Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1885-07-23
FOR SELECTMAN
BOLIVAR ROBERTS.
GENERAL GRANT.


America has lost in the death of Gen
eral Grant the greatest soldier she ever
produced, but not the greatest man.
The fame of General Grant will rest upon
his military career, and not upon his
civil distinction.
General Grant was born April q, 1922,
at Point Pleasant, Clermont county, Ohio.
His name, until nominated to West Point,
was Hiram Ulysses Grant, but through
some mistake the Congressman who nom
mated him gave his name as Ulysses S.
Grant, and although young Grant APP
pealed to the Secretary of War
to have the blunder corrected, his re-
quest remained unanswered, and when he
left the Academy in 1S43, graduating
twenty-one in class of thirty-nine, his
commission as brevet second lieutenant,
and his diploma, styled him Ulysses S.
Grant, by which name he will be known
so long as America is known or remem-
bered.
In lS4S, he married Miss Julia 7. Dent,
the eldest daughter of Fredrick Dent, a
merchant of st. Louis; and in 1854, hav-
ing then the rank of captain, he resigned
his commission, and removed to Gravois,
near St. Louis. In 1860 he went to Gal
ena, Illinois, where he entered the leather
trade with his father and brother; and in
this business and in this place he was en-
gagged when the civil war broke out.
In the Mexican war he served his
country we'll, having been in every battle
of that war with the exception OF the bat
tie of Buena Vista; and after the close of
this war, he was stationed at various posts
on the Canadian frontier, and then in
California and Oregon.
His rst commission in the civil war
was tho Colonel of the Twenty-first
regiT d.. Illinois Infantry, and was
giver lin by Governor Richard Yates.
His ne:- commission was from the Pres
ident, and created him Brigadier-Gen-
eral or volunteers, and Grants first
knowledge of 1t was gained through the
newspapers Thu was on the 9TH of Aug
ust, 1861, hut tn commission was to date
from the l1th Df " and his first act in
the long war @. -,ich he was to become
the chief actor, wa to seize Paducah, at
the mouth OF the Tennessee river. The
next movement he made was of a purely
strategic nature, and against Belmont.
The result was satisfactory to Grant, dis
appointing TO the whole country,
and exhilirating 20 the South !;
but it was fully retrieved at
Donelson, the capture of which
has been so recently and well retold by
General Lew Wallace. 1t was at Donel
son after the accident which occurred to
the First Division and after Grant had
learned that the road to Charlotte was
open, that he said: Gentlemen, the
position on the right must be retaken."
This reply, says General Lew Wallace,
was the key to Grants whole nature, and
he invites all, friends and enemies alike,
to study the man at this critical moment.
1t showed him TO be coolest and most de-
termined when things were in a most
desperate extremity. 1t was after the
capture of Donelson' that, for brief per-
iod, Grant was in disgrace and placed
under arrest, through a misunderstanding
with Halleck, and a great vagueness inI
the directions from the headquarters of the
Department of Missouri in not defining
the limits of the new military district OF
West Tennessee to which Grant had been
assigned. The misunderstanding was
soon explained and as soon forgotten.
To run through the list of General
Grants engagements with the merest
detail would be TO tell the story of the
Rebellion again and how it was crushed.
With the fall of Vicksburg he opened the
Mississippi, and from the President he
received letter warmly congratulating
him and frankly acknowledging that
Grant had been right in his plans. 81
now wish to make personal acknowl-
edgement that you were right and was
wrong" said President Lincoln. The
successes against Yicksburg gave him
the rank of Major-General in the regular B
army, and occurring on the same day as
the victory of Gettysburg, raised the
spirits and hopes of the whole country.
Then came Chattanooga and an order
following this to proceed to Washington,
where, on March 9th, 1864, he was form
ally received by the President, in the
cabinet chamber, and after formal intro