OF Ulysses S. Grant, General of the Armies of the United States. BY CHARLES A. DANA, LATE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF WAR; AND J. H. WILSON, BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL U. S. A. PUBLISHED BY Gurdon Bill & Company, Springfield, Mass. Charles Bill, Chicago, Ill. 1868. +M. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by GURDON BILL & CO., In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Preface. WHEN so many biographies of General Grant are announced as about to be published or actually ready for delivery to purchasers, several of them by writers of acknowledged capacity and distinction, the authors of the present work feel that if they do not owe to the public an apology for their undertaking, it is at least their duty to tender a frank statement of the reasons which have induced them to engage in such an enterprise. First among these is the fact that they have been urged to do so by their excellent publishers; but this alone would not have been sufficient, had it not been their fortune, at various critical epochs of the War for the Union, to be thrown into the midst of decisive events, and to see with their own eyes, and often quite intimately, a great deal that is important in history. In many of these transactions, General Grant bore a controlling part, so that to know the facts was to know the man. It is hoped that the desire to record this knowledge in a manner somewhat permanent, and to preserve the impressions gathered in the campaigns of Northern Mississippi, and of Vicksburg, the rescue of Chattanooga, the battles and marches of 1864 in Virginia, and the crowning events which culminated at Appomattox Court House in April, 1865, may of itself, be thought a satisfactory motive for the production of this volume; but to this is to be added the wish to do justice as far as possible to a man, who, highly as he is admired by his fellow-citizens, is not yet sufficiently esteemed for heroic steadiness and courage, his transparent simplicity and honesty, and his profound and disinterested wisdom. Another consideration which has seemed to be of some weight is the fact, that most of the biographies, completed or projected, are either of a special nature, exclusively devoted to some particular portion or aspect of General Grant's career; or else they are framed upon a plan of extensive elaboration and exceeding fulness of detail. It has accordingly seemed desirable that there should be a book of convenient compass, covering the entire ground, and putting within the reach of the people in a single handy volume, all the information which they naturally desire respecting this great soldier, sincere patriot, and naturally astute statesman. With these remarks the subject is committed to the candid judgment of the public. NEW YORK, April, 1868. |