The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-08-08

been nominated for the Presidency for no
other reason than his reputation as a soldier.
Blot out his military career, and the idea of
making him President would be ridiculous.
AS military talents are not needed in that
office, Grant is to be elected, If at all, as a
mark of gratitude for his soldiership. A just
estimate Of his services Is therefore proper as
means OF determining whether he has not
already been sufficiently rewarded.
The propriety OF such an estimate may be
defended on other grounds. There is no ne
cessary incempatibility between great military
and great civil capacity. A mind which is
great and original in war, might carry the
same force of conception, the same inventive
ness and fertility into civil affairs. But when
1t is proved of a soldier that his intellect is
narrow and barren in his own profession, there
is no reason to expect that 1t will be compre-
hensive and fruitful in any other. The clear
and able production to which we call atten-
tion demonstrates that when Grant was at his
ripest-that is, in his campaign against
Richmond-he had no military foresight and
was destitute Of any consistent plan. When,
before he crossed the Rapidan, General
Meade advised him to manpuvre for posi-
tion, he said he never maneuvred for
position, but sought to fight the enemy
wherever he could find him. The consequence
was, the foolish, needless, wholesale squander-
ing of life in the Virginia Wilderness. After
that, Meade found that Grant was very willing
to man9uvre for position. After crossing the
Rapidan, the first thing he did was to march
his army to the very place where Lee would
most wish to have it, and where he dealt upon
1t terrible slaughter with small loss to himself.
Giving Lee that great advantage testified a
total lack of foresight, aud a criminal con-
tempt for the whole science of war. II the
two armies had been at all equal, Grant would
never have recovered from that staggering
blow. He sent his famous telegram saying
that he would fight it out on that line
if it took all summer, and then changed his
line the very next day. That whole cam
paign was ofa piece with its beginning it was
campaign in which abundance of men made
up for poverty Of resources in the General.
Lee bafled him for whole year, and evacu-
ated Richmond at last only because Sherman
| was advancing upon his rear with ability to
| cut off his slender supplies. Our correspond
ent shows that Sherman's march formed no
| part of the original plan of campaign against
Richmond. That march was never thought of
| until after the capture of Atlanta. That it
| was no part of the plan of the campaign is
not only proved by this decisive fact,
but also by Grants expectation, when he
crossed the Rapidan, that he would make a
short campaign. His vaunt that he would
| fight it out on that line if it took all summer
testifes against him. 1t proves he did not
expect his campaign to extend far into the
+,
| the whole autumn, the whole winter and
nearly the whole of the ensuing spring. Lee
| could have held him at bay as much longer,
| and twice as much longer, had it not been for
| Sherman's approach from the South; thing
| manifestly not in contemplation when the
campaign was planned. President Lincoln
became first impatient, then discouraged. He
went in person to attend the Hampton Roads
conference with the Rebels, and offered them
more liberal terms than either party alter
wards thought it prudent to acknowledge.
Grant began that campaign without any
| plan at all, other than to overpower the Rebel:
| by superior numbers and wear them out by
incessant attacks. When they at last check.
mated him and brought him to stand, sc
that he could no longer pursue even this rude
and brainless strategy, his army lay six months
in ipglorious impotence, until the vigor and
enterprise OF Sherman enabled Grant to pass
the deserted forts-a feat which required M
generalship. The waste of life in that plan
less, laundering campaign was more thar
enormous-it was bewildering, appalling, tire
mendous
soldier SO destitute of ideas and 50 inca
pable of foresight in his own profession, could
not be expected to be very prolific or far
seeing as statesman. We accordingly fine
that he is as dumb as an oyster, having al
little to impart to his countrymen in this grea
crisis and conjunoture, as if the contents o
his bhull anu VI MS aDuOueu uAu cnanget
places. He is the first man ever nominated
for the Presidency who avowed that he had nj
policy. The supremacy of ideas, the powe
of political principles, the statesmsn-like fore
cast which adapts present measures to futur,
exigeDcies, the moral and political force
which carry nation forward towards cal
culable destiny-these are things which max,
no figure in the mind of General Grant; the.
enter not into the substance of his thoughts
Is such man fit for President in times lik
these which are upon us