104 Ten Years of my Life. 



Grant a favourite with the Government in Washington. He 

 was appointed Commander-Jn- chief of all the armies, and 

 placed himself at the head of the Potomac army, whilst he left 

 affairs in the South and AVest in the hands of Sherman and 

 Thomas, who had chiefly made his reputation. Grant himself 

 is no great general, though he has some qualities which, 

 together with his good luck, made him appear so to the world 

 looking on from afar off. He has great tenacity, an utter dis- 

 regard for human life, and is no talker. His good luck and 

 and his taciturnity made him president of the United States, 

 not his talent. The people had been sufficiently disappointed 

 l>y boasters and talkers, and were favourably disposed towards 

 a general who had successes to show and make no fuss about 

 them. His taciturnity made him appear v/iser than he really 

 was. 



The views of General Grant about the manner in which the 

 great struggle was to be terminated were based on figures. He 

 knew that the Union had the longest purse and far greater 

 resources in men than the South ; that the treasury of the 

 rebels was exhausted, and that the army they had in the field 

 was the last they could raise. He could afford to lose as many 

 thousands as they could hundreds ; and on this brutal princi- 

 ple, not on strategical skill, was built his hope of victory. 

 Though the conquest of Richmond would have been always a 

 great success, it would have been more of a moral than of a 

 material value, as war he knew would be carried on in other 

 parts of the wide South as long as there were men left to fight. 

 The Government, however, wanted next Richmond, and when 

 Stanton confided to Grant the army, it was under two condi- 

 tions : that he should at once move upon Richmond, and do 

 it on another road than that which McClellan had used, whom 

 Stanton hated more than the rebels. Every military man of 

 sense saw that the plan of that much-abused general was still 

 the best for the attack of the rebel capital, and that it might 

 be approached with scarcely any loss by the way of the James 

 or York rivers, whilst that over land would have to be paved 

 with corpses. But Stanton ordered, and Grant had promised 

 to fight it out on that road. He therefore crossed the Rapidyn 

 river, and before he reached the point where McClellan com- 

 menced his campaign. Grant had lost about 80,000 men in the 

 battles of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania-Court- House, and Coal 



