Year: 1868

/ The New York World is now engaged
in the somewhat difficult task of proving
that Grant is no General This is how
ever, what that paper said of him about
the close of the rebellion, April 11th,
/ 1865:


General Grants history should teach us
to discriminate better than we Americans
are apt to between the glitter and solid
work. Our proneness to run after dema
gogues and spouters, may find a whole
some corrective in the study of such a
character as his. The qualities by which
great things are accomplished are here
seen to have no necessary connection with
snowy and superficial accomplishments.
When the mass of men look upon such a
character, they may learn a truer respect
for themselves and each other; they are
taught by it that high qualities and great
abilities are consistent with the simplicity
of taste, contempt for parade, and plain
ness of manners with which direct and
earnest men have strong natural sym
pathy. Ulysses Grant. the tanner, Ulysses
Grant, the unsuccessful applicant for the
post of City Surveyor of St. Louis, Ulysses
Grant the driver into that city of his two
horse team with load of wood to sell, had
within him every manly quality which Will
cause the name of Lieutenant General
Grant to live forever in history. His
career is lesson in practical democracy
it is a quiet satire on the dandyism, the
puppyism, and the shallow afectation of
our fashionable exquisites, as well as upon
the swagger Of our plausible, glib-tongued
demagogues. Not by any means that
great qualities are inconsistent with cultl
waited manners, and fluent elocution but
that such superficial accomplishments are
no measure of worth or ability.


Gen. Grants last brilliant campaign
sets the final seal upon his reputation. 1t
stamps him as the superior OF his able an
tagonist, as well as of all the commanders
who have served with or under him in the
great campaigns of the last year. 1t is
not necessary to sacrifice any part of their
well-earned regulations to his. Sherman
and Sheridan deserve all that has ever
been said in their praise but there has
never been a time, since Grant was made
Lieutenant General, when anybody but
Sherman, on our side, could have been
classed with him. Since Sherman's bold
march through Georgia, and his capture OF
Savannah and Charleston, there have been
many who, in their strong admiration of
his great achievements, inclined to rank
him as the greater General of the two.
That Judgment, we take it, is now reversed
by the court of final appeal; not by dwarf
ing the reputation of Sherman, which
suffers no just abatement, but by the ex-
panson into grander proportions OF that
of Grant.


Grant stands pre-eminent among all the
Generals who have led our armies In the
late war, In that he has ertl61ted tic IT.
most strength of lciU of which the highest
tupe of manhood as capable. The defenses
of Vicksburg and the defenses of Richmond
were both deemed impregnable, and were
defended with a proportionable confidence
and obstinacy; but they both yielded, at
last, to Grants matchless persistence and
unegualled strategy. And, in both cases,
he not only took the long-contested po-
sitions, but compelled the surrender of the
whole force defending them. Nothing
could be more clean and complete, even In
imagination, than Gen. Grants mastery
execution. He did not merely, in each
case, acquire position which was the key
oI Wiue euedleI vi opoIdlioho' ~
r merely beat or disable the opposing force
/ he left no fragment of it in existence ex-
cept as prisoners of war subject to his dis
posal.


If anybody is SO obtuse or so Urong-
headed as to see nothing great an General
Grant beyond his marrelous tenac'ty OF
1ciU, let that doubter explaiS, if ne can
how it happened that, since Grant arose to
high command, this quality has always
been exerted in conspicuous energy pre-
F cisely at the point on which everything IN n
his whole sphere of operations hinged
There has been no display of great quali,
ties on small occasions no expenditure OF
herculean effort to accomplish objects not
of the first magnitude. 1t is only clear.
sighted and Gerry comprehensive "'s'a1
that could alscays thus hare laid the '0|soIt
, emphasis of an indomitabLe saul so precise
ly ON the emphatic place. How, II ne oe
not General Of the first order Of 'ntettee'
!. as sceu as of the most heroic determination