The Officers: Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) "Although he heard nothing from Grant," wrote Duane Schultz in The Most Glorious Fourth, President Lincoln "continued to receive complaints about Grant and demands that he be dismissed. The criticisms came in the form of letters, newspaper editorials, and delegations of irate citizens calling on Lincoln in person. The editor of the Cincinnati Gazette wrote, 'Our noble army of the Mississippi is being wasted by the foolish, drunken, stupid Grant, He cannot organize or control or fight an army. I have no personal feeling about it; but I know he is an ass.'" Between President Lincoln and General Grant was a mutual appreciation society of the difficulties presented by their respected positions. "In time of war the President, being by the Constitution Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, is responsible for the selection of commanders," wrote Grant in his memoirs. "He should not be embarrassed in making his selections. I having been selected, my responsibility ended with my doing the best I knew how. If I had sought the place, or obtained it through personal or political influence, my believe is that I would have feared to undertake any plan of my own conception, and would probably have awaited direct orders from my distant superiors. Persons obtaining important commands by application or political influence are apt to keep a written record of complaints and predictions of defeat, which are shown in case of disaster. Somebody must be responsible for their failures." He noted: "With all the pressure brought to bear upon them, both president Lincoln and General Halleck stood by me to the end of the campaign I had never met Mr. Lincoln, but his support was constant."2 President had no personal knowledge of Grant, but he had considerable personal feeling. As he wrote Grant after the surrender of Vicksburg on July 4, 1864, "I do not remember that you and I ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful acknowledgement for the almost inestimable service you have done the country. I wish to say a word further. When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I thought you should do, what you finally did--march the troops across the neck, run the batteries with the transports, and thus go below; and I never had any faith, except a general hope that you knew better than I, that the Yazoo Pass expedition, and the like, could succeed. When you get below, and took Port-Gibson, Grand Gulf, and vicinity, I thought you should go down the river and join Gen. Banks; and when you turned Northward East of the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. I know wish to make the personal acknowledgement that you were right, and I was wrong."3 One witness testified that the President's admiration had been born two years earlier, sight unseen. "From the occupation of Paducah, Kentucky, may be dated the warm and unswerving friendship of Abraham Lincoln for General U.S. Grant," recalled Colonel Absalom H. Markland, a Washington postal official connected to Grant's army. "Other friends may have wavered in their friendship for General Grant, and even recommended his removal from command, but Abraham Lincoln was faithful to General Grant through evil and good report."4 John G. Nicolay recalled that early in December 1863, President Lincoln said to him of the campaign in Tennessee and Virginia: "Now if this Army of the Potomac was good for anything - if the officers had anything in them - if the army had any legs, they could move thirty thousand men down to Lynchburg and catch [Confederate General James] Longstreet. Can anybody doubt, if Grant were here in command that he would catch him? There is not a man in the whole Union who would for a moment doubt it. But I do not think it would do to bring Grant away from the West."5 The President regularly showered his praise and gratitude on General Grant long before he met. He wrote Grant in December 1863: "Understanding that your lodgment at Knoxville and at Chattanooga is now secure, I wish to tender you, and all under your command, my more than thanks, my profoundest gratitude for the skill, courage, and perseverance with which you and they, over so great difficulties, have effected that important object. God bless you all."6 "About all I know of Grant I have got from you," Mr. Lincoln told Congressman Elihu Washburne that winter. "I have never seen him. Who else besides you knows anything about Grant?" Washburne replied: "I know very little about him. He is my townsman but I never saw very much of him. The only man who really knows Grant is [J. Russell] Jones. He has summer and wintered with him."7 General Grant and his son Fred checked in Willard's Hotel on March 8, 1864. A chant of "Grant! Grant! Grant!" was soon taking up by the diners, who rushed to his table to congratulate him. When it became evident that a peaceful dinner was out of the question, the general and his son retired to their room. "Not long after this a political person came to Grant's door ? former Secretary of War Simon Cameron, as Fred remembered it; Congressman James K. Moorhead of Pennsylvania, by reporter Brooks's account ? and he bustled Grant off to the White House," wrote historian Bruce Catton.8 "That evening, as it chanced, was the occasion of the usual weekly reception at the White House, and thither General Grant went by special invitation," Brooks wrote. "Thither too went throngs of people when it was known that he would be on view with the President. So great was the crowd, and so wild the rush to get near the general, that he was obliged at last to mount a sofa, where he could be seen, and where he was secure, at least for a time, from the madness of the multitude. People were caught up and whirled in the torrent which swept through the great East Room. Ladies suffered dire disaster in the crush and confusion; their laces were torn and crinolines mashed; and many got upon sofas, chairs, and tables to be out of harm's way or to get a better view of the spectacle. It was the only real mob I ever saw in the White House. It was an indescribable scene of curiosity, joy, and pleasure. For once at least the President of the United States was not the chief figure in the picture. The little, scared-looking man who stood on a crimson-covered sofa was the idol of the hour. He remained on view for a short time; then he was quietly smuggled out by friendly hands, and next day departed from the city, which he then appeared to dread so much, to begin the last and mightiest chapter in his military career."9 Once installed as the commanding general of the Union armies the next day, President Lincoln's confidence in General Grant was evidenced by his failure to demand his plans: "The particulars of your plan I neither know nor seek to know. You are vigilant and self-reliant; and, pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any restraints or constraints upon you." Wrote historian John Y. Simon: ""Charged with vast responsibilities, General-in-Chief Grant had to act vigorously within the military sphere, tread softly in the political sphere, and understand as well the politics of command. Under Lincoln's guidance, sometimes oblique, sometimes imperious, Grant succeeded."10 The Chicago Journal once published this exchange with a visitor who asked: "When will the army move?" Responded the President: "Ask General Grant." The visitor replied: "General Grant will not tell me." Responded the President: "Neither will he tell me."11 It was the Peace Conference of February 1865 which probably caused the most friction between President Lincoln and General Grant. Journalist Noah Brooks wrote that "it was General Grant, the idol of the hour, who had influenced Lincoln to take that step. Grant had confidentially written to the Secretary of War expressing his regret that the Confederate commissioners would return home 'without any expression from any one in authority.' While he recognized the difficulty of receiving the commissioners, he feared the 'bad influence' which their failure to get an authoritative reply would have on the minds of the people, probably South as well as North. It was Grant's message, in which he deplored the failure of the commissioners to see the President, that had impelled Lincoln to go to Fort Monroe."11 Major Thomas Eckert of the War Department's telegraph office was sent as the President's personal representative to make sure that his directions were followed. Eckert clashed over the hospitality with which Grant was treating the Confederate representatives: Alexander H. Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy, Judge John A. Campbell, the Confederacy's Assistant Secretary of War, and Robert M. T. Hunter, a former United States Senator. Eckert met with them aboard the River Queen on February 1: "'I told them that all the proceedings of the conference must be in writing. I then submitted a copy of my instruction from the President which they took saying they would like to consider it and reply later. Hunter was the chief spokesman, but my communications were always to Stephens, his name being the first on the list of three. Campbell had the least to say. He was, however, a close listener. Before the conference we came very near getting into a difficulty that would have forced me to have done something that might have raised a row, because General Grant wanted to be a party to the conference. I told him no. I said, 'You are the commanding general of the army. If you make a failure or say anything that would be subject to criticism it would be very bad. If I make a mistake I am nothing but a common business man and it will go for naught. I am going to take the responsibility, and I advise you not to go to the conference.' He finally said, 'Decency would compel me to go and see them.' I said that for the purpose of introduction I should be pleased to have him go with me but not until after I had first met the gentlemen. Grant was vexed with me because I did not tell him exactly what my mission was. Grant's memoirs omitted his conflict with Eckert. After the arrival of the Confederate commissioners, he installed them on the Mary Martin: "I at once communicated by telegraph with Washington and informed the Secretary of War and the President of the arrival of these commissioners and that they object was to negotiate terms of peace between the United States and, as they termed it, the Confederate Government." Grant denied that he had any substantive discussions with them about peace negotiations: " It was something I had nothing to do with, and I therefore did not wish to express any views on the subject. For my own part I never had admitted, and never was ready to admit, that they were the representatives of a government. There had been too great a waste of blood and treasure to concede anything of the kind." On February 2, "I received a dispatch from Washington, directing me to send the commissioners to Hampton Roads to meet the President and a member of the cabinet. Mr. Lincoln met them there and had an interview of short duration. It was not a great while after they met that the President visited me at City Point. He spoke of his having met the commissioners, and said he had told them that there would be no use in entering into any negotiations unless they would recognize, first: that the Union as a whole must be forever preserved, and second: that slavery must be abolished. If they were willing to concede these two points, then he was ready to enter into negotiations and was almost willing to hand them a blank sheet of paper with his signature attached for them to fill in the terms upon which they were willing to live with us in the Union and be one people. He always showed a generous and kindly spirit toward the Southern people, and I never heard him abuse an enemy. Some of the cruel things said about President Lincoln, particularly in the North, used to pierce him to the heart; but never in my presence did he evince a revengeful disposition - and I saw a great deal of him at City Point, for he seemed glad to get away from the cares and anxieties of the capital."13 Despite his confidence in Grant, President Lincoln was careful to keep political questions in his own hand. At one point in March 1865, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton wrote Grant: "The President directs me to say to you that he wishes you to have no conference with Gen Lee unless it be for the capitulation of Lees army, or on solely minor and purely military matter. He instructs me to say that you are not to decide, discuss, or confer upon any political question: such questions the President holds in his own hands; and will submit them to no military conferences or conventions - mean time you are to press to the utmost, your military advantages."14 About the third week of March, President Lincoln responded to an invitation from General Grant to visit his headquarters. According to Grant aide Horace Porter, "This invitation was promptly accepted, and on the 24th word came he was on his way up the James aboard the River Queen. About nine o'clock that evening the steamer approached the wharf, and General Grant, with those of us who were with him at the moment, including Robert Lincoln, went down to the landing and met the President, Mrs. Lincoln, their youngest son, 'Tad,' and several ladies who had come from Washington with the Presidential party. The meeting was very cordial. It lasted but a short time, however, as Mr. Lincoln and his family were evidently fatigued by the trip, and it was thought that they might to retire at an early hour."15 Grant's consideration of the President was reflected in his judgment of horseflesh. "Upon Lincoln's arrival at City Point, March 24, Grant had offered him the choice of his two favorite horses, 'Cincinnati' and 'Little Jeff.' Lincoln selected the former, being the larger of the two, as better suited to his tall form, and during his stay he frequently rode Cincinnati around the camp," wrote War Department employee David Homer Bates. " He was a good rider and greatly enjoyed this recreation, and when Grant went to the front to personally direct the general assault upon Lee's army along a line of over thirty miles, he left a trusted groom in charge of Cincinnati, so that if the movement should prove successful, the President might ride out to the front."16 Presidential guard William Crook later recalled: "It was after dark on the 24th when we reached City Point. It was a beautiful sight at this time, with the many-colored lights of the boats in the harbor and the lights of the town straggling up the bluffs of the shore, crowned by the lights from Grant's headquarters at the top. On April 3, according to Horace Porter, "General Grant proposed to the President that forenoon that he should accompany him on a trip to the Petersburg front. The invitation was promptly accepted, and several hours were spent in visiting the troops, who cheered the President enthusiastically. He was greatly interested in looking at the prisoners who had been captured that morning; and while at Meade's headquarters, about two o'clock, sent a despatch to Stanton, saying: '...I have nothing to add to what General Meade reports, except that I have seen the prisoners myself, and they look like there might be the number he states - 1600.' The President carried a map with him, which he took out of his pocket and examined several times. He had the exact location of the troops marked on it, and he exhibited a singularly accurate knowledge of the various positions." Grant recalled his memoirs: The next morning after the capture of Petersburg, I telegraphed Mr. Lincoln asking him to ride out there and see me, while I would await his arrival. I had started all the troops out early in the morning, so that after the National army left Petersburg there was not a soul to be seen, not even an animal in the streets. There was absolutely no one there, except my staff officers and, possibly, a small escort of cavalry. We had selected the piazza of a deserted house, and occupied it until the President arrived.
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