l the
guns, the cannons, powder and explosives; he compacted a body of
engineers, weeding out poor ones and educating good ones; he took
officers who at the beginning had their appointments through political
influence and trained them until he had a body of men well knit
together.

But McClellan had to contend with jealousy and insubordination. He was a
commander early in the war, and he had competitors and detractors. It
was charged against him that he was more anxious to make than to use a
splendid army, and possibly his ideals of efficiency were too high for
those early days. Yet "Little Mac" was idolized by his soldiers, with
whom he fought and won bloody battles, and even the indeterminate ones
are held in doubt as to his responsibility. Had Hooker obeyed his
command, and crossed the bridge at Antietam and occupied the heights
beyond, soldiers think to-day that Lee would have been crushed. Another
fact was against him. The North was not ready to behold nor strong
enough to endure the slaughter to which later on they became accustomed.
After one of McClellan's first campaigns, Burnside wrote home that
McClellan could have fought his way to Richmond, but it would have cost
ten thousand men, and that would have been butchery. Later on, Grant, in
a single brief campaign, lost twenty-five thousand men! But if Grant had
suffered such losses in 1861 or 1862, he would have been dropped by
Washington as unfitted for a military campaign.

History will rank Grant as the foremost soldier of the Republic. His
story is full of romance. He was of Scotch Covenanter stock that settled
in New England, and made its way to Ohio and Illinois. Like all the most
successful generals on both sides in our Civil War, he was a graduate of
West Point, showed talent in mathematics and engineering, and made an
honourable name in the Mexican War. Scott praised him for his work as
quartermaster and officer. The two maps that Grant made by questioning
ranchmen and farmers as he went through Texas, and the information he
collected from men who had been in and knew the roads and resources of
Mexico, were later on invaluable. Grant was in every Mexican battle save
one.

Fort Sumter fell on April 14, 1861. On the 15th Lincoln called for
75,000 troops. On the 19th Grant organized a little company in
Springfield, Illinois. Two days later Governor Yates made him colonel.
On the 31st of July he was in command at Mexico, Missouri. On the 7th of
August h