by Ron Chernow
On the same day Grant issued the order, he wrote a letter expressing a conspiratorial view of Jewish traders, endowing them with almost diabolical powers, saying “they come in with their Carpet sacks in spite of all that can be done to prevent it. The Jews seem to be a privileged class that can travel anywhere. They will land at any wood yard or landing on the river and make their way through the country. If not permitted to buy Cotton themselves they will act as Agents for someone else who will be at a Military post, with a Treasury permit to receive Cotton and pay for it in Treasury notes which the Jew will buy up at an agreed rate, paying gold.”48
There are compelling reasons to think Grant promulgated his infamous order in a fit of Oedipal rage against his father, who materialized in Mississippi with three Jewish merchants from Cincinnati, the Mack brothers, who hoped to inveigle cotton-trading permits. All year, in an evolving family psychodrama, Grant’s anger had risen against Jesse, who sought to exploit his son’s position to gain appointments for relatives. Ulysses had also been annoyed when his father tried to borrow money from Julia and scolded Fred for supposed misbehavior. “I feel myself worse used by my own family than by strangers,” Grant protested to Julia, “and although I do not think father . . . would do me injustice, yet I believe he is influenced, and always may be, to my prejudice.”49 With Julia and the children rootless and adrift, the tension between her and her in-laws complicated life for Grant, the enforced separation from his family replicating the harrowing situation of his early army years. Worsening matters was the way Grant’s sisters mistreated his itinerant family, complaining about the money he paid them to care for his children. “Such unmitigated meanness as is shown by the girls makes me ashamed of them,” Grant told Julia.50
On November 23, Grant sent his father a scalding letter about his treatment of Julia. He tore away his inhibitions, venting his fury: “I am only sorry your letter, and all that comes from you speaks so condescendingly of everything Julia says, writes or thinks. You . . . are so prejudiced against her that she could not please you. This is not pleasing to me.”51 It was while Grant was seething over this matter that his father and the Mack brothers appeared seeking cotton-trading permits. Because the brothers were large clothing contractors who provided uniforms to the Union army, they desperately needed cotton. They promised to give Jesse Grant a quarter of the profits if he prevailed upon his son to bestow a permit to buy cotton for shipment to New York.
According to one version of the story, Jesse first appeared in Oxford alone and spent a pleasant day or two with his son, who never suspected his true intentions. Ulysses entertained the Mack brothers cordially when they arrived until he spied their true purpose. At that point, said one journalist, “The general’s anger was bitter and malignant toward these men . . . because of their having entrapped his old father into such an unworthy undertaking.”52 Of course, Jesse was a willing accomplice in the whole scheme. Once he saw the plot that was afoot, Grant had them all shipped north by the next train. Another version of the story says Grant was tipped off by aides to Jesse’s imminent arrival with the Mack brothers and issued General Orders No. 11 as a preemptive strike against them before they arrived.53
Whatever the exact sequence of events, Grant must have felt wounded by the situation, for he had railed at traders only to discover his father in cahoots with them. Grant’s infamous order was a self-inflicted wound, issued at a moment of pique and over the objections of Rawlins. Besides pointing to the order’s offensive nature, Rawlins predicted it would be countermanded by Washington. “Well, they can countermand this from Washington if they like,” Grant rejoined, “but we will issue it anyhow.”54 When he refused a trading permit to the Mack brothers, they pulled out of the agreement with Jesse, who then sued them for breach of contract. In undertaking the lawsuit, Jesse guaranteed more bad publicity for his son. The judge overseeing the case declared that “the whole of the Trade disclosed in this proceeding was not only disgraceful, but tends only to disgrace the country. It is the price of blood.”55
Lincoln perceived the political damage and injustice of General Orders No. 11 and rescinded it two weeks after its issuance. When outraged Jewish leaders descended on the White House, he reassured them that “to condemn a class is, to say the least, to wrong the good with the bad. I do not like to hear a class or nationality condemned on account of a few sinners.”56 Hesitant to rebuke Grant harshly lest it damage their relationship, Lincoln was firm in his decision, if relatively gentle in his reprimand. He did not ask Grant for an apology, letting others handle it. On January 21, Halleck transmitted to Grant Lincoln’s reaction to his order: “The President has no objection to your expelling traders & Jew pedlars, which I suppose was the object of your order, but as it in terms Proscribed an entire religious class, some of whom are fighting in our ranks, the President deemed it necessary to revoke it.”57
While the Jewish press vehemently denounced Grant, the mainstream press also criticized him, The New York Times noting that the war had revealed in many gentiles “degrees of rascality . . . that might put the most accomplished Shylocks to the blush.”58 At first, Elihu Washburne sought to transform General Orders No. 11 into an enlightened action, “the wisest order yet made,” as he told Lincoln. He professed amazement at all the fuss. “Your order touching the Jews has kicked up quite a dust among the Israelites,” he told Grant. “They came here in crowds and gave an entirely false construction to the order.”59 Nonetheless, Washburne faced considerable opposition in the House, where a resolution was introduced to censure Grant. Extolling him as “one of our best generals,” Washburne got it tabled by a narrow margin of 56 to 53. Although Senator Lazarus W. Powell of Kentucky castigated Grant’s order as “illegal, tyrannical, cruel and unjust,” Republicans still defeated the censure effort by a 30 to 7 vote.60
Luckily, during the brief time Grant’s obnoxious directive was in effect, it was weakly enforced. The sole exception came in Paducah, Kentucky, where thirty Jewish families received notice to leave the city within twenty-four hours. These shell-shocked Jews hastily collected their belongings, shuttered their homes and shops, and boarded an Ohio River steamer. Several Jewish merchants in the group fired off a message to Lincoln protesting Grant’s order, calling it unconstitutional and asserting it would “place us besides a large number of other Jewish families of this town as outlaws before the whole world.”61 American Jews were highly patriotic—in a population of 150,000, ten thousand served the North or South in the war—and were horrified at being stigmatized. So painful was the abuse incited by Grant’s order that Philip Trounstine, a Jewish captain in the Fifth Ohio Cavalry, resigned from the army, explaining, “I can no longer bear the taunts and malice, of those to whom my religious opinions are known, brought on by the effect that, that order has instilled into their minds.”62
Julia Grant, who seldom breathed a syllable of criticism of her husband, pulled no punches about General Orders No. 11, terming it an “obnoxious order” and saying Grant afterward agreed that criticism of him was deserved “as he had no right to make an order against any special sect.”63 In his Memoirs, Grant passed over the incident in embarrassed silence. When Fred flagged the omission, Grant explained, “That was a matter long past and best not referred to.”64 As we shall see, Grant as president atoned for his action in a multitude of meaningful ways. He was never a bigoted, hate-filled man and was haunted by his terrible action for the rest of his days. Even on his deathbed, according to a friend, “it was a source of great regret to him that he had been instrumental in inflicting a wrong upon [the Jews].”65
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WHEN NEW ORLEANS fell to a Union fleet under David Farragut in April 1862, it left Vicksburg as the last forbidding Confederate fortress towering over the Mississippi River. As hub of a railroad network radiating outward to many parts of the Confederacy, the town was central to the Confederate psyche as well as its military strategy. If the Union could capture Vicksburg, it could slice the C
onfederacy in two, separating eastern soldiers from western supplies. With Vicksburg conquered, the Union would again enjoy untrammeled navigation of the Mississippi. Lincoln understood Vicksburg’s centrality, but committed a critical error in selecting the general for the task. That fall, he asked Admiral David D. Porter to recommend the best general for taking Vicksburg in conjunction with a naval force. “General Grant, Sir,” Porter replied crisply. “Vicksburg is within his department, but I presume he will send Sherman there, who is equal to the occasion.” “Well! Well! Admiral,” said the president, “I have in my mind a better general than either of them: that is McClernand, an old and intimate friend of mine.”66 According to Porter, Lincoln made the absurd statement that John A. McClernand, not Grant, had saved the day at Shiloh. It should be noted that Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles claimed it was Porter who wanted McClernand, hoping to be relieved from dealing with West Point generals.
Whether McClernand bamboozled Lincoln, or simply convinced the president to appoint him on political grounds, is unclear. With his lean, bearded face and keenly flashing eyes, the Kentucky-born McClernand could be crotchety and hotheaded one moment, funny and quick-witted the next. Before the war, he had served as a lawyer, a newspaper editor, and a congressman from Illinois. He had dealt extensively with Lincoln, having served with him in the state legislature and argued courtroom cases with and against him. McClernand’s military experience was sparse, confined to three months in the Black Hawk War of 1832, but that did not shrink his swollen ambitions or prevent him from becoming a brigadier general in 1861. As a leading War Democrat and a rousing orator with a gift for intrigue, he attracted many western recruits to the cause, and Lincoln, eager to shore up war support in southern Illinois, was loath to rebuff him. Fearful of treasonous home-front dissension, Lincoln grew alarmed by talk among antiwar, or Copperhead, Democrats of forging a “Northwest Confederacy” that would enter into a separate peace with the Confederacy. He needed McClernand to scotch any such effort. Although McClernand had been one of his commanders at Belmont, Fort Donelson, and Shiloh, Grant did not like the way he attempted to grab credit for victories and often overstated his contribution.
What Grant likely did not know was the extent to which McClernand exploited the drinking issue against him. “McClernand was very bitter against Grant from the start,” recalled one officer. “He tried to destroy Grant. He had Grant drunk at Belmont, drunk at Donelson, drunk at Shiloh. He had spies in every regiment. He and [General Benjamin] Prentiss gave rise to a good many of the tales concerning Grant’s use of liquor.”67 James H. Wilson confirmed McClernand’s condescending view of Grant as a drunken mediocrity: “[McClernand] naturally looked down on Grant as a poor little captain kicked out of service for drunkenness, and it galled him like the devil to serve under such a man.”68 The historian Kenneth P. Williams has documented that it was McClernand who instigated Captain William J. Kountz to level drinking charges against Grant at Cairo early in the war.69
By the fall of 1862, Lincoln regarded reopening the Mississippi as a paramount objective and was receptive when McClernand, unknown to Grant, lobbied him in Washington about leading a mission to take Vicksburg. With his customary vanity, McClernand proclaimed he was “tired of furnishing brains” for Grant’s forces and grumbled about West Point generals who mistook strategy for fighting.70 Backed by endorsements from eight governors, McClernand requested an independent command in Grant’s territory. His plan was to raise midwestern volunteers, assemble them in Memphis, then take them down the Mississippi to conquer Vicksburg. Lincoln had misgivings about McClernand, complaining that he was “brave and capable, but too desirous to be independent of everybody else.”71 Nevertheless, on October 7, he informed his cabinet that he would accede to McClernand’s request for an independent command. To please all parties, in his confidential order of October 21, Stanton resorted to creative ambiguity, telling McClernand his expedition would “remain subject to the designation of the General-in-Chief.” He also advised him to launch his campaign “when a sufficient force, not required by the operations of General Grant’s command, shall be raised.”72 So McClernand didn’t escape entirely from Halleck and Grant’s oversight. Gideon Welles suggested that Stanton and Halleck endorsed the McClernand plan because “Grant was not a special favorite with either. He had like Hooker the reputation of indulging too freely with whiskey to be always safe and reliable.”73
McClernand’s top secret mission leaked to the press and on October 30 The New York Times issued a paean to him: “Gen. McClernand has inspired the whole West with enthusiastic faith in his courage, uniting energy with military skill.”74 Grant was sourly aware of the rumors. “Two commanders on the same field are always one too many,” he believed, “and in this case I did not think the general selected had either the experience or the qualifications to fit him for so important a position.”75 At this point, Grant did something clever, asking Halleck to restate the exact scope of his authority. He really wanted to know whether he could deploy troops at Memphis intended for McClernand. A West Point cabal now swung into action, with Halleck retaliating against McClernand by wiring Grant: “You have command of all the troops sent to your Department, and have permission to fight the enemy when you please.”76 This was all the encouragement Grant needed to thrust McClernand aside and reassert control. Now engaged in a race to take Vicksburg, he wanted to beat McClernand at his own game. On November 14, in a daring, provocative move, he authorized Sherman to “leave Memphis with two full Divisions,” including regiments McClernand had raised for his own use.77
On December 8, Grant conferred with Sherman at Oxford and sketched out plans for the expedition down the Mississippi River in which Sherman would cooperate with a gunboat fleet under David Porter. He was to assail Vicksburg from a spot north of the city known as Chickasaw Bayou. Showing his usual teamwork with Sherman, Grant was to execute a parallel movement south along the Mississippi Central Railroad, marching all the way down to Jackson, which lay due east of Vicksburg. In this way Confederates in Vicksburg would be required to fight on two fronts, land and water, to save the city. On December 19, as he rushed to depart before McClernand arrived, Sherman, in a mood of heady optimism, left Memphis with a large army and boasted to Rawlins, “You may calculate on our being at Vicksburg by Christmas.”78
Such premature optimism didn’t reckon on the damage Nathan Bedford Forrest and Earl Van Dorn would inflict on Grant’s supply network. In mid-December, Forrest initiated a terrifying campaign against Union garrisons and cavalry in western Tennessee, ripping up railroad and telegraph lines and killing Union troops. A handsome man with blue eyes and steel-gray hair, a former slave dealer and planter with little formal schooling and no military training, Forrest was legendary for his ferocity in battle. In one newspaper advertisement for recruits, he exhorted them: “Come on, boys, if you want a heap of fun and to kill some Yankees.”79 Like Grant, Forrest was known for demanding “unconditional surrender” from opponents. His rapid-fire, zigzagging movements on horseback perplexed Union cavalry. Though never intimidated by Forrest, Grant respected, even dreaded, his prowess. He thought him peerless among Confederate cavalry officers because his methods were so unorthodox and unpredictable.
On the morning of December 20, Grant was chatting with John Eaton when a telegram alerted him to a dreadful development: Earl Van Dorn, with 3,500 men, had audaciously swooped down at dawn on the Union supply depot at Holly Springs, torching millions of rations, dozens of train cars, and hundreds of bales of cotton, while also capturing 1,500 Union troops. Van Dorn regained the reputation he had lost at Corinth in an action that threatened to undermine Grant’s move on Vicksburg. As Grant read the telegram, Eaton recalled, “there was on his face no sign of disturbance that I could see, save a slight twitching of his mustache. He told me very quietly and dispassionately . . . that the night before he had telegraphed Colonel [Robert C.] Murphy warning him of Van Dorn’s approach and directing him to be on guar
d at every point. He had since been informed that Murphy was engaged at the time in some form of conviviality and let the warning pass unheeded.”80 Grant characterized the Holly Springs surrender as “the most disgraceful affair” that had occurred in his department.81 His soldiers had shown little stomach for a fight and capitulated with unseemly haste, while the young, inept Murphy had displayed “disloyalty” or “gross cowardice.”82 One southern journalist described wanton destruction at Holly Springs with “tents burning, torches flaming, Confederates shouting, guns popping, sabres clanking, abolitionists begging for mercy.”83 Loss of the supply depot temporarily derailed Grant’s overland campaign to Vicksburg, forcing him to retreat northward. Van Dorn had little time to luxuriate in his triumph. On May 7, 1863, he would be shot to death at his desk by a husband incensed at the license he had taken with the man’s wife.
Mississippi residents rejoiced at the Holly Springs raid until they realized Grant would now supply his army’s needs by living off the land. Rich foods began showing up in Union camps as wagons returned from countryside forays loaded with ham, corn, peas, beans, potatoes, and poultry. Herds of cattle were rounded up for slaughter. As Grant improvised these opportunistic methods to supply his army, he drew the invaluable lesson that his men could subsist for days, even weeks, off the produce of local farms, an insight that opened up the possibility of operating deep in enemy territory for prolonged periods.