This text is part of:
“
[44]
most people is to clothe a commander of a large army, whom they do not know, with almost superhuman abilities.
A large part of the National Army, for instance, and most of the press of the country, clothed General Lee with just such qualities; but I had known him personally, and knew that he was mortal, and it was just as well that I felt this.”
At this early time, however, Grant thought the war would be of short duration; and Lee was a long way from his presentiments.
On August 7, 1861, while still in south-eastern Missouri, he was made brigadier-general, to his own great surprise.
Of his methods of discipline soon after this appointment a singular story is told.
The command was marching, and food was scarce.
A lieutenant with an advance-guard reached a farm-house, and, upon informing its mistress that he was General Grant and was hungry, received a precipitate and copious meal,
Boston. Small, Maynard and Company. 1901.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.