Today in 1800, the man credited with providing the spark that lit the powder keg known as the Civil War was born in Torrington, Connecticut. The fourth of the eight children, John was born to Owen and Ruth, and he could trace his ancestry all the way back to 17th-century English Puritans. The family moved west to Hudson, Ohio, in 1805, where Owen opened a tannery. Owen soon hired an apprentice, Jesse R. Grant, father of future general and U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant.
Ulysses S. Grant, Civil War hero and 18th President of the United States
Owen became a supporter of the Oberlin Institute (the original name of Oberlin College) in its early stage, although he was ultimately critical of the school’s “Perfectionist” leanings, especially renowned in the preaching and teaching of Charles Finney and Asa Mahan. John withdrew his membership from the Congregational church in the 1840s and he never officially joined another church, but both he and his father Owen were fairly conventional evangelicals for the period with its focus on the pursuit of personal righteousness. John’s personal religion is fairly well documented in the papers of the Rev Clarence Gee, a family expert, now held in the Hudson [Ohio] Library and Historical Society.
John led a relatively quiet life until he heard about the murder of Elijah P. Lovejoy, in 1837. In response to the murder, John publicly vowed: “Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, from this time, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery! From 1846 to 1850, when he left Springfield, John was a regular parishioner at the Free Church, where he attended frequent abolitionist lectures by the noted
and celebrated abolitionists Sojourner Truth and the dynamic Frederick Douglass. In 1847, after speaking at the “Free Church”, Frederick Douglass spent a night speaking with John, after which he wrote, “From this night spent with John in Springfield, Mass. 1847 while I continued to write and speak against slavery, I became all the same less hopeful for its peaceful abolition. My utterances became more and more tinged by the color of this man’s strong impressions.”
Frederick Douglass, born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey. He was born a slave, but became an Abolitionist, Suffragist, Author, Editor, and Diplomat
Over the next twelve years, all of America came to know John, although not all of America was happy to know him. In particular, the citizens of Pottawatomie, Kansas were not pleased to see him. Nor were the citizens of Harpers Ferry, Virginia, a few years later. Here John had
Robert E. Lee, General CSA, Hero of the Confederacy
the opportunity to meet two future Southern heroes, Col. Robert Edward Lee and Lt. James Ewell Brown Stuart, known to his friends as Jeb, when they came to arrest him for his failed insurrection.
James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart, CSA General
John was hung for this, and his death sparked the War Between the States, and an anthem to victory for one side. Blow out the candles for John “Potowatamie” Brown.
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Hiram Ulysses Grant, but more commonly known as Ulysses S. Grant, Civil War leader and 18th president of the United States, is born on this day in 1822.
Ulysses H. Grant, Civil War Hero and 18th President
The son of a tanner, Grant showed little enthusiasm for joining his father’s business, so the elder Grant enrolled his son at West Point in 1839. It was in the process of joining West Point that his name was changed by accident, and he never bothered to correct it. 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, at the encouragement of one of his friends, a hot tempered red-haired fighter named William Tecumseh Sherman, he re-en-listed in the
US General, William Tecumseh Sherman, Civil War hero and the scourge of Georgia
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 under the service of a series of incompetent generals and Lincoln was in the market for a new Union supreme commander. 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.
Robert E. Lee, General CSA, Hero of the Confederacy
It all came to an end, however, on April 9, 1865, when Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. As a side note, Lee would never tolerate anyone saying anything negative about Grant after this because of the magnanimity of his surrender terms. 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 un-able 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 temporarily 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 be-tween 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.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, also known as Mark Twain, humorist and author
He held off death by sheer will, the same sheer will that drove him to success in the war, 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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John Wilkes Booth, assassin of President Abraham Lincoln
Twenty-six-year-old Booth was one of the most famous actors in the country when he shot Lincoln during a performance at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C., on the night of April 14. Booth was a Maryland native and a strong supporter of the Confederacy. As the war entered its final stages, Booth hatched a conspiracy to kidnap the president. He enlisted the aid of several associates, but the opportunity never presented itself.
Robert E. Lee, General CSA, Hero of the Confederacy
Booth changed the plan to a simultaneous assassination of Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson,
Andrew Johnson, 17th President, alcoholic Reconstructionist and fanatical anti-southerner
and Secretary of State William Seward. Only Lincoln was actually killed, however.
William Henry Seward, Secretary of State under President Lincoln
Seward was stabbed by Lewis Paine but miraculously, he survived with multiple injuries and damage, while the man assigned to kill Johnson did not carry out his assignment.
Lewis Paine (Payne), co-conspirator in Lincoln assassination, he targeted Seward
After shooting Lincoln, Booth jumped to the stage below Lincoln’s box seat. He landed hard, breaking his leg, before escaping to a waiting horse behind the theater. Many in the audience recognized Booth, so the army was soon hot on his trail.
Booth and his accomplice, David Herold, made their way across the Anacostia River and headed toward southern
David Herold (after arrest): co-conspirator in Lincoln assassination, he took Payne to Seward’s house
Maryland. The pair stopped at Dr. Samuel Mudd‘s home, and Mudd treated Booth’s leg. This earned Mudd a life sentence in prison when he was implicated as part of the conspiracy, but the sentence was later commuted.
Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, physician and accused accomplice to John Wilkes Booth
It also led to Dr. Mudd’s name going down in history as the originator of the phrase, “your name is mud” to denote someone as a scapegoat.nd refuge for several days at the home of Thomas A. Jones, a Confederate agent, before securing a boat to row across the Potomac to Virginia.
Booth found refuge for several days at the home of Thomas A. Jones, a Confederate agent, before securing a boat to row across the Potomac to Virginia. After receiving aid from several Confederate sympathizers, Booth’s luck finally ran out. The countryside was swarming with military units looking for Booth, although few shared information since there was a $20,000 reward. While staying at the farm of Richard Garrett, Federal troops arrived on their search but soon rode on. The unsuspecting Garrett allowed his suspicious guests to sleep in his barn, but he instructed his son to lock the barn from the outside to prevent the strangers from stealing his horses. A tip led the Union soldiers back to the Garrett farm, where they discovered Booth and Herold in the barn. Herold came out, but Booth refused. The building was set on fire to flush Booth, but he was reportedly shot by trooper Thomas P. “Boston” Corbett while still inside.
Boston Corbett, the soldier who is said to have shot John Wilkes Booth through the slats of a burning barn.
He lived for three hours before gazing at his hands, muttering “Useless, useless,” as he died.
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Today in 1861, Colonel Robert E. Lee resigns from the United States Army two days after he was offered command of the Union army and three days after his native state, Virginia, seceded from the Union. This will be the Union’s biggest loss in terms of commanders,
Robert E. Lee, General CSA, Hero of the Confederacy
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 a 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),
General Winfield Scott, Union Army commander
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 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
Joseph E. Johnston, General CSAUnion General George B. McClellan
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 by his jealous colleagues, 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. Although he struggled with his studies, he was a master horseman. He had a superb level of concentration, and when he was at his desk writing, if he had to get up to get a paper, he maintained his seated posture all the way to the document and back to his chair, where he would continue writing as if he had never gotten up. It was later said that Hiram, when he rose to the top of the ladder, was the ONLY commander that Lee had any real trepidation about, because he knew that Hiram 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 called Sam by his friends, but the name the world knew him by was Ulysses S. Grant.
Lt. General Ulysses Grant, Union Army
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April 14: This is going to be a special presentation today, because there were two disasters that I have always been fascinated by that took place on this day in history. I have been trying to make up my mind which one to highlight since the first of the year, and now it is today and I still can’t decide. So, I decided to present both of them.
On this day in 1865, John Wilkes Booth, an actor and fantatical Confederate sympathizer, fatally shoots President Abraham Lincoln at a play
John WIlkes Booth, assassin of President Abraham Lincoln
at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. The attack came only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War.
John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in the back of the head while the president, first lady Mary Todd Lincoln and another couple were attending
Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of President Abraham Lincoln
Laura Keene’s acclaimed performance in Our American Cousin at a performance at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. the night before.
Laura Keene, actress and unwilling witness to the assassination of President Lincoln
General Ulysses Grant and his wife, Julia Dent Grant had been invited first, but Julia Grant did not like Mrs. Lincoln and told her husband they were going instead to visit their children in Vermont. This decision very likely saved Grant’s life. Lincoln didn’t press the issue, because he knew Mary was very jealous of the attention Mrs. Grant would show him. Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancée Clara Harris,the daughter of
Major Henry Rathbone, another unwilling witness to the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln
New York Senator Ira Harris were subsequently asked and they accepted the fateful invitation. The tragedy didn’t stop there for Major Harris. He could never shake off the guilt he felt for failing to protect the President, and eighteen years later, he ended up killing his wife and trying to stab himself several times, and he died in a hospital for the criminally insane.
Booth, a Maryland native born in 1838, who remained in the North during the war despite his Con-federate sympathies, had initially plotted only to capture President Lincoln and smuggle him into Richmond, the Confederate capital, to trade for peace and the victory. However, on March 20, 1865, the day of the planned kidnapping, the president failed to appear at the spot where Booth and his six fellow conspirators lay in wait. Two weeks later, Richmond fell to Union forces. In April, with Con-federate armies near collapse across the South, Booth hatched a desperate plan to save the Confed-eracy. Learning that Lincoln was to attend Laura Keene’s acclaimed performance in “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theater on April 14, Booth masterminded the simultaneous assassination of Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson and
Andrew Johnson, 17th President, successor by assassination.
Secretary of State William H. Seward. By murdering the president and two of his possible successors, Booth and his conspirators hoped to
William Henry Seward, Secretary of State under President Lincoln
throw the U.S. government into disarray and avenge the South’s loss of the war. On the evening of April 14, conspirator Lewis T. Powell
Lewis Thornton Powell (April 22, 1844 – July 7, 1865), also known as Lewis Payne and Lewis Paine,
broke into Secretary of State Seward’s home, seriously wounding him, his son and three others, while George A. Atzerodt, assigned to Vice President Johnson, lost his nerve and fled. Meanwhile, just after 10 pm., Booth entered Lincoln’s private theater box unnoticed and shot the
George Atzerodt, lost his nerve and failed to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson
president with a single bullet in the back of his head. Slashing at Major Rathbone’s arm, Booth leapt to the stage and shouted “Sic semper tyrannis! [Thus always to tyrants]–the South is avenged!” Although Booth broke his leg jumping from Lincoln’s box, he managed to escape Washington on horseback.
Booth, was pursued by the army and secret service forces, until he was finally cornered in a barn near Bowling Green, Virginia, and died from a possibly self-inflicted bullet wound as the barn was burned to the ground. Another story, and the one more commonly believed, is that he was killed by a soldier, Boston Corbett, who shot Booth through the openings between the slats in the burning tobacco barn.
Boston Corbett, the soldier who is said to have shot John Wilkes Booth through the slats of a burning barn.
Of the eight other persons eventually charged with the conspiracy, four were jailed (including the doctor who set Booth’s leg, broken in his jump to the stage, Samuel Mudd, who later added his name to
Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, physician and accused accomplice to John Wilkes Booth
popular lexicon as a synonym for losing popular support) and four were hanged, including a woman and the mother of one of the co-conspirators, Mary Surrat. There was nothing but circumstantial evidence against her, because her son had been involved with Booth.
The president, mortally wounded, was carried to a lodging house opposite Ford’s Theater. About 7:22 a.m. the next morning, Lincoln, age 56, died–the first U.S. president to be assassinated. Lincoln, the 16th U.S. president, was buried on May 4, 1865, in Springfield, Illinois.
Just before midnight in the North Atlantic, the RMS Titanic fails to divert its course from an iceberg, ruptures its hull, and begins to sink. The lookout hadn’t see the iceberg, despite the warnings, because he had no binoculars – the officer on duty before him had taken them with him. The wind was very still, so the water didn’t show up against the iceberg. He didn’t see it until they were almost on top of it, and a ship as big as the Titanic took a lot of time to make a turn.
Four days earlier, the Titanic, one of the largest and most luxurious ocean liners ever built, departed Southampton, England, on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. While leaving port, the massive ship came within a couple of feet of the steamer New York but passed safely by, causing a general sigh of relief from the passengers massed on the ship’s decks.
The Titanic was designed by the Thomas Andrews, and built in the great Harland and Wolf docks. It spanned 883 feet from stern to bow. Its hull was divided into 16 compartments that were presumed to be watertight. Because four of these compartments could be flooded without causing a critical loss of buoyancy, the Titanic was considered unsinkable. The bulkhead doors did not go all the way to the top, because to do that, it would have cut into the deck space of the first class passengers. On its first journey across the highly competitive Atlantic ferry route, the ship carried some 2,200 passengers and crew.
After stopping at Cherbourg, France, and Queenstown, Ireland, to pick up some final passengers, the massive vessel set out at full speed for New York City. However, just before midnight on April 14, the ship hit an iceberg, and five of the Titanic‘s compartments were ruptured along its starboard side. At about 2:20 a.m. on the morning of April 15, the massive vessel sank into the North Atlantic.
Because of a shortage of lifeboats and the lack of satisfactory emergency procedures, more than 1,500 people went down in the sinking ship or froze to death in the icy North Atlantic waters. Most of the approximately 700 survivors were women and children. A number of notable American and British citizens died in the tragedy, including the noted British journalist William Thomas Stead and heirs to the Straus, Astor, and Guggenheim fortunes. The announcement of details of the disaster led to outrage on both sides of the Atlantic. The sinking of the Titanic did have some positive effects, however, as more stringent safety regulations were adopted on public ships, and regular patrols were initiated to trace the locations of deadly Atlantic icebergs.
Today, April 9, 1865, it is finally over. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders his remaining
Robert E. Lee, General CSA, Hero of the Confederacy
28,000 troops at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the American Civil War. Finally forced to abandon the Confederate capital of Richmond, and effectively blocked from joining the surviving Confederate force in North Carolina, and harassed constantly by enthusiastic Union cavalry, Lee had no other option.
Lt. General Ulysses S. Grant, USA
For more than a week, Lee had tried to outrun Grant to the west of Richmond and Petersburg in Virginia. After a ten-month siege of the two cities, the Union forces broke through the defenses and forced Lee to retreat. The Confederates moved along the Appomattox River, with Union General Philip Sheridan nipping at their heels all the way south. Lee’s army had little food, and they began to desert in
US General Philip Sheridan
large numbers on the retreat. When Lee arrived at Appomattox, he found that his path was blocked. He had no choice but to request a meeting with Grant. In retreating from the Union army’s Appomattox Campaign, the Army of Northern Virginia had stumbled through the Virginia countryside stripped of food and supplies. At one point, Union cavalry forces under General Philip Sheridan had actually outrun Lee’s army, blocking their retreat and taking 6,000 prisoners at Sayler’s Creek (it was also known as Sailor’s Creek). Desertions were mounting daily, and by April 8 the Confederates were surrounded with no possibility of escape.
On April 9, Lee sent a message to Grant announcing his willingness to surrender. The two generals met in the parlor of the Wilmer McLean home at one o’clock in the afternoon.
They met at a house in Appomattox at 2:00 p.m. on the afternoon of April 9. Lee was resplendent in his dress uniform and a fine sword at his side. Grant arrived wearing a simple soldier’s coat that was muddy from his long ride. The great generals spoke of their service in the Mexican War, and then set about the business at hand. Grant offered generous terms. Officers could keep their side arms, and all men would be immediately released to return home. Any officers and enlisted men who owned horses could take them home, Grant said, to help put crops in the field and carry their families through the next winter. These terms, said Lee, would have “the best possible effect upon the men,” and “will do much toward conciliating our people.” The papers were signed and Lee prepared to return to his men.
Wimer McCLean ca 1860. He tried to run from the war, but it started in his front yard and ended in his parlor.
In one of the great ironies of the war, the surrender took place in the parlor of Wilmer McClean‘s home. McClean had once lived along the banks of Bull Run, Virginia, the site of the first major battle of the war in July 1861. Seeking refuge from the fighting, McClean decided to move out of the Washington-Richmond corridor to try to avoid the fighting that would surely take place there. He moved to Appomattox Court House only to see the war end in his home.
Lee and Grant, both holding the highest rank in their respective armies, had known each other slightly during the Mexican War and exchanged awkward personal inquiries. Characteristically, Grant arrived in his muddy field uniform while Lee had turned out in full dress attire, complete with sash and sword. Lee asked for the terms, and Grant hurriedly wrote them out. All officers and men were to be pardoned, and they would be sent home with their private property–most important, the horses, which could be used for a late spring planting. Officers would keep their side arms, and Lee’s starving men would be given Union rations.
Shushing a band that had begun to play in celebration, General Grant told his officers, “The war is over. The Rebels are our countrymen again.” Although there were still Confederate armies in the field, and scattered resistance contin-ued for several weeks, for all practical purposes the Civil War had come to an end and the war was officially over. Four years of bloodshed had left a devas-tating mark on the country: 360,000 Union and 260,000 Confederate soldiers had perished during the Civil War.
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Today in 1865, with the end in sight, the final campaign of the Civil War begins in Virginia when Union troops under General Ulysses S. Grant begin to move against the Confederate trenches built around
Lt. General Ulysses S. Grant, USA
Petersburg. General Robert E. Lee’s outnumbered Rebels were soon forced to evacuate the city and
Robert E. Lee, General CSA
begin a desperate race to escape to the west.
Eleven months earlier, Grant had moved his army across the Rapidan River in northern Virginia and began the bloodiest campaign of the war. For six weeks, Lee and Grant fought along an arc that swung east of the Confederate capital at Richmond. They engaged in some of the conflict’s bloodiest battles at Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor before settling into trenches for a siege of Petersburg, 25 miles south of Richmond. The fighting in the Wilderness and at Cold Harbor had earned Grant the uneviable nickname of “Butcher” as a result of the heavy casualties. Years later, Grant said that fight was a mistake. The trenches eventually stretched all the way to Richmond, and during the ensuing months the armies glowered at each other across a no man’s land. From time to time, Grant would launch attacks against sections of the Rebel defenses, but Lee’s men always managed to fend them off.
Time was running out for Lee, though, and he knew it. His army was dwindling in size to about 55,000, due to illness, soldiers not coming back from leave, and even mass desertions as the men could see the handwriting on the wall. On the other side of the trenches, Grant’s army continued to grow–the Army of the Potomac now had more than 125,000 men ready for service. On March 25, Lee attempted to split the Union lines when he attacked Fort Stedman, a stronghold along the Yankee trenches. His army was beaten back, and he lost nearly 5,000 men. On March 29, Grant seized the initiative, sending 12,000 men past the Confederates’ left flank and threatening to cut Lee’s escape route from Petersburg. Fight-ing broke out there, several miles southwest of the city. Lee’s men simply were not enought, in number or strength, to stop the Federal advance. On April 1, the Yankees struck at Five Forks, soundly defeat-ing the Rebels and leaving Lee no viable alternative. He pulled his forces from their trenches and raced west, followed by Grant. It was a race that even the great Lee could not win. Upon learning there were boxcars on a railroad siding that held the rations his men so desperately needed to go on, he fled to Danville. When he got there, the boxcars were there as well, but due to a mixup of instructions in the war Department, all they held was ammunition. Lee knew it was over, and there was no reason to sacrifice his men any further. He surrendered his army on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House.
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Photo courtesy of wikipedia.com
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