The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1885-07-30
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Biorraphic Sketch.


Prof. W. W. Richeson's academic school
at Maysville, KY. and after two years at
that institution entered West Point Mil |
itary Academy, graduating in l843. He
received commission in the regular Army
in 1885 and served under Gems. Taylor and
Scott in Mexico. In 1852 he was ordered
to Oregon, and in August. 1858, became
full captain. He resigned his commission
in 1854 and soon after settled in business
at Galena, Ill. From this privacy he was
drawn out by the civil war, and having
acted first as aide-de- camp tothe Governor
of his State in 1861 and afterwards as Col
onel of the Twenty-first Illinois volun-
teers was appointed brigadier general IN
July of the same year. While Ill COM
mand at Cairo, he secured Paducah, and
with it the State of Kentucky. Novem-
Der, 1861, he fought and gained the battle
of Belmont. and in January of the follow
ing year conducted a reconnaissance to
the rear of Columbus. After capturing !
Fort Henry on the Tennessee Gen. Grant |
pursued the Confederates to Fort Donel- |
l.
without interruption for three days and
three nights when, February Is, the fort |
was surrendered. This feat elevated |
Grant to the rank of Majors General. Hav- |
ing been appointed to the command of the
District of West Tennessee Grant ad-
vauced up the river to Pittsburg Landing,
where he had to contend against force
variously estimated at from sixty to sew
enty thousand men. The Union lines
were overwhelmed, crushed, and dis
persed,' but Gen. Grant undismayed form
ed new lines. planted new batteries, and
thus held the Confederates in check till
dark, when the long expected arrival of his
rear guard of $4,000 men under Buell., en-
abled him to fight April 6 and the mem
orable battle of Shiloh, whence the Con-
federates abandoning the field, returned
to Corinth. Gen. Grant was second in
command to Halleck at the siege of Cor
into. and when the latter was ordered to
Washington he was appointed to take
command of the Department of Tennes-
see, in which capacity he marched against
Vicksburg, known as the Gibraltar of the
Mississippi. After long and memorable
siege, Vicksburg was surrendered, and
over 10000 prisoners, $50 cannon, with an
immense amount of military stores, fell
NTH the hands of the victors. Upon the
defeat Of Gen. Rosecrans at Chickamauga,
Grant was sent to repair the disaster, and
on November 25, 1868, he defeated Gen.
Rrorn nj Toolronf Mountain This viz
tory. by which Tennessee was reduced
and Kentucky saved was regarded as
one of the most brilliant strategic and
tactical movements of the war, and made
Grant the hero of the Union side. On
March LIST, 1864, Gen. Grant was raised to
full command of the armies of the United
States, y with the rank of lieutenant-gen-
eral. Invested with this authority,
Grants plan was to destroy Lees army.
Grant arrived in Washington on March
9th, received his commission at the hands
of the president, and on the 18th issued
his first general orders, dated at Nashville,
assuming command las Acknowledgement,
of the armies of the United States, and an
nouncing that headquarters would be in
the field, and until further orders with the
Army of the Potomac. His forces con-
sisted of nearly 900 men, when he at
once planned the two great campaigns
one against Gen. Lee, who was in imme-
date command of the Army of the Poto-
mac, and the other against Atlanta, then
defended by Lieut.-Gen. Joseph E. john
ston.
With force of 100000 men he COM
menced his celebrated movement against
Richmond, first striking Lee at the Wilder
ness. when, having failed in his attempt,
he commenced a series of flank movements
to the left. These movements resulted in
the hard fought battles of Spotsylvania,
North Anna and second Cold Harbor, and
he succeeded, on June Is, in crossing the
James river at City Point, and proceeded
at once to invest Petersburg. This siege
ended with the battle of Five Forks on
the 1st of April, 1865, and Lee was COM
PEELED to surrender at Appomattox Court
house on the 9th of that month.
After the war he made Washington his
headquarters, and was commissioned full
and Oh August u, 1867, when Secretary
Stanton was suspended by President
johnson, he was made Secretary of War
I'D interim and held that position until
about the middle of January, 1868, when
he gave it up to Stanton, who had been sus-
tanned by the Senate. johnson, however,
wished him to retain the place, in spite Of
the Senate's action, when a correspondence
ensued, in which Grant in letter dated
February Sd, used the following memora
BILE language: Il can but regard the whole
matter, from the beginning to the end, as
an attempt to involve me in the resistance
of law, for which you hesitated to assume
the responsibility in orders, and thus to
destroy my character before the country,
am, in measure, confirmed in this con-
clusion by your recent orders directing me
to disobey orders from the Secretary of
Wal, my superior and your subordinate,
without having countermanded his author
ity to issue the orders am to disobey.''
Grant was elected President in Noyem-
Der, 1868, and was inaugurated on the 4th
of March, 1869, and again on the 4th of
March, 1878, was installed for the second
term. He was the eighteenth President
the United States. On becoming Presi-
dent he had to resign his commission in
the Army. Soon after the expiration of
his secondterm MAY II, 1877, he with
some of his family commenced his memo
rable tour of the world, and was received
everywhere by the highest dignitaries with
the greatest honors.
1t looked at one time as if Gen. Grant
would be nominated by the Republican
party third time for the Presidency.
But the nomination of Garfield in 1880
ended the third term movement, which
was exceedingly formidable in the conven-
tion.