Lincoln, the unknown

LINCOLN THE UNKNOWN• 183millions believed it. A tidal wave of popular indignation sweptover the country, and the public clamored for his removal. ButLincoln said:"I can't spare this man. He fights."When people told him Grant drank too much whisky, he inquired:"What brand? I want to send a few barrels to some ofmy other generals."The following January Grant assumed command of the expeditionagainst Vicksburg. The campaign against thisnaturalfortress, perched on a high bluff two hundred feet above theMississippi, was long and heartbreaking. The place was heavilyfortified, and the gunboats on the river couldn't elevate theircannon high enough to touch it. Grant's problem was to get hisarmy close enough to attack it.He went back to the heart of Mississippi and tried to marchon it from the east. That failed.Then he cut away the levees of the river, put his army onboats, and tried to float through the swamps and get at the placefrom the north. That failed.Then he dug a canal and tried to change the course of theMississippi. That failed.It was a trying winter. Rain fell almost continuously, the riverflooded the whole valley, and Grant's troops floundered throughmiles of swamps, ooze, bayous, tangled forests, and trailingvines. Men stood up to their waists in mud, they ate in the mud,they slept in the mud. Malarial fever broke out, and measlesand smallpox. Sanitation was well-nigh impossible, and thedeath-rate was appalling.The Vicksburg campaign was a failure—that was the cry thatwent up everywhere. A stupid failure, a tragic failure, a criminalfailure.Grant's own generals—Sherman, McPherson, Logan, Wilson—regarded his plans as absurd, and believed they would end inblack ruin. The press throughout the country was vitriolic, andthe nation was demanding Grant's removal."He has hardly a friend left except myself," Lincoln said.Despite all opposition, Lincoln clung to Grant; and he hadhis faith richly rewarded, for, on July 4, the same day that thetimid Meade let Lee escape at Gettysburg, Grant rode intoVicksburg on a horse taken from the plantation of JeffersonDavis, and won a greater victory than any American generalhad achieved since the days of Washington.