198 THE PORTRAIT GALLERY 



he succeeded in opening up the Mississippi river for the Federal 

 forces. This gave a new front of attack on the south, which ad- 

 vantage he pursued after a vicarious period in which his com- 

 mands were rapidly shifted and re-shifted. His successes at 

 Chattanooga, Knoxville and Nashville, drove the Confederates out 

 of Tennessee and made him a Lieutenant-General. On March 12, 

 1864, he was given supreme command, and immediately initiated 

 a pressure from all sides that resulted in final victory. The early 

 successes were costly and subjected him to severe censure, to 

 which came his famous reply, "I propose to fight it out on this 

 line if it takes all summer." Sherman's march to the sea and 

 thence northward cut off the Confederates from the south. Banks 

 shut in Mobile and the central south, Sigel countered Brecken- 

 ridge, Butler attacked Richmon4 and Meade covered Washing- 

 ton. Sherman was particularly successful, as was Hunter who 

 succeeded Sigel, and the Confederate armies were shut into Vir- 

 ginia and the Carolinas. Constant attack, with varying immediate 

 successes ultimately wore down first the Lee and then the Johns- 

 ton resistance, and General Grant was acclaimed the victor. 



The reconstruction days developed sharp friction between 

 President Johnson and General Grant, now a full general 

 by act of Congress. Petty politics played some very ignoble 

 roles in the War Department, but the Congressional backing 

 was such that General Grant pulled through unscathed. In 

 1868 he was elected president by a wide margin over Seymour, 

 while some disappointed politicians forced Horace Greeley 

 against him for the second term, only to receive a greater defeat. 

 President Grant resumed specie payment on the federal debts, 

 secured the funding of the war debt at lower interest rates 

 through new bond issues, modified the Indian policy so that 

 humanity and justice replaced brute force, secured the adoption 

 of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, put competi'' 

 tive examinations into the Civil Service, and by armed force 



