future what we now realize, and like the architect who sees developed the beautiful vision of his brain, we feel an intense satisfaction at the realization of our military plans. I thank God no President was near to thwart our plans and that the short-sighted public could not drive us from our object till the plan was fully realized."

Yet Sherman always thought that if Grant had kept on from Oxford after the capture of his supplies at Holly Springs, he would have saved the six months used in reaching Bruinsburg and have achieved the same result. Grant might have done this had his troops then had the seasoning he gave them later.

The chapter cannot properly be closed save with the letter Lincoln wrote to Grant at Vicksburg within a week after it had fallen: ·

"I do not remember that you and I ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service you have done the country. I wish to say a word further. When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I thought you should do what you finally did - march the troops across the neck, run the batteries with the transports, and thus go below; and I never had any faith, except a general hope that you knew better than I, that the Yazoo Pass expedition and the like could succeed. When you got below and took Port Gibson, Grand

Gulf, and vicinity, I thought you should go down the river and join General Banks, and when you turned northward, east of the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make the personal acknowledgment that you were right and I was wrong."

Lincoln at once named Grant a major-general in the regular army. He had not needed Stanton's bribe.

CHAPTER XVI

RAWLINS AND DANA

"THE simple fact is that the great character which has passed into history under the name of Grant was compounded of both Grant and Rawlins in nearly equal parts. While one has become a national hero whose fame will never die, the other unnecessarily effaced himself and is now scarcely known beyond the acquaintance of his surviving comrades or the limits of the community from which both took up arms for the cause of the Union." Thus a distinguished soldier, who was on Grant's staff and intimate with both men, has written.1 It has even been asserted that Rawlins spoke with Grant's lips and looked out of Grant's eyes so closely did they intertwine. Hyperbole like this will not be credited by those who read the record, yet it is no great stretch to say that Rawlins was Grant's conscience, though he did not compare with him in the peculiar qualities which were responsible for Grant's success.

It was Grant's great good fortune that, in the casual thought he gave his staff when he became a brigadier, he should have hit on Rawlins, a crude, young lawyer who had worked his way up from the

1 General James H. Wilson, Life of Charles A. Dana, p. 241.

charcoal pit, whom Grant had hardly seen until the first war meeting in Galena, and who had caught his fancy there in an impassioned plea for volunteers. With one or two exceptions the early members of his staff, chosen for old times' sake or to please his family, were found to be incumbrances and were perforce discarded as he shouldered heavier burdens, to be replaced by men like Wilson, Porter, Comstock, Badeau, Leet, and Babcock, each of whom had some peculiar merit. Rawlins and Bowers were with him till they died. But indispensable as Rawlins came to be, there is no evidence that he contributed to Grant's supreme achievement except by giving him unselfishly the service of an unfailing adjutant and devoted friend. He had scant learning and no military training but what he gained in camp with Grant. He was robustly honest, grim of face and crudely mannered, outspoken and explosive with profanity, at heart a Puritan. He protected Grant in countless ways from those who would impose on his simplicity, made others show Grant deference which Grant would not exact himself, and watched him constantly to save him from mistakes. Perhaps his greatest service was in keeping him from drink, for he appreciated more than Grant the handle envious rivals made of any lapse, and that while Grant might drink no more than others, he could not afford to

drink as much, by very reason of the stories which were widely spread and of the damage they might do the Union cause. Of course there is no question of Grant's habit, and that at times he favored it too much, but envious tongues gave it far greater emphasis than it deserved. If Grant had not been as successful as he was, his habits would have cut no figure. Who cares if other Union generals abstained or not? Yet those who did were in a small minority. With some it is about their only claim to fame. Lincoln, responding about this time to an appeal from Sons of Temperance, quizzically remarked that "in a hard struggle I do not know but what it is some consolation to be aware that there is some intemperance on the other side too."

Charles A. Dana, who had been sent by Stanton to spy out the Western armies and learn the truth of the conflicting tales about their generals, Grant in particular, and give him independent information, wrote him of Rawlins after Vicksburg: "Lieutenant-Colonel Rawlins never loses a moment and never gives himself any indulgence except swearing and scolding.... A townsman of Grant's, and has a great influence over him, especially because he watches him day and night, and whenever he commits the folly of tasting liquor hastens to remind him that at the beginning of the war he gave him