AN APPRECIATION.
My closing chapter will be about our great commander, General Ulysses
S. Grant, giving a few personal incidents of his life.
Orators, authors and statesmen have spoken and written of the great
General so much it would seem as though there was nothing more could be
said. However, as one who followed him through numerous battles during
the Civil War, and who, at the close of the war, became a resident
of Galena, Ill., and became personally acquainted with, and attended
the same church as the General, I feel I have the right to note down,
before the bugle sounds taps, a few words of appreciation of the man I
knew.
For four years, just after the close of the war, I was in the employ
of Col W. R. Rowley, who was then Clerk of the Circuit Court of Jo
Daviess County, Ill., and who had been one of the close family staff of
General Grant during the early part of the war.
General John A. Rawlins and Colonel Rowley were neighbors of the
General before the war and knew him well and intimately, and it is
believed by the citizens of Galena, and known by many prominent men in
the army, that these two men had more to do in helping and advising
General Grant during the early part of the war, and, indeed, all
through the war, so far as General Rawlins is concerned, than any of
his Generals or friends in Congress or out of it.
Colonel Rowley and myself naturally had many conversations over the
incidents of certain battles and about General Grant.
During the war and after, the enemies of Grant circulated many stories
about his being drunk on this and that occasion.
If I wanted to stir Colonel Rowley up to a fighting mood, and hear him
use a “big, big D” (for he could use them occasionally), I would ask
him: “Colonel, how about this new yarn of Grant’s being drunk at Shiloh
when the battle commenced?” The question was the spark that exploded
the magazine of wrath and the Colonel would reply: “All a d--d lie.
Wasn’t I there with him all the time; don’t I know. When will all the
d--d liars get through telling their d--d lies about Grant.” And then I
would chuckle to myself and say: “Them’s my sentiments, too.”
It has been said of General John A. Rawlins (chief of General Grant’s
staff), and, I believe, it must be true, for Colonel Rowley once told
me it was; that when Rawlins got mad he could use more “cuss words”
than any man in the army. General Grant never used “cuss words,” but he
loved these two men, notwithstanding their habit of emphasizing their
remarks sometimes with a big D.
Grant loved his friends and was always true to them. Grant wouldn’t
lie; even in small matters he insisted that the truth should be spoken.
It is related of him that, after he became President and while one day
he was busy with his cabinet, some one called to see the President. One
of the cabinet officers directed the servant to say to the caller that
the President was not in. “No,” said the General; “tell him no such
thing. I don’t lie myself and I don’t want my servants to lie for me.”
A great man who was associated with him in public life has said of
him: “He was the most absolutely truthful man I ever met in all my
experiences.” Another man who knew him well said of General Grant: “He
hated two classes of men--liars and cowards.”
General Grant never aspired to political office, although urged by his
friends to do so. Just after the fall of Vicksburg some of the leading
citizens of Galena visited him at that place. One day, in a general
conversation, one of them asked what office he would like to have after
the war was over. He replied that there was one office he would like
to have when he returned to Galena. His friends pledged him their best
endeavors in aiding him for whatever he might seek, and, being pressed
to name the office, Grant said: “I would like to be alderman from my
ward long enough to have a sidewalk built to my residence.” Of course,
there was a laugh and the matter was dropped. Upon his first visit to
his old home at Galena, at the close of the war, the little city of
many hills got up a reception upon a grand scale for its hero. The
city was smothered with flags and decorations; the streets arched with
flags and words of welcome. When the General arrived amid the booming
of cannon and the huzzas of the people, he was hurriedly lifted into a
barouche and started up the street at the head of a long procession.
The first arch he met had in large letters: “General, the sidewalk is
built.” The General laughed and remarked: “I see my friends remembered
I wanted to be alderman.”
After his first nomination for the Presidency he was with us at Galena
during the campaign, and had you seen the General moving around so
quietly and unostentatiously among his neighbors and friends, you would
have wondered that it could be the man who had just been declared the
greatest military hero of the age, and that he was soon to be at the
head of the nation.
His record as President for eight years, and the honored guest of all
nations during his tour around the world, is an open history to all.
Upon his return from his trip ’round the world, the General and family
took up their abode in Galena. The city again welcomed its hero to his
old home amid the plaudits of thousands that came from near and far to
tread its stony streets and pay their tribute of respect and honor to
the modest, silent man known the world over. I think the General was
more stirred to the heart with the kind tokens of love and friendship
and honor which his old neighbors and citizens of Galena showered upon
him than he was from all the attentions of nobility the world ’round.
General Grant’s home life and his life among the people of Galena, even
after the world had acclaimed him the greatest General of the ages, and
honors had been showered upon him by the crowned heads of the world,
was that of a quiet, unobtrusive, simple life like his neighbors and
citizens.
We loved him as a neighbor and citizen. We said among ourselves:
“Grant’s head is the same size it was before the war.”
He has been called the “silent man.” Yes, he was rather guarded in his
talks among men generally, but I want to say (for I have listened to
him), that when among his friends and neighbors, if you could get him
started, he was one of the most entertaining talkers I ever listened to.
During the month of June, 1880, while the Republican Convention was in
session in Chicago, General Grant and family were living in Galena.
He had held the Presidency two terms; he had also been ’round the
world, feted and honored everywhere by kings and emperors, and now he
had returned to the hills of old Galena to spend his days in rest and
quiet; but his friends, who believed in him, urged him to again stand
for the nomination for the Presidency. His friends of Galena, Ill.,
knew what his personal wishes were; he did not wish to again resume the
burdens of office. However, according to the request of his family,
especially his wife, and also to his political friends, he finally
consented to make the run. You will remember what a fight there was in
the convention--how the immortal 300, led by Roscoe Conkling, clung to
the silent hero to the last.
While the Convention was in progress, each day the General came down
town about 10 o’clock and spent an hour or two with his old friend and
comrade, Colonel W. R. Rowley. Rowley was then Judge of the County
Court, and I was clerk of the same court. Some of the friends were
privileged to be there. I remember distinctly that all of us were
intensely interested in every telegram that came to the office, but the
General paid very little attention to them. He kept us entertained with
most vivid recitals of what he had seen and heard in his travels ’round
the world.
There was one man’s name before the Convention who had a few votes as
nominee for President. This man had been a trusted friend of General
Grant in former years, but his actions had caused many of the General’s
friends to doubt his friendship. One afternoon, while we were in
General Rowley’s office, a telegram came that convinced Rowley and the
friends that this man, while pretending undying friendship for the
General, was playing him false. Rowley and others were outspoken in
their denunciation of the course of this man who had helped Grant in
former years and who Grant had helped so much in the past. The General
was as calm and placid as though everything was lovely, his only remark
being: “He was my friend when I needed friends, if I can’t trust him, I
can’t trust anybody.” The friend referred to was Hon. E. B. Washburne.
Hon. Roscoe Conkling said of General Grant: “Standing on the highest
eminence of human distinction, modest, firm, self poised, having filled
all lands with his renown, he has seen not only the high born and the
titled, but the poor and lowly in the uttermost parts of the earth rise
and uncover before him. The name of Grant shall glitter a bright and
imperishable star in the diadem of the Republic when those who have
tried to tarnish it are moldering in forgotten graves and when their
names and epitaphs have tarnished utterly.”
This is a noble tribute of one great man for another; but we, his
humble neighbors of Galena, Ill., who knew the General so well, love
to think of the home life of this great man. One characteristic of his
life is not generally known, and I make bold to set it down in type
that all the world may know it. General Grant was a lover of his wife
all through his married life. A little secret of the home life of this
devoted man was known among the women of Galena, for they would tell
their husbands what a lover General Grant was, and to prove it they
would tell us that the General laced his wife’s shoes for her.
While General Grant and Mrs. Grant were in Europe they paid a visit to
the tomb of Ferdinand and Isabella. The thought of the ashes of the
royal couple sleeping side by side through the centuries appealed to
the devoted husband, and, turning to his wife, he said: “Julia, that is
the way we should lie in death.” So, when the Great General died they
found a memorandum left by him as to his last resting place. First,
he preferred West Point above others, but for the fact that his wife
could not be placed beside him there. Second, Galena, or some place
in Illinois. Third, New York; hence it is that in the beautiful tomb
at Riverside, the resting place of the General, there is room for the
ashes of Mrs. Grant.
After General U. S. Grant had answered the last roll call at Mount
McGregor, in 1885, and the sad news came to his friends and neighbors
of his former home, among the hills of the quaint old city of Galena,
Ill., preparations were made to have a memorial service in the
Methodist Church, where he had worshiped before and after the war. The
church was draped in mourning. In front of the pulpit was a stand of
pure white flowers, with the initials, U. S. G., in purple flowers.
The pew formerly occupied by the General when here was covered with the
United States flag, tastefully draped. The house was filled with his
friends and neighbors, and a feeling of personal loss was felt by all.
The services were simple but beautiful. Several of his personal friends
spoke feelingly of the Great General’s life, among them the writer, and
I am persuaded to close this appreciation by quoting my tribute given
in 1885, in Galena, upon that occasion:
“The years glide swiftly by, the gray hairs come creeping on, and we
boys of the army of twenty years ago are no longer boys, but men, whose
numbers lessen each day as the months roll by.”
Twenty-four years have passed since we donned the blue and marched down
the streets and off to war. The forms and faces and events of those
times at this distance seem unreal and shadowy, like the remembrance
of a dream, and yet today, in the midst of the great sorrow that hangs
over the land over the fall of our great chieftain, we are again
reminded of the waving flags and fluttering scarfs, the inspiring
strains of martial music, the shrill notes of fife and drum, and the
booming of cannon. We are today again reminded (for the death of our
hero brings to us vividly the past days in which he took so great
a part). I say, again are we reminded of the tears and prayers and
promises--the music of soft voices and gentle words, the brave words
spoken by mothers, sisters, sweethearts, the parting words, the last
good-bye. We cannot forget, nay, we live over again the battles of
Donelson, Shiloh, Corinth, Vicksburg and other victorious battle fields
following our hero, whose memory we are tonight to cherish and revere.
“All these dear and sacred memories of those stirring times come wafted
to us today like the weird airs of an Æolian harp swept by unknown
winds, and the ear is touched, and through the brain, nerve and soul,
and our hearts beat in sympathy and unison.
“So, tonight, as a nation mourns the fall of the Great Commander, we
boys of the twenty-four years ago are more than privileged to add our
tears of sorrow as we follow in spirit our hero to his last resting
place.
“We boys loved him. Often he led us amidst the storm of shot and shell
and where death faced us on every hand; but we soon learned that
although it meant hard fighting to follow General Grant, yet it always
promised victory, and that gave us inspiration to fight harder.
“General Grant was a man of transcendent military ability. In the book
of fate it was written: ‘He shall be a chief and a captain.’ But above
all he was a manly and a pure man. He was tender and trusty and true.
“‘The bravest are the tenderest,
The loving are the daring.’
“I always admired the humble side of his character. I think humility
was one of his finest traits; although feted and honored as no man of
this continent ever has been, he never for a moment showed any signs
of realizing his greatness, or evincing a desire to count the honors
conferred. Retiring in disposition, yet bold and brave to act when
necessity demanded it, I speak of him in loving memory. You all knew
him here in his former home, and who with him have worshiped ofttimes
in this church, and you all know that he was the bravest of the brave
and the truest of the true.
“‘His mein, his speech, were sweetly simple;
But when the matter matched his mighty mind,
Up rose the hero; on his piercing eye
Sat observation; on each glance of thought,
Decision followed.’
“As the day came, so duty appeared, and the brave old General took it
up and did it earnestly and well.
“How well great battles and campaigns were planned and fought; how
safely and wisely he guided the ship of state; how modestly he received
honors of the world from crowned heads; how gladly he returned to
the walks of a humble citizen; how bravely and patiently he suffered
through his terrible affliction--are they not all known to us, and are
they not written upon the pages of history for our children’s children
to read and study?
“Is it weak, that we who followed the ever-victorious flag of our great
Commander, and who with him stood in trying places against evil and
treason, should drop our tears upon the fallen form of him whom we
loved? Nay, but let them fall, they but speak in louder tones than
words can, of the love and regard we had for him, who, as the years
roll by, will be honored and extolled as one of the greatest of all
nations.
“Around the throne of the Eternal God must hover the spirit of such as
he who lived without ever having a selfish thought.
“The steadfast friend, the gallant soldier, the great Commander has
fallen asleep.
“Rest thee, friend, soldier, patriot,
Thy work is done.”
[Illustration]
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.