Grant I just like this story from Grant's Memoirs more than I can say.

rosefiend

First Sergeant
Joined
Jun 5, 2014
Location
Confusion, Missouri
I broke this into a couple of extra paragraphs to make the reading easier. The war had just started and Col. U.S. Grant was in Missouri.

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My sensations as we approached what I supposed might be "a field of battle" were anything but agreeable. I had been in all the engagements in Mexico that it was possible for one person to be in; but not in command. If some one else had been colonel and I had been lieutenant-colonel I do not think I would have felt any trepidation. ...

I received orders to move against Colonel Thomas Harris, who was said to be encamped at the little town of Florida (Missouri), some twenty-five miles south of where we then were.

At the time of which I now write we had no transportation and the country about Salt River was sparsely settled, so that it took some days to collect teams and drivers enough to move the camp and garrison equipage of a regiment nearly a thousand strong, together with a week's supply of provision and some ammunition. While preparations for the move were going on I felt quite comfortable; but when we got on the road and found every house deserted I was anything but easy. In the twenty-five miles we had to march we did not see a person, old or young, male or female, except two horsemen who were on a road that crossed ours. As soon as they saw us they decamped as fast as their horses could carry them. I kept my men in the ranks and forbade their entering any of the deserted houses or taking anything from them.

We halted at night on the road and proceeded the next morning at an early hour. Harris had been encamped in a creek bottom for the sake of being near water. The hills on either side of the creek extend to a considerable height, possibly more than a hundred feet.

As we approached the brow of the hill from which it was expected we could see Harris' camp, and possibly find his men ready formed to meet us, my heart kept getting higher and higher until it felt to me as though it was in my throat. I would have given anything then to have been back in Illinois, but I had not the moral courage to halt and consider what to do; I kept right on.

When we reached a point from which the valley below was in full view I halted. The place where Harris had been encamped a few days before was still there and the marks of a recent encampment were plainly visible, but the troops were gone. My heart resumed its place. It occurred to me at once that Harris had been as much afraid of me as I had been of him.

This was a view of the question I had never taken before; but it was one I never forgot afterwards. From that event to the close of the war, I never experienced trepidation upon confronting an enemy, though I always felt more or less anxiety. I never forgot that he had as much reason to fear my forces as I had his. The lesson was valuable.

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An interesting side note: Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) claimed that he was in Harris's regiment and fled at Grant's approach, but actually he was here in St. Joseph, getting ready to board a stagecoach and leave for Nevada (the state, not the town) and get out of the war for good.
 
J. F. C. Fuller, in his The Generalship of Ulysses S. Grant, points to this as a significant example of Grant's ability to learn from experience (and also points out a number of others). He thought that this ability to learn, coupled with a healthy dose of common sense and a tendency not to get rattled under fire, often more than made up for Grant's relative lack of imagination. (Although he does note that there were a few things Grant never seemed to learn, such as what Fuller called the "proper" use of artillery, and the greater effective range of the rifle over the smoothbore musket.)
 
I broke this into a couple of extra paragraphs to make the reading easier. The war had just started and Col. U.S. Grant was in Missouri.

&&&&&&&&

My sensations as we approached what I supposed might be "a field of battle" were anything but agreeable. I had been in all the engagements in Mexico that it was possible for one person to be in; but not in command. If some one else had been colonel and I had been lieutenant-colonel I do not think I would have felt any trepidation. ...

I received orders to move against Colonel Thomas Harris, who was said to be encamped at the little town of Florida (Missouri), some twenty-five miles south of where we then were.

At the time of which I now write we had no transportation and the country about Salt River was sparsely settled, so that it took some days to collect teams and drivers enough to move the camp and garrison equipage of a regiment nearly a thousand strong, together with a week's supply of provision and some ammunition. While preparations for the move were going on I felt quite comfortable; but when we got on the road and found every house deserted I was anything but easy. In the twenty-five miles we had to march we did not see a person, old or young, male or female, except two horsemen who were on a road that crossed ours. As soon as they saw us they decamped as fast as their horses could carry them. I kept my men in the ranks and forbade their entering any of the deserted houses or taking anything from them.

We halted at night on the road and proceeded the next morning at an early hour. Harris had been encamped in a creek bottom for the sake of being near water. The hills on either side of the creek extend to a considerable height, possibly more than a hundred feet.

As we approached the brow of the hill from which it was expected we could see Harris' camp, and possibly find his men ready formed to meet us, my heart kept getting higher and higher until it felt to me as though it was in my throat. I would have given anything then to have been back in Illinois, but I had not the moral courage to halt and consider what to do; I kept right on.

When we reached a point from which the valley below was in full view I halted. The place where Harris had been encamped a few days before was still there and the marks of a recent encampment were plainly visible, but the troops were gone. My heart resumed its place. It occurred to me at once that Harris had been as much afraid of me as I had been of him.

This was a view of the question I had never taken before; but it was one I never forgot afterwards. From that event to the close of the war, I never experienced trepidation upon confronting an enemy, though I always felt more or less anxiety. I never forgot that he had as much reason to fear my forces as I had his. The lesson was valuable.

&&&&&&&&

An interesting side note: Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) claimed that he was in Harris's regiment and fled at Grant's approach, but actually he was here in St. Joseph, getting ready to board a stagecoach and leave for Nevada (the state, not the town) and get out of the war for good.

Nice quote; thanks (I admit I've not read Grant or very much biography beyond the basics).

And just for the record, Nevada was a territory then, not a state. Clemens' brother was governor but Sam still managed to get himself run out of town once anyway after he settled into his first newspaper job.
 
Nice quote; thanks (I admit I've not read Grant or very much biography beyond the basics).

And just for the record, Nevada was a territory then, not a state. Clemens' brother was governor but Sam still managed to get himself run out of town once anyway after he settled into his first newspaper job.

Lol! That was made into an episode of Bonanza! The first few years the writers were into Nevada history.
 
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