of whom had long been preparing for the very emer gency which now occurred; armies were organized with extraordinary diligence and energy by the selfstyled Confederate government, and the American civil war began.

From the intestine nature of the struggle and the geographical formation of the continent, the principal theatre of the war, it was evident, must lie in the states bordering on both sections. The belt of ter ritory reaching from the Atlantic westward, and comprising Maryland and Virginia east of the Alleghanies, and Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri west of those mountains, constitutes this border region, and was the stage on which the first acts of the drama were performed. The Potomac and the James, at the east; the Ohio, the Tennessee, the Cumberland, and the Mississippi, at the west, are the great streams, the control of which, and of the populations and regions that lie in their valleys, is indispensable to a mastery of the continent. The Ohio flows westward from Pennsylvania to Missouri, a thousand miles; the prolific States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois lie along its northern bank, while Virginia and Kentucky form the southern shore; it was the natural line of demarcation at the west between the slave states and the free, the boundary between disaffection and loyalty. The Tennessee and Cumberland, rising in the recesses of the Alleghany mountains, flow southward into the state of Tennessee, and then run west for hundreds of miles, the larger river making a wide detour into Alabama and Mississippi; when, turning to the north again, they traverse Kentucky side by side, and empty into the Ohio, near the point where that still greater stream becomes itself a tributary, and pours

the waters of its hundred affluents into the Mississippi. The Mississippi, recipient and greatest of them all, divides the continent for four thousand miles; bounds ten different states, and enriches all the region between the Rocky and the Alleghany mountains.

In these regions, and for the mastery of these rivers and states, the earliest battles of Ulysses S. Grant were fought; from this field, he was taken to command the national armies. It will be my endeavor to show-first, why he was selected to command those armies, and afterwards how he performed the task.

CHAPTER I.

Birth and parentage of Grant-His name-West Point-His army life-The Mexican War-He marries-Leaves the army-Enters the leather tradeGalena-Grant drills a company-Takes it to Springfield-Organizes volunteer troops-Visits Cincinnati to see McClellan-Becomes colonel of the Twentyfirst Illinois regiment-Marches it to Missouri-Is made brigadier-general of volunteers-Takes command of the District of Southeast Missouri-Seizes Paducah-Sends a force to drive rebels into Arkansas-Makes a demonstration upon Belmont-The demonstration converted into an attack-Battle of Belmont-Grant's success-Enemy reënforced-Grant cuts his way outResults of Belmont.

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HIRAM ULYSSES GRANT was born on the 27th of April, 1822, at Point Pleasant, Clermont county, Ohio. His father was of Scotch descent, and a dealer in leather. Ulysses was the eldest of six children. He entered the Military Academy at West Point at age of seventeen, the congressman who procured his appointment giving his name by mistake as Ulysses S. Grant. Simpson was the maiden name of his mother, and was also borne by one of his younger brothers: this doubtless occasioned the error. Young Grant applied to the authorities at West Point and to the Secretary of War, to have the blunder corrected, but the request was unnoticed; his comrades at once adopted the initials U. S. in his behalf, and christened him Uncle Sam, a nickname that he never

lost in the army; and when he graduated in 1843, twenty-first in a class of thirty-nine, his commission of brevet second lieutenant and his diploma, both styled him Ulysses S. Grant, by which name he has since been known.

His regiment was the Fourth infantry; he remained in the army eleven years, was engaged in every battle of the Mexican War, except Buena Vista, receiving two brevets for gallantry, and was afterwards stationed at various posts on the Canada frontier, and finally in California and Oregon. In 1848, he married Julia T. Dent, eldest daughter of Frederick Dent, a merchant of St. Louis; and in 1854, having reached the grade of captain, he resigned his commission in the army, and removed to Gravois, near St. Louis, where he owned and worked a farm. Afterwards, in 1860, he entered the leather trade, with his father and brother, at Galena, Illinois.

Thus, when the civil war broke out, Grant was a private citizen, earning his bread in an insignificant inland town. He was of simple habits and tastes, without influence, and unambitious. Having never been brought in contact with men of eminence, he had no personal knowledge of great affairs. He had never commanded more than a company of soldiers, and although he had served under both Scott and Taylor, it was as a subaltern,* and without any opportunity of intercourse with those commanders. He had never voted for a President but once; he knew no politicians, for his acquaintance was limited

* In 1864, General Scott told me that he thought he recollected a young officer named Grant, who behaved gallantly in the Mexican War; and General Robert E. Lee said to Grant at Appomattox Court-House, that he remembered their having met before. Grant must have been a brevet second lieutenant at the time, and Lee a staff-officer of Scott.

to army officers and Western traders; even in the town where he lived, he had not met the member of Congress who represented the district for nine successive years, and who afterwards became one of his most intimate personal friends. Of his four children, the eldest was eleven years old. He lived in a little house at the top of one of the picturesque hills on which Galena is built, and went daily to the ware house of his father and brother, where leather was sold by the wholesale and retail. He was thirty-nine years of age, before his countrymen became acquainted with his name.

Fort Sumter fell on the 13th of April, 1861, and the President's call for troops was made on the 15th. On the 19th, Grant was drilling a company of volunteers at Galena, and four days afterwards went with it to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. From there, he wrote to the adjutant-general of the army, offering his services to the government, in any capacity in which he could be of use. The letter was not deemed of sufficient importance to preserve: it stated that Grant had received a military education at the public expense, and now that the country was in danger, he thought it his duty to place at the disposal of the authorities, whatever skill or experience he had acquired. He received no reply; but remaining at Springfield, his military knowledge made him of service in the organization of the volunteer troops of the state; and at the end of five weeks, the governor, Honorable Richard Yates, offered him the Twentyfirst regiment of Illinois infantry.

Before receiving his coloneley, Grant went to Cincinnati to visit Major-General McClellan, then in command of Ohio volunteers. The two had known