General Grant as He Appears. In His Book.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 170, 18 September 1886, Page 3

General Grant as He Appears. In His Book.

(By James- Pabton).'

This euper^tition, as he calls it, was of nmch^eersis^n^h^ he started for Richmond. Ie took him a yda/to dmto-tni^WftttntottT mileV, but' h|g»(rtfi6r»BlflaBWo»'* '-' »«-'' '»*> <> jOnS Mil^ minfr, ttKieh *wllHurprtee ' maH^rd&Jer^brMs 1 WoT\i;'ik 'hlahHtohWttf* In relittito*ltiMateߥ%fa f ' Weatfrftflft : tie 1 * nfefitiorifP thtffin^Ffenotf h> u'raWditfg 1 WaV iverjf'lbW j'*ud\iirig'''tn<itj * if thW'cTa^HadbeeK^tift^Houti f th<i '6€her "end 'f 6b'mo§tr f I fehould'Mve beeti 1 nW'tWheaa/" "H bhas a ,quiet'ht% aVftie fuse^offioerrwho; 1 make it , a sti^dy ' tc?' tfiihk* wh^t* '6'rders "thfty ' can publish to arihoy their ! Bubordiria'tfe's.'" J Mo&t 1 of fch'ese "officer?, hie retharks; diacoveired, the Mexican war broke I 'out, that they pofeieesed disabilitiea which incapacitated' them for, aervice in the field. '• Tjney were' rjght," he adds :, " but" thwy did 'not always give their disease the right name,*' s ' 4 , He ha ! a a 6b'mic wolf story of his sbrvice in Texas, which We amplifies more than usual, and draws a moful.' From the noise made by^fche^wolves on the prairie, frejatipposed the pack was very, numerous- ; ** Grant,"said his companion, " how, many wojives do you think, there are in .that pubk?" • „ „' „ , , „, latending to disgube hie ignorance by putting, a yery low ; estimate, he guessed '"about twenty.'*, r.His companion smiled, and rede on, and in a, minute later they discovered the pack, which waB,compoped of just two wolvea. The general appends .the moral : . : , \ " I have e^«!j Mv"ic»*t «f thia inoldeat since^ when Iba\ eheirdthenoiBto!u rowdiouppointed , politlcaos wiiu nu,vu ikoo Lvd their associates. - » here are alwuyu more otthem before tbey are counted." General Grant appears in his Personal Meinoirß to great advantage, 'as a brave, modest, resolute, discriminating, good, tempered man.

When General Grant was a second lieutenant in -the army jthai' invaded Mexico, there was such an abundance of game' on the Texas prairies that "many, young men would have found It' difficult to avoid hitting some of it! ' Lieutenant Grafot had neither taate nor' capacity for shooting game He went out once after wild turkeys; and soon heard the flutter of wings overhead. Upon looking' up be saw a flock of twenty or thirty turkeys flying above his head in squads of two and three ; but he was so much interested in watching the flight of the birds that he totally forgot to fire till they were all beyond his reach. His companion?, however, in a few minutes brought down turkeys enough to supply the whele mesa. \ Hereagain i cannot help sympathising with the man who failed, rather than with the man who succeeded. A strange fatality appears to have attended all his attempts to do business at a profit. In 1552 he was ordered with his regiment to California, and arrived there when the wages of a cook were more than the pay of a captain in the army. The officers were eadly put to it to live upon thbir pay, flour being twenty-five cents a pound, potatoes sixteen cents a pound, and other articles in proportion, Captain Grant and three other officers formed (a partnership for the purpose of raising a crop of vegetables. The captain bought a pair of horses, worn down by a journey across the plains. Theseanimals soon picked upa little flesh and proved very good farm horses, and he, being a farmer's boy, ploughed up the ground. His partners planted the potatoes, and they raised an enormous crop, durely, this was a wise proceeding ! It was so very wJB© that everybody else had done it ; co that when the time of harvest came, potatoes had no commercial value at all. General Grant relates the results of his agricultural labours in his own humorous way : " Luckily for us," he says, " the Co'umbia River rose to a great height from chtt mtiltinK of the tnow in the mountains, overflowed, and killed most of our crop. This saved digging it up. The only potatoes we sold were to cur own mess." The same Captain Grant, in transacting business where no money was to be made or expected to be made, showed sagacity and prompitude. In the Mexiqan war he served for long periods as quarter- master, commissary and adjutant, performing the duties of all these difficult posts to the satisfaction of officers and men. His experience in the bueineas of on army, arquired in Mexico, was of great value to him in 1861, when be was suddenly called upon to create a military system for the State of Illinois. He could do business well enough when some power besides himself furnished the capital. Nothing strikes the reader of his personal memoi r3r 3 more than the general soundness of his judgments. In Mexico he served firßt under General Taylor, who despised all ebow and parade, seldom wore a uniform, and presented an appearance even shabby and negligent. He served also under GeneTal Winfield Scott, who wore on every occasion all the uniform the regulations allowed. Captain Grant was not deceived by either of These foibles. He did not commend General Taylors shabbinees, nor despise General Scott's display. Both of them, he remarks were good soldiers, " patriotic and upright in all their dealings." He discriminates between them thus : " Both wore pleasant to serve under— Taylor was pleasant to serve with. Scott gaw more through the eyes of hiq staffofficers than through his own. flis plan were deliberately prepared and fully expressed in orders. Taylor paw- for himself, and gave orders to meet the emergency, without reference to how they would read in history." It is evident that Captaiu Grant relished the character of Zachary Taylor, and it ia much to the credit of his understanding that he should have been able to do juctico to the merits of a person like Winfield Scott, the very opposite of his own ideal. Some of bis other judgments are excellent. His father worked for and lived with the father of John Biown, whose soul is marching on, and thus he became well acquainted with the character of the hero of Harper's Ferry. He speaks of him as a man of great purity and elevation of character, but says bluntly of his invasion of Virginia with twenty men, that it was the act of a madman, Soldier as he was never for a moment blinded as to the object and character of the war with Mexido. He characterises the whole proceeding, from the hour when General Houston, with President Jockßon's knowledge and consent, want' to Texas to begin the movement, until the invasion of Mexico by the troopa, as a " conspiracy to acquire territory, one of which slave States i»ii;ht be formed for the American "Union." He Btyles the contest witb Mexico *' an unholy war," from the inception of the movement to its final consummation. The candor of the man is really extra* ordinary. He says that he does not believe that he " would ever have had courage to fight a duel," and he attributes some of hia apparently bold movements in the early part of the war, not to courage, but to the want of it. He pays more than once, "I hod not the, courage to go back," when his going forward proved to be a brilliant and successful action, When he .says he < had not the courage to fight a duelj he evidently had no reference whatever to the physical danger involved. He meant that he had not, the courage to commit an action so, absurd and so wrong. He says ; t "If any man should wrong me to the extent of roy oeing williua to kill him, I would not be willing to Kive him thn choice of weapons, and of the tme place and dietaoce' separating nfi. If I ' should do another such a > (te to' justify him in killing: m«,,1 would make any reasonable atoatmeiit within my power, ,lf convinced of the wrdng done." , General Grant was disposed to attribute his prent, actions ta, trifling motives. ,The flrm determination, of t .hiB, that necessity.of his being to; hxf^,on in the way he had begun, and bring a movement,tp the conclusion dp^ signed, he. speaks of thus: „ , >* < ''One of ' my, superstition* hn* : always been, wben I, rtarted , to t «o ,M»y wfcera, or to do arcytUlag.not jdTtura bueVor atop^ntil the tWn« intended Was Accomplished.*' J V "" "' ■• *