NOTHER name is added to the roll of those whom the world will not willingly let die. A few years since, storm-clouds filled his heaven, and obloquy, slander and bitter lies rained down upon him. The clouds are all blown away; under a serene sky General Grant laid down his life and the whole nation wept. The path to his tomb is worn by the feet of innumerable pilgrims.
The mildewed lips of slander are silent, and even criticism hesitates lest some incautious word should mar the history of the modest, gentle, magnanimous warrior. The whole nation watched his passage through humiliating misfortunes with unfeigned sympathy—the whole world sighed when his life ended. At his burial the unsworded hands of those whom he had fought lifted his bier and bore him to his tomb with love and reverence.
The South had laid the foundation of her industry, her commerce, and her very commonwealth upon slavery.
It was slavery that inspired her councils, that engorged her philanthropy, that corrupted her political economy and theology, that disturbed all the ways of active politics—broke up sympathy between North and South. The hand that fired upon Sumter exploded the mine under the Flood Rock of slavery and opened the way to civilization. The spark that was there kindled fell upon the North like fire upon autumnal prairies. Men came together in the presence of this universal calamity with sudden fusion; the whole land became a military school. But the Northern armies once organized, an amiable folly of conciliation began to show itself. Some peaceable way out of the war was hoped for. Generals seemed to fight so that no one should be hurt. The South had smelted into a glowing mass; it believed in its course with an infatuation that would have been glorious if the cause had been better; it put its whole soul into it and struck hard. For two years the war lingered, unmarked by great deeds. Lincoln, sad and sorrowful, felt the moderation of his generals and longed for a man of iron mould, who had but two words in his military vocabulary—victory or annihilation. He was coming; he was heard from at Henry and Donelson. Three great names were rising to sight,—Sherman, Thomas, Sheridan, and, larger than any, Grant.
At the opening of the war his name was almost unknown. It was with difficulty he could obtain a command. Once set forward, Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Petersburg, Appomattox—these were his footsteps! In four years he had risen, without political favor, from the bottom to the very highest command—not second to any living commander in all the world. His plans were large, his undiscouraged will was patient to obduracy. He was not fighting for reputation, nor for the display of generalship, nor for a future Presidency. He had but one motive, and that as intense as life itself—the subjugation of the rebellion and the restoration of the broken Union. He embodied the feelings of the common people; he was their perfect representative.
Part II.
The tidings of his death, long expected, gave a shock to the whole world. Governments, rulers, eminent statesmen, and scholars from all civilized nations gave sincere tokens of sympathy. For the hour sympathy rolled as a wave over all our own land. It closed the last furrow of war, it extinguished the last prejudice, it effaced the last vestige of hatred, and cursed shall be the hand that shall bring them back.
Johnson and Buckner on one side, Sherman and Sheridan upon the other, of his bier, he went to the tomb, a silent symbol that liberty had conquered slavery; patriotism, rebellion; and peace, war. He rests in peace. No drum or cannon shall disturb his rest. Sleep, hero, until another trumpet shall shake the heavens and the earth—then come forth to glory and immortality!