The Photographic History of The Civil War: in ten volumes, Thousands of Scenes Photographed 1861-65, with Text by many Special Authorities, Volume 10: The Armies and the Leaders.
Francis Trevelyan Miller, Ed.

[38] volunteers he commanded was that of the battlefield. If action involved risk, inaction was certain to produce discontent and even demoralization, while the fatalities of the camp were those chiefly to be dreaded, for microbes were more deadly than bullets. His early successes were due to the application of his methods to conditions as he found them, without waiting for their improvement. When he met the battalions of Lee, then trained and seasoned by three years of war, the struggle was protracted, but in the end he triumphed through his policy of vigorous and persistent attack, bringing a contest which had then extended over three years of inconclusive fighting to a final conclusion in one year.

General Grant was born, April 27, 1822, in a little one-story cottage on the banks of the Ohio River, at Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio. His grandfather, captain Noah Grant, was a Connecticut soldier of the army of the Revolution who, in 1800, settled on the Connecticut Reservation of Ohio. His mother, Hannah Simpson, was of a sterling American family of pioneers, noted for integrity, truthfulness, and sturdy independence of character. She was a noble woman of strong character, and it was from her that the son inherited his remarkable capacity for reticence, tempered in him by an occasional relapse into the garrulity of his father. If he was incapable of indirection in thought or speech, he could be silent when speech might betray what he did not wish to have known.

among his friends, when occasion served, he was a fluent and interesting talker. He never gossiped, never used profane or vulgar language, was charitable and generous to a fault, and considerate in his treatment of all. He was good-natured and fond of his joke. Uncomplaining self-control was characteristic of both mother and son, as was also equability of temper and ‘saving common sense.’

to estimate Grant correctly, it is necessary to consider him apart from the personal influences by which he was swayed,