The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-07-07


 could be no security. Both sides ltarned better in four years of dreadful conflict There was no talk of one tC half dozen after that was over. The hands that were then clasped across the bloody chasm belonged to men who hac the profoundest respect for each other The northerner had found a foe thai with all his faults had, in chivalry honor and heroistn no superior any
 where in the world. While the south
 erner had no fault to find with the en- durance, the unyielding tenacity of the 1 men who, despite his wish, had com
 pelled him to surrender everything he
 had but honor to the nation he had done
 his best to destroy. That sowing of
 gunpowder, that planting of bullets and
 gathered a harvest of patriotism that
 will easily last for another half a centu-
 ". If any nation thinks otherwise let
 them think so, but do not let them pre-
 sume on their notion and make q trial.)
 In perfect keeping with all this were
 the military combinations, When Gen.
 eral Grant took command of all the ar mics there were no less than nineteen
 departments, with seventeen distinct
 commanders. General Hallack was the
 military advisor of the president. Stan
 ton was secretary of war, and if General Confusion was not over all the people
 were grossly deceived. There seemed to
 be no harmony of operation, one com mander was often seen acting without concert with, if indeed not in opposition
 tTN hn hoe t,,fa of tIO rr.1,F, f3116
 The result was that the enemy were able to take advantage of many mis-
 takes, and by sending troops from a point not threatened to a point not
 properly guarded in the invading col umns, often inflicted great damage. The battle of Chickamauga for instance would not have been so perilously near an overwhelming disaster to the nation al cause had not the rebels been allowed through federal inaction to send troops to General Bragg from many points, Virginia included, while troops asked for by Rosencratz were kept in idleness That scrappy kind of campaigning stopped when General Grant became lieutenant general of the army For the first time vast system of movement was planned with the army of the Po- tomac as the center or pivot of the sys- tenn. One department was made auxili- ary to the other departments, with one brain planning or ordering the whole That system had been almost consum- mated The valley of Virginia had been reaped by the sword of Sheriden Ten nessee was as safe from the enemy as Ohio. Georgia had been cut in two and that storehouse of Confederate supplies exhausted South Carolina had settled with the defenders of the Union for her part in the mad strife, and the payment of the claim had left that naughty com monwealth in bankruptcy and shame. North Carolina had not been collected in the general settlement. Indeed, every southern state save Texas was writhing under the penalty. As for Texas, there was enough trouble there at any time without the need of addition. In March the net had been drawn tightly around the fragments of the Confederacy. Sheridan. leaving the valley had passed around Richmond. reaching the vicinity of the Army of the Potomac. There was no need of guide to show which way he had gone. No man in our civil strife cut a wider swath or cut 1t lower down. There, too, was Sherman on the path from Raleigh and on the flank of Lees army. There had been arrests of the great plan, there had been indeed many notifications of 1t, but the.think ing of the silent chieftain whose head quarters were at City Point, was about at its conclusion. In the presence of his staff Grant gave Sheridan his written But in private he gave him his verbal ones, and when that re- doubtable rider heard that that was to be campaign for the end, his face and skipping his leg like an boy, he said, T am glad to hear 1t and we can do it.
 The general commanding was most anxious for the honor of the Army of the Potomac He saw, or thought he saw, that were any other army to do that work save the old antagonist of the Army of Northern Virginia. it would se- riously detract from it's glory. and per- haps stir up bad blood between men devoted to the cause, and equal y skilful in it's defence The Armies of the West had had their share of tri- umph. Donaldson, Corinth, 1nka, vicksburg, Chattanooga Atlanta Sa- Columbia, Raleigh formed a part of the list. Their brethren of the east had had their share of trial. The the two Bull Runs, Freder cksburg. Chancellorsville, Cold Harbor and Petersburg had been mixed up with Gettysburg and the Wilder ness. They had been for the defence of the Capitol, and been subject to the con influences of the Capitol. It was but fair that the army should start he finish and share in at the death stroke. Meanwhile let the great Sher- man hold his force of sixty thousand men, toughened through exposure, con- adent by victories, daring and rolicking )n account of their raidfngs as an offset 70 Johnston.
 Never had the Army of the East been n a better condition for such a job. It was divided into three parts; the Army 1f the Potomac, numbering seventy-five thousand men and two hundred and for .y-three guns, was under the command if General Meade a scholarly, thought ul man, whose name will be ever iden- flied with the supreme peril and deliv- erence at Gettysburg, and to whose 'redit belongs the statement of loyalty 1beying his superior and doing work Or another as well as he would were 1t lis own. The man who under God gave to the nation on the day, l "a TO ialy F,