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tured territory while battle-seasonedsoldiers went on to end this blastedaffair. Lincoln liked the idea and issued the call.Wisconsin, for one, was told to supply 3,000 men. The state never did get enough, and the last companies of its last regiments left undermanned.Among the first of these 100-day troops was Company A of the 41st Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry. It consisted almost entirely of men from Lancaster and Platteville in Grant County.Among them was Private JohnGarner Gillham.He had signed up on May 5, 1864. A month later, he was with three infantries that boarded steamers for picket and rail guard duty in Memphis while Sherman marched to Atlanta.It should have been a safe tour of duty—indeed, Gillham and other green recruits weren’t trained for any heavy action—and the real combatants all were far to the east of Memphis.That is, all but the Confederate raiders led by Nathan Bedford Forrest. The man who harrowingly escaped Grant’s capture of Fort Donel-son more than two years earlier had spent the interim improving his brand of guerrilla warfare. And he practiced it against Wisconsin’s 100-day men on Sunday, Aug. 21. With lightning speed and untold daring, he thrust his cavalry through the Union camp in broad daylight, creating chaos.Forrest took 300 prisoners and as many horses as his men could corral. Outside the camp, he released the men and killed the horses.Gillham recounted the scene in aletter to his 11-year-old daughter Eva: “I counted 13 dead rebs lying inthe road close together. About half of them were shot through the head. WeftThe Civil War had gone on for some months — and Grant had been promoted several times — before he finally met his Commander in Chief Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln generally ignored the talk he was hearing about Grant’s drinking and conduct; overall, Lincoln was thankful to have an able commander to replace the dolts who had been running the showbefore Grant rose from the clamor. The young boy is Lincoln's son Tad who was fascinated by the machines and men of the war. Occasionally the president would impose upon his generals for some pieces of war memorabilia to give his devoted son.mML#5*0*1o%*XVOZ*8lt;Ahave just 18 days more to serve and I expect we will stay here until our time is out.”But Gillham didn’t serve his full 100 days; he was discharged a week early because of illness. Disease in army camps always was a cause for concern, if not alarm. Gillham's 41st Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, for instance, didn’t lose a man in hostilities, but disease killed 13.The dueling armies of Grant and Lee were locked across central Virginia when Gillham returned to Wisconsin in the late fall of 1864.Through that fall, winter and early spring, Grant’s army exhausted rebel resistance. Finally, by April 7 of 1865, Grant was so sure of victory that he sent a message to Lee suggesting that immediate surrender talks might avert more bloodshed.Lee refused. The next day, a fearless, young, blond-haired Union general named George Armstrong Custer, who had graduated four years earlier at the bottom of his West Point class, intercepted four supply trains headed for Lee’s command, Custer, the U.S. Army’s youngest general, also captured artillery, a hospital train and scores of prisoners as he pushed toward the little settlement of Appomattox Court House, Virginia.And the next day, April 9, Lee was ready to talk peace.He met Grant at Wilmer McLean’s farm home near Appomattox Court House. Lee was dressed resplendent-ly, as usual. Grant was rumpled and muddv, as usual.w wThe terms he offered Lee were generous: Rebel officers could keep their sidearms and all soldiers could return home and keep their horses for spring plowing, but all other weapons and supplies had to be surrendered.Lee accepted the terms of the Union army he had refused to command four years earlier, and told Grant that his Confederates were starving. Grant ordered that rations for 25,000 be distributed to thedefeated army from the supply trainsCuster had captured.The two men talked briefly the next day and parted, Lee for Richmond and Grant for Washington Grant arrived April 13 and met with Lincoln and his cabinet the next morqing to discuss the truce. He left Lincoln at 2 p.m. and joined his wife Julia on a 4 p.m. train to New Jersey, where their children were staying.The Grants were anxious to be together and declined an invitation to join President and Mrs. Lincoln that night at Ford’s Theater for the last performance of ‘‘Our American Cousin.”Grant was handed a telegram while he munched a midnight snack at Philadelphia. Lincoln had been shot.Actor John Wilkes Booth had fired a bullet into Lincoln’s head and escaped across the theater stage, brandishing a dagger and shouting the motto of the fallen state of Virginia. Booth was gunned down in a barn 12 davs later.wThe nation had little time to pay Lincoln the tribute he deserved. It paused only briefly while the body of the one-time militiaman, freer of slaves and preserver of the Union went back to Illinois on a draped train.Vice President Andrew Johnson was sworn into the president’s office, where he sat back and collected documents of surrender as they rolled in from crumbling southern divisions. The last arrived on May 26.The war was over, the Union preserved. But animosities continued.The Civil War was barely a week old on April 22, 1861, when the Dubuque waterfront took on a carnival atmosphere as local boys boarded steamships to head down south and fight. Most, though, still believed that there'd be no fight; that a simple show of force would back down the Rebs. Aboard one of these ships was Dubuque Herald city editor Franc Wilkie. This sketch is by Alexander Simplot who himself would catch up with Wilkie and the boys and cover some of the war from the front. This sketch, published in Harper’s Weekly, is the first Civil War sketch to be printed.president adhered to the Appomattox peace pact.With his war duties finished. Grant acceded to popular demand and toured the Northt finally arriving at Galena on Aug 18, 1865, 44 years after his enlistment.The lead-boom town was crammed with 25,000 people craning to see the hometown boy who’d put down rebellion Bunting was everywhere, and each window and roof fronting Main Street was crowded with facesA huge wooden arch bridged Main Street, and it held 36 young women dressed in white, each holding a flag and bouquet to toss at the guest of honorAlexander Simplot was in the crowd with pencil and sketchbook, covering the homecoming for Harper’s after a two-year sabbatical from covenng the war.The crowd went wild when Grant'sentourage rode m Worshipers had traveled from all parts of Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa to welcome theirLincoln would have treated the sajntdefeated rebels tenderly, but Johnson, browbeaten by vengeful politicians, would treat the Confederates sternly.By June, President Johnson had laid plans to indict Lee and other rebel officers, counter to the surrender terms that Gen. Grant had promised. Grant protested, first in writing and then in person. Grant finally threatened to quit unless hisA dinner reception was held at the DeSoto House hotel, where a gangly politician named Abe Lincoln and a senator named Stephen A. Douglashad made speeches years earlier.Praise and gifts showered on the general. He accepted keys to a $16,000, two-story brick house that Galenans had built for him on the eastern edge of their town.And he was told to forget his earlier
Newspaper Details
Dubuque Visitor
Dubuque, Iowa, US
Sun, Feb 22, 1976
Page 24
Full Page
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MO, USA 14 Dec 2020
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