[At Atchison, Kansas, on Saturday, August 8, 1885, the memorial
exercises in honor of General Grant were participated in by all
the civic societies, including the Grand Army of the Republic,
Knights of Pythias, Ancient Order of United Workmen, Catholic
Knights of America, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Knights of
Labor, Irish Benevolent Society, and others. After the funeral
parade, fully five thousand people gathered at Turner Hall Garden.
Mayor Samuel H. Kelsey presided, and addresses were delivered by
Gov. John A. Martin, and Col. Aaron S. Averest. The address of
Gov. Martin is as follows:]
MR. CHAIRMAN, AND LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I appear before this audience
with more than ordinary distrust and solicitude. Keenly sensible, at all
times, of my deficiencies as a speaker, this consciousness is
intensified by the reflection that I am to speak, to-day, of one who is
enshrined in the hearts of the American people as no other man, except
Washington or Lincoln, ever was; of one whose fame, like the sunlight,
flooded all the world, and whose example will warm patriotic hearts and
stimulate noble ambitions until the end of recorded time.
And how can I describe, as all men knew him, the great soldier who was
to-day borne to his last resting-place with a great Nation as his
sorrowful mourners, and the funeral bells of the civilized world tolling
the universal sympathy of the brotherhood of men? How can I fittingly
testify the tender affection, the reverent respect in which the loyal
people of Kansas held Ulysses S. Grant? How can I give expression to the
feeling of bereavement which shadows every home and hearth in this great
Commonwealth, where live a hundred thousand men who, during the dark
days of the civil war, gladly and proudly hailed him as their commander,
and made him heir to the honor and glory their valor and patriotism,
directed by his consummate ability, had won for the Nation?
The North, at the outbreak of the civil war, was like a blind giant. Its
strength was at once revealed. Never before, in any age or country, had
there been such a magnificent uprising as was that following the attack
on Sumter. From country fields and city workshops, from schools,
offices, and marts of commerce, a great host—the very blossom and flower
of the youth and manhood of the land—swarmed to the recruiting stations,
eager to dare and suffer all things for the cause of the Republic. But
leaders were lacking. Engrossed in business, and devoting all its
energies to the arts and industries of peace, the loyal North had drawn
many of its trained soldiers into civil pursuits, where they had been
swallowed up in the rush and clangor of commerce. The South had kept
many of its brightest intellects in the army, where such men as Albert
Sidney Johnson, Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, and many others
equally brilliant, held high positions. These men at once cast their lot
against the Nation that had educated them. And the Republic, thus
deserted by the soldiers it had trained, groped blindly through many
months of sore disaster, waiting for the leaders who were to direct its
heroic armies to final victory.
How slow and torturing the waiting was. How many popular heroes were
discovered, and worshipped with passionate devotion for a brief time,
only to be revealed, at last, as common clay. But through all these
dreadful days, the men who were to lead the Nation to complete triumph
were making their way, slowly but surely, to their destined places. At
Belmont, in November, 1861, a silent, modest man, just promoted to a
Brigadier-Generalship, had fought a battle which gave confidence and
courage to the troubled country. At Mill Springs, two months later,
another quiet, manly soldier, had won a signal victory over a superior
force. In Kentucky, still another soldier was winning confidence and
respect by the energy and sagacity of his operations; and a fourth,
unknown and unnoted, was looking after the commissary wagons of an army
in Arkansas.
It is a notable fact that these four men, who were destined, at the
close of the war, to be its recognized leaders, began their service in
the West, and that they severally represented the cosmopolitan blood of
the American people—Grant being of Scotch ancestry, Sherman of Saxon
origin, Thomas springing from the Welsh race, and Sheridan coming of
Irish stock. Differing widely in characteristics and temperaments, they
not only supplemented each other admirably, but each had the firmest
confidence in the resources, skill and courage of all the others. Envy
or jealousy never distracted them. The same resolute purpose, the same
ardent patriotism, the same devotion to duty, animated them all, and
each could confidently rely on the support of all the others.
I do not intend, however, to draw comparisons of their several careers,
nor of their personal characteristics. I mention their association
because it happened that he who was the chief of this group of great
soldiers was, perhaps, the first to clearly recognize the greatness of
his associates, and to assign them to the positions in which they filled
the continent with the splendor of their achievements. For it was
Ulysses S. Grant who designated William T. Sherman as commander of the
Army of the Tennessee, placed George H. Thomas at the head of the Army
of the Cumberland, and selected Philip H. Sheridan as chief of cavalry
of the Army of the Potomac.
Two of these great soldiers yet survive; two have answered their last
roll-call on earth. And here, as in every city, town and hamlet
throughout the land, the people have assembled to honor the memory of
the most distinguished of this group—Ulysses S. Grant.
“There are a few characters,” says Macaulay, “which have stood the
closest scrutiny and the severest tests; which have been tried in the
furnace and have proved pure; which have been weighed in the balance and
not found wanting; which have been declared sterling by the general
consent of mankind, and which are visibly stamped with the image and
superscription of the Most High.” Such a character, it seems to me, was
Ulysses S. Grant. From the day he won his first victory at Belmont until
he sank to rest at Mt. McGregor, he lived in a light as fierce as that
which beats upon a throne. For eight years, he was a soldier; for eight
years, the President; and ever since, until the day of his death, the
First Citizen of the Republic. What he said or left unsaid, what he did
or left undone, during all those years, was noted by busy tongues and
pens, many of them envious, many of them hostile, and many more,
inspired by that strange perversity of human nature which rejoices to
find some weakness, or flaw, or stain in a great man, anxious and eager
to catch him doing something mean or unworthy.
And through it all—through the fierce and dangerous fields of war,
through the still more perplexing and dangerous fields of politics, and
through the trials and temptations of a citizenship so elevated that its
very height was dazzling—he moved on, serene, patient, inflexible,
unstained. He disarmed partisan malice at last as he had disarmed
Pemberton at Vicksburg; he triumphed over the rancor and enmity of civil
life as he had routed Bragg at Mission Ridge; and finally, and before
his death, all the warring factions of the land, North and South, East
and West, surrendered to him their willing allegiance, as did Lee at
Appomattox.
The changes in the popular estimate of Grant’s character and abilities
were as remarkable as everything else in his wonderful career. It was
years before the carping military critics of the world would concede
that he was a great soldier. He won his victories by accident, they
said; he was a butcher; he was a drunkard; he was a figure-head for
Sherman, Thomas, and Sheridan, who planned his campaigns. All this they
said, as he swung across the continent from Donelson to Vicksburg, from
Vicksburg to Chattanooga, from Chattanooga to Appomattox, conquering, in
turn, every great soldier of the Confederacy; leaving behind him,
everywhere, campaigns and victories as brilliant and complete as any
Napoleon ever planned or won; always equal to the greatest emergencies,
always ready for any contingency, and always master of every occasion.
Suddenly, from the army he was transferred to another and an untried
field, and became the head of the civil government of the country. The
critics derided, the cavilers sneered, the weeping Jeremiahs of politics
bewailed. This was monstrous, they said. This “sashed Sphinx” knew
nothing of civil affairs; this “man on horseback” was dangerous to the
liberties of the country; this “ambitious Cæsar” meditated an empire.
But the people trusted Grant in civil life, as his army had trusted him
in war. Their faith in his integrity, in his patriotism, in the strong,
clean fiber of his sturdy manhood and his sterling honesty, never for
one moment hesitated or wavered. And it was never disappointed. He
justified their faith by his works. The triumphs he won in the field of
political economy were as conspicuous and complete as those he won in
war. Upon the civil history of the country he left a record as brilliant
and as lasting as was the record of his services as a soldier.
I know that there are some who still insist that he was not a statesman.
But statesmanship, I take it, is nothing more or less than the genius of
common sense applied in civil government. It is illustrated by what the
Americans call “level-headedness” in emergencies; by the judicial
quality of seeing both sides, or all sides, of any question, and doing
the right and the just thing in dealing with it; by clear comprehension
of the ultimate effects of any policy; by courage in withstanding
popular clamor, and even in braving public distrust and denunciation,
when such clamor, distrust or denunciation is inspired by ill-regulated
zeal for a good cause, or unreasoning devotion to a bad one, or by the
arts of selfish and ambitious demagogues.
And surely Grant was endowed, in full measure, with these qualities of
statesmanship. He was called to the Presidency during one of the
stormiest and most perplexing epochs in the history of our government.
The honest payment of the public debt; that strange but contagious
delusion, the inflation of our paper currency; the settlement of the
claims of this country on Great Britain, for damages inflicted by
privateers sent out from English ports during the war; the
enfranchisement of the Freedmen, and their protection in the enjoyment
of the rights conferred upon them by the Constitution; the
reorganization of the States lately in the Rebellion; the policy of
Indian control and management; the resumption of specie payments—all
these great questions, vitally affecting not only the peace and
prosperity of the Nation, but the happiness and welfare of all classes
of its citizens, Grant was called upon, as the Executive head of the
civil government, to discuss and to decide.
Did he falter, or fail, or blunder in dealing with any of them? Read his
messages to Congress, and his State papers, in the light of subsequent
results, and make answer. His opinions were not only maintained with
vigor and courage, but they were defended with logical directness. His
insight was as penetrating and his judgment as comprehensive, as his
courage was exalted; and time and events have demonstrated not only the
honesty and purity of his purposes, but the clearness and sagacity of
his mind.
Retiring from the Presidency, he made a tour around the world, and was
received everywhere with such honors and enthusiasm as had never before
greeted a private citizen. Emperors and kings, great statesmen and great
soldiers, were proud to do him homage, and the peoples of every race and
tongue, thronging to see him, testified their appreciation of his
exalted services in behalf of human liberty and popular government. And
in every presence, under all circumstances, he remained the same
unostentatious, sincere and modest man, as undazzled by his eminence as
he had been patient in his obscurity.
But the firm fiber of his manhood, it seems to me, had never been so
clearly revealed as it was during the last year of his life. Suddenly,
and in his old age, his competency was swept away, and an insidious
disease fastened upon him. Trusting, with characteristic confidence—for
he was so incapable of guile or hypocrisy that he never suspected it in
others—he was betrayed, and reduced to penury. Without a murmur he gave
up everything, not even reserving the trophies and mementoes presented
to him by the people of this and other countries. Then, slowly dying,
and knowing that death was inevitable, he calmly measured every moment
of his ebbing life, and set about his last work. Like Sir Walter Scott,
but under many more and far greater difficulties, he became an author in
order to repair the wreck of his fortune, and has left behind him a book
which will be read by more people than any other volume, except the
Bible, that has ever been printed. That his Memoirs will be worthy of
his fame, the brief extracts already published conclusively prove. In
the field of literature as well as in those of war and of statecraft, he
was unconsciously great. He wrote pure, compact, direct and vigorous
English. He had the rare faculty of condensing a volume of meaning in a
sentence, and of presenting scenes and events with masterly completeness
of detail and richness of color.
His book completed, he calmly and patiently awaited the inevitable hour.
His last days were as serene as those of his most prosperous years. His
courage never faltered. He was patient, gentle, thoughtful of others.
“Let no one be distressed on my account,” seemed to be the burden of his
thoughts, as it was of the last words his feeble fingers traced on
paper. He sent messages of thankfulness and good-will to all. He looked
death in the face and did not quail. And so, preserving to the end the
simple manhood of his life, his brain unclouded and his heart filled
only with loving-kindness and serene content, he drifted away, quietly
and peacefully, into the unknown sea that flows round all the world.
The lesson of his life is a lesson for all the generations of men, for
it is a lesson of encouragement to the poor, of hope to the unknown, of
comfort to the despairing, and of inspiration to the brave, the loyal,
the honest and the true-hearted. He had risen from obscurity to the
sun-bright heights of fame. He knew the bitterness of want, and the
despair of friendlessness. He became the commander of the greatest army
ever mustered on the earth, the executive head of the Nation, the
familiar associate of the great and powerful of every land. But he never
lost his poise, his self-control, his modest dignity, or his manly
worth. He lived down, during his lifetime, every calumny and every hate.
The party that had denounced, assailed and opposed him, became at last
his eulogist. The foemen he had conquered in war became his friends and
mourners. And to-day, with reverent sorrow, the civilized world stands
uncovered around his grave.
The impress he left upon the age in which he lived can never be effaced.
He wrought, during his life, without a thought of dramatic effect, yet
his career was crowded with the most dramatic events. There was little
of romantic feeling in his nature, yet his life was so wonderful that
the story of it will have all the charm of a romance. His bulletins and
orders, as a soldier, were never rhetorical, yet they have in them the
thunder of cannon and the shouting of the captains. He was never noisily
self-assertive; he accepted his appointed place, whether high or low,
with equal complacency, and there did his whole duty. In the purity of
his life, in the unselfishness of his patriotism, and in the firmness of
his action, he resembled George H. Thomas, and to these qualities he
added the prompt, bold and resourceful perceptions of William T. Sherman
and the energy and dash of Phil. Sheridan.
To do honor to the memory of such a man ought to be a sacred duty. For
in honoring him, the Nation honors those qualities of manhood upon which
its stability, its glory and its power must forever rest, and which good
men and women, the world over, will lovingly teach their children to
emulate. The lesson of his life, to millions yet unborn, will be a
beacon-light, an inspiration and an example, to guide, to animate and to
instruct. Thus, until time shall be no more, the career of Ulysses S.
Grant will be a monument, more enduring than any of bronze or of stone,
to the worth and glory of free institutions and to the dignity and honor
of American citizenship.