Vol. 3, No. 4  

The Journal of Leadership Applications

Click here to: return to this issue's Cover Page with links to all articles in this issue.

PERSONAL MEMOIRS OF U.S. GRANT

CHAPTER XVII.

OUTBREAK OF THE REBELLION--PRESIDING AT A UNION

MEETING--MUSTERING OFFICER OF STATE TROOPS--LYON AT CAMP

JACKSON--SERVICES TENDERED TO THE GOVERNMENT.

The 4th of March, 1861, came, and Abraham Lincoln was sworn to

maintain the Union against all its enemies.  The secession of

one State after another followed, until eleven had gone out.  On

the 11th of April Fort Sumter, a National fort in the harbor of

Charleston, South Carolina, was fired upon by the Southerners

and a few days after was captured.  The Confederates proclaimed

themselves aliens, and thereby debarred themselves of all right

to claim protection under the Constitution of the United

States.  We did not admit the fact that they were aliens, but

all the same, they debarred themselves of the right to expect

better treatment than people of any other foreign state who make

war upon an independent nation.  Upon the firing on Sumter

President Lincoln issued his first call for troops and soon

after a proclamation convening Congress in extra session.  The

call was for 75,000 volunteers for ninety days' service.  If the

shot fired at Fort Sumter "was heard around the world," the call

of the President for 75,000 men was heard throughout the

Northern States.  There was not a state in the North of a

million of inhabitants that would not have furnished the entire

number faster than arms could have been supplied to them, if it

had been necessary.

As soon as the news of the call for volunteers reached Galena,

posters were stuck up calling for a meeting of the citizens at

the court-house in the evening.  Business ceased entirely; all

was excitement; for a time there were no party distinctions; all

were Union men, determined to avenge the insult to the national

flag.  In the evening the court-house was packed.  Although a

comparative stranger I was called upon to preside; the sole

reason, possibly, was that I had been in the army and had seen

service.  With much embarrassment and some prompting I made out

to announce the object of the meeting.  Speeches were in order,

but it is doubtful whether it would have been safe just then to

make other than patriotic ones.  There was probably no one in

the house, however, who felt like making any other.  The two

principal speeches were by B. B. Howard, the post-master and a

Breckinridge Democrat at the November election the fall before,

and John A. Rawlins, an elector on the Douglas ticket.  E. B.

Washburne, with whom I was not acquainted at that time, came in

after the meeting had been organized, and expressed, I

understood afterwards, a little surprise that Galena could not

furnish a presiding officer for such an occasion without taking

a stranger.  He came forward and was introduced, and made a

speech appealing to the patriotism of the meeting.

After the speaking was over volunteers were called for to form a

company.  The quota of Illinois had been fixed at six regiments;

and it was supposed that one company would be as much as would

be accepted from Galena.  The company was raised and the

officers and non-commissioned officers elected before the

meeting adjourned.  I declined the captaincy before the

balloting, but announced that I would aid the company in every

way I could and would be found in the service in some position

if there should be a war.  I never went into our leather store

after that meeting, to put up a package or do other business.

The ladies of Galena were quite as patriotic as the men.  They

could not enlist, but they conceived the idea of sending their

first company to the field uniformed.  They came to me to get a

description of the United States uniform for infantry;

subscribed and bought the material; procured tailors to cut out

the garments, and the ladies made them up.  In a few days the

company was in uniform and ready to report at the State capital

for assignment.  The men all turned out the morning after their

enlistment, and I took charge, divided them into squads and

superintended their drill.  When they were ready to go to

Springfield I went with them and remained there until they were

assigned to a regiment.

There were so many more volunteers than had been called for that

the question whom to accept was quite embarrassing to the

governor, Richard Yates.  The legislature was in session at the

time, however, and came to his relief.  A law was enacted

authorizing the governor to accept the services of ten

additional regiments, one from each congressional district, for

one month, to be paid by the State, but pledged to go into the

service of the United States if there should be a further call

during their term.  Even with this relief the governor was still

very much embarrassed.  Before the war was over he was like the

President when he was taken with the varioloid:  "at last he had

something he could give to all who wanted it."

In time the Galena company was mustered into the United States

service, forming a part of the 11th Illinois volunteer

infantry.  My duties, I thought, had ended at Springfield, and I

was prepared to start home by the evening train, leaving at nine

o'clock.  Up to that time I do not think I had been introduced

to Governor Yates, or had ever spoken to him.  I knew him by

sight, however, because he was living at the same hotel and I

often saw him at table.  The evening I was to quit the capital I

left the supper room before the governor and was standing at the

front door when he came out.  He spoke to me, calling me by my

old army title "Captain," and said he understood that I was

about leaving the city.  I answered that I was.  He said he

would be glad if I would remain over-night and call at the

Executive office the next morning.  I complied with his request,

and was asked to go into the Adjutant-General's office and render

such assistance as I could, the governor saying that my army

experience would be of great service there.  I accepted the

proposition.

My old army experience I found indeed of very great service.  I

was no clerk, nor had I any capacity to become one.  The only

place I ever found in my life to put a paper so as to find it

again was either a side coat-pocket or the hands of a clerk or

secretary more careful than myself.  But I had been

quartermaster, commissary and adjutant in the field.  The army

forms were familiar to me and I could direct how they should be

made out.  There was a clerk in the office of the Adjutant-

General who supplied my deficiencies.  The ease with which the

State of Illinois settled its accounts with the government at

the close of the war is evidence of the efficiency of Mr. Loomis

as an accountant on a large scale.  He remained in the office

until that time.

As I have stated, the legislature authorized the governor to

accept the services of ten additional regiments.  I had charge

of mustering these regiments into the State service.  They were

assembled at the most convenient railroad centres in their

respective congressional districts.  I detailed officers to

muster in a portion of them, but mustered three in the southern

part of the State myself.  One of these was to assemble at

Belleville, some eighteen miles south-east of St. Louis.  When I

got there I found that only one or two companies had arrived.

There was no probability of the regiment coming together under

five days.  This gave me a few idle days which I concluded to

spend in St. Louis.

There was a considerable force of State militia at Camp Jackson,

on the outskirts of St. Louis, at the time.  There is but little

doubt that it was the design of Governor Claiborn Jackson to

have these troops ready to seize the United States arsenal and

the city of St. Louis.  Why they did not do so I do not know.

There was but a small garrison, two companies I think, under

Captain N. Lyon at the arsenal, and but for the timely services

of the Hon. F. P. Blair, I have little doubt that St. Louis

would have gone into rebel hands, and with it the arsenal with

all its arms and ammunition.

Blair was a leader among the Union men of St. Louis in 1861.

There was no State government in Missouri at the time that would

sanction the raising of troops or commissioned officers to

protect United States property, but Blair had probably procured

some form of authority from the President to raise troops in

Missouri and to muster them into the service of the United

States.  At all events, he did raise a regiment and took command

himself as Colonel.  With this force he reported to Captain Lyon

and placed himself and regiment under his orders.  It was

whispered that Lyon thus reinforced intended to break up Camp

Jackson and capture the militia.  I went down to the arsenal in

the morning to see the troops start out.  I had known Lyon for

two years at West Point and in the old army afterwards.  Blair I

knew very well by sight.  I had heard him speak in the canvass of

1858, possibly several times, but I had never spoken to him.  As

the troops marched out of the enclosure around the arsenal,

Blair was on his horse outside forming them into line

preparatory to their march.  I introduced myself to him and had

a few moments' conversation and expressed my sympathy with his

purpose.  This was my first personal acquaintance with the

Honorable--afterwards Major-General F. P. Blair.  Camp Jackson

surrendered without a fight and the garrison was marched down to

the arsenal as prisoners of war.

Up to this time the enemies of the government in St. Louis had

been bold and defiant, while Union men were quiet but

determined.  The enemies had their head-quarters in a central

and public position on Pine Street, near Fifth--from which the

rebel flag was flaunted boldly.  The Union men had a place of

meeting somewhere in the city, I did not know where, and I doubt

whether they dared to enrage the enemies of the government by

placing the national flag outside their head-quarters.  As soon

as the news of the capture of Camp Jackson reached the city the

condition of affairs was changed.  Union men became rampant,

aggressive, and, if you will, intolerant.  They proclaimed their

sentiments boldly, and were impatient at anything like disrespect

for the Union.  The secessionists became quiet but were filled

with suppressed rage.  They had been playing the bully.  The

Union men ordered the rebel flag taken down from the building on

Pine Street.  The command was given in tones of authority and it

was taken down, never to be raised again in St. Louis.

I witnessed the scene.  I had heard of the surrender of the camp

and that the garrison was on its way to the arsenal.  I had seen

the troops start out in the morning and had wished them

success.  I now determined to go to the arsenal and await their

arrival and congratulate them.  I stepped on a car standing at

the corner of 4th and Pine streets, and saw a crowd of people

standing quietly in front of the head-quarters, who were there

for the purpose of hauling down the flag.  There were squads of

other people at intervals down the street.  They too were quiet

but filled with suppressed rage, and muttered their resentment

at the insult to, what they called, "their" flag.  Before the

car I was in had started, a dapper little fellow--he would be

called a dude at this day--stepped in.  He was in a great state

of excitement and used adjectives freely to express his contempt

for the Union and for those who had just perpetrated such an

outrage upon the rights of a free people.  There was only one

other passenger in the car besides myself when this young man

entered.  He evidently expected to find nothing but sympathy

when he got away from the "mud sills" engaged in compelling a

"free people" to pull down a flag they adored.  He turned to me

saying:  "Things have come to a ---- pretty pass when a free

people can't choose their own flag.  Where I came from if a man

dares to say a word in favor of the Union we hang him to a limb

of the first tree we come to."  I replied that "after all we

were not so intolerant in St. Louis as we might be; I had not

seen a single rebel hung yet, nor heard of one; there were

plenty of them who ought to be, however."  The young man

subsided.  He was so crestfallen that I believe if I had ordered

him to leave the car he would have gone quietly out, saying to

himself:  "More Yankee oppression."

By nightfall the late defenders of Camp Jackson were all within

the walls of the St. Louis arsenal, prisoners of war.  The next

day I left St. Louis for Mattoon, Illinois, where I was to

muster in the regiment from that congressional district.  This

was the 21st Illinois infantry, the regiment of which I

subsequently became colonel.  I mustered one regiment

afterwards, when my services for the State were about closed.

Brigadier-General John Pope was stationed at Springfield, as

United States mustering officer, all the time I was in the State

service.  He was a native of Illinois and well acquainted with

most of the prominent men in the State.  I was a carpet-bagger

and knew but few of them.  While I was on duty at Springfield

the senators, representatives in Congress, ax-governors and the

State legislators were nearly all at the State capital.  The

only acquaintance I made among them was with the governor, whom

I was serving, and, by chance, with Senator S. A. Douglas.  The

only members of Congress I knew were Washburne and Philip

Foulk.  With the former, though he represented my district and

we were citizens of the same town, I only became acquainted at

the meeting when the first company of Galena volunteers was

raised.  Foulk I had known in St. Louis when I was a citizen of

that city.  I had been three years at West Point with Pope and

had served with him a short time during the Mexican war, under

General Taylor.  I saw a good deal of him during my service with

the State.  On one occasion he said to me that I ought to go into

the United States service.  I told him I intended to do so if

there was a war.  He spoke of his acquaintance with the public

men of the State, and said he could get them to recommend me for

a position and that he would do all he could for me.  I declined

to receive endorsement for permission to fight for my country.

Going home for a day or two soon after this conversation with

General Pope, I wrote from Galena the following letter to the

Adjutant-General of the Army.

GALENA, ILLINOIS,

May 24, 1861.

COL. L. THOMAS

Adjt.  Gen.  U. S. A.,

Washington, D. C.

SIR:--Having served for fifteen years in the regular army,

including four years at West Point, and feeling it the duty of

every one who has been educated at the Government expense to

offer their services for the support of that Government, I have

the honor, very respectfully, to tender my services, until the

close of the war, in such capacity as may be offered.  I would

say, in view of my present age and length of service, I feel

myself competent to command a regiment, if the President, in his

judgment, should see fit to intrust one to me.

Since the first call of the President I have been serving on the

staff of the Governor of this State, rendering such aid as I

could in the organization of our State militia, and am still

engaged in that capacity.  A letter addressed to me at

Springfield, Illinois, will reach me.

I am very respectfully,

Your obt. svt.,

U. S. GRANT.

This letter failed to elicit an answer from the Adjutant-General

of the Army.  I presume it was hardly read by him, and certainly

it could not have been submitted to higher authority. Subsequent

to the war General Badeau having heard of this letter applied to

the War Department for a copy of it.  The letter could not be

found and no one recollected ever having seen it.  I took no

copy when it was written.  Long after the application of General

Badeau, General Townsend, who had become Adjutant-General of the

Army, while packing up papers preparatory to the removal of his

office, found this letter in some out-of-the-way place.  It had

not been destroyed, but it had not been regularly filed away.

I felt some hesitation in suggesting rank as high as the

colonelcy of a regiment, feeling somewhat doubtful whether I

would be equal to the position.  But I had seen nearly every

colonel who had been mustered in from the State of Illinois, and

some from Indiana, and felt that if they could command a regiment

properly, and with credit, I could also.

Having but little to do after the muster of the last of the

regiments authorized by the State legislature, I asked and

obtained of the governor leave of absence for a week to visit my

parents in Covington, Kentucky, immediately opposite

Cincinnati.  General McClellan had been made a major-general and

had his headquarters at Cincinnati.  In reality I wanted to see

him.  I had known him slightly at West Point, where we served

one year together, and in the Mexican war.  I was in hopes that

when he saw me he would offer me a position on his staff.  I

called on two successive days at his office but failed to see

him on either occasion, and returned to Springfield.

Click  here to: return to this issue's Cover Page with links to all articles in this issue.