Newt Gingrich - Grant Comes East

Cairo Illinois

July 16 1863

A cold rain swept across the river. To the east, lightning streaked the evening sky, thunder rolling over the white-capped Ohio River.

The storm had hit with a violent intensity and for a few minutes slowed the work along the docks, but already sergeants were barking orders at the drenched enlisted men while rain-soaked stevedores were urged back to their labors. Dozens of boats lined the quays, offloading men, horses, limber wagons, and field pieces.

To the eyes of Gen. Herman Haupt, commander of United States military railroads, the sight of these men was reassuring. They were the veterans of the Army of the Tennessee, the victors of the great campaign that had climaxed ten days ago at Vicksburg, a victory that had come simultaneously with what was now seen as the darkest day of the war, the day Lee defeated the Army of the Potomac at Union Mills.

The soldiers disembarking on the banks of the Ohio were lean and tough, their disciplined, no-nonsense carriage conveying strength and confidence despite their bedraggled, tattered uniforms, faded from rainy marching in the muddy fields of Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee. Headgear was an individual choice. Most wore battered, broad-brimmed hats for protection against hot southern sun and torrential rains. Regulation field packs were gone; most were carrying blanket, poncho, and shelter half in a horseshoe-shaped roll, slung over the left shoulder and tied off at the right hip. Except for the blue of their uniforms, they looked more like their Confederate opponents than the clean, disciplined, orderly ranks Herman Haupt was used to seeing in the East. Few if any would ever have passed inspection with regiments trained by McClellan. These Westerners were rawboned boys from prairie farms in Iowa and Ohio, lumberjacks from Michigan, mechanics from Detroit, and boatmen from the Great Lakes and Midwest rivers. The unending campaigning had marked them as field soldiers. Spit and polish had long ago been left behind at Shiloh and the fever-infested swamps of the bayous along the Mississippi.

They already knew their mission… pull the defeated Army of the Potomac out of the fire and put the Confederacy in the grave. They came now with confidence, swaggering off the steamboats, forming into ranks, standing at ease while rolls were checked, impervious to the rain and wind, their calmness, to Haupt's mind, a reflection of the man that he now waited for.

He could see the boat, rounding the cape from the Mississippi River into the Ohio, the light packet moving with speed, cutting a wake, smoke billowing from its twin stacks, sparks snapping heavenward, carried off by the wind following the storm. The flag on the stern mast denoted that an admiral was aboard, but mat was not the man Haupt was waiting for.

The diminutive side-wheeler, a courier boat built for speed, aimed straight for the dock where Haupt was standing, the port master waving a signal flag to guide it in.

Haupt looked over at the man accompanying him, Congressman Elihu Washburne, confidant of the president and political mentor of the general on board the boat Elihu, who had joined Haupt only the hour before, was silent, clutching a copy of the Chicago Tribune, out just this morning, its front page reporting the disaster at Union Mills, the advance of Lee's army on Washington, and the riots which had erupted in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.

"I sure as hell am glad I don't have his responsibilities," Elihu sighed as the side-wheeler slowed, paddle wheels shifting into reverse, backing water in a dramatic display by its pilot, who had timed to the second the order to reverse engines.

Its steam whistle shrieking, the boat edged in toward the dock, half a dozen black stevedores racing along the rough-hewn planks, ready to grab lines tossed by the light packet's crew.

Ropes snaked out across the water were caught as the boat edged into the dock, brushing against it with a dull thump that snapped through Haupt's feet, the dock swaying on its pilings.

The stevedores tightened the lines, lashing them down to bollards, and within seconds a gangplank-was run over, slamming down on the deck.

There was no ceremony or fanfare, no blaring of trumpets, no honor guard racing down the dock and coming to attention with polished rifles. The door to the main cabin swung open and he came out.

Haupt had never seen this man before but he knew instantly who he was. He was short, grizzled-looking, with an unkempt beard of reddish-brown flecked with gray; his face was deeply sunburned, wrinkled heavily around the eyes, which were deep set and sharp-looking. His dark blue private's four-button coat free of all adornment except for the insignia of rank, which, Haupt quickly noted, was still that of major general in spite of his recent promotion. Slouch hat pulled low against the storm, he came down the gangplank and Haupt came to attention and saluted.

The general nodded, half saluted, looked over at Elihu, and extended his hand.

"Congressman, good to see you."

"General Grant, I'm damn glad to see you," Elihu replied. "This is General Haupt, the man who makes the railroads work."

Grant looked up at Haupt and nodded.

"Heard of you. You do good work, General."

"Thank you, sir, the respect is mutual."

Grant said nothing, gazing at him appraisingly for a moment. Behind Grant two more men came down the gangplank, and again began the ritual of salutes and introductions to Admiral Porter and General Sherman, who towered over Grant, standing as tall as Haupt, returning his salute without comment

"Let's get out of this rain," Grant said.

Haupt led the way off the dock. As they passed a regiment of troops forming up in the mud in front of a steamer, there was a scattering of cheers, nothing wild and demonstrative, just a respectful acknowledgment, which Grant responded to with a simple half wave, and nothing more.

The wind reversed for a moment, another gust of rain sweeping down, the air thick with the smell of wood and coal smoke. They climbed a slick, mud-covered road, corduroyed with rough-hewn planks, stepping aside for a moment as a gun crew labored up the slippery track, horses straining, pulling a three-inch ordnance rifle.

Haupt studied the crew as they passed. They had obviously seen hard fighting; the limber chest was scored and pocked by bullets, paint faded and scratched; the horses were lean like the men.

Reaching the crest to the bluff looking down on the river, Haupt paused for a second, letting the officers behind him catch up.

The view stirred his heart. A dozen steamboats were tied up along the dock; out across the Ohio and around the bend that led to the Mississippi came more, a long line of ships, the view lost in the mists and swirling clouds of rain.

Before him was the rail yard. Before the war, Cairo had already been a thriving port town where the rail line that led into the vast heartland of the Midwest terminated at this connection to the river traffic of two great waterways. The war had transformed it beyond all imagining, the main port of supply supporting the campaigns up the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, and down the broad, open Mississippi to Vicksburg and now on to New Orleans and the world.

Dozens of locomotives, marshaled here over the last four days, waited, each hooked to boxcars and flatcars, some of them brought down from as far away as Chicago and Milwaukee.

The authorization the president had given Haupt had been far-reaching, beyond the scope of anything done until now in this war, or in any war. He had federalized half a dozen lines, argued with scores of railroad executives, and made it clear to all of them that they would be compensated, but as of right now he was running their schedules, and resistance would be met with arrest. Haupt reminded more than one of them that Lincoln had suspended the writ of habeas corpus and would not hesitate, if need be, to throw a railroad president in jail if he, Haupt, should request it. Elihu had already shown Haupt the editorial in the Indianapolis Journal denouncing him as the "Napoleon of the Railroads."