The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-04-28
By Hilary A. Herbert.

American soldiers fighting for the pres ervatfon of American liberties and 1t Is vivid picture he draws of the trem- bling, solicitude with which the North counted up the losses of Grants army In that series of terrible battles that began May s, 1864, at the Will derness and ended few weeks later at Coal Harbor. It astonishes the reader to see how nearly by the last of these bloody repulses the independ- ence of the Confederacy was won. The North was sick of bloodshed and so was Grants army, brave as 1t was. If the Union General had adhered to his plan of lighting it out, if it took all the summer" by desperate assaults on Lees lines, the. chances were that the Confederacy- would win. Certain 1t is that after Coal Harbor, Grant, dogged and pertinacious as he was. abandoned his original plan, changed hts base 10 get the James River and the gun-boats at his back and thereafter relied most 1y on pick and spade and starvation; and thus was prolonged until April, 1865, a campaign which, according to program, was to have been ended in the summer of 1864. The one signal mistake MT. Rhodes has made about the Civil War was in failing to esti- mate at its full value to the Union cause the United States navy and its service. This mistake has been very clearly pointed out by another distin- guished New Englander. MT. Charles Francis Adams. who, in an article read before the Massachusetts Historical Society entitled "A Criticism and Ap- preciation of Mir. Rhodes's Fourth Vol ume," declared that the United States navy was the deciding factor in the Civil War. and that but for the block ade and its other services, the Confed- crates would have succeeded.
 When he reaches the period of re- construction, MT. Rhodes is at his best. spirit of that noble expression he quotes from Senator Lamar's "Eulosy on Sumner" My countrymen, know one another, and you will love one am other" and we wish to emphasize here our belief that no American has forged a more lasting link in the chain that is to bind the North and South together in lasting friendship than has this au- thor in his noble history of the trying times of which he has written.
 The following extract MT. Rhodes quotes appreciatively from the late Senator Hoar's biography: t5.i
 Although my life politically and personally has been a life of almost constant strife with the leaders of the Southern people, yet, as I grow older. have learned, not only to respect and esteem, put to love the great qualities which belong to my fellow w-citizens of the Southern States. They are a noble race. We may well take pattern from them in some of the great virtues which make up the strength. as they make the glory of free States. Their love of home; their chivalrous respect for wo- men; their courage; their delicate sense of honor; their constancy which can abide by an opinion or purpose or an interest of their States through adver- sity and through prosperity, through the years and through the generations, are things by which the people of the mercurial North may take a lesson. And there is another thing-covetous- ness, corruption, the low temptation of money has not yet found any place in our Southern politics"
 Mir. Rhodes's view of reconstruction Is forcefully expressed in these words: "Stevens's Reconstruction Acts were an attack on civilization"
 And speaking of the motive and the manner in which Stevens forced the first reconstruction act through the House of Representatives, he says:
 He hated the South and desired to crystalize his feeling of hatred into legislation. He sought evidence and twisted facts to support his argument that the South was "bleeding at every pore" for, if he could drive that home he might convince his brother Republi- cans that thorough was the only pol icy adapted to the situation. Stevens was a clever advocate. If the truth would serve him, so much the better; but if not. spacious tales would an- swer, and for these lie went to South ern refugees who, for a variety of req sons, were for the most part untrust- worthy witnesses"
 Again. speaking of the material of the newly -fledged Republican party Tn the South, the author says, on page s1, Vol VI:
 But as the possibilities under the reconstruction acts developed, adven- turers who had neither political nor social standing at the North, who could not have been elected a constable in any town or village, fiocked to the South for the purpose of making what money they could out of politics. Their world ly goods, 1t was supposed, could all have been carried in carpet-bag hence the derisive term. Added to the white carpet-baggers were mulattoes and negroes of the baser sort from the North, who were attracted by the polit ical honey pot and became leaders of their more ignorant brethren. The scalawags were the native whites or Northern men, living at the South be- fore the war, and. for the most part, siding with the Confederacy. who be- came Republicans Some of them were men of good character in private life, who worked in politics with corrupt materials for what they deemed the good of their section, but those who gave the distinguishing features to their class vjed in rascality with the bad carpet -baggers."
 He would have been a sanguine Southerner who. thirty five years ago, could have predicted that in the year 1906, such book as Mir. Rhodes's his- tory would have been published by a representative New Englander, one who was thought worthy to be, as MT. Rhodes has been, President of the American Historical Society.
 Our theme is an inviting one, but this article is already becoming too long. and we must hurry on.
 Slngularly lucid is the sketch of the Impeachment of President Johnson and his fortunate acquittal by the votes of seven brave Republican Senators. and of the reasons that brought about the election of General Grant in 1868 and again in 1S72
 Grant the author admired as a gen. eral. but as a stateman he considers him a failure. No one who reads this book can fail to see in it General Grant just as he was. His ability as a gen. eral, his steadfast courage, his mag nanimity to General Lee at Appomat- tox, his devotion to his friends and tho times brought him into the shadow of scandal, his ignorance of politics, his admiration of wealth, his love of mon- nesses are portrayed without any hon oh on O na aTf nf hn nfh fn