The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-03-11
Grant as a General.


tne Ohio and Tennessee rivers, Grant always
Knew what he was aiming at, and always
knew the military value of time He soon
ioimed distinct idea OF the proper way to
nandie the material he had to use, and struck
out an equally broad general rule for dealing
MIN the forces opposed to him. While
mcclellan was attempting, in the East,
70 drill the Army of the Potomac up to the
european standard of efficiency before oom-
mitting 1t to decisive campaign, Grant ad-
nered to the principle 'that when neither
party Is well disciplined, there is nothing to
gain, In the nature OF discipline, by delay.
The enemy organizes and improves as rapidly
rs yourself, and all the advantages of prompt
movement are lost" He took at Belmont the
first occasion that justified ITSELF by the cola.
teral object Of relieving another Federal corps
TO give his men that confidence in them sel YES
and their leader which is won by hard fight.
The successive captures of Forts Henry and
Donelson broke the strong chain of defense
which the Confederates had judiciously drawn
across Tennessee, and opened to the Northern
gunboats many hundreds of miles on the Ten
Dessee, Cumberland, and Mississippi rivers
The obstinate siege of Vicksburg completed
the possession of the Mississippi. Yet, though
each Of these operations gave proof how
strongly Grants mind grasped any special
importance in the fastnesses from which he
had to dislodge the enemy, and how boldly
and resolutely he olung to a hold once ac-
quiTed, he early enunciated his belief that
the strength and the weakness of the South
lay in its men, and not in it's positions, and
that the first and last rule Of Northern stra-
tegy should be to weaken and reduce the
Southern armies by striking a hard blow
wherever they could be met with.
The correctness of this maxim in the main
was not only proved by the result, but was
acknowledged over and over again, both in
word and deed, by the more skilful among
the Confederate generals. No one saw more
clearly than Grant that on the part of the
South 1t was peoples war; and the practical
inference drawn by him was the stern resolve
to render the non mbataAt residents of the
theatre Of war powerless to help the enemy
by the consumption and destruction of their
supplies. This was not making war with rose
water; but from Grants point of view, that
the war could only have one result, which
had better be reached as soon as possible, 1t
was not impolitic and was, in a certain sense,
humane. When once experience had proved
to him that on a march through fresh
country he could feed column of thirty
thousand men on the supplies they met
with, every such sudden plunge forward Of
flying force, to strike far away at the
railways or magazines on which the lengthy
lines of the overmatohed Confederates' COM
municatons were based, gave double blow
to the South, by exhaustiDg a wide district of
disparity of combatant power in the gross tell
more and more in favor OF the stronger. The
system that was first struck out by Grant in
his circular sweep round VickSburg culmi-
mated in Shermans great march from Atlanta
to the seacoast. The enormous area of the
fertile Southern Confederacy, drained as it
then was OF any efficient military force avail
able for meeting such an invasion, guaranteed
Sherman from the Nemesis which overlook
NapoleOn's not very dissimiiar procedure in
the Russian campaign, of being thrown back
in retreat upon the very line OF hostile ooun-
try that he had lived upon and wasted in his
advance.
1t is a strong argument in favor OF Grants
greatness that both Sherman and MCPHERSON,
his other most illustrious lieutenant, appear
to have believed in him unhesitatingly, at a
time when 1t was the fashion at Washington
to speak of Grant as brave but incapable
blockhead who had blundered into various
successes. Even when Sherman differed alb
solutely in opinion, he was content to carry
out Grants plan with zeal and a faith which
he would never have accorded to leader
whose military instinct he felt to be of a lower
order than mis- own. 1t was against strong
protest from Sherman that Grant passed the
whole Of his army from the northern to the
southern side Of Vicksburg, and marched in
land from Grand Gulf to strike at the maya
zines and railroads of Jackson, to beat off the
PembertOn's defeated army within those lines
OF Vicksburg from which 1t was only to issue
again as a disprited and disarmed body OF
thirty thousand prisoners OF war. Yet through
the whole of that difficult campaign of three
weeks, far away from any base, Sherman
marched and maD9uvred with the perfection
of swiftness and docility; and when at it's close
the two stood together on the till then unap
proachable Haines Bluff, north of Vicksburg
Sherman was the first to acknowledge tn,
greatness and the truth of the conception
against which he had protested.
Grants written instructions to his subordi
mates in command are very clear in the indi
cation OF the general object required. They
leave, as rule, the details of action almos
absolutely to the discretion OF the office
charged with the execution Of the order, ab
staining from minuteness ON the plausibl
theoTy-which by weaker man might, lik
many other truisms, be carried too far-tha
the movements oil the enemy must determin
the counter movements of the Federal div
sions. For the proofs of his clearness of fore
sight, we must, therefore, look rather to th
general conception OF his greater movements
such as the operations around Vicl1sburg, th
relief of Chattanooga, the march of She
mans corps to Meridian, and in the followin
year the great march across to the seacoas
of which, though the execution belongs
sherman, the original idea was due to Gran
His vigorous simplicity of mind alway
prompted him to take the initiative rath
than wait ON his adversary, so as to be abl
as he says in one letter, to select his own car
paigD, instead of having the enemy dictate
Ndor him. The relative strength OF the tV
parties was such as eminently favored al
justified Grants adherence to this maxim; b
the ground for a critical estimate OF his stI