Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by

C. F. VENT & CO.,

In the Clerk's office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of Ohio.

STEREOTYPED AT THE FRANKLIN TYPE FOUNDRY, CINCINNati.

PREFACE.

AN author's first book must necessarily be defective, especially if that book be written about events in which hundreds of thousands of persons were actors. In this volume I have aimed to do justice only to two characters. If, therefore, soldiers and statesmen, who may chance to read it, do not find their own names recorded, or a full account of the events with which they were connected given, let them remember I am not writing of them and of the events, only so far as they relate to Grant and Colfax.

It is always difficult to write of a man who is still living, for, whether it be to censure or praise him, the writer must feel more or less embarrassed. Remembering Lossing's motto, that "he who writes the truth should write all of it," I have endeavored to gather, from every possible source, such information concerning the illustrious General Grant as would be of interest to the reader; and I desire, in advance, to give credit to Mr. Larke, Abbott, Badeau, Reid, General Rawlins, and others, for such matter as I have used from their books, letters, and papers. A number of officers, who served with General Grant in Mexico and Oregon, and several of his personal friends, have been good enough to write me much that is interesting; and to them, one and all, I beg leave, in this public manner, to return my sincere thanks.

A careful investigation of all the facts connected with the life of General Grant will convince any impartial person that he is really a great man. Reason as we may on his career, prove

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that at but few times he has shown any marked evidence of genius, praise his subordinates as we will, still he stands the first soldier of his country, unique, remarkable, peculiar, the study of a nation. Here we behold a man silent, modest, unambitious, by his great talents in times of public danger, heaping benefactions on his country, until the nation, proud, grateful, unanimous, showers upon him all its honors, and raises him to an office which it has to create in order that the office may be worthy of the man. He, the poor son of a tanner, unpretending, without friends or influence, until his deeds had won both, unused to the world, rises, not suddenly, but step by step, in spite of the machinations of enemies and jealousies of men of lesser talents, to the head of our armies, and there, undazzled by his eminence, unspoiled by his honors, strong and self-poised, exhibits new talents, and maintains himself with so great credit that his fellow-citizens lay at his feet the crown of the republic and beg him to wear it, not to honor him, but to honor them.

Before he was forty-three years of age he had participated in two great wars, captured five hundred guns, more than one hundred thousand prisoners, a quarter of a million of small arms, redeemed from rebel rule over fifty thousand square miles of territory, re-opened to the commerce of the world the mightiest river on the globe, and stubbornly pursued his path to victory, despite of all obstacles. Since then, he has crushed out the rebellion in the East, reëstablished the authority of the Union over a territory larger than France, taken two hundred battleflags, scores of canon, thousands upon thousands of prisoners, and hundreds of thousands of small arms, and then modestly returned to the capital of the nation, to disband his army of a million of men, lay his sword at the feet of the Congress of the people, and wait their pleasure whether he should fill a high station or become an humble private citizen. The world furnishes few such examples of greatness and humility, and our country only one other that of George Washington.

Will any reasonable man say all these events in the life of Grant are the result of accident or mere good luck? Surely to

assert that would be as foolish as unjust, and subject the person to the jeers and contempt of the world. His acts are the result of great wisdom and talents, and not the caprice of fortune. Consider his tribulations at Shiloh, his toils at Vicksburg, his battles of the Wilderness, his siege of Petersburg and capture of Lee, his conduct in the difficult Cabinet position forced upon him by the President, and, lastly, his measures during the impeachment excitement. When our President was bursting with rage; when the War Minister was hedged about with bayonets; when the country was trembling from center to circumference with excitement; when the Executive and the Congress seemed about to call out under arms their respective partisans and inaugurate another civil war, to whom did the people look with confidence and hope? Ulysses Grant, and none other. Unmoved by the tempest of passion raging over the land, conscious of his own strength and ability to control the storm, he sat calmly and serenely in his head-quarters, now receiving anxious inquiries from the President's friends, and anon receiving a delegation of grave but excited Senators, assuring all, nay, convincing all that the republic was safe. Was this accident, or greatness? If not greatness, why did not some other man of the hundred great men in the capital calm the elements and give confidence to the country? If an accident, it was such a one as retrieved the misfortunes of Shiloh, stormed the fortresses of Vicksburg, pushed Lee from the Wilderness, and finally broke his sword at Five Forks.

Some men are born great, others have greatness thrust upon them, while others again wring greatness from the world. To the latter class emphatically belongs Ulysses Grant; and yet it may with truth be said that he belongs to the second class, for, being as modest as he was great, he claimed nothing for his services, and honors and greatness had to be thrust upon him. I am nobody's puffer. I do not say these things of Grant to bring him out for the Presidency, for to commend him to the American people would be like recommending Alexander, or Cæsar, or Napoleon, to historians as subjects worthy of their

consideration. I do not say them for the purpose of currying favor with Grant, or for any selfish or improper reason, but I utter them because I believe them to be true, because I think Grant a great and good man, because I admire him as a soldier and statesman, and feel grateful to him for reëstablishing the Union of these States, and thus preserving for me and my children the Government which the fathers founded. What Washington established, he, with his mighty sword, has preserved; and hereafter the names of Washington and Grant will stand side by side, and, in marble and brass, fill every niche of our country's fame to the latest posterity.

Of the other person named in this volume, I need only say that he has been in the civil department of the Government what General Grant has been in the military-as eminent in legislation as he in war. A young man of brilliant talents, an eminent statesman, the purity of whose public and private character has made his name a word of honor throughout the land, he of all men is fittest to be associated in high honor and power with the illustrious hero of the age. Bespeaking for my work the liberal treatment of critics, with serious misgivings I launch it upon the public, conscious that it is not without defects.

LEXINGTON, Kr., July 1st, 1868.

THE AUTHOR.