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later than this Missouri time a young associate of Grant's, who perhaps plumed himself a little upon his military reading, asked the general something about Jomini's book.
Grant replied, with a tinge of impatience, that he had read Jomini without much attention; and then he added: “The art of war is simple enough.
Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike at him as hard as you can and as often as you can, and keep moving on.”
In this compact summary speaks the master mind.
But the enemy got at Grant at Shiloh, and a little Jomini would have helped there.
Before the battle of the Wilderness he is said to have exclaimed to Meade, “Oh, I never manoeuvre!”
And it is said that his library contained not a single military work.
Grant's master mind undoubtedly did learn as he went on; but, if books had taught him more of the experience of the world's generals, he
Boston. Small, Maynard and Company. 1901.
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