Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1885-08-03
OUR DEAD GENERAL.

great soldier lies in his coffin. 1t
was the custom of Rome 10 erect
statues to her great men when living,
and to crown them with divine hon
ors when dead. The practice has
hardly ceased in the nineteenth Gen.
fury or with the American people.
Sculpture, painting and engraving
perpetuate the form in which our
great men clothe themselves in life;
and in death little less-lf indeed
less-than divinity is awarded them.
Indeed do we not see something of a
return of the old Roman spirit when
in our public journals we already |
read, as no doubt we shall hear from
many of the pulpits of the land, that |
''the saviour of his country" has |
passed away? Surely neither Gen
eral Grants great abilities nor his |
exalted virtues require any such eff
fusive eulogy. Nor did the country
with her million of men under arms
when Gen. Grant assumed command,
nor did the illustrious men COM
handing our armies-our Thomases,
Shermans, our Meads, Hancocks and
others-ever deserve the reploach
that the fortune and destiny of the
country lay at the feet of one man.
We do not revive the history of those
times. Yet the remark may be fit
tingly made, for it is the simple
truth, that before Grant confronted
Lee the latter could have been de-
feated and Richmond occupied but
for the prohibition which was launch
ed forth from Washington at the
hands of Stanton. The simple fact
now more resplendently limned
against the background of score of
years-is that from the first, the sue
cess of the Union cause was assured
whether this or that general fell it
was never question of generals at
all.
No; the Union cause was never so
desperate nor such fOrlorn hope
| that it's assurance of ultimate success
depended upon any one life. This
fact, though not always admitted by
writer's, cannot be too strongly en-
phasized. So much is due to the
truth of history. Indeed, what
ever might be the abilities of Lee
and his great lieutenants, whatever
were the deficiencies of some of the
northern generals-and they had no
more than their share-the odds
were too tremendously against the
south to admit of her success against
a united north. And as to whether
Grant were slain on that bloody trail
from the Wilderness to Appomattox,
or whether he should peacefully pass
away on the mountain height of Nc
Oregon, the result was the same. 1t
was not question of the ultimate
triumph of the Union arms, but it
was question of weeks or possibly
months, involving also the problem
as 10 "under which king the final
victories should be won. His name
proved to be Grant. 1t was Grant
then, it is Grant now; and, writing
as his body lies in that mountain
cottage clothed in the dignity OF
death, we recognize departed worth
we honor the man and the great
chieftain through whose courage
prowess, zeal and noble discharge Of
: duty the war was ended. And more
if he proved foremost in war, so hi
proved first in peace. While civil
} ians who would gladly have won thu
honors of war without incurring il.
, dangers or enduring its hardshipI
! were sending their sectional pleas al
over the country and within the no
} rizon line of small or great influence
: were doing all in their power to keel
: alive the fires of sectionalism and ha
. tired. General Grant stood nobly TO
peace and reconciliation. Nor di,
he stand alone the soldiers of tn
great armies of the east and Yves
stood by him.
AS soldier his merits are great
v Neither the times nor the occasio
! nor the MISUNDERSTANDING i
l. their grasp five thousand miles @
d sea coast and far-reaching terrific
ry-called for such grander captain
:. of the first class as Alexander, Ca
/ sar, Hannibal. Frederick, Napoleon
d he was more of Wellington than
Frederick. and more of a Eugen
q than either. Assuming the comman
y of the armies of the north when th
!. southern resources were at the
ic lowest ebb, and securing new arm
n of hundred thousand which spran