(Excerpt from Speech of Hon. John a McClernand, of Illinoi...)
Excerpt from Speech of Hon. John a McClernand, of Illinois, on the State of the Union: Delivered in the House of Representatives, January 14, 1861 It is impossible for the Articles of Confederation to be amended - they are too tottering to be invigorated - noth ing but the present, (national system,) or something like it, can restore the peace and harmony of the country. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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congressman lawyer military politician
John Alexander McClernand was the son of John A. and Fatima McClernand. He was born near Hardinsburg, Kentucky, and moved to Illinois when a small boy. His father died probably in 1816, and John, the only child, attended village school at Shawneetown, helped support his mother, and read law in a local office.
McClernand was admitted to the bar in 1832, but the Black Hawk War, Mississippi River trading, and the editorship of the Gallatin Democrat and Illinois Advertiser temporarily diverted him from his profession. As an assemblyman between 1836 and 1843, his political acumen and expansive eloquence, fortified with many allusions to the classics, quickly gained him prominence. Ever a stanch Jacksonian, he hated Abolitionists and supported sound money and extensive internal improvements. In Congress from 1843 to 1851 and from 1859 to 1861, although courting war with foreign powers for territorial gain, he urged conciliation and the popular sovereignty panacea during crises over slavery extension. He broke with Douglas in 1854, but they worked together for peace and the Union six years later. Following the first battle of Bull Run he proposed a resolution in the House to spend men and money without stint to restore the Union, and when the resolution was adopted he, himself, already a colonel of militia, left Congress to accept a brigadier-general's commission. While post commander at Cairo on reconnaissance in Kentucky and at Belmont, his vigor and bravery won Grant's approval; but at Fort Henry, despite orders, he failed to block the Confederate retreat and, after the fall of Fort Donelson, angered his superior by virtually crediting the victory to his own division, the 1st. Nevertheless, he was a major-general after March 21, 1862, outranked in the West by Halleck and Grant alone. Ambitious and untactful, he resented dictation, disliked West Pointers, and never forgot his political fences in Illinois. He wrote of his decisive rôle at Shiloh to Lincoln and to Halleck, criticizing Grant's strategy and protesting assignments to duty inconsistent with his rank. He sought to supplant McClellan in the East, and, warning Lincoln that a closed Mississippi meant dangerous discontent in the upper valley, was authorized in October 1862, to raise a large force in the Northwest for a river expedition against Vicksburg. At Sherman's suggestion and unauthorized by Grant, he and his thirty thousand, with Porter's ironclads, reduced Arkansas Post on January 11, 1863, and thereby gained the congratulations of Lincoln and Governor Yates of Illinois. Grant tartly ordered him to return to Millikens Bend and, over his protest, dissolved the Mississippi River expedition and assigned him to command the XIII Corps. For three months he supervised the making of roads, levees, and canals on the peninsula opposite Vicksburg. Although Charles Dana, war department observer in the field, repeatedly advised Stanton to remove him, he led the advance across the Mississippi at the end of April 1863. Grant charged him with tardiness at Grand Gulf and Champion Hills and with half of the heavy losses before Vicksburg on May 22. When he, without Grant's authorization, furnished the press with a congratulatory order, extolling his men as the heroes of the campaign, Grant, eagerly supported by Sherman and McPherson, ordered him to Illinois on June 18, 1863.
Here, ever popular, and unbroken in spirit, he rallied the people to a renewed support of the war, and Governor Yates besought Lincoln on the eve of Gettysburg to give him the eastern command. When the President refused to call a court of inquiry, McClernand warned him that he would publish a severe indictment of Grant. In early February 1864 he regained command of the XIII Corps, then scattered from New Orleans to the Rio Grande. For three months, he contended with bad weather and water, shifting sands, an elusive enemy, a dwindling corps, and his own thwarted ambition. Hardly had he left his headquarters on Matagorda Island in late April to participate in the Red River expedition, than acute sickness forced him to return to Illinois. He resigned his commission on November 30, 1864. He served as circuit judge of the Sangamon district from 1870 to 1873, as a member of the state Democratic central committee, as chairman of the National Democratic Convention in 1876, and on the Utah commission under Cleveland. He died of dysentery in Springfield, where he had lived since some time before the Civil War.
(Excerpt from Speech of Hon. John a McClernand, of Illinoi...)
a member of the United States House of Representatives
McClernand married Sarah Dunlap of Jacksonville, on November 7, 1843. His wife having died and John married his sister-in-law, Minerva Dunlap, probably on December 30, 1862.
