Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1868-06-12
The New York Worlds Opinion of
General Grant i'm 1865.

| LIE new YORK W0rlOS opinion or
General Grant i'm 1865.
GENERAL GRANTS history should teach
us to discriminate better than we Ameri-
cans are apt to do between glitter and solid
work. Our proneness to run after dema-
gogues and spouters may find whole
some corrective in the study of such a
character as his The qualities by which
| great things are accomplished are here
seen to have no necessary connection with
snowy and superficial accomplishments.
| When the mass of men look upon such a
character, they may learn truer respect
| for themselves and each other; they are
taught by it that high qualities and great
| abilities are consistent with the simplicity
of taste, contempt for parade, and plain
ness of manners with which direct and
earnest men have strong natural SYM
pathy. Ulysses Grant, the tanner;
| Ulysses Grant, the unsuccessful applicant
| for the post of City Surveyor of St. Louis !;
| Ulysses Grant, the driver into that city of
| his two-horse team with load of wood to
| sell, had within him every manly quality
/ which will cause the name of Lieutenant
| General Grant to live forever in history
! His career is a lesson in practical democ-
racy; it is a quiet satire on the dandyism
| the puppyism, and the shallow affectation
/ of our fashionable eXquisites, as well as
| upon the swagger Of our plausible, glib
| tongued demagogues. Not by any means
that great qualities are inconsistent with
| cultivated manners and a fluent elocution ::
| but that such superficial accomplishments
are no measure of worth or ability.
General Grants last brilliant campaign
sets the final seal upon his reputation. It
stamps him as the superior Of his able
| antagonist as well as of the commanders
who have served with or under him in
the great campaigns of the last year. 1t is
not necessary to sacrifice any part of their
well-earned regulations to his. Sherman
and Sheridan deserve all that has ever
been said in their praise; but there has
never been time since Grant was made
Lieutenant General, when anybody but
Sherman, on our side, could have been
classed with him. Since Sherman's bold
| march through Georgia, and his capture
OF Savannah and Charleston, there have
been many who, in their strong admira-
| ton OF his great achievements inclined to
rank him as the greater General of the
| two. That Judgment, we take it, is now
reversed by the court of final appeals not
by dWarfing the reputation of Sherman,
which suffers no just abatement, but by
the expansion into grander proportions Of
| that of Grant.
Grant stands pre- eminent among all the
| Generals who have led our armies in the
| late war, in that he has exhibited the ut
| most strength Of will of which the highest
| type of manhood is capable. The defenses
| of Vicksburg and the defenses of Rich
mond were both deemed impregnable, and
were defended with prOportionable con-
| H1onno nd Ohcfirooxy. Int
| yielded at last to Grants matchless per-
| sistence and unequaled strategy. And, in
| both cases, he not only took the long-con-
tested positions, but compelled the sur
| render Of the whole force defending them.
Nothing could be more clean and COM
plete, even in Imagination, than General
! Grants mastery execution. He did not
merely, in each case, acquire a position
which was the key of wider theatre of
| operations he did not merely beat or dis
| able the opposing force; he left no frag.
| ment of it in existence except as prison
| ers of war subject to his disposal.
If anybody is so obtuse or SO wrong
headed as to see nothing great in General
| Grant beyond his marvellous tenacity of
| will, let that doubter explain, if he can,
how it has happened that, since Grant rose
to high command, this quality has always
been exerted in conspicuous energy pre-
| cisely at the point ON which everything in
| his whole sphere of operations hinged.
There has been no display of great quail
| ties on small occasions; no expenditure of
| herculean effort to accomplish objects not
| of the first magnitude 1t is only q very
| clear sighted and very comprehensive
mind that could always thus have laid the
| whole emphasis of an indomitablc soul so
| precisely on the emphatic place. How, if
| he be not General of the first order of
| intellect, as well as of the most heroic de-
termination, does it happen that, in assign
| ing great and brilliant parts to his subor
| dinate commanders, he has never, when
the results of his strategy were fully un-
| folded, appeared in the picture except as
| the central figure? However it may
seem during the progress Of one of his
| great combined campaigns, it always turns
| out at last when it reaches that complete
ness and finish in which he contrives to
have ID campaigns end, that we see
him standing in the foreground, and
that the grouping is always such that
the glory of the other Generals, instead
of eclipsing his own, gives it additional
! lustre. 1t is this sureness of judgment
which sees precisely where lies the turning
point; which sees precisely what are the
/ objects that Justlfy the utmost stretch OF
persistence it is this ability to take in the
whole field of view in just perspective and
due subordination of parts, that is the
mark of a superior mind. General Grant
has taken out of the hands of all critics
the question whether it belongs to him.
He has won his greatest triumph over
the most skillful and accomplished General
on the other side; over General who
foiled him long enough to prove his great
mastery of the art of war !; and the COM
pleteness of whose defeat is a testimony
to Grant, genius such as victory over any
other General of the Confederacy, or even
an earlier victory over Lee himself, codld
not have given. Apply to General Grant
what test you will measure him by the
magnitude of the obstacles he has sur
mounted, by the value of the positions he
has gained, by the fame of the antagonist
over whom he has triumphed, by the
! achievements Of his most illustrjous CO.