, the President stood Grant's friend.
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Speaker 1: Through thick and thin. The Secretary of War had made
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Speaker 1: one supreme effort to maintain his dictatorship over the movements
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Speaker 1: of the army. The report of his fall is thus,
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Speaker 1: hearing from Grant that certain troops were to be disposed
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Speaker 1: in a certain way, he objected that he had other
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Speaker 1: plans and could not allow it. Grant said, but the
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Speaker 1: order has been given. The domineering Stanton then objected much more,
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Speaker 1: and always when he paused, Grant imperturbably replied, but the
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Speaker 1: order has been given. The Secretary rushed to Lincoln. Lincoln said,
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Speaker 1: but Congress has made him general of all the armies.
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Speaker 1: The secretary still poured himself out, and still the deprecating
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Speaker 1: Lincoln murmured, only, but Congress has made him general of
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Speaker 1: all the armies. There it stopped permanently, and Lincoln's words
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Speaker 1: to Grant through this time, though once he expresses a
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Speaker 1: hope that as few lives as possible may be sacrificed,
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Speaker 1: show his deep faith and his deep satisfaction in his aggressive,
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Speaker 1: indomitable general. In August, he writes, the particulars of your
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Speaker 1: campaign I neither know nor seek to know. I wish
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Speaker 1: not to intrude any restraints or constraints upon you. Grant's
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Speaker 1: reply unites a modesty and a self reliance that Lincoln
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Speaker 1: had had not heard until this general came. Should my
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Speaker 1: success be less than I desire or expect, the least
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Speaker 1: I can say is the fault is not yours. No
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Speaker 1: wonder Lincoln liked his new commander. He writes again, when
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Speaker 1: less firm spirits at Washington had been counseling a halt,
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Speaker 1: I have seen your despatch expressing your unwillingness to break
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Speaker 1: your hold where you are neither am I willing hold
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Speaker 1: on with a bull dog grip and chew and choke
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Speaker 1: as much as possible. End of Chapter five, Part four,