Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1868-07-17
What Senator Yates says of Cen
eral Grant.

George Alfred Townsend has recent
IL had and interview with Senator
Yates, and interrogated him as to his
"reminiscences of Grants military ca
reer early in the war, with the follow
i7Grant, =" said the Governor, "came
down to Springfield dressed in com.
mon working clothes. He looked very
much as he does now, ordinary, taei-
turn, UnpretEntious. When he pre-
sented himsf to me he said:
"tGoVernC he United States educa-
ted me. want to be of use TO her now
that she is in danger
Yates asked him what he wished tC
have:
"sAliy place where 1 can be usefnl,
said Grant st don't matter much
The system at that time was to com
mission only officers who had raised
companies. Yates hurried and QYerrun
told Grant to look IN again. After q
few days Grant, whose money had near
" run out paying hotel board, dropped
in again, hat hand, and asked Yates II
anything had turned up.
"Can you write military orders -
asked the Governor.
ayes !"
ssWelI I'll give you a desk in any Of
fee and you'll find plenty to do"
sThere,' ," said Yates, s'Frant worked
away satisfactorily, though my bands
were full and everything more or less
disorganized. I had no time to observe
him, and he was never forward TO speak,
AfterWard I put him in the Adiutant
Generals office, and although we did
not know it particularly at the time,
we have found since that he laid the
foundation there of what is now, prob-
ably, the best Adjutant Generals Office
in the United States. Before tue war il
aHr.,G "a
Grant was seldom in my mind. / had
too much to do to keep personal watch
over every officer in the Stale, and did
not look out particularly for The COM
ing man. But Grant made no mistakes
and saw that his West Point knowl-
edge was useful to us.
t'Near by Springfield there was a
large camp, termed perhaps Camp
Yates, containing twenty thousand
perhaps. II was a source of annoyance
to me. could not find anybody to
keep the men subject and see that they
were made clean, properly. fed and
taught the germs OF organization. l
sent Grant out there, and pretty soon
complaint ceased. Then I sent him on q
tour to various camps through the State
but still had no command to give him
under the arbitrary system of giving
only those places who had raised organ
iZatiOns. He went away, at last to
visit CovingtoD, Kentucky, where his
father lived. did not like to see our
Illinois boys enter the service of an
other commonwealth, and / found a
chance directly to dispIace a colonel or
rather to send him to a different COM
Inand, and thea telegraphed to Grant;
"'WilI you take command of the -th
regiment? Answer.
RICHARD YATEs.'
Grant replied
az will! Start Immediately
US. GRANT
"He arrived promptly and took the
position. Still had no exalted expec-
tatiOns of him. He was not brisk,
nervous, attractive man. His face and
figure were not so striking that any
body could pick him up out of a troop,
like Saul, and he did not say enough
to interest me. Out of two hundred
and eighty-tWO coIonels that commits
stoned thought it as probable two
hundred and eight-One Of them would
become famous as Grant. ~.
sHe did one thing, however which
have since thought was significant of
his future good sense and enterprise
His regiment was the most denoral1zed
one that we had in Illinois. 1t had be-
come insubordinate and allowed to go
to seed. Grant started the process of
breaking it in by compelling it to
march across the state of Missouri, and
he was the first of our coIoneIs who lad
economy ana pluck enough to save US
the delay and expense of railway trans
portatiOn in this manner. In this
march he stopped struggling and or
chard rObbing by a device original,
good-humored and effective. He made
every straggler carry a fence rail in
line, and as the march was tolerably
laborious, the fence rail did its work.
He made a fighting regiment of those
men,"
After speaking on many other trivial
matters, Governor Yates said in conclu-
sion:
"Hero Worshippers will be disappoin-
ted in Grant. don't take it to be any
solidness of mine that failed to perceive
genius in him. Nobody else did. His
genius is not ostentatiOus nor dramatic.
IL is the genius of accomplishment
that he has. When his work is done,
there it is, done; and there is the man,
except for the work ordinary as before.
don't make up for this error of per-
ception by visiting the General twice
as much as before but in the light of
his achievements Ifeel the same conf
dence and satisfaction in him that all
the people feel. The Democrats feel it
too; ne has no enemies in our state but
political ones and one or two personal
ones like NcClernand. We viii elect
him with ease."