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 GRANT 159 leral in the field commanded all the national armies. Grant, with nearly 700,000 men in the field, at once planned two campaigns, to be directed simultaneously against vital points of the confederacy by the two chief armies under his command : the one, under Gen. Meade, to operate against Richmond, defended by Lee; the other, under Gen. Sherman, against At- lanta, defended by Johnston. At midnight on May 3 Grant began the movement against Richmond, crossing the Rapidan with the army of the Potomac, which was joined two days later by the 9th corps under Burnside, and, with an aggregate force of 140,000 men, pushing through the Wilderness by the right of Lee's position, in the endeavor to place him- self between the confederate army and the confederate capital. Lee was apprised of the movement on the morning of the 4th, and boldly took the offensive, pushing eastward to strike the federal columns on the march. The immediate result was the bloody battle of the Wilderness, which foiled Grant's first attempt to interpose his army between Lee's and Rich- mond. Making another advance by the left flank, he was again confronted by Lee at Spottsylvania ; and after partial success and a bloody repulse, he repeated the movement again, only to find Lee in a strong position on the North Anna river ; and still a fourth ad- vance brought the army of the Potomac before the absolutely impregnable rifle pits of Cold Harbor. After a costly assault on these, Grant once more moved his army by the left flank and crossed the James. The day after the success of Spottsylvania he had sent a des- patch to the government, which closed with these words : "I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." His losses in the campaign from the Rapidan to the James (May 3 to June 15) were 54,551, killed, wounded, and missing. Lee's losses were about 32,000. Sherman opened his campaign toward Atlanta as soon as Grant telegraphed to him that the army of the Potomac had crossed the Rapidan. At the same time Grant had directed Sigel to advance from Winchester up the Shenandoah toward Staunton, and Crook to advance from Charleston up the Kanawha toward Lynchburg. But Sigel was defeated at Newmarket by Breckinridge, and Crook, after considerable fighting, was compelled to retreat. Meanwhile Gen. Butler, with the army of the James, had been directed to cap- ture and hold Petersburg, and if possible to in- vest Richmond closely from the south side, but had totally failed to do so. All these flanking movements being foiled, and Lee being neither defeated in the open field nor cut off from Rich- mond, the great problem of the war instantly narrowed itself down to a siege of Petersburg, which Grant now began. Lee's attempt to create a diversion by an invasion of Maryland and an attack on Washington failed, Sheridan ultimately driving back the invaders up the valley of the Shenandoah ; while, in Georgia, 371 VOL. viii. 11 Johnston was unable to check the advance of Sherman, and his successor in command, Hood, was forced to evacuate Atlanta, and lost his army before Nashville. The siege of Peters- burg ended, after the victory at Five Forks, in. the beginning of April, 1865, when Richmond was evacuated and Lee retreated westward to- ward Danville, followed closely by Grant, who finally forced the surrender of his remaining force, which took place at Appomattox Court House, April 9. After the war Grant fixed his headquarters at Washington ; and on July 25, 1866, he was commissioned general of the United States army, the rank having been cre- ated for him. On Aug. 12, 1867, when Pres- ident Johnson suspended Secretary Stanton from office, Gen. Grant was made secretary of war ad interim, and held the position until Jan. 14, 1868, when he returned it to Mr. Stan- ton, whose removal the senate had refused to sanction. The president wished Grant to re- tain the office notwithstanding the action of congress, and Grant, in a letter to him dated Feb. 3, closing a somewhat tangled corre- spondence, said : "I can but regard this whole matter, from the beginning to the end, as an at- tempt to involve me in the resistance of law for which you hesitated to assume the responsibili- ty in orders, and thus to destroy my character before the country. I am, in a measure, con- firmed in this conclusion by your recent orders directing me to disobey orders from the secre- tary of war, my superior and your subordinate, without having countermanded his authority to issue the orders I am to disobey." At the re- publican national convention held in Chicago May 21, 1868, Gen. Grant on the first ballot was unanimously nominated for president, with Schuyler Colfax for vice president. Their democratic competitors were Horatio Seymour and Francis P. Blair. Grant and Colfax car- ried 26 states, and received 214 electoral votes, against 80 for Seymour and Blair. Grant was inaugurated president on March 4, 1869, and on the next day sent in to the senate the fol- lowing nominations for cabinet officers : Elihu B. Washburne of Illinois, secretary of state ; Alexander T. Stewart of New York, secretary of the treasury ; Jacob D. Cox of Ohio, secre- tary of the interior ; Adolph E. Borie of Penn- sylvania, secretary of the navy ; John M. Scho- field of Illinois, secretary of war ; John A. J. Creswell of Maryland, postmaster general ; E. Rockwood Hoar of Massachusetts, attorney general. These nominations were at once con- firmed, but it was discovered that Mr. Stewart was disqualified by an act of 1789, which pro- vided that no person should hold the office of secretary of the treasury who was " directly or indirectly concerned or interested in carry- ing on the business of trade or commerce." The president, in a brief message, thereupon suggested to congress that Mr. Stewart be ex- empted by joint resolution from the action of the law. This was objected to, and Mr. Stew- art declined, and George S. Boutwell of Massa-