William A. Crafts, Life of Ulysses S. Grant: His Boyhood, Campaigns, and Services, Military and Civil.

The photographer and engraver have made Grant's features familiar to the public as first among the heroes of the war. Those features indicate the modest and reticent character of the man, as well as that persistency and firmness which are among his most prominent traits. Quiet and retiring in his appearance, there is yet an air of reserved power in his look and manner which his career has abundantly proved that he possesses. He is of medium height, rather under than over the average standard, and has a very slight stoop of the shoulders. With all his retiring and modest expression, and absence of pretension of every sort, there is in his manner a quiet dignity, and a courteous but unceremonious bearing, becoming his position. He has, too, a pleasant smile; and at times a keen glance in his gray eyes tells how closely he observes. He can give a cordial greeting to a guest; but his very look seems to read the motives of men, and inform him when to close his heart and his thoughts against sycophants and selfish schemers. While honest merit will meet with a quiet welcome, place-hunters and corruptionists will find little encouragement in his face or in his words.

General Grant has not infrequently been compared with him who holds the first place in the reverence of the American people. Though it is not proposed here to trace the resemblance between the two,--an attempt which would be distasteful to no one more than to our modest general,--it may with truth be said, that, more than any other one man the “saviour of his country” on the battle-fields of the recent unparalleled rebellion, Grant deserves to have a stronger hold upon his countrymen