This week has consisted of getting material together for another school year. I am working on new notes for my American History and World History courses. Nevertheless, progress was made on More Than Grit wrapping up the Battle of Port Gibson. Interestingly, Grant and a few others made little mention of it in their memoirs or the Official Records. It was not a decisive battle, but operationally, it opened up the roads to Jackson and Grand Gulf. Finally, there will be some forward progress with the publication of my dissertation this next month or so.
I recently picked up Brett Baier’s biography of Ulysses Grant. It is a fine little biography, but one section details both Grant and Sherman’s thinking in the future progress of 1864. As Sherman triumphantly took Atlanta, one of his most trusted subordinates, James McPherson, died in the line of fire. This event was a terrible blow to both Grant and Sherman. Both men wept uncontrollably upon learning of his fate. Sherman told an aide, “I expected something to happen to Grant me; either the Rebels or the newspapers would kill us both, and I looked to McPherson as the man to follow us and finish the war.” My initial reaction was one of hindsight, knowing full well that Grant and Sherman survived the war.
However, after thinking about it a bit longer, I realized that it was most likely how Grant and Sherman viewed McPherson. Both men came close to death on multiple occasions during the Civil War. Grant came face to face with an entire Confederate line of soldiers at Belmont and often wrote orders while under fire. At Shiloh, Sherman was shot and was also known to give direction under enemy fire. Both men also faced terrible attacks from news reporters claiming Sherman was crazy while Grant was drunk. Luckily, Halleck was brought east, and Grant remained in command in the summer of 1862. Sherman had a shred of respect left with his peers after his breakdown after Bull Run as he managed to work under both Halleck and Grant. It is terrible to imagine what would have happened without Grant or Sherman, but clearly, both understood their positions. They very well knew they might not make it out of the war. Therefore, the pain of losing a man like McPherson, who was with both of them since their triumphant Vicksburg Campaign, must have taken a terrible toll.
Grant took it especially hard. McPherson’s grandmother requested him to write a few words about her grandson. Grant had no idea where to start. This image bears an eerie resemblance to when Napoleon lost his favorite marshal, Jean Lannes, after he lost his leg from a cannonball that ricocheted against a wall and hit him. Napoleon wept and viewed Lannes as one of his best generals. Napoleon later said, “In Lannes, courage first prevailed over wit; but wit rose daily to find its balance; I had taken him as a pygmy, I lost him as a giant. I am losing the most distinguished general of my armies, the one I considered my best friend; his children will always have special rights to my protection.” After Lannes’s death, Napoleon wrote to his wife, “The marshal died this morning from wounds he received on the field of honor. My grief equals yours; I lose the most distinguished general of my armies, my companion in arms for sixteen years, the one I considered my best friend.” In the same vein, Grant finally gathered his thoughts and wrote to McPherson’s grandmother the following, “It may be of some consolation to you…to know that every officer and every soldier who served under your grandson felt the highest reverence for his patriotism, his zeal, his great, almost unequaled ability, his amiability, and all the manly virtues that can adorn a commander. Your bereavement is great but cannot exceed mine.”
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