Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete
By nightfall the late defenders of Camp Jackson were all within the
walls of the St. Louis arsenal, prisoners of war. The next day I left
St. Louis for Mattoon, Illinois, where I was to muster in the regiment
from that congressional district. This was the 21st Illinois infantry,
the regiment of which I subsequently became colonel. I mustered one
regiment afterwards, when my services for the State were about closed.
Brigadier-General John Pope was stationed at Springfield, as United
States mustering officer, all the time I was in the State service. He
was a native of Illinois and well acquainted with most of the prominent
men in the State. I was a carpet-bagger and knew but few of them.
While I was on duty at Springfield the senators, representatives in
Congress, ex-governors and the State legislators were nearly all at the
State capital. The only acquaintance I made among them was with the
governor, whom I was serving, and, by chance, with Senator S. A.
Douglas. The only members of Congress I knew were Washburne and Philip
Foulk. With the former, though he represented my district and we were
citizens of the same town, I only became acquainted at the meeting when
the first company of Galena volunteers was raised. Foulk I had known in
St. Louis when I was a citizen of that city. I had been three years at
West Point with Pope and had served with him a short time during the
Mexican war, under General Taylor. I saw a good deal of him during my
service with the State. On one occasion he said to me that I ought to
go into the United States service. I told him I intended to do so if
there was a war. He spoke of his acquaintance with the public men of
the State, and said he could get them to recommend me for a position and
that he would do all he could for me. I declined to receive endorsement
for permission to fight for my country.
Going home for a day or two soon after this conversation with General
Pope, I wrote from Galena the following letter to the Adjutant-General
of the Army.
GALENA, ILLINOIS, May 24, 1861.
COL. L. THOMAS Adjt. Gen. U. S. A., Washington, D. C.
SIR:--Having served for fifteen years in the regular army, including
four years at West Point, and feeling it the duty of every one who has
been educated at the Government expense to offer their services for the
support of that Government, I have the honor, very respectfully, to
tender my services, until the close of the war, in such capacity as may
be offered. I would say, in view of my present age and length of
service, I feel myself competent to command a regiment, if the
President, in his judgment, should see fit to intrust one to me.
Since the first call of the President I have been serving on the staff
of the Governor of this State, rendering such aid as I could in the
organization of our State militia, and am still engaged in that
capacity. A letter addressed to me at Springfield, Illinois, will reach
me.
I am very respectfully, Your obt. svt., U. S. GRANT.
This letter failed to elicit an answer from the Adjutant-General of the
Army. I presume it was hardly read by him, and certainly it could not
have been submitted to higher authority. Subsequent to the war General
Badeau having heard of this letter applied to the War Department for a
copy of it. The letter could not be found and no one recollected ever
having seen it. I took no copy when it was written. Long after the
application of General Badeau, General Townsend, who had become
Adjutant-General of the Army, while packing up papers preparatory to the
removal of his office, found this letter in some out-of-the-way place.
It had not been destroyed, but it had not been regularly filed away.
I felt some hesitation in suggesting rank as high as the colonelcy of a
regiment, feeling somewhat doubtful whether I would be equal to the
position. But I had seen nearly every colonel who had been mustered in
from the State of Illinois, and some from Indiana, and felt that if they
could command a regiment properly, and with credit, I could also.
Having but little to do after the muster of the last of the regiments
authorized by the State legislature, I asked and obtained of the
governor leave of absence for a week to visit my parents in Covington,
Kentucky, immediately opposite Cincinnati. General McClellan had been
made a major-general and had his headquarters at Cincinnati. In reality
I wanted to see him. I had known him slightly at West Point, where we
served one year together, and in the Mexican war. I was in hopes that
when he saw me he would offer me a position on his staff. I called on
two successive days at his office but failed to see him on either
occasion, and returned to Springfield.
CHAPTER XVIII.
APPOINTED COLONEL OF THE 21ST ILLINOIS--PERSONNEL OF THE REGIMENT
--GENERAL LOGAN--MARCH TO MISSOURI--MOVEMENT AGAINST HARRIS AT FLORIDA,
MO.--GENERAL POPE IN COMMAND--STATIONED AT MEXICO, MO.
While I was absent from the State capital on this occasion the
President's second call for troops was issued. This time it was for
300,000 men, for three years or the war. This brought into the United
States service all the regiments then in the State service. These had
elected their officers from highest to lowest and were accepted with
their organizations as they were, except in two instances. A Chicago
regiment, the 19th infantry, had elected a very young man to the
colonelcy. When it came to taking the field the regiment asked to have
another appointed colonel and the one they had previously chosen made
lieutenant-colonel. The 21st regiment of infantry, mustered in by me at
Mattoon, refused to go into the service with the colonel of their
selection in any position. While I was still absent Governor Yates
appointed me colonel of this latter regiment. A few days after I was in
charge of it and in camp on the fair grounds near Springfield.
My regiment was composed in large part of young men of as good social
position as any in their section of the State. It embraced the sons of
farmers, lawyers, physicians, politicians, merchants, bankers and
ministers, and some men of maturer years who had filled such positions
themselves. There were also men in it who could be led astray; and the
colonel, elected by the votes of the regiment, had proved to be fully
capable of developing all there was in his men of recklessness. It was
said that he even went so far at times as to take the guard from their
posts and go with them to the village near by and make a night of it.
When there came a prospect of battle the regiment wanted to have some
one else to lead them. I found it very hard work for a few days to
bring all the men into anything like subordination; but the great
majority favored discipline, and by the application of a little regular
army punishment all were reduced to as good discipline as one could ask.
The ten regiments which had volunteered in the State service for thirty
days, it will be remembered, had done so with a pledge to go into the
National service if called upon within that time. When they volunteered
the government had only called for ninety days' enlistments. Men were
called now for three years or the war. They felt that this change of
period released them from the obligation of re-volunteering. When I was
appointed colonel, the 21st regiment was still in the State service.
About the time they were to be mustered into the United States service,
such of them as would go, two members of Congress from the State,
McClernand and Logan, appeared at the capital and I was introduced to
them. I had never seen either of them before, but I had read a great
deal about them, and particularly about Logan, in the newspapers. Both
were democratic members of Congress, and Logan had been elected from the
southern district of the State, where he had a majority of eighteen
thousand over his Republican competitor. His district had been settled
originally by people from the Southern States, and at the breaking out
of secession they sympathized with the South. At the first outbreak of
war some of them joined the Southern army; many others were preparing to
do so; others rode over the country at night denouncing the Union, and
made it as necessary to guard railroad bridges over which National
troops had to pass in southern Illinois, as it was in Kentucky or any of
the border slave states. Logan's popularity in this district was
unbounded. He knew almost enough of the people in it by their Christian
names, to form an ordinary congressional district. As he went in
politics, so his district was sure to go. The Republican papers had
been demanding that he should announce where he stood on the questions
which at that time engrossed the whole of public thought. Some were
very bitter in their denunciations of his silence. Logan was not a man
to be coerced into an utterance by threats. He did, however, come out
in a speech before the adjournment of the special session of Congress
which was convened by the President soon after his inauguration, and
announced his undying loyalty and devotion to the Union. But I had not
happened to see that speech, so that when I first met Logan my
impressions were those formed from reading denunciations of him.
McClernand, on the other hand, had early taken strong grounds for the
maintenance of the Union and had been praised accordingly by the
Republican papers. The gentlemen who presented these two members of
Congress asked me if I would have any objections to their addressing my
regiment. I hesitated a little before answering. It was but a few days
before the time set for mustering into the United States service such of
the men as were willing to volunteer for three years or the war. I had
some doubt as to the effect a speech from Logan might have; but as he
was with McClernand, whose sentiments on the all-absorbing questions of
the day were well known, I gave my consent. McClernand spoke first; and
Logan followed in a speech which he has hardly equalled since for force
and eloquence. It breathed a loyalty and devotion to the Union which
inspired my men to such a point that they would have volunteered to
remain in the army as long as an enemy of the country continued to bear
arms against it. They entered the United States service almost to a
man.
General Logan went to his part of the State and gave his attention to
raising troops. The very men who at first made it necessary to guard
the roads in southern Illinois became the defenders of the Union. Logan
entered the service himself as colonel of a regiment and rapidly rose to
the rank of major-general. His district, which had promised at first to
give much trouble to the government, filled every call made upon it for
troops, without resorting to the draft. There was no call made when
there were not more volunteers than were asked for. That congressional
district stands credited at the War Department to-day with furnishing
more men for the army than it was called on to supply.
I remained in Springfield with my regiment until the 3d of July, when I
was ordered to Quincy, Illinois. By that time the regiment was in a
good state of discipline and the officers and men were well up in the
company drill. There was direct railroad communication between
Springfield and Quincy, but I thought it would be good preparation for
the troops to march there. We had no transportation for our camp and
garrison equipage, so wagons were hired for the occasion and on the 3d
of July we started. There was no hurry, but fair marches were made
every day until the Illinois River was crossed. There I was overtaken
by a dispatch saying that the destination of the regiment had been
changed to Ironton, Missouri, and ordering me to halt where I was and