Thomas Grant

“ Sherman is as mercurial as a Frenchman, and as demonstrative as an Italian; Thomas as phlegmatic as a Dutchman, and as tenacious as an Englishman; while Grant in every characteristic, in doggedness, pertinacity, positiveness, and taciturnity, is thoroughly American, and nothing else. Grant is a true sailor, in that he dreads both the storm of battle [Pg 92] and the calm of inactivity, and his appropriate motto is "In medio tutissimus ibis." Thomas delights most in calm—is always calm himself, even in the midst of roughest seas. ”

“ Truly thou art a simple fellow, and will be beetled by Redhall, in such wise as thy mother never beetled thee! ha! ha! Zounds! dost thou think this paltry house would hold me, who escaped from the Douglas room at Stirling, where the cardinal confined me after the battle of Linlithgow? I trow not! Be easy; compose thyself, friend Thomas, for I assure thee I have got the knife, and will begone to-morrow."
"In your pockets?" said Tam, advancing.
"Pockets! Nay, dost thou think a gentleman has pockets in his breeches and doublet to hold bread and cheese, like a rascally clown ”

“ The movements are always deliberate and heavy; the manœuvres are always executed by massed columns formed in deep lines. Grant, like Thomas, appears to decide in his own mind the key-point of the enemy's position, and to direct his assaults to the ultimate possession of that point. He devotes every energy, and, when it is necessary, every life, to the attainment of this success, knowing that this ends the conflict. When it is gained, as at Chattanooga and during the engagements of April 2d before Petersburg, the battle is won. ”

“ Thomas suffered mentally under the pressure and the criticisms of the whole campaign, and we may personally share his pain in sympathy with the noble man, whilst we admit that Grant's views were such as the situation demanded. Those who knew Thomas intimately knew that he was a man of quick feeling if of slow action; and his nature was truthfully described by his quartermaster, Colonel Donaldson (who was an old and intimate friend) , in a letter to General Meigs, after a parting interview on the steamboat as Thomas left Nashville for Eastport. ”

“ Nevertheless, for some time Sherman continued to advance, but as Grant saw him making slower progress and noted the heavy massing of troops in his path, he ordered Thomas's waiting columns to attack the center and carry the breastworks at the foot of Missionary Ridge.
With a blare of bugles, 20,000 blue-coated men seemed to leap from the ground and 20,000 bayonets pointed at Missionary Ridge whose summits began to blaze forth shot and shell. ”

“ Thomas′s dispositions were deliberately made, and always good. He could not be driven from a point he was given to hold. He was not as good, however, in pursuit as he was in action. I do not believe that he could ever have conducted Sherman′s army from Chattanooga to Atlanta against the defences and the commander guarding that line in 1864. On the other hand, if it had been given him to hold the line which Johnston tried to hold, neither that general nor Sherman, nor any other officer could have done it better. ”

“ For this, the weakest act of a weak existence, there is no counterpart in Grant's life, but a thousand, or rather, I should say, one constant and unvarying contrast.
The resemblance between Generals Grant and Thomas in personal appearance and character is more marked than between the former and Sherman. The comparison between Grant and Sherman must indeed be confined to their military characteristics. The resemblance is most noted in the fertility of invention which distinguishes both in a higher degree than any two men hitherto developed by the war. Neither ever lacks for resources. ”

“ All this time the authorities in Washington were straining every nerve to rescue the beleaguered army. Sixteen thousand men under General Hooker were rushed to its relief, provisions were forwarded within a day's march of the town, awaiting the opening of new roads, and finally, when the stream of frantic telegrams from the front showed that the army had practically no leadership, hurried orders were forwarded to Grant, authorizing him to remove Rosecrans, place Thomas temporarily in control and take the field himself at the earliest possible moment. ”

“ The numerous battles of Grant are the most important and the most successful of the war. From his first victory at Fort Donelson, through Shiloh, Corinth, and Iuka, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga, to the battles before Richmond, and the surrender of Lee, he has been almost uniformly successful, and his victories have been more complete, and productive of more substantial fruits than those of any other commander. As his strategy is that of Sherman on a larger scale, so his grand tactics are those of Thomas on more extensive fields. ”

“ The advance (six thousand) will reach the seaboard by the 23d, the remainder following as rapidly as railroad transportation can be procured from Cincinnati. The corps numbers over twenty-one thousand men. I was induced to do this because I did not believe Thomas could possibly be got off before spring. His pursuit of Hood indicated a sluggishness that satisfied me that he would never do to conduct one of your campaigns. The command of the advance of the pursuit was left to subordinates, whilst Thomas followed far behind. ”

“ Botany, natural history, and painting were also cultivated by him. He married Margaret, daughter of the Rev. Thomas Wilson of Gamrie in Banffshire, and had by her eight sons and four daughters, all born in India. The present laird of Elchies is his grandson. He died at Wester Elchies of gout on 17 Sept. 1865, and was buried in Knockando churchyard. His wife died in London on 28 Jan. 1855. Grant's mind was one of singular sweetness and elevation, and he was regretted alike as a friend, a landlord, and a benefactor to the poor. ”

“ Inform me if you think you can sustain yourself until this time. I can hardly conceive of the enemy breaking through at Kingston and pushing for Kentucky. If they should, however, a new problem would be left for solution. Thomas has ordered a division of cavalry to the vicinity of Sparta. I will ascertain if they have started, and inform you. It will be entirely out of the question to send you ten thousand men, not because they cannot be spared, but how would they be fed after they got even one day east from here? ”

“ But I am owre auld to pick my words now. I say as my fathers have said; I think as my fathers have thocht."
"Your servant, Sir Thomas.—Ladies, your humble servant!" said that unconscionable bore, Lord Mersington, who at that moment rode up with Clermistonlee. "Hee, hee, General—seeing your auld friends awa again—'bodin in effeir of weir,' as the acts say?"
"Yea, my Lord. You, too, hae seen some work like this in your time."
"Ay. At Dunbar I rode in the troop of the College of Justice, and exchanged the judge's wig for the troopers morion; ye ken, when drums beat, laws are dumb." ”

“ He was law agent to his chief, Sir James Grant of Grant. His portrait was drawn by Kay in a group with two other highland lawyers, Allan MacDougall of Glenlochan and Alexander Watson of Glenturke. Grant and Watson were constant associates, and used to dine together in a tavern in Jackson's Close for 'two placks apiece,' dividing half a bottle of claret between them. Being of frugal habits, Grant acquired sufficient wealth to purchase the estates of Kincaird and Petnacree, Perthshire. He died at Edinburgh 2 Dec. ”

“ According to the custom of enumeration in the South, this number probably excluded every man enlisted as musician or detailed as guard or nurse, and all commissioned officers—everybody who did not carry a musket or serve a cannon. With us everybody in the field receiving pay from the government is counted. Excluding the troops who fled, panic-stricken, before they had fired a shot, there was not a time during the 6th when we had more than 25,000 men in line. On the 7th Buell brought 20,000 more. Of his remaining two divisions, Thomas′s did not reach the field during the engagement ”

“ INDECISION, n. The chief element of success; "for whereas," saith Sir Thomas Brewbold, "there is but one way to do nothing and divers way to do something, whereof, to a surety, only one is the right way, it followeth that he who from indecision standeth still hath not so many chances of going astray as he who pusheth forwards"—a most clear and satisfactory exposition of the matter.
"Your prompt decision to attack," said General Grant on a certain occasion to General Gordon Granger, "was admirable; you had but five minutes to make up your mind in."
"Yes, sir," ”

“ I am an auld man and a weary one, for I have fought in battle this lee-lang summer day."
"My mother bydes on Fiddich side," replied the child, "and though she dreads all strangers, she cannot fear you, for ye are auld and kind; and my father is a strong man whom none dare wrong, for he is the boldest archer on the Braes of Auchindoune."
"My name is Malcolm Mac Kenneth," said the King; "auld I trow I be—yea ten times your age, my bairn, but give me your hand in mine and lead on." ”

“ On July 25, 1866, he was made general of the United States army; the rank having been created for him, he was the first to hold it. At the next Republican Convention, Grant was nominated for President on the first ballot, and was elected over Seymour, and was re-elected a second term by an increased majority.
When his public services were finished he started in company with his wife, son Jesse, and a few friends. They set sail from Philadelphia on the 17th of May, 1877. They visited nearly all the countries of Europe, and part of those of Africa and Asia. ”

“ To his immediate family, however, he was always known as Ulysses, which his playmates soon twisted into the nickname "Useless," more or less good-naturedly applied.
Grant's father moved to Georgetown, Ohio, soon after his son's birth, and there his boyhood days were passed. The place was not at that time much more than a frontier village and its inhabitants were mostly pioneers—not the adventurous, exploring pioneers who discover new countries, but the hardy advance-guard of civilization, who clear the forests and transform the wilderness into farming land. ”

“ Grant is a genuine son of New England, therefore to be looked on as a vigorous offshoot of the old Puritan stock. His father removed from Coventry, first to Pennsylvania, afterwards to Ohio, and finally to Illinois, where the Ulysses of these many wanderings received his classic name. He appears to be a man of no ordinary class for shrewdness and good sense. Gen. Grant's mother is one of those sedate, sensible, serious women, whose households are fit nurseries for heroes. Industry, economy, patience, temperance and religion, were the lessons of his early days. ”

“ At times a burst of anger and anxiety seized me—anger at the facility which made her yield to a union so absurd, and anxiety lest this mere child D'Alsace might grow up a very Pappenheim in temper and morality; one who might lead a wife, ten years his senior, a life of anything but happiness and peace. Amid such speculations as these, Patrick Gordon, the Marechal de Logis, found me one evening, and summoned me to the presence of the Marquis de Gordon, who occupied the house of the Bailiff of Schlettstadt, a comfortable mansion, which he shared with Dundrennan and some others of the Guard. ”

“ In 1828, he published "Juvenile Lays," a collection of poems and songs; and in 1830, "Kincardineshire Traditions"—a small volume of ballads—both of which obtained a favourable reception. Desirous of emanating from the retirement of his native parish, he accepted, in 1831, the situation of assistant to a shop-keeper in Stonehaven, and soon afterwards proceeded to Dundee, where he was employed in the office of the Dundee Guardian newspaper, and subsequently as clerk to a respectable writer.
Grant furnished a series of tales and sketches for Chambers's Edinburgh Journal. ”

“ I don't choose to be made game of by you, or such as you,—so sheer off, or I'll trounce you both, for insulting the captain of a British frigate!"
And so he swaggered off, with his left hand upon the brass hilt of his old hanger.
Poor Tom Cranky has long since been at rest from his labours by sea and land; but he lived long about Greenwich, where he was a great authority upon all matters pertaining to ships and salt water,—the lion of a little naval club, and was wont to boast,—
That enjoying
Half-pay for life made mankind worth destroying. ”

“ For a long time Grant stood drinking in the scene; the fertile valley lying with its square farms like a checker-board of the gods, with its round little lakes beating back the white sunshine like coins from the currency of the Creator; the ruddy copper-colored patches of ripe wheat, and drowsy herds motionless upon the receding hills; the blue-green ribbon of river with its yellow fringes of cottonwood and bluffs of forbidding spruce, and behind and over all the silent, majestic mountains. It was a sight to make the soul of man rise up and say, “I know I stand on the heights of the Eternal!” ”

“ Six months later only 183,000 remained in the service, and in eight months more the whole force of volunteers had disappeared. No other great commander in the history of the world ever strove thus to deprive himself of power, or with a gigantic instrument of war under his control thought only of peace. Grant was not the greatest military genius of the ages, or even of his own time, but when, with a million bayonets responsive to his nod, he uttered the benediction, "Let us have peace," he took a place apart among those Americans whose fame will never die. ”