Lincoln, the unknown

ure at that,LINCOLN THE UNKNOWN • 179and then drifted about the town for weeks, lookingfor a job—any kind of job. At last he was in such desperatecircumstances that he tried to hire out his wife's negroes, inorder to get money to pay the grocer's bill.Here is one of the most surprising facts about the Civil War:Lee believed that slavery was wrong, and had freed his ownnegroes long before the conflict came; but Grant's wife ownedslaves at the very time that her husband was leading the armiesof the North to destroy slavery.When the war began, Grant was sick of his work in theGalena leather store and wanted to get back into the army.That ought to have been easy for a West Point graduate,when the army had hundreds of thousands of raw recruits towhip into shape. But it wasn't. Galena raised a company ofvolunteers, and Grant drilled them because he was the only manin town who knew anything at all about drilling, but when theymarched away to war with bouquets in their gun-barrels Grantstood on the sidewalk watching them. They had chosen anotherman as captain.Then Grant wrote to the War Department, telling of his experienceand asking to be appointed colonel of a regiment. Hisletter was never answered. It was found in the files of the WarDepartment while he was President.Finally he got a position in the adjutant's office in Springfield,doing clerical work that a fifteen-year-old girl could have done.He worked all day with his hat on, smoking constantly andcopying orders on an old broken-down table with three legs,which had been shoved into a corner for support.Then a wholly unexpected thing happened, an event that sethis feet on the road to fame. The 21st Regiment of IllinoisVolunteers had degenerated into an armed mob. They ignoredorders, cursed their officers, and chased old Colonel Goode outof camp, vowing that if he showed up again they would nailhis hide on a sour-apple tree.Governor Yates was worried.He didn't think much of Grant, but after all the man hadbeen graduated from West Point, so the governor took a chance.And on a sunny June day in 1861 Grant walked out to theSpringfield fair-grounds to take over the command of a regimentthat no one else could rule.A stick that he carried, and a red bandana tied around hiswaist—these were his only visible signs of authority.