Ulysses S. Grant
...he was drilling with the volunteers because as he said no one would do the job. He went to Springfield ,Illinois, just wearing his citizens clothes. The governor made him a clerk, then a mustering officer. After the gathering he left. But the governor telegraphed him telling him to come back and accept the rank a colonel because the men he recruited wanted him. Officers was expected to have their own horse and uniform, but Grant didn’t have either of them. He marched his men into Missouri. He reached his head quarters in Illinois. On September 4, 1861. Two day later he took Paducah, Kentucky without firing a shot. In February he went into Tennessee, with aid from Commodore Foote’s gunboats he took Fort Henry on the Tennessee River. Then he moved on to Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. The Confederate general, Simon B. Buckner asked for a truce. Buckner surrendered his fort with 14,000 prisoners. Lincoln named Grant major general. The objective in the West was to spilt the Confederacy in half winning the Mississippi Valley. The first success came during 1862 in the battle at Shiloh, Tennessee. In two days, Grant, pushed the confederate forces back into Mississippi. Losses on both sides were heavy. Grant spent the rest of 1862 on making plans to take Vicksburg, a major transportation point for the Confederacy. The fort surrendered on July 4, 1863, a day after the battle of Gettysburg. Five days later Port Hudson fell. For all of his success he was given the supreme command of all armies in the West. He returned to Tennessee, to relieve a Federal army the had been captured in Chattanooga. The confederates occupied the two main ways to approach the city, Lookout Mountain and Missionary ridge. On November 24 and 25, the Federal troops stormed the mountains and the confederates fled into Georgia. All Tennessee was now captured. The power of the Confederacy was now broken. In the final battle, he found himself up against Robert E. Lee. As result terrorists began to attack the Blacks to prevent their vote. Then it was found the members of Congress had been bribed to vote in agreement to the Union Pacific railroad. In 1874, the Whiskey Ring was uncovered. This was a ring of distillers and tax officers defrauded the reven...