John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

[386] responsibility therefor, or modified his commendation and approval of Grant's military career. Whatever differences arose afterwards between them, or found expression in Dana's criticism, related entirely to Grant's career in civil life. Indeed, it may be confidently asserted that Grant as a soldier, from the beginning to the end of the war, never had a better friend than Dana. The Sun, even in the midst of its bitterest criticism of his career as President, and as a candidate for re-election, was always swift to repel the attacks of others who assailed his character and performances as a military man. Long years after all controversy was ended, and Grant had failed in business and paid the debt of nature, and Dana himself had become an old man, he reaffirmed all that he had ever said in defence of Grant's generalship either in the Sun, or in the Life to which he had attached his name. During the presidential campaign various newspapers, notably the New York World, assailed Grant's character as a general with great vehemence and pertinacity. It charged him with poor strategy and worse battle tactics, alleging that his victory over Lee was due solely to superiority of numbers and resources, and not to superior generalship. It claimed that he had won by “the policy of mere attrition,” and pointed to his final report to sustain this view. It quoted the returns of casualties in the Virginia campaign to prove that his tactics were “murderous” and wasteful of human life. These points and many others, as they were brought forward, were answered in the Sun according to the facts of each case and the military principles applicable thereto.

It was on the point of wastefulness of human life that Dana published in the Sun, and afterwards in the Life of Grant,¹ as well as in his own Recollections,² official tables