Grant at Vicksburg: The General and the Siege

3. River of Lies

43|3{ River of Lies On June 6, Grant readied himself for the inspection trip up the Yazoo River to Satartia. He asked Dana if he would like to come along, and Dana agreed to go. Grant addressed his plan to McClernand, but copies went to Sherman and McPherson. Dana sent a message about the trip to Secretary of War Stanton, and in the message, Dana noted that the boat carrying him and Grant was just departing. Dana’s message was dated June 6 and the time noted as 7 p.m. The time is significant when considering the controversy that grew out of this excursion.1 Dana wrote in his memoirs that he and Grant rode horseback, accompanied by a cavalry guard, to Haynes’s Bluff, where they boarded a small boat named USS Diligence, sometimes used as a mail boat and reserved for Grant’s use if needed. Grant became ill and went to bed in an onboard cabin shortly after the trip began. The word ill in Grant’s case could mean sick or that he had drunk too much liquor. In this particular episode, the assumption has been that he had imbibed too much, but Grant also had a problem with severe headaches. Vicksburg summers could make anyone sick with headaches or most any other malady. The heat and oppressive humidity, plus illnesses that abounded in military camps, did not produce healthy surroundings.2 The boat continued upstream to within a couple of miles of Satartia and met two gunboats coming downstream. When officers aboard the gunboats saw Grant’s personal flag waving on the deck of the Diligence, they signaled to Grant’s pilot to stop. The men came onboard to see where 44 | river of lies the general was heading. Dana told them, and they responded quickly that Satartia was not safe and that Kimball’s division had retreated back to Haynes’s Bluff. Confederates in the area might already be in Satartia. Dana responded that General Grant had become ill and was inside the cabin sleeping. The officers said Dana should immediately wake Grant, tell him the situation, and have him order the Diligence back downstream. Dana did enter the cabin, but he found Grant too ill to make a decision. The officers agreed that Dana could decide, though they, in effect, had made it an easy decision, and he ordered Grant’s boat to turn and follow the gunboats.3 As dawn broke on June 7, Grant got up, put on fresh clothes, and came to breakfast. Dana described him as “fresh as a rose.” Grant asked Dana if they had reached Satartia. Dana replied that they were back at Haynes’s Bluff and related why the return was necessary. Grant seemed unperturbed , and since there were few officers in the area, he asked Dana to accompany a cavalry company and ride toward Mechanicsburg. Grant wanted more intelligence about Johnston’s supposed advance from Canton to the Big Black, and he trusted Dana. The detachment scoured the countryside, not returning to Haynes’s until the next day. Dana reported there was no indication of Johnston moving en masse at all.4 After the war, Dana became editor and part-owner of the New York Sun. In an article entitled “Gen. Grant’s Occasional Intoxication” in the January 28, 1887, edition of that paper, Dana wrote a response to critics of Grant’s drinking and why Lincoln and Stanton put up with his habit: “Gen. Grant’s seasons of intoxication were not frequent, but occurring once in three or four months, but he always chose a time when the gratification of his appetite for drink with any important movement with perfect judgment, and when it was all over, no outsider suspected such things had been.” Dana went on to write that on the occasion of the June 6 trip, Grant did get as “stupidly drunk as the immortal nature of man would allow; but the next day he came out as fresh as a rose, without any indication of the spree as he had passed through. So it was on two or three other occasions that we happened to know of.” Dana added that Grant’s drinking never affected his generalship.5 James Wilson wrote in his diary on June 7, 1863, that he had seen Grant drunk. It is a simple sentence with no elaboration or context. Because the entry is June 7 does not mean Wilson saw him under the influence...