The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1872-08-22
GEN. GRANT.
What He ls-His Great Qualities-His
Genlus-Pre-eminent Among all Gen
erals-His Heroic Determination
SureneSS of Judgment-&c &c 80

Oen. GRANTS S history should teach us
to discriminate better than we Americans
are apt to do between glitter and solid
work. Our proneuess to run after dema-
gogues and spouters may find IA 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 aud 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 1t 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 ap-
plicant 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, and within him
every manly quality which will cause the
name of Lient. Gen. GRANT to live for
ever in history. His career is lesson in
practical democracy; it is a quiet satire
on the dandyism, the puppyism, and the
shallow afectation Of our fashionable
exquisites as we'll 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 iellction that such superficial ac-
complishments are no measure of worth
or ability.
Gen. GRANTS last brilliant campaign
sets the final seal upon his reputation. 1t
stamps him as the superior of his able
antagonist as we'll as of all the CON-
manders that 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 aud Charles
ton, there have been many who, in their
strong admiration of his great achieve
ments, inclined to rank him as the greater
General Of the two. Thatjudgment, we take
it, is now reversed by the court of fnal
appeal not by dwarfing reputation of
SHERMAN, which suffers no just abate.
ment, but by the expansion into grander
proportions OF that of GRANT.
GRANT stands pre- eminent among all
the Generals who have served in this war
in the completeness of his final results.
He has owed nothing to accident; and,
both in the West and the East, he has
accomplished the most arduous things
that were to be done. The great thing
in the West, without which the rebel
power could never have been broken in
that vast region, was the reopening of the
Mississippi /; the great thing in the East,
the taking of the rebel capital. Rich
mond was the right leg of the rebellion,
and the Mississippi River its left Both
were contested by the rebels with full
appreciation of their value. The resistance
was, 10 both places, powerful and obstinate
enough to put the most heroic teuacity
of the most indomitablc mind to proof
sufficient to test its quality. Gen. GRANT
has exhibited the utmost strength of will
of which the highest type of manhood is
capable. The defenses of Vicksburg and
the defenses of Richmond were both
deemed impreguable, aud were defended
with a proportionable confidence and
obstinacy but they both yielded, at last,
to GIANTS matchless persistence and
unequaled strategy. And, in both cases,
he not only took the long contested posi-
tions, but compelled the surrender of the
whole force defending them Nothing
could be more clean and complete, even
in Imagination, than Gen. GRANTS
mastery execution. He did not merely,
in each case, acquire position which
was the key OF wide theatre of opera.
tious he did not merely beat or disable
the opposing force he left no fragment
of it in existence except as prisoners of
war subject to his disposal
If anybody is SO obtuse or so wrong
headed as to see nothing great in Gen.
GRANT beyond his marvellous tenacity of
wiIl, 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 precisely at the point on which
everything in his whole sphere of opera
tions hinged There has been no display
Of great qualities on small occasions 20
expenditure of herculcan effort to accom-
plish objects not of tic first magnitude.
1t is only very clear sighted and very
mind that could always
thus have laid the whole emphasis of an
soul SO precisely on the
emphatic place. How, if he be not a
General of the first order of intellect, as
we'll as of the most heroic determination,
does it happen that in assigning great and
brilliant parts to his subordinate com
manders, he has never, when the results
If b;c strate0v were fully unfolded an