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 Richmond and MEapE 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 
