6 APRIL 1985, Page 16

One hundred years ago

General Grant, who has been dying for months of that most terrible of com- plaints, cancer of the tongue, was on Thursday evening not expected to live through the night. His immense services to the Union, his great misfortunes, and his sad end have obliterated in the minds of his countrymen his grave faults, and his death will awaken strong feeling not only among the soldiers whom he led to victory, but the whole body of the American people. He was a great General, and probably an upright, though self-interested statesman; but like our own Duke of Wellington he was a narrow-minded politician and unlike him had a tolerance for jobbery and corruption which made his Administra- tion, on the whole, a source of evil.

Spectator, 4 April 1885