Happy Birthday, President Grant | Today In Western History
Ulysses S. Grant, Civil War leader, Lincoln’s favorite General, and 18th president of the United States, is born today in 1822 in Point Pleasant, Ohio. The son of a tanner, Grant showed very little
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant,
Union Commander and 18th U. S. President
Grant showed very little enthusiasm for joining his father’s business, so the elder Grant enrolled his son at West Point in 1839. Though Grant later admitted in his memoirs he had no interest in the military apart from honing his equestrian skills, he graduated in 1843 and went on to serve in the Mexican-American War, though he opposed it on moral grounds. He then left his beloved wife and children again to fulfill a tour of duty in California and Oregon. The loneliness and sheer boredom of duty in the West drove Grant to binge drinking. By 1854, Grant’s alcohol consumption so alarmed his superiors that he was asked to resign from the army. He did, and returned to Ohio to try his hand at farming and land speculation. Although he kicked the alcohol habit, he failed miserably at both vocations and was forced to take a job as a clerk in his father’s tanning business.
If it were not for the Civil War, Grant might have slipped quickly into obscurity. Instead, he re-enlisted in the army in 1861 and embarked on a stellar military career, although his tendency to binge-drink re-emerged and he developed another unhealthy habit: chain cigar-smoking. He struggled throughout the Civil War to control the addictions. In 1862, he led troops in the captures of Forts Henry and Donelson in Tennessee, and forced the Confederate Army to retreat back into Mississippi after the Battle of Shiloh. (After the Donelson campaign, Grant received over 10,000 boxes of congratulatory cigars from a grateful citizenry.)
In 1863, after leading a Union Army to victory at Vicksburg, Grant caught President Lincoln’s attention. The Union Army had suffered greatly under the service of a series
Abraham Lincoln,
16th United States President
of incompetent generals and Lincoln was in the market for a new Union supreme commander. A story about Lincoln and Grant, long told and possibly true, says that a committee of Congressmen, spurred on by other general jealous of Grant’s military success and rapid climb up the ranks, as well as his popularity, met with President Lincoln to complain of Grant’s drinking habits. Unknown to them, Lincoln was already aware of the stories and had sent out his own man to find out if the stories were true. The report had come back to Lincoln that it was nothing but jealousy and to ignore the reports and leave Grant alone. Lincoln heard them out and when they were done, his reply was famously quoted as “Gentlemen, find out what brand of whiskey General Grant drinks and send a barrel to each of my other generals. I can’t spare this man, he fights.”
In March 1864, Lincoln revived the rank of lieutenant general—a rank that had previously been held only by George Washington in 1798–and gave it to Grant. As supreme commander of Union forces, Grant led a series of epic and bloody battles against the wily Confederate General Robert E. Lee. It all came to an end, however, on April 9, 1865, when Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. The victory solidified Grant’s status as national hero and, in 1868, he was elected to the first of two terms as president.
Grant’s talent as a political leader paled woefully in comparison to his military prowess. He was unable to stem the rampant corruption of his administration and failed to combat a severe economic depression in 1873. There were bright spots in Grant’s tenure, however, including the passage of the Enforcement Act in 1870, which temp-orarily curtailed the political influence of the Ku Klux Klan in the post-Civil War South, and the 1875 Civil Rights Act, which attempted to desegregate public places such as restrooms, inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other places of public amusement. In addition, Grant helped heal U.S. and British diplomatic relations, despite the fact that Britain had offered to supply the Confederate Army with the tools to break the Union naval blockade during the Civil War. He also managed to stay sober during his two terms in office.
Upon leaving office, Grant’s fortunes again declined. He and his wife Julia traveled to Europe between 1877 and 1879 amid great fanfare, but the couple came home to bankruptcy caused by Grant’s unwise investment in a scandal-prone banking firm. Grant spent the last few years of his life writing a detailed account of the Civil War, urged on by his good friend, Mark Twain. He held off death by sheer will until he deemed them completed and then died of throat cancer the same day, in 1885. Julia managed to scrape by on the royalties earned from his memoirs and a pension given her by Congress as the widow of a President.
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Jim Beckwourth Is Born Today | Today In Western History
James Beckwourth, one of only a handful of early mountain men to emerge from the degrading system of slavery, is born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, today in 1798.
James Beckwourth, born a slave, he became a Mountain man and Explorer
The exact year of Beckwourth’s birth is in dispute. Some historians suggest it may have been 1800 rather than 1798. The uncertainty arises both from Beckwourth’s notorious reputation for exaggerating and rewriting his own history, as well as the humble circumstances of his birth. The child of a white plantation owner and a black woman who was probably his slave, Beckwourth was born into a society that paid little notice to children born of black mothers.
During his childhood, Beckwourth may have been a slave. However, by the time he reached adulthood in St. Louis, Missouri, his master had apparently set him free and he was regarded as a free black man. In 1824, he joined William Ashley’s third and most arduous fur-trapping expedition to the Rocky Mountains.
Ashley and Andrew Henry decided to form the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. On 13th February, 1822, they placed an advertisement in the Missouri Gazette and Public Adviser where he called for 100 enterprising men to “ascend the river Missouri” to take part in the fur collecting business. Those who agreed to join the party included Jim Beckwourth, James Bridger, Tom Fitzpatrick, William Sublette, David Jackson, Hugh Glass, Jedediah Smith, James Clyman and Edward Rose.
Beckwourth received a crash course in the dangers of mountain life, just barely managing to avoid death by freezing, starvation, and Indian attacks. Despite the obvious and many dangers to life and limb, Beckwourth enjoyed being a mountain man, and he spent the next several years as a free trapper. Trapping in the Powder River country of Wyoming, Beckwourth began to forge a close alliance with the Crow Indians. Sometime between 1826-1828, he abandoned American society altogether and joined the Crow people. The Crow had long been friendly with trappers, and they apparently wel-comed Beckwourth into their society. Beckwourth learned the Crow language, customs, and ways of living, and he married at least two Crow women and fathered several children. Beckwourth later claimed that he became a powerful chief among the Crow, though historians have questioned whether this was another of his exaggerations.
In the mid-1830s, Beckwourth left his adopted home with the Crow and joined the Missouri volunteer military force as a scout. He saw action in the Seminole War in Florida, fighting under General Zachary Taylor. Beckwourth left the army in 1840 and spent the next decade wandering around the West, occasionally making some quick cash by stealing horses. Eventually settling near Denver, Colorado, Beckwourth continued to work periodically as a civilian scout for military parties. In this capacity, Beckwourth had a role in the infamous Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, but how much Beckwourth knew about or participated in that inexcusable massacre of Indians is still disputed.
Not long after the Sand Creek Massacre, Beckwourth again abandoned Anglo-American society and returned to the Crow tribe. As with his birth, the details of Beckwourth’s death are uncertain. Some accounts say he died in 1866 among his adopted people, and they laid him to rest in Crow fashion on a tree platform; others indicate he may have died near Denver in 1867.
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General Steele Is Forced Back | Today In Western History
Today in 1864, for the second time in a week, a Confederate force captures a Union wagon train trying to supply the Federal force at Camden, Arkansas. This time, the loss of his supply train forced Union General Frederick Steele to withdraw back to Little Rock.
Frederick Steele,
Union Major General
Steele captured Camden on April 15 as he moved southwest towards Shreveport, Louisiana. This was just part of a larger Union operation in the region, designed to push the Confederates back. General Nathaniel Banks had already moved up the Red River into northwest Louisiana on a planned invasion of Texas, but he was turned back at the Battle of Mansfield in Louisiana on April 8. Steele was ordered to pinch the Confederate forces around Shreveport with a move from central Arkansas. After taking Camden, Steele sent 1,100 men west to capture a store of corn. That force was badly defeated by a Confederate detachment at the Battle of Poison Spring in Arkansas on April 18. Now, with provisions dwindling, Steele sent another wagon train northeast from Camden towards Pine Bluff to fetch supplies.
Lieutenant Colonel Francis Drake and 1,700 Union troops accompanied the 240 wagons that left Camden on April 22. Three hundred runaway slaves traveled along as well. Three days later, Confederate troops under General James Fagan pounced on Drake’s command near Marks’ Mills. They came in from two sides, and Drake was wounded and
James Fleming Fagan,
Confederate Colonel
captured early in the battle along with 1,400 of his troops. The Confederates lost 41 killed and 108 wounded, but they captured the entire wagon train. The Rebels followed up their victory much as they had at Poison Spring on April 18, where they massacred captured black soldiers. At Marks’ Mills, at least half of the runaways were killed in cold blood. Even one of the Confederate officers admitted in his report that “No orders, threat, or commands could restrain the men from vengeance on the Negroes…”
Steele’s army was now in dangerous territory. With Confederate forces lurking all around Camden and with supplies running low, Steele retreated to Little Rock, leaving southern Arkansas under Rebel control. Drake survived his wounds and later became governor of Iowa. Drake University in Des Moines now bears his name.
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Jefferson Davis Runs Away | Today In Western History
Confederate President Jefferson Davis writes to his wife, Varina, of the desperate situating facing the Confederates, today in 1865. Things were falling apart very fast for the
Jefferson Davis, First and Only President of the Confederacy
Confederacy. ”Panic has seized the country,” he wrote to his wife in Georgia. Davis was in Charlotte, North Carolina, on his flight away from Yankee troops. It was three weeks since Davis had fled the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, as Union troops were overrunning the trenches nearby. Davis and his government headed west to Danville, Virginia, in hopes of reestablishing offices there. When Confederate General Robert E. Lee was forced to surrender his army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, on April 9, Davis and his officials had traveled south in hopes of connecting with the last major Confederate army, the force of General Joseph Johnston. Johnston, then in North Carolina, was himself in dire straits, as General William T. Sherman’s massive force was bearing down on him.
Davis continued to write in his letter to his wife, “The issue is one which it is very painful for me to meet. On one hand is the long night of oppression which will follow the return of our people to the ‘Union; on the other, the suffering of the women and children, and carnage among the few brave patriots who would still oppose the invader.”
The Davis’ were reunited a few days later as the president continued to flee and continue the fight for Southern independence, but it was just not to be. Two weeks later, Union troops finally captured the Confederate president in northern Georgia. Davis was charged with treason, and put in prison in a casemate at Fortress Monroe, on the coast of Virginia, on May 19, 1865. He was placed in irons for three days. Davis was indicted for treason a year later. but he was never tried. After two years of im-prisonment, Davis was released on bail of $100,000 (which would be $1,617,938.43 in 2012), which was posted by prominent citizens of both Northern and Southern states, including Horace Greeley, Cornelius Vanderbilt and Gerrit Smith. Jefferson Davis’s middle name was Finis, and fittingly enough, when he died at age 81 in 1889, the Confederacy died with him,
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Grierson’s Raid | Today In Western History
Today in 1863, Colonel Benjamin Grierson’s Union troops bring destruction to Central Mississippi as part of a two-week raid along the entire length of the state. This action
Benjamin Grierson,
Union Colonel
was a diversion in General Ulysses S. Grant‘s campaign to capture Vicksburg, Mississippi, the last remaining Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River. Grant had his army on the western shore of the river, but he was planning to cross the mighty river south of Vicksburg, and move against Vicksburg from the west. Grierson’s orders were to destroy enemy supplies, telegraph lines, and railroads in Mississippi.
Grierson crafted a brilliant campaign. He left La Grange, Tennessee, on April 17 with 1,700 cavalry troopers and began traveling down the eastern side of the state. Whenever Confederate cavalry approached, Grierson sent out a diversionary force to draw them away. The diversionary units then rode back to La Grange, while the main force continued south. On April 22, he dispatched Company B of the 7th Illinois regiment to destroy telegraph lines at Macon, Mississippi, while Grierson rode to Newton Station. From here, Grierson could inflict damage on the Southern Mississippi Railroad, the one specific target identified by Grant. On April 24, his men tore up the tracks and destroyed two trainloads of ammunition bound for Vicksburg.
On May 2, Grierson and his men rode into Union occupied Baton Rouge, Louisiana, ending one of the most spectacular raids of the war. The Yankees killed about 100 Con-federates, took 500 prisoners, destroyed 50 miles of rail line, and destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars of supplies and property. Grierson lost just 3 men killed, 7 wounded, 14 missing. More important, the raiders drew the attention of Confederate troops in Mississippi and weakened the forces at Vicksburg and Port Hudson, Louisiana. Both strongholds fell to the Union in July 1863. For his efforts, Grierson was promoted to brigadier general.
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Streight Runs Into Forrest | Today In Western History
Today in 1863 Union Colonel Abel Streight begins a raid into northern Alabama and Georgia with the goal of cutting the Western and Atlantic Railroad between Chattanooga,
Abel D. Streight,
Union Army Colonel
Tennessee and Atlanta. The plan called for Streight and General Grenville Dodge to move from central Tennessee into north-western Alabama. Dodge would lead a diver-
Grenville Dodge,
Union General
sionary attack on Tuscumbia, Alabama, while Streight would take nearly 2,000 troopers across northern Alabama and into Georgia. Streight outfitted his men with mules instead of horses, as he felt they were better adapted to the rugged terrain of the southern Appalachians. The fact that mules were nowhere near as fast or compliant as horses would have been seemed to escape his thinking. The expedition ran into trouble almost immediately when the mules arrived at Nashville in poor condition. A Confederate cavalry detachment swooped in and caused the mules to stampede, and it took two days to round them up.
The first part of the expedition went well. Dodge captured Tuscumbia, and Streight continued east toward Georgia. But on April 29, Streight’s command was attacked by part of General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s cavalry. Streight’s men set a trap for the pursuing Rebels and it worked well for the Union soldiers. The Confederate cavalry detachment,
Nathan Bedford Forrest,
Confederate Cavalry General
led by Captain William Forrest, brother of Nathan Bedford, quickly found itself under fire from two sides. William Forrest was wounded, and the Federals continued on their mission. But now time was running out faster than Colonel Streight’s mules could move. General Nathan Bedford Forrest was on Steight’s trail, and he would not let up because the wounding of his brother had made it personal. The Yankees were operating in hostile territory and several times the Rebels received vital assistance and information from local residents that allowed them to gain the upper hand. Finally, Forrest confronted the exhausted Union troops. Under a flag of truce, they discussed terms of surrender on May 3. Forrest had just 600 men, less than half of what Streight now had under his command, but Forrest was a master strategist, and he had spread his men around the woods. As he met with Streight, couriers from nonexistent units rode up with reports. Streight took the bait, and agreed to surrender. When the Confederates finally emerged to gather the Yankee’s weaponry, the Union colonel realized that he had been fully taken in by the crafty Forrest.
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Robert E. Lee Leaves The Army | Today In Western History
Today in 1861, Colonel Robert E. Lee resigns from the United States Army just two days after he was offered command of the Union army and three days after his native
Robert E. Lee,
Confederate General
state, Virginia, seceded from the Union. This will be the Union’s biggest loss in terms of commanders, and there will be no one to challenge his skill and genius until a former Army captain returns to the Army, after several years of failure in civilian life.
Lee opposed secession, but he was first and foremost loyal son of Virginia. His official resignation was only one sentence, but he wrote a longer explanation to his friend and mentor, General Winfield Scott, later that day. Lee had fought under Scott during the Mexican War (1846-48), and he revealed to his former commander the depth of his struggle. Lee spoke with Scott on April 18, and explained that he would have resigned then “but for the struggle it has cost me to separate myself from a service to which I have devoted the best years of my life and all the ability I possess.” Lee expressed gratitude for the kindness shown him by all in the army during his 25-year service, but Lee was most grateful to Scott. “To no one, general, have I been as much indebted as to yourself for uniform kindness and consideration…” He concluded with this poignant sentiment: “Save in the defense of my native State, I never desire again to draw my sword.”
But fate decreed that draw it he would. Two days later, Lee was appointed commander of Virginia’s forces with the rank of major general. He spent the next few months raising troops in Virginia, and in July he was sent to western Virginia to advise Confederate commanders struggling to maintain control over the mountainous region. Lee did little to build his reputation there as the Confederates experienced a series of setbacks, and he returned to Richmond when the Union gained control of the area. The next year, Lee assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia after General Joseph Johnston was wounded in battle. Lee quickly turned the tables on Union General George B. McClellan, as he would several other commanders of the Army of the Potomac. His brilliance as a battlefield tactician earned him a place among the great military leaders of all time.
Lee was able to outmaneuver or outwit every general who was forced to face him through the war. Every general but one, that is. His name was Hiram. Although Hiram had a bad reputation that was mostly undeserved and exaggerated. Hiram rose to prominence based upon his personal philosophy. That philosophy was forged in his time in the Mexican War, when he discovered that his fear of battle was matched by his opponent’s and he never forgot this vital lesson. It was later said that Hiram, when he rose to the top, was the ONLY commander that Lee had any real trepidation about, because he didn’t back up and wasn’t scared or bluffed into retreating, he just kept coming on. Hiram wasn’t known by his real name, due to an error back when he entered West Point. He was known to the world as Ulysses S. Grant.
Ulysses S. Grant,
Lt. General, Union Army
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