General Grant

JUNE 6, 1863.]

HARPER'S WEEKLY.

365

MAJOR- GENERAL
U. S. GRANT.

WE publish herewith a portrait of the hero of the day, MAJOR- GENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT, Commander of the Army at Vicksburg.

General Grant was born at Point Pleasant, Clairmont Co., Ohio, on 27th April, 1822, and is consequently forty-one years of age. He entered West Point in 1839, and graduated in 1843, with Franklin, Reynolds, Steele, etc. Having entered the Fourth Infantry, he obtained his full commission at Corpus Christi in 1845, and served at all the battles under Taylor. His regiment subsequently joined General Scott, and young Grant figured conspicuously at all the battles of the old hero's campaign. For Moline del Re he got a brevet of First Lieutenant, and for Chapultepec one of Captain. He subsequently obtained his full rank as Captain, and accompanied his regiment to Oregon. In 1854 he resigned his commission, and took up his residence at Galena, Illinois.

On the outbreak of the rebellion he tendered his services to Governor Yates, and was shortly afterward appointed Colonel of the Twenty-first Illinois. On 17th May, 1861, he was commissioned a Brigadier-General. and filled various commands in Missouri and the vicinity. After the capture of Fort Henry, February 6, 1862, a new district was created, under the denomination of the District of West Tennessee, and General Grant was assigned by General Halleck to the command of it on the 14th of that month. He was in command of the Union forces at Fort Donelson from February 13 to 16, 1862, and his noted correspondence with General Buckner gained him the sobriquet of Unconditional Surrender Grant, answering to his initials of U. S. Grant. For the success of that action he was created a Major-General of Volunteers, dating from February 16, 1862.

After a few days he was again ordered into the field, and the manner in which he conducted the action at Shiloh, April 6 and 7, 1862, raised him still higher in public estimation.

He was second in command to General Halleck at the noted siege of Corinth, in May, 1862; and when General Halleck was ordered to Washington, General Grant was placed in command of the

Department of Tennessee, embracing all the country west of the Tennessee River, and on both shores of the Mississippi River, from Corinth to Louisiana. He was now placed in command of the Thirteenth Army Corps, and his troops fought the famous battles of I-u-k-a and Corinth, although General Grant did not command in person, being at Jackson, Tennessee, his head-quarters. In December, 1862, he removed his head-quarters to Holly Springs; and on the 22d of that month, his forces having been greatly increased, he divided them into four corps, viz.: the Thirteenth, Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Corps of the United States Army.

After the attack and failure of General Sherman at Vicksburg, December 27, 1862, a regular plan of operations had to be worked out, and many schemes were planned and attempted to get into the rear of the rebel strong-hold, either from above or below, among which may be particularized the Yazoo Pass expedition, the Big Sunflower expedition, the Vicksburg Canal, the Lake Providence Canal and Great Union River, and several others; but the one that has most successfully contributed to the grand result was the moving down of his troops overland by way of the Louisiana shore, running transports and gun-boats past the Vicksburg batteries, and so carrying the men across the Mississippi to Bruinsberg and landing them under cover of the gun-boats. These manoeuvres have each taken up time, but, with the exception of the last, were mere feints to draw off the attention of the rebels from his main movement. With three out of his four corps of troops he has advanced into the heart of a rebel State, taken its capital, and beaten the rebels in four pitched battles. The Herald says: General Grant is a modest, unassuming man, and on first taking command was regarded as a curiosity by the soldiers on account of his plainness of dress in comparison with the young and new-fledged colonels and less advanced officers, and particularly a shocking bad stove-pipe hat, which he wore for a long time before donning a military tile. The General is a man of business, and very popular with the troops. a He appears about forty-five years of age, sandy complexion, reddish beard, medium height, pleasant, twinkling eyes, and he weighs about one hundred and seventy pounds. He smokes (Next Page)

MAJOR-GENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT, U.S.A.-[PHOTOGRAPHED BY BRADY.]

GOVERNOR ANDREW G. CURTIN, OF PENNSYLVANIA.-[SEE PAGE 362.]

CLEMENT L. VALLANDIGHAM.-PHOTOGRAPHED BY BRADY.-[SEE PAGE 362.]