There Are But Two Parties Now

Grant wrote this in a letter from Galena, Illinois, in April 1861, shortly after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter. He had resigned his army commission in 1854 and spent years in civilian life before the outbreak of war gave his life renewed purpose. The binary he draws — traitor or patriot, with no middle ground — reflects the intensity of Union feeling in the first weeks of the war. Grant drilled volunteers in Illinois, sought a field command, and by August 1861 had been commissioned a brigadier general of volunteers, beginning the rapid ascent that would make him the Union's supreme commander by March 1864. Abraham Lincoln later cited Grant's unambiguous loyalty as one of his most valuable qualities.