[Speech of Horace Porter at the banquet of the Army of the
Tennessee, upon the occasion of the inauguration of the Grant
Equestrian Statue in Chicago, October 8, 1891.]
MR. CHAIRMAN:--When a man from the armies of the East finds himself in
the presence of men of the armies of the West, he feels that he cannot
strike their gait. He can only look at them wistfully and say, in the
words of Charles II, "I always admired virtue, but I never could imitate
it." [Laughter.] If I do not in the course of my remarks succeed in
seeing each one of you, it will be because the formation of the Army of
the Tennessee to-night is like its formation in the field, when it won
its matchless victories, the heavy columns in the centre. [An allusion
to the large columns in the room.] [Laughter.]
Almost all the conspicuous characters in history have risen to
prominence by gradual steps, but Ulysses S. Grant seemed to come before
the people with a sudden bound. Almost the first sight they caught of
him was in the flashes of his guns, and the blaze of his camp-fires,
those wintry days and nights in front of Donelson. From that hour until
the closing triumph at Appomattox he was the leader whose name was the
harbinger of victory. From the final sheath of his sword until the
tragedy on Mount McGregor he was the chief citizen of the republic and
the great central figure of the world. [Applause.] The story of his life
savors more of romance than reality. It is more like a fabled tale of
ancient days than the history of an American citizen of the nineteenth
century. As light and shade produce the most attractive effects in a
picture, so the singular contrasts, the strange vicissitudes in his
marvellous career, surround him with an interest which attaches to few
characters in history. His rise from an obscure lieutenancy to the
command of the veteran armies of the republic; his transition from a
frontier post of the untrodden West to the Executive Mansion of the
nation; his sitting at one time in his little store in Galena, not even
known to the Congressman from his own district; at another time striding
through the palaces of the Old World, with the descendants of a line of
Kings rising and standing uncovered in his presence [Applause.]--these
are some of the features of his extraordinary career which appeal to the
imagination, excite men's wonder, and fascinate all who read the story
of his life. [Applause.]
General Grant possessed in a striking degree all the characteristics of
the successful soldier. His methods were all stamped with tenacity of
purpose, with originality and ingenuity. He depended for his success
more upon the powers of invention than of adaptation, and the fact that
he has been compared, at different times, to nearly every great
commander in history is perhaps the best proof that he was like none of
them. He was possessed of a moral and physical courage which was equal
to every emergency in which he was placed: calm amidst excitement,
patient under trials, never unduly elated by victory or depressed by
defeat. While he possessed a sensitive nature and a singularly tender
heart, yet he never allowed his sentiments to interfere with the stern
duties of the soldier. He knew better than to attempt to hew rocks with
a razor. He realized that paper bullets cannot be fired in warfare. He
felt that the hardest blows bring the quickest results; that more men
die from disease in sickly camps than from shot and shell in battle.
His magnanimity to foes, his generosity to friends, will be talked of as
long as manly qualities are honored. [Applause.]
You know after Vicksburg had succumbed to him he said in his order: "The
garrison will march out to-morrow. Instruct your commands to be quiet
and orderly as the prisoners pass by, and make no offensive remarks."
After Lee's surrender at Appomattox, when our batteries began to fire
triumphal salutes, he at once suppressed them, saying, in his order:
"The war is over; the rebels are again our countrymen; the best way to
celebrate the victory will be to abstain from all demonstrations in the
field." [Applause.] After the war General Lee and his officers were
indicted in the civil courts of Virginia by directions of a President
who was endeavoring to make treason odious and succeeding in making
nothing so odious as himself. [Applause.] General Lee appealed to his
old antagonist for protection. He did not appeal to that heart in vain.
General Grant at once took up the cudgels in his defence, threatened to
resign his office if such officers were indicted while they continued
to obey their paroles, and such was the logic of his argument and the
force of his character that those indictments were soon after quashed.
So that he penned no idle platitude; he fashioned no stilted epigrams;
he spoke the earnest convictions of an honest heart when he said, "Let
us have peace." [Applause.] He never tired of giving unstinted praise to
worthy subordinates for the work they did. Like the chief artists who
weave the Gobelin tapestries, he was content to stand behind the cloth
and let those in front appear to be the chief contributors to the beauty
of the fabric. [Applause.]
One of the most beautiful chapters in all history is that which records
the generous relations existing between him and Sherman, that great
soldier who for so many years was the honored head of this society, that
great chieftain whom men will always love to picture as a legendary
knight moving at the head of conquering columns, whose marches were
measured not by single miles, but by thousands; whose field of military
operations covered nearly half a continent; whose orders always spoke
with the true bluntness of the soldier; who fought from valley's depths
to mountain heights, and marched from inland rivers to the sea.
[Applause.] Their rivalry manifested itself only in one respect--the
endeavor of each to outdo the other in generosity. With hearts untouched
by jealousy, with souls too great for rivalry, each stood ready to
abandon the path of ambition when it became so narrow that two could not
tread it abreast. [Applause.]
If there be one single word in all the wealth of the English language
which best describes the predominating trait of General Grant's
character, that word is "loyalty." [Applause.] Loyal to every great
cause and work he was engaged in; loyal to his friends; loyal to his
family; loyal to his country; loyal to his God. [Applause.] This
produced a reciprocal effect in all who came in contact with him. It was
one of the chief reasons why men became so loyally attached to him. It
is true that this trait so dominated his whole character that it led him
to make mistakes; it induced him to continue to stand by men who were no
longer worthy of his confidence; but after all, it was a trait so grand,
so noble, we do not stop to count the errors which resulted.
[Applause.] It showed him to be a man who had the courage to be just, to
stand between worthy men and their unworthy slanderers, and to let
kindly sentiments have a voice in an age in which the heart played so
small a part in public life. Many a public man has had hosts of
followers because they fattened on the patronage dispensed at his hands;
many a one has had troops of adherents because they were blind zealots
in a cause he represented, but perhaps no man but General Grant had so
many friends who loved him for his own sake; whose attachment
strengthened only with time; whose affection knew neither variableness,
nor shadow of turning; who stuck to him as closely as the toga to
Nessus, whether he was Captain, General, President, or simply private
citizen. [Great applause.]
General Grant was essentially created for great emergencies; it was the
very magnitude of the task which called forth the powers which mastered
it. In ordinary matters he was an ordinary man. In momentous affairs he
towered as a giant. When he served in a company there was nothing in his
acts to distinguish him from the fellow-officers; but when he wielded
corps and armies the great qualities of the commander flashed forth and
his master strokes of genius placed him at once in the front rank of the
world's great captains. When he hauled wood from his little farm and
sold it in the streets of St. Louis there was nothing in his business or
financial capacity different from that of the small farmers about him;
but when, as President of the Republic, he found it his duty to puncture
the fallacy of the inflationists, to throttle by a veto the attempt of
unwise legislators to tamper with the American credit, he penned a State
paper so logical, so masterly, that it has ever since been the pride,
wonder, and admiration of every lover of an honest currency. [Applause.]
He was made for great things, not for little. He could collect for the
nation $15,000,000 from Great Britain in settlement of the Alabama
claims; he could not protect his own personal savings from the
miscreants who robbed him in Wall Street.
But General Grant needs no eulogist. His name is indelibly engraved upon
the hearts of his countrymen. His services attest his greatness. He did
his duty and trusted to history for his meed of praise. The more
history discusses him, the more brilliant becomes the lustre of his
deeds. His record is like a torch; the more it is shaken, the brighter
it burns. His name will stand imperishable when epitaphs have vanished
utterly, and monuments and statues have crumbled into dust; but the
people of this great city, everywhere renowned for their deeds of
generosity, have covered themselves anew with glory in fashioning in
enduring bronze, in rearing in monumental rock that magnificent tribute
to his worth which was to-day unveiled in the presence of countless
thousands. As I gazed upon its graceful lines and colossal proportions I
was reminded of that child-like simplicity which was mingled with the
majestic grandeur of his nature. The memories clustering about it will
recall the heroic age of the Republic; it will point the path of loyalty
to children yet unborn; its mute eloquence will plead for equal
sacrifice, should war ever again threaten the Nation's life; generations
yet to come will pause to read the inscription which it bears, and the
voices of a grateful people will ascend from the consecrated spot on
which it stands, as incense rises from holy places, invoking blessings
upon the memory of him who had filled to the very full the largest
measure of human greatness and covered the earth with his renown.
[Applause.]
An indescribably touching incident happened which will ever be memorable
and which never can be effaced from the memory of those who witnessed
it. Even at this late date I can scarcely trust my own feelings to
recall it. It was on Decoration Day in the City of New York, the last
one he ever saw on earth. That morning the members of the Grand Army of
the Republic, the veterans in that vicinity, arose earlier than was
their wont. They seemed to spend more time that morning in unfurling the
old battle flags, in burnishing the medals of honor which decorated
their breasts, for on that day they had determined to march by the house
of their dying commander to give him a last marching salute. In the
streets the columns were forming; inside the house on that bed, from
which he was never to rise again, lay the stricken chief. The hand which
had seized the surrendered swords of countless thousands could scarcely
return the pressure of the friendly grasp. The voice which had cheered
on to triumphant victory the legions of America's manhood, could no
longer call for the cooling draught which slaked the thirst of a fevered
tongue; and prostrate on that bed of anguish lay the form which in the
New World had ridden at the head of the conquering column, which in the
Old World had been deemed worthy to stand with head covered and feet
sandaled in the presence of princes, kings, and emperors. Now his ear
caught the sound of martial music. Bands were playing the same strains
which had mingled with the echoes of his guns at Vicksburg, the same
quick-steps to which his men had sped in hot haste in pursuit of Lee
through Virginia. And then came the heavy, measured steps of moving
columns, a step which can be acquired only by years of service in the
field. He recognized it all now. It was the tread of his old veterans.
With his little remaining strength he arose and dragged himself to the
window. As he gazed upon those battle-flags dipping to him in salute,
those precious standards bullet-riddled, battle-stained, but remnants of
their former selves, with scarcely enough left of them on which to print
the names of the battles they had seen, his eyes once more kindled with
the flames which had lighted them at Shiloh, on the heights of
Chattanooga, amid the glories of Appomattox; and as those war-scarred
veterans looked with uncovered heads and upturned faces for the last
time upon the pallid features of their old chief, cheeks which had been
bronzed by Southern suns and begrimed with powder, were bathed in the
tears of a manly grief. Soon they saw rising the hand which had so often
pointed out to them the path of victory. He raised it slowly and
painfully to his head in recognition of their salutations. The column
had passed, the hand fell heavily by his side. It was his last military
salute. [Long continued applause and cheers.]