Adam Badeau, Grant in peace: from Appomattox to Mount McGregor, a personal memoir

[117] the crowning strategy, but did his best to falsify the disapproval; and when success finally came and others attributed to him the conception of the campaign, he told the story of his own opposition which Grant had scrupulously concealed. The very letter that Sherman had written, urging a different movement, Grant had destroyed, but Sherman sent me a copy years afterward for my History of Grant's Campaigns, to testify that Grant was entitled to the credit of the victory. But for him the truth could never have been proved.

When Grant was made General-in-Chief he sent me with an extraordinary private letter to Sherman in which he declared: ‘How far your execution of whatever has been given you to do entitles you to the reward I am receiving you cannot know as well as I. ’ But Sherman was not to be outdone in magnanimity, and replied: ‘You do yourself injustice and us too much honor in assigning us too large a share in the merits which have led to your high advancement.’ Seldom in history have men holding such positions held to each other such words.

The words, however, were not meant for the world. They were the interchange of intimate sentiment between closest friends. But in November, 1864, after Sherman had started on his memorable march, and disappeared for a month from the country's eager gaze, I accompanied Grant on a visit to the North. He went to Washington, Philadelphia, and New York. Everywhere the most important people of the country crowded around him, all eager for his judgment of Sherman. Again and again I heard him declare to these makers of opinion that Sherman was the greatest soldier living. I remonstrated with him in private, but he repeated—that was his opinion.

Indeed, I always felt for years that Grant did not do himself justice in his own thought. He was so unconscious and so uncritical of himself that he could not properly compare himself with others. The peculiar character of Sherman's