Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-02-12
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
I. g.. NJ.

| Meet General Grant sums TO the
| clearance of path through that which
/ for IS years has proved to be a SEEM
| ingly impossible underground of false
report. easy credulity, sectional bitter
| ness in every quarter. Plainly obstruc-
/ tive. all this, to g. natural and vigorous
! growth in either individual or collec-
tive life.
Meet General Grant" gives over the
man himself. Here native quality.
growth of character, play of tempera-
ment and personality through contribut-
| ing circumstance and event are brought
to bear upon Grant in his public serv-
! ice as military leader and President of
: the United States. But the book is
| even more than this 1t is, besides. a
| thing very close to an actual re-embodi-
ment of the most important period in
! the history of this country--the period
of the Civil War
Coming out from this reading. one
| is astonishsd at the sense of immediacy
that it has, at the personal partaking
! in the main, to the authors outlook
upon the Civil War and upon those
who carried it through. Two facts--bui
| two-serve as standing ground for this
, development: First. the war was eco
/ nomic in its essence. Second, 1t was
| directed and fought in the plain human
/ nature that has been carrying on ever
! since man took step ahead of the
other animals.
/ The North discarded slavery because
| climate and soil worked against its
being a profitable measure. The South
! retained slavery because climate soil
made it a paying concern. Even In the
South slavery Jagged when tobacco and
rice and indigo had worn out the soil
! for them Cotton was negligible. No
profit in that because of the tenacious
! habit of the cotton seed in its hold
/ upon the fiber. Then a Yankee school
/ teacher down that way thought out
a rude contraption that ginned the cot
! ton like house af1re. And, SO, cotton
became king The Negro was revived
, asset. Slavery took new lease on
! life. More cotton States became the
| goal of the South, with tighter bonds
| for the slave. At this point that old
reliable human nature began to work,
the North grew more righteous, more
| elf-righteous. The South in turn
/ stoutly maintained its own rightness in
this respect Of both attitude and action.
| According to this writer these are the
two basic elements that projected the
war and carried it through. No other
accounting appears to be quite so con-
sistently plausible as this one. 1t tallies
with what we know about the human
in both individual and collective affairs.
To be sure, libraries have been written
and millions of voices worn out in ex-
PLANTATION of the great national calamity
on the ground of constitutional rights,
State sovereignties. political principles
and party purposes. Confusing stun,
the most OF 1t, and in this case, 1t turns
out, not essential to better under
standing of this vital hour of history.
And, to be sure again. military leaders
have been made over into gods or devils,
according to the side engaged in the
fabrication, and children in the schools
have for more than 60 years been fed
on material which, stripped OF its use
less impedimenta, can be at least fairly
well understood on the basis Of produc-
ton and the instruments therefor, with,
on the other hand, an organized oppo-
sition to the particular human medium
for such an economic course.
The straight simplicity of this study,
its tally with what we know of human
behaviors, its engaging plain sense, the
indubitable signs OF an exhaustive
search into every corner of authentic
misunderstanding 1t is that makes
| Meet General Grant" substantially
great book.
For all these years we have heard
Civil War stories-terrible stories. Bar
barous methods Of fighting, savage
treatment of the wounded, horrors of
the prisons, raiders upon peaceful ham,
let's and plantations, wanton arson and
wrecked homes Again, throughout
these years we have heard of the de-
serters, the bounty Jumpers. the tyranny
of the draft, profiteers, soldiery in
habitual panic. Well, from reading
here, and elsewhere, it seems to be
pretty much the trllth-not quite, but
pretty much. That which makes the
whole believable is that these terrible
things existed in both armies, in the
Army of the North and the Army of
the South. Cowardice and panic on
both sides. Desertions and malingerings
on both sides. Well, why not! These
were human beings, behaving in human
fashion. In perfect fidelity to the facts.
to the clear facts of all human nature.
Mr.. Woodward offers the whole view,
not half. and a distorted half at that.
The special purpose OF the study pro-
duces this back-turning sequence-Gen
Grant, the Civil War, slavery, cotton.
These moving forward in q blend OF
war motive and action constitute the
setting that involves the military lead
ership under which the ultimate issue
took shape in freedom for the Negroes
and the preservation OF the Union.
Mr.. Woodward's biography produces
being who is Ineligible from boy
hood on through the remainder OF his
life. An understanding workman Is on
this job. Sympathetic, too, one would
say, II that word had not latterly taken
| on the cast of partisanship. There Is
no partisan here. Instead, a man who
rather austereiy collects material which
he uses for the fashioning Of the man
of whom this material was an inherent
part And out Of the process human
being steps. A boy as shy and awkward
| and SpeechleSs as are dozens Of the
country boys that you know. or did
know when you lived back on the farm.
A boy who ploweG and drew wood to
the house or to the nearby market,
growing little stopped in his careless
way of walking with days work in
his muscles. A boy that must have had
many things going on inside himself
not much of anything on the outside,
however. He never lost his reticence,
this wordless state into which he SEEM
ed to have been born. CompanionShip
never came his way, nor did he invite
1t. A colOrleSs boy, drab life-one
wants to speak to him. to let him feel,
somehow. that 1t is not so lonesome.
this being alive, as he seems to think it,.
i, He never lost this bearing OF aloofness.
II ne had sloughe0 it at West Point or
later 1t would not have counted. But
he never did--not even when, having
fought the most decisive battle Of the
Civil War, he was, for the time at least,
in the broad sunlight of popular ap-
plause. The same silent mainland one
wants again to speak to him, to say
something, aust some little thing. And
all through. wheu UiysSes Grant Is at
The mead OF The Union Amy, rhen he
IS acclaimed everywhere as the Creates,
/ figure OF Inc wsr and. later, when he
/ is at the head OF ihe Na.lon--Gran6 is
the silent man-lonely, one thinks. And
this one wants. desperately. to say a