The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1866-05-30
Grant not q Great General.

UTdub uUI q UlSGt VOuUl OILS
i General Grant may bea very proper in
4 strument to be used in that way; butheis,
certainly not great General need not
/ say To the readers of The News that the
Radical Republicans who control the
House can no more makea General out of
ULYSSES Grant than they can make State
ont of that barren and fruitless desert call
] ed Colorado. Generals are not made in
that way. Ulysses Grant is not great
general, and all the fulsome flattery that
has been bestowed upon him by Thaddeus
Stevens, Sherman, Washburn, Mr.. Deming
and Mr.. Raymond cannot make great
soldier out of him. The ostensible reason
for the passage of this bill, which, besides
making Grant General, increases his pay
to the enormous sum Of $4,000 year, was
to mark the appreciation of the American
IGovernment oil the brilliant military tai
ents OF General Grant, and of the extrao :
dinaiy services which he rendered to the
country in crushing out the late rebellion.
II were an easy task to show that General
Grant has no brilliant military talents;
that he has no military talents at ALL that
he is not great soldier in any sense of the
word; chat the American people are DIG
eracing themselves by the sickening fat
teries which have been heaped upon man
who owes his present elevation entirely to
The fact of bis having paudered to that
horrible taste Tor the blood Of the Southern
people, which, to our disgrace, preva lied
in the North during the laie war. @
/ A great general is one who accomplishes
~
drilled armies; who defeats large armies
with small ones; who accomplishes great
military results by strategy more taan by
/ by fighting; who depends forlsuccess upon
the legs Of his soldiers q. e., upon move
ment) more than upon their arms who
never fights battle when it can be avoid.
ed; and who gains the military ends which
he has in view by the exercise Of his own
brains, and not by sacrificing the lives Of
his troops. Not one Of these characteris-
tics, belong to General Grant Yet modern
| history affords half a dozen ilIustrious ex-
amples of such generals. They were, i'm
deed, great soldiers. Compared with them
and their achievements, into what a pigmy
does Grant sink ! How imaginative do all
his boosted achievements appear beside
those of Napoleon, Frederick The Great,
Marlborough, Prince Eugene. Washington,
Winfield Scott and General Lee! The
first named and the last of these truly IL
lustrious generals were greater even in their
defeats than Grant in all his boosted victo-
ries.
Trace Grants career, from the first chap
ter to the last, and what does it present but
series Of horrible and useless butcheries
Placed, after the war had lasted for three
years and the powers of endurance on the
part of the South had been nearly exhaust
ed-placed chen in command Of the North
ern armies, Gen. Grant found himself in
possession, not only of absolute power. but
of military means that were literally limit
less. A million of men were under arms
half a million more had been drafted, and
were ready to be sent to him as soon as
half Of his million had been eXterminated.
The National arsenals and magazines had
been filed TO repletion with all sorts of
arms and munitions Of war. Ali the vast
paraphernalia Of war Of rich country was
placed in the hands Of this one man. And
lEo one, no matter how high his Office, was
allowed to interfere with his plans or their
execution. atie2 aai lla t'ii@ aas4
Such was the situation when Gen. Grant
began his celebrated campaign against
Richmond. He knew exactly the position
Of the Confederacy, and the straits to
which they were reduced. He knew that
| their last armies were in the field, and that
their resources Of every kind were exhaust
ed. Ii he was soldier, he ought to have
known that campaign, conducted by the
ordinary rules of honorable warfare. would
have given him the victory. But he knew
also that, small as the Confederate army
was, it was strong in its discipline that it
was commanded by real Generals, and that
the men Of whom it was composed were ac-
tuated by what they believed to be the no
blest and hottest motives. He knew that
every man in that army felt as if the Con-
fedelate cause depended upon his arm alone,
aud would fight accordingly.
He did not like that aspect Of the case
but he remembered the means at his COM
mand He called to him Sherman and
Sheridan--two other Generals" OF the
modern Northern school--gave them their
Instructions, sent them of about their
work, and began his own. The pages of
history will burn and blister as they record,
in after years, the deeds of these three
/" Generals" .1ea3
! Sheridan, entering the lovely Shenan-
doah Valley, the Paradise of Virginia,
swept through it Ike demon, burning
dwelling houses and barns, consuming in
the flames grain, hay and provisions, driv-
ing innocent families OF women and children
out OF their homes, to perish of cold and
starvation, while the cracking flames soon
reduced to ashes all their worldly posses
sions. z4iH 81; -
Sherman, marching through Georgia and
South Carolina marked his progress by a
broad belt Of desolation, and BY horrors
which, to the honor of human nature, have
not Seen paralleled in modern warfare. AS
for Grant himself he set out on his over
land campaign 10 Richmond determined 70
Kill as many Of the soldiers of Lees army
as possible, not caring how many of bis
own men he got killed, calculating that he
could command eight men to every one O.
Lees, and that if it cost him the lives Of
100000 men TO kill 10000 of Lees men
be could we'll afford to DO so. This is the
key to his Richmond campaign. There
was no strategy about it. There was no
generalship exhibitedin the whole campaign
He was defeated in every battle that he
fought on the route. He was detected a,
the Wilderness, defeated at Spottsylvania,
defeated on the North Anna, defeated OF
i Cold Arber. In. these BATTLES he hurled
his men with such recklessness against the
Confederate works that his army was used
up, and he had to wait several weeks fo.
reinfolcements. Itwas campaign Of mere
butchery. The rivers on the route ran red
with blood, The bones Of $4,000 neeGesslv
slain men strewed the way. and his track
Was lighted al night by the glare of The Iurid
flames OF hundreds OF happy homes in the
VI 4