CHAPTER X. Grant recommends Sherman and McPherson for promotion-Characteristics of American soldiers-Army of the Tennessee-Organization of negro troops— Trade with the conquered regions-Grant urges movement against MobileHalleck disapproves-Grant's army broken up-Condition of troops-Feeling of citizens—Thirteenth corps sent to Banks-Grant visits New Orleans— Thrown from his horse-Reënforcements ordered to Rosecrans-A corps sent to Rosecrans-Grant ordered to Cairo-Meets the Secretary of War-Proceeds to Louisville-Placed in command of Military Division of the Mississippi. fit IMMEDIATELY after the second capture of Jackson, Grant recommended both Sherman and McPherson for the rank of brigadier-general in the regular army.* "The first reason for this," he said, "is their great ness for any command that it may ever become necessary to intrust to them. Second: their great purity of character, and disinterestedness in any thing except the faithful performance of their duty and the success of every one engaged in the great battle for the preservation of the Union. Third: they have honorably * During the entire war, the regular and volunteer armies of the United States remained distinct organizations, many officers holding commissions in both services. Promotion in the regular army was more prized by professional soldiers, because it was permanent, while the volunteer organization, it was known, would cease with the war. won this distinction upon many well-fought battlefields. The promotion of such men as Sherman and McPherson always adds strength to our army." These promotions were promptly made. Grant also recommended other officers for advancement, both in the regular army and in the volunteers. The general-inchief was favorable, and most of the recommendations were approved. The government, indeed, seemed anxious to fully reward all who had been conspicuous in the great campaigns which resulted in opening the Mississippi river. This approbation was not confined to corps commanders, nor to officers who were graduates of the Military Academy. There were only seven general officers in the army of the Tennessee who had studied their profession at West Point; * all the others had entered the volunteer service without the advantage of a military education, or the spur of a lifetime ambition; they went to war, as the soldiers of the whole army did, because the country was in danger. These men studied hard in the school of experience; Belmont, Donelson, Shiloh, Corinth, and Iuka were their instructors; their lessons were learned under the eyes of Grant and Sherman and McPherson: and, at the fall of Vicksburg, the commanders of divisions and brigades, whether on the march or the battle-field, in siege operations or in garrison, were equal to the emergency. Their practical knowledge of a commander's duties was gained; their energy, promptness, subordination, and gallantry were qualities * Besides Grant, Sherman, and McPherson, these were Ord, who commanded the Thirteenth corps after the 26th of June, and Steele, Carr, and A. J. Smith, commanding divisions; all of whom distinguished themselves, and did good service to the country without which, neither their own advancement, nor the continued and brilliant successes of the army to which they belonged, could ever have been attained. The same spirit that animated them extended to regimental officers, and even to private soldiers. The rank and file, especially, were not fighting for fame. They knew that most of them could have no chance for promotion. Although, here and there, those who distinguished themselves might rise, and did rise, yet, doubtless, gallant deeds were constantly done that never found a chronicler; doubtless, undeveloped talent lay hidden, during all these campaigns, under many a private's coat; doubtless, glory was often won, and the costly price not paid. This the soldiers knew had been, and felt must be again; yet they fought, and marched, and worked, and died, as wil lingly as those to whom the great prizes were the incentives. They did this, not only under the stimu lating enthusiasm which drove them to the field in the first days of the war, but in the weary months of that long spring of 1863, under the piercing blasts and pelting storms of Donelson, and in the scorching heats and sickening atmosphere of Vicksburg. Without the excitement of danger, as well as in the very presence of quick-coming death, they persisted in doing all that was necessary to accomplish the end they set out to gain. war. Nor was this simply what every soldier does in It is not national partiality which declares that the combination of traits that made this army what it was, and enabled it to do what it did, was essentially American. The mingling of sturdy inde pendence with individual intelligence, of patriotic feeling with practical talent was American. These men were not more gallant, nor more devoted than the misguided countrymen they fought; nor do I believe that their courage or endurance was greater than has often been displayed on European fields. But it is seldom in the history of war that a race has sprung to arms like that which won the battles of the Union. Not, indeed, a highly-cultivated people, but one in whom general education was more widely diffused than in any that ever fought. It was the appreciation each man had of the objects of the war, and his determination to accomplish them; his intelligent love for the Union, inspiring an adventurous manliness often acquired in the Western woods and on the Indian frontier, and combined with the American practicalness-itself often the result of a frontier life-that produced the American soldier. That soldier had a devotion and a gallantry which equalled any displayed on the most famous fields in war; but to these were added a peculiar faculty of applying his intelligence to the every-day means and the ordinary events of a campaign or a siege, enabling him to persevere amid extraordinary difficulties as well as dangers, and, when one means failed to try another, and, when all means seemed lacking, to create means himself, and with these to achieve vic tory. This quality was conspicuous in the men who conquered Vicksburg. This made soldiers and officers, and division generals and corps commanders all act as one, all coöperate with their chief, hold up his hands, carry out his plans, act, indeed, as the body of which he was the head; he, the brain to conceive and the will to direct, while they were the means, the limbs and nerves and muscles, to execute. For Grant himself shared this same combination of traits. His military character was thoroughly the result of American life and American institutions. The same devotion to an idea, which was manifest, not in words nor in enthusiastic expression, but in the deeds of every day; the same intensity of pur pose, that was betrayed more in achievement, even than in effort; the practical determination, the selfreliance, rather than self-assertion; the heating of the iron white-hot, rather than red-to blaze not, but to burn more; all these traits he shared with the soldiers whom he led to victory. He was a fitting chief for the Army of the Tennessee. His child, almost his creation-bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, growing with his growth and strengthening with his strength, sharing his trials, and dangers, and difficulties, and victories; his spirit had infused it, in return its successes had inspired him, and urged him on to greater effort and more complete fulfilment. He was to leave that army soon, to assume more difficult positions, to direct grander operations, but he never forgot his old associates. For he still commanded them, though further off; he directed whither they should march, and where they should conquer, as long as they were an army. And amid all the varied chances and splendid successes that afterwards befell that army, he watched its career with a solicitude that was prompted by the early trials and triumphs they had shared together. On the 1st of January, 1863, the President had issued his proclamation declaring the slaves in the rebellious states, with some few exceptions, "thenceforward, forever free." Emancipation, however, had practically begun with the war: wherever the na |