The rebel General's reply was as follows: HEADQUARTERS ARMY NORTHERN VIRGINIA, GENERAL :-I have received your letter of this date, containing the terms of surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia as proposed by you. As they are substantially the same as those expressed in your letter of the 8th instant, they are accepted. I will proceed to designate the proper officers to carry the stipulations into effect. R. E. LEE, General. LIEUTENANT-GENERAL U. S. GRANT. The terms of this correspondence were carried out without delay. How desperately the war had been carried on by the rebel leaders is shown by the fact that, though the names of 150,000 men were borne on Lee's muster-rolls a few weeks before, there were but 27,000 found to surrender to Grant. Desertion had told the story; and this was brought about only by failing supplies and a hopeless cause. Of arms and ammunition, however, there was a rich supply, and these were turned over to Grant, as trophies of his victory over the ablest and best beloved general of the Confederacy, and one but for whose staunchness and sagacity, the victory would have been much more easily won. GRANT'S MILITARY GENIUS. We do not propose to enter here upon a minute analysis of General Grant's military methods, or discuss the question of his genius as a general. This has been done in more technical works, as Coppee's Life of Grant, Swinton's able work on the battles of the late civil war, and various treatises by both American and European writers. In Mr. Greeley's "American Conflict," second volume, the reader will find a brief but vigorous de fence of Grant's plan of the Virginia Campaign, so hastily sketched above; and in his journal-the New York Tribune-of July 2d, 1864, he paid the following glowing tribute to the man who "broke the back of the Slaveholder's Rebellion:" "We loathe man-worship, yet every day's experience strengthens our faith in Lieutenant-General Grant. The task devolved on him is arduous; he is confronted by an able general and a gallant veteran army who enjoy enormous advantages in their defensive attitudes, the nature of the country and their intimate knowledge of its topography; yet from the hour of his crossing the Rapidan, General Grant has gone steadily, sturdily forward, repelling impetuous attacks, assaulting (when necessary) strongly fortified positions; withdrawing unobserved from the immediate front of his wary antagonist and effecting the most daring and difficult flank movements, thereby achieving the fruits of victory without encountering the carnage which is the usual cost of success-and all this with a stern quietude that indicates reserved force and a consciousness of power adapted to any emergency. We are not apt to be over sanguine; we realize that victory is often a happy accident and that occurrences purely fortuitous often derange and defeat the ablest combinations; but, having noted his bearing under every phase of fortune, his quick improvement of advantages and his skillful reparation of mischances, we cannot doubt that he has true military genius, and that he will do whatever one man can do to break the back of the Slaveholder's Rebellion." CHAPTER XIII. GRANT AS PRESIDENT. Difficulties Encountered on his Induction to the Chair of State-General Policy of the Administration-The Will of the People Supreme-Economy the Rule-Some Figures-Grant and the Civil Service-Important Reforms-Grant and Amnesty-Policy toward the Colored Race-The Treaty with England-History of the Negotiations-Grant's Indian Policy-The Olive Branch Armed with a Switch. Some of the peculiar difficulties with which President Grant had to contend at the outset of his administration were alluded to in a previous chapter; the two chief being reconstruction and the unhappy state of the civil service. Each of these was partly the natural growth of the war and partly the legacy of Andrew Johnson's cross-grained administration; and the treatment of either of them would have furnished a very good eight years' job to a moderately active President. But General Grant, though commencing his administration very modestly, so far as all his public utterances went, has undertaken not only these Herculean labors which thrust themselves forward the most prominently, but numerous other beneficent works within the sphere of his duties as Executive. Many of these he has happily accomplished; others he has advanced creditably, and seems sure to secure both Congressional and popular co-operation in their |