heard any complaints-no threat to leave the army, no feeling of revenge or hate.

Nothing but the most devoted patriotism, nothing but the most intense desire for the success of the Federal cause and the Federal arms, in connection with absolute control over his own spirit, could have induced him to submit to these indignities and remain still in the service and on duty with the army. The history of our war-the history of all wars-may be searched in vain to find an officer who, under such circumstances, had been so unfairly dealt with, and who still remained in the service of his country and on duty. The substance of his response to all this injustice was, that "I am only anxious for the success of our armies."

In addition to this absolute mastery over his own impulses and passions, it must be stated that he had understanding in a most extraordinary degree, and military skill and judgment unsurpassed in the history of the world. It is true that not a single campaign that received his full and unconditional approval ever wholly failed, and if ever any partially failed, it was because some important subordinate commander failed to carry out his part of the plan, and to execute the orders given to him.

We may ask why General Lee was not compelled to capitulate at the Wilderness or Spottsylvania, instead of at Appomatox, a year later? The answer is, that a whole corps, ordered to go into action simultaneously with that of General Hancock's on the day of the crisis of the battle of Spottsylvania, made no attack and did not fire a shot; and I can never forget with what emotion our old Adjutant-General, Rawlins, complained of that neglect and failure, the first time we met after the termination of the Virginia campaign, and added, if all the corps commanders had executed their orders with the zeal, vigor and skill of General Hancock at Spottsylvania, the capitulation of Lee would have been an inevitable result, and the untold losses and sacrifices of another year of terrible war been saved. That this would certainly have resulted can never be told, but that this patriot and soldier went to his grave in the full belief that it would, can not be doubted.

No commander ever had a higher appreciation of the advantages gained by time-by the execution of a movement now instead of at some indefinite future day-than General Grant. To use his own simple words, he saw, when he reached Cairo, in the winter of 1861, what a loss would be incurred, and how much

life would have to be sacrificed, if it was permitted the rebelsthen advancing rapidly-to occupy Paducah and the mouth of the Tennessee river; and, without authority from any one, he invaded the nominally neutral soil of Kentucky, and established the Federal authority at that point, and saved all such cost and sacrifice. Orders over his own signature were in possession of trusted subordinates, removing corps commanders from their commands, if, in the final efforts to force the army of Northern Virginia to surrender, they failed to attack at the appointed necessary time.

When the enemy showed weakness in battle, all his subordinate officers learned to know what order would next and soon be received: "Advance at once, and attack wherever you find the enemy." This led to the surrender of the brigades, divisions and armies resisting his advance. The enemy seemed never to rally from the effect of a single battle fought with the army under his command. Pittsburg Landing was fought on the line of the Tennessee and the Mississippi, and the enemy at once resorted to picks and spade, and their army was never found without them thereafter on that line, except at Iuka, Corinth and Champion Hills.

The battle of Missionary Ridge was fought on the line of the Cumberland and Atlanta, and picks, shovels and entrenchments were the constant reliance of the army on that line thereafter.

After three years of engagements in the open field, with varying success, the army of Northern Virginia was brought to action with the army of the Potomac, with General Grant upon the field and supreme in command, at the Wilderness and Spottsylvania; and at the close of the engagement, that army also resorted to picks and shovels, and never fought a general engagement in the open field thereafter.

It has been said by some of his detractors, that he lacked that military tact and skill which enables commanders to succeed without great sacrifice and loss-that in the high art of strategy, he failed. Such a statement is without any foundation, and receives no support from any of the campaigns that he conducted. His plans were such that they forced the surrender of armies, and advanced the Federal authority at all points within his command. It is, indeed, true that he was not governed by the precise principles of strategy and rules laid down in works and by authors on the art of war, for he was above and superior to them all. It

is true that he did take one of the main armies of his Government -this Army of the Tennessee-when that Government was engaged in active war, and in sore need of all its military forces— away from all base of supplies into the enemy's country, and trusted to the results of battles to open a new base, but the result justified the wisdom of his plan, and he thereby has established a new principle in the art of war, or, to say the least, that there are exceptions to the general principle, and that he had skill to decide when the exception should be adopted instead of the principle.

No military critic of any note has pointed out any mistakes or failures in the strategy after he took command of all our armies. He surrendered nothing that had been previously won, and advanced all armies at the same time upon strategic lines where all results were favorable, and accomplished the most for his Government, and tended to break down and cripple the enemy in the greatest degree.

We who were in the army, and part of it, hardly considered what gigantic and irresistible blows were administered by our great commander, after he had fully determined to bring the rebellion speedily to a close in the winter and spring of 1864 and 1865. Generals Mead and Sheridan were striking the most destructive blows upon the Army of Northern Virginia; General Sherman was loose with the Army of the Tennessee "marching through Georgia," or, in the more military language of his old. friend and admirer, the conqueror of Mexico, when he first met him after the war, "taking the whole coast in reverse;" General Terry, with his gallant command, demonstrating that water batteries and sea coast fortifications, situated where navies may ride and armies land, may, with the aid of iron-clad vessels, be besieged, breached, assaulted and carried in a few hours, as effectually as by sapping and mining on land alone for weeks; again showing that at times it is more important to understand the exception to a principle than the principle. At the same time all the positions of importance that had before been captured were held with an iron grasp.

You who talk of strategy and skill, point out, in the history of campaigns, and show an instance where strategy more skillful and destructive has been used against an enemy.

But his great faculties and extraordinary powers shone forth. most brilliantly in great crises, amid acts and scenes of most in

tense excitement, that tended to dethrone the reason and induce all ordinary men to act almost solely from impulse. Unlike all others at such times, he thought deliberately, spoke calmly, acted judiciously, felt confidently. On the field of Champion Hill, which he announced to the speaker, when the engagement opened, would be the battle for Vicksburg, he was called upon, at the very crisis of the battle, to act upon a recommendation of General McPherson, commanding the Seventeenth corps, which, with the exception of Hovey's division of the Thirteenth corps, included all the troops which, up to that hour, and for aught I know, which, at any time, had been engaged on that field.

Hovey's division had brought on the engagement in the morning, and had been supported by Boomer's brigade of Crocker's division early in the forenoon, and as soon as that brigade came upon the field, General Logan's division had formed on our extreme right, had found the enemy's left, and had met and driven the enemy back at various points on his front and captured some batteries. The attack of the enemy was so persistent and vigorous upon our centre and left that the ammunition of those troops became exhausted and the lines were broken, and there was every indication that the enemy would at once occupy this portion of the field. The speaker, whose brigade had been sent, regiment after regiment, to different points along the line, in support of troops already engaged, was ordered by General McPherson to go at once to General Grant and advise him of the condition of the centre and left, and inform him that there appeared to be danger that the rebel army, by an advance at that point, would interpose between the Thirteenth and Seventeenth corps and be able to attack with its whole force the respective corps engaged in that campaign, in detail.

By the time General Grant was reached the statement of the condition of the centre and left of the line was confirmed by the cloud of retreating troops upon the hillside. Upon the announcement of the communication and recommendation, he asked anxiously if there were not troops in reserve, and upon receiving the answer that all the troops of the seventeenth corps had long been engaged, remarked: "If the enemy has whipped Hovey's division and Boomer's brigade, they are in bad plight, for these are good troops," and, turning to his chief of artillery, ordered him to bring all his batteries into position at once and open fire

over the heads of the retreating soldiers. Hardly had this order been executed when Colonel Holmes' brigade of Crooker's division, numbering about 1,200 men, which had been escorting the baggage train, came upon the field, and he was ordered by General Grant to form under cover of the fire of the artillery and charge until the enemy stopped his advance. This order was of course most gallantly executed, and but a few moments passed before the enemy's lines were broken and several thousand prisoners and a large number of batteries were in our hands. That battle was won, which, if lost, would have been most disastrous to that campaign and might have resulted in the overthrow of the government. The writers on the art of war require infantry supports for batteries. He, relying on the weakened condition of the enemy, after overcoming such troops as those composing the division and brigade mentioned, was willing to risk the artillery without any infantry supports, and again, by acting on an exception instead of a rule, saved this field. Referring to this event and this decision a few months later, while traveling up the Mississippi river, on his way to take command at Chattanooga, he said that, upon considering the situation, he felt certain that the troops that had been engaged with Hovey's division and Boomer's brigade had been badly punished, and if a show of resistance and advancing troops was made that they would not only check the enemy's advance, but cause him to give way, and that this proved to be true. Such deductions of the mind are not extraordinary or unusual in the quiet of the study, or the office, or the camp, but they are extraordinary in the last degree amid the clash of arms, the firing of artillery, the groans of the dying, and the intense excitement that comes upon all officers having large commands, in the crisis of a battle. No other quality of mind or character is so rare in the men of any of the generations that have passed away since the dawn of history.

It was this more than anything else that gave the Duke of Wellington his success, and secured to him immortal fame. If, during the first assault of the main body of the French infantry at Waterloo, and when the attack had been repulsed, or if, when the assault of the Imperial Guard had been repulsed, he had given the command to the allied armies under him that he gave later in the day, all would have been lost. Doing precisely the right thing at the right time, under such circumstances, is what few