The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1885-07-31
DEATH OF GENERAL GRANT.


The long struggle of General Grant
with the great destroyer ended Yesterday
morning, and the American people, with
one heart, mourn in his death their
greatest soldier and their popular idol.
For months they have snxiously watch
ed the bulletins that recorded the fatal
progress of his disease, and his last
days have been cheered and consoled by
the universal manifestations of their
affection. In this hour of public grief
all animosities engendered in the heat
of partisan conflict are hushed, all de-
traction is silenced, and no expressions
or sympathy are more sincere than
those that fall from the lips of the men
who were once in arms against him.
To few men has been allotted so great
and memorable part in the movements
of history. His career, though so real
and visible in the eyes of his countrymen
and contemporaries, has all the glamour
OF romance. Withrawn from his cho-
sen profession early in life to the obscu-
rest private condition, be resumed it
when the country had need of his servi-
| ces. By his extraordinary merit he
rose through successive steps, each
marked by great achievement, to the
command of the American armies in
one of the most stupendous conflicts the
woIid has ever witnessed. History re-
cords the ascent of obscure peasants to
| the throne of the Roman Empire. but
that was in the corruption and decay of
/ Roman greatness, when merit was rare
and competition feeble. Grant made
/ himself the foremost soldier in Ameri-
/ ca in the lusty prime aud vigor of the
Republic, when every upward step was
/ battle.
1t has been said that only two things
| can reach the top Of a pyramid. the
/ eagle and the reptile. Grant was the
/ eagle who rose te his place without ap-
| parent effort, and he kept it. His COM
mand of vast armies in the presence of
/ an enemy was as easy to him as was his
! drilling Of a regiment of raw militia in
! the beginning of his career. Fort Don
/ elsOn, Vicksburg, Chattanooga and the
campaigns on the Potomac are monu-
ments of his military fame. If he was
sustained by the arms and resources of
| a great nation. he was opposed by a foe
| whose pTowess enhanced the splendor of
| his victories. His magnanimity and
clemency in the day of final success nit
igated to his enemies the humiliation of
defeat, and to the love and admiration
in which he was held by the victors was
united the gratitude of the vanquished.
As be lies cold and beyond the reach
| or tiattery or blame 1T may be affirmed
| OF him that no citizen ot America ever
enjoyed a greater degree of popularity.
As proof of the veneration in which
! Marcus AuTelius was held it was OBJ
served that there was not a dwelling,
however humble, in the vast Roman
Empire that did not contain some pic
ture or memorial of him. Though no
point of resemblance is sought mere the
same may be said of the popularity of
General Grant. There is Dot a wood
choppers cabin on the Aristook, farm
house IN the far West, or a negro hut
on the BraZOs. in which some portrait,
or battle scene, OF other memento of the
peoples idol, is not preserved. General
Grants popularity is not wholly due to
military deeds, which always command
so large measure of admiration and
applause, but he has come to be regarded
IS The embodiment of the American
spirit. In his strong traits of personal
character-his indOmitable will his
obstinacy, amounting in some of its
manifestations to stolidity his stoical
endurance, revealed so touchipgly in a
new form in the agOuy OF his disease
his simplicity and freedom from cant
are tound the elements of his populari-
ty. The people admired in him the high
qualities which they flattered them
selves with possessing. They condoned
in him the faults they knew they owned
Butifbe possessed some of the faults that
are common to human nature, his great
ness is his own.
This is not the occasion to dwell OF
! the faults and mistakes that clouded bis
public career, or the mIsfortunes that
embittered his latter days. History
which deals impaItially with men and
; their works, will not hide nor extenuatt
his failings in deliueating his character
and recording bis achievements. II
this hour of public lamentatatiOn and
sorrow criticism is abashed. The errors
of Grant will be buried in the coffir
with him by his cotempOraIies and wit
nesSes, while the memory of bis great
virtues and patriotic services will re-
main enshTined in the hearts of gener-
ations OF Americans as long as the Re
pnblic shall Philad'd Record
july "a.