After two failed assaults, Grant decided to starve Pemberton out. General John Pemberton was placed in charge of defending the fortifications around Vicksburg. However, Dana found the rumours were untrue and Grant remained in control of the campaign. Stanton, the Secretary of War, heard that Grant was drinking heavily and sent newspaperman, Charles Dana, to spy on him. In early 1863, Halleck convinced Lincoln that Grant was the right man to direct the Vicksburg Campaign.Įdwin M. Grant was defended by his commanding officer, General Henry Halleck. Rumours reached President Abraham Lincoln that Grant was responsible for the Union Army's high casualty rate. Taken by surprise, Grant's army suffered heavy losses until the arrival of General Don Carlos Buell and reinforcements. On 6th April the Confederate Army attacked Grant's army at Shiloh. With 55,000 men they now outnumbered the forces led by Ulysses S. Beauregard reunited their armies near the Tennessee-Mississippi line. The Confederate Army now regrouped and Albert S. With western Tennessee now secured, Abraham Lincoln was now able to set up a Union government in Nashville by appointing Andrew Johnson as its new governor. He left 15,000 men to protect Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River but this was enough and Grant had no difficulty taking this prize as well. Johnston decided to withdraw his main army to Nashville. This broke the communications of the extended Confederate line and Joseph E. In February, 1862 Grant took his army along the Tennessee River with a flotilla of gunboats and captured Fort Henry. The Union Army now controlled the main waterway into the heartland of the Confederacy. Grant now moved his troops into Kentucky and quickly gained control of the mouths of the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers as they flowed into the Ohio. On 4th September General Leonidas Polk and a large Confederate Army moved into Kentucky and began occupying high ground overlooking the Ohio River. Even before he had engaged the Confederate forces, Grant was promoted to the rank of brigadier-general and placed in charge of the District of South-East Missouri. He was commissioned as colonel of the 21st Illinois Volunteers. Louis, before becoming a clerk in his family's tannery and leather store in Galenta, Illinois.Īn opponent of slavery, on the outbreak of the Civil War, Grant offered his services to the Union Army. Grant worked as a firewood peddler, real estate salesman and as a farmer near St. This resulted in his being forced to resign from the United States Army in 1854. It was during this period he developed a drink problem. He joined the 4th Infantry Regiment as a second lieutenant and served as a regimental quartermaster during the Mexican War (1846-48).Īfter the war he was stationed on the Pacific Coast. An outstanding horseman, he was unable to join the cavalry after graduating 21st in a class of 39. He entered the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1839. Hiram Ulysses Grant, the son of a tanner, was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio on 27th April, 1822.
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