The Sun.
London, England, 1866-05-26 00:00:00

seen were upon the spur of the occasion as fully met as if
they had originally been embraced within his plans.
Courage ? Did he not push his transports through an iron
hail compared with which the full blast of Gibraltar and
Cherbourg would be comparatively harmless ? Persis-
tence ? Did he not again drive the same transports,
riddled by their first ordeal, through the fortifications
which spouted destruction from the bluffs of Grand Gulf ;
and did ho not, after twenty consecutive days of fighting
and five pitched battles, huddle the army of the South-
west into its lines and hold it there until it dropped into
his arms as prey ? When Gen. Grant first entered upon
the general direction of affairs, four new and controlling
characteristics forthwith reformed, invigorated, and syste-
matised our military administration—co-operation of pur-
pose in our separated armies, energy in attack, rapidity in
pursuit, and wisdom in the selection of the commanders of
armies, corps, and divisions : the fit man for the fit place.
I cannot, in this brief resume of his services which I am
attempting, but barely allude to the manner in which he
combined the scattered and independent operations of our
various armies in the field, concentrated upon a single
point the entire military strength of the nation, and de-
stroyed that damaging expedient by which the enemy in
command of the interior lines of communication was enabled
to reinforce any of his armies which were vigorously as-
sailed. The campaign upon which the Lieutenant-General
first entered is admitted by the highest military critics to
have been grand and perfect in its conception, contem-
plating the simultaneous movement and the joint action of
four armies—the Army of the Potomac, the Army of the
Cumberland, the Army of Wester!: Virginia, and the Army
of the James—each with a different objective point, but all
contributing to the great purpose of the campaign, the de-
struction of the chief army of the rebellion. If the plan par-
tially failed, and what was designed to have been finished
in the field was at length completed by a protracted
siege, it was not due to any want of genius or merit
in the plan of skill and vigour in executing the part of it
under the immediate supervision of the commanding ge-
neral. No man can contemplate, without admiration and
wonder, that hand to-hand fight in the blind thickets of
the bloody wilderness, that persistent and inflexible ad-
vance against overwhelming natural obstacles, against a
determined enemy intrenched in front, acquainted with
every path and with every point of attack and resistance,
in possession, too, of interior lines over which he could
rapidly hurry his troops, and throw them impetuously in
any direction. No one can contemplate, without astonish-
ment and sympathy, the burden of labour, anxiety, and
solicitude which he cheerfully bore during the immense
labours of this protracted siege, and its final success our
thanks to Grant unconsciously mingled with our thanks to
God. For this crowning work alone, so important in its
immediate results, and charged with ultimate conse-
quences so momentous to liberty, civilisation, and the
human race, let gratitude unbounded, unmeasured, infi-
nite, be freely tendered, and let substantial honour and
reward be bestowed in some slight degree commensurate
with the obligations of a disenthralled and rescued nation.
I think I may safely invoke the favour of the repre-
sentatives of the people to the humble testimonial prof-
fered by this bill. Let us not in this day of our deliver-
ance paralyse future heroism and reaffirm before the civil-
ised world the ingratitude of Republics by refusing
this small tribute to the foremost soldier of this ge-
neration ; to him who, entering the war as Captain,
won in its battles every successive grade, and emerged
from it with a rank unsurpassed in our service ; to him
who at Fort Donelson first lightened the despondency of
a trembling nation ; to him who at Shiloh first demoralised
the spirit of the haughtiest of foes ; to him who at Vicks-
burgh first released the loyal Fathers of Waters from forced
complicity with treason ; to him who at Chattanooga first
opened the gates of Georgia that Sherman might sweep
from Atlanta to the sea, and from the Savannah to the
Cape Fear ; to him who received the swords of Buckner,
Pemberton, and Lee, and the capitulation of three great
armies of the rebellion ; to him who successfully conducted
two of the most memorable sieges in history ; to him,
finally, who dissolved the Confederacy at Richmond, and
struck every rebel rag from the Rappahannock to the
Rio Grande. Time, it is said, devours the proudest human
memorial. The impress we have made as a nation may
be obliterated ; our grandest achievements, even those
which we now fondly deem eternal, those which embellish
the walls of that historic Rotunda, may all drop from the
memory of man ; our civilisation, liberty, arts, agriculture,
though sculptured in the pediments of this Capitol, may
all be engulphed in Lethes's dark waters ; this massive
structure, with its solid foundations, expanded wings,
towering columns, and bubbling dome may all be buried
with our Constitution, Government, laws, and polity, in a
common grave, yet we shall not all perish. You may rest
assured that three American names will survive oblivion,
and soar together immortal, the name of him who founded,
the name of him who disenthralled, with the name of him
who saved the Republic. •

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Times, commenting upon the argument that
generosity or chivalry softens the practices of war,
remarks that it is one of the essential conditions of
good generalship that you should be superior at the
point of attack, or, in other words, that you should
contrive to take your enemy at a disadvantage, and
so overpower him. - You select the weakest point,
not the strongest, of his defences. If you can
manage to exhaust him beforehand by famine,
pestilence, privation, or torments of any kind, so
that on the day of ttle he is incapable of standing
before your batteries or bayonets, or even of re-
turning you blow for blow, the greater honour is
yours. The object, the legitimate object, of every
belligerent is not only to destroy the enemy, but to
protect himself. The other day, at Valparaiso, the
American commodore undertook to engage the
Spanish flagship, itself an ironclad, and in less than
thirty minutes to leave nothing but her mast-heads
above water. He said he was sure he could do this
from the measure he had taken in target practice of
the power of his own guns, and he added that he
could do it without the slightest risk of injury to
his own vessel. Perhaps there was good reason
for the boast, but in such a case what becomes of
the " chivalry " of war? We ourselves are build-
ing ironclads with the professed intention of making
them as superior to all other ironclads as the
Monadnock was to the Numancia, and so the rule
runs throughout. Perhaps the argument from
" chivalry" was reduced to the greatest possible
absurdity by the remonstrances of the Spanish
admiral himself on this very occasion. He, who was
preparing to lay his impregnable ship alongside a
defenceless town, and to pour destruction from his
batteries against all within his reach, affected the
utmost indignation at hearing that the Chilians might
protect their coasts with torpedoes and place such
abominable engines of destruction in the path of the
destroyer.
The Daily News is of opinion that the transfer of
Mr. Stephens from a position of some insecurity and
privation in Ireland to one of safety and, among
certain classes, of consideration in Paris or New
York is not only a pure gain to himself, but the
British Government has everyreason to congratulate
itself on the latest addition to the ranks of the
Irish emigration to the United States. Mr. Stephens
has relieved it from the trouble and responsibility
of guarding against a mischief which, though it did
not amount to danger, was yet attended with con-
siderable inconvenience, and he has imposed that
obligation upon the Federal Executive. One class
of persons will, perhaps, suffer from the exchange.
The Irish maidservants and day-labourers of New
York, and of the other cities of the Atlantic coast,
will probably pay dearly for Mr. Stephens's presence,
unless they have lately learned a wisdom of which
hitherto they have not exhibited any trace. But
though Mr. Stephens's Irish dupes in America may
smart in purse for their folly, they will not smart
in person, like their unfortunate fellow-countrymen
at home. Native American sympathy with Mr.
Stephens is out of the question. The Irishry of
the cities regard him as a hero, and the less scru-
pulous demagogues of the Democratic party may,
perhaps, try to turn him and them to political ac-
count. But the American people feel towards him
as the English people do. Mr. Stephens will receive
only such attentions as are prompted by curiosity,
and not such as are dictated by respect. The inte-
rest felt in him will be that which might be felt in
a political Jack Sheppard and a political Barnum
combined—in a clever prison-breaker and a clever
charlatan.
The Morning Star believes that Mr. Stephens will
spend the next few mouths in reorganising the cir-
cles, and in raising and expending the sinews of
war. He will then collapse as Colonel Mahony
and Lieutenant43-eneral Killian have done, and
retire into private life amid the bitter taunts and
reproaches of a rancorous and disappointed faction.
There will then be an end to the Fenian Brother-
hood.

The Daily 7elegraph thinks that the declaration
of. Stephens that Ireland is to be invaded may be
dictated by the deepest sincerity. On the other
hand it may be a mere ruse, intended to cover ano-
ther attempt like that which was recently made in
the direction of Canada. It is hard to see how men,
even with the measure of intelligence which Stephens
must possess—men who are acquainted with Eng-
lish history—can believe in the possibility of erect-
ing an independent State at England's door—a
State which she would be obliged to conquer in order
to protect herself from ruin. On the other hand it
would be in the highest degree unwise in our Go-
vernment to take no precautionary measures against
attempts which a band of desperate conspirators
may make to establish their declining power.
The Morning Star thinks that to Mr. Whiteside
the knowledge that the Fenian leader is feeding off
roast turkey, tomato sauce, and pumpkin pie, in-
stead of prjson bread and gruel, will occasion
genuine vexation of spirit ; but by the majority of
the British public the movements of this agile con-
spirator will either be regarded with indifference or
as a legitimate source of amusement. So long as