St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-08-09

IullN Us ne guarded lie upon the Held.
Take him all in all among the men of his
time, Ulysses s. Grant was without peer
without a rival. He stood towering above
the undulating surface of American man
hood like Ararat above the waves of the wan
dering sea. He stood there self-pOised, in
simple silent grandeur and he stood alone.
Gen. Il. l.. ROsser
delivered the closing Grafton as follows:
Ladies and Gentlemen: The hackneyed
aphoriSm so often used by speakers and
writer's, that great occasions make great
men, should be discarded, for it is untrue.
Great men are God made, and great Occa-
sions merely afford them opportunities for
exhibiting their pOwers-that is all. The
revolution of '76 gave the OppOrtu-
nifty TO George Washington. The
secession of the Southern states
in 1861 gave the opportunity to
Abraham Lincoln. and the war which fol-
lowed secession, or the war of coercion, gave
the opportunity to Ulysses 5. Grant. These
three spirits stand to-day, and will stand
for all time in the ideal pantheon of this
nation, IS the trinity OF American heroes!
Washington wrenched liberty from the
clutches of the British lion and bestowed it
upon us. Lincoln washed from the eScut-
cheOn of our country the stain of slavery.
slAA0 bAelii 1CNlOlNu III OCAllzClCllL
family of states and reunited our broken
country under the banner of peace.
The third in this trinity was the son of
humble tanner in the little village of Gal
ena. near the northern frontier of Illinois.
A gallant and chivalrOus knight, reused by
the OutcrieS of fair Columbia, who had
been cast upon the disSecting table of dis
union for ACKNOWLEDGMENT and death, facing
death and fearing not.
HE FLEW TO HER RESCUE.
saved her and restored her to her high place
upon the throne of liberty and
union, and thus won for himself a
place in the affections of the American
people, and a name upon the scroll of
fame equal in glory, equal in honor and
equal in renOwn to that of George Wash
ingtOn or Abraham Lincoln. To-day the
nations flag floats at half-maSt, bells are
tOlling, our cities are draped with the en-
blems of mourning. The drums are mulfied,
and the heads of millions and tens of mil
lions of people are bowed in grief and Ia
mentatiOn at the death of Ulysses Simpson
Grant, who died Americas most illustrious
citizen.
To THE SOLDIERS.
Soldiers: / mingle my grief with yours
on this day of national sorrow. mingle
and SOrrOwing family of Gen. Grant, which
to-day bends for the last time over his
casket and lays his precious form away in
the silent tomb. In our faith we say to
them, that this shall be but a short abiding
place for him. Thence he will rise when
Gabriel sounds the great reveille calling
him to a more glorious life beyond the stars,
in world Of glory and of peace, eternal
and without end.
My relations to Gen. Grant were
peculiar, and / would not be true
to myself nor to those who acted with
me, if in your presence now, L
should fail to call them up. When Gen.
Grant, in command of an army of the
United States, crossed the Rapidan river,
in Virginia, May 4, 1864. 1 was member
of that well trained, we'll organized, we'll
armed and ably commanded army of rebels
which met him there. ] stood with the
COnfederateS under the command of Gen.
Il. +. Lee, in that dark and bloody struggle
in the Wilderness for days and nights, and
opposed his advance. We had met the
Union armies on this ground before, and
had invariably turned them back, and we
had vanity and Self-cOniidence enough on
this occasion to believe that we would do it
again.
OUR sKILLFUL COMMANDER
and his able leutenants thoroughly under
stood the ground and it was unknown to
Gen. Grant. The roads were blind, mar
row and few, the streams were deep. miry
and unbridged. Hooker and Meade had
found this wilderness impenetrable and i'm
pregnable and had recOiled from its jungleS.
The Union troops had so often failed on
this route to Richmond that they took up
the march under Gen. Grant with many
L
Henry and DOnelSOn, of Nicksburg and Mis-
SiOnary Ridge was indeed inspiring, but the
long list of failures which preceded him
stood up glaringly like so many danger
boards on the quicksandS and whirlpOOls on
the journey ahead of them, that they were
discouraged and disheartened. Mcclellan,
Pope, Burnside, Hooker and Meade, each
of these in his turn had led this grand
army only TO failure, and where was the as
Suyance of success under another? The cir
cumstanceS of war were decidedly in favor
of the COnfederateS, who held the advan-
tage of grOund-held shorter line of de
tense and the interior lines of operation.
Yet Gen. Grant held his army constantly
in contact with that of Gen. Lee and closed
upon it with an unyiclding, unrelaXing
pressure, which in less than one year
strangled and destroyed it. Grant fought
and Strove as strong giant. untiringly aud
constantly, through lannon's thunderings
and musket's roar, until he saw the star of
victory rise on the field of AppOmattOX, which
ushered in the long prayed for day of
peace, which we now and which / hope we
shall ever enjoy.
on THAT TERRIBLE MARCH
from the Wilderness TO AppOmattOX, which.
indeed, was but one long battle field, and
extended over a distance of 200 miles, no
marks of vandalism. no wantOn waste and
destruction, no devastated homes or general
deSOlatiOn marked the track through the
country of that great army under Gen.
Grant and. as well expressed by the distin-
guiShed Southern general, Dick Taylor,
Gen. Grant made war in the true spirit of
a soldier, never by deed or word iniiicting
wrong on nOn-cOmbatantS. GEM Grant
was commissioned by his government TO de-
stroy the organized resistance to national
authority in the South, and to this task and
without malice he addressed himself with
all his manhood. His habits were
simple. he was modest. he surrounded
himself with no courtly train of sycophants
and parasites, who are always only too will
ing to cling to the robes of power. He al
lowed only those about him who were au-
thOriZed by the army regulations, and made
their number as few as the eXigencieS of
the service would allow. He did not dis
cuSs diplomatic questions; he was not a
partisan in politics; indeed no one knew his
politics during the war. With ''uncon-
ditional surrender" to the authorities of the
United States as his motto and battle cry,
he struck heavily and necessarily for vic
tory and power.
On the field of AppOmattox, when the
clouds of war had been rolled back and his
sword blossomed in the sunshine of victory,
when his name was heard in the inrnns