The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-05-10
THE CHARACTER OF GRANT

must always remain among the eng
mas of history.
No man ever did so much of whom so
little could have been predicted.
At the outbreak of the civil war he
had come nearly to middle life, having
failed in every undertaking, and was
sunk in hopeless poverty and obscurity.
He was destitute of those personal
traits and qualities which attract and
charm and make their possessor pop
ular and beloved
tenance with the world, he had few
acquaintance, fewer friends, and no
influential associates among the civil
and military leaders of his time.
There was not a county in the state
of Illinois that did not contain in 1861
some inhabitant who might have been
commander-in-chief of the armies of
the United States and twice its president
than this humble, INDECENT employee in
the village store at Galena, Ulysses
Simpson Grant.
But in four years that detected SUBJ
ordinate, upon whom fortune seemed
to have exhausted ITS resentment, had
commanded greater armies than Caesar,
had fought more battles than Napoleon,
and inscribed his name among the fore
most warriors of the world.
In personal intercourse he was some
times so commonplace and prosaic that
it was quite impossible to conceive of
him as a celebrity. He apparently
placed no such estimation on himself.
tories. He was not stirred by any pas
sion for glory. He seemed devoid of
imagination He was incapable of
apOstrOphiZing the Sun of Austerlitz,"
like Napoleon, or personifying the forty
centuries that looked down from the
summit of the Pyramids. He was
rather the imperturbable incarnation of
plain, vigorous common sense, that
would plan campaigns and fight battles
as if they were the ordinary occupa-
lions of daily life.
10 To-,
been vacant and dull in conversation,
but while at times irresponsible, again
he was alert, vivaciOus and almost in
spired.
Toward the end of his second term as
president there was a dinner at the
White House The electoral commits
sion was sitting to decide the disputed
succession between Tilden and Hayes.
1t was a dark and ominous time. The
most threatening since Appomattox.
revolution was imminent. Henry Wat
tersOn had just issued his procIama-
ton calling for one hundred thousand
unarmed Kentuckians to assemble at
Washington, January 8, to watch the
count. The subsiding passions of the
war; the frenZies of reconstruction were
infiamed to evaporation. The air was
heavy with portents
After dinner the guests strolled into
the library for coffee and cigars Con-
versatiOn turned to the situation and
it's perils. Its tone was depressed. The
president said nothing, exhibited no in
terest, did not even seem to listen but
smoked with deliberate stolidity. In a
pause, Burnside turned to him and
said: well, general, what do you
Thinks there going to be any trou-
ble?"
After perceptible interval Grant ap-
peared to emerge from a reverie. His
features were transformed, and with
voice and manner as if he were at the
head of million men, and in a sup
pressed tone of indescrible intensity, he
said:
NO. there will be no trouble. But
it has been one rule of my life to be al
ways ready!'
AS uttered, it was the most immense.
impressive and pregnant sentence to
which 1 ever listened.
The talk instantly turned to other
themes, and the president became chat
ty Voluble and reminiscent. He re-
ferred to the agOnizing sick headache
from which he suffered the night before
the surrender, and how it left him. on
the receipt of Lees note, as suddenly
as the shutting of a jack-knife." He
said he never saw Gen. Lee but once
after the closing of the war. He called
at the executive mansion as he was
passing through on his way to New
York on some railroad transaction for
the state OF Virginia. In the course of
the conversation Lee said he could
hardly understand why he was sent on
the mission, because he knew absolute
ly nothing about railroads. Grant stated
he replied, jocularly, that they together
had considerable to do with railroads
IN Virginia for a number of years, but
Lee never smiled which the president
thought evinced a lack of the saving
sense of humor''
Toward midnight someone started a
discussion as to the most desira BILE per-
iod of life-infancy, with its helpless I'M
consciousness; childhood, with it's in
nocent enjoyment; youth, with its pas
sions; manhood, with it's achievements;
age, with it's repose. Some preferred
one and some another. Grant had re-
lapsed into silence again. Logan ap-
pealed to him for his opinion. He pom
dered moment and then replied:
We'll, so far as I am concerned, I
! should like to be born again" This
seemed a very clever way of saying
| that he had enjoyed life all the way
! through. Logan retorted that he knew
] of no man who stood in greater need
| of being born again, and then we all
went home.
| These vague recollections fOated dim
| ly from times dark backward and
| abyss. as I stood yesterday by the I'M
! completed pedestal on which the heroic
equestrian statue of Logan is to stand
| in Iowa Circle. Two bronze panels in
| the granite base Derpetuate incidents
| in the career of the great volunteer
whom Grant describes as the most trou-
| blesome man in camp and the bravest
| and most daring soldier in battle that
had ever been under his command. He
| was the incarnation of force. He was
| intrepid energy Rersonified. His pug
! nacity was automatic and his combat