Major Grantly

“ How we are to account for seeing a gallant sailor attacking us in our trenches, in the humble garb of a private soldier, and so out of his own element, I cannot understand; but the name of Gerald Grantham, coupled with your manner and appearance, assures us we are making personal acquaintance with one to whose deeds we are not strangers. Gentlemen," addressing his officers, "this is the Lieutenant Grantham, whose vessel was captured last autumn at Buffalo, and of whose gallant defence, my cousin, Captain Edward Forrester, has spoken so highly. ”

“ None were reported killed except the gallant officers Brigadier-General Dearing, of Rosser’s cavalry, Colonel Bostan, of Mumford’s cavalry, and Major Thompson, of Stuart’s horse artillery, in the desperate and gallant fight to which they were ordered against the bridge-burning party.
General Grant’s artillery prepared to fire a salute in honor of the surrender, but he ordered it stopped.
As the world continues to look at and study the grand combinations and strategy of General Grant, the higher will be his award as a great soldier. ”

“ His company followed with a loud hurrah! and when the four united columns advanced against Morne Fortunée, the principal military post in the island, on officers desirous of leading the forlorn hope being requested "to enclose their cards to the brigade-major," the first on the list for this perilous work was the Captain Dhu!
This caused his men to consider and have serious doubts of the affair during the halt in Gaich; for, at Sergeant Grant said, a man who had really sold himself to the Devil would have chosen some less dangerous trade than soldiering ”

“ Grantham," and his discordant voice became more offensive in its effort at a tone of entreaty, "do tell me where you've hid my small bore—you little think," he concluded, with an emphasis then unnoticed by the officers, but subsequently remembered to have been perfectly ferocious, "what reason I have to vally it."
"We never descend to larks of the kind," coolly observed Grantham; "but as you say you value your rifle, it shall be restored to you on one condition."
"And what may that be?" asked the settler, somewhat startled at the serious manner of the officer. ”

“ And then, how great had been the good fortune of the Giants in this matter! Had they been the originators of such a measure they would not have had a chance of success; but now—now that the two bishops were falling into their mouths out of the weak hands of the Gods, was not their success insured? So Dr. Grantly had girded up his loins and marched up to the fight, almost regretting that the triumph would be so easy. The subsequent failure was very trying to his temper as a party man.
It always strikes me that the supporters of the Titans are in this respect much to be pitied. ”

“ In the enthusiasm of the moment, the men on the rampart employed on duty gave three cheers, which were answered by the columns without, who only waited until the last of the Garrison should have crossed the drawbridge, before they entered themselves. Watchfully alive to the order that had been received, Captain Granville and Henry Grantham lingered near the gate, regarding, yet with an air of carelessness, every countenance among the irregular troops as they issued forth. ”

“ He, therefore, determined to fight and continue fighting until he pounded his opponent to pieces, well knowing that almost every able-bodied man in the South was already in the army and that there was practically no one left to take the place of those who fell.
This policy, in the minds of many people, proves that Grant was no general, but merely a brute and a butcher. But history has never yet revealed a military leader who, having the advantage of numbers, did not make the most of it. ”

“ Probably, there were not many in the army who thought much about the rights or the wrongs of the impending war. There had been no fighting in the United States for more than thirty years, and most of the officers were more interested in seeing real service in the field than they were in discussing the justice or injustice of the cause. Grant was as anxious for glory as any of his comrades, but he cherished no illusions as to the merits of the dispute in which his country was involved. ”

“ But a new man, a host in himself, came upon the field. Grant, who had been on foot for two days, endeavoring to get his army through the thickets and morasses, heard the booming of the cannon and he knew that the vanguards had clashed. He borrowed a cavalry horse and, galloping toward the sound of the guns, reached the field at mid-morning. Grant was not impressive in either figure or manner, but the soldiers had learned to believe in him as they always believe in one who leads them to victory. ”

“ Carried away by the excitement of his feelings, Grantham was considerably in advance of his companion, and when the Americans, yielding to the panic which had seized them, flew wildly, madly, and almost unconscious of the danger, towards the precipice, he suddenly found himself on the very verge, and amid a group of irregulars, who arriving at the brink and seeing the hell that yawned beneath, had turned to seek a less terrific death at the hands of their pursuers. ”

“ Grantham," he added, turning to Gerald, "that in violence to the inclination I should otherwise have felt to send you back to your lines, on parole of honor, I shall be compelled to detain you until the pleasure of my government be known as to the actual rank in which you are to be looked upon. I should say that, taken in arms as a combatant without rank, we have no right to know you as any thing else ”

“ To no commander of modern times could this rule apply with more force than to Grant. A man of no outward clamor of character, no hint of bluster or dash, quiet-voiced, self-controlled, but not self-asserting, he yet displayed vast power as an organizer, as a tactician, and in masterly combinations of large forces so as to produce the most telling effects. It has been truly said of him that no general ever stamped his own peculiar character upon an army more emphatically than did Grant upon the Army of the Tennessee. ”

“ Grantley's pride was eager to raise its crest again. It caught at the result of the struggle and claimed it as a victory, crying out that there was to be no pointing of scornful fingers, no chuckles and winks, no shame open and before the world. The woman who walked by his horse was a pledge to that. He was not to stand a plain fool and dupe in the eyes of men. If that thought were not enough, look at the figure young Walter Blake had cut! Who had played the man in the fight? Not the lover, but the husband. ”

“ M. M.
"Paul, Emilius, Theophilus, Arnoldi, Ensign Michigan Militia," pursued Grantham reading. "This then is conclusive, and we have to congratulate ourselves that one at least of two of the vilest scoundrels this country ever harboured, has at length met the fate he merited."
"Fate him merit, Massa Henry," muttered the aged and privileged negro, with something like anger in his tones, as he returned the knife to the Indian; "he dam 'serter from a king! No, no, he nebber deserb a die like dis. He ought to hab a rope roun him neck and die him lying teef like a dog." ”

“ Had you not a close enough berth to Jonathan in the Miami, without running the risk of a broken head with us today in his trenches?"
"No such luck is there in store for my juniors, I fancy," replied Grantham, swallowing off a goblet of wine, which had been presented to him—"but if I do fall, it will be in good company. Although the American seems to lie quietly enough within his defences, there is that about him which promises us rather a hot reception.". ”

“ Guards are placed at each end, and cavalry videttes are posted in a line along the river, patrolling constantly backwards and forwards, for the space of three hundred yards, and two of these videttes meet always at the ford, consequently, be assured, they know that you are on this side of the Tormes."
"The deuce!" muttered Grant, biting his lips. "M. le Maréchal Marmont is determined to take me this time, I fear; but I will cross the ford, Domingo, in the face of the enemy too! Better die a soldier's death under their fire, than fall alive into their hands." ”

“ Nothing can be imagined more unacceptable to General Grant's native disposition than the narration for the public of his own life story. But in his circumstances, the question was not one of sentiment, but only of duty to those who were dependent upon him. The task was undertaken resolutely, and, in spite of physical weakness and suffering, was carried on with as high and faithful energy as he had shown in any campaign of the war. On March 3, 1885, he was restored to the army with the rank of general on the retired list with full pay. ”

“ Grant introducing all-out, total war, Lee relying on a 500-year-old concept of limited warfare.
Certainly Grant was original in much of his strategy. To him a single victory meant very little. The long-range result of a continual hammering was the important factor. “The art of war is simple enough,” he once stated. “Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike at him hard as you can, and keep moving on.” Grant’s aggression, therefore, became attrition—that is, a skillful, systematic grinding down of the South’s whole capacity to fight. ”

“ Grant was undoubtedly right, and Butler wrong.
One evening, as we sat before his tent, Grant observed that he had that day sent orders to remove a certain general from high command in the West. I expressed my surprise, and said that I had always understood, and from army men too, that the officer in question was one of the best of our volunteer generals. Grant took his cigar from his mouth, and remarked, in his quiet way, "He's too much mixed up with cotton."
Politics makes strange bed-fellows. ”

“ Shot after shot flew past the undaunted officer, carrying death into the close ranks that followed noiselessly in his rear, yet without harming him. At length he was seen by his Aides-de-Camps, both of whom had kept their eyes upon him, to reel in his saddle. An instant brought the young men to his side, De Courcy on his right and Grantham on his left hand. They looked up into his face. It was suffused with the hues of death. A moment afterwards and he fell from his horse, with his head reclining upon the chest of Henry Grantham. There was a momentary halt in the advancing column ”

“ If they intended to stay and defend the fortress, they would not carry haversacks at all; but if they contemplated a retreat, they would not only take them, but fill them with enough provisions to last for several days. In reaching this conclusion Grant was greatly aided by his knowledge of the men opposing him. He had served in Mexico with General Pillow, the second in command at Fort Donelson, and, knowing him to be a timid man, felt certain that nothing but desperation would ever induce him to risk an attack. ”

“ Grant regretted this terrible wastage of animals as much in a personal as in a military way; for, like nearly all great men, his sympathies were broad enough to make him compassionate toward every kind of sentient life. No Arab ever loved his horse better than Grant loved his splendid charger Cincinnati, the worthy counterpart of Traveler, Lee's magnificent gray.
Summoned to Washington in March, Grant, after one scrutinizing look at the political world, then and there made up his steadfast mind that no commander-in-chief could ever carry out his own plans from any distant point ”

“ His death was a sad ending of a career which, as a whole, had been so beneficent. As to General Grant, I believe now, as I believed then, that his election was a great blessing, and that he was one of the noblest, purest, and most capable men who have ever sat in the Presidency. The cheap, clap-trap antithesis which has at times been made between Grant the soldier and Grant the statesman is, I am convinced, utterly without foundation. The qualities which made him a great soldier made him an effective statesman. ”

“ If Grant was like some of the new brigadiers he would have had about 25 staff officers and orderlies following him, but U. S. G. is not much on style. He keeps right on sawing wood though all the same.
“Old Spectacles” as Gen. Meade is called, is Grant’s right bower, and is virtually the commander of the Army of the Potomac. Like Grant he is a silent man, too, although they do say that he makes the fur fly when things don’t go to suit him. ”

“ If only Grantham lost his grip on the waverers! The thronged chamber was simmering with thrilling rumors and wild anticipations. Few members could recollect a crisis like this.
Grantham lay back in his seat, hands clasped negligently, eyes half-closed—his wonted attitude when listening. He looked as if he felt nothing. His nickname of “Cold Steel” still stuck. One of his younger lieutenants was speaking, and now and then Grantham nodded, almost imperceptibly, a chilly approval. Yet his heart was hot. ”

“ Grant's staff is a curious mixture of good, bad, and indifferent. As he is neither an organizer nor a disciplinarian himself, his staff is naturally a mosaic of accidental elements and family friends. It contains four working men, two who are able to accomplish their duties without much work, and several who either don't think of work, or who accomplish nothing no matter what they undertake.
Lieutenant-Colonel Rawlins, Grant's assistant adjutant general, is a very industrious, conscientious man, who never loses a moment, and never gives himself any indulgence except swearing and scolding. ”