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II.
none of our public men have a story so strange as this.
It is stranger than
Lincoln's. It is very much the strangest of them all. We have been too near the man and his time to see them clear through personal, political, and military feelings, mostly violent.
All the people are not dead yet. Nearly all the writers have a case to argue.
Sheridan must justify his treatment of
Warren.
Sherman must bolster up
Shiloh.
Beauregard must diminish Sidney Johnston.
Badeau must belittle
Meade, and also the losses in the
Wilderness.
These are mere instances.
The heroes and their biographers all write alike, inevitably moved and biassed by the throb of proximity.
Such books are not history.
They make inspiring material, when read in each other's light.
They are personal reminiscences.
History never begins until reminiscence is ended.
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Even
Mr. Ropes, in his championing of
Buell the soldier, omits
Buell the man. Now
Buell, sulking over his wrongs, declined, when invited, to come back and take a command again.
He found his dignity more important to him than the
Union.
Grant, meeting singular injustice after winning
Donelson, has such words as these to say : “If my course is not satisfactory, remove me at once.
I do not wish to impede in any way the success of our arms.”
Good authority rates
Buell a more military soldier than
Grant, and very likely he was. But
Buell thought of himself and forgot his country, while
Grant thought of his country and forgot himself.
Out of this very contrast a bright light falls, and we begin to see
Grant.
Writing intemperately, his friends explain him as a sort of
Napoleon ; his enemies, as a dull blunderer, accidentally reaping the glory which other people sowed.
These extremes meet in error.
We have not
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produced a Napoleon, and military talents of greater brilliancy than
Grant's fought on both sides.
Purely as captains,
Lee,
Jackson,
Sherman,
Thomas, if not others, are likely to stand higher; while
Sheridan during his brief opportunity proved such a thunderbolt that, did history know men by their promise instead of by their fruits, he might outshine the whole company, and rank with Charles of
Sweden or
Conde.
Yet
Grant sits above and apart.
Is this accident?
Is it accident that at the beginning of a certain four years this middle-aged man should be nobody, and at the end should be the one commander out of all to win and retain the supreme confidence of his government and his people?
It has been called accident by some grown — up writers.
His own words give the unconscious explanation: “I feel as sure of taking
Richmond as I do of dying.”
Not
McClellan, not
Meade, not
Lincoln himself, not any one at all,
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had ever been able to feel as sure as that.
This utter certainty of the
Union's success burned in
Grant like a central fire, and, with all his limitations, made his will a great natural force which gravitated simply and irresistibly to its end.
Lincoln; beginning to feel it from afar, answered the grave complaints that rose after the carnage of
Shiloh: “I can't spare this man: he fights.”
And presently, during the impatient days of
Vicksburg failures, he insists: “I rather like the man. I think we'll try him a little longer.”
Finally comes the renowned remark, when they tell him of
Grant's intemperance: “I wish I knew what brand of whiskey he drinks.
I would send a barrel to all my other generals.”
Sherman felt the power near at hand, as he fought under
Grant, and wrote to him that it was something which he could liken “to nothing else than the faith a Christian has in his Saviour.”
Through this faith, then, the obscure man from
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Galena began in April, 1861, and by April, 1864, was the will-power of his country.
But why was such a man still obscure at the age of thirty-nine?
Again his own words give the fundamental explanation: “
As I grow older, I become more indolent, my besetting sin through life.”
This was written in 1873 to his minister to
England, and no truer word ever came from him. Together with the remark about taking
Richmond, it reveals the foundation upon which the whole man was built.
Great will and great indolence met about equally in
Grant; therefore he stood still, needing a push from without to move him. The gun that fired on
Sumter was the push.
Until that day he resembled a large animal hibernating.
To what he did and left undone his other qualities contributed; but these two controlled,--indolence and will.
In their light his story can be plainly read, his portrait clearly seen.
