Read Grant and Sherman: The Friendship that Won the Civil War Online
Authors: Charles Bracelen Flood
Tags: #Biography, #History, #bought-and-paid-for, #Non-Fiction
Grant and Sherman: The Friendship that Won the Civil War (35 page)
BOOK: Grant and Sherman: The Friendship that Won the Civil War
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Reverting to his usual form, Grant wanted to keep up the momentum gained by scattering Bragg’s forces on Missionary Ridge and ordered Sherman and Thomas to pursue the fleeing Confederates, who were heading for Atlanta, as quickly as they could go. Once again, however, as happened after Shiloh and Vicksburg, the Union troops were exhausted, and some of the Confederate forces eluded the follow-up movements that would have destroyed them completely.
Meanwhile, Grant had remained constantly aware of Burnside’s threatened situation at Knoxville. On November 27, two days after the victory at Missionary Ridge, Burnside wrote Grant that he had no more than a few days’ supplies left and might have to surrender by December 3. Grant turned to Sherman, whose men were still spent from their part in the battle, and ordered Sherman to organize and lead an eighty-five-mile forced march to aid Burnside. (Sherman was to say that he did not want his men to have to make this grueling march, and reluctantly started them off for Knoxville.)
After six days of pushing his men along through cold weather on frozen roads that tore up the soles of their boots, Sherman rode into Knoxville at the head of his troops. The first thing he saw was a pen “holding a fine lot of cattle, which did not look much like starvation.” Burnside (whose way of wearing his facial hair gave rise to the term “sideburns”) and his officers were “domiciled in a large, fine mansion, looking very comfortable.” After having a turkey dinner with them, served at a table complete with linen and silver, Sherman observed to Burnside that this did not look like the headquarters of a starving army on the verge of surrender. Burnside admitted that he had exaggerated his plight; in the meantime, on November 29, his troops had thrown back decisively an attack made by Longstreet, who gave up the effort to take Knoxville on December 3—the day that Burnside had told Grant he might have to surrender Knoxville—and withdrew his badly beaten forces far into the hills to the north to reorganize. The siege that Sherman’s men had made a suffering march to help lift no longer existed. Still, Burnside said, he felt better about the overall situation, now that Sherman’s reinforcements had arrived.
By now, Sherman’s men were in the condition in which he had expected to find Burnside’s troops; he described his soldiers as suffering in the cold with “bleeding feet wrapped in old clothes or portions of blankets that could ill be spared from shivering shoulders.” Sherman set about making them comfortable, giving them rest and getting them resupplied and reequipped. Then, while his troops were marched back to the Chattanooga area, Sherman traveled west to Nashville, where Grant, who had been joined there by Julia, was conferring with some generals of his recently enlarged command.
There in the capital of Tennessee, Grant took Sherman and several other generals to pay a call on Andrew Johnson, who was to become far more important in their lives than they—or anyone—could then imagine. The sixty-three-year-old Johnson had been the one senator from the South who did not resign from the United States Senate at the time of secession—an act of loyalty to the Union deeply appreciated by Lincoln, who subsequently appointed the Tennesseean a Union brigadier general and named him to the position he now held, that of the state’s military governor.
The man who recorded the details of this meeting and the rest of the day was Brigadier General Grenville Dodge, a former civil engineer, businessman, and lobbyist. In addition to commanding troops, Dodge did exceptional service for Grant in constructing and repairing bridges and railroad tracks, and quietly ran the largest and most effective network of spies, including notable women spies, that either side possessed during the war.
As Grant led his handful of generals into Andrew Johnson’s handsome, well-furnished new house, he became aware of the contrast in appearance between Johnson, sitting there in comfort, and that of his officers, some of whom had come straight from the rough conditions of living in the field. (Dodge called them “a hard-looking crowd.”) When Grant apologized for the way they all looked, Johnson responded by studying them with what Dodge termed “a very quizzical eye.” Then the governor began to give these soldiers who did the fighting an exhortation about the evils of their Confederate enemies, saying that he would show the rebels no mercy. To emphasize a point in his gratuitous tirade, Johnson pounded his fist on a piano so hard that these combat leaders, used to cannon fire, jumped when he did it. Dodge felt himself “rather disgusted” by this self-righteousness, because his experience with Andrew Johnson was that “I hardly ever got my hands on rebel stock or supplies that I did not find Johnson trying to pull them off” for his own benefit.
After they left Johnson’s house, Sherman told his colleagues that
Hamlet
was to be performed in a local theater that evening, and they went to see it. Looking down from their seats in the first row of the balcony, they saw many Union soldiers in the audience. The play began, and the actors performed so badly that some of the soldiers began laughing. Sherman turned and said angrily, “Dodge, that is no way to play
Hamlet!”
He went on criticizing the performance in such a loud voice that Dodge warned him that the soldiers would look up at the balcony, recognize Grant and Sherman, and begin cheering them. It would bring the play to a halt. Sherman continued making his disparaging comments, “so indignant,” as Dodge put it, “that he could not keep still.” This went on until Hamlet’s graveyard soliloquy, in which Hamlet picks up the skull of “Poor Yorick.” At that point a soldier in the back of the theater called out, “Say, pard, what is it, Yank or Reb?” This produced a complete uproar; amid the confusion, Grant led Sherman and his other generals out of the theater and off to have supper. Sherman said that he wanted to have some oysters, and they ended up in a basement oyster shop. Halfway through their meal, the female proprietor, who could see that they were Union officers but had no idea that one of them commanded the entire region from the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River, came to their table. Apologizing, she explained that the hour of the army-imposed military curfew had arrived and that her restaurant must close. Rather than telling her that she was talking to the de facto law of the land, Grant accepted the situation with good grace. He and his fellow generals stood up and left.
Hamlet
was to be performed in a local theater that evening, and they went to see it. Looking down from their seats in the first row of the balcony, they saw many Union soldiers in the audience. The play began, and the actors performed so badly that some of the soldiers began laughing. Sherman turned and said angrily, “Dodge, that is no way to play
Hamlet!”
He went on criticizing the performance in such a loud voice that Dodge warned him that the soldiers would look up at the balcony, recognize Grant and Sherman, and begin cheering them. It would bring the play to a halt. Sherman continued making his disparaging comments, “so indignant,” as Dodge put it, “that he could not keep still.” This went on until Hamlet’s graveyard soliloquy, in which Hamlet picks up the skull of “Poor Yorick.” At that point a soldier in the back of the theater called out, “Say, pard, what is it, Yank or Reb?” This produced a complete uproar; amid the confusion, Grant led Sherman and his other generals out of the theater and off to have supper. Sherman said that he wanted to have some oysters, and they ended up in a basement oyster shop. Halfway through their meal, the female proprietor, who could see that they were Union officers but had no idea that one of them commanded the entire region from the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River, came to their table. Apologizing, she explained that the hour of the army-imposed military curfew had arrived and that her restaurant must close. Rather than telling her that she was talking to the de facto law of the land, Grant accepted the situation with good grace. He and his fellow generals stood up and left.
While Sherman was still in Nashville, Grant gave him permission to go home to Lancaster for a week’s leave at Christmas. Before he left, Sherman had a troubled conversation with Grant about the rumors he had heard of various officers criticizing his leadership at Chattanooga. Grant remained completely supportive of Sherman and discussed plans for campaigns that they would undertake in the coming new year, with Sherman playing his usual important role.
Nonetheless, it was true that Sherman’s reputation had suffered, both among some of the Union generals and by newspaper accounts that Grant characterized as “being calculated to do injustice.” Thomas, determined to have full recognition of his men’s brilliant action at Missionary Ridge, was not the only one with an axe to grind. Hooker, pleased by his own success at Lookout Mountain, wrote his friend Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase, a man close to Lincoln and also a friend of Sherman’s father-in-law, that Sherman’s repulses at Missionary Ridge could “only be considered in the light of a disaster … Sherman is an active, energetic officer, but in my judgment is as infirm as Burnside. He will never be successful. Please remember what I tell you.” (On the other hand, Sherman was a few weeks away from receiving a joint resolution of Congress, thanking him and his men “for their gallantry and heroism in the battle of Chattanooga, which contributed in a great degree to the success of our arms in that glorious victory.”)
As 1863 came to an end, with the forces under Grant and Sherman temporarily at rest, Grant was having to face the fact that his increasing military fame now had political dimensions. Barnabas Burns, the chairman of the wing of the Democratic Party in Ohio that favored strongly prosecuting the war effort, wrote Grant asking if he would “permit your name to be used” as a candidate for president of the United States at the Democratic National Convention in the coming May of 1864. Grant replied:
The question astonishes me. I do not know of anything I have ever done or said that would indicate that I could be a candidate for any office …Nothing likely to happen would pain me so much as to see my name used in connection with a political office. I am not a candidate for any office nor for favors from any party …I … above all things wish to be spared the pain of seeing my name mixed with politics … Wherever, and by whatever party, you hear my name mentioned in connection with the candidacy for any office, say that you know from me direct that I am “not in the field,” and cannot allow my name to be used before any convention.
Sherman, arriving home in Ohio on December 25 to join his family for a heartbreaking Christmas without their beloved Willy, soon realized the full extent of Grant’s popularity with the Northern public. In Washington, the Senate and House passed a joint resolution praising Grant and his forces for their victories at Vicksburg and Chattanooga, and instructed that a gold medal be made honoring Grant, to be given him “in the name of the people of the United States.”
The New York Herald,
which supported the Democratic Party, said that Grant (who had at this time no meaningful party affiliation) should run against Lincoln in the coming year’s presidential election and expressed the belief that he would win. (Lincoln would in fact sound out Grant’s congressman Elihu Washburne concerning what political ambitions Grant might have. Washburne turned to J. Russell Jones, a friend of Grant’s from Galena days who had recently received a letter from Grant saying, “Nothing could induce me to become a presidential candidate, particularly so long as there is a possibility of having Mr. Lincoln re-elected.” When Jones went to Washington at Lincoln’s request and handed him that letter, a relieved Lincoln placed his influence behind a movement for further promotion for Grant.)
The New York Herald,
which supported the Democratic Party, said that Grant (who had at this time no meaningful party affiliation) should run against Lincoln in the coming year’s presidential election and expressed the belief that he would win. (Lincoln would in fact sound out Grant’s congressman Elihu Washburne concerning what political ambitions Grant might have. Washburne turned to J. Russell Jones, a friend of Grant’s from Galena days who had recently received a letter from Grant saying, “Nothing could induce me to become a presidential candidate, particularly so long as there is a possibility of having Mr. Lincoln re-elected.” When Jones went to Washington at Lincoln’s request and handed him that letter, a relieved Lincoln placed his influence behind a movement for further promotion for Grant.)
Thinking about the fame that now surrounded his friend—the man the press had so often defamed earlier in the war—on December 29, Sherman wrote a letter to Grant.
You occupy a position of more power than Halleck or the President. There are similar instances in European history, but none in ours … Your reputation as a general is now far above that of any man living, and partisans will maneuver for your influence; but if you can escape them, as you have hitherto done, you will be more powerful for good than it is possible to measure … Preserve a plain military character, and let others maneuver as they will. You will beat them not only in fame, but in doing good in the closing scenes of this war, when somebody must heal and mend the breaches made by war.
Although at earlier moments in the conflict both Grant and Sherman had thought the South might soon collapse, Sherman, despite his reference to “the closing scenes of this war,” was not thinking in terms of imminent victory. Before coming home for this bleak family Christmas of 1863, he had written to Ellen that “the next year is going to be the hardest of the war.” At the moment, he did not foresee that his policies and actions were in some ways to be the harshest thing in that hardest year, but he was ready to do whatever he thought must be done.
More than ever, Sherman believed in what he said in a retort he finally made to a Southern lady at a dinner party in Nashville who “pecked and pounded away” at him about his troops stealing food as they marched through the countryside: “Madam, my soldiers have to subsist themselves … War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it; the crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.” If ever Sherman had hoped to see political arrangements that might shorten the war, he hoped for them no longer. Writing to Ellen’s brother Philemon, he said that he understood his brother-in-law’s pleasure in the results of the Ohio gubernatorial election, a popular endorsement of Lincoln’s war policy, but added, “The only vote that now tells is the cannon & the musket.”
For Grant, December of 1863 had its lighter moments. Brigadier General Isaac F. Quinby, a West Point classmate on recruiting duty in Rochester, New York, wrote Grant that his wife wanted a lock of Grant’s hair, which would be auctioned off to the highest bidder at a bazaar being held to raise funds for a wartime charity appeal. This was Grant’s reply to his friend’s wife.
MY DEAR MADAM,The letter of my old friend and classmate, your husband, requesting a lock of my hair, if the article is not growing scarse [sic], from age, I presume he means, to be put in an ornament, (by the most delicate of hands no doubt) and sold at the Bazaar for the benefit of disabled soldiers and their families, is just received. I am glad to say that the stock is yet as abundant as ever though time, or other cause, is beginning to intersperse here and there a reminder that Winters have passed.The object for which this little request is made is so praiseworthy that I can not refuse it even though I do, by granting it[,] expose to the ladies of Rochester that I am no longer a boy. Hoping that the citizens of your city may spend a happy week commensing [sic] to-morrow, and that their Fair may remunerate most abundantly, I remain,Very truly your friend,
U. S. Grant
Maj. Gen. U.S.A.
BOOK: Grant and Sherman: The Friendship that Won the Civil War
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