The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1885-04-22
Four Great Generals.

There is dawning a juster sense of
the greatness of General Grants mill
tary genius, and of the magnitude of
his services to this nation and to hui
mainly. The present generation is too
near to take in all the grand proper
tons of his character and the beauty
of its outlines, but it is beginning to
awake to an appreciation of the fact,
still dimly discerned and imperfectly
comprehended, that the Union COM
mander in the war of the rebellion far
overtops in martial fame, in moral
strength and greatness, in the power
and inspired clearness of his vision
those whom the world has esteemed its
most illustrious heroes. A century
hence his achievements, the modesty
of his nature, the real grandeur of the
man, tested by the passage of time and
estimated by the generations then liv-
ing, will be understood, and he will be
the colossal character of history. The
Montreal Gazette, in the following ex-
tract from an article having the above
title, foreshadows the willing estimate
which time will place upon his abilities
and achievements: ''The four great
est generals produced by the great
civil war on the national side were
Grant, Mcpherson, Sherman and Sheri-
dan. One of the most pleasant memo
ries of American history is, and will
forever be, the fact that between these
four great commanders there was never
the shadow of jealousy or envy. 1t is
the highest honor that Grant ever re-
ceived from mems judgment or admira-
ton that these three able captains all
willingly and always looked up to him
as their superior. Mcpherson fell in
battle before the splendor of his abili-
ties could attract the worlds attention,
but in his death Grant, as he declared,
lost one of the greatest-perhaps the
very greatest-of his lieutenants. Sheri-
dan, as in right of his Irish blood, had
the fiercest spirit in battle; Sherman
the greatest invention in council while
Mcpherson could fight with the one
and plan with the other, but they all
admitted, because they knew and felt,
that the silent gray-eyed man was
greater than they. Why, l asked
General Sherman once, did you and
Sheridan always acknowledge Grant to
be your leader?' Because he re-
sponded, in his quick, idiomatic man
ner, while 1 could map out dozen
plans for campaign, every one of
which Sheridan would swear he could
fight out to victory, neither he nor l
could tell which of the plans was the
best one but Grant, who simply sat and
listened and smoked while we had been
talking over the maps, would at the end
of our talking tell us which was the
best plan, and in dozen or two words
the reason of his decision, and then it
would all be so clear to us that he
was right, that Sheridan and l would
look at each other and wonder why we
hadn't seen the advantage of it our
selves. L tell you,' he continued,
after a moments pause, Grant is not
appreciated yet. The military critics
of Europe are too ignorant of Ameri-
can geography to appreciate the condi-
tons of his campaigns. What is it to
march an army from Berlin to Paris?
Look at the shortness of the distance.
Look at the multitude of roads. Look
at the facilities of transportation. Con-
slider how many times the same ground
has been fought over by successive
commanders. Is not every point OF
vantage known? What commander
can blunder where all the conditions lie
open to his eye? But / have seen
Grant plan campaigns for half a million
of troops along a front line twenty-five
hundred miles in length, and send
them marching to their objective points
through sections where the surveyors
chain was never drawn, and where the
commissariat necessities alone would
have broken down any transportation
system of Europe; and three months
later have seen those armies standing
where he said they should be and wha
he planned accomplished; and give i
as my military opinion that Genera
Grant is the greatest commander o
modern times, and with him only tire,
others can stand-Napoleon, yelling
ton and Moltke.'"