Show lOXN PIATTS BOOK calle the Vi LIboFTHE MENTHE WHO ft tcWED MEN-THE UNION rng t Th duty lincoln Edwin 31 Stanton J Chase IVllllam II Seward I J rVe n Thomas the Hock of rnsujiuii Special Correspondence NEW YORK May 7 tier the title of Memoirs of Men Who the Union CoL Doiin Piatt has writ lOOk which has just been published by d Clarko Co New York aud Chi As it is very well known tbat in what itt writes readers will find something I of which they cannot possibly find re this book will be much read No s ever accused the author of tame too flattering an estimate of others j contrary he is known to have a genius moving the veneering of popular praise deified heroes and holding them up in attire r literature is becoming moro interest year by year and as the distance be us and the days of strife widens the bom of hate prejudice and enthusi fish before the wiser judgment of je get the truth It is so with lavindividuals as well cs events The Spjoke of personal prejudice must be jjjoro a true understanding of iIlPd character can be arrived at ceSitb is sure to be reached It is chanT to wait with patience It e surface through the operation of which the poet hinted at when heat he-at if it were crushed to earth it would gain record of the days of the war is so im Jit as that which bas been written by tbe ds of men who took part in the conflict haw it from within Col Piatt was one of Filling a position of honor with ability iistinction be was be says through tem ment more of a looker on than a partici t His horror of war extinguished bis peril per-il ambition leaving only sense of duty to i him to the service This he says en ed me to look at men and events from the ndpomtofnn observer and while claim or myself no superiority of intellect I ion that my position enabled mo to measure all that has a right to his am Lincoln Edwin M Stanton Sal Jhase William H Seward and Gen > rga H Thomas aie the men whom tt has given a place in bis book Her He-r during the war what I see now and 11 be recognized hereafter when popular shall have subsided and prejudice en d by a deadly strife shall hare disap that the armed conflict of the 1 war onethiid of the burthen imposed upon and good men God called to power at top It is strangely unju to confine worship to themen of arms There iso is-o about the glare and Hare of war that ae common mind to the greatness that k of Its smoke and noise The stranger mgtou flnain at every corner a bronze 1 4xarnor would suppose that e were a toer and nad behind us grand wars victories Such stranger will be learn that we are a nation of peaceful traders and mechanics with hut one ttJ commemorate and as for victories Jl tlios > majestic figures represent heroes 1oL oL Piatts opinion Gen George H s was the real hero of the war lIes lIe-s 11ea1 the half of his book to him and on every page which bears his name are trewn tJ the flowers of an almost filial affection w affec-tion Of General Thomas who l JbmA earned the glorious name of the Rock r4 of Chicknmauga k the author feajs Grant should have all to which he is entitled en-titled and this will not dim the lu ter or detract from the nORGC n TnoiIAs fame of one who fCt any victories never lost tbe life of a ro ugh a blunder who lived helmed by ve fellows at his back and died lamented jhis monument in the hearts of his sol Modest silent and strangely solitary he ie record of his deeds to the keeping of the I nit n s I ho made those deeds possible No reporter made his headquarters a source of eulogy no political party used his name inn in-n for partisan favors Suspected by the nnient be rhd so much to save he died neg < 1 Jiv the very men whose tenure of power ho mtl I secure onias himself modestly believed that the ess of an army depends more on the drill discipline of the men than the ability of ir officers He was heard to say The v z rflln I drilled ard cared for the men confidence I won made me all I can cl wL 3 be as commander n rj c Piatt gives some new and original tJ Sn West Point whichkas a curiosity if II 1 else are worth quoting He says it I J Tb It what West Point taught Gent Gen-t < but what West Point failed to teach brea 5 hich he afterward graduated into I f The defects of the school first elflis attention to ore in our military li and then stu lv enabled him while in ti r to call order out of chaos and create t iy that was irresistible in the field I tPolntl This academy says the unf alter J it is a little school on the Hudson popup popu-p JjggEjJto Produce military men As war a seieiTfatd1y an ar one is puzzled to If how it can be t > < jH even if it could i JP learned professoi find themselves I iled as alll learned pu 3 are to create I mind necessary to applv i t clencc after the I hlng Of a thousand pupils 1ost admirably I trurted in law or phy one ily is capaVie I Jslng tbe information to j ned There is a popular unjitrstit he i effect I st in training one to habit < t v and an I Ire use of memory mind b u A i y created B i of the thousand all are cpa t of being U ed to the same intellectual levi 1 i il 1 < cant can-t comprehend nor be mad to belie nat in iy school the same inequality prevail hat obI ob-I ins In common life The ninny ai < stupid the I w alone are thoughtful W < are veil aware of ffi e fact that man may be taught al that science Jlud J art can contribute and yet remain at It w not the accumulation of facts that gh i intellectual intel-lectual power but the ability to use the mrornn tlon so obtained There is a mystery in the public m axiu w 4 Point that would be ludicrous IJ it not h grave consequences It i < believed h Inch some unknown and u know Ie r bJ education the little acadeuvgraui ts s > V ons every year The ancients cie t ancient-s us of the machine that ta < ii I xsout sausage has its iKirnlliil 1 in of West Point Raw youths soil ability would cause ono to V of making them clerks in captured by members of c in Tew years graduate into office 4s of men and perhaps the safety of f cry depend on their ability j > stery is readily solved There is coth ht at West Point that differs from the of any other academy like preten e the training of the soldier and tLorein most ludicrous feature of the whole af lere is nothing in the training of the sol j ever important and necessary it maybe ps on or benefits the officer After being to touch elbows fire a gun mount guard j a ditch the poor fellow is as far removed rhat the academy claims to create as when 4t began lie is nothing more nor less than 11 sergeant As well assert that one must It how to shoe a horse as preliminary to rids rid-s to claim that the drill of the private is essary Jo the making of on officer and in the 33 of an officer as I have said there is no nee 10 march out find the enemy and flgfct successfully has no rules which can be re Uo practice Gen Halleck wrote n book on rt of war which was about as useful a an ns a treatise on infant baptism would I f n and when Halleck was called upon to practice what he taught he imitated in a feeLs way the great Xapoleon who conquered Europe by setting at naught all the wisdom of the schools and the famous captain left but one ox i ions as the net purport and result of all his expe rience and that is of no use to the average grad of change It says The art of war is a calculation In warlike Europe in save England a different system prevails The war powers have been a thousand years in perfecting the private Pro motion from the ranks uider is kept lilf that open under the be actual service is a better school to grad ulte In than any academy While a will un UrtaKe to make government a private the creation of o the ollkvr is left to the wisdom of God The Al mighty is no reSpWter of rank and genius crops cut in the most unexpected places The great Napoleon claimed for his arnnes an irresistible morale because he said every soldier felt that he carried the baton of a marshal in j his knap sack Wo exhaust our military genius in the sup posed creation of nn officer Whlu that Is done we point to the proud creature and say Behold our annyf We have in ninetynine out of hun tired cases graduated an incompetent He is the natural result of a dull plodding nature and a good meniory and in 1 this our little military insti tution does not differ from all other schools and academies the world over The process might IMS more of a success but for the fatal defect lylngnt 1 the foundation of being built on the English Eystem that has an aristo crat for an officer and a sen antto use the mild tocrats cst termfor the school n private Iv > we have no born aris undertakes to create them Of two Iw lakeii from tfcc same family one be tratetd nt West may est Point into a superior being and the rtfeer made his dog This feature alone would have been fatal to West Point in the publicity it obtained during the late war but for the patronage it affords the congressmen and we know how dear is official patronage to the ordinary Solon What we need to popularize West Point Is a law requiring a graduate to serve one year as a corporal one year as a sergeant and then a seasoned soldier he should be subject to a competitive examina tion before being commissioned Col Piatts sketch of Abraham Lincoln brings that eminent figure of national history down from the deific pedestal where exag gerated popular praise has placed him and makes him a mortal with ourselves but a mortal of such splendid intellectual and moral strength that wo admire him far more than when ho was made to appear as a god Piatt pronounces him the grandest figure looming up in our history as a nation Edwin M Stanton the great war secietary is depicted as a man whose imagination was even the larger and most potent quality of his mind and lived in a world so tinctured by it that his thoughts and acts were mysterious to the commonplace matter of fact minds about him Generous genial and impulsive in youth in making his fight with the world the sensi tive imaginative man passed to the stern vindictive and often brutal organizer of victory even as tho sweetest vine makes sourest vinegar From the charges of injustice Col Piatt does not attempt to vindicate the great war secretary Ho believes that Stanton earnestly desired to do his duty to the government but that he was without exception more subject to personal likes and dislikes and more vindictive vin-dictive in the gratification of his hatreds than nny man ever called to public station Mr Piatt says of this peculiarity of btaiuou Nothing but his wonderful ability and great force of character saved him and his cause from utter wreck in this direction Not only so but it seemed to me that both Stanton and Seward were drunk with the lust of power They fairly rioted i in its enjoyment While Lincoln and Chase were as pure and simple in this as children with no such morbid desire to gratify with no personal friends to favor and no enemies to punish Stanton Stan-ton and Seward not only reveled in despotic authority but Stanton used the fearful power of the government to crush those lIe hated while he sought through the same means to elevate those he loved In mitigation of all this CoL Piatt tells us that the heart of the war secretary always beat kindly when reached by suffering and was ever open to the common soldier He says too that Stantons was the master mind of the war The chapter on Salmon P Chase is of peculiar pe-culiar interest describing as it does some of the financial history of the war the birth of the greenback and contains some reflections on capital of a peculiarly Piattian order No writer of our day has mono decidedly the quality we call style than Col Piatt He may be extremely rash in his assertions sometimes some-times but he is always interesting The faculty fac-ulty of blending the pathetic with the incisive the droll with the forcible is preeminently his Of Salmon P Chase as secretary of the treasury he says He proved an eminent secretary on the fact I see demonstrated everyday every-day and that fact is that a man is the most successful In a business which ho knows the least about He regrets that Mr Chase was over called to other duty than that which ho lust adorned Ifs he had to an eminent degree the judicial mind and temperament The chapter on William H Seward is intensely tensely interesting It contains many anecdotes anec-dotes which reveal this distinguished statesman states-man as well as others in a new light Mr intfc KftVS I have no thought of asserting that William IL Seward was at all a bad man With no turn for women and no taste for wine he neither gambled nor stole Ho affected a wickedness he did not feel because such affectation was In his estima ion good form in a statesman In the heart of New York a bronze statue of heroic size has been erected to the memory of few Yorks greatest statesman It will darken into slow decay as his memory fades Into obllv lon without probably one of the busy millions knowing that for four years nothin stood between ween that great commercial center and the utter ruin of a bombardment but the subtle intellect and patriotic heart of that one man Without ana a-na possessed of no coast defense our cities on he sea were at the mercy of the weakest naval power of Europe CoL Piatts book has excited the critics They do not approve of much that he has said and they are particularly indignant over what be has not said This proves that it will have many readers x G G |