vigor, mental scope, coolness of head, faultless judgment, unflagging energy, personal bravery, tenacious memory, mastery of detail, power of command, which in their ripeness. and perfection constituted a genius unparalleled in military. annals. Here then lived, at the age of thirty-nine, a quiet contented tanner, with a well-knit frame, a stout constitution, a good temper. He was temperate, economical, industrious, unambitious. He read some, observed more, thought most, remembered everything. Politics and policies did not disturb him. His religion was general reverence of the Supreme. He had no philosophy except that of common sense-no visionary schemes, no whims, no hobbies. The goggles of prejudice were not suited to his eyes. In business speech and thought he was severely plain and direct, in manners simple, in courage steadfast, in truthfulness unqualified, in hope unbounded, in honor sterling, in friendship firm. It is the picture of one who might have ever remained a modest well-to-do citizen. Looking further into it, it becomes the picture of one startlingly full of possibilities, and needing but the brush of circumstances and the colors of emergency to make it an unfading national portrait. CHAPTER III. THE REBELLION-HIS FIRST BATTLES. IN N the picture just drawn of the quiet, unpretentious Westerner we have seen the possibilities of a chieftain. So the old world might have seen them in a study of a certain sub-lieutenant in the French army toward the end of the eighteenth century. But as to probabilities, what? How dissimilar here the two eventful lives. Grant was without ambition. Exacting opportunity, grave circumstance, must draw him out. Within him there was no impelling force but duty. The future Emperor of France, and arbiter of the destinies of Europe, forced his opportunity. He was ambitious. The possible with him became the probable. His pleasure was his duty. Power was his god. He carved, and built, and ruined, at the behest of selfishness. Grant was not Grant in a personal sense. He was only Grant on a call, in the midst of a duty, a high, supreme demand. He sought not, but marched evenly with destiny. He grew with emergency, swelled and broadened under trial, till he filled every corner of expectation, and so was not great at the top, nor at the bottom, but solidly great, and the fame which followed reached from the humblest cabin to the lordliest palace. There was a political situation for Captain Grant, or rather citizen Grant, to look upon. There had been one for some time. How he looked upon it in 1856 may be inferred from the fact that he voted for Buchanan for President. He was soon convinced that this vote was a grievous mistake. Thereafter he inclined to the views held by Crittenden, Bell and Everett. |