WHEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN took office on March 4, 1861, as the sixteenth president of the United States, his immediate attention was focused on the federal garrison stationed at Fort Sumter in the Charleston, South Carolina, harbor. South Carolina had been the first state to secede from the Union, and it was no surprise to learn on April 12 that Confederates had fired on the fort, forcing its commander, Major Robert Anderson, to surrender and evacuate. Two days later President Lincoln issued a call for seventy-five thousand state militia. They were to serve ninety days to help crush what was believed to be a rebellion. Residents of Galena, including Grant, gathered at the courthouse to debate how their community should react to the president’s message. Most were in favor of rallying to preserve the Union, none more than local attorney John A. Rawlins, who had become an acquaintance of Grant. With fire in his eyes Rawlins spoke for forty-five minutes and told the crowd that even though President Lincoln was a Republican, the crisis was not a contest between political parties: “I have been a democrat all my life; but this is no longer a question of politics. It is simply country or no country. I have favored every honorable compromise; but the day for compromise has passed. Only one course is left for us. We will stand by the flag of our country, and appeal to the God of battles.”1 That was all Grant needed to hear; he was going back into the army.
Grant reached out to offer his service to the US military, but was rejected by both the War Department and the commanding officer of the Department of the Ohio, George B. McClellan, most likely because of his supposed drinking problem. However, there is no evidence to suggest that Grant had done any heavy drinking since his days in California. Not totally dejected, he assisted in recruiting a volunteer infantry company in Galena but declined election as captain because he believed his experience qualified him for command of a regiment, which was the rank of colonel. Then, wearing a slouch hat and old overcoat, Grant went to Springfield to help organize the troops pouring into the capital. His remarkable knack for calm leadership brought order out of the chaos created by men milling about the city with little direction. Grant refused to pull political strings to obtain a colonelcy, so his Galena friends, including Congressman Elihu B. Washburne and Rawlins, pulled them on his behalf. In June he was named colonel of the Twenty-First Illinois Volunteer Infantry.
Now back in the military, Grant was certain that he had made the right decision to join the Union cause. Expressing this sentiment to his father-in-law, who was leaning toward the Confederacy, Grant wrote on April 19, 1861, that “all party distinctions should be lost sight of, and every true patriot be for maintaining the integrity of the glorious old Stars and Stripes, the Constitution and the Union.” Two days later he wrote to his own father that, despite his preference for a domestic life, “having been educated for such an emergency, at the expense of the Government, I feel that it has upon me superior claims, such claims as no ordinary motives of self-interest can surmount.”2
In another letter to Jesse Grant, Grant displayed an uncharacteristic moment of pride about what he had accomplished so far with the Illinois soldiers:
My services with the regiment I am now with have been highly satisfactory to me. I took it in a very disorganized, demoralized, and insubordinate condition and have worked it up to a reputation equal to the best, and I believe with the good will of all the officers and all the men. Hearing that I was likely to be promoted the officers, with great unanimity, have requested to be attached to my command. This I don’t want you to read to others for I very much dislike speaking of myself.3
Grant had indeed turned the green farm boys of the Twenty-First into a disciplined fighting force. They trained at Camp Yates, Illinois, named for the governor of that state, Richard Yates, for about a month, learning the rudiments of military drill and soldier life. On July 3, 1861, the regiment moved to Quincy, Illinois, a village on the Mississippi River about one hundred miles west of Springfield. Even though the railroad was at his disposal, Grant insisted that his men go on foot so they could get used to the rigors of campaigning. He was a tough disciplinarian. The first day out the regiment made it five miles. However, the next morning at six o’clock when Grant resumed the march, his men were unprepared to move. He allowed them to rise and eat breakfast this time, but the following morning when the men were again not ready to march, Grant left without them. It must have been a sight to see half-dressed soldiers running after their commander. The remainder of the trip to Quincy was conducted in relatively good order. Grant boasted to his father that “my men behaved admirably and the lesson has been a good one for them. They can now go into camp and after a day’s march and with as much promptness as veteran troops; they can strike their tents and be on the march with equal celerity.”4
Grant was often seen riding his celebrated claybank stallion Jack, which he had purchased at Galena when he took charge of his regiment. Journalist Sylvanus Cadwallader remembered an incident involving Grant and Jack that he found quite startling: “While riding by his side I saw the first of the only two manifestations of temper he ever exhibited in my presence. An orderly came riding up with a dispatch and carelessly rode onto Jack’s heels. Grant turned in his saddle and rebuked him sharply saying there were few things he disliked more than to have a careless rider run onto his horse’s heels.”5
After a brief stay in Quincy, the regiment moved across the Mississippi to West Quincy, Missouri, where Grant deployed several companies of his regiment along the nearby railroad that had recently been harassed by secessionists who wanted to draw the state into the Confederacy. Missouri was a crucial border state and keeping it out of Confederate hands was an immediate priority of the Lincoln Administration. Grant’s regiment, along with several others, was charged with locating a band of pesky pro-secessionist home guards led by Colonel Thomas Harris. It was learned that Harris’ men were camped about twenty-five miles to the south in Florida, Missouri; and on July 17, 1861, Grant and his men headed in that direction. Florida was the birthplace of Mark Twain, who befriended Grant many years later and helped him publish his memoirs.
Grant was quite nervous about the impending combat and the tension brought on a severe migraine headache. He would suffer from such affliction throughout the war. He had seen plenty of action in Mexico, but now he was in command; he was responsible. During the early morning hours of July 18, Grant and the Twenty-First reached their objective. “As we approached the brow of the hill from which it was expected we could see Harris’ camp, and possibly find his men ready formed to meet us,” Grant wrote in his memoirs, “My heart kept getting higher and higher until it felt to me as though it was in my throat. I would have given anything to be back in Illinois, but I had no moral courage to halt and consider what to do: I kept right on.” His anxiety was dispelled when he discovered that the enemy had recently fled. It dawned on Grant that his adversary “had been as much afraid of me as I had been of him.
This was a view of the question I had never taken before.”6 It was one he never forgot. Having little combat experience, Grant just assumed that his opponents were more confident than he was. Yet the more he was battle tested, the less Grant worried what his enemy was thinking. This would, in essence become his trademark later in the war, especially when fighting Robert E. Lee in 1864–65.
Grant was also thrilled that the discipline he had instilled in the men had paid off. They kept out of trouble and did nothing to agitate the citizens of Missouri who were teetering on the edge of secession. He wrote Julia that “when we first came there was a terrible state of fear existing among the people. They thought that evry [sic] horror known in the whole catalogue of disa[sters] following a state of war was going to be their portion at once. Civilians find that all troops are not the desperate characters they took them for.” In fact, on the way back from Harris’ abandoned camp Grant’s Illinois volunteers were greeted by the local residents. “I am fully convinced that if orderly troops could be marched through this country and none others,” he told Julia, “it would create a very different state of feeling from what exists now.”6 Grant’s effective leadership did not go unnoticed. As he remained in Missouri with his unit Grant was given command of other not so disciplined regiments that were camped in the town of Mexico. Through his strict, but fair measures, Grant kept them from harassing citizens for food and drink and forcing the civilians to take the oath of allegiance or risk arrest.
In early August Grant was greeted one morning by the regimental chaplain carrying a copy of the Daily Missouri Democrat. Chaplain John Crane excitedly showed his commander a news story containing the names of thirty-four new brigadier generals; on that list was Ulysses S. Grant. As Grant suspected, his name was forwarded to the War Department by Congressman Washburne. One of his first actions was to assemble a staff and the one person he especially wanted to serve with him was Rawlins, his loyal acquaintance from Galena. Rawlins joined Grant in September after his wife’s death and remained with the general throughout the war. That month Grant was placed in command of the District of Southeast Missouri with headquarters at Cairo, Illinois. His responsibility was clear—oversee operations in Missouri south of St. Louis and in southern Illinois.