Huntsville gazette., 1885-07-25
GRANT Is DEAD!
The Saddest Announcement Since
That Of Lincoln's Fall. &
a Brief Review of Some Of the Salient
Points in His Grand Career-His Rec
ord as q Soldier, as Politician and
President, and as Man.

General Grant is dead. His last words
have been spoken. He has gazed upon the
face of Nature for the last time. His great
career is ended. We are, therefore, COM
pelled to speak of him who but few hours
ago was the most illustrious of living men
Is one who has obeyed the summons to
~join the innumerable caravan that moves
toward the realms where each must take
his slumber in the silent halls of DEATH"
In the closing Of his life our grand tri-
omvirate of departed patriots-W ashing-
Ton, Lincoln and Grant-grander than the
history of any other nation presents-is
completed. The Nation mourns its idol.
The world which knew him by heart,
sympathizes with the people of the United
States in their bereavement.
When Daniel Webster died Franklin
fion throbs heavily at the portals of his
erave." General Grants death will touch
Che heart of universal humanity, for the
events of his life spanned the widest range
Of human experimentation almost blank
cbscurity to the most dazzling fame the
world can give; from the impotency of a
poor and almost unknown man to such
power as human hand has seldom grasped.
1t is not easy to think or write of Gen
eral Grant in the past tense. So grandly
solid was the man in his habits, his char
meter, his deeds; so genuine, so far re-
moved from all that was not substantial
as the everlasting truth, that his passage
from the society of the living to "the
!, IL, fhn
house" seems like the sinking of a noun
tain or the sudden prostration of a forest.
For years he was the "Silent Man"-
s'the Sphynxn-so reticent that those who
Judged without knowledge spoke of him
as one who gained a reputation for wis
dom by saying little. But he never failed
to speak when words were needed, and no
man ever uttered weighter words than he
His words are as imperishable as his
deeds; both will live in the memory of
men so long as a record or tradition of our
Republic shall endure. Centuries hence
the descendants of the men who fought
with Lee, and Johnston, and Stonewall
jackson will ponder tenderly and lovingly
on the words which Grant spoke to Lee at
Appomattox: "Let your men take home
their horses; they will need them in plow-
ing and making their crops" And above
the roar of political tempests for many a
decade to come will be heard the ''Let us
have peace' with which Grant met the
furious storm that rent the political firma-
ment seventeen years ago.
1t can not be said that General Grant
made no mistakes in his military career; /;
to claim that would be to set him above all
the weaknesses of humanity, to endow him
with the attributes of the Deity. But let
it be remembered that in almost every in
stance of an alleged ''blunder" his judg-
ment was vindicated by results. "You
were right and l was wrong" wrote Abra-
ham Lincoln to Grant on memorable oc-
casion. 1t was a simple but magnificent
tribute. The time has not yet come for an
unimpassioned analysis of Grant as a
commander, but the time will never come
when the people of the United States will
rate him less or lower than they did in the
zenith of his military renown. He gave
our arms success when others failed. He
was the one man of deeds, the one man
who asked for nothing, the most modest,
unassuming man that ever led an army to
victory. But he knew himself, he trusted
himself, and that calm, unuttered trust
won the confidence of the army and the
country.
Coming out of the war crowned as he
was with laurels, it was inevitable that
Grant should be offered the Presidency,
with the certainty of election if he would
consent. 1t may be that, for his own hap
piness, he made mistake in leaving the
Generalship for the Presidency. But he
obeyed the call of the country in civil as he
had obeyed it in military life. AS he never
asked for promotion in the field, so he was
carried into the White House by the popu-
lar will, and not by his own procurement.
The eight years of his Administration
were stormy period-the era of recon-
struction, an era of bitterness, of political
malevolence. 1t was, too, a time when the
Generalization wrought by the war mani
Tested itself in political corruption. But
no man ever believed that Grant was not
absolutely incorruptible. His greatest
fault was a good trait carried to an extreme.
He trusted his friends sometimes when
they had no right to his confidence.
The closing years of the great life now
ended were not passed in repose, for Gen.
tour in foreign lands, his various business
enterprises, and the awful disaster brought
to him and his family by the perfidy of
young man on whom he had built an abso-
Lutte trust, make up a strangely varied
picture as his career passes in review. 1t
was well-it was so good thing that the
country will not soon cease to be grateful
for it-that Congress performed an act of
justice to the dear "Old Man" before he
closed his eyes on the scenes of earth. It
was well, too, that he had an opportunity,
as witness, to tell the simple story of his
betrayal by Ward. His last days were
made less painful by these two events.
Millions of hearts are aching, millions of
eyes are blinded with tears to-day; the
peerless man goeth to his long home and
the mourners go about the streets. The
soldiers whom he met in our great civil
war, the fathers, mothers, brothers and
sisters Of the men who wore the blue: the
soldiers who wore the gray, and the peo-
pie Of the South who thank God for the
restoration of the Union-al these and all
their fellow citizens bow their heads in
sorrow, for our most honored and best