| Show GENERAL GRANT 0 America has lost in the death of General Gen-eral Grant the greatest soldier she ever t 9 produced but not the greatest man The fame of General Grant will rest upon his military career and not upon his civil distinction y General Grant was born April 2i 1822 at Point Pleasant Clermont county Ohio His name until nominated to West Point was Hiram Ulysses Grant but through some mistake the Congressman who nominated nom-inated him gave his name as Ulysses S Y Grant and although young Grant ap 1 fcpealed to the Secretary of War to have the blunder corrected his request re-quest remained unanswered and when he left the Academy in 1848 graduating twentyone in a class of thirtynine his commission as brevet second lieutenant and his diploma styled him Ulysses S Grant by which name he will be known so long as America is known or remembered remem-bered I In 1848 he married Miss Julia T Dent the eldest daughter of Fredrick Dent a merchant of St Louis and in 1854 having hav-ing then the rank of captain he resigned his commission Vemovedto Gravois near St Louis In 1860 he went to Galena Gal-ena Illinois where he entered the leather trade with his father and brother and in this business and in this place he was engaged en-gaged when the civil war broke out In the Mexican war he served his country well having been in every battle of that war with the exception of the battle bat-tle of Buena Vista and after the close of this war he was stationed at various posts on the Canadian frontier and then in California and Oregon His JCSt commission in the civil war was th > 1 f Colonel of the Twentyfirst regisr Illinois Infantry and was r giver trim 1 by Governor Richard Yates His nert t commission was from the President Pres-ident and created him a BrigadierGcn oral of Tf jiiteers and Grants first knowledge of it was gained through the newspapers Tin was on the 7th of August Aug-ust 1861 limit Hi ommission was to date from the 17 pf fJ J and his first act in the long war 1 i he was to become the chief actor wa to seize Paducah at the mouth of the ft nr see river The next movement he made was of a purely strategic nature and u uinst Belmont The result was eiiuttict iy to Grant disappointing dis-appointing to th whole country and cxhiliratinp to the South but it was fully retrieved at Donelson the capture of wind has l been so recently and well retold by General Lew Wallace It was at Donel Hon after the accident which occurred to the First Division and after Grant had learned that the road to Charlotte was open that he said Gentlemen the position on the right must be retaken This reply says General Lew Wallace was the key to Grants whole nature and he invites all friends and enemies alike tostndy the man at this critical moment It allowed him to be coolest and most determined de-termined when things were in a most lesperate extremity It was after the capture of Donelsonthat for a brief period per-iod Grant was in disgrace and placed under arrest through a misunderstanding with Halleck and a great vagueness in 1 the directions from the headquarters of the Department of Missouri in not defining the limits of the new military district of West Tennessee to which Grant had been assigned The misunderstanding was sooim explained and as soon forgotten To run through the list of General Grants engagements with the merest detail would be to tell the story of the Rebellion again and how it was crushed 1 Withtfhe fall of Vicksburg he opened the Mississippi and from the President he received a letter warmly congratulating him and frankly acknowledging that m Grant had been right in his plans I now wish to make a personal acknowledgement acknowl-edgement that you were right and I was wrong said President Lincoln The j successes against Vicksburg gave him the rank of MajorGeneral in the regular army and occurring on the same diy as the victory of Gettysburg raised the spirits and hopes of the whole country Then came Chattanooga and an order i following this to proceed to Washington V where on March 9th 1864 he was formally A form-ally received by the President in the cabinet chamber and after formal intro r aot o ductions was presented with a commision sion constituting him LieutenatGen eral of the Army Then came the operations against and the fall of Richmondand the fall of the Confederate capital there was no longer a doubt as to the termination of the war and on the 9th of April 1865 Lee surrendered surren-dered to Grant and the war was virtually over although some of the Confederate forces still continued in the field On the 14th of April Johnston made overtures over-tures of surrender to Sherman and 1 Cobb yielded to Macon on the 21st of the same month while Taylor surrendered all Confederate forces east of the Mississippi on May the 4th The struggle of four years was over the Union saved and from the contest there came as its chief actor and most successful General Ulysses Ulys-Ses Simpson Grant As a military man the world will estimate esti-mate General Grant according to timework time-work he had to do and the manner in which he did it and the success which crowned his work file has been much criticised by military men but it is the nonprofessionals who will say what his rank among military leaders shall be and they will judge him by what he has accomplished and not by how he accomplished accom-plished it He was successful and that after all is the great criterion In political matters General Grant was far more unfortunate than in military matters and at no time in American history his-tory was there ever seen so much corruption corrup-tion among public officials as during his second term as President of the United States Looked upon as the savior of his country in 1868 he was elected President for the American people thought that the highest civil reward within their gift would scarcely compensate for the eminent services that had been rendered the country He was as unfit a civil ruler as he was fit as a military leader It is true that he fell upon evil times The war was over but discontent and desolation desola-tion pervaded South Desolation pervaded per-vaded the North but the North was victorious vic-torious The Administration of President Johnson had just closed and that Administration Admin-istration had seen a gigantic effort to impeach im-peach the President and although it failed yet it could but have a most pernicious effect upon the country Alarm and suspicion filled the country and idlest and wildest rumors gained unprecedented currency and credit The history of reconstruction in the States that were in rebellion is the history of anarchy and corruption To bring them back into the Union and adjust their political affairs to the new conditions arising out of the result of the war was one of the most delicate and intricate problems with which any nation has ever had to deal General Grant was not the man to solve it nor was it successfully sol veil until after his policy was completely abandoned The doings of the Administration Adminis-tration in Louisiana best illustrate this policy Mr Casey a brotherinlaw of General Grants was made Collector of the Portof New Orleans and his time and attention were chiefly devoted to politics j The doings of the Kellogg Government I are too well known to need recital but I among the most outrageous things done I was the sending of United States soldiers I into the State House and ejecting some of I the members and this not in the interest II I I of good government and liberty but in the interest of Republicans and carpetbaggers I carpet-baggers From General Grants connection connec-tion with the Whisky Ring his reputation reputa-tion must suffer Among the things that i he did that must be commended by all was his veto of the Inflation Bill The I service he did the country in that case I was one of the most signal and prais worthy of his two Administrations General Grants political career and his fitness for the high civil office to which he was elevated by the people oannot be better summed up than I in the words of an eminent English Eng-lish political writer Mr E D J Wilson I General Grant was an able and a fortunate fortun-ate soldier Political training ho had none as lie has confessed in a recent message to I Congress when ho was called to the highest office in the Republic He had good intentions I and no conscious sympathy with corruption But there his merits ended Incapable of estimating political capacity intolerant of scrupulous temperate and critical minds the President insisted upon a soldierly dicipline among the rank and file of the Republican party and if they obeyed their orders and stood firmly by their colors ho was not too careful to inquire into their slight departures from the moral cede A good Republican had a claim to reward in the shape of office just as a loyal soldier had to pay and pension and the party chief was under the same obligation to sustain hi followers against carping complaints as a general in war time This was in brief President Grants political morality In 1880 General Grant became a candidate can-didate for a third term and on the first ballot received 304 votes out of 755 while Garfield who received the nomination did not receive a single vote on the first and second ballot General Grants strength in the Convention remained constant the lowest number of votes he received being o02 on the twentyfifth ballot and the highest number was on the thirtyfifth ballot when he received 313 On the thirtysixth and last ballot he received 307 votes and Garfield 399 But the sentiment of the country was against General Grant as his candidacy was a departure from the custom established estab-lished by Washington and adhered to by all his successors And this was as it should be In financial matters General Grant has never been fortunate but the most unfortunate un-fortunate and disastrous financial connection connec-tion he ever formed was with Grant and Ward General Grants name and fame were used by that concern to swindle many people and the manner in which they used it was a blow and a shock to the General From the rascality of Fish and Ward the country absolved General Grant and in the universal ruin they brought he was a victim He has long been a sufferer and he doubtless welcomed death as a relief from suffering that could not otherwise be assuaged For years past he has been looked upon as being an American and all parties have paid him the respect to which his illustrious record as a warrior entitled him In the South as well as in the North lie will be mourned and what v w TI 9 I f < ever his faults for the South whom he conquered he had the kindliest of feelings feel-ings So far as he was concerned the war was over at Appomattox Court House and if his party had taken up his cry Let us have peace the country would have had peace long before it did and the bloody shirt and all that it implies would have been buried long before it wasThe The judgment of the people is better as to the merits of a man than the judgment judg-ment of the specialists and the people have said that General Grant was a great man and in the military sense he was and upon that must rest his fame Jtequiescat in pace |
