The Man Who Saved the Union (22 page)

Sherman had missed the fighting in the Mexican War, being confined to quiescent California; Bull Run was his baptism by fire. “
For the first time in my life I saw cannonballs strike men and crash through the trees and saplings above and around us,” he recalled. His regiments endured the bombardment for a time but lost their bearings as the fighting grew hotter. One regiment, which had left the road from the river crossing to pursue the enemy, became especially disoriented. “This regiment is uniformed in gray cloth, almost identical with that of the great bulk of the secession army,” Sherman explained in his after-action report. “And when the regiment fell into confusion and retreated toward the road, there was a universal cry that they were being fired on by our own men.”

Discipline broke down all along the Union front. Sherman described events on a ridge to his left: “Here, about half-past 3 p.m., began the scene of confusion and disorder that characterized the remainder of the day. Up to that time, all had kept their places, and seemed perfectly cool and used to the shell and shot that fell, comparatively harmless, all around us; but the short exposure to an intense fire of small arms, at close range, had killed many, wounded more, and had produced disorder in all of the battalions that had attempted to counter it. Men fell away from their ranks, talking and in great confusion.” Sherman summoned his fellow officers to rally the troops. “We succeeded in partially reforming the regiments, but it was manifest that they would not stand.” A retreat order would have been superfluous; the men were retreating uncontrollably on their own. Eventually the order came, but it did nothing to organize the retreat. “This retreat was by night and disorderly in the extreme,” Sherman wrote.

T
he next morning Sherman’s troops straggled into Fort Corcoran, their base on the Potomac. “A slow, muzzling rain had set in, and probably a more gloomy day never presented itself,” Sherman related. “All
organization seemed to be at an end.… Of course, we took it for granted that the rebels would be on our heels, and accordingly prepared to defend our posts.” But the Confederates had become nearly as disorganized in victory as the Federals were in defeat, and they failed to follow up. This minor blessing didn’t stop some of Sherman’s soldiers from attempting to desert. Most were dissuaded when he ordered his artillery officers to level their guns at them and threatened to open fire if they made a move. Yet one captain announced his decision to depart nonetheless. “Colonel,” he said to Sherman, “I am going to New York today. What can I do for you?”

“How can you go to New York?” Sherman demanded. “I don’t remember to have signed a leave for you.”

The captain explained that he didn’t want a leave; his ninety-day term was up and he was mustering out.

Sherman considered the matter. “I noticed that a good many of the soldiers had paused about us to listen, and knew that if this officer could defy me, they also would,” he wrote afterward. “So I turned on him sharp and said: ‘Captain, this question of your term of service has been submitted to the rightful authority, and the decision has been published in orders. You are a soldier, and must submit to orders until you are properly discharged. If you attempt to leave without orders, it will be mutiny, and I will shoot you like a dog!’ ”

The captain returned to his quarters, apparently chastened. The watching men went back to their business. Sherman thought the incident ended. But later that day a carriage carrying President Lincoln and Secretary of State Seward drove by the camp. The driver looked lost, and Sherman volunteered to give directions. He got into the vehicle and told the driver where to go. Meanwhile he spoke with Lincoln, who said he had come out to encourage the troops. Sherman asked if he intended to give a speech. Lincoln said he thought he would. Sherman cautioned him against anything that might elicit cheering or other noisy demonstrations. “We had had enough of it before Bull Run to ruin any set of men,” he recalled telling the president. “What we needed were cool, thoughtful, hard-fighting soldiers—no more hurrahing, no humbug.”

Lincoln nodded, and when he later stood up in the carriage to address the men, he stopped their cheering with a nod to Sherman. “Don’t cheer, boys,” he said. “I confess I rather like it myself, but Colonel Sherman here says it is not military, and I guess we had better defer to his opinion.”

Lincoln continued his inspection, with Sherman as guide. The president
was about to return to Washington when the captain Sherman had reprimanded earlier approached the carriage. “Mr. President, I have a cause of grievance,” the captain said. “This morning I went to speak to Colonel Sherman, and he threatened to shoot me.”

“Threatened to shoot you?” Lincoln replied.

“Yes, sir. He threatened to shoot me.”

Lincoln looked at Sherman, then at the captain, then back at Sherman. In a whisper loud enough for all in the vicinity to hear, he said, “Well, if I were you, and he threatened to shoot, I would not trust him, for I believe he would do it.”

19

“
C
OLONEL
G
RANT IS AN OLD ARMY OFFICER
—
THOROUGHLY A GENTLEMAN
and an officer of intelligence and discretion,”
John Pope wrote to
John Frémont in early August. Frémont commanded Union forces in the West from headquarters in St. Louis; Pope was his lieutenant for Missouri. The mission in Missouri was confused on account of the unsettled circumstances in the state. Secession forces roamed at will but did comparatively little damage, causing the Federals to give unproductive and eventually halfhearted chase. “
Fighting here looks to me like gold hunting in California—always rich leads are a little farther on or in some other locality,” an exhausted assistant wrote Frémont.

Grant seemed to Pope and Frémont the man for the moment and place. His discretion and intelligence enabled him to deal with fractious troops and suspicious locals, instilling discipline and pride in the former and respect for the Union in the latter. “
No wandering will be permitted, and every violation of this order will be summarily and severely punished,” Grant warned his troops upon learning that some of them had annoyed and abused the neighbors. “No soldier will be allowed to go more than one mile beyond his camp except under order or by special permission, on pain of being dealt with as a deserter. No expeditions will be fitted out for the purpose of arresting suspected persons without first getting authority from these Headquarters.” The troops absorbed the message and so did the locals. “
When we first come, there was a terrible state of fear existing among the people,” Grant informed Julia. “They thought every horror known in the whole catalogue of disasters following a state of war was going to be their portion at once. But they are now becoming much more reassured. They find that all troops are not the
desperate characters they took them for.” Grant was especially gratified at the change in the attitudes of the inhabitants of Macon City, on the
Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad north of Jefferson City. “People of the town, many of them, left on our approach, but finding that we behave respectfully and respected private property they returned and before we left nearly every lady and child visited camp and no doubt felt as much regret at our departure as they did at our arrival.”

Yet the Missourians were a puzzling bunch. “
The majority in this part of the state are secessionists, as we would term them, but deplore the present state of affairs,” Grant wrote his father. “They would make almost any sacrifice to have the Union restored, but regard it as dissolved and nothing is left for them but to choose between two evils. Many, too, seem to be entirely ignorant of the object of present hostilities. You can’t convince them but what the ultimate object is to extinguish, by force, slavery. Then too they feel that the Southern Confederacy will never consent to give up their State and as they, the South, are the strong party, it is prudent to favor them from the start.” The rebels and sympathizers controlled the newspapers of the neighborhood, with little regard for facts. “There is never a movement of troops made that the Secession journals through the country do not give a startling account of their almost annihilation at the hands of the State’s troops, whilst the facts are there are no engagements. My regiment has been reported cut to pieces once that I know of, and I don’t know but oftener, whilst a gun has not been fired at us. These reports go uncontradicted here and give confirmation to the conviction already entertained that one Southron is equal to five Northerners.”

G
rant’s good work confirmed the favorable impression he had made on Pope and Frémont, and when the rapid expansion of the Union army compelled a raft of promotions, he found himself among the beneficiaries. “
I see from the papers that my name has been sent in for Brigadier General!” he wrote Jesse at the beginning of August. He was as pleased as he was surprised. “This is certainly very complimentary to me, particularly as I have never asked a friend to intercede in my behalf.” After learning that
Elihu Washburne and other members of the Illinois delegation in Congress had pushed his promotion, Grant told Julia, “
I certainly feel very grateful to the people of Illinois for the interest they seem to have taken in me, and unasked, too. Whilst I was about Springfield I
certainly never blew my own trumpet and was not aware that I attracted any attention, but it seems from what I have heard from there the people, who were perfect strangers to me up to the commencement of our present unhappy national difficulties, were very unanimous in recommending me for my present position.”

He nonetheless thought the promotion was no more than he deserved. To his father he described his handling of his regiment: “
I took it in a very disorganized, demoralized and insubordinate condition and have worked it up to a reputation equal to the best, and I believe with the good will of all the officers and all the men. Hearing that I was likely to be promoted, the officers, with great unanimity, have requested to be attached to my command.” He cautioned, however, that he was writing for Jesse’s eyes alone. “This I don’t want you to read to others, for I very much dislike speaking of myself.”

Grant’s promotion arrived on the heels of word of the Union defeat at
Bull Run, which complicated his newly enlarged task. “
People here will be glad to get clear of us notwithstanding their apparent hospitality,” Grant wrote Julia. “They are great fools in this section of country and will never rest until they bring upon themselves all the horrors of war in its worst form. The people are inclined to carry on a guerilla warfare that must eventuate in retaliation, and when it does commence it will be hard to control. I hope from the bottom of my heart I may be mistaken, but since the defeat of our troops at Manassas things look more gloomy here.”

One of the greatest Missouri fools, Grant thought, was his former business partner. “
I called to see
Harry Boggs the other day as I passed through St. Louis,” he told Julia. “He cursed and went on like a madman. Told me that I would never be welcome in his house, that the people of Illinois were a poor miserable set of Black Republicans, Abolition paupers that had to invade their state to get something to eat. Good joke that on something to eat. Harry is such a pitiful insignificant fellow that I could not get mad at him and told him so, where upon he set the Army of Flanders far in the shade with his profanity.”

Boggs made an impression on Grant all the same. “
You ask my views about the continuance of the war,” he wrote his sister Mary. “Well, I have changed my mind so much that I don’t know what to think. That the Rebels will be so badly whipped by April next that they cannot make a stand anywhere I don’t doubt. But they are so dogged that there is no telling when they might be subdued. Send Union troops among them
and respect all their rights, pay for everything you get and they become desperate and reckless because their state sovereignty is invaded. Troops of the opposite side march through and take everything they want, leaving no pay but script, and they become desperate secession partisans because they have nothing more to lose. Every change makes them more desperate.”

G
rant wouldn’t have described Sam
Clemens as dogged, had he met him. Nor would Clemens have described himself that way. Clemens was a twenty-five-year-old river pilot from Hannibal, Missouri, living in St. Louis in the early summer of 1861 when a recruiter for the secessionist Missouri state guard came through. A couple of Clemens’s friends, also from Hannibal, decided to enlist, and they talked Clemens into joining them. The three headed back to Hannibal to cast their lot with secession.

But their rebel careers almost ended before they began. A Union packet boat arrived at Hannibal; Clemens and his friends watched it land a company of troops. The captain somehow learned that Clemens and the others were pilots, and he dragooned them into the Federal service. The three were transported downriver to St. Louis, where a Union officer was about to compel them to sign papers of enlistment when two young women knocked at the officer’s door. He left Clemens and the others alone long enough for them to make their escape and return once more to Hannibal.

But the Union troops had occupied the town, and the trio joined some rebel irregulars mustering in the forest nearby. Clemens was chosen second lieutenant in a company they formed; his mount was an undersized yellow mule named Paint Brush. One night when Clemens was on picket duty a comrade spotted what looked like Union soldiers. The comrade fired a shotgun at the moving shadows, and Clemens and the others leaped on their steeds and raced away. Paint Brush, however, was no match for the horses of the others, and Clemens was quickly left behind. “
The last we heard of him,” one of the swifter fellows remembered, “he was saying, ‘Damn you, you want the Yanks to capture me!’ ”

The horsemen got to camp ahead of Clemens and girded for battle. At the approach of hoofbeats they leveled their weapons to blast the Unionists. But it was only Clemens and Paint Brush, out of control. Mule and rider charged through the camp—Clemens cursing, Paint Brush braying. Eventually they drew to a halt and the camp settled in for the
night. The next morning some of the men returned to the scene of the engagement. There was no sign that Union troops had ever been there, only some wildflowers swaying soldierlike in the breeze.