The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-12-12
GRANT IN PEACE.
NO. XVIII.
Grant "a a Traveller.

Grant was undoubtedly the greatest traveller
that ever lived, not. of course. the greatest
discover or explorer. though he was admitted to
probably more secret and unknown recesses ard
haunts than any other one man. But he also
visited more countries, and personally met more
people, from kings down to iackeys and slaves
than anybody who ever journeyed on this earth
before Others, of course. have made the tour
around the globe. The Prince of Wales did
something of that sori but he went not so far
and saw only the upper state of society; others
have had triumphal professions; some have
assembled higher mountains or penetrated nearer
to Ethiopis, but TO other man was ever received
by both people and soveregns, by Swans and
merchants, by Presidents and governor.gener-
ais by Tycoons, and Sultans and Khedives,
and school children, work people and statesmen,
like Grant
For him the pyramids had special door, and
Memphis and Thebes were thrown open as to q
successor Of the Pharaohs; for him the Pope
dispensed with the usual etiquette and welcomed
a Protestant and democrat who did not kneel.
With him the King of Siam contracted per-
sonal friendship and kept up correspondence
afterward, while the Emperors of Russia, Ger
many and Japan, the Viceroys of India, Cuba
and Canada talked politics to him and religion,
from their own several stand-points All the
greatest potentates of the earth laid aside their
rules and showed him a courtesy, which was
done, of co urse in part to the nation he repre-
sentvd; and who ever so represented nation be-
fore9 Not only the government but the plain
people in it, from whom he sprang and whom he
claimed as his fellows, whom he believed in as
his political peers. The multitudes that thronged
around him in Birmingham, and Frankfort, and
Jeddo all knew this, and perceived, though dim
~, that they were honoring his democratic
principles in honoripg him, while the sovereigns
thought they were acting as became their own
dignity in placing him by their side.
1t was my fortune to accompany General
Grant in many of his journeys on both CONT
tinents l travelled with him, fret OF ali, when
he visited his armies Twas of the party when
he passed from the Tennessee to the Potomac
to lead, in person, the great forces that were
destined to conquer Lee marched by his side
from Washington to Richmond. in 1865; and
that journey took year. / recoect in the
Appomattox campaign. after Richmond had
fallen, he once asked rebel woman something
about the Yankees, and she replied "Oh! We
are all Yankees now, l gress;' with marked
emphasis the guess.
was with Grant, also, in his tour through the
South during the winter after the war, when he
was received as few conquerors ever were by
the people whom they had subdued; looked upon
as their best friend their protector, their savior
from the bitterness OF successful enemies. Ev-
h.
soldiers who had surrendered last, the civilians
who had been most stubborn, as well as the scat
tered loyalsts and the emancipated blacks greet
ed Grant In Charleston General Sickles gave
him dinner and the party was made up of
men like Orr, and Aiken, ana others who had
been his enemies. l went with him. also, on his
frat visit to Richmond, year after it FELL for
he had not time to stop and enter in the hour Of
triumph, like other victors. out pushed on after
Lee
So, too. accompanied him in his journeyines
over the North. This generation hardly knows
of the ovatons that were once paid to Grant
Towns were illuminated because of his arrival.
Triumphant arches were built; girls of promi-
nent families, dressed in white, sang in the
streets and threw flowers as ne passed. congre-
cations rose when he took his place among them;
clereymen prayed for him by name from the
pulpit; the audiences and actors applauded him
together in the theaters.
/ went with him when he left his country for
the first time; it was to pass through Canada, in
1865 We spent day or two in Montreal and
Quebec, and then came the first premonitions of
the honors destined to be heaped upon him
abroad twelve and fourteen years afterward.
The Governor-eeneral of Canada gave him a
dinner and put him 10 the royal pew. The Can
adam town welcomed him almost as if he had
saved their country or had led their armies.
met him when he landed in England in 1877,
and ACCOMPANIED him. by permission of the GOV
eminent, whenever he went 10 Great Britain.
l was with him in Belgium, Germany, Switzer-
land, Italy and France. Always ne was the
same simple, impassiye man, the genuine demo
crat The compliments of kings did not disturb
him; the adulations offered by whole populations
did not elate him unduly that / could ever dis
Germ. After his departure from England and
short visit to Belgium, he proceeded up the
Rhine. At Cologne he was met by the officers
of the army, sent expressly by the Emperor, to
welcome him to Germany. He visited the
Cathedral like any other traveller and was in
terested in the villages and the ruins of the
Rhine but he cared more for the fortresses of
to-day; for Ebrenbreitstein and the bridge of
boats than for the legends and castles of ro-
nance. We stopped for night at Bin gen. and,
after dinner he and walked out into fair and
saw ali the village shows he liked them quite
as well as any palace with history. He oues-
toned the people through me, and was curious
about their ways but he had never heard of Mrs.
Norton's poem of 'Bineen on the Rhine"
At Frankfort he fell in with some of his jew
ish friends and was quite as much at home with
the Seliemnns as If they had been princes, though
his last host had been the King of the Belgians
Here he was taken to the famous wine cellars
and tasted in each on the Same morning twenty
eight different brands of Rhenish wine, of course
only slipping from each glass. We began with