Published August 23, 2024
By David Costigan
1861 photo of Ulysses S. Grant while he was serving with the 21st Illinois Infantry.
(Photo courtesy of Library of Congress)
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 a famer, salesman, candidate for county office and customhouse clerk. A
t the time of Fort Sumter, grant worked in a leather store in Galena, Illinois. 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 Il
linois Governor 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 i
n 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 I
linois 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 Palmyra, Missouri, area
where the railroad from Quincy joined the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, a prime
target of rebel guerrilla forces. In a letter to his wife Julie, 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, General John Pope, who stated that the entire population
must be assumed to be hostile. Grant conjecture, “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 Colonel 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,
possible 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 high 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 is 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, Missouri,
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 United States 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.
Professor Emeritus David Costigan held the position of the Aaron M. Pembleton E
ndowed Chair of History at Quincy University and is a respected authority on local history.
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,
MA: Da Capo Press, 2007
