Grant and Sherman: The Friendship that Won the Civil War by Charles Bracelen Flood Page A
Authors: Charles Bracelen Flood
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brigadier generals of Volunteers—two more than he apportioned to any other state. That gave Republican Representative Elihu Washburne, Grant’s congressman, the opportunity to urge his fellow Illinois representatives to include the man he had spotted as an obscure former Regular Army captain. This same list of promotions to brigadier general of Volunteers, all backdated to May 17, contained the name of William T. Sherman, with Sherman being senior to Grant because he graduated from West Point three years before Grant did.
With this promotion, Grant was suddenly given important responsibilities. First he was sent to St. Louis to confer with Major General John Frémont, a most interesting figure who had just been assigned to command the Department of the West—the critical and complicated theater of war that had the Mississippi River at its heart.
Here was yet another case of a politically based military appointment. Frémont (whom Sherman also went to see in his fruitless quest for reinforcements and the formation of a cohesive strategy, concluding that “I could not discover that he was operating on any distinct plan”) was a man of considerable accomplishments and checkered background, but he had no experience commanding large bodies of soldiers. Not a West Pointer, at the age of tweny-five Frémont had been appointed as a second lieutenant in the Army’s Topographical Engineers. In that capacity, sometimes using Kit Carson as a scout, he made the first maps of the Oregon Trail, explored the Sierras, discovered Lake Tahoe, and later gave the name Golden Gate to the entrance to San Francisco’s harbor. His prewar army career had ended in a court-martial for disobedience of orders; the military tribunal handed down a sentence that was remitted by President James K. Polk, but it was an affair that ultimately forced him to resign.
Known to the American public as “the Pathfinder,” in civilian life Frémont had become one of California’s first two senators and was the Republican Party’s first candidate for president, being beaten in 1856 by the Democrats’ Buchanan. Twenty years before the war began, he had married the attractive and ambitious daughter of Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri; Frémont’s national reputation, and his alliance with a family of influential Republican politicians, motivated Lincoln to entrust him with the complexities of the Department of the West.
In this first effort that Grant and Sherman made to establish themselves in their new western commands, Grant fared better with Frémont than Sherman did. This was partly because Frémont, who sent his wife to Washington to ask Lincoln for more troops for his own command, was intent on making a name for himself by thrusting down the Mississippi River rather than in diverting much of his strength to help Sherman defend neighboring Kentucky. After an initial Union defeat at Wilson’s Creek in Missouri for which Grant had no responsibility, Frémont ordered Grant to organize an effective defense of Jefferson City.
When Grant did that and no Confederate attack materialized, Frémont then ordered him to go to the Union riverfront headquarters at Cairo, Illinois, and prepare to lead offensive actions from there. In picking Grant over a number of other brigadier generals, Frémont overruled those on his staff who reminded him of Grant’s old reputation for drunkenness, and had only one fault to find: Grant was wearing a civilian suit, possibly the one he had worn most of the past year. Frémont told his chosen general to get into uniform. Chaplain Crane described how Grant obeyed that order: “He usually wore a plain blue [enlisted man’s] blouse coat, and an ordinary black felt hat, and never had about him a single mark to distinguish his rank.” (In fact, Grant sometimes wore pinned-on shoulder straps that had emblems of rank.)
The port where Grant had his headquarters in a hotel that the correspondent of the London Times found
With this promotion, Grant was suddenly given important responsibilities. First he was sent to St. Louis to confer with Major General John Frémont, a most interesting figure who had just been assigned to command the Department of the West—the critical and complicated theater of war that had the Mississippi River at its heart.
Here was yet another case of a politically based military appointment. Frémont (whom Sherman also went to see in his fruitless quest for reinforcements and the formation of a cohesive strategy, concluding that “I could not discover that he was operating on any distinct plan”) was a man of considerable accomplishments and checkered background, but he had no experience commanding large bodies of soldiers. Not a West Pointer, at the age of tweny-five Frémont had been appointed as a second lieutenant in the Army’s Topographical Engineers. In that capacity, sometimes using Kit Carson as a scout, he made the first maps of the Oregon Trail, explored the Sierras, discovered Lake Tahoe, and later gave the name Golden Gate to the entrance to San Francisco’s harbor. His prewar army career had ended in a court-martial for disobedience of orders; the military tribunal handed down a sentence that was remitted by President James K. Polk, but it was an affair that ultimately forced him to resign.
Known to the American public as “the Pathfinder,” in civilian life Frémont had become one of California’s first two senators and was the Republican Party’s first candidate for president, being beaten in 1856 by the Democrats’ Buchanan. Twenty years before the war began, he had married the attractive and ambitious daughter of Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri; Frémont’s national reputation, and his alliance with a family of influential Republican politicians, motivated Lincoln to entrust him with the complexities of the Department of the West.
In this first effort that Grant and Sherman made to establish themselves in their new western commands, Grant fared better with Frémont than Sherman did. This was partly because Frémont, who sent his wife to Washington to ask Lincoln for more troops for his own command, was intent on making a name for himself by thrusting down the Mississippi River rather than in diverting much of his strength to help Sherman defend neighboring Kentucky. After an initial Union defeat at Wilson’s Creek in Missouri for which Grant had no responsibility, Frémont ordered Grant to organize an effective defense of Jefferson City.
When Grant did that and no Confederate attack materialized, Frémont then ordered him to go to the Union riverfront headquarters at Cairo, Illinois, and prepare to lead offensive actions from there. In picking Grant over a number of other brigadier generals, Frémont overruled those on his staff who reminded him of Grant’s old reputation for drunkenness, and had only one fault to find: Grant was wearing a civilian suit, possibly the one he had worn most of the past year. Frémont told his chosen general to get into uniform. Chaplain Crane described how Grant obeyed that order: “He usually wore a plain blue [enlisted man’s] blouse coat, and an ordinary black felt hat, and never had about him a single mark to distinguish his rank.” (In fact, Grant sometimes wore pinned-on shoulder straps that had emblems of rank.)
The port where Grant had his headquarters in a hotel that the correspondent of the London Times found
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