Published September 25, 2011
By David Costigan
Ulysses S. Grant was not quite 40 in April 1861 when
Confederates fired on Fort Sumter, beginning the Civil War. Grant, a West Point
graduate and Mexican American War veteran had resigned from the Army in 1854.
Rumors of excessive alcohol consumption marred his reputation and his future in
the military. Subsequently, he failed as farmer, salesman, candidate for county
office and customhouse clerk.
At the time of Sumter, Grant worked in a leather
store in Galena. In his memoirs, Grant acknowledged that he expected the war to
be over in 90 days or less. Grant was elected captain of a Galena infantry
company, he had helped to raise, but he declined waiting for a more significant
opportunity. This came in mid-June when Illinois Gov. Richard Yates appointed
him colonel of the 21st Illinois Infantry Regiment mustered at Springfield.
Grant proceeded to Springfield to take charge. Despite the lack of time for
even meager training, Grant received orders to proceed to Quincy to allay possible
hostile action on the Illinois-Missouri border. Despite available rail
transportation, Grant opted to march across the state as good training and
discipline for his men. In his memoirs he acknowledged that considerable
positive training was accomplished by this move.
On the way, however, as they
reached the Illinois River, the unit received news of hostile action in
Northeast Missouri, so Grant hurried his troops to Quincy by rail. Again in his
memoirs he detailed events:
“Before we were prepared to cross the Mississippi
River at Quincy, my anxiety was relieved; for the men of the besieged regiment
came straggling into town. I am inclined to think both sides got frightened and
ran away.”
Grant and the 21st then set up camp in the region waiting for its
next assignment.
Not all the local response to Grant and his troops was
favorable. While on the Illinois side of the river, the troops camped in the
bottom lands outside of Quincy. Within four days, 30 soldiers were added to the
sick list. The Quincy Daily Whig urged him to find a healthier environment,
commenting, “If the officers place any value on the health of the soldiers
encamping in that miserable and unhealthy bottom, it is certainly a very poor way to show it.”
Apparently commanders set up camp wherever they saw adequate empty space.
Subsequently, Grant and his men crossed the river to the Palmyra, Mo., area,
where the railroad from Quincy joined the Hannibal and St. Joseph RR, a prime
target of rebel guerrilla forces. In a letter to his wife, Julia, Grant
revealed that he was aware of a “terrible state of fear existing among the
people.”
Guerrilla violence was commonplace in the area. He pointed out that
when the people learned his troops respected property, they began to visit the
Union camp and became friendly with his troops. Grant’s approach was in direct
contrast with his predecessor in the region, Gen. John Pope, who stated that
the entire population must be assumed to be hostile. Grant conjectured, “I am
fully convinced that if orderly troops could be marched through this country,
and none others, it would create a very different state of feeling from what
exists now.” Grant’s method, now called “counterinsurgency,” presented a
relatively unique approach that could wax and wane in the region throughout the
first years of the war. Grant received orders to proceed further into Missouri
against a rebel guerrilla force commanded by Col. Thomas Harris encamped in the
small town of Florida (Mark Twain’s birthplace.)
Grant described the operation in
his memoirs. His force marched about 25 miles toward a creek bottom where
Harris’s troops were supposedly encamped. Grant explained, “The hills on either
side of the creek extend to a considerable height, possibly more than a hundred
feet. As we approached the brow of the hill from which it was expected we could
see Harris’s camp, and possibly find his men ready formed to meet us, my heart
kept getting higher and higher until it felt to me as though it was in my
throat. I would have given anything then to have been back in Illinois, but I
had not the moral courage to halt and consider what to do; I kept right on.
When we reached a point from which the valley below was in full view I halted.
The place where Harris was encamped a few days before was still there and the
marks of a recent encampment were plainly visible, but the troops were gone. My
heart resumed its place. It occurred to me at once that Harris had been as much
afraid of me as I had been of him. This was a view of the question I had never
taken before; but it was one I never forgot afterwards. From that event to the
close of the war, I never experienced trepidation upon confronting an enemy. I
never forgot he had as much reason to fear my forces as I had his. The lesson
was valuable.”
It is quite remarkable to think that such a seminal experience
took place in this remote area of Missouri. Grant’s next assignment was to
proceed to Mexico, Mo., commissioned to keep order in that area. Two days after
his arrival in Mexico, he was apprised of the fact that his name had been sent
to the U.S. Senate for promotion to the rank of brigadier general. With solid support from Illinois
congressmen, he received the appointment, and it was backdated to May 17 for
the purpose of providing seniority.
Grant’s leadership in the west would
continue, with successes and failures for almost three more years, when in the
spring of 1864, Lincoln called him to become general-in-chief. Grant had come a
long way from the Galena leather shop and from his Springfield, Quincy, and
Northeast Missouri assignments. By his own admission, he had conquered fear and
he could display resoluteness that would serve him well through the remainder
of the war.
David Costigan is Professor Emeritus of History at Quincy
University, a member of the Lincoln Douglas Debate Interpretive Center Advisory
Board, and a frequent speaker. His prize winning doctoral dissertation is
entitled, “A City in Wartime: Quincy Illinois in the Civil War.”
Sources
Costigan,
David. “A City in Wartime: Quincy, Illinois in the Civil War.” PhD
diss., Illinois State University, 1994.
Grant,
Ulysses S. Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant. New York: Charles Webster and
Company, 1885-1886.
Longacre, Edward G. General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and
the Man. Cambridge, Massachusetts: DeCapo Press, 2007.
