St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1878-08-09
Gen. Grants Talk.
[Springfeld Republican ]

Gen. Grant seems to have taken IA
great fancy to John Russell Young, the
clever newspaper man who ''does up''
his tour for the New York Herald, and
converses with him so freely that the
correspondent AYERS ''we have few bet
ter takers in America" Young gathers
up the best points of divers talks on the
rebellion into a letter that covers over
a page of the HeIald, and we reproduce
elsewhere some of the most interesting
passages. Grants recognition of Sher-
man and Sheridan is as hearty as could
be made. There will be some surprise
at his judgment of Lee, whose reputa-
tion he considers out of all propol ton
to his achievements StOnewall Jack
sons fame he thinks would have suf-
fered if he had lived to meet Sheli-
dan and our army when it had become
well drilled. Joe Johnston was the
southern commander, Grant says, who
gave him the most anxiety /; Albert
Sidney Johnston died too soon for any
body to tell what he might have achiev-
ed. Grant doesn't sympathize with the
theory that Jeff Davis was drawback
on the South he thinks he did the
best any man could have done. OF the
generals on the Union side Grant was
greatly disappointed in Rosecrans, Stone,
Mcdowell, whom he considers real
victim of i'll luck, and Buell., whom he
credits with genius enough for the high
est commands; Warren's failure he at
tributes to his hesitating temperament
Grant drops word of apology to Butler
for having called him "bottled up" and
speaks well for Frank Blair and John
Logan gives Hancock fine character
as soldier and man !; recalls fOndly the
memory of Mcpherson, who died too
earnestly and excuses Meade's failure
to destroy Lee at Gettysburg, on the
ground that he was new to his army.
though he thinks that, if Sherman OF
Sheridan had commanded, it might and
would have been done.
Grant declares that his losses in the
Wilderness campaign have been grossly
exaggerated instead of throwing away
100000 men, his total loss was only
about ,000-death, wounds, capture
and all-while every blow he struck
was steadily weakening Lee. Speaking
of this campaign, by the way, Grant
makes the interesting revelation that
he at first thought seriously of massins
his army in moving columns, giving the
men twelve days rations and throwing
himself between Lee and his commune
catiOns-a plan that, if successful, would
have shortened the war by year-but
as he was new to the army and it was ;
risky job, he finally decided on th,
slower and safer Wilderness move. Th,
iconOclast has at last attacked one o.
the dearest memories of the war-tht
long sung Battle Above the Clouds
The battle of Lookout Mountain, Grant
declares, sis one of the rOmances of the
war. There was no such battle and nc
action even worthy to be called battle
on Lookout Mountain. 1t is all poetry ,
| The traditional council of war; alst
gets a blow. Grant says he never helt
one, and never heard of Sherman's O.
| Sheridan's doing so. OF course he listen
ed to what anybody at headquarter
had to say, "but always made up m,
mind to act, and the first that even M
staff knew of any movement was wheI
| wrote it out in rough and gave 1T t,
be copied off,"
Of past rebellion "reminiscences tin
most interesting is Grants story of hoy
Andy johnson, in the heat of his de
termination to ''make treason odious
seriously talked of arresting Lee, de
spite his parole, and once inquired rath
er snappishly what right a militar
commander had to protect an arc
traitor from the laws. Grant reptile,
that the commanders responsibilitie
were sometimes supreme and his ell
gagements with the defeated enem
sacred, and added that, so long as LIE
kept his parole, he would resign tn
command of the army before he woul
help TO arrest him-and the project wa
f dropped.