Beschreibung:

GRANT, Ulysses S. (1822-1885), Lieutenant General, President . Autograph letter signed ("U. S. Grant") to Capt. R. W. Chitwood, Headquarters, Jefferson City, Mo., 21 August 1861. 1 page, folio, a few very small closed tears at folds . "LEADING AND PROMINENT SECESSIONISTS MAY BE CARRIED ALONG...AS HOSTAGES" An important, early war-date letter in which a newly minted Brigadier General Grant gives marching orders to a subordinate: "You will march your men through the country in an orderly manner. Allow no indiscriminate plundering by your men, but everything taken must be by your direction, by persons detailed for the particular purpose, keeping an account of what taken, from whom, its value, &c. Arrests will not be made except for good reasons. A few leading and prominent secessionists may be carried along however as hostages, and released before arriving here. Property which you may know to have been used for the purpose of aiding the rebel cause will be taken whether you require it or not. What you require for the subsistence of your men and horses must be furnished by people of secession sentiments, and accounted for as stated above. No receipts are to be given unless you find it necessary to get supplies from friends." Grant recalls this action in his Memoirs : "I had been at Jefferson City but a few days when I was directed from department headquarters to fit out an expedition to Lexington, Booneville and Chillicothe, in order to take from the banks in those small cities all the funds they had and send them to St. Louis. The western army had not yet been supplied with transportation. It became necessary therefore to press into service teams belonging to sympathizers with the rebellion or to hire those of Union men" ( Memoirs , Library of America edition, 171). Hence the references here to seizing property--and the even more surprising, Sherman-like suggestions of taking hostages. The Missouri theatre in the opening phase of the war was as brutal as it was chaotic. Roaming partisan bands, claiming fig leafs of military authority, operated as little more than criminal gangs. It's no wonder Union authorities wanted to get money out of vulnerable Missouri banks. More regular Confederate and Union forces were scattered throughout the state, poorly coordinated and sloppily organized. Grant was struck by the slack discipline of the bluecoats in Jefferson City, and even more dismayed by the ad hoc way officers were forming new regiments, making up their own terms of enlistment, and doling out commissions helter skelter. The Army definitely needed tightening up, and for that reason Lincoln had just put through a promotion list at the end of July--handing out general's stars to junior officers who had remained loyal through the secession frenzy, as well as to returning veterans, like Grant. His digged professionalism, though, would soon bear fruit.