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Chapter 43:
Hancock and
Grant were at
West Point together.
They were good friends there, and
Hancock used to call his future chief by the familiar nick-name of ‘
Sam Grant.’
Long afterward, during the
Wilderness campaign —it was the day after the great attack at
Spottsylvania, when
Hancock reported: ‘I have finished up
Johnson and am now going into
Early’—Grant nominated
Hancock for brigadier-general in the regular Army.
Hancock remembered the old relationship of the cadet time, and said to the brother-in-law of the
General-in-Chief, who told him the news: ‘I love
Sam Grant.’
The regard was mutual.
At one moment in the
battle of the Wilderness things looked very dark;
Warren had been driven back at the center, and a rush of stragglers came hurrying in towards
Grant's headquarters with the news that
Hancock was routed.
Grant was seated on the ground whittling a stick; he simply turned the stick around and whittled the other end; and when it was again reported that
Hancock had been driven, he said grimly, ‘I don't believe it.’
In a few moments word came directly contrary to the earlier rumor.
Instead of retreating,
Hancock had pushed the enemy.
Then
Grant looked up and said with as much enthusiasm as I ever knew him betray: ‘
Hancock's a glorious soldier.’
He never changed this opinion.
Hancock was always given the advance, or the exposed position.
He bore the brunt of the
battle of the Wilderness; he made three terrible
