BOOKS.
CAMPAIGNING WITH GRANT.*
ALTHOUGH the military achievements of the American Civil conflict of the sixties were of unsurpassed magnitude and grandeur, they cannot be said to have attained cosmopolitan popularity like the wars of Frederick the Great, Napoleon, or Moltke. Every European with a smattering of history knows a little about Rossbach, Austerlitz, and Gravelotte ; but, except to a few professional students, the battlefield of Gettysburg, or Chattanoga, or The Wilderness, is "an un- known spot." One reason is that this splendid topic has not yet found its "sacred bard,"—its Thiers, Sybel, or Motley. Meanwhile, let us be grateful for an instructive and entertaining contribution to the literature of the sub- ject from an officer who was on the Headquarters Staff during the final phases of the war, when Grant took command of the entire Army of the United States. General Porter draws an elaborate picture of his chief's campaigning life, describing in detail his personal characteristics and habits, and quoting at times Grant's own accounts of his views and motives, with his comments on the occurrences of the moment. To Grant's companions-in-arms—such as Hancock, Sheridan, Sherman— due prominence is given, while the occasional visitors to headquarters, like President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton —" the Carnot " of the war—are also conspicuous figures in the book, in which "the eternal feminine" is also well to the front.
General Porter has excellent powers of style; he is vivacious, and tells his numerous stories with true Yankee humour. The photographs of Grant in circulation on his appointment to the central command made " the butcher" a robust, melodramatic swashbuckler, with features suitable to the ex-proprietor of the county leather-store. The real man was middle-sized, had a slim figure, a square mouth and brow, with a Cromwellian wart on his cheek, and a fixed, careworn look. His voice had singular penetration, but he stooped, and, being absolutely without ear for music or rhythm, could not walk in step with others, even when drums were beating, while his hands when he talked were either fidgeting with his beard or his knees. As this not very imposing bodily presence was associated with an ultra gentle
• Campaigning with Grant. By General Horace Port.w. LL.D. London : T. Fisher Uuw.n. [21e.]
and unassuming manner, it is plain that the General's deport- ment could not suggest the aspects of a Ca3sar or a Napoleon, the less so as with his thread gloves, his felt sugar-loaf hat, and his shady frockcoat or flannel blouse his outward man was substantially that of a soldier of the rank-and-file. Judging from our author, Grant's popular nick-names of "Ulysses the Silent," "the American Sphinx," "the Great Unspeak- able " were misnomers, like the traditional designation of William of Orange, and were suggested by his acquired habit of extreme conversational reserve on business topics towards outsiders. Porter's account of his chief's fascinating power as a "thoughtful, philosophical, and original" talker is not quite " documented ; " but it receives some slight support from the remark of Mr. Stephens, the Vice-President of the Con- federate States, that the conqueror overflowed with polite- ness, modesty, and superior talk, while he bad "even more brains than tongue." Porter relates that a certain Staff officer when on horseback under fire always had a novel in his hand : at the battle of Spottsylvania he was seen reading Victor Hugo's masterpiece, which, to the indignation of a lady resident of Southern sympathies, he called, in his Ameri- canised French, "Lee's Miserables;" her remark was, "They're a good deal better than Grant's miserables, anyhow ! " The Commander-in-Chief's tastes were not so literary, and we may be sure that if General Porter bad told him that, "like Shakespeare's soldier, he never wore his dagger in his month," he could not have corrected the slip in the allusion to Polonius.
All the moral attributes of generalship were possessed by Grant in abundance. He had an inimitable bneiness style, so that his field orders, however hurriedly written, were always models of clearness, that no one ever had "to read them a second time to understand them." His intrepidity was such that he would go on writing despatches while shot and
shell fell round him, neither moving nor looking up from his work when others instinctively ducked their heads ; he was not even liable to the involuntary facial twitchings to which even the bravest of the brave are subject when ex- posed to fire. Here is a sample of his imperturbability under that ordeal. While sitting in a very hot corner before Petersburg he would not notice that he and his Staff had become a target for the enemy's guns, and he paid no heed to gentle reminders to "move on." After finishing his despatches he rose, viewed the position, and said, with a quizzical look at his surroundings, "Well, they do seem to have the range on us." Grant always exhibited a constitu- tional dislike of situations which threw him upon the defensive : even when holding on to a position be would always assume the "offensive-defensive." After the bloody combats of the awful zone of swamp and forest between Washington and Richmond, known as The Wilderness, he wrote to Secretary Halleck : "The enemy hold our front in very strong force, and evince a strong determination to interpose between us and Richmond to the last. I shall take no backward steps." The final phrase, which became historic, might have been applied even to his movements when on horseback. Grant's marked aversion to a backward step, says General Porter, amounted almost to a superstition, and he often put himself to the greatest personal inconvenience to avoid it, preferring to try cross-roads, ford streams, or jump fences, than to turn his charger's bead in a retrograde direction. Besides possessing what Sherman called a "Scotch terrier tenacity" of purpose, the American Commander was gifted with a maximum of the essential military virtues of patience and self-reliance, and with a calmness which never deserted him either in adversity or in success. General Porter observes that his con- versation was entirely free from oaths or imprecations. Profanity, said Grant, to say the least, was "a great waste of time." His example in this respect being held up for imitation to an Army teamster who was cursing his beasts, the man replied, "Then thar's one thing martin ; the old man never druv mules." But without the dexterity with which Grant held the reins of a team of another description, he would hardly have subjugated the Southern Confederation. Harmony did not always prevail amongst hie Marshals, who being men of considerable calibre, with programmes and crotchets of their own, were dis- posed at times to excite annoyances and conflicts by giving vent to jealousies, grievances, and complaints. There was Thomas, "the rock of Chickamanga ; " Hancock, the
" superb; " the blunt and irritable Meade ; "Uncle Billy" Sherman; and the magnetic, excitable Sheridan, of whom we read that he was a kind of decoction of Fabius, Hotspur, Hannibal, Murat, and Ney. In the Chief's dealings with his officers, who, be it remembered, were not pliant Euro- peans but stiff-necked Americans, his method was this : her never reprimanded, rigorously avoided the "categorical im- perative," showed his subordinates perfect confidence, never made them scapegoats, always crediting them, and theta only, with the honour due to their successes. The following exemplifies the system under which, thanks to Grant's calmness of demeanour and unruffled temper, his Com- manders proved so loyal to him, to the country, and to, each other :—" In speaking of his visit to the middle Military Division, General Grant said:' I ordered Sheridan to move out and whip Early.' An officer present ventured to remark : I presume the actual form of the order was to move out and attack him.' 'No,' answered the General, 'I mean just what I say : I gave the order to whip him.' "
The Confederate leader, Longstreet, said that the grand' combinations of the Northern Commander had seldom,, if ever, been surpassed, but that "after all the biggest part of him was his heart." Though "Ulyss" was of humble origin, his treatment of prisoners of all ranks, of the- inhabitants of districts occupied by his troops, and of General Lee at the surrender of the armies of the South, was markedi by a current of merciful, tactful sentiment wkich proved that he belonged to Nature's nobility. Some modern military negotiations have been flavoured with a slight taste of the- tee vietis ; but when the Southern debacle came, Grant'e. sympathetic manner and generosity did much to temper the blow to Lee and his followers. The original draft terms of the capitulation of Appomattox Court-house included the surrender of the officers' swords. But Grant's eye glancing at the superb jewelled weapon—an offering from certain. English ladies—which Lee was wearing, added the worde, "This will not embrace the sidearms of the officers."' Porter gives other instances of the General's consideration' for his opponents, but for which, be argues, the war might have been prolonged in the shape of a series of guerilla cam- paigns.
At times the demon of American battle capered' gaily "in a lady's chamber" before the representatives of the " Ewig weibliche " from Washington, like Mrs. Lincoln. and Mrs. Grant, who, with a disregard for their personal, safety unusual in the sex, boldly visited the lines of the army of the James whilst hostilities were proceeding. Mrs. Grant its particular was not troubled by the proximity of some Con- federate ironclads to her quarters; she only said, "'Wyss, will those gunboats shell the bluff ?" Her daughter, aged nine, was with her ; also Master Jesse Grant, a six-year-old, who, on his black Shetland pony, surreptitiously cantered, up behind the Staff to the assault of Fort Harrison, and' had to be dragged out of fire nolens volens. Of his brother Fred, a fourteen-year-old veteran who had been wounded near Vicksburg, analogous pranks are related. The author gives a series of traits and anecdotes of President Lincoln, who, by reason of the proximity of the White House to the James River, could always excursionise and reach headquarters at the shortest notice by steamer and train. Like most great Anglo-Saxons, Mr. Lincoln was a warm lover of the feline tribe,. and while with the army at City Point upon the eve of s- great crisis in the national history, he was to be seen fondling three motherless kittens, for whose welfare he tenderly cared, giving strict orders to a high officer to see that they got plenty of milk and kind treatment. Of equal' interest is the President's sketch of the American re- lations with ourselves, especially as regards the capture of the Southern Envoys, Mason and Slidell, on the British.. steamer 'Treat.'
This narrative contains subsidiary accounts of the opera- tions of the Civil War, which, however, are too unsystematic
and allusive for an English reader, the more so as the maps' furnished are insufficient. Porter's summary of his chief's, characteristics contains superlatives to which we must demur. That Grant was one of the high luminaries of his profession is indisputable; but when we think of Caasar's passage from Brundisims to Dyrrachium, or of the neveltieet which Frederick taught his "myrmidons of Mars" after Mollwitz, or of Wellington's "thin red line." or of old' Bliicher at the Katzbach, we do not agree that the great American had supremacy in the art of inventing new means for new circumstances of war, or that he was "the most aggressive fighter in the entire list of the world's famous soldiers." The customary parallels between the famous Generals of all times and countries are comparisons of in- commenenrables. Grant's passage of the James River, by which he gave Lee the slip, and threw his army to the south of Richmond, was a masterpiece of strategy. So was Wellington's move over the Douro, when he caught Soult napping at Oporto. And that is all that can be said. Looking to the total dissimilarity of all the problems, of the zarebas of difficulty which the respective leaders had to face—as regards, e.g., such conditions as home politics, land and water basis, supply, reinforcements, alliances, the training of the troops and so forth—it is obvious that no instructive comparison can be drawn between such per- formances as those of "Ulysses the Silent" in Virginia and the deeds of Wellington in Portugal and Spain.
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