A World on Fire_ Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War - Amanda Foreman [145]
Grant always used simple language when he spoke. The forty-year-old general was a quiet, plain figure whose forcefulness and intelligence were cloaked behind an unassuming manner. Associates struggled to describe him: “He is rather under middle height, of a spare, strong build; light-brown hair, and short, light brown beard,” wrote an aide to General Meade. “His face has three expressions: deep thought, extreme determination; and great simplicity and calmness.” Unlike McClellan, Grant had never aspired to become an American Napoleon; he had not even intended to become a professional soldier. “A military life had no charms for me,” Grant wrote of his time at West Point, “and I had not the faintest idea of staying in the army even if I should be graduated, which I did not expect.” But Grant remained in the army for eleven years, fighting in the Mexican War of 1846–48 and spending the next six years on mindless garrison duty, developing and failing to conquer a drink habit. Although happily married to his wife, Julia, and a devoted father to their four children, Grant floundered in civilian life. One year he was reduced to pawning his watch to buy Christmas presents for the family. When the war broke out, Grant was working as a clerk in his father’s tannery in Galena, Illinois—a humble climb down for the former captain. Within six months of volunteering, however, Grant had risen from colonel to brigadier general and, in addition to his old nickname in the army of “Sam”—for his initials U. S. (Uncle Sam)—had acquired the new national nickname of “Unconditional Surrender Grant” because of the terms he had offered to the defeated Confederates at Fort Donelson.5
Sherman’s short conversation with Grant on the night of the sixth was actually one of the first between them. Sherman had suffered a nervous breakdown during the autumn of 1861 and had only recently returned to duty. Sherman was the opposite of Grant in mannerisms: his tall, wiry frame was always moving, he gesticulated as he spoke, and he often worked himself up into an excitement during conversation. But in many ways the pattern of his life was similar to Grant’s: Sherman had also struggled in civilian life; he, too, loved his wife and adored his children; and he had also fought his own private battles of the mind. The latter forged an unbreakable bond between them. Sherman later remarked: “Grant stood by me when I was crazy and I stood by him when he was drunk. And now we stand by each other always.” In turn, Grant said of him: “Sherman is impetuous, faulty but he sees his faults as well as any man.” Both were realists, neither was an abolitionist, and each approached the task of warfare in the same relentless and dogged spirit. Sherman had briefly wondered if they should retreat on the sixth, until speaking to Grant reaffirmed his resolve.
During the night, General Buell and his reinforcements sailed down the river to Pittsburg Landing. By contrast, flooded roads and a damaged rail system meant that Van Dorn’s battle-ravaged army was still sitting 250 miles away in Little Rock, Arkansas. This was good news for William Watson and the 3rd Louisiana Regiment, who were spared the fight, but it was a disaster for Beauregard. The weather turned, and a harsh downpour pelted the living and the dead. Flashes of lightning revealed the presence of wild pigs, attracted by the smell of fresh meat. Neither side had expected such a high number of casualties, and many of the ten thousand wounded were left out on the field all night, their screams so terrible that a Confederate