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Personal Recollections of Distinguished Generals

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Title: Personal Recollections of Distinguished Generals

Author: William Franklin Gore Shanks


        
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Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF DISTINGUISHED GENERALS ***

[Illustration: SHERIDAN'S RIDE TO THE FRONT.]




  PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS

  OF

  DISTINGUISHED GENERALS.

  BY

  WILLIAM F. G. SHANKS.


  NEW YORK:
  HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
  FRANKLIN SQUARE.
  1866.




  Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand
  eight hundred and sixty-six, by

  HARPER & BROTHERS,

  In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District
  of New York.




PREFACE.


The purpose of this volume is to make more familiar to the general
public the actual characters of some of our great military leaders
during the late war. I have attempted to portray them not as on
parade, but in undress uniform, and to illustrate not only their great
military qualities, but more particularly their mental peculiarities
and characteristics. These pages will be found to contain many facts
about some of the great battles which official reports have left
untold, with such recollections of our generals as history proper
will not perhaps condescend to record, and to embrace singular facts
about great campaigns and strange stories of great men. The portraits
are freely drawn. They are made from actual studies, if not special
sittings, and while taking care to give every beauty, I have omitted
none of the deformities or blemishes of my subjects, though I have
told in full detail their virtues, and have touched on their faults
and vices lightly. I have avoided alike extreme extravagance in
praise or censure. Still there is enough shadow to the pictures to
give the necessary, if not agreeable contrast to the lights. The
reader must not, however, mistake the stand-point from which I have
written. Distance, unfortunately for truth, lends enchantment not
only to objects, but to men. The atmosphere of Olympus produces many
phantasmagoria, and the great at a distance exist to our eyes in a sort
of mirage. The philosophy of perspective as applied to natural objects
is reversed when applied to mankind, and there are very few men who
do not grow smaller as one approaches them. Most men are pyramidal in
shape only, not proportions. "No man is a hero to his valet." Even
Jupiter was ridiculous at times to Homer. Very few generals have
appeared great to the war correspondents; and though very few of the
latter can claim to be descendants of Diogenes, they can assert, with
equal positiveness, that very few of the generals have been Alexanders,
and that "the very sun shines through them." I have written under the
disadvantage of being too near the objects drawn; and those who do not
know the subjects as well may imagine I have made them undeservedly
Liliputian in dimensions.

Writing contemporaneous history is the most thankless of tasks, and I
discover also one of the least independent of labors. Still I have not
written with a goose-quill, and there has been some gall in my ink, yet
I do not think I have any thing in the ensuing chapters to blot. I do
not think I have done any man injustice. I have written many sentences
and made many assertions which will doubtless be termed strong, but
in writing these I am only the amanuensis of truth; and I write with
the firm belief that "historical truth should be only less sacred than
religious truth."

I have no doubt, however, that others will think differently after
perusing the book. When publishing in Harper's Magazine I was told that
the language of some of these sketches offended the subjects, but I
have been unable to find any fact that ought to be stated otherwise. I
think it best to say, for the benefit of all who may choose to object
or condemn the volume as now published, that I have written nothing
that I do not believe to be true--I trust not one sentence that, dying,
I would wish to blot, and certainly not one word that, living, I intend
to retract.

  NEW YORK, _Sept., 1866_.




CONTENTS.


  CHAPTER I.

  SHERMAN AS A STRATEGIST.

  The most original Character developed by the War.--No Parallel for
  Sherman.--His nervous Energy the secret of his great Success.
  --Incidents illustrative of his great Energy.--Restlessness of Manner
  and nervousness of Expression in Conversation.--His bad Temper.
  --Appearance in Battle and under Excitement.--Vigorous Style as a
  Writer.--He ought to have been a War Correspondent rather than a
  General.--The Story of his Lunacy.--How it originated.--Method in
  his Madness.--Habit of Decision.--How he came to leave the Law
  and return to the Army.--His uncontrollable Temper nearly Ruins
  him.--The Quarrel with Halleck and Stanton.--Failure as a Tactician
  and Disciplinarian.--All his Battles Defeats.--Never won a
  Battle.--His great strategic Marches.--The Campaign of Atlanta
  his greatest Achievement.--Joe Johnston a Foeman worthy of his
  Steel.--Sherman's Egotism.--His dislike for Correspondents and
  independence of the Press mere Affectation.--Nicknames bestowed on
  him by the Soldiers.--An inveterate Smoker.--His personal Appearance
                                                                Page 17


  CHAPTER II.

  THOMAS AS A TACTICIAN.

  Sherman and Thomas match Horses.--A Contrast drawn between them.
  --Methodical Habits of Thomas.--System necessary to his Existence.
  --Fury of his Anger when aroused.--Great Self-control and Coolness
  in Danger.--Illustrative Incidents of his Imperturbability.
  --Cold-blooded upon Principle.--He Studies to avoid the display of
  his Emotions.--Personal Description and Habits in Camp.--His tactical
  Ability.--Affection of his Soldiers for Thomas.--The Bayard of the
  Army.--His uniform Success as a Commander.--Thomas entitled to the
  Credit of Sherman's March to the Sea.--The Battles of that Campaign
  fought at Nashville by Thomas.--The Battle at Nashville his
  greatest Action                                                    58


  CHAPTER III.

  GRANT AS A GENERAL.

  The proper Conception of his Character.--Grant a Combination of
  Sherman and Thomas.--Contrasted with Lee.--Resemblance between Grant
  and Sherman.--Energy of both.--Comparison between Grant and
  Thomas.--The Persistence and Tenacity of each.--Grant's
  Practicability and Magnanimity.--His Taciturnity.--His Idea of
  Strategy.--His numerous Battles the most successful and important of
  the War.--Campaign at Chattanooga and Knoxville.--The remarkable
  Campaign to the Rear of Richmond the most brilliant of the War.--His
  great Vice, a Habit of Smoking.--His great Weakness, a Love of
  Horses.--Grant and Sherman as Damon and Pythias.--His Generosity
  to his Subordinates.--Superiority to his principal Leaders.--What his
  Character in the Future will be                                    91


  CHAPTER IV.

  SHERIDAN AS A CAVALRYMAN.

  The Union Cause rich in its Leadership.--The Rebellion very weak.
  --Sheridan one of the most able of our Leaders.--A Miracle of War.
  --An Inspiration rather than a General.--A "Fighting" General.
  --Reminiscences of his Youth.--His Career as a "belligerent Cadet" at
  West Point.--His Class-mates and their Success.--Sheridan and Hood
  compared.--Sheridan's early Career as a Lieutenant and Failure as a
  Quarter-master.--A Favorite with both Grant and Halleck.--Sheridan a
  Colonel of Cavalry.--His first Cavalry Victory.--Promoted Brigadier
  General of Infantry.--Repeated Defeats as a Commander of Infantry.
  --His Failures at Stone River and Chickamauga.--Success in Pursuit of
  Bragg from Tullahoma and at Chattanooga.--Promoted to the Command of
  all Grant's Cavalry.--His Success in this Capacity.--The Belligerent
  in his Organization.--Personal Appearance and Habits.--A modern
  Scipio                                                            128


  CHAPTER V.

  FIGHTING JOE HOOKER.

  General Hooker a Cosmopolitan.--Naturally "a Fighting General."
  --Career in Mexico.--Difficulties in obtaining a Command.--His
  inspiring Presence.--Critical Account of his "Battle above the
  Clouds."--He manufactures the Clouds in order to fight above them.
  --His Weakness consists in his Disposition to criticise every thing.
  --His Candor.--Opinion of McClellan.--"The young Napoleon conducting
  War in order to get into the best Society."--Hooker's Vanity and
  Valor.--How he obtained a Command.--Sharp Criticisms in official
  Reports.--Hooker's Criticism on Sherman.--His untiring Energy.--The
  Title of Fighting Joe offensive to him.--How it was obtained.
  --Personal Description and Habits                                 165


  CHAPTER VI.

  RECOLLECTIONS OF ROUSSEAU.

  Strategic _versus_ fighting Generals.--Strategy always an Excuse for
  military Failures.--Four fighting Generals compared.--Rousseau
  naturally a Leader of Men.--His early Career.--He Acts as "the Member
  from Louisville, Kentucky," in the Indiana Senate.--Always in the
  Minority and always Popular.--Adventures in Kentucky as a criminal
  Lawyer.--Success as a special Pleader.--Startling Adventure in
  Defense of four Negroes charged with Murder.--Election to the
  Kentucky State Senate.--The true Story of Kentucky Neutrality.--Simon
  Bolivar Buckner and his Schemes.--How they were frustrated by
  Rousseau.--Denunciation of Neutrality.--Forcing an Issue.--Division
  of the State Guard into two rival Organizations.--Defection of the
  "Lexington Chasseurs."--How Rousseau obtained Authority to raise
  Troops for the United States Service.--Opposition of the neutral
  Union Men to his Scheme.--How he overcame their Objections.--Himself
  and Troops exiled.--Singular Scenes in the neutral State.--Recruiting
  for both Armies in the same City.--Sad Divisions created in Families.
  --A Rebel and Union Praying-match.--The News of the Bull Run Disaster
  in Louisville.--The Secessionists take Possession of the City.--A
  Riot instantaneously quelled.--A Peace Meeting turned to a War
  Gathering.--Rousseau's Parade through Louisville.--Buckner's
  traitorous Scheme, and what was to have been effected by it.--Attempt
  to seize the City.--Rousseau saves it from Capture.--A neutral
  Editor's History of Neutrality.--Popularity of Rousseau with his
  People.--His military Career.--Great Daring at Perryville.--Incidents
  of that Battle.--Admiration of his Men for Rousseau.--New Mode of
  taking Care of Prisoners.--Sherman's Idea of Rousseau's Raid to the
  Rear of Hood's Army.--Return to political Life.--His Crusade against
  Slavery.--Intimacy between Rousseau and Sherman.--Personal Appearance
  of Rousseau                                                       193


  CHAPTER VII.

  PECULIARITIES OF VARIOUS GENERALS.

  General Don Carlos Buell.--One of the greatest Generals, also one of
  the greatest Failures of the War.--Buell too methodical to be
  practical.--Weakness of his Army Organization.--Three Corps
  Commanders without Ability.--Perryville a Battle lost by Jealousy of
  our Commanders.--Quarrel between Buell and Governor Johnson of
  Tennessee.--The true Story of the proposed Evacuation of Nashville.
  --Thomas and Buell compared.--William Starke Rosecrans a great
  Failure.--His utter Incompetency.--His extreme Nervousness unfitting
  him for a Command.--His Campaign of Chickamauga one Series of
  Mistakes.--The Battle an unnecessary Slaughter.--The worst managed
  Battle of the War.--Rosecrans not on the Field.--Gordon Granger's
  Peculiarities.--His Predilection for artillery Fights.--His
  Resemblance to Joe Hooker.--Retort upon Sherman.--"Living off the
  Country."--His Opinion of Gideon Pillow and "painted Mules."--Grief
  at the Death of Captain Russell.--"Old Steady" Steedman one of the
  most positive Men of the War.--His Boldness and Impudence.--Daring
  Charge at Chickamauga.--His March from Chattanooga to Nashville to
  ask for Orders.--His Faith in Negro Troops.--Generals Wood and
  Negley the Victims of Chickamauga.--Military Character of each.
  --General Howard a Soldier on Principle.--His firm Faith in the Cause
  and its Success.--Methodical Turn of Mind.--Religious Habits and
  Training.--Mayor William H. Sidell as Sherman's Counterpart.--General
  John A. Logan the representative General of the Western Army.--His
  Readiness in Emergencies, and his great personal Daring.--General
  John W. Geary's adventurous Career.--His famous midnight Battle with
  Longstreet, and how he defeated him                               242


  CHAPTER VIII.

  SOME PECULIARITIES OF OUR VETERANS.

  Superiority of educated over uneducated Soldiers.--Contrast in the
  _personnel_ of European and American, between Union and Rebel, and
  between Eastern and Western Troops.--Superiority of the Union Armies.
  --Anecdotes and Incidents illustrating the Peculiarities of our
  Veterans                                                          321




ILLUSTRATIONS.


                                                                   PAGE

  SHERIDAN'S RIDE TO THE FRONT                          _Frontispiece._

  WILLIAM T. SHERMAN                                                 16

  GEORGE H. THOMAS                                                   58

  ULYSSES S. GRANT                                                   90

  ROBERT E. LEE                                                      95

  PHILIP H. SHERIDAN                                                131

  JOSEPH HOOKER                                                     164

  LOVELL H. ROUSSEAU                                                194

  DON CARLOS BUELL                                                  245

  WILLIAM S. ROSECRANS                                              261

  GORDON GRANGER                                                    268

  JAMES B. STEEDMAN                                                 276

  OLIVER O. HOWARD                                                  299

  JOHN A. LOGAN                                                     307

  JOHN W. GEARY                                                     317




PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS

OF

DISTINGUISHED GENERALS.




[Illustration: WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN.]




CHAPTER I.

SHERMAN AS A STRATEGIST.


Of the few really great men who have been developed by the late war
in this country, and who will leave a lasting impression on the
minds of the people, William Tecumseh Sherman may be regarded as the
most original. His name has been made more widely prominent, and his
character more universally popular, than that of any other of our
heroes; but it has been less in consequence of his brilliant success
as a leader than by reason of his strongly-marked characteristics of
person and mind. He is, without doubt, the most original and eccentric,
though not the most powerful--the most interesting, though not the
most impressive character developed by the rebellion. He is by far our
most brilliant general, but not by any means the most reliable; the
most fascinating, but not the most elegant; the quickest, but not the
safest; the first to resolve, but not the most resolute. As a man he is
always generous, but not uniformly just; affectionate by nature, but
not at all times kind in demonstration; confiding, and yet suspicious;
obstinate, yet vacillating; decided, but not tenacious--a mass of
contradictions so loosely and yet so happily thrown together as to
produce the most interesting combination imaginable. General Sherman's
character has many beauties and virtues, but also many glaring defects
and faults. His picture, as I have seen and studied it, possesses what
the artists call "great breadth of light and shade," and is full of
contrasts alternately pleasing and offensive, and which, in order to
properly analyze the character, should be portrayed and described with
equal force and impartiality. He is a character without a parallel
among his contemporaries, though not without a contrast; and it is for
the latter reason that I have chosen his character as the one upon
which to base, as it were, the following estimates of the characters of
his fellow-officers of the United States army, and not because I think,
as may be supposed, that he deserves the first place in the rank of our
great captains. The war lasted long enough to give the leaders, if not
their proper places in popular estimation, at least their true linear
rank in the army. General Sherman may be considered as first among
the strategists of the war; General George H. Thomas as first among
the tacticians; but Grant, combining the qualities of both tactician
and strategist, must always be ranked as greatly the superior of both
Thomas and Sherman.

General Sherman may be described as a bundle of nerves all strung to
their greatest tension. No woman was ever more painfully nervous; but
there is nothing of the woman's weakness in Sherman's restlessness.
It is not, as with others, a defect of the organization; it is really
Sherman's greatest strength, for from it results the brilliancy of
conception and design which has characterized his strategic movements,
the originality which has appeared in his views on political economy
and the policy of war, and the overwhelming energy which is "his all
in all," the secret and cause of his great success. From his extreme
nervousness results the most striking feature of his character--a
peculiar nervous energy which knows no cessation, and is resistless.
It is not merely that energy and quickness of movement which naturally
belongs to nervous organizations, but intensified a hundred fold. At
the same time, it is energy without system, and oftentimes without
judgment, but nevertheless always effective. General Sherman is the
engine, but he is not always the engineer. He furnishes the motive
power, but he frequently requires some person or thing to keep him
to the track; in fact, he requires to be controlled and directed.
He is untiring in his efforts; you can never dismay him with the
amount or frighten him with the dangers of a task; and he hesitates
at nothing, matters great and small receiving his attention. He is no
believer in that too common fallacy that labor is a wearisome waste
of the physical and vital powers; a punishment, not a privilege; and
degrading, not elevating. Work is necessary to his existence, and
hard, earnest work at that. Always a hard, earnest worker, he devoted,
during the continuance of the war, but little time to sleep, and that
little sleep was never sound. His active mind, I once heard him say
to a fellow-officer, delights in preposterous dreams and impossible
fancies, and, waking or sleeping, continues ever active in planning
and executing.

A few anecdotes will perhaps better illustrate the nature of this
nervous energy. The most remarkable instance of this characteristic
which I can now recall occurred at Nashville, Tennessee. When Sherman
assumed command there in March, 1864, the great difficulty in the way
of an advance from Chattanooga upon the enemy, then covering Atlanta
and the Georgia railroads, was the lack of provisions at Chattanooga
and Knoxville. The military agent of the railroads from Nashville to
Chattanooga was running through to the army at the latter point about
ninety car-loads of rations per day. This merely served to feed the
army then gathered there; nothing was accumulating for the spring
campaign. General Sherman demanded the cause of this insufficient
supply of rations. The agent reported that he needed both cars and
locomotives, and added it was impossible to obtain them. General
Sherman answered that nothing was impossible, and immediately began to
devise means by which to remedy the evil. After a short deliberation,
he decided to seize a sufficiency of cars and locomotives in Indiana,
Ohio, and Illinois, and at once went to work to do so. In an incredibly
short space of time he extended the northern terminus of the Louisville
and Nashville Railroad through the former city, a distance of three
miles, to the Ohio River. On the levee, or wharf, he built an inclined
plane to the water's edge. One of the ferry-boats which plied between
Louisville and Jeffersonville was seized, and especially prepared
by the laying of rails across its bow and stern to carry cars and
locomotives. On the Indiana side of the river he extended the
Jeffersonville Railroad through that town to the Ohio River, and built
another inclined plane from the bluff on which the town is situated
down the steep wharf to the water's edge. At the same time he ordered
the impressment of the necessary cars and locomotives from the various
northwestern railroads, taking them off routes as far north as Chicago,
and rushed them off to Nashville, crossing the Ohio by the means he had
provided. The effect was soon visible. In a month after this movement
began the railroad agents reported that they were running two hundred
and seventy cars per day through to Chattanooga. By the 20th of April,
the day Sherman left Nashville to begin his Atlanta campaign, he had
accumulated at Knoxville eighteen, and at Chattanooga thirteen days'
rations for his whole army of 120,000 men. The energy which inspired
the railroad agents was communicated to the quarter-masters located at
Nashville, and the result was the increase of the laboring force of
this department from four or five thousand to nearly sixteen thousand
men. During the progress of this work General Sherman required the
railroad agents and quarter-masters to report progress daily. I
happened to be in his office one morning when assistant quarter-master
General James L. Donnalson reported a small increase in the number of
cars forwarded on that day over the supply of the day before. General
Sherman received the announcement with more evidences of gratification
than he would have shown on hearing of a heavy re-enforcement of his
numbers, for at this time he had more men than he well knew what to do
with. "That's good!" he exclaimed--"that's good, Donnalson; we'll be
ready for the start;" and then he hastily resumed his seat, and made
a rapid calculation of some sort, which he showed with much apparent
delight to Generals Donnalson and Webster, the latter his chief of
staff. He could not have been more delighted if he had heard the news
of a great victory. A moment afterward he turned to me to deny, in a
very gruff way--he was always gruff to newspaper correspondents--my
application for a pass over the military railroad to Chattanooga. "You
see," he said, "I have as much as I can do to feed my _soldiers_," with
a very ungracious emphasis on the word soldiers. As I had Lieutenant
General Grant's pass to any point and by any route in my pocket, and
had only submitted the question to General Sherman through deference
to him as the immediate commander of the department, I could afford to
smile at the slur conveyed in his emphasis, and turned away enriched
with a reminiscence, and with increased admiration of the man.

Some former experience with, or, rather, observation of the general,
had given me somewhat of the same opinion of his energy and
earnestness. When he first assumed command at Louisville, Kentucky,
in 1861, the agents of the New York Associated Press throughout the
country were employed by the government in transmitting its cipher
or secret messages, and correspondence between the various military
commanders, by telegraph. In consequence of this arrangement, General
Sherman frequented the office of the Louisville agency, in which I was
at the time employed. He was always at this office during the evening,
often remaining until three o'clock in the morning, when the closing
of the office would force him to retire to his rooms at the hotel.
During these hours he would pace the floor of the room apparently
absorbed in thought, and heedless of all that was going on around him.
He would occasionally sit at the table to jot down a memorandum or
compose a telegram. He would sometimes stop to listen to any remark
addressed to him by other occupants of the room, but would seldom
reply, even though the remark had been a direct question, and would
appear and act as if the interruption had but momentarily disturbed his
train of thought.

In July, 1864, while besieging the enemy's position at Kenesaw
Mountain, an incident occurred which may be given as illustrative
of Sherman's energy. When the campaign opened he had published an
order informing the army, in terms which were laughed at at the time
as rather bombastic and slightly egotistical, that "the commanding
general intended making the campaign without a tent," and during the
greater part of the march his head-quarters actually consisted of
nothing more than a tent-fly for the use of his adjutant general.
He generally slept under a tree during dry weather, and in very wet
weather in any convenient house. When the army was concentrated in
the gorge of Snake Creek Gap, in which there was not a house of any
character, General Logan "raised the laugh" on Sherman by sending him
a tent to protect him from the rain, and which, owing to the terrible
state of the weather, Sherman was compelled to use. But the greater
part of the campaign was actually passed by Sherman without any other
quarters than I have described as for the convenience of his adjutant
general. Early one morning a regiment of troops passed his bivouac
near Kenesaw Mountain, Georgia, and saw him lying under a tree near
the roadside. One of the men, not knowing the general, and supposing
him, from his jaded, weary, and generally dilapidated appearance, to be
drunk, remarked aloud, "That is the way we are commanded, officered by
drunken generals." Sherman heard the remark and instantly arose. "Not
drunk, my boy," he said good-humoredly, "but I was up all night looking
after your rations, and am very tired and sleepy." He soon after broke
up head-quarters, and, passing the same regiment on the march, was
received with loud and hearty cheers.

He makes his subordinates work, too, with the same zeal. When the
rebels, in evacuating Resaca, succeeded in burning the railroad bridge
over the Oostenaula River, he turned to Colonel Wright, his engineer
in charge of railroads, and asked him how long it would take him to
replace that bridge. Colonel Wright replied after a short calculation,
during which Sherman showed his impatience at the delay in the answer,
that he could rebuild it in four days.

"Sir," exclaimed the general, hastily, "I give you forty-eight hours,
or a position in the front ranks."

The bridge was forthcoming at the proper time.

This nervousness of Sherman's organization has naturally produced a
peculiar restlessness of manner and admirable vigor of expression. He
talks with great rapidity, often in his haste mingling his sentences in
a most surprising manner, and accompanying his conversation by strange,
quick, and ungraceful gestures, the most common of which is the
knocking of the ashes from his cigar with the little finger of his left
hand, frequently knocking at it until ashes and light too are gone.

In a conversation of importance, and particularly on a battle-field, he
seldom gives a person time to finish his remarks or reports. He replies
as soon as he has heard enough to convey the idea, never waiting its
elaboration. In giving his instructions and orders, he will take a
person by the shoulder and push him off as he talks, following him to
the door, all the time talking and urging him away. His quick, restless
manner almost invariably results in the confusion of the person whom he
is thus instructing, but Sherman himself never gets confused. At the
same time, he never gets composed. Under all circumstances, he is thus
restlessly, never timidly nervous. In danger the restlessness is not so
visible, and hence it is apparent that there is nothing of timidity in
it. On the battle-field where he commands Sherman's nervous manner is
toned down. He grates his teeth, and his lips are closed more firmly,
giving an expression of greater determination to his countenance. His
eyes are somewhat closed, as if endeavoring to see the furthermost
limits of the battle-field, and, as it were, peer into the future and
see the result. His cigar is always kept firmly between his lips, but
he suffers its fire occasionally to die out. He is less restless of
body; his arms are more confined to their proper limits; and he is
content to stay in one spot. He talks less at such moments than at
calmer ones. On light occasions, however, he is invariably ill at ease.
His fingers nervously twitch his red whiskers--his coat buttons--play
a tattoo on his table or chair, or run through his hair. One moment
his legs are crossed, and the next both are on the floor. He sits a
moment, and then rises and paces the floor. He _must_ talk, quick,
sharp, and yet not harshly, all the time making his odd gestures,
which, no less than the intonation of his voice, serve to emphasize his
language. He can not bear a clog upon his thoughts nor an interruption
to his language. He admits of no opposition. He overrides every thing.
He never hesitates at interrupting any one, but can not bear to be
interrupted himself. He is very well aware, and candidly admits that
his temper is uncommonly bad, and, what is worse, he makes no attempt
to control or correct it. In speaking of the late General McPherson,
of the Army of Tennessee, he once remarked, "He is as good an officer
as I am--is younger, and has a better temper." Grant, once speaking of
Sherman's peevishness, said, "Sherman is impetuous and faulty, but he
sees his faults as soon as any man." The fact is, if Sherman's faults
alone could be given to another, they would serve to distinguish him
from the common herd.

The idea generally prevails that commanding generals are very didactic
on the battle-field, and give their orders in precise language and
stentorian voice. A little familiarity with actual war will soon
dispel this false impression, particularly if you meet Sherman on the
battle-field, for there is less of dignity, display, and grandiloquence
in him than any other general whom I have met during the war. At the
battle of Chattanooga he gave his orders for the advance of his troops
against the enemy's strongly fortified position to his brother in law,
General Hugh Ewing, in the words uttered between two puffs at a bad
cigar: "I guess, Ewing, if you are ready, you may as well go ahead."
Ewing asked a few questions in regard to retaining the _échelon_
formation of his command as then marshaled for the advance. Sherman
replied, "I want you to keep the left well toward the river (the
Chickamauga), and keep up the formation four hundred yards distance,
until you get to the foot of the hill."

"And shall we keep it after that?" asked Ewing.

"Oh, you may go up the hill as you like," said Sherman; and then he
added, _sotto voce_, with a smile and a wink to his aid, and General
Ewing's brother, Charley Ewing, who stood near by, "if you can." As
General Ewing was mounting his horse and about to leave, Sherman called
out to him,

"I say, Ewing, don't call for help until you actually need it." General
Frank Blair, and others of the Army of the Tennessee who were standing
near Sherman, laughed at this in such a manner as left the impression
on the minds of others, as well as myself, that on some former occasion
General Ewing had called for help before General Sherman thought that
he really needed it.

It is recorded of Sherman that, on witnessing from the top of a
rice-mill on the Ogeechee River the capture of Fort McAllister by
General Hazen's forces, and the successful termination by that capture
of the "march to the sea," he exclaimed, imitating the voice of a
negro, "Dis chile don't sleep dis night," and hurried off to meet
General Foster and complete the junction of the two armies.

His nervousness is not less perceptible in his writings than in
his conversation and manners. His writings lack in elegance, but
not in force. Some of his letters, remarkable for absence of grace
and presence of vigor, are already accepted as among the model
documents of the war, not only as to style, but as to argument. His
speeches, letters, and orders are seldom more than skeletons, framed
of sharp, pointed, but disjointed sentences, from which the ideas
to be conveyed protrude so prominently as to be comprehensible when
the sentence is but half conveyed. His ideas are never elaborated in
his letters, though given more fully than in his conversations, but
you never have to finish the sentence to discover its meaning. There
are several specimens which every reader will naturally think of in
this connection. His letter to the rebel General Hood on the proposed
depopulation of Atlanta is a curious document, an impromptu reply,
thrown off-hand from his pen, and it reads as if it were Sherman
talking. He begins this letter by acknowledging the receipt of a
communication at the hands of "Messrs. Bull and _crew_." The bearers,
who were designated by this undignified title, were members of the
Common Council of Atlanta, for whom Sherman does not appear to have
entertained the most profound respect. The letter ends by advising
Hood to tell his tale of oppression "to the marines," as he (Sherman)
is not to be imposed upon. In the same correspondence he indicates
his action in depopulating Atlanta, and gives his peculiar "theory of
suppression." Sherman's whole theory, in which, by the way, he has been
consistent from the first, is embraced in the proposition to "fight
the devil with fire." He was for vigorous war all the time--hard blows
at the organized armies, frequent and oft repeated. He has none of
the elements of Fabian in him. He writes in defense of the action at
Atlanta alluded to: "We must have peace, not only in Atlanta, but in
all America. To secure this, we must stop the war that now desolates
our once happy and favored country. To stop war, we must _defeat the
rebel armies_ that are arrayed against the laws and Constitution, which
all must respect and obey. To defeat these armies, we must prepare
the way to reach them in their recesses provided with the arms and
instruments which enable us to accomplish our purpose." His expression
in the same letter, "War is cruelty--you can not refine it," is a
sharp, terse rendition of an undisputed truth, to the illustration
of which whole chapters have been less successfully devoted by more
distinguished writers.

While endeavoring to fill up his dépôts at Chattanooga and Knoxville
preparatory to the campaign against Atlanta, Sherman was asked by
members of the United States Christian Commission for transportation
for their delegates, books, tracts, etc., for the army. His reply is
very characteristic of the man: "Certainly not," he wrote; "crackers
and oats are more necessary to my army than any moral or religious
agency." As this incident shows, Sherman is not a very firm believer
in the utility of Christian or Sanitary Commissions, or aid societies
generally. He thinks female nurses about a hospital or an army a
great nuisance. He once alluded contemptuously to the efforts of a
large number of ladies at Louisville, Kentucky, to send clothing,
lint, sweetmeats, etc., to his troops, but was induced, in lieu of
discouraging their efforts, to take steps to properly direct them. He
met the ladies by agreement in one of the public halls at Louisville,
now known as Wood's Theatre, and made an address to them. He went among
the lambs with all the boldness and dignity of a lion; but the rough,
uncouth manner of him who had frowned on thousands of men melted in
the presence of a few hundred ladies. They found that, though "he was
no orator as Brutus is," he could talk very tenderly of the soldier's
wants, very graphically of the soldier's life and sufferings, and very
gallantly of woman and her divine mission of soothing and comforting.

During the campaign of Atlanta communication with the rear was very
much obstructed, the news correspondents found many difficulties in
forwarding information, and telegrams to the press seldom reached
New York. During the movement around Atlanta Sherman was applied
to directly by the news agent at Louisville for the details of the
movement. In reply the general telegraphed, "Atlanta is ours, and
fairly won;" following up the expression, which has already passed
into song, with a brief and graphic report of the flank movement
around Atlanta and the battle of Jonesborough. This report is one of
the most admirable narratives I remember to have ever read, and at the
time of its publication I wrote for the Herald, of which I was then
a correspondent, a long criticism of it. The letter never appeared,
however, for the reason that I endeavored to show that, successful as
he had been, Sherman had mistaken his vocation as a general, and ought
to have been a war correspondent. I suppose Sherman would have been
mortally offended at such language, particularly as he affected to
hold correspondents and editors in contempt; but undoubtedly he would
have been invaluable to the New York Herald or London Times in such a
capacity, and could have made more money, if not more reputation, in
that capacity than as a major general. He has lately declared that he
does not believe he will ever have occasion to lead men again, and I
advise him by all means to go into the newspaper business. Any of the
principal papers of New York will be glad to give him double the pay of
a major general to act in the capacity of war correspondent.

Until Sherman had developed his practicability, this peculiarity of
expression and manner were accepted as evidences of a badly-balanced
mind. It will be remembered that in his early career a report was
widely circulated to the effect that he was a lunatic; but the origin
of this story, if properly stated, will redound to his credit, as
evincing admirable foresight and sagacity. The true origin of this
report is as follows: Sherman succeeded General Robert Anderson in
command of the Department of the Ohio on October 13, 1861. Up to that
time about ten thousand United States troops had been pushed into
Kentucky. The Western governors were under a promise to send as many
more, but were slow in doing so. General A. Sidney Johnston, the rebel
commander at Bowling Green, was endeavoring to create the impression
that he had about seventy-five thousand men, when he really had only
about twenty-eight thousand. In this he succeeded so far as to cause
it to be supposed that his force largely exceeded Sherman's. Sherman
urged upon the government the rapid re-enforcement of his army, but
with little effect. The troops did not come, for the reason that the
government did not credit the statements of the perilous condition
of Sherman's army. So repeated and urgent were Sherman's demands for
re-enforcements, that at last the Secretary of War, Mr. Cameron,
visited Louisville in order to look into the situation of affairs. An
interview took place at the Galt House at Louisville, Sherman, Cameron,
and Adjutant General Thomas being present. Sherman briefly explained
the situation of affairs, stated his own force and that of the enemy,
and argued that re-enforcements were necessary to hold Kentucky, to say
nothing of an advance. "My forces are too small for an advance," he
said--"too small to hold the important positions in the state against
an advance of the enemy, and altogether too large to be sacrificed
in detail." On being asked how many men were required to drive the
enemy out of the state, he answered, without hesitation, "Two hundred
thousand." The answer was a surprise to the two officers, which they
did not attempt to conceal. They even ridiculed the idea, and laughed
at the calculation. It was declared impossible to furnish the number
of men named. Sherman then argued that the positions in Kentucky ought
to be abandoned, and the army no longer endangered by being scattered.
This was treated more seriously, and vigorously opposed by Cameron and
Thomas. They declared the abandonment of Kentucky was a step to which
they could not consent. Subsequently they broached a plan which had
been devised for dividing the Department and Army of the Ohio into
two; one column to operate under Mitchell from Cincinnati as a base
against Knoxville, and the other from Louisville against Nashville.
To this Sherman was strongly opposed. Satisfied by the persistence of
Cameron on this point that the government was not disposed to second
his views of conducting the affairs of the Department, Sherman asked to
be relieved and ordered to duty in the field. Cameron gladly acquiesced
in his wishes, and he was relieved by Buell, November 30, 1861.

On the same evening of the famous interview between Cameron and
Sherman, the latter paid his customary visit to the Associated
Press-rooms at Louisville. Here, while still in a bad humor over the
result of the interview, he was approached by a man who introduced
himself as an attache of a New York paper, and asked permission to pass
through the lines to the South in the capacity of a correspondent.
Sherman replied that he could not pass. The correspondent, with
unwarrantable impertinence, replied that Secretary Cameron was in
the city, and he would get a pass from him. Sherman at once ordered
him out of his department, telling him that he would give him two
hours to make his escape; if found in his lines after that hour he
"would hang him as a spy." The fellow left the city immediately, and
on reaching Cincinnati very freely expressed his opinion that the
general was crazy. A paper published in that city, on learning the
story of the interview between Cameron and Sherman, which soon became
public, employed the fellow to write up the report which was thus first
circulated of Sherman's lunacy. His opinion that two hundred thousand
men were required to clear Kentucky of rebels was quoted as proof of
it by this man, and thus the story came into existence.

Subsequent events revealed the fact that Sherman did not much
exaggerate the force necessary to carry on the war in the central zone
of the field of military operations. Although we have never had a
single army numbering two hundred thousand men in the West, much larger
armies have been necessary to the accomplishment of the campaign of the
Mississippi and Tennessee Rivers than any person other than Sherman
thus early in the war imagined. The army of Grant at Fort Donelson and
Shiloh, combined with that of Buell, was not over eighty thousand men.
That of Halleck before Corinth numbered exactly one hundred and two
thousand. Sherman left Chattanooga in May, 1864, with one hundred and
twenty thousand men, the largest army ever gathered in one body in the
West. At the same time, he had under his command at different points
on the Mississippi River and in Kentucky an additional force of about
fifty thousand, while the forces operating under other commanders in
the West would, if added to his, make a grand total of two hundred and
fifty thousand men operating on the Mississippi River, every one of
whom was necessary to the conquest and retention of the Mississippi
Valley.

Sherman may have been at one time crazy, but his madness, like
Hamlet's, certainly had marvelous method in it. Such lunatics as he
have existed in all ages, and have, when as successful as himself, been
designated by the distinctive title of "genius," in contradistinction
to men of medium abilities. Not only Shakspeare, but Dryden, seems to
have encountered such madness as Sherman's, and to have appreciated the
truth that

    "Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
    And thin partitions do their bounds divide."

Doubtless the same author had such a genius or madman as Sherman in his
mind when he described one of his characters as

    "A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
    Fretted the pigmy body to decay."

The peculiar formation of Sherman's head shows his great development
of brain. His forehead is broad, high, and full, while the lower half
of his face and head are of very diminutive proportions. In a person
of less physical strength and vitality, this great preponderance of
the mental over the physical powers would have produced perhaps actual
lunacy. The head of Sherman is of the shape peculiar to lunatics
predisposed to fanciful conceptions. There is too much brain, and
in Sherman it is balanced and regulated only by his great physical
development. Sherman's brain, combined with bad health, would have
produced lunacy; his brain and sinewy strength combined produced his
peculiar mental and physical nervousness. Had he been a sedentary
student instead of an active soldier, the last line of Dryden's poem
might also have applied to him, and we should know of him only as an
"o'er informed tenement of clay."[1]

When this report of his lunacy was first circulated, Sherman was
much chagrined at it, and often referred to it in bitter terms.
Time and success have enabled him to frown it down, and justified
him in laughing at it. He once laughingly referred to this report
about himself, and the rumor which simultaneously prevailed regarding
Grant's drunkenness during the battle of Shiloh as illustrative of the
friendship existing between them. "You see," he said to a gentleman,
"Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was
drunk."

During the siege of Corinth he commanded the right wing of Thomas's
corps, while T. W. Sherman, of Port Royal memory, commanded the
left. The latter was very unpopular with his division on account of
a painfully nervous manner and fretful disposition, and the officers
of the command discussed him critically with great freedom, many
condemning his manner as offensive. One day General W. T. Sherman was
visiting General Steedman--then a brigade commander in T. W. Sherman's
division--and the latter's name was brought up, Steedman giving a very
ludicrous account of Sherman's conduct.

"Oh!" said William Tecumseh, "this is the crazy Sherman, is it?"

Great difficulty was found during the operations before Corinth in
distinguishing the two Shermans. The soldiers solved the problem
by giving each Sherman a nickname. T. W. Sherman was called "Port
Royal Sherman," in allusion to his services in South Carolina, while
W. T. Sherman was known by the somewhat inappropriate title of
"Steady-old-nerves," in contradistinction to the other, who, as before
stated, was more timidly nervous. Mr. Lincoln, with some recollection
of this coincidence of names on his mind, asked General Grant, on
being introduced to General Sherman, if he was W. T. or T. W., and
laughed with boyish glee at the "joke on Sherman."

As another natural result of Sherman's nervous energy, he has acquired
the habit of decision in the most perfect degree, and his peculiar
organization has tended to make him practical as well as petulant. He
never seems to reason, but decides by intuition, and, in this respect,
has something of the mental as well as bodily peculiarities of the
gentler sex, who are said to decide intuitively. But Sherman is by no
means a woman--he would have been a shrew had he been--and possesses
not one particle of the sex's beauty or gentleness. Sherman jumps at
conclusions with tremendous logical springs; and, though his decisions
are not always final, they are in effect so, for, if he is forced
to retire an inch, his next jump will probably carry him forward an
ell. Facts are the only argument which prevail with him, and the best
arguments of wise men are wasted in endeavoring to convince him without
undeniable facts at hand. Obstinate, and vain, and opinionated as he
is, and indisposed as he may be to listen to or heed the arguments of
equals or inferiors, he never hesitates to sink all opposition before
the orders of his superiors, and pay the strictest deference to their
views when expressed authoritatively.

I have before said this nervousness of mental and bodily organization
was the main-spring of Sherman's character. From it result not only
his virtues, but his faults, and as man and commander he has many. He
is as petulant as a dyspeptic; excessively gruff, and unreasonably
passionate. His petulance does not, however, prevent his being
pleasant when he is disposed; his gruffness does not destroy all his
generosity, and his passionate moods are usually followed by penitence.
His fits of passion are frequent but not persistent, and, though
violent, are soon appeased.

His gruffness often amounts to positive rudeness. While in command
at Louisville in 1861, the wife of the rebel commander Ingraham
passed through the city _en route_ to the South. The lady, who was
rebelliously inclined, pleaded consumption as her excuse for wishing
to inhale the Southern air. Sherman gruffly advised her to "shut
herself up in a room and keep up a good fire--it would do her just
as much good." He often replies in this petulant tone to both sexes,
particularly if the person addressed has no business of importance.

He once took great offense at having his manners, and particularly this
habit of gruffness, compared to the manners of a Pawnee Indian, and
expressed his contempt for the author of the slur in a public manner.
He was much chagrined shortly after to find that the correspondent
who had been guilty of the offensive comparison had heard of his
contemptuous criticism, and had amended it by publicly apologizing to
the whole race of Pawnees!

During the battle of Bull Run, where General Sherman commanded a
brigade, he was approached by a civilian, who, seeing him make some
observations without the aid of a field-glass, proffered him the use of
his own. Sherman turned to the gentleman and gruffly demanded,

"Who are you, sir?"

"My name is Owen Lovejoy, and I am a member of Congress."

"What are you doing here? Get out of my lines, sir--get out of my
lines."

Nothing satisfied Sherman but the immediate retreat of the member of
Congress to the rear.

I have heard that Sherman's bad temper was the cause of his leaving his
chosen profession of the law. After resigning his commission in the
army in 1853, he became, after several changes, a consulting lawyer in
the firm of his brothers-in-law, the Ewings, at Leavenworth, Kansas.
He had entered into the copartnership with the distinct understanding
that he was not to be called upon to plead in the courts; for, though
possessing a thorough knowledge of legal principles, a clear, logical
perception of the equity involved in all cases, and though perfectly
_au fait_ in the authorities, he had no confidence in his oratorical
powers. He was not then the orator he has latterly become, and utterly
refused to take any part in legal debate or pleadings. One day a case
came up in the Probate Court of Kansas requiring immediate attention.
Tom and Hugh Ewing were busy; McCook was absent, and Sherman was
forced, _nolens volens_, to go into court. He carefully mapped out
his course until it looked like plain sailing; laid down his plan of
procedure, as he used subsequently to do his plans of marches; but he
was destined to be driven from his chosen route, not by a Joe Johnston
or "foeman worthy of his steel," but by a contemptible, pettifogging
lawyer, with more shrewdness than honesty, and more respect for the end
to be attained than the means to be used. In the debate which the trial
involved, Sherman lost his temper, and, consequently, his case. He
returned to his office in a towering rage, dissolved the partnership
with his brothers-in-law, and, without farther hesitation, accepted the
presidency of the Louisiana Military Academy, the proffer of which he
had received a day or two before.

General Sherman's violent temper greatly endangered his reputation
toward the close of the war, and he came near sacrificing, in an evil
hour of passion, all that he had won before. His passion was to him
as the unarmored heel was to Achilles, and the vulnerable point of
his character came near costing him even more dearly than did the
vulnerable part of the Grecian warrior's body. His diplomatic feat with
Joe Johnston was generally denounced as a blunder, but it was not the
blunder which came near costing him so dearly. That piece of diplomacy
took the shape of a blunder in consequence of the unfortunate and
unforeseen circumstances and disasters which occurred simultaneously
with it. Had Mr. Lincoln lived, General Sherman would to-day have
borne a brilliant reputation as a diplomatist, and his agreement with
Johnston would have been at once, as it was eventually, accepted as the
basis for the political reconstruction of the country. That agreement
was repudiated by the people and President Johnson in an hour of
frenzied passion, though the latter has since modeled his plan upon
it; and Sherman lost his chance for becoming a great diplomatist. But
he, and he only, was to blame for the grave blunder which immediately
afterward nearly cost him his fame and position as a soldier. Sullen
at the repudiation of his agreement with Johnston, angry at the
interference of General Halleck with the co-operative movements of
himself and Sheridan, and furious at the countermanding of his orders
to his subordinates by the Secretary of War, Sherman forgot himself,
and marched to Washington with his army, breathing vengeance upon
Halleck, and hate and contempt for Stanton. Fortunately for Sherman,
history will not record the scene. History never yet recorded--no
nation ever before safely witnessed such a spectacle as that of a
victorious general, at the head of eighty thousand men devoted to him
and jealous of his fame as a part of their own, marching to the capital
of the country with threats against his military superiors breathing
from his lips and flowing from his pen. For days Sherman raved around
Washington, expressing his contempt for Halleck and Stanton in his
strongest terms, and denouncing them as "mere non-combatants" whom he
despised. More than this, he wrote to his friends, and through them
to the public, comparing Stanton and Halleck to "cowardly Falstaffs,"
seeking to win applause and honor for the deeds he had done; accusing
the Secretary of War of suppressing his reports, and endeavoring to
slander him before the American public in official bulletins. For days
his army roamed the streets of the capital with the same freedom with
which they had roamed through the fields of Georgia and the swamps of
the Carolinas, and no man dared to raise his voice in condemnation
of their leader, or approval of the superiors who had opposed him.
No republic ever before survived such a condition of affairs; this
republic never was in such danger before, and yet the danger was
hardly suspected. The spectacle is one which Sherman will ever regret,
but every true American, and every lover of republican liberty, can
point to it with pride as a remarkable illustration of the stability
of republican institutions. Powerful as Sherman was against Stanton
and Halleck (and a word from him would have destroyed them), he was
powerless against the nation, and not one man of his mighty host would
have followed him in an attempt upon its existence. It is, perhaps,
a still greater proof of the power of republican principles that, in
the midst of his furious rage, such a thought as the injury of the
government never for a passing second entered the brain of the leader
of these men. He has reason to be thankful that the nation was as
generous as he was honest; and that the people made no record against
him for the offense against discipline which in any other country would
have cost him not merely his position, but his reputation, and in any
other army his head. At the same time, the nation must and will cherish
the honest man who, thus tried and tempted, never for a single second
forgot his allegiance to the principles for which he had fought and the
country which he had served.

General Sherman's reputation as a soldier must rest entirely on his
strategic abilities. His successes were those of strategy only--not
of tactics. His faults as a commander are glaring as his faults of
character. As an organizer of armies for the field, and as a tactician
in battle, he was an utter failure. He never commanded a well-organized
army whose discipline did not become relax under his administration,
and he was never commander-in-chief in any battle which was not a
failure. Instead of being an organizer, Sherman was a disorganizer;
he was always chief among the "Bummers" which he made his soldiers,
and by which name they were eventually designated. His whole career
shows him to have been solely a strategist, absolutely incapacitated
by mental organization for disciplining and fighting an army. His
attempt to organize the army in Kentucky in 1861 was a most egregious
failure. He gave it up in despair to General Buell, who, on assuming
command, found it a mob without head or front, or appropriate parts.
Buell, in contradistinction to Sherman, was great as an organizer
and disciplinarian, and he soon made a fine army out of Sherman's
unorganized mob. General Sherman shortly afterward went into the battle
of Shiloh with a division of troops who were also unorganized, and only
escaped annihilation by the timely appearance of Buell and the now
thoroughly disciplined troops which Sherman had originally commanded.
When Buell's troops on this occasion made their appearance on the
small plateau which is called Pittsburg Landing, the great numbers of
Sherman's demoralized new recruits who were there huddled together
welcomed them as veterans. "Buell! Buell!" was their cry; "here come
Buell's veterans." One can not but smile when he remembers that the
men thus hailed as veterans had never been engaged in even so much as
a skirmish. Their conduct in the desperate battle which followed on
the day after their arrival proved them to be worthy of the name. One
year's thorough discipline had made them veterans without having fought
a battle.

Throughout Sherman's career his troops were noted for their lack of
discipline. When he assumed command of the Army of Tennessee on the
promotion of General Grant in 1863, he found it one of the best
disciplined armies in the country, though not the best provided.
I doubt if there was ever a division, brigade, or even regimental
drill in that army after Sherman took command. He subsequently became
indirectly in command of the Army of the Cumberland, which, though
directly commanded by that strict disciplinarian, General George H.
Thomas, soon felt the effect of Sherman's presence and control, and
became very relaxed in discipline. Subsequently, on the march to the
sea and through the Carolinas under Sherman, the discipline of the
formerly model armies became still more relaxed, and gradually the
whole army became regular "Bummers," a term which is not generally
understood in its proper sense of reproach. The people to this day
only half know what a "bummer" is, from having a general idea of the
character of Sherman as the chief of bummers. The veil of romance
which surrounded Sherman's army has never been entirely torn away.
Its pilgrimages are still romances. It has always been viewed in
that dim and distant perspective which adds a charm to beauty, and
hides internal troubles and blemishes, and the evils it did and the
outrages it committed have never been made public. But the friends of
Sherman might reasonably claim even the want of this special tact for
organizing and disciplining troops as a virtue. It can not really be
said to have detracted from Sherman's ability as a soldier. What was
lost thereby to the army in discipline was made up in mobility. If its
morale was bad, the marching was good, and that satisfied Sherman. If
he did not teach his soldiers how to fight, he gave them the mobility
which the execution of his strategic designs required of them, and
thus the end aimed at was gained, and the country was satisfied. He
merely changed his men from heavy to light infantry. Success justifies
all means, and thus Sherman became--and justly became--a great general
without ever having won a battle.

It is very strong language, I admit, to say that Sherman never won a
battle, but considerately so, for if the purely tactical operations of
General Sherman be critically examined, it will be found that they were
almost invariably failures. He was the chief in command, the central
and controlling power, in the battles of Chickasaw Bayou, Resaca,
Kenesaw Mountain, and Jonesboro, all of which, with the bare exception
of the latter, where his overpowering force and strategic march of
the night before insured victory, were tactically great failures. The
failure of the co-operative movements of Grant at Chickasaw Bayou
doubtless caused Sherman's defeat at that point--at least it has
served to explain it away, and stands as the excuse for it; but all
will remember how signal a failure it was. The battle of Resaca was
a still greater failure. Doubt, delay, and inaction lost Sherman the
great advantage which his strategic march through Snake Creek Gap had
given him in placing him in the rear of the enemy's position, and he
ought to have captured every gun and wagon of the enemy, and dispersed
the army which subsequently retarded his advance in Atlanta; but the
battle was begun too late and pushed too feebly. Sherman's strategy
had at one time rendered a battle unnecessary, and it was forced on
him through another's indecision (I believe that General McPherson
admitted before his death that that fault was his), but certainly it
was the fault of Sherman that the battle, when fought, was indecisive.
Every body will remember the Kenesaw Mountain battle and its useless
sacrifices, and every body will remember, too, the candor with which
Sherman wrote that it was a failure, and that the fault was his. All
the minor engagements of his great campaign against Atlanta were
either positive defeats or negative advantages, and yet that wonderful
campaign was won, and all the advantages which could have under any
circumstances accrued from it were gained to us without the losses
which a great battle would have caused. The strategic marches executed
during that campaign are now chapters in the theory and history of
war, and the close student of the art will see more to admire in the
passage of the Chattahoochee River, the march through the gorge of
Snake Creek Gap, and across the Allatoona Mountains, and the flank
movements around Kenesaw and Atlanta, than in the more dashing but
less skillful marches through Georgia and the Carolinas. The campaign
of Atlanta was made in the face of the enemy commanded by their most
skillful general, while during the other and more famous marches no
enemy was met. The campaign through Georgia was merely extensive;
that against Atlanta was both grand in conception and difficult in
execution. One was accomplished at a stride, the other step by step.
The campaign of Atlanta gave rise not only to a new system of warfare,
but even to a new system of tactics. Never before in the history of
war had an army been known to be constantly under fire for one hundred
consecutive days. Men whom three years of service had made veterans
learned during that campaign a system of fighting they had never heard
of before. The whole army became at once from necessity pioneers and
sharp-shooters. The opposing armies lay so close to each other that not
only pickets, but whole corps were within musket range of each other,
and every camp had to be intrenched. As a singular fact, showing the
impression made on the minds of the men by the changed tactics which
this campaign rendered necessary, I may mention that the soldiers
called each other "gophers" and "beavers;" and "gopher holes" were
more common in the armies' track than were camp-fires. It used to be
laughingly said of the men that, instead of "souring onto," i.e. taking
without leave each other's rations, they were in the habit, during the
Atlanta campaign, of purloining each other's pick-axes and spades with
which to dig their "gopher holes" or trenches for their protection from
the enemy's sharp-shooters. I imagine it is on this campaign and its
results, rather than on that from Atlanta to the sea, and from thence
to Goldsboro', that General Sherman would prefer to rest his reputation
in the future.[2] We of to-day study the holiday marches from a very
different stand-point from that which the generations which follow us
will view them. When all things come to be critically examined and
carefully summed up, it will be decided and adjudged that the battles
which made the campaign to the sea and through the Carolinas successes
were fought on the hills around Nashville by General Thomas, not by
General Sherman. Yet they are not without their great merit. Undertaken
with deliberation and after elaborate preparation, they were not
wanting in boldness and originality of design, but they do not serve to
illustrate strategy: it is only the logistics which are so admirable.

A great deal has been said and written about General Sherman's dislike
for the newspapers and for that class of necessary nuisances which were
with every army, the war correspondents; but it was a dislike that was
in a great measure affected. All men are egotists, Grant and Sherman
among the rest, and both like to be well spoken of and written about;
they would hardly be human if they did not. In fact, if Sherman can
not find somebody to write about him, he does it himself. One of the
instances in which he has complimented himself is destined to give
every student of the art of war a knowledge of this weak point of his
character. Shortly after the successful passage of the Chattahoochee
River in the face of the enemy, an operation which was among the
finest accomplishments of the campaign of Atlanta, Sherman published
an address to his troops, in which he said, with pardonable egotism,
"The crossing of the Chattahoochee and breaking of the Augusta Road was
most handsomely executed by us, and will be studied as an example in
the art of war." A still greater piece of egotism from his pen is not
less amusing. It is that letter in which he refers to his having been
a scourge to the South, and in which he adds, "Think how much better
that it was I than Ben Butler or some other of that school." This, to
say the least, must have been pleasant to "Ben" and "others of that
school," if not modest in General Sherman.

This egotism led to an affectation of simplicity in style and
carelessness in habits which produced a very pleasant incident at
Nashville in 1864. Sherman was very fond of the theatre, and would
go as often as he found time. When he first arrived in the "City of
Rocks," the manager of the "New Nashville Theatre" waited on him with
the tender of a private box. The general declined it, and instead of
appearing in a private box, would be found very frequently sitting in
the pit of the theatre surrounded by his "boys in blue," and laughing
at the comicalities or applauding the "points" with as much gusto as
any of the audience. This affectation of the republican in manners
gained him more notice than if he had sat in a private box, and every
body enjoyed seeing him there except the manager, who complained that
it was injuring his business. No officer dared to sit in a private
box with Sherman present in the pit, and these places became, during
Sherman's stay, "a beggarly account of empty boxes" indeed.

I once had a long conversation with General Sherman on the subject of
the press and war correspondents, from which I learned very little more
than that he was very much disposed to underrate the advantages of the
one and the abilities of the other, but very willing to accept, though
with an affected ill grace, the praises of either. He declared in that
conversation that the government could well afford to purchase all the
printing-presses in the country at the price of diamonds, and then
destroy them, and that all the war correspondents should be hung as
spies. Sherman, with all his affected contempt for the press, is more
indebted to it than any other officer in the army.

From time immemorial--at least from the days of Suwarrow and of "Old
Fritz"--Frederick the Great--troops have always given nicknames to
the commanders they adored. The veteran soldier is an affectionate
creature, and he evinces his lovable disposition pretty much as the
women do, by the use of pet names and expressive adjectives. The
veterans had a slang of their own, as expressive to the initiated and
as incomprehensible to the ignorant as the more systematically arranged
jargon of the showman, gambler, or peddler. Increasing affection for
a popular leader was evinced by an increase in the intensity of the
adjective or pronoun applied to the person. A popular leader may have
at one time been only "Colonel," but as his popularity increased and
he won the affection of his men, he was called "_The_ Colonel,"
"Our Colonel," and "Our Bully Colonel." At the height of McClellan's
popularity his soldiers invariably called him "Little Mac." Sheridan
was always "Little Phil," John A. Logan always "Black Jack," and Thomas
has successively been known as "Old Slow Trot," "Uncle George," and
"Old Pap," the latter being the superlative form of expression.

Sherman has not entirely escaped "nicknames," though he has been more
fortunate in this respect than some other commanders. In 1861 the Home
Guards of Louisville gave him a name which has never been used by any
other body of troops. It was under the following circumstances: The
Home Guard marched under Sherman's leadership from Louisville to meet
the invasion of Buckner. While moving to Lebanon Junction the general
spoke to the men, telling them of the necessity which had arisen for
their services, and proposed to muster them into the United States
service for thirty days. Few of them had blankets, none had haversacks,
and no tents were at the time on hand. The men were really not prepared
to remain long in the field, and some demurred at the length of time
mentioned. Sherman grew very angry at this, and spoke very harshly,
intimating that he considered the Home Guards a "paltry set of
fellows." The men were chagrined at this, and much embittered against
him, and on the spot voted him "a gruff old cock." They soon found,
however, that they had to accept him as a commander, when one of them
remarked, "It was a bitter pill." Out of this grew the title of "Old
Pills," which was at once fastened upon the general. The men consented
to be mustered for fifteen days. This put Sherman in an excellent humor
again, and he promised them tents, blankets, etc., immediately. This,
in turn, put the Guards in a high glee, and one of them suggesting that
"Old Pills" was sugar-coated, the nickname was modified, and he was
known ever after as "Old Sugar-coated Pill."

Later in the war his troops fixed upon one title of endearment for
Sherman which will doubtless stick to him to the last. It expressed no
peculiarity, was not properly a nickname, but simply an expression of
affection. He will always be known to his veterans as "Old Billy." His
veterans of 1861 and 1862 called him "Old Sherman," and few will forget
it who heard General Rousseau's brigade hail him by that title during
the battle of Shiloh. On the day of that battle, while hotly engaged
near the log church which gave its name to the field, Sherman met a
brigade of Buell's fresh troops moving forward to his support, and
hastily asked whose troops they were. General Rousseau, who commanded
the brigade, rode hastily through the line to meet Sherman, who had
been dismounted for the third time by the fire of the enemy, and had
one wounded arm in a sling, while his face was blackened by the fire of
his own artillery.

"Rousseau's brigade," said that officer--"your old troops, General
Sherman."

At the mention of Sherman's name, Rousseau's men, who had made their
first campaign under Sherman, recognized him. "There's old Sherman,"
ran along their lines, and in an instant more there broke above the din
of the battle three loud ringing cheers for "Old Sherman." Sherman
took no notice of the cheers at the time, but his subsequent report of
the battle showed that he was not oblivious to the compliment. At the
moment he simply ordered the brigade forward. It was about the time the
rebels began falling back, and soon the advance thus ordered became a
pursuit of the foe.

Sherman is an inveterate smoker. He smokes, as he does every thing
else, with an energy which it would be supposed would deprive him of
all the pleasure of smoking. He is fully as great a smoker as Grant,
whose propensity in that line is well known, but he is very unlike
him in his style of smoking. Grant smokes as if he enjoyed his cigar.
Sherman smokes as if it were a duty to be finished in the shortest
imaginable time. Grant will smoke lying back in his chair, his body and
mind evidently in repose, his countenance calm and settled. He blows
the smoke slowly from his mouth, and builds his plans and thoughts in
the clouds which are formed by it about his head. He smokes his tobacco
as the Chinese do their opium, and with that certain sort of oblivious
disregard for every thing else which it is said characterizes the opium
smoker. He enjoys his mild Havana in quiet dignity, half-smoking,
half-chewing it. Sherman puffs furiously, as if his cigar was of the
worst character of "penny grabs" and would not "draw." He snatches it
frequently, and, one might say, furiously, from his mouth, brushing the
ashes off with his little finger. He continually paces the floor while
smoking, generally deep in thought of important matters, doubtless;
but a looker-on would imagine that he was endeavoring to solve the
question of how to draw smoke through his cigar. He seldom or never
finishes it, leaving at least one half of it a stump. When he used to
frequent the Associated Press-rooms at Louisville in 1861, he would
often accumulate and leave upon the agent's table as many as eight
or ten of these stumps, which the porter of the rooms used to call
"Sherman's old soldiers." Even until long after Anderson's assumption
of command at Louisville the agent of the New Orleans papers continued
sending his telegrams for the rebel papers to New Orleans. This man was
a rabid secessionist, and disliked Sherman exceedingly. He used to say
of him that he smoked as some men whistled--"for want of thought." This
is undoubtedly a mistake; for close observers say that, while smoking,
Sherman is deepest absorbed in thought.

He is certainly, when smoking, almost totally oblivious to what is
going on around him. This peculiar absence of mind had an excellent
illustration in a circumstance which occurred at Lebanon Junction,
Kentucky, when first occupied by Sherman and the Home Guards. While
walking up and down the railroad platform at that place, awaiting
the repair of the telegraph line to Louisville, Sherman's cigar gave
out. He immediately took another from his pocket, and, approaching
the orderly-sergeant of the "Marion Zouaves"--one of the Home Guard
companies--asked for a light. The sergeant had only a moment before
lighted his cigar, and, taking a puff or two to improve the fire, he
handed it, with a bow, to the general. Sherman carefully lighted his
weed, took a puff or two to assure himself, and, having again lapsed
into his train of thought, abstractedly threw away the sergeant's
cigar. General Rousseau and several other officers were standing by at
the time, and laughed heartily at the incident; but Sherman was too
deeply buried in thought to notice the laughter or mishap. Three years
subsequently, at his head-quarters in Nashville, Rousseau endeavored
to recall this occurrence to Sherman's mind. He could not recollect
it, and replied, "I was thinking of something else. It won't do to let
to-morrow take care of itself. Your good merchant don't think of the
ships that are in, but those that are to come in. The evil of to-day is
irreparable. Look ahead to avoid breakers. You can't when your ship is
on them. All you can then do is to save yourself and retrieve disaster.
I was thinking of something else when I threw the sergeant's cigar
away." And then he added, laughing, "Did I do that, really?"

With the personal appearance of General Sherman the public are but
little acquainted. Very few full-length pictures of him have been made.
Of the numerous engravings and photographs which have been published
since he became famous very few are good likenesses, and none convey a
proper idea of his general appearance. The best picture which I have
seen is the one from which the accompanying engraving is made. The
outlines of the features are given with great accuracy, and any one
familiar with the general's physiognomy will pronounce it a faithful
likeness, though the position in which the subject sat serves to
conceal the extreme Romanism of his nose. There is a scowl on the face,
and yet the expression is that of Sherman in a good humor. He seldom
has such a self-satisfied air. A critical observer of the picture in
question would remark that Sherman has done in this case what he seldom
takes time or has inclination to do, and has given the artist a special
sitting. He has "made himself up" for the occasion. If the critic were
one of Sherman's soldiers, he would notice the absence from his lips
of the inevitable cigar. The coat, it will be observed, is buttoned
across the breast, and is the chief fault of the engraving, for Sherman
seldom or never buttons his coat either across his breast or around
his waist. His vest is always buttoned by the lower button only, and,
fitting close around his waist, adds to his appearance of leanness. It
is doubtful if at this time any one can be found, except the general's
tailor, who can tell when his coat was new. He appears to have an
aversion to new clothes, and has never been seen in a complete new suit
or heard in creaking boots. It may be said that he never conforms to
the regulations in respect to the color of his suit; for the uniform he
generally wears has lost its original color, and is of that dusty and
rusty tinge, and with that lack of gloss which follows constant use.
One would readily imagine, judging by its appearance, that he purchased
his uniform second-hand. The hat which he generally wears is of the
same order of faded "regulation," with the crown invariably puffed out
instead of being pushed in, in the "Burnside style." The regulation
cord and tassel he does not recognize at all.

With the exception of his eyes, none of the features of Sherman's
countenance are indicative of his character. Altogether he is
commonplace in appearance, neither excessively handsome nor painfully
repulsive. At the same time, divest him of his regulations, and in a
crowd his face would attract attention and afford a study. His eyes,
conforming to his general character, are as restless as his body or
mind. They are rather of a dull though light color, their restlessness
giving them whatever they possess of brilliancy and animation. His
lips close firmly and closely, and with the deep lines running from
his nostrils to either corner of his mouth, give to the lower half of
his face an air of decision indicative of his character. His hands
are long, slender, and tapering, like those of a woman, and are in
admirable keeping with his figure. His short, crisp whiskers, which
grow unshaven, and which appear to be stunted in growth, are of a dingy
red, or what is commonly called "sandy" color. He takes very little
care of his whiskers and hair, each having to be content, with one
careless brushing a day. He has, perhaps, as great a disregard for his
personal appearance as he pretends to have for what others may say or
think of him.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] "A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
    Fretted the pigmy body to decay,
    And o'er informed the tenement of clay."


[2] A more laborious campaign than that of Atlanta was never
undertaken, and it is difficult to say which soldier deserves the most
credit for the movements, Sherman or Joe Johnston. The retreats of the
latter were not less admirable than the flank marches of the former,
and Johnston showed as clean heels as Sherman did a fully guarded
front. His camps were left barren; Sherman found only Johnston's
smoking camp-fires, but no spoils left behind him. It was looked upon
by the officers of Sherman's army as the "cleanest retreat of the war,"
and it is very evident now that, had Johnston remained in command,
and been allowed to continue his Fabian policy, Sherman could never
have made his march to the sea, and the capture of Atlanta would have
been a Cadmean victory to him. Johnston proved himself a very superior
soldier--in fact, the superior general of the Southern armies. If it
could be said of any of the rebels, it could be said of Johnston that,
in fact, he was

          "The noblest Roman of them all:
    All the conspirators, save only he,
    Did that they did in envy of great Cæsar.
    He only, in a generous, honest thought,
    And common good to all, made one of them."




CHAPTER II.

THOMAS AS A TACTICIAN.


While General Sherman was pursuing Hood, when that gallant but not
very sagacious rebel was making his ill-judged and ill-advised but
bold march northward, leaving Atlanta and our armies in his rear,
some exigency arose which made General Sherman regret the absence of
General George H. Thomas, who had been sent to Nashville. I do not now
distinctly remember what the exigency was other than that it related to
some important movement--perhaps the movement to the sea--but, at any
rate, so undecided and troubled was Sherman in coming to a decision,
that he suddenly broke a long silence, during which he had been
seriously meditative, by exclaiming to one of his aids,

"I wish old Thom was here! He's my off-wheel-horse, and knows how to
pull with me, though he don't pull in the same way."

[Illustration: GEORGE H. THOMAS.]

There was never a truer word uttered in jest, and describing Thomas as
the "match horse" of Sherman is a comparison by no means as inaccurate
as it is rude. In the chapter which precedes this I have endeavored to
show that the distinctive feature of Sherman's character is a certain
nervousness of thought and action, inspiring a restless and resistless
energy. The best idea of General Thomas is obtained by contrasting
him with Sherman, and illustrating Sherman as a great strategist,
Thomas as a great tactician. Sherman is not merely a theoretical
strategist as Halleck is, as McPherson was, but one of great
practicability, and an energy which has given practical solutions to
his strategic problems. Thomas is not merely a theoretical tactician,
with a thorough knowledge of the rules, but one who has illustrated
the art on extensive battle-fields, and always with success. The two
appear in every respect in contrast, and possess no similarities. One
may be called a nervous man, and the other a man of nerve. Sherman
derives his strength from the momentum resulting from the rapidity
with which he moves; Thomas moves slowly, but with equally resistless
power, and accomplishes his purposes by sheer strength. Sherman is
naturally the dashing leader of light, flying battalions; Thomas the
director of heavily-massed columns. He may be called heavy ordnance in
contradistinction to Sherman, who may be likened to a whole battery of
light rifle-guns; or, in the language of the prize-ring, Sherman is
a light-weight and quick fighter, while Thomas is a heavy, ponderous
pugilist, whose every blow is deadly. Sherman's plans are odd, if
not original. Though I have heard learned military critics deny that
they embraced new rules of war, still it can not be denied that his
campaigns have been out of the general order of military exploits.
Thomas, on the other hand, originates nothing, but most skillfully
directs his army on well-defined principles of the art. Sherman jumps
at conclusions; Thomas's mind and body act with equal deliberation, his
conclusions being arrived at after long and mature reflection. Sherman
never takes thought of unexpected contingencies or failure. There is
always a remedy for any failure of a part of Thomas's plans, or for
the delinquencies of subordinates. Sherman never hesitates to answer;
Thomas is slow to reply. One is quick and positive; the other is slow,
but equally positive. Thomas thinks twice before speaking once; and
when he speaks, his sentences are arranged so compactly, and, as it
were, so economically, that they convey his idea at once. It is given
as advice, but men receive it as an order, and obey it implicitly.

The habits of the two men are radically different. Sherman is an
innovator on the customs not only of the army, but every phase of
social life, and is at least one generation ahead of the American
people, fast as it imagines itself. Thomas belongs to a past
generation, and his exceedingly regular habits belong to the "good old
time." He has been confirmed by long service in the habits of camp,
and appears never to be satisfied unless living as is customary in
camps. In September, 1862, his division of Buell's army was encamped at
Louisville, Kentucky, his quarters being in the outskirts of the city.
While encamped here, Colonel Joe McKibbon, then a member of General
Halleck's staff, arrived from Washington City and delivered to Thomas
an order to relieve Buell, and assume command of the Army of the Ohio.
In order to put himself in communication with the commander-in-chief,
Thomas was compelled to ride into the city and take rooms at the hotel
nearest the telegraph office. He employed the day in communicating
with General Halleck, urging the retention of Buell, and in declining
the proposed promotion. Late at night he retired to his bed. But the
change from a camp-cot to clean feathers was too much for the general.
He found it impossible to sleep, and at a late hour in the night he
was compelled to send Captain Jacob Brown, his provost-marshal, to his
head-quarters for his camp-cot. The reorganization of the army, the
murder of General Nelson by Jeff. C. Davis, and other events occurring
about the same time, conspired to keep the general a guest or prisoner
at the hotel for a week. During all that time he slept as usual on his
cot, banished the chamber-maids from his room, and depended for such
duty as they usually performed on the old colored body-servant who had
attended him for many years.

System and method are absolutely necessary to Thomas's existence, and
nothing ruffles or excites him so much as innovations on his habits or
changes in his customs. He discards an old coat with great reluctance;
and during the earlier part of the war, when his promotions came to him
faster than he could wear out his uniforms, it was almost impossible to
find him donning the proper dress of his rank. He wore the uniform of
a colonel for several months after he had been confirmed a brigadier
general, and only donned the proper uniform when going into battle at
Mill Spring. He was confirmed a major general in June, 1862, but did
not mount the twin stars until after the battle of Stone River, fought
on the last day of the same year, and then they found their way to his
shoulders only by a trick to which his body-servant had been incited by
his aids. This methodical and systematic feature of his character found
an admirable illustration in an incident to which I was a witness
during the battle of Chickamauga. After the rout of the principal part
of the corps of McCook and Crittenden, Thomas was left to fight the
entire rebel army with a single corps of less than twenty thousand men.
The enemy, desirous of capturing this force, moved in heavy columns on
both its flanks. His artillery opened upon Thomas's troops from front
and both flanks; but still they held their ground until Steedman, of
Granger's corps, reached them with re-enforcements. I was sitting on my
horse near General Thomas when General Steedman came up and saluted
him.

"I am very glad to see you, general," said Thomas in welcoming him.
General Steedman made some inquiries as to how the battle was going,
when General Thomas, in a vexed manner, replied,

"The damned scoundrels are fighting without any system."

Steedman thereupon suggested that he should pay the enemy back in his
own coin. Thomas followed his suggestion. As soon as Granger came up
with the rest of his corps, he assumed the offensive; and while Bragg
continued to move on his flanks, he pushed forward against the rebel
centre, so scattering it by a vigorous blow that, fearful of having
his army severed in two, the rebel abandoned his flank movement in
order to restore his centre. This delayed the resumption of the battle
until nearly sunset, and Thomas was enabled to hold his position until
nightfall covered the retirement to Rossville Gap.

Thomas is not easily ruffled. It is difficult alike to provoke
his anger or enlist his enthusiasm. He is by no means blind to the
gallantry of his men, and never fails to notice and appreciate their
deeds, but they never win from him any other than the coldest words in
the coldest, but, at the same time, kindest of commendatory tones. He
grows really enthusiastic over nothing, though occasionally his anger
may be aroused. When it is, his rage is terrible. During the campaign
in Kentucky, in pursuit of Bragg in 1862, Thomas was second in command
of the army under Buell. The new recruits committed many depredations
upon the loyal Kentuckians. While the army was passing a small stream
near Bardstown, called "Floyd's Fork of Salt River," Thomas was
approached by a farmer whom he knew to be a good Union man, and who
made complaint that one of the general's staff officers had carried off
the only horse left on his farm. The general turned black with anger at
such an accusation against one of his staff officers, and demanded to
know who and where the offender was. The farmer pointed to a mounted
infantry officer, who was attached to one of the regiments and not to
the general's staff. The general rode up to him and demanded to know
where he had obtained the horse which he rode. The officer replied
that he had "impressed" him. The general knew the man had no authority
to impress horses, and, choking with rage, he poured on the devoted
head of the delinquent a torrent of invective. He drew his sword, and,
putting the point under the shoulder-straps of the officer, ripped them
off, and then compelled him to dismount and lead the animal to the
place whence he had stolen him. He also required him to pay the farmer
for his trouble and the loss of service of the animal.

When the battle of Mill Spring began it found Thomas in a bad humor,
and on the first opportunity he had for "pitching into" any one he did
not fail to take advantage of it. The victim was Colonel Mahlon D.
Manson, a rough, excitable, but gallant old Indianian, who was acting
brigadier in command of his own and two or three other regiments. Under
the old organization of the volunteer army no adequate provision for
aids for acting generals had been made, and Manson's only aid, his
regimental adjutant, happened to be out of the way; so, when the battle
opened, and he had posted his regiments to receive the attack, he
hastily rode back to General Thomas to report in person the disposition
he had made of his forces. It happened that in doing this Manson
lost his hat, and he made his appearance before Thomas hatless, with
disheveled hair, unwashed face, and incomplete toilet, and Thomas's
pent-up rage vented itself on him. He had no sooner begun to state his
position to Thomas than that officer interrupted him with,

"Damn you, sir, go back to your command and fight it."

Excited as Manson was, he caught the full meaning, and the perhaps
unmeant insinuation of the general's words, and returned to his command
much chagrined. Thomas's anger did not last long after finding this
vent. He grew pleasanter before the day was over, was in spirits long
before Zollicoffer's rout was complete, and when he came to write his
report a week afterward, spoke very highly of Manson.

The self-control and coolness of Thomas under fire, and amid the
excitement and dangers of battle, is absolutely surprising, and, until
I had seen at Chickamauga repeated instances of his imperturbation,
I did not believe that human nature was capable of it. In relating
one of the episodes of the battle, an account of which I published
at the time, I alluded, I thought then, and think now, very happily
to the general as the "Statue Thomas." During that terrible conflict
the statue warmed into life but twice. At daylight on the second day,
before the battle had been resumed, General Rosecrans rode along the
line of battle, examining the position which the troops of McCook and
Crittenden had taken as best they could, without other guide than
the sound of cannon or other director than stern necessity. He rode
up to Thomas's quarters near the left centre of the field and asked
him several questions regarding the battle of the day before. Thomas
alluded briefly to the events of the fight, and in speaking of his
brilliant charge exclaimed rather warmly, "Whenever I touched their
flanks they broke, general, they broke," repeating the last words with
unusual zest and evident satisfaction. I was listening with great
eagerness and looking squarely at the general, when he caught my eye,
and, as if ashamed of his momentary enthusiasm, the blood mounted to
his cheeks and he blushed like a woman. His eyes were bent immediately
on the ground, and the rest of his remarks were confined to a few brief
replies to the questions addressed to him.

The other instance to which I was a witness occurred during the
afternoon of the second day's battle, and in the midst of a lull which
had followed the retreat of McCook and Crittenden and the falling back
of Thomas's right division. The general was sitting in the rear of the
line of battle of his right as re-formed, engaged in watching a heavy
cloud of dust in the distance, and in such a direction that it might
be the enemy, or it might be the reserve forces of Gordon Granger,
which had been posted some distance in rear of the battle-field at
Rossville, and which it was hoped would march to the aid of the
army. The doubt under which he labored cast a visible cloud over the
general's spirits, and excited his nerves to an unusual degree. He had
no disposition to resume the fight, and, fearful of the result of the
next attack of the rebels, was anxious to avoid a resumption of the
battle. He consequently watched the development of the cloud of dust in
the distance with painful anxiety. If it dissolved to reveal friends,
then they were doubly welcome, for fresh friends insured the safe
retirement of that fraction of the army which still held its ground.
If it disclosed the enemy, then the day and army were lost, and it
became the duty of those who formed this "last square" at Chickamauga
to throw into the teeth of the victorious enemy a defiance as grandly
contemptuous as that of Cambronne, and die. There was no escape if the
troops advancing from the rear were, as it was feared, the cavalry of
the enemy. General Tom Wood, hearing some one express himself to this
effect, threw in a word of encouragement by saying that it was evident
it was not cavalry, "for," said he, "don't you see the dust rising
above them ascends in thick misty clouds, not in spiral columns, as it
would if the force was cavalry," a remark which indicated the close
observation of General Wood. The anxiety of General Thomas increased
with every moment of delay in the development of the character of
the advancing columns. At one time he said nervously to his staff,
"Take my glass, some of you whose horse stands steady--tell me what
you can see." I was standing near him at the moment looking through a
field-glass, and remarked that I felt sure that I could see the United
States flag.

"Do you think so? do you think so?" asked the general, nervously.

Shortly after, Captain G. M. L. Johnston, of General Negley's staff,
reported to Thomas for duty, and the general requested him to venture
toward the advancing force, and learn, if possible, to which army
it belonged. Johnston was gone for some time, running the gauntlet
of the rebel sharp-shooters, who were fast enveloping Thomas's left
wing. During his absence the anxiety of Thomas increased until it
grew painful to the observer, and the relaxation which followed the
revelation of the fact that the coming force were friends was a
positive relief to the by-standers. As Johnston returned with General
Steedman the nerves of Thomas calmed down, and his excitement was
hardly visible save in the petulant tone and manner in which he cursed
Bragg for fighting without any system. During the fight which ensued he
remained as passive and apparently as unconcerned as if he were in the
safest place imaginable.

During the morning of the second day of the same battle I was again
near General Thomas when the rebels made a vigorous attack on his
breast-works. He and a single staff officer were sitting a little in
the rear of the centre of the line, and just in range of the shells
which the enemy was throwing with great vigor and rapidity. While thus
exposed, a shell passed between the general and his aid, causing them
to look at each other with a quiet smile. A moment afterward another
shell took the same route. The general, instead of smiling this time,
turned to his aid and said,

"Major, I think we had better retire a little," and fell back a few
yards to a small wood.

On the night after this battle, and when the troops had retired to
Rossville, General Thomas was asked by Colonel B. F. Scribner to
take a cup of coffee at his camp-fire, and did so. Scribner had been
slightly wounded in the head, and the clotted blood still stood upon
his face, left there in order to prevent the wound from continuing to
bleed. Thomas sat down by Scribner, drank his coffee, saw the wound of
Scribner, talked of commonplace matters for half an hour, but never by
word or act alluded in the slightest way to the fact that he had just
fought one of the most important battles of the war, and saved the army
from annihilation. No one could have known from Thomas's remarks that a
battle had been raging, or that his host had been wounded.

One of the great faults of Thomas's character is due to this extreme
solidity of his nervous system. Without rendering him exactly selfish
or acrimonious, it has made him cold and undemonstrative in manner,
and rather insensible to the emotions. He is generous without being
enthusiastic, and kind without being at all demonstrative. He has
been compared to Washington, but the comparison was made by General
Rosecrans, who, by the way, knew nothing whatever of human nature,
and could not read it even with the best spectacles of saddest
experience; and the comparison holds good only thus far, that Thomas,
as Washington was, is portly of person and dignified of manner. His
undemonstrative manner has given to many the idea that he was incapable
of strong affections, firm friendships, or noble emotions; and the
only enemies whom he had were men with whom he had been on terms of
friendship, and who, falling under disfavor, looked in vain to him
for some demonstration of aid. There are two or three instances, not
proper to relate in detail, which have given Thomas's fellow-officers
the idea that he was selfishly cold; but I do not think such to be the
case, for, though cold and undemonstrative, Thomas has never revealed
aught of the selfish or envious in his character. His blood ran as
sluggishly as oil upon water, but it was from principle, if such a
thing could be, and I think it was in this case. One of the subordinate
commanders of Thomas's army, who distinguished himself at Stone River
and Chickamauga, was an Indiana colonel named Ben F. Scribner, a brave
officer, who, from his action at the battle of Perryville, Kentucky,
went by the name of "gallant little Scrib"--a sobriquet bestowed upon
him by General Lovell H. Rousseau, his immediate commander. After
the battle of Chickamauga, Scribner was not treated fairly in the
reorganization of the army by Rosecrans, and complained to General
Thomas, his corps commander, of the injustice done him. During the
conversation Colonel Scribner used the expression that he could not but
feel that a serious wrong had been done him, when Thomas slowly and
sadly said,

"Colonel, I have taken a great deal of pains to educate myself not to
feel."

This remark gives a wonderful insight into Thomas's nature, and will
explain much in his manner that is a mystery to thousands who have
studied his character.

General Garfield used to relate a story which gave rather a comical
turn to the general's undemonstrative style, and one which I do not
remember to have ever seen in print. In fact, it has been a somewhat
doubtful question with me as to whether I should be justified in
relating it, and only do so with the warning, "_Honi soit qui mal y
pense_." When General Thomas relieved Rosecrans at Chattanooga in 1863,
General Garfield remained with him for a time as chief of staff. One
morning the two officers were riding around the town, examining the
defenses which were then being built, when they heard some one hailing
with the cry,

"Hello, mister! you! I want to speak with you."

On looking around, General Thomas discovered that he was the "mister"
wanted, and that the person who had hailed him was one of those East
Tennessee soldiers who were always easily distinguishable from the
Northern soldiers by their peculiar rough, uncouth, and backwoods
appearance. He stopped, and the man approached him and began,

"Mister, I want to get a furlough."

"On what grounds do you want a furlough, my man?" asked the general.

"I want to go home and see my wife," replied the East Tennesseean.

"How long since you saw your wife?" asked the general.

"Ever since I enlisted--nigh on to three months."

"Three months!" exclaimed the general, good-naturedly. "Why, my good
man, I haven't seen my wife for three years."

The East Tennesseean stopped whittling the stick which he had in his
hand, and stared for a moment incredulously at the general.

"Wall, you see," he said at length, with a sheepish smile, "me and my
wife ain't that kind."

Shaking all over with laughter, the general put spurs to his horse and
galloped away, leaving the astonished soldier unanswered.

I should have enjoyed hugely hearing Thomas laugh aloud. During the
three years in which I saw him almost daily, and under all sorts of
circumstances, I never saw him _smile_ but once, and that was under
circumstances so peculiarly ridiculous that it would have provoked
laughter from Patience on a monument, or even the grief that she smiled
at. A low comedian, named Alf. Burnett, from one of the Cincinnati
theatres, essayed to become a war correspondent, and during the
summer of 1863 made his appearance in the camp of General Rosecrans,
quartering himself at Triune with Colonel James Brownlow, son of
the famous Parson Brownlow, and at that time in command of an East
Tennessee regiment. Burnett was very good as a mimic, and particularly
excelled in his delivery of a burlesque sermon in which the sentence
"He played upon a harp of a thousand strings, spirits of just men made
perfect," frequently occurred as a refrain. Colonel Brownlow on one
occasion invited Burnett to deliver this sermon before his regiment,
and, as a joke upon the chaplain of the command, that worthy was
requested to announce the occasion of its delivery, and when the time
arrived to open the services with a hymn. Burnett began his burlesque
sermon, and had gone through a considerable portion of it before the
chaplain and the soldiers began to suspect how much they had been
outraged. As soon as he perceived the nature of the performance, the
chaplain approached Burnett, took him by the back of the neck, marched
him to the camp limits, and with the injunction to "go and sin no
more," kicked him out of the camp. The facts were at the same time
represented to Rosecrans, who expelled Burnett from the department,
but, at the solicitations of some friends, the mimic was allowed to
return to make his explanations. After hearing Burnett's explanations,
Rosecrans insisted on hearing the "Hard-shell Baptist sermon," and
Burnett gave it in his best style. Rosecrans was delighted, declared
it was inimitable, and told Burnett he should remain at his quarters,
should deliver it nightly, and would have put him on his staff if
Burnett had asked it. The sermon became Rosecrans's hobby; he thought
and talked for a time of nothing else, and one night invited General
Thomas to quarters to hear it. The general and his staff came, and the
performance began with songs which did not interest, and continued with
the sermon, which, much to Rosecrans's surprise, did not amuse "old
Thom." But, after Burnett's farce had been finished, Rosecrans called
upon Colonel Horace Porter, of the Ordnance Department, for a song, and
Porter gave a comic Irish song in the best brogue, accompanying himself
by imitating the playing upon Scotch bagpipes. Porter was one of the
most dignified, quiet, sedate, and elegant officers of the army at
Rosecrans's head-quarters; and the ridiculousness of his attitude, the
contrast with his usual appearance and manner, was too much for General
Thomas, and he "smiled" almost audibly several times during the song. I
never afterward saw the fun stirred up in Thomas.

The contrast between Thomas and Sherman may be extended even to their
personal appearance and habits; and in these, as in character, the
difference is most marked. Thomas's figure is very striking. Something
of his height is lost to the eye by the heaviness of his figure. If he
were as thin as Sherman, he would look the six feet two or three inches
which have been ignorantly attributed to him. He is really about five
feet ten or eleven inches in height, but so much does his heaviness
detract from the appearance of height that he does not appear so tall.
Thick-set, robust, and healthy, he moves heavily and slowly, but by
no means feebly or unsteadily. His beard and hair were sandy at the
beginning of the late war, but they have since become silver sprinkled,
and add to the great dignity of his appearance. His features are all
large, with the exception of his nose--a long, thin Grecian feature
which Napoleon would have admired. His lips are rather thick, rounded,
and red. His chin and jaws, large and squarely cut, with his great,
steady, though not bright eyes, indicate, more than any others of his
features, his firmness and positiveness of character. His countenance
is at all times severe and grave, but not necessarily stern. He
seldom smiles; but the constant seriousness of his countenance is not
repulsive. It may be said to be forbidding. It certainly forbids
trifling. The simplest-minded man, seeking audience of him, will
understand, on being received by the general, by a glance at his
countenance, that he must be brief and to the point. His presence is
no place for loungers. His visitors must have business to transact or
retire, and they never require any other hint than the countenance
of the general. He is a man in earnest, and it does not take long
to discover it. He is perhaps as free from display and pretension
as any man in the army. He never does any thing for "effect." His
manner admits of no familiarity. There is dignity in every gesture,
but not necessarily either grace or love. His style of living in camp
is comfortable and even elegant. His mess consists of himself and
two aids. His mess ware is principally silver of elaborate finish.
I breakfasted once or twice with the general during the Chickamauga
campaign. On the occasion of each visit daylight and breakfast were
announced simultaneously by an elderly, dignified, and cleanly-attired
colored servant, who brought me an excellent punch, with "Colonel
Flynt's compliments," as an appetizer. The breakfast-table was spread
under the fly of the tent, which served as a kitchen, and on it smoked
fresh beef, ham, and strong black coffee. At each silver plate was a
napkin of the purest white, artistically folded in the latest style of
the first-class hotels, a silver water-goblet, a china cup, and the
usual knives and silver forks. Better beef and better coffee could not
have been found in the country in which the army was campaigning, while
the hot rolls and potatoes, baked in the hot ashes of a neighboring
fire, would have made many a French cook blush.

When beginning the campaign of Atlanta Sherman endeavored to effect an
important innovation in the habits of his army by carrying out to the
very letter his instructions to "move light," _i.e._, without extra
baggage. In order to impress upon his officers the necessity of setting
a good example to the men, he published an order, in which he stated
that the "general commanding intended making the campaign without tent
or baggage." The hint was lost on most of the officers, and among
others on Thomas, who moved in his usual heavy style, with a complete
head-quarter train and the usual number of tents, adding indeed to the
usual allowance a large wagon arranged with desks, which, when covered
by a hospital-tent fly, made a very complete adjutant general's office.
The campaign began, and Sherman made several days' march without
his tent, sleeping any where that night overtook him, but before
reaching Resaca he was very glad to take up his abode near Thomas's
head-quarters, and make use of his tents and adjutant general's office.

No one has ever accused General Thomas of being a genius either
militarily or otherwise. He neither plans campaigns with the aptitude
and originality of Sherman, nor fights battles with the vigor and
abandon of Sheridan. Thomas's success has been obtained by long service
and patient industry, and he is an example of what may be accomplished
by the unremitting toil of a practical man. He is possessed naturally
of that good, clear sense which is often inappropriately called
common sense, but which is of no common order at all. He has never
been brilliantly educated, and is neither a brilliant thinker nor
converser. He is doubtless well versed in West Point lore and the art
of war. His education has been derived principally from a long and
varied experience with the world, which has rendered him pre-eminently
a practical man. His mind consequently takes naturally, as has been
before stated, to method, and every thing he does is completed (in
the full sense of the word) in a methodical manner. There is little
that is original in his plans or his mode of executing them, but
all are distinguished for their practicability and completeness.
His calculations leave a wide range for contingencies, delays, and
accidents, and are not easily disturbed by untoward incidents and
unexpected developments. He never goes into a campaign or battle
without knowing exactly how to get out of it safely, in case the
necessity for retreating arises. He has on more than one occasion
furnished the means of getting the armies of others out of danger.
At Stone River, when Rosecrans was defeated and his council of war
proposed to retreat, Thomas showed that the safety of the army depended
upon remaining and assuming the defensive. At Chickamauga, when the
same leader left his army in the midst of a terrible battle and at the
beginning of a rout of the greater part of it, Thomas again came to the
rescue, and covered the retreat in a manner which saved the day and the
army.

With his troops Thomas is a most popular leader. He has the deep-seated
and deep-rooted affection of his men, which is not the less sincere
because it is undemonstrative. He is looked upon by the army with a
sort of affectionate reverence, and he possesses in the highest degree
the confidence of his men. To this more than to any other feeling,
person, or circumstance, the nation owed the safety of its army at
Chickamauga. This feeling of confidence in its leader did more to
hold his corps together on that day--did more to keep up the _esprit
de corps_ of his command during the terrible attacks to which it was
subjected, than did all the discipline which had otherwise been drilled
into the men. The men of the two routed _corps_ were just as good,
just as brave, and just as tenacious fighters as were Thomas's men,
but they had no faith at all in the wisdom of their leaders, McCook
and Crittenden, who were not men of either inspiring presence or iron
qualities. Men will not stand and fight under officers in whom they
have not the most implicit faith. Such confidence is reposed in Thomas
to the fullest degree, and is accompanied by an affectionate regard
which adds to its strength.

Soldiers, as I have had occasion to remark elsewhere, have a very
natural mode of expressing their affection by titles of endearment,
indicative of the peculiarities of the subjects of their admiration.
Thomas has been christened with dozens of "nicknames." When he was
at West Point and in the regular army in Mexico, he was called "Old
Reliable," from his recognized and proverbial fidelity to the service.
During the Mill Spring and Stone River campaigns he won from his men
the sobriquet of "Old Pap Safety." This was subsequently boiled down
into "Pap Thomas," by which name he is called more frequently than
by any other. His slow gait, and quiet, dignified style of riding,
gained him the title of "Old Slow-trot." "Uncle George" and "George H."
are often used by the men in facetious hours, and the titles always
linger on the tongues of the soldiers like sweet morsels. And though
these titles are used by the men with an air and in a tone indicating
familiarity with their leader, none of them ever knew him, in his
communication with them, to sacrifice his dignity in the slightest
degree. They have no difficulty in reaching his ear. They always find
a patient listener and a sound adviser, and a kindly mannered and
pleasant director. He never laughs and jokes with soldiers or officers,
but his mild voice and quiet manner win him more of the love of his men
than any momentary familiarity could do. I have known him to halt in
the march and spend ten or fifteen minutes in directing stragglers to
their commands.

General Thomas is the purest man I met in the army. He was the Bayard
of our army--"_sans peur, sans reproche_," and I have endeavored in
vain to find a flaw in his character. His character is free from every
stain, and he stands forth in the army as above suspicion. He has gone
through the war without apparently exciting the jealousy of a single
officer. He has so regulated his advancement--so retarded, in fact,
his promotion, that when, as the climax to two years' hard service,
he fought a great battle and saved a great army, and was hailed and
recognized by the whole country as a hero, not one jealous or defeated
officer was found to utter dissent to this popular verdict.

There was at one time some ill feeling between Grant and Thomas,
growing out of the anomalous position in which both were placed by
Halleck when the army was besieging Corinth, but I believe that was
cleared up. General Grant was made second in command under Halleck,
and his army was given to Thomas, who remained in active command in the
field. Grant's position was really none at all; it was not recognized
by regulations or uses, and was felt by him to be an insult put upon
him (he imagined at one time) at the instigation of General Thomas.
Such was not the fact, however, and General Grant so became finally
convinced.

The late rebellion was the school of many of our best officers, and
dearly did the country pay in its best blood the tuition of some. Bull
Run was the price which the country paid for having its erroneous
idea of war violently corrected. The failure of the first assault on
Vicksburg and of the attack on Kenesaw Mountain were fearful prices
paid to correct certain errors of judgment in Sherman's mind. We paid
for McClellan's violation of a well-known rule of war in placing the
Chickahominy between his battalions. Numerous similar instances might
be named, showing how the country has been compelled to pay terrible
penalties of blood for the ignorance of unworthy and incompetent
leaders; but enough. Thomas's training in the art of war has cost the
country not a single disaster or sacrifice. On the contrary, he has
saved the country, on more than one occasion, the fearful penalty
it was about to pay for the ignorance of other leaders. He has been
prominent in three grand campaigns. Two of them he has conducted on his
own plans and in person. In the other he acted as second in command.
The two which he planned and conducted were complete successes; and the
other, as far as he was concerned, a magnificent triumph. His first
campaign in the war for the Union was that against the fortified
camp of Zollicoffer at Mill Springs, Kentucky. His plan embraced an
assault upon the rebel works; but before he could get into position
to do this the enemy marched out of his works and attacked him in his
camp, failing in an attempt to surprise him. The rebels failed also
in the battle which ensued, and were terribly defeated, with heavy
loss, and at the sacrifice of the organization of their army. Night
alone, under cover of which it crossed the Cumberland River, prevented
the capture of the entire rebel force. Fourteen pieces of artillery,
fifteen hundred horses, with all the stores of the enemy and a large
number of prisoners, fell into our hands. This victory was complete,
and doubly welcomed as the first positive success since the battle of
Bull Run. The country hailed it as the first sign of the rejuvenation
and reorganization of the army. The rebel "army of Western Kentucky"
has never been heard of since that disastrous day; and George B.
Crittenden, its commander, sank at once into disgrace and oblivion as a
consequence of his defeat.

In the campaign and battle of Chickamauga Thomas was second in command
to Rosecrans, but in all its important actions his is the principal
figure. The story of Chickamauga has been often, and, in one or two
instances, well told; but the whole truth about it must be reserved
until time shall permit the historian to tell it without fear or
favor. Thomas stands forth the undisputed hero of that day--the single
spirit upon whom all depends. He is the central figure. There are no
heroes beside him. The young and noble ones who died, as Lytle and
Burnham, Van Pelt and Jones, and those not less noble spirits who
distinguished themselves and lived to be rewarded, as Baird and Dick
Johnston, old Steedman and young Johnston, who guided his columns to
the assault, Wood and Harker--all these surrounding Thomas but add to
his glory as the parhelion adds to the beauty of the sun. On the first
day at Chickamauga Thomas did his share toward the destruction of a
great rebel army, but it was in vain. The fruits of his victory were
frittered away by the incompetency of others. There was no general
advance when he advanced. On the second day it was too late; the enemy
had succeeded in crossing his whole army over the Chickamauga, and
the opportunity to destroy his forces in detail was gone forever.
Circumstances then devolved upon Thomas the task of saving a great
army, not destroying one. The duty was nobly performed, and the army
nobly saved; and though those who were not present, and who judge
of the battle from hearsay, may be mystified by the circumlocution
and vagueness of official reports, those who stayed at Chickamauga
know very well that Thomas _alone_ retrieved that disaster and saved
Rosecrans's army.

A short time after I had published in Harper's Magazine the sketch of
General Thomas, of which this is a revised edition, I received many
letters from old friends complaining that I had not done him justice
in using the expression "Thomas originates nothing," and many were the
instances quoted showing his originality of mind and plans. None of the
arguments or examples given were convincing, however, and I have left
the expression unchanged. One of these complainants stated that General
Thomas was the originator of the plan to go through Snake Creek Gap in
order to get upon Joe Johnston's rear and flank; but I am inclined to
think this an error. The writer narrated that a few days after starting
on the Atlanta campaign in May, 1864, Sherman, having thoroughly
reconnoitred Rocky Face Ridge, the defensive line of the enemy, decided
that it was necessary to storm and carry the position. Sitting one day
on the railroad bank in front of Buzzard Roost Gap, he confided this
opinion to General Thomas.

"It can't be done, general," Thomas answered; "the ridge can not be
carried."

"But it must be," said the impetuous Sherman, with his usual petulance.
General Thomas repeated his observation.

"But then we can't stay here," urged Sherman; "we must go ahead--we
can't stop here. There is nothing left but to assault the ridge."

"Have you tried every other means, general? Can't we go around them?"
asked Thomas, at the same time unfolding his map.

"Yes, yes, we have tried all other means."

"Why can't we go through Snake Creek Gap?" asked Thomas. The voices
of the two, according to my informant, here became lowered; the two
generals bent their heads over the map; and it is claimed by Thomas's
admirer that the result of that conversation was the occupation of
the mountain gorge of Snake Creek Gap. Although told with much detail
and precision, I am not at all disposed to credit this story, and I
am convinced that, though not without foundation, there is an error
somewhere. Another admirer of General Thomas wrote me claiming for him
the credit of having originated and planned "Sherman's march to the
sea." He states that, shortly after the occupation of Atlanta, and
while Hood's army was still in Sherman's front, General Thomas proposed
to General Sherman to take the 14th and 20th _corps_, and march through
the state to Savannah or some point on the coast equally important.
The plan was not immediately acted on; information was received of
Hood's purpose to flank Atlanta and go northward, and General Thomas
was sent to Nashville to organize the forces there in order to meet
him. Hood did move north, and Sherman decided to leave him to the care
or the mercy of Thomas, while he, with the 14th, 15th, 17th, and 20th
corps, twice the force originally said to have been proposed by Thomas,
and really three times the force actually necessary for the movement,
made the march which Thomas had planned. I very much doubt the full
truth of this statement, though I do not know that it is untrue in any
particular. But whether or not he planned it matters little; Thomas
at Nashville may be said to have executed it, and to him, and not to
Sherman, belongs the credit of its success. I have always wondered how
Sherman came to delegate the subordinate, Thomas, with the lesser half
of the army, to fight the main battles and conduct the real campaign,
while he, the superior officer, with the greater half of the force,
made a detour in which no danger was encountered--no danger, in fact,
apprehended--and which could have been better effected with half the
force.

When the London Times characterized Sherman's march to the sea as the
"Anabasis of Sherman," and declared that it was virtually a retreat,
the London Times was exactly right, but the American people "could not
see it." But the stupidity of the rebels made that retreat a success
instead of a disaster to us. Had the Fabian policy of Joe Johnston
prevailed--had Atlanta been surrendered without a struggle, and had
the rebels been content to cover Macon with their infantry and employ
their cavalry in destroying the single railroad which inadequately
supplied Sherman's army, the retreat to Savannah and the sea would have
been instead a retreat to Chattanooga. When Hood removed his army from
Sherman's front, he presented that already doubting general with a
second alternative, whereas he had but one before, and permitted him to
choose of two routes by which to retreat. Sherman chose, for the sake
of the morale of his men and of the people, to "retreat forward" to
Savannah instead of "advancing backward" to Chattanooga, and went off
at a tangent to the sea. His unexpected detour did not interfere with
Hood's plans. The rebel had no more and no fewer enemies to fight than
he would have had if Sherman had followed him. Sherman could not have
concentrated his forces at Nashville in time to meet Hood, for portions
of the last force which, under General Steedman, fell back from
Chattanooga to re-enforce Nashville were cut off by the enemy and did
not reach the field at all. With this view in his mind, apprehending no
danger from Sherman, and believing he could defeat Thomas, Hood pushed
on, with what result is known. He met Thomas at Nashville, and the
consequence was his annihilation. The success of Thomas made Sherman's
march a success, and hence the former deserves the full credit for the
latter's achievement. How great this credit is can be seen by forming
in the mind an idea of the consequences which would have attended a
failure on Thomas's part. Had he been defeated Nashville would have
fallen; Hood would have marched into Kentucky and appeared on the line
of the Ohio, while Sherman, making his appearance a thousand leagues
away on the South Atlantic coast, would have found himself written down
a great failure instead of a great general.

The battles of Nashville were not greater in result than grand in
execution, and are, to my mind, Thomas's finest examples of grand
tactics. I can not here allude to them in detail. The operations were
conducted in a manner characteristic of the man. The retreat and
concentration at Nashville was a masterly performance, executed without
confusion and completed without loss. The battle before the city was
one of hard blows and simple manœuvres, fought after ample preparation
and due deliberation. The columns were heavy and massed, and the lines
strong and deep. The action was slow and measured. In the midst of
the engagement there were numerous lulls--pauses employed in dreadful
preparation, in re-arranging lines and massing columns. There were
numerous deliberate assaults of strong positions, and in every minute
detail of the general plan there was visible a combined effort of each
part of the army to reach some vital point of the enemy's position,
the key of the battle-field. When this was won the battle was ended.
The victory was the result of cool, deliberate action. The troops were
tools in the hands of their leader, and were made willing and trusty
instruments through the absolute and unbounded confidence which they
felt in him.

In the three campaigns of Mill Spring, Chickamauga, and Nashville, the
career of General Thomas is chiefly embraced. In the minor events of
his military career there is nothing to detract from the glory which
attaches to him in these.




[Illustration: ULYSSES S. GRANT.]




CHAPTER III.

GRANT AS A GENERAL.


The clearest conception of the characters of Generals Sherman and
Thomas is obtained by contrasting them. A correct estimate of General
Grant may be had by forming in the imagination a character combining
the peculiarities of both Sherman and Thomas; for in the person of
the lieutenant general the very opposite qualities which distinguish
the others meet and combine with singular grace and felicity. General
Grant does not make so effective, or, so to speak, so dramatic a
picture as Sherman, nor does he present so dignified, that is to say,
so stately an appearance as Thomas; yet he combines in himself the
originality and energy of the first, with the deliberation, coolness,
and pertinacity of the latter. Without the constant fire and fury
of Sherman, without the occasional sudden, fiery impulse of Thomas,
Grant, always cool, calm, and dispassionate, is also always firm,
always decided, and always progressive. Sherman is as mercurial as a
Frenchman, and as demonstrative as an Italian; Thomas as phlegmatic
as a Dutchman, and as tenacious as an Englishman; while Grant in
every characteristic, in doggedness, pertinacity, positiveness, and
taciturnity, is thoroughly American, and nothing else. Grant is a true
sailor, in that he dreads both the storm of battle and the calm of
inactivity, and his appropriate motto is "_In medio tutissimus ibis._"
Thomas delights most in calm--is always calm himself, even in the midst
of roughest seas. Sherman, on the contrary, delights in tempests, and
would now be nothing if there had been no storm. Professor Mahan, who
was the tutor of Grant and Sherman, has furnished a very handsome
illustration of the contrast between them by comparing the first-named
to a powerful low-pressure engine "which condenses its own steam and
consumes its own smoke, and which pushes steadily forward and drives
all obstacles before it," while Sherman belongs to the high-pressure
class of engines, "which lets off both steam and smoke with a puff
and a cloud, and dashes at its work with resistless vigor." Grant
has Sherman's originality of mind, and, like him, gave expression to
several new and striking thoughts upon the subject of the rebellion and
its suppression, but they were invariably clothed in the full, rounded,
and stately periods of Thomas rather than the sharp, curt, and nervous
language of Sherman. He has planned several campaigns with not less of
originality than that displayed by Sherman, but they have always been
executed with the deliberation and persistence which is so prominent
a characteristic of Thomas. Sherman has given us several splendid
illustrations of strategy and logistics, as witness his marches in
Mississippi, Georgia, and the Carolinas, but his battles will never be
quoted as brilliant examples of grand tactics. Thomas has displayed
abilities chiefly in the tactics of the battle-field, and has given
us at Mill Spring and Nashville two splendid illustrations of the
offensive, and at Chickamauga a magnificent example of defensive
battle; but his marches, which are always slow and labored, are never
likely to become famous. Grant has excelled in both these important
branches of the art of war, and has given us brilliant examples of
each, proving himself a master in each branch of the art of war. He
uses the strategy of Sherman to reach his chosen battle-field, and then
employs the grand tactics of Thomas to win the victory. At the risk of
becoming tedious in endeavoring to impress this idea on the mind of
the reader, I can not here repress the desire to again call attention
to the natural and singular manner in which the three great generals
of the war alternately appear in contrast and comparison as the great
strategist, the great tactician, and the great general of the age.

[Illustration: ROBERT E. LEE.]

After the great success of Grant below Richmond, culminating in the
surrender of Lee, the rebels, though they had persistently ignored
any latent greatness in Grant, were delighted to frequently discover
similarities between the victor and the vanquished, and numerous
were the comparisons which were instituted commendatory of Lee, and
patronizingly of Grant. The two, as men and as generals, should rather
have been placed in contrast; for, save in the silent, observant
thoughtfulness which distinguishes both, they have hardly a trait
in common. It is impossible to compare the most positive man of the
war with the least resolute of the rebellion; the strongest of the
true with the weakest of the false cause; the grandest character
with the most contemptible; a great and successful general on the
offensive with a weak and unsuccessful general on the defensive. As
a general, Grant always assumed the offensive, and was uniformly
successful. The opposite is strictly true of Lee. Lee's first offensive
campaign in Western Virginia against McClellan was a failure; his
first defensive efforts against the same leader a great success.
His second offensive movement against Pope failed, and his third
offensive movement, culminating at Antietam, was a great disaster. His
second and third defensive battles, Fredericksburg against Burnside,
and Chancellorsville against Hooker, were successful. His fourth
offensive campaign signally failed at Gettysburg. His next campaign was
defensive. It was fought in a country naturally strong for defensive
purposes, in opposition to the man to whom he is compared, where he
should be contrasted. Though conducted with energy and stubbornness,
it was finally a great defeat, and annihilated Lee's army as it should
have done, his pretensions to great generalship. Lee saw fit only to
be a soldier and obey, not a leader to direct. He had none of the
attributes of a revolutionist or of greatness; else, when seeing and
declaring that the cause of the rebel leaders was hopeless, he would,
as morally the strongest man in the South, and practically the head of
the rebellion as the head of the army, have declared that no more blood
should be uselessly shed, no more of war's desolation be visited upon
the people. But it does not seem ever to have entered the head of this
man that, perceiving the cause hopeless, and wielding the power which
temporarily sustained that cause, it was his duty to forbid its farther
prosecution at the price of blood. Had Lee possessed the courage,
decision, and positiveness of Grant, he would himself have been peace
commissioner instead of Stephens and his colleagues, and he alone the
contracting power. A truly great and honest soldier in Lee's position,
and with the convictions of the hopelessness of the rebel cause
expressed by him in 1865, would have made peace, even if he had been
compelled to put Jeff. Davis in irons to do so. As a man, compared with
Grant, Lee has none of the characteristics natural to greatness; and
when he joined the rebels for the sake of no great principle involving
honor, but simply, as he declared in a letter to his sister, because he
did not wish to raise his hand against relatives and children, although
he believed them engaged, if not in a bad cause, at least in one for
which there was no just occasion, he sank all individuality, and became
a traitor out of mere indecision of character. If Lee is never hung
as a traitor, he ought to be as a warning to all people who have not
minds and opinions of their own. For this, the weakest act of a weak
existence, there is no counterpart in Grant's life, but a thousand, or
rather, I should say, one constant and unvarying contrast.

The resemblance between Generals Grant and Thomas in personal
appearance and character is more marked than between the former and
Sherman. The comparison between Grant and Sherman must indeed be
confined to their military characteristics. The resemblance is most
noted in the fertility of invention which distinguishes both in a
higher degree than any two men hitherto developed by the war. Neither
ever lacks for resources. Grant, with an inventive faculty truly
wonderful, extricates himself from all difficulties with an originality
not less admirable on account of the boldness with which his designs
are accomplished. The originality of his designs, not less than the
boldness with which he acts, adds to the certainty of success. If
one resource fails he has another at hand. He creates opportunities,
and, though he is no Cadmus, at whose will armed men spring from the
ground, yet he may be said to originate the materials of action, and
to supply by his energy and his spirit, his invention and tactics,
many of the deficiencies existing in his physical force. He is not
easily disheartened, but seems greatest in disaster or when surrounded
by difficulties. He is not easily driven from the prosecution of a
plan. He carefully examines its merits before he decides upon it, and
fully tests its practicability before he abandons it for another. That
to which he is compelled to resort by reason of the failure of one
is not less matured than the first. It may be said with truth that
he has never been forced to abandon any general plan upon which he
had determined, though the campaign against Richmond was modified by
circumstances and facts developed at the Wilderness and Spottsylvania.
The purpose of the campaign overland was the destruction of an
important line of railroad, and the desolation of a rich country,
by and in which the enemy was enabled to exist at the very doors of
Washington, and by thus forcing him to abandon his threatening and
offensive attitude, enable Grant to place the army operating against
Richmond in its only true strategical position south of the James
River. It is now apparent to all that, had the attack of General W.
F. Smith on Petersburg in June, 1864, proved successful--as there was
every reason to suppose it would, and really no good reason why it did
not--the capture of Richmond would have followed immediately. There
exists a notable resemblance between this campaign of Grant's and that
of Sherman against Atlanta. Both were prosecuted against large armies
posted and fortified in a country naturally difficult to penetrate,
and in which the enemy had all the advantages arising from defensible
positions. Both were characterized by brilliant flank movements made
in the very teeth of the enemy. And though Sherman's campaign embraced
none of the desperate and lengthy battles in which Grant engaged, it is
marked by several combats of unusual desperation, generally occurring
on the march and fought for position.

Like Sherman, Grant is a fine mover and feeder of an army. The
marches of each are made with great precision, and their logistical
calculations are marked by great accuracy. If such were not the
case, the dangerous flank movements of the one at the Wilderness and
Spottsylvania Court-house, and of the other across the Allatoona
Mountains and around Atlanta, might have resulted in very grave and
serious disasters. Both generals have a full and genuine appreciation
of the importance of economy of time in the collection, and of
quantity in the distribution of supplies; and in view of the fact that
both have at all times operated at a great distance, and at times
entirely disconnected from their bases of supply, the regulation and
completeness with which their vast armies have been fed is surprising,
and calls forth the fullest admiration for the administrative ability
which each has displayed. The energy which Grant possesses, in a degree
fully equal to that of Sherman, differs materially, however, in
character from that of that erratic warrior. There is nothing nervous
about it, nor can it be said to be inspiring like that of Sherman, but
it is no less effective. Sherman's energy supplies all that may be
lacking in his subordinates, and retrieves their blunders and delays.
Grant's energetic manner of working soon teaches subordinates that
delinquencies are not allowable. The comparison might be extended
farther and to other features, while some minor traits of opposite
characteristics might be mentioned. Both are unselfish and unambitious,
or it would perhaps be a better expression to say both are unselfishly
ambitious, holding their own interests second to those of the country.
Sherman acknowledges Grant to have been the first to appreciate and
encourage him after his consignment to that tomb of military Capulets,
Jefferson Barracks. Grant attributes much of his uniform success to
the skill of his second in command. Neither ever wearies of sounding
the praises or of admiring the qualifications of the other. Among the
points of character in which they differ is temper, that of Grant being
exceedingly good in the sense of moderate and even, while Sherman's is
very bad in the sense of irritability and unevenness. There can be no
doubt that both are good, generous, and unselfish men at heart.

The persistence with which Grant pursues an object or executes a plan,
the tenacity with which he fights, his practicability, reservedness,
and taciturnity, are the strongest points of resemblance between
himself and Thomas. It is difficult to say which excels in these
qualities. Grant's famous dispatch from Spottsylvania, "I propose to
fight it out on this line if it takes all summer," was written with
compressed lips--the reader naturally reads it with clenched teeth--and
fairly and graphically illustrates the perseverance and stubbornness
of the man. It is even more forcible than the memorable dispatch of
Thomas, "We will hold Chattanooga till we starve;" and in better taste
than that of Granger's, "I am in possession of Knoxville, and shall
hold it till hell freezes over." Grant's criticism on the Army of
the Potomac, which is doubtless as just an opinion of that army as
has ever been uttered, illustrates this trait of his character still
more forcibly and elegantly. A short time after he assumed personal
supervision of Meade's army, General Oglesby asked him what he thought
of its _personnel_.

"This is a very fine army," he replied, "and these men, I am told, have
fought with great courage and bravery. I think, however, that the Army
of the Potomac _has never fought its battles through_." It certainly
fought them through at the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, and on the
Appomattox, and fully confirmed Grant's faith in the superior endurance
of the men.

It is also related of Grant that, when young, he was very fond of
playing chess, and played with great skill, but found among his
opponents one who was his superior, and who used to win the first games
of a sitting with ease. But Grant was never content to remain beaten,
and would insist on his opponent playing until he got the better of him
in the end by "tiring him out," and winning at chess as at war by his
superior endurance.

The following story of Grant may be apocryphal. If true, however, it is
a fine commentary on that trait of his character under consideration.
If not true, it shows that the feature is such a prominent one that
anecdotes have been originated to illustrate it. The story runs
that immediately after the battle of Shiloh, General Buell began
criticising, in a friendly way, what he termed the bad policy displayed
by Grant in fighting with the Tennessee River in his rear.

"Where, if beaten, could you have retreated, general?" asked Buell.

"I didn't mean to be beaten," was Grant's reply.

"But suppose you had been defeated, despite all your exertions?"

"Well, there were all the transports to carry the remains of the
command across the river."

"But, general," urged Buell, "your whole number of transports could not
contain over ten thousand men, and you had fifty thousand engaged."

"Well, if I had been beaten," said Grant, "transportation for ten
thousand men would have been abundant for all that would have been left
of us."

It is not to be lightly concluded that the act of Grant in encamping
on the same side of the river and within thirty miles of the enemy
was bad policy. If he had encamped on the east side of the stream the
rebels would have made the river, instead of the railroad at Corinth,
their line of defense, and rendered its navigation very difficult for
gun-boats and impossible for transports. The stream could not have been
made the base of operations as was intended. It is doubtful if we lost
more men in the battle of Shiloh than we should have lost in attempting
to force the passage of the stream. Grant's position was faulty
because it was not fortified. His camp ought to have been intrenched.
In the absence of works, he depended for protection on the flooded
streams which in a measure surrounded his camp, but which failed to
retard the rebel advance.

Grant's disposition to persevere has had a natural effect in creating
in him a firm reliance upon himself. It is very seldom that he
calls councils of war or asks advice in any shape. He fears no
responsibility, and decides for himself. General Howard, himself a
man of very marked characteristics, has noticed and alluded to this
confidence, adding that it amounted almost to the superstitious
fatality in which Napoleon was so firm a believer. This self-reliance
is doubtless, however, merely the full confidence which has resulted
from the habit of independent thought and action of a man of unusually
strong, iron will, determination, and tenacity of purpose. Though
his language often indicates this confidence in himself, it never
degenerates into boasting.

During the battles of the Wilderness an aid brought the lieutenant
general news of a serious disaster to the Second Corps, which was
vigorously attacked by A. P. Hill. "I don't believe it," was the prompt
answer of Grant, inspired by faith in his success. The aid was sent
back for farther reports, and found that the reported disaster had been
exaggerated.

Among the most admirable qualities of Grant's mind and character, and
in which he is most like Thomas, is his practicability. Grant, like
Thomas, is not a learned scholar, but has grown wise from worldly
experience. His wisdom is that which results from a combination of
common sense trained to logical reflection with practical observation.
He deals with all questions in a plain, business-like manner, and with
all absence of ostentation or display, and in a systematic style, which
enables him to dispatch a great deal of business in a very short time.
His practicability renders him remorseless in the execution of his
plans. When he has decided it to be necessary, he pushes his massed
columns upon the enemy, and orders the desolation and depopulation of a
country with the same coolness, not to say indifference, with which he
would announce a common event of little importance. His administration
of the affairs of the Army of the Potomac, now universally
acknowledged to have been of the highest ability, fully displayed this
characteristic of practicability.

A fine illustration of his practicability is found in a story related
of him when operating before Fort Donelson. On the night before the
surrender, the preparations of a portion of the rebels to evacuate the
fort led General McClernand to believe they were meditating an attack,
and he communicated his suspicions to Grant, at the same time sending
him a prisoner who had been captured but a short time before. On
reading McClernand's dispatch, Grant ordered the prisoner's haversack
to be searched. It was found that it was filled with rations. "If the
rebels intend to hold the fort, they would not encumber their men with
rations. They are preparing to leave," was the very sage and practical
reasoning of the general; and he immediately ordered McClernand to
assume the offensive. The result was that a commanding ridge near
Dover, south of the fort, was carried, and only a portion of the
garrison escaped; the remainder capitulated.

During the battles of the Wilderness a rebel shell dropped within a few
feet of Grant and Meade, making a furrow in the ground and bursting
some distance beyond. Grant, without a word, drew from his pocket a
small compass with which he calculated the course of the shell. In
five minutes afterward he had a piece or two of artillery posted near
by, and opening upon, soon silenced the rebel battery, whose location
had been betrayed by the course of the projectile. As soon as this had
been done, he asked the elevation of the guns which had done such good
work. On being told, he soon established, by a calculation well known
to every artillerist, the important fact of the exact distance of the
enemy's line from his own.

Another illustration of his practicability is also an instance of his
magnanimity--a feature of his character equally prominent. The terms
of surrender granted to General Lee--the dismissal of the captured
army on parole, was a piece of strategy which was completely veiled by
the apparent magnanimity of the conqueror. It was a splendid stroke
of policy. The tender of such terms placed it at once out of the
power of General Lee to decline them. His army could not have been
kept together an hour after learning that they had been generously
offered and refused. Lee's reputation demanded his acceptance of them.
The rebel troops thus dismissed had to reach their homes by passing
through Joe Johnston's army. The tale of their utter discomfiture and
capture, and the generous treatment accorded them, Grant knew, would
be whispered in the ears of Johnston's men, to the utter demoralization
and disbandment of that army.

At Donelson and Vicksburg Grant's terms had been unconditional
surrender. Such a surrender was important for the moral effect to be
produced at the North. The surrender of Lee was demanded, and the most
generous of terms granted, in order to produce the desired moral effect
at the South. To my mind, this action illustrates the greatness of
Grant more forcibly than any one other act of his life.

General Grant fully appreciates, as does Thomas, the philosophy of
silence. His staff have learned to imitate his taciturnity; and
there is, consequently, an air of industry and business about his
head-quarters which no one who visits them can fail to observe. He
has, throughout his career, published no foolish proclamations and
made no visionary promises. His victories have been followed by
no high-sounding addresses to his armies; but he has confined his
compliments to a plain recital of the deeds of his men and the results
of their achievements. He has, moreover, gone through the war without
having made a single speech. At Lexington, Kentucky, in January,
1864, Grant met with a spontaneous reception from the citizens on his
arrival from East Tennessee. At the request of the populace he made his
appearance in front of his hotel, and, on being told that on account
of his short stature he could not be seen by those on the outskirts of
the crowd, he good-naturedly mounted a chair and bowed two or three
times to the people. A speech was called for, but he contented himself
with requesting Leslie Coombs, who was present, to state to the people
that he "had never made a speech in his life, knew nothing about the
business, and had no disposition to learn."

I have elsewhere, in endeavoring to show how Grant is a combination
of the strategist, Sherman, and the tactician, Thomas, used the
expression that he employed the strategy of one to reach his chosen
battle-field, and the tactics of the other to win the victory. Grant's
own definition of strategy will perhaps make this idea plainer. Shortly
after the battles of Chattanooga, he was sitting in his head-quarters
at Nashville, with his feet comfortably stretched before the fire,
while he enjoyed himself with purring and chewing his cigar with that
completeness of repose which strangers to his habits have called a
dullness of facial expression. Quarter-master General Meigs sat near
him, while General W. F. Smith, who had but a short time before made
himself quite a reputation with Grant by the skillful operations in
Lookout Valley in October, 1863, paced the floor apparently absorbed in
thought. Meigs, noticing this, broke the silence, which had lasted for
several minutes, by asking,

"What are you thinking about, 'Baldy?'"

On receiving no reply from the absorbed officer, he turned to Grant and
remarked, with a laugh,

"'Baldy' is studying strategy."

Grant removed his cigar from his lips and said, with a serious air, "I
don't believe in strategy in the popular understanding of the term.
I use it to get up just as close to the enemy as practicable with as
little loss as possible."

"And what then?" asked Meigs.

"Then? 'Up, guards, and at 'em!'" replied the general, with more than
usual spirit; then again lapsing into his accustomed taciturnity.

Grant has "crept" upon the enemy in this war on several occasions to
some purpose, and with an effect which proves that his strategy is
of a superior order. His strategic march to the rear of Vicksburg is
already accepted as an illustration of the art of war, and not many
years will elapse before it will be quoted as such in the military
academies of the country. The combinations against Richmond are full
of fine strategic marches and manœuvres. The flank movement around
Spottsylvania Court-house, and the march upon Petersburg, accomplished
in the face of the enemy, are not less brilliant than that of
Vicksburg; while the defeat, pursuit, and capture of Lee are by far
the most brilliant operations known to the history of modern warfare.
General Grant's marches closely resemble in their general outlines
those of Sherman. They are executed with all the energy and certainly
as much of the skill as those of Sherman, but on a larger scale, with
larger forces, and in the face of greater natural obstacles. In none
of Sherman's operations has he made the passage of such streams as the
Mississippi or James Rivers. The mountains of Georgia furnish no more
difficult passes than those of Virginia. The marches of Sherman in
Georgia and South Carolina are wonderful and brilliant, but they were
made in the face of an enemy totally inadequate to cope with him. Those
of Grant in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Virginia, are not the less
wonderful because made in the face of a strong, watchful enemy, who,
in Virginia at least, had an admirably mobilized army, and because
accompanied by weeks of hard contested encounters.

The numerous battles of Grant are the most important and the most
successful of the war. From his first victory at Fort Donelson,
through Shiloh, Corinth, and Iuka, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga, to the
battles before Richmond, and the surrender of Lee, he has been almost
uniformly successful, and his victories have been more complete,
and productive of more substantial fruits than those of any other
commander. As his strategy is that of Sherman on a larger scale, so
his grand tactics are those of Thomas on more extensive fields. The
movements and the manœuvres of the two men are the same. The movements
are always deliberate and heavy; the manœuvres are always executed
by massed columns formed in deep lines. Grant, like Thomas, appears
to decide in his own mind the key-point of the enemy's position, and
to direct his assaults to the ultimate possession of that point. He
devotes every energy, and, when it is necessary, every life, to the
attainment of this success, knowing that this ends the conflict. When
it is gained, as at Chattanooga and during the engagements of April 2d
before Petersburg, the battle is won. If he fails to reach this key of
the field, as in the first assault at Vicksburg and at the Wilderness,
he is beaten. If he wins the point and the victory, he immediately
pursues the retreating foe, as at Chattanooga and Petersburg. But if he
fails, he does not abandon the field. His mind is too rich in resources
for retreat. Ceasing to be Thomas, he becomes Sherman again, and has
recourse to strategy, whereby he forces the enemy to a field where
his grand tactics will stand a better chance of success. A critical
examination of Grant's campaigns will reveal these features fully
developed. He fully comprehends the specialty of Sherman, strategy, as
well as that of Thomas, grand tactics, and is master of both. He has
displayed in his campaigns, all of which have been of mixed operations,
all the persistence and pertinacity of Thomas combined with the
originality of design and resources of mind of Sherman. But in none of
his campaigns have these peculiarities been better or more brilliantly
illustrated than in the campaign and battles of Chattanooga, and the
not less wonderful campaign around Richmond. The first is an example of
his tactics, the latter of his strategy.

The operations of Hooker and W.F. Smith in Lookout Valley, which were
a part of the Chattanooga campaign, and which resulted in raising the
siege of that strong-hold by opening river communication with the base
of supplies, was not less original in conception or bold and brilliant
in execution than the famous march around Vicksburg. Bragg was
compelled to abandon all hope of starving out the garrison or capturing
Chattanooga, and he determined to attempt the seizure of Knoxville
with a portion of his army under Longstreet while he kept up a show of
besieging Chattanooga with the remainder. It was this movement which
gave Grant the opportunity for the display of his tactical abilities.
Burnside, in advising Grant of Longstreet's approach to attack him,
reported that he (Burnside) held a line on the Tennessee River,
from London to Kingston, possessing unusual natural advantages, and
expressed the opinion that he could easily defeat Longstreet in any
attempt he might make to cross the stream. Grant immediately ordered
Burnside to make no defense of the line which he held, but to fall
back to Knoxville and stand a siege, promising to relieve him in a few
days. The result of this was that Longstreet was deluded into crossing
the Tennessee, and thus placed himself far beyond supporting distance
of Bragg. Grant's strategy had thus far resulted in dividing the rebel
army into two. He immediately went to work to defeat the parts in
detail.

Bragg, learning of the approach of Sherman to Grant's aid, attempted,
on November 23, 1863, to evacuate his strong position before
Chattanooga, and retire for safety beyond the mountains. Grant,
unwilling to let him off so cheaply, made a movement to detain him,
and by commencing his proposed operations a day sooner than originally
intended, he forced the rebel leader to remain in his rifle-pits and
accept battle. Grant in nowise changed his plan as determined upon
six days before the operations began, except that he commenced them
eighteen hours sooner than intended. On the afternoon of November 23d
he did that which he had previously intended to do on the morning of
the 24th. It was the movement of Granger's _corps_ into a position from
whence, at the proper time, it was to assault the rebel centre. In this
position the _corps_ was compelled to lie idle, and in waiting for the
auspicious moment, for eighteen hours longer than it was originally
intended it should. This assault, which was made on the 25th, and was
the closing scene of the battles, has been erroneously called one of
those "blind, uncertain strikings which won the Alma and Magenta,"
when in reality Grant had determined upon it six days before it was
executed, and spent two entire days in watching from the very front of
the line for the moment at which to attempt it. The entire three days'
engagement is remarkable for the consistency with which the plan was
followed out. General Halleck pronounced the battle to be the "most
remarkable in history," and Meigs called it the "best directed battle
of the war." Never have operations in war better illustrated the vast
advantages of the offensive.

The several battles of Chattanooga were fought on purely offensive
principles, and I have often thought since that the secret of Grant's
success may be discovered in the fact that he has always taken the
offensive. I have heard men call him "the lucky Grant," and the
newspapers speak of his good fortune; but it is not luck--it is not
good fortune. It is "_Le genie de la guerre_." He does not depend upon
circumstances or good fortune, but controls both. One such illustration
from Grant, as witnessed at Chattanooga, shows more forcibly and
graphically the vast advantages of offensive warfare than can all the
maxims of Napoleon or Jomini. From the moment that Bragg at Chattanooga
was compelled to abandon his attempts at an orderly retreat and
evacuation of his position, his movements were forced upon him, and
his army was really controlled and commanded by Grant. Every movement
made by the enemy may be said to have been ordered by Grant. Bragg,
in command of the rebel army, was merely his mouth-piece. The plan of
the battle contemplated the breaking of the enemy's centre; but this
was so strongly posted on a mountain ridge almost inaccessible, that,
in order to render success possible, it was necessary to force him
to weaken his forces holding the centre. This was accomplished after
two days' labor by the attacks upon either flank of the rebel line by
Hooker and Sherman, and was no sooner made than perceived by Grant,
who instantly ordered the assault of the centre, which resulted in the
victory, and the capture of several thousand prisoners and sixty pieces
of artillery. To complete the success of the operations, Burnside about
the same time defeated Longstreet at Knoxville (Fort Saunders), and
Sherman approaching to the relief of the besieged, the rebels abandoned
the siege and retreated to Virginia, rejoining Lee soon after at
Fredericksburg.

In conception, execution, and result, the closing operations of the
war--the campaign to the rear of Richmond--must be considered as by far
the most remarkable and brilliant movements of the rebellion. There is
every evidence necessary to show that the campaign, as deliberately
planned, was energetically carried out. The battles of April 1st and
2d, south of Petersburg, were absolutely necessary to the solution of
the strategic problem. The object was to gain a position on the right
flank of Lee, in order to force him not only to evacuate Petersburg,
but to compel him to evacuate it in such a way that he would have to
retreat by roads on the north side of the Appomattox River. By the
success of this battle Lee was thus forced north of the river, and
Grant gained a route to Burkesville Junction--the only point to which
Lee could retreat--which was parallel with that of the rebels, and
which, while separated from them a great part of the distance by a
river, was also much shorter and without any natural obstructions such
as lay in Lee's way. Lee had to retreat by the longer route, which
was practically made still longer by the necessity of recrossing the
Appomattox River. The consequence was that Grant reached Burkesville
Junction by the time Lee reached Amelia Court-house, and not only
interposed himself as an impassable barrier to the junction of Johnston
and Lee, but also continually presented a force between Lee and
Lynchburg. By keeping this force thus "heading Lee off," while at the
same time he continually attacked him in flank and rear, Grant forced
him, on the seventh day of the pursuit, to surrender his whole force.
From the moment of occupying Burkesville, Grant held Lee in a position
from which, if defeated in battle, he had no line of retreat. He was
forced to make a stand in a position in which, had he given battle,
he would have been forced to an unconditional surrender or equally
disastrous dispersion.

An idea of the character of General Grant must, of course, be
formed from the developments of the war. His life at West Point,
and his subsequent career in Mexico and in civil life, displayed no
particularly prominent trait of character other than an adaptation
to the practical in life. At West Point he is remembered as a quiet,
studious, and taciturn youth, only remarkable for the decision which
has since been so prominent a characteristic of the man. He was neither
a book-worm nor an idler, and graduated neither first nor last, but in
that medium rank in his class which has given to the country several
of its most thoroughly practical and successful men. In Mexico he was
distinguished only for the bravery which he displayed at Chapultepec.

In his manners, dress, and style of living, Grant displays more
republican simplicity than any other general officer of the army. In
manner he is very unassuming and approachable, and his conversation is
noticeable from its unpretending, plain, and straightforward style.
There is nothing declamatory nor pedantic in his tone or language. His
rhetoric is more remarkable for the compact structure than the elegance
and the finish of his sentences. He talks practically, and writes as
he talks; and his language, written and oral, is distinguished by
strong common sense. He seldom indulges in figurative language; but
when he does, his comparisons betray his habits of close observation.
He dresses in a careless but by no means slovenly manner. Though his
uniform conforms to army regulations in cut and trimmings, it is often,
like that of Sherman, worn threadbare. He never wears any article which
attracts attention by its oddity, except, indeed, the three stars which
indicate his rank. His wardrobe, when campaigning, is generally very
scant, while his head-quarter train is often the smallest in the army.
For several months of the war he lived in a log hut of unpretending
dimensions on the James River, sleeping on a common camp-cot, and
eating at a table common to all his staff, plainly furnished with good
roast beef, pork and beans, "hard-tack," and coffee. It is related of
the general that when the march to the rear of Vicksburg began, he
announced to his army the necessity of "moving light"--_i.e._, without
extra baggage. He set an example by sending to the rear all his baggage
except a green brier-root pipe, a tooth-brush, and a horn pocket-comb.
The story of his appearance in the Senate Chamber in February, 1865,
is still fresh in the minds of the public. He had no sooner left the
hall, after paying his respects to the senators, than one of the
Democratic members rose and asked the consideration of the Senate
upon what he termed the evident and gross mistake which had been made
in appointing Grant a lieutenant general, and declared it to be his
opinion that "there was not a second lieutenant of the Home Guard of
his state who did not 'cut a bigger swell' than this man who had just
left their presence!"

The general is not lacking in self-esteem. He very naturally desires
to be popular, likes to be well spoken of, but succeeds better than
Sherman in concealing what vanity he possesses. He often excites
admiration by the modesty of actions which in others would be
considered exceedingly immodest; as, witness the quiet manner in which
he accepted a present of a hundred thousand dollars from the citizens
of New York.

Those who are disposed, like himself, to be fatalists, may imagine
in the significance of Grant's surname, and the manner in which he
obtained his baptismal name, encouraging omens of his success and
that of the cause in which he is engaged. The surname Grant (derived
from the French word _grande_, great, or valorous) is that of a
Scottish clan, whose motto, as given in Burke's "Encyclopædia of
Heraldry," appears to have been adopted by General Grant. It is as
follows: "_Stand fast, stand firm, stand sure_." The slogan of the
clan was "Stand fast, Craigellachie." I believe there is no doubt that
General Grant is of Scotch descent, and from the Grants and Duffs of
Aberdeenshire. One of his aids, and a distant relation, Colonel Duff,
was born at Duff House, "in the shadow," of which Mr. James Gordon
Bennett, who was the first to appreciate and proclaim Grant's ability,
records that he also was born. The general's proper Christian name
received at baptism was Hiram Ulysses; but on entering West Point he
received, by the mistake of the person who nominated him, the name
of Ulysses Simpson, which, abbreviated, gives the same initials as
those used to indicate the government of which he is the servant.
"United States Grant" is an appellation much more common than Ulysses
S. Grant; while the patriotic friends of the general have given this
title several facetious variations, such as "Uncle Sam," "Unconditional
Surrender," and "United we Stand Grant."

The confidence of the fatalist is not necessary to courage. There
is a courage superior to the mere indifference to danger, and this
quality Grant possesses to the fullest degree. Sherman calls him one
of the bravest men he ever saw. His coolness and his clear-headedness
under danger and amid excitement is remarkable, and is superior to
that of Thomas, who, next to Grant, is the coolest and most clearly
administrative man under fire now in the army. During the battles
of Chattanooga Grant and Thomas established their head-quarters on
"Orchard Knoll," immediately in the rear of the centre of the field,
and from which they could have a full and close view of the column
which was to make the assault on the rebel centre. From the moment the
signal for the attack was sounded, the scene was of the most exciting
character; but during that important half hour in which the victory
trembled in the balance, Grant and Thomas remained passive, cool, and
observant. They were standing together when the assaulting column had
reached half way to the summit of Missionary Ridge, when a portion of
it was momentarily brought to a halt, and when the stream of wounded
retiring down the hill made the line look ragged and weak. At this
moment Thomas turned to Grant and said, with a slight hesitation, which
betrayed the emotions which raged within him,

"General, I--I'm afraid they won't get up."

Grant, continuing to look steadily at the column, hesitated half a
minute before answering; then taking the cigar he was smoking between
his fingers, he said, as he brushed away the ashes,

"Oh, give 'em time, general," and then as coolly returned his cigar to
his mouth.

Fifteen minutes later I met him on the summit of the hill, riding along
with head uncovered, receiving the plaudits of the men who had won,
but who had not yet secured the victory. The rebel centre had been
broken, but the right wing, which had just repulsed Sherman, was yet
intact, and, turning about face, attacked the troops which had carried
the centre of their line. Our line was much broken, and the troops
excited to such a degree at the victory they had gained that they had
become almost uncontrollable, and on the appearance of General Grant,
who, following in the wake of the advancing columns, had appeared in
their midst on the summit as the white-plumed helmet of Henry IV. had
appeared at Ivry, the men gathered around him shouting and hurraing,
grasping his hand and embracing his legs. But, while coolly receiving
these demonstrations of affection and delight, Grant was not blind
to the danger, and was using the necessary efforts to get his troops
in readiness for the expected attack, which, but for his precaution,
I am satisfied would have badly damaged us. He conveyed his fears
intuitively, as it were, to his staff, and each one exerted himself
to get General Turchin's brigade into position as ordered by Grant.
Mingling in the very thickest of what now became the hottest fire of
the day, they urged forward the troops, and personally gave directions
for their disposal. Turchin, finding some men moving a piece of
artillery to the rear in his way, raved and swore in broken English
until he had got his men up to the works, and Lieutenant Turner as
heartily cursed the fellows who were retiring the gun, and while doing
so got seriously wounded. General Meigs, quarter-master general, busied
himself in preparing friction primers for the captured guns which
General Grant was ordering into position, but got so excited over the
great victory gained that he gave the task up in despair to Captain
Ross, of General Grant's staff. General Turchin pushed forward his
troops, and no sooner had they appeared in line of battle in the fort,
than suddenly the battle ceased and was over. As if with one accord,
the rebels ceased to struggle. They broke in utter and total confusion,
and rushed down the hill. Volley after volley followed them as they
fled, but they did not halt. On they rushed, struggling and striving,
reckless of all now save safety.

During the siege of Vicksburg Grant personally superintended the
mounting of a number of Columbiads on a part of his line. While the men
were cutting the embrasures in the works he stood upon the epaulement,
and, though the rebels made a mark of him for their bullets, very
composedly whittled a rail until the guns were placed to suit him.

Whittling and smoking are among Grant's favorite occupations. He is
a true Yankee in these respects. It is recorded of him that, during
the battles of the Wilderness, he was engaged in whittling the bark
of a tree under which his head-quarters were established; and on all
occasions, great and small, he smokes. He is a more inveterate smoker
than either Sherman or Rosecrans, but he smokes in a different style
and for a different effect. Both Sherman and Rosecrans take to tobacco
as a stimulant to their nervous organizations. Grant smokes with the
listless, absorbed, and satisfied air of an opium-smoker, his mind and
body being soothed into repose rather than excited by the effect of
the weed. Neither Sherman nor Rosecrans are neat smokers, the velvet
breast-facing of their coats and their shirt-bosoms being generally
soiled. Grant, on the contrary, is very neat, and smokes only the best
of cigars. He smokes almost without cessation, and is never at ease
when employed at any thing which forbids smoking as an accompaniment.
During the famous interview with Pemberton before Vicksburg he smoked
with his usual composure. "We pardon General Grant for smoking a cigar
as he entered the smouldering ruins of the town of Vicksburg," said a
rebel paper after the surrender. "A little stage effect," it added,
"is admirable in great captains." But Grant never smokes dramatically.
His cigar is a necessary part of himself, and is neither assumed nor
abandoned for state occasions. He has been known to forgetfully smoke
at reviews, and has frequently been brought to a halt and notified by
sentinels or guards over commissary stores, "No smoking allowed here,
sir." On entering the Senate Chamber to be presented to the Senate, he
had to be requested to leave his cigar outside.

Sherman's erratic disposition caused him to be suspected of lunacy.
Grant's imperturbation and his dullness of expression, added to
exaggerated tales of his excessive use of strong tobacco as an opiate,
was the origin of the story which prevailed at one time to the effect
that he drank to excess. In early life he may have indulged in
occasional sprees, but he does not drink now at all. Swearing is not a
habit with him, and his phlegmatic temperament is seldom so ruffled as
to cause him to indulge in an oath. He seldom jokes, and rarely laughs.
His great "weakness" is Alexandrian, and consists in his love for fine
horses. When quite a boy he was remarkable for tact in managing horses,
"breaking" them with astonishing ease. When he was only fifteen years
old persons came to him from a great distance to have him teach their
horses to pace. This is not a great and exclusive quality of the man,
however, as it is well known that thousands of negroes on Southern
plantations were noted for the same knack or tact. It was doubtless the
result of the innate love of the boy for horses, a love now as strong
in the man and the general. He is said to be the best rider in the army.

Grant's undemonstrative manner has nothing of the repulsive about it.
He has won and retained many warm friends. The friendship between him
and Sherman has become historical, and is often quoted as in agreeable
contrast to the numerous bitter and disgraceful jealousies which have
too often been made public, but which exist in the army to an extent
not suspected by those who have no intimate acquaintance with its
secret history. There is much of romance in the story of Grant and
Sherman's friendship. It began in 1862, and has ever since continued
to grow in strength. When the armies of Halleck were lying--literally
so, indeed--before Corinth, Grant was, to all appearance, shelved
in disgrace. He was second in command, but to be second in command
then was to be the "fifth wheel to the coach." Grant was much
chagrined at his position, and felt in ten-fold degree each petty
indignity which Halleck heaped upon him. One day General Sherman,
who commanded one of the divisions of the wing under the command of
General George H. Thomas, went to General Grant's quarters, bolted
with his usual abruptness into his tent--they didn't stand on ceremony
in the field--and found the general actually weeping with vexation.
Sherman asked the cause, and, for the first time, Grant recounted the
indignities which he had endured, the troubles he had encountered, and
the false position in which he had been placed before the country.

"The truth is, Sherman," he said, "I am not wanted. The country has no
use for me, and I am about to resign and go home."

"No you are not," returned Sherman, impatiently; "you are going to do
nothing of the sort. The country does need you, and you must stay here,
bear these petty insults, and do your duty."

He gave Grant no time for argument, compelled him, in a measure, to
stay, cheered him up and kept him in the field until the appointment of
Halleck, as commander-in-chief, left the command in the West vacant,
and Grant again came into power.

Years afterward, at the close of the war, Sherman, returning from
his march through the Carolinas, having just received the surrender
of Joe Johnston, found himself placed in a false light before the
country by this same man Halleck. When he reached Washington City he
was boiling over with rage at the indignity which Halleck had placed
upon him by telegraphing that he had directed his troops to move
without reference to Sherman's truce or orders, and his naturally bad
temper became threateningly violent and uncontrollable. He denounced
Halleck in unmeasured terms, and, had the latter been in Washington, a
personal collision might have occurred. But, before the two could meet,
Grant saw Sherman, and the scene enacted in the tent before Corinth
three years before was re-enacted, save that the parts were changed.
Grant appeared as the peacemaker, and as positively, though in a very
different manner, advised Sherman to ignore Halleck and frown him down.
Sherman was wise enough to take the advice, and the "great marplot"
will make his chief appearance in history as one whom these men could
afford to ignore.

Grant has always been generous to his subordinates. His careful
consideration of the interests of his staff and general officers is
proverbial, while his generous treatment of inefficient officers, whom
he has been compelled to relieve, is well known. In the first action in
which he commanded, the battle of Belmont, his troops at first gained
an advantage over the rebels. They began to plunder the rebel camp in
spite of all that the general could do to stop them. At last Grant, who
knew that Confederate re-enforcements were coming up, got some of his
friends to set fire to the camp, so as to stop the plundering. Then
he got his troops together as well as he could, and retreated; but,
in the mean time, the Confederate re-enforcements came up, attacked,
and defeated him. There were five colonels under Grant who had not
by any means supported him efficiently in his attempts to stop the
plundering and collect his troops. Grant expected to be deprived of
his command on account of the defeat, and one of the colonels, fearful
of the same fate, called to see him about the prospect. He gave him no
satisfaction, but, on the colonel's departure, turned to a friend and
said, "Colonel ---- is afraid I will report his bad conduct."

"Why do you not?" asked his friend; "he and others are to blame for not
carrying out your orders."

"Why," said the generous Grant, "these officers had never been under
fire before; they did not know how serious an affair it was; they have
had a lesson which they will not forget. I will answer for it they
will never make the same mistake again. I can see by the way they
behaved in the subsequent action that they are of the right stuff, and
it is better that I should lose my command, if that must be, than the
country should lose the services of five such officers when good men
are scarce." Grant did not lose his command, and three out of the five
officers afterward greatly distinguished themselves.

The impression prevails to some extent among persons unacquainted with
Grant in the field, the only place where he shows to great advantage,
that he owes all his success to Sherman, Thomas, Sheridan, and his
other chief subordinates. The fact is, the indebtedness is on the part
of the subordinates. Grant owes his reputation to them just as every
schoolmaster owes his to the ability displayed by his scholars; but
the indebtedness of the pupil to the tutor who educates his mind and
directs his talent is not by any means repaid by this reflected credit.
Sherman was a complete failure; he was looked upon, indeed, as a
lunatic, until Grant saw what he was capable of, and directed his great
abilities into the proper channel. Sheridan met with an uninterrupted
series of defeats until Grant singled him out for his cavalry
commander, and then the "belligerent cadet" met with an uninterrupted
series of victories. Wilson stands similarly indebted; and Meade's
greatest successes were obtained under Grant's direction.

It is not only with such men as Sherman, Sheridan, Logan, Howard, and
others, with whom he bears the most intimate relations, but with his
whole army, that Grant is a well-beloved leader. He has gained the
universal admiration of his men by no clap-trap display or familiarity
at the expense of discipline, but by a constant and watchful care for
their interest. It is a boast in the Army of the Tennessee, which Grant
commanded in person for nearly three years, that the men never wanted
for food; Grant's commissary stores were always well filled. He was
always careful to protect his men from the imposition of sutlers and
army speculators, generally by fixing the prices of all articles sold
in his department; and he cut red tape for the benefit of the private
soldier with a remorseless hand.

When sitting for their photographs Grant and Sherman have dispensed
with their cigars, and the consequence is an imperfect picture.
None of the many artists who have painted them in oil have had the
independence to supply the deficiency of the photographs, and add the
cigar, which is a necessary accompaniment of the men, and which must be
an important feature of every pen-picture which will be made of them.
The addition of the cigar would doubtless detract from the dignity of
the picture, but it should be remembered that artists paint as well
for posterity as for the present generation. History will preserve in
its picture of Grant his peculiarities, and, among others, the fact
that he was an inveterate smoker. Why should not the artists preserve
such a peculiarity as this, as well as the outlines of his figure and
expression of his face? Is it any more important for posterity to know
that his eyes were blue than that he smoked incessantly?

Grant is not so tall as Sherman nor so heavy as Thomas. His short
stature would have made it difficult for him to enlist in the British
army. He is but an inch above the minimum standard of officers of our
army, but, being straight and somewhat spare, he has the appearance
of being above medium height. Sheridan and Logan are the only major
generals in our army who are shorter in figure than Grant. His
forehead is high and square. His hair was originally a dark brown,
but at forty-three, his present age, it is fast becoming sprinkled
with iron-gray. His eyes are sharp and expressive, though small,
peering out from under his overarching brow with great brilliancy. His
nose is aquiline. His mouth is small, and he has a habit of closely
compressing his lips. His chin and cheeks are covered with a heavy
beard, which he never shaves, but keeps closely cropped or trimmed.

Though the war in which he has won his reputation is now ended,
the future has still much to do in establishing the position which
Grant has to hold in history. Today he enjoys the confidence of his
countrymen to a degree unknown to military leaders during the war. If
ultimately successful in the end--if he directs his course through
the mazes of the political campaign which has followed hard upon the
close of the war as well as he has his military career, posterity
will delight, and will find little difficulty, in tracing out a
comparison between his character and that of the country's first great
leader. This it is hardly proper for the present age to do; and such
a comparison, if made in detail, would doubtless shock the modesty of
General Grant more than it would the nation's sense of propriety; but
if consistent in character and success to the end, the historian of the
future will not be content to draw simply the comparison which I have
imperfectly outlined, but will liken him to one who in every respect
was greater than the Sherman or Thomas to whom, combined as in one man,
I have compared him. But, whether successful to the end or not, if he
remains, as at present, aloof from politics and far above partisanism,
General Grant, like Washington, will live forever in the memories of
his countrymen as a good and honest man.




CHAPTER IV.

SHERIDAN AS A CAVALRYMAN.


Very few wars of as short duration as was that of the late Southern
rebellion produced as many as three great and original military leaders
of the calibre of Sherman, Thomas, and Grant. The ancients could boast
of but one Alexander, one Cæsar, one Hannibal to an era; modern times
of but one Frederick, one Suwarrow, one Napoleon to an age. It took
half a century of constant and almost universal revolution to produce
Napoleon and his prodigies. Only this country, of all the universe,
can to-day boast of possessing a general universally conceded to be a
great military genius, and it has more than one. The rebellion, which
at its outset boasted of commanding nearly all the military talent of
the country, produced in the end only one really great soldier--Joseph
E. Johnston; all the rest were mediocre--hardly respectable, indeed,
if Stonewall Jackson, who was a fair, though unequal counterpart to
Sherman, be excepted. The loyal cause, which was thought to be weak
in its leadership, produced in the end all the really able statesmen
of the revolution, and, with the two exceptions noted, all the great
military leaders. These latter are not confined to the three whom I
have already sketched. Many of Grant's subordinates developed a genius
for war of no ordinary quality, and won on hard-fought fields fame
and reward as successful leaders. No general was ever seconded by
such numbers of able lieutenants, not even Napoleon; and nearly all
of Grant's chief subordinates won splendid reputations for skill,
energy, and daring, the three attributes of greatness accompanying and
necessary to success. When one looks at the developments of the war in
this respect, he may well accept without question Grant's declaration,
lately made in his usual modest style, that the country could readily
have found another than himself to bring about the end of the war
successfully.

[Illustration: PHILIP HENRY SHERIDAN.]

Philip Henry Sheridan, who is one of the most noted and noteworthy
of these subordinates of Grant, must always be looked upon as one of
the miracles of war, not so much from the result as the manner of his
achievements. If he were neither a great strategist, like Sherman, nor
a great tactician, like Thomas, nor both, like Grant, he would still
be a successful leader. I have endeavored to show in the preceding
chapters that the lieutenant general is, as a military leader, complete
in himself, possessing all the attributes of generalship; while
Sherman, embodying nervous intellectual force, and Thomas, representing
physical power, are constituted by nature, as well as by the choice of
Grant, to be his chief subordinate commanders. Sheridan, in character,
is like neither of the others, but is an original genius, and a leader
not unworthy to rank with Sherman and Thomas, or to hold position as
the third subordinate commander of General Grant. He may be said to be
an Inspiration rather than a General, accomplishing his work as much,
not to say more, by the inspiriting force of his courage and example
as by the rules of war. He supplies to the army the passion and fire
which is smothered in Grant and Thomas, and imperfectly developed in
Sherman. He renders an army invincible more by the impartation to it
of his own courage and fire than by any system of organization, and
appears to accomplish by this imparted enthusiasm all that results
under the leadership of the others from discipline. When the future
historian sums up Sheridan's character, with all the facts yet hidden,
as they must be for some years to come, laid profusely before him, he
will hardly rank Sheridan with those who have carefully and wisely
planned. He belongs rather to that class of our officers who have, by
skillful and bold execution, won the distinctive classification of
"fighting generals." He can not be said to have developed any strategic
genius, and his tactics have been of a strange and rather eccentric
character, but it can not be denied that, in every battle in which he
has been prominently engaged, he has given brilliant examples of his
courage, vigor, and skill as a quick, dashing, and stubborn fighter. He
is pre-eminently a "fighting general." He claims to be nothing else,
and can afford to rest his claim on his deeds during the rebellion.
His entire career in private and public has shown him to be impetuous,
passionate, bold, and stubborn. He was born a belligerent. His natural
element is amid the smoke, his natural position in the front line of
battle. He fights vigorously and roughly, and when the tide of battle
flows and ebbs most doubtingly he holds on most grimly. In private
life his great energy is a little curt, and his fiery temper a little
too quick, but his abruptness and belligerency are too honest and
natural to excite condemnation; while his manner, when not excited or
opposed, is distinguished by great courtesy, modesty, and pleasantry.
In battle the wildest and most impetuous of warriors, in peace he is
the "mildest mannered man" that ever scuttled canal-boats on the James
or crossed sabres with a rebel. He is as impetuous as Sherman and as
persistent as Thomas. He is cool and collected in the minor matters
over which Sherman grows nervous, and fiery and bold in great dangers
in which Sherman grows coolest and calmest. Sherman's energy is that
of the brain, inspired; Sheridan's that of the blood, inflamed. In
history Sheridan will stand forth as a type--a representative leader,
even more boldly, if not more prominently, than Sherman, or Thomas,
or even Grant. His was a specialty--he was great in a peculiar line
of duty, history and romance will unite to make him the type of the
"modern cavalier," and he will enjoy, in some degree, the semi-mythical
existence which all representative men hold in history.

Sheridan is descended from the same class of the north of Ireland
emigrants which produced Andrew Jackson and Andrew Johnson, save that
the parents of the latter were Protestants, while those of Sheridan
were Catholics. Having settled, on their arrival in this country, in a
more populous, thriving, educated, and free district, Ohio, they were
enabled to offer their son better educational advantages than were the
parents of Jackson and Johnson, who had settled in the less civilized
district of North Carolina, and hence young Sheridan became possessed
of a good common-school education in his native place, Perry County,
Ohio, where he was born in 1831. Any number of statements have been
made as to Sheridan's birthplace. Some writers have declared it to be
Boston, while still others have said it was Somerset, Ohio. He was
born, according to his own statement, near the town of Somerset, in
Perry County, Ohio, on the 6th of September in the year named. The
necessities of his family early forced him to manual labor, while
his own inclination led him to study. He was a quick though somewhat
careless student, while his great animal spirits made him early a
rather wild and belligerent youth, fond of a boyish frolic and a trick,
always lively and always generous, sometimes thoughtless in wounding
the feelings of others, but quick to generously heal when in fault.
When quite young, Sheridan was variously employed in his native county
in doing odd "chores," among others that of driving a water-cart
about the streets of Somerset, Ohio, and in sprinkling the dusty
thoroughfares of that old-fashioned town. When about twelve years of
age he entered the employment of a Mr. John Talbot, in Somerset, Ohio.
Talbot was an old gentleman who kept a country store in which was sold
every thing useful and ornamental, embracing dry goods and groceries,
confectionery and hardware, from rat-traps to plows, and from woolen
socks to ready-made overcoats, and Sheridan found himself in a
position to learn a little of every thing--every thing, at least, in
the country grocery line. Mr. Talbot was a man who delighted in being
thought, if not by others, at least by himself, a patron of youth, and
he patronized young Sheridan, and was, as he afterward declared, "a
friend to him when a friend was every thing." When Sheridan grew older
and famous, Talbot still continued to patronize him, and once said,
alluding to his former protégé, that, on taking him into his service,
he "perceived that he was smart and active, and took some pains to
instruct him not only in selling goods, etc., for that," he adds, with
great candor, "was our duty and interest," but when a leisure moment
offered he taught him to improve his "slight knowledge of writing,
arithmetic, pronunciation," etc. Young Sheridan did not remain long
with Mr. Talbot, but gave up his service for that of a gentleman named
Henry Dittoe, in the same trade and in the same town as that of Mr.
Talbot. While still here he attracted the attention of the Hon. Thomas
Ritchey, then member of Congress from the Congressional district in
which Perry County was located, and, owing to the influence of an
elder brother and the favorable impression he made upon Mr. Ritchey,
Sheridan obtained, very unexpectedly to him, the appointment of cadet
to the West Point Military Academy. This was immediately after the
close of the Mexican War, when it was a very difficult matter to obtain
appointments for others than the sons and orphans of officers who had
fallen in the war.

He therefore got into West Point pretty much as Mr. Lincoln used to
say General Rosecrans won battles, "by the skin of his teeth." The
fact is, he got out of the Academy with the honors of graduation in
pretty much the same way. The characteristics which had distinguished
him as a boy in his native town soon made him noted at West Point
as the "best-natured and most belligerent cadet" in the Academy. In
fact, his belligerent disposition retarded his advancement in youth
and as a cadet as much as it has since advanced him. He fought so
much at West Point, was so unruly, and "so full of deviltry," that,
despite his fine scholarly attainments, the future great cavalryman
graduated so low down in his class that he could only be commissioned
in the lowest arm of the service instead of the highest, in which he
has since so distinguished himself. As it was, he was a year longer in
his course than nine tenths of his classmates. He entered in 1848, and
should have graduated in 1852, but went over until the next year. I
have been told that, at this late day, he required only "five points"
more to his number of "black marks" to exclude him from the honors of
graduation; and if he had not, toward the close of the session, by
skillful management and unusual control over his quick temper, won the
good opinion of one or two of his tutors, the future major general
would have been forced to leave the Academy as he had entered it,
instead of having the brevet of second lieutenant of infantry in his
pocket. One of his instructors, who had admired his generous character,
employed the argument that belligerency was not a fault in a soldier,
and this is said to have done much in securing him the needed approval
of the West Point staff of instructors and the honors of graduation.
The argument was too powerful to be resisted by educated soldiers, and
Sheridan was consequently sent forth fully authorized to be as great a
belligerent in time of war as he desired.

Sheridan's class at West Point produced very few remarkable men.
The three ablest of his classmates, McPherson, Sill, and Terrill,
perished during the rebellion. McPherson, who graduated at the head
of the class, was a brilliant student, an admirable engineer, but
never a great leader. The student predominated in his organization,
and he lacked in decision and nerve. He rose very high in rank in
the regular army, but it was owing less to his available talents and
practicability than to the care of Grant and Sherman, with whom he was
a great favorite. Terrill made a fine soldier as an artillerist, and
won well-deserved renown and promotion by his admirable handling of his
battery at Shiloh. He was very ambitious of advancement. I was present
at his death at Perryville. His brigade was pushed by General McCook,
the corps commander, into a forest, in which the enemy surprised
and defeated his troops, who were raw recruits, scattering them in
every direction. Terrill's horse was shot under him, and, being thus
dismounted, and left without a command, he turned--the ruling passion
strong in death--to the artillery, and assumed command of a couple of
batteries fighting in General Rousseau's line. Thus returned to the
arm of the service for which education and inclination adapted him,
he did magnificent service. While thus engaged, and while in the act
of sighting a gun of Bush's Indiana battery, he was mortally wounded,
and died a few hours afterward, with a message to his wife unfinished
on his lips. Joshua W. Sill, who was, perhaps, the superior man of
the class of 1853, fell in a similar manner at Stone River. The enemy
had thrown himself upon Sheridan with great energy, and succeeded in
forcing him to retire. Sill was one of Sheridan's brigade commanders,
and in aiding the general to rally the retiring troops, and in leading
them to a charge, he was shot and instantly killed as the enemy were
temporarily repulsed. Sill was a practical man, of great resources,
energy, and courage, small of stature, and compactly built. He was
beloved and admired in the army for his great courtesy, kindness, and
good sense. There were also in Sheridan's class others who became
generals in the volunteer service during the late rebellion. William
Sooy Smith commanded infantry during the greater part of the war, but
conducted the cavalry expedition from Memphis in 1863, intended to
co-operate with Sherman in Mississippi, but miserably failed. R. O.
Tyler and B. F. Chamberlain were well known for 

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