He resented wrong, but bore neither hatred nor malice.
Resentment wreaked itself upon him ere these truths were fully known, and while, indeed, passion turned a deaf ear to them.
And if he struck back, what just man can blame him?
With a reward of $100,000 offered for him as an assassin; charged with maltreating prisoners; indicted for treason, and imprisoned for two years and denied a trial; handcuffed like a common ruffian; put in solitary confinement; a silent sentinel and blazing light at watch on his every motion—where is there a creature who can call himself a man who could condemn—aye, who does not sympathize with the goaded innocence and the righteous indignation with which he spurned the accusations and denounced the accusers?
But whatever he suffered, the grandeur of his soul lifted him above the feelings of hatred and malice.
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When
Grant lay stricken at Mt. McGregor he was requested to write a criticism of his military career.
He declined for two reasons: ‘First,
General Grant is dying.
Second, though he invaded our country with a ruthless, it was with an open hand, and, as far as I know, he abetted neither arson nor pillage, and has since the war, I believe, shown no malignity to the
Confederates, either of the military or civil service; therefore, instead of seeking to disturb the quiet of his closing hours, I would, if it were in my power, contribute to the peace of his mind and the comfort of his body.’
This was no new-born feeling.
At
Fortress Monroe, when suffering the tortures of bodily pain in an unwholesome prison, and the worse tortures of a humiliating and cruel confinement, which make man blush for his kind to recall them, he yet, in the solitude of his cell, shared only by his faithful pastor, took the
Holy Communion which commemorates the blood and the broken body of
Jesus Christ, and, bowing to God, declared his heart at peace with Him and man.
As free from envy as he was from malice, he was foremost in recognizing, applauding, and eulogizing the great character and achievements of
General R. E. Lee, and with his almost dying hand he wove a chaplet of evergreen beauty to lay upon his honored brow.
