Page:Men of the Time, eleventh edition.djvu/508

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GRANT.

491

appointed to the post of Governor of Chelsea Hospital^ left vacant by the death of Sir Sydney Cotton.

GEANT, Ulysses Simpson, eighteenth President of the United States, born at Point Pleasant, Ohio, April 27, 1822. He graduated from the Military Academy at West Point in 1843, received his commission as second lieutenant in 1845, and served in the Mexican campaign under Generals Taylor and Scott. In 1852 he was ordered to Oregon, and in Aug., 1853, became captain. He resigned his commission in July, 1854, and, after a residence of four or five years in St. Louis, removed in 1859 to Galena, Illinois, where he en- gaged in business with his father and brothers. From this privacy he was drawn out by the civil war, and having acted first as aide-de- camp to the Governor of Illinois in 1861, and afterwards as Colonel of the 2l8t Illinois Volunteers, was made a Brigadier-General in July, 1861. While in command in Cairo, he secured Paducah, and with it Kentucky. In Nov., 1861, he fought the battle of Belmont, and in Jan., 1862, conducted a recon- naissance to the rear of Columbus. Fort Henry fell Feb. 6, and ten days after Fort Donelson sur- rendered to him unconditionally, being followed by the evacuation of Columbus and Bowling Green. He was made Commander of the dis- trict of West Tennessee, and his forces advanced up that river to Pittsburg Landing, and fought, April 6 and 7, the battle of Shuoh, at which the Confederate general A. S. Johnston lost his life. He was second in command to General . Halleck during ilie siege of Corinth, and when the latter was ordered to Washington, Grant was appointed to take command of the department of Tennessee. He captured Vicks- burg, on the Mississippi, July 4, 1863, and after the partial defeat of the Union Troops, under Gen. Bosecrans, at Chickamauga> Ten-

nessee, in September, he was as- signed to the command of the Ifligely reinforced army, and in November defeated General Bragg at Chattanooga, close by. In March, 1864, President Lincoln appointed him Lieutenant-General, and conferred on him the powers of General-in-Chief of the vaist armies in the field. Invested with this authority, and having reorganized the army of the East, and arranged with General W. T. Sherman, the Commander of the army of the West, to move against Gen. J. E. Johnston, at the same time that he moved against Gen. Lee, he pre- pared for a vigorous and protracted campaign. The two armies moved early in May, and, after a series of hard-fought battles, alternating with repeated flanking movements, which the skill and tact of Gen. Lee rendered abortive. Gen. Grant crossed the James River, between the 12th and 15th of June, 1864, and proceeded to lay siege to Rich- mond and Petersburg from the north and north-east, while a very considerable army was cutting off their supplies, and destroying their railroads at the south and south- west. At length one railroad after another having been cut, and the two cities of Richmond and Peters- burg reduced to great straits, while the army of Gen. Lee was rapidly diminishing, the last line was broken on April 2, 1865, and Lee and the remnant of his army fled westward, pursued by Grant. On the 9th of April, 1865, Lee surren- dered with his entire command to Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. The surrender of the other armies, in North Carolina, Alabama, and Texas followed soon after, and the war ended. After its close the gratitude of the people to Gen. Grant found expression in numerous and valuable gfifts. On July 25, 1866, Congress having created the grade of General of the Army, hitherto unknown in the army of the United States, he was