Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1885-07-23
Grant as a soldier.

i
From an anecdotal and reminiscent
article by General Adam Badeau, on
the characteristics of Grant as soldier,
in the May Century Magazine we quote
the following: ..At the close of the
war, the man who had led the victorious
armies was not forty-three years of age.
He had not changed in any essential
qualities from the captain in Mexico
or the merchant in Galena. The dar-
ing and resource that he showed at
Donelson and Vicksburg had been fore
| Swallowed at Panama and Garita San
Cosme; the persistency before Rich
mond was the development of the same
trait which led him TO seek subsistence
in various occupations, and follow for
tune long deferred through many I'M
successful years. Developed by ex-
perience, taught by circumstance,
learning from all he saw and even
more from what he did, as few have
ever been developed or taught. or have
learned, he, nevertheless, maintained
the self-same personality through it
| all. The characteristics of the man
were exactly those he manifested as a
soldier-directness and steadiness of
purpose, clearness and certainty of
judgment, self-reliance and immutakle
determination.
Grants genius, too, was always
ready; it was always brightest in an
emergency. All his faculties were
sharpened in battle; the man who to
some seemed dull, or even slow, was
prompt and decided. When the cir
cumstances were once presented to
him. he was never long in determining.
he seemed to have faculty of pene-
trating at once to the heart of things.
He saw what was the point to strike,
or the thing to do, and he never way
cred in his Judgment afterward, unless,
| of course, under new contingencies.
Then he had no false pride of opinion,
no hesitation in undoing what he had
ordered but if the circumstances re-
manned the same, he never doubted his
own judgment. / asked him once how
he could be SO calm in terrible emer-
gencies, after giving an order for a
corps to 60 into battle, or directing
some intricate manGuvre. He replied
that he had done his best and could do
no better; others might have ordered
more wisely or decided more furtunate-
| ly, but he was conscious that he had done
what he could, and he gave himself no
anxiety about the Judgment or the de-
clsion. OF course he was anxious about
the accomplishment of his plans, but
never as to whether he ought to have
attempted them. So. on the night of
the battle of the Wilderness, when the
right of his army had been broken and
turned, after he had given his orders
for new dispositions, he went to his
tent and slept calmly till morning.
Not that he was indifferent to
human life or human suffering. l have
been with him when he left hurdle
race. unwilling to see men risk their
necks needlessly; and he came away
from one of Blondin's exhibitions at
Niagara, angry and nervous at the
sight of one poor wretch in gaudy
clothes crossing the whirlpool on a
wire. But he could subordinate such
sensations when necessity required it.
He risked his life, and was ready to
sacrifice it, for his country.
1T was undoubtedly as a fighter
rather than Vancouver that Grant
distinguished himself. He was ready
with resource and prompt in decision at
Belmont and Donelson, but it was the
invincible determination at both these
| places as well as at Shiloh that won.
| As with men, so with armies and gen.
erals; skill and strength are tremen-
dous advantages, but courage out
weighs them all. In battle,
as in strategical movements, Grant al
ways meant 10 take the initiatives; he
always advanced, was always the az
| gressor, always sought to force his
plans upon the enemy; and if by any
chance or circumstance the enemy at
tackled, his method of defense was an
attack elsewhere. At Donelson, as we
have seen. when his troops were
pushed back ON the right he assaulted
on the left, and this was only one in.
stance out of a hundred. This, too
not only because he was the invader
or because his forces were numerically
stronger, but because it was his nature
] in war to assail. In the Vicksburg
campaign his army was smaller than
Pembertons; yet he was the aggressor.
In the operations about Iuka his posi-
ton was defensive one, but he at
tackled the enemy all the same. 1t was
his idea of war to attack necessarily
and advance invariably, and thus to
make the operations of the enemy a
part and parcel of his own.