Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1886-01-21
How lincoln s,onnea CRITICISMS.

General Porter contributes an inter-
esting paper on ''Lneoln aud Grant
to Inc Century for October, from
which we quote the following charac-
tcristic anecd0tc: Grants successes
brought with them the usual number
of iealousies and riyalrics Political
generals had their advocates IN Wash
ington to plead their cause, while
Grant stood without friends at court.
His detractors gathered ut times a
great deal OF strength III their efforts
to supplant him with q general Of their
own choosing, and Lincoln was beset
by many delegation who insisted
that nothing would harmonic matters
in the West but Grants removal.
This nagging continued even after his
great triumph at Vicksburg.
''Lincoln always enjoyed telling the
General, after the two had become
personally intimate, how the ross
roads wiseacres had criticised his cam
paigns. 0ae day, after dwelling for
some time on this subject, he said to
Grant: After Vicksburg | thought it
was about time to shut down on this
sort of thing. So one day, when
spent half an hour trying 10 show me
the fatal mistake you had made iii
paroling Pembarlon's army, and in
sisting that the rebels would violate
their paroles and in less than a month
confront you again in the ranks, and
have to be whipped all over again, |
thought | should get rid Of them best
by telling them story about Sykes s
dog. Have You ever heard about
Sykes's dog? said ! to the spokesman
OF the delegation. He said nc hadn't
Well, | must tell YOU about him, said
| |. Sykes had yellow dog lie set
great store by, but there were = lot Of
small boys around the village, and
that always bad thing for dogs, you
know. These boys didn't share
Sykes's views, and they were not dis
| posed to let the dog have Il fair show.
| Even Sykes had 10 admit that the dog
was getting unpopular; in fact it was
| soon seen mat q prejudice was grow
ing up against chat dog that threatened
to wreck Ill his future prospects in
| life. The boys, after medltating how
/ they could get the best 81 him, finally
| fixed up a cartridge with long fuse,
| put the cartridge in a piece OF meat,
| dropped The meat in the road in front
OF Sykcs's door, and then percaed
! themselves on IL fence good distance
1 off with the end OF the fuse in their
hands. Then they whlstied for the
dog. When he came out he scented
the bait and bottled the meat, cart
ridge and all. Tae boys touched of
the fuse with a cigar, and in about Il
second report cane from THAT dog
that sounded like 4 small clap oil
thunder s. kes came bouncing out Of
| the house, and yelled:
WHATS up! Anything busted?'
"lnere was no reply except a
smoker from the small boys roosling
on the fence, but rs Sykes looked up
he saw the whole air Tiled with pieces
OF yellow dog. He picked up the
biggest piece he could find. a portion
of the back wish Il part OF tie tail still
hanging to it, and after turning it
around and looking it all over he said,
We'll. guess he'll never be much
account again-as a dog And /
guess Pemberton's forces will never
be much account again-as an army.
'.ihe delegation began looking
around for their hats before | had
quite got to the end of the story, and
/ was never bothered any more after
that about superseding the commander
OF the Army OF the tennessee,