The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-05-22
GENERALS GRANT AND LEE.

A correspondent of the News continues
his attempt TO .exalt the generalship of
Gen. Robert E. Lee while belittling that of
General u. s. Grant. Lees ability as a
general is too unquestioned and his place in
history as the capable military leader of a
lost cause is too well defined to make it
necessary for his eulogists to underrate the
generalship OF Grant. In his first COM
munication the News correspondent said
that IF Lee had accepted the offer of the
government to take command of the Union
forces. any one that has read the history
of the civil war can see now that that con-
test would probably not have lasted a
year" This virtually asserted that Lee
was offered the command of the Union
forces by the government, or by some one
in authority, which is not true. The cor
respondent now modifies that statement by
saying that Francis p Blair offered Lee
the commandership of the Union army.
Blair was one of the most meddesome
politicians of the period, and if he did this
it was without any authority. The conjec-
ture that General Scott sent Blair on this
mission is pure assumption, just as is the
conjecture that if Lee had been appointed
commander of the Union forces the war
would probably have been ended in a year
We are told that when Colonel Lee re-
not hunting a commander Immediately"
Still less was it hunting a commander
weeks or months before. Lee resigned his
commission April 20. 1861. He certainly was
not offered the command of the Union
army after that date, and if he ever was
mischievous meddler.
Everybody knows and always has known
that in the operations against Richmond
Grants forces largely outnumbered those
OF Lee, but it is also matter of history that
Lee was operating on interior lines and on
the defensive. Draper, in his History of
the American Civil War;" says:
Grants advance towards Richmond was
marked not only by the signal ability with
which he subsisted and Unanswered his
great army, but also by the undaunted
resolution with which he kept his chief
object-the humiliation of the opposing
force-in view. Obliged to be the assailant
in every encounter. to attack Lees troops
in positions they had previously selected
and fortified to operate in a country with
which he was not familiar, but which his
enemy had carefully surveyed and thor
oughly knew, il was not possible but that
his losses should be very great.
1t has never been doubted that Lee made
the best possible use of his resources in the
defense of Richmond. but it is not necessary
to assume that Grant Numbered in. the
management of his. Gen. James G. Wilson.
one of the great soldiers of the civil war.
and one of the highest military authorities
now living. says:
In his Virginia campaign Grant achieved
success where his five predecessors met
with disastrous failure They had wasted
more than two years and $4,000 men in
futile attempts to reach Richmond Grant
captured that city and received the SIR
render of Lees army in a single campaign
OF eleven months. and with a loss OF Is 0o0
less than had been wasted in unayaiIfns
efforts by Mcclellan. Pope, Burnside Hook
er and Meade.
Whether Grant would have succeeded as
well as Lee in a defensive campaign is
purely a matter of conjecture. but the re-
suit OF his aggressive campaign Is mat
ter of history. Coppee. In Grant and His
Campaigns" says that with other great