The Washington critic., 1885-07-23
THURSDAY, July 20, 1885.
ULYSSES n. GRANT.

tfegOf TINS morning snOrlly altcr ClOck'
1t was not an unexpected event. For
many long months the Union to which
Of his life, and the permanent restoration
Of which it was vouchsafed his victorious
legions to seal, has been keeping melan-
choly vigils by his bedside. Day in and
day out it has watched the wavering lines
of the enemy-lincs that wavered but
never relented-hoping that the iron will
of the Old Commander might break them
and the insidious foe be beaten back
But il was otherwise ordered.
Nor was it with fear or ioreboding that
hc entered into the Valley of the Shadows
General Grant faced death from the sum-
nit Of Mount Mciregor as he had faced
it many times before in the grim shock of
battle, with less of soldiers stoicism
perhaps, but with more of the placid
serenity of philosopher
1t is a remarkable history that he leaves,
He did not create the circumstances which
found him in obscurty and lifted him to
an illustrious citizenship, but he accepted
them with such ready resoluteness of
purpose and identified himself with their
evolution with such self-forgetful tenacity,
that it is hardly too much to say the an
mails of General Grant during the civil
war and the annals of the war during
Grants generalship are inseparably and
for all time associated
The first forty years of his life were
commonplace and meventful. When he
resigned from the regular service thirty
years ago, even the boldest of his associ-
ates in the army would scarcely have
dared to predict distinguished future for
the youthful and somewhat wayward cap
tain.
1t was n mighty crisis in the affairs of
the country-a crisis that threatened the
inglorious dissolution Of the Republic
that reused him from an unambitious leth-
argy. Otherwise he might still have been
at the counter of the little leather store in
Galena. Though educated to the profess
sion of arms, he had long since abandoned
it. Though of bright intelligence and
well-educated, he had small aptitude for
business enterprise and little acquaintance
with business methods. He had often
been reduced to penury and seemed to lack
the elasticity Of temperament requisite to
the successful surmounting of necessitous
circumstance.
Accepting the coloneley of the Twenty
first Illinois Infantry in July, 1861, it was
not long before he had cast behind him
what men were pleased to call the inherent
weaknesses of his nature The rust of re,
tirement was soon worn off, He put or
the vestments of new manhood, and on
of each successive baptism of fire rose to {
higher and higher fame of leadership
until the man who shortly before had
been instructing raw regiment at Spring
field in the manual of arms became tn,
central figure and acknowledged master OF
the conquest.
If he was not consummate general ac
cording to Old World standards or III al
the arts of War proficient as those trained
to their continuous pursuit, he was at leas
a general ofconsummate energy and execu
tive ability. No great captain eve
grasped situation with broader compre
hension or adapted himself to its exigen
cies with more vigorous and unbending de
termination.
lfnot of knightly mould, who shal
say that he was not of heroic stature?
Others might have utilized the resource
placed at their command with equal abil
ity. None ever equaled him in tn
directness of his vision, the soldierly ind
viduality of his character in the field, tn
supreme magnanimity of his judgment i
the hour of victory. The South will eve
remember him as the commander who
bearing no sword himself, declined to az
cept the sword of Lee, and with the SUI
render at Appomattox pronounced the wa
at an end, which for many years afterwart
the politicians persisted was still
progress,
The eight years of his Presidency wei
not years to which the country rever
with unmingled pride, but the faults
that political period were incidents rath
than intents, of an era of reconstructio
which, in many respects, involved mo
difficulties of adjustment than all of Il
hot campaigns which had preceded
President Grant had many able M
about him. 1t is true that they were n
all of them sincere advisers. Politics W
trade to which the General of the Arm
was unused, and when he placed the san
frank confidence in the men who 81
rounded him at Washington as he did
the military aids who executed his orde
in camp and field, he sometimes fou
himself deceived 1t was the same co
fiding nature that led at last to I
financial disasters which 50 sadly oyC
shadowed the closing period of his Ii
aggravating the disease with which
was afflicted and largely contributing
his mental distress and physical pr
tration.
But with all the errors and abuses whi
partisanship alleges against the admin