Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1884-01-03
Grant and sherman at yicksburg.

0eueFdi OueTIudu pUTlTdlt is Tie
frontispiece of the January Century.
And to commemorate his retirement
from the army, the magazine prints an
anecdotal sketch of his life, by Z. V.
Smalley. General Grant has helped to
make the paper authoritative by giving
information and by reading the proofs.
The cordial relations of the two leading
generals of the war are indicated in the
following extracts: s'Certain incidents
connected with the Vicksburg cam
paign of 1868 are well worth narrating
here, as showing Sherman's lack of the
jealousy and egotism which married the
characters of many of the generals of
the late war. ALI that rainy winter.
when the country along the Mississippi
was flooded and the army was mac
tive, General Grant held to purpose,
never once divulged to any person, of
sending the fleet past the Vicksburg
batteries when the spring opened. and
throwing his army below the town to
invest it from the south. When fair
weather came, he secured the co-opera-
ton of Admiral Porter, and then issued
his orders TO his division commanders.
Sherman's part in the plan was to go
up the Yazoo and make feint against
Haines's Bluff. When he received his
orders, he fastened to Grants head
quarters and argued against what SEEM
ed to him very hazardous move. He
thought Grant was placing himself in
a position where an enemy would have
Unanswered year to get him-a hos
tile force on both sides of him, and one
of them between him and his base of
supplies. Sherman failed to convince
Grant, who had been cut off from his
base at Oxford some months before and
had learned that he could subsist an
army upon the country. Besides, he
believed that, in the critical condi-
ton of opinion in the North, a great
risk ought to be taken for the pros
pect of great success. In letter
to Rawlins, Grants chief of staff, writ
ten next day, Sherman reiterated his
objections to the plan of campaign.
The letter was shown to Grant and re-
manned unanswered With perfect 10y
atty to his chief, and without the least
feeling of resentment for the rejection
of his plan of falling back on Memphis
and operating on the line of the rail-
road, Sherman carried out his part of
the campaign as zealously and energeti-
cally as though the whole scheme had
been his own. During eighteen days of
forced marches and fighting and forty
nine days of siege, he did not once take
off his clothes to sleep. After Grants
forces had crossed the Big Black, Sher-
man was given the lead in the ad-
vance upon Vicksburg. The two gen.
erals rode out one morning ahead of
the marching columns, careless of the
occasional bullets that came whistling
by from squads of retreating rebel
pickets. They reached the top of Wal
nut Hills, which Pemberton, the Con-
federate general, had occupied the year
before, and which Sherman had in vain
assaulted from the low land in front.
There Sherman exclaimed with enthu-
siasm, Grant, this is the biggest cam
paign in history. You ought to write
! a report on it at once. Napoleon never
| made a campaign like this A few
days later, when Sherman was holding
the lines facing east from the Big Black
to Haines's Bluff, Governor Yates came
| down from Illinois to visit the camps,
| accompanied by all the State officers
As Grant was passing along the lines
one day, he came upon Sherman,
whose back was toward him, and who
was saying TO knot of the Illinois
visitors: This is the greatest campaign
in history, and Grant deserves all the
| credit for it. | wrote him letter before
we started, in opposition to the whole
plan Now the letter was never sent
to the War Department, nor made pub
lie in any way, and Sherman need not
have mentioned it; but he was not will
ing to have any credit given to him
which belonged to Grant"