Brigadier General Grant

Ryan Lindsey
Good Shepherd Lutheran School, Collinsville

Ulysses S. Grant became the best known of the northern generals in the Civil War. Some of the other northern generals were more dashing, some were more learned, but none was a better fighter. Grant began his work as a field commander in Cairo, Illinois.

Cairo was a very low-lying, swampy locale, which made travel painstaking and tiring. However, it was also a gateway to the North, South, East, and West. The Union established a fort in Cairo on the Mississippi River because of its strategic location. They were plagued by malaria caused by mosquitoes, and there were no hospital facilities, which made it very hard to care for or prevent malaria and other diseases.

Grant was ordered to Cape Girardeau, Missouri, on September 1, 1861, and a day later he was ordered to Cairo, Illinois. On September 4, 1861, Grant reached Cairo and established the command post for the military district of Southeast Missouri.. His task was to hold back the Confederate moves northward along the rivers into the Midwest. Despite the difficulties, Grant was in the position he wanted.

He did send a letter to General McClellan, though, describing the deplorable conditions of his situation at Cairo.

Ulysses's wife, Julia, arrived at Cairo to join him at his headquarters. By the end of 1861, Julia left Cairo to visit her father. An avid horseman, Grant was saddened by the death of two of his favorite horses. "I am somewhat troubled unless I lose my command here," he wrote. Grant became depressed, a condition that rendered him less capable of leading his men successfully. Grant received a boost from a local Cairo politician, who helped him receive a promotion to colonel and then a brigadier in the new volunteer forces. By that time, however, Grant really wanted to work on McClellan's staff in Washington. The appointment was closed to him because of his reputation as being somewhat mentally unstable. Thus, in the autumn of 1861, Grant supervised the training of his Illinois troops and waited for a chance to redeem himself. Eventually Cairo would prove a stepping stone to bigger assignments.—[From Bruce Catton, Grant Moves South; W. S. McFeely, Grant; James M. Burns, The Vineyard of Liberty.]

ILLINOIS HISTORY/ FEBRUARY 1999 37