Page:American Historical Review vol. 6.djvu/833

 U^ister : Uiysscs S. Grant 823 Ulysses S. Grant. By Owen Wister. [Beacon Biographies.] (Boston : Small, Maynard and Co. 1900. Pp. xvii, 145.) Some most striiiing paragraphs about Grant are to be found in this pocket vohime. Witness the first page : "At the age of thirty-nine, Grant was an obscure faihire in a provin- cial town. To him and his family, for whom he could not earn needful bread, his father had become a last shelter against the struggle for life. Not all the neighbors knew his face. At the age of forty-three his picture hung in the homes of grateful millions. His name was joined with Washington's. A little while, and we see him step down, amid discord- ant reproach, from Washington's chair, having helplessly presided over scandal and villany blacker than the country had thus far witnessed. Next, his private integrity is darkly overcast, and the stroke kills him. But death clears his sky. At the age of sixty-three Grant died ; and the people paused to mourn and honor him devotedly. All the neighbors know his face to-day." And thus, of the time following his resignation from the old army ; ' ' There came a time when he walked the streets, seeking employment. So painful was it all that those who knew him preferred to cross the street rather than meet him." Many who watched closely at AVashington throughout Grant's presi- dential term, and watched as unfriendly critics, will still contend that the sentence into which those eight years are condensed is quite too harsh, but it serves to call vividly to mind conditions which were a blot upon the times. From first to last the book is incisive, and fixes attention. It deals in high praise, as well as most unsparing criticism. Throughout, it is strong in its contrasts — Grant as he was, and what, step by step, he became. The author aims at accuracy in his details, but instead of consulting the open official records has repeated many venerable myths which have been handed down through a long line of notable writers, but which for the most part had their origin in the uncertainties of information flashed through the smoke of battle. Thus, after Donelson Grant was not " put in arrest" by Halleck. Stanton authorized it, but Halleck did not do it. When Grant arrived at Chattanooga " order was nowhere." He arrived : ' ' And forthwith order began to shape itself from formle.ssness. ' ' These statements are not only incorrect but libels upon a thoroughly or- ganized and valiant army, and one that "starvation " did not turn from its purpose by so much as a hairsbreadth. Several pages are given to Gen. W. F. Smith's "scheme for the new avenue of supplies" with which Grant "was delighted." An army board of distinguished officers — Major- General Brooke president — has just decided, after exhaustive consideration of the entire record, that Rosecrans devised the plan, and Gen. Thomas ordered it executed without consulting Gen. Smith. Longstreet is represented as fighting Hooker "on Lookout Mountain" instead of in Lookout Valley when Hooker first arrived at Wauhatchie. Again, " By night Hooker was established there " (the top of the moun-