The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1872-06-28

General Grants history should teach us
to discriminate better than we Americans
are apt to do between glitter and solid work.
Our proneness to run after demagogues and
spoutcrs may find wholesome corrective
in the study of such character as his. The
qualities by which great things are accom-
plished are here seen to have no necessary
connection with snowy and superficial ac-
complishments. When the mass of men
look upon such character they NAV learn
truer respect for themselves and each
other they are taught by it that high quail
ties are consistent with the simplicity of
taste, contempt for parade, and plainness of
manners with which direct and earnest
men have strong natural sympathy.
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 a load of wood to sell, had with
in him every manly quality which will
cause the name of Lieutenant General
Grant TO live forever in history. Ills career
is lesson in practical democracy it is
quiet satire on the dandyism, the puppy
ism, and the shallow aifectation of our
fashionable exquisites as well as upon the
swagger of our plausible, glib-tongued de-
magogucs. Not! by any means that great
qualities are inconsistent with cultivated
manners and fluent elocution but that
such superficial accomplishments are no
measures of worth or ability.
General Grants last brilliant campaign
sets the final seal upon his reputation. 1t
stamps him as the superior of his able an
tagonist as well as of all commanders that
have served with or under him in the great
campaigns of the last year. 1t is not nee
essary to sacrifice any part of their we'll
earned regulations to his. Sherman and
Sheridan deserve all that has ever been said
in their praise but there has never been a
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 Geor-
gia, and his capture of Savannah and
Charleston, there have been many who, in
their strong admiration of his great achiey-
ments, inclined to rank him as the greater
general Of the two. That Judgment, we
take it, is now reversed by the court Of final
appeal not by dwariing the reputation of
Sherman, which suffers no Just abatement,
but by the expansion into grander proper
lions of that of Grant. .lf
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, with
out which the rebel power conldncyer 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. Richmond 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 re-
sistance was, in both cases, powerful and
obstinate enough to put the most heroic
tenacity of the iiiost indonitable mind to
proofsuiiicientt to test its quality. Gen. Grant
has exhibited the utmost strength of will
of which the highest type of manhood is
capable. The defences of Vicksburg and
the defenees of Richmond were both deem
cd impregnable, and were defended with
proportionable confidence and obstinacy;
but they both yielded, at last, to Grants
matchless persistence and unequaled STRAIT
egy. And, in both cases, he not only took
the long-centested positions, 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. lie did not
merely, in each case, acquire position
which was the key of wide theatre Of
operations; he did not merely beat or dis
able the opposing force; he left no fragment
of itin existence except as prisoners of war
subject to his disposal. 20" @
Ifanybody is so obtuse or so wrong-headed
as to see nothing great in Gen. Grant beyond
his marvellous tenacity of will, let that
doubter explain, if he can, how it has hap
pened that, since Grant rose to high COM
mand, this quality has always been exerted
in conspicuous energy precisely at the point
on which everything in his whole sphere Of
operations hinged. There has been nodisplay
of great qualities on small occasions; no eX-
penditure of herculean effort to accomplish
objects not of the first magnitude. 1t is
only very clear-sighted and a very COM
prehensiye mind that could always thus
have laid the whole emphasis of an indom-
liable soul SO precisely on the emphatic
place. How, If he be not a general of the
first order of intellect. as well as of the
most heroic determination, does 1t happen
that in assigning great and brillantparts to
his subordinate commanders, he has never,
when the results of his strategy were fully
unfoldcd, appeared in the picture except as
the central figure? However it may seem
during the progress OF one Of his great COM
bined campaigns, it always turns out at
last, when it reaches that completeness
and finish in which he contrives to have
his campaigns end, that we see him stand
ing in the foreground, and chat the grouping
is always such that the glory of the other
generals instead of eclpsing his own gives
it additional lustre. p
1t is this surness of judgment which secs
precisely where lies the turning point
which sees precisely what are the objects
that justify the utmost stretch of persist
ence; 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
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 foilcd him long enough
to prove his great mastery of the art OF
war; and the completeness of whose de-
feat is testimony to Grants genius such
as a victory over any other General OF The
Conlederacy, or even an earlier victory over
Lee himself could not have given. i.
Apply to General Grant what test you
will measure him by the magnitude OF