The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-04-28
THE GRANT MONUMENT.

nearly seven years to erect over the grave
of General Grant, was laid yesterday. 1t
is Of no great consequence whether Grants
monument is ever built or not; 1t would be
local disgrace to the great city that
fairly clam ,red for his corpse and bid Tor
his bones to have Grants grave go for ten
years longer without a respectable monu-
ter of no consequence whether New York
city builds q monument or not.
Statues and monuments have been
erected to great many very bad men, and
many great men have never been honored
by them. "Bill" Tweed was about to be
honored with a statue when the Tam
many ring burst and tumbled into ruin.
Napoleon and Frederick the Great, two of
the worst men that ever lived, have
statues, while Crom well has none. There
is no statue yet, we believe, to John A.
Andrew. to Wendell Phillips, or to many
other great and good men of America.
All the monsters among the Roman en-
perors had statues voted them, and any
man nowadays can have statue If any
body is willing to pay for it. There is no
law against erecting statue to Benedict
Arnold. and until somebody blew it up
there was a statue erected by Cyrus w.
Field to Major Andre at Tarrytown, n. Y.
Chicago already has fine statue of Grant,
and all the great cities of the West are
likely to have them long before New York
city is done passing the hat" for her
Grant monument.
Grants fame has suffered, both from the
ignorant partiality of friends who have
stopped to disingenuous denial of his in
firmities, and from the partisan hate and
prejudice of those who cannot yet forget
the fall of the Confederacy or forgive the
man who finally throttled it. Some of the
friends and admirtrs of the great soldier
have described his rapid rise to military
fame from civic obscurity as if it was an
exceptional experience for an officer, who
had served ten or a dozen years in the
army, to occupy an obscure position in
civil life. The truth is that the war found
nearly all the graduates of West Point
who had sought civil pursuits after
five or ten years of army life equally
obscure with Grant and his great ieuten-
ant, Sherman. Of fifty West Pointers
who had left the old army for civil pur-
suits, the only ones who were not living in
comparative onscurity were Halleck,
leading lawyer in San Francisco, Isaac ].
Stevens, who represented Washington ter
ritory in congress, and Mcclellan, who
was president of the Ohio & Mississippi
railroad. The failure of Grant and Sher-
man to get on successfully in civil life was
not peculiar to them, but was character
istic of all ex-army officers. Grant left
the army after ten years. service too
old to study profession; too old to enter
commercial life, and he had neither
the taste nor the training for trade. He
had held a respectable general rank at
West Point, and in mathematics he had
been very fine scholar; he was competent
for the position of professor of mathemat-
les or for that of civil engineer, but he had
left the army under cloud. He had re-
signed from the Fourth Infantry in 1853
at Vancouver Barracks rather than sub
NIT to the penalty for intoxication while
on duty.
When the war broke out Grant had con-
quered this infirmity and was man Of
sober habits. but the cloud that rested
upon his departure from the old army
made it difficult for him to secure prompt
recognition of his offer of service, and
probably explains why he was snubbed by
both General Mcclellan and by the adju-
tant general of the army. After Fort
Donelson Grant had "spree." General
Rawlins made q successful appeal to
Grant for a pledge of absolute sobriety,
which Grant kept religiously until after
the Vicksburg campaign was an assured
success. Then Rawlins brought Grant
back again to sober habits. Once again.
before Petersburg, in July, 1864, Grant
showed signs OF relapse, but the
faithful Rawlins again influenced him to
'brace M" OF course this infirmity of
incorporate drinking explains Haileck's
treatment of Grant after Donelson and
Shiloh, and the general denunciation OF
Grant as unworthy of confidence by Murat
Halstead and other great Western editors.
These lspses of Grant into drink were
very few and far between, and were
promptly checked by the stern remon-
STRANGE and appeal of Rawlins, but they ex-
plain some things in Grants early career
that seem otherwise inexplicable.
OF the greatness of Grants abilities for
war there is no dispute among able in.
teligent and candid men. He has been
compared to Wellington. There was the
same reticence; the same iron-willed i'm
perturbability and composure; the same
simplicity and truthfulness of speech; the
same utter lack Of brilliant imagination :
the same energy, resolution, decision, pug
nscity and endurance; the same hate for
war, except when undertaken for patriotic
purpose. There was the same sensibility
underneath the grim mask of habitual self.
restraint And yet Wellington was OF
narrow, contracted nature compared with
Grant. Grant in his dispatches warmly
praises Sheridan, Sherman, Mcpherson and
Hancock, while Wellington was always
harsh and ungenecous to his best subor-
dinates, giving them no credit in his dis.
patches. Generals Crawfurd, Picton and
Yorke were all shamefuily treated by Wei.
hngton tn this respect.
Wellington was hardly the peer of Grant
as A soldier In the Waterloo camnaipn