never dictated a course of campaign to me; never inquired what I was going to do. He has always seemed satisfied with what I did, and has always heartily cooperated with me.

Thus Grant himself under oath testified that Stanton did not "interfere with his armies guarding the capital," and that is the fact, and the contrary statement in the "Memoirs" is not fact.

However, the most peculiar fact that rises up to cry out against the injustice of Grant's criticism is a part of Grant's own experience at this period. The only time Stanton did not provide for the safety of Washington according to his own ideas was when he sent every available man from its defense to Grant himself, then operating before Petersburg, and thereby came within a hair's breadth of sacrificing the capital!

He felt that he was making a mistake, but Grant wanted men and he sent them. Lee, in July, 1864, seeing this weakness on the Potomac, directed General Early to capture Washington. Early arrived almost within pistol-shot of the White House, and would have taken the city if he had not delayed his final attack. General Lew Wallace, with a handful of intrepid Maryland militia, threw himself upon Early, and, although repulsed, so demoralized the Confederates by the vigor of his charge, that they were delayed a day in the proposed march into Washington, which they could have accomplished easily. On the following day, seeing before him the cross of the Sixth Army Corps, which Grant had hastily forwarded, Early turned and fled, leaving his wounded behind.

Thus, in the case of Grant himself is demonstrated the wisdom. of Stanton's resolute determination to preserve the seat of Government in safety as well as the folly of Grant's criticism of that determination. On this vital point Major A. E. H. Johnson says:

It was the wonder of the President and of Stanton at this time that Grant seemed oblivious to the danger of Washington until it was almost too late, for it was only at the last moment that he sent troops from the James by water to save the city. The President was in great alarm and Mr. Stanton told me to take to my home the bonds and gold (about $6,000) I had in the War Department safe belonging to Mrs. Stanton, and I kept them under my bed. Colonel Stager, superintendent of the Military Telegraph, seeing the danger, asked Mr. Stanton for leave to go home for a few days and was refused with the reply: "We must all leave soon unless relief comes."

It is a singular fact that during this alarming time Mr. Stanton did not send a single telegram to Grant, but President Lincoln told him to

come to Washington with all the troops he could bring, after having made his position secure. Mr. Stanton made no demand on Grant for protection; he sent him no telegrams for troops, but he called loudly upon the governors for help or the capital would be lost, thus showing not only a marvelous regard for Grant but his own inexhaustible resources.

(h) "The enemy would not have been in danger if Mr. Stanton had been in the field," is the concluding sentence of the paragraph quoted from page 573 of Grant's "Memoirs."

From the moment he entered the cabinet Stanton exerted every power of the Government to furnish men and means to his generals. Not only so, but he created a fleet of gun-boats which drove the insurgent navy down the Mississippi and captured Memphis; provided means to destroy the dreaded Merrimac; went in person to blockade the James and capture Norfolk, and rescued Rosecrans at Chattanooga by a bold and energetic stratagem not thought of or deemed possible of execution by others.

His own plans were not only admirable from a military standpoint and executed with great energy, but they were decisive in averting or retrieving national disasters brought about by the failures or inactivity of his generals. He acted after all about him had failed, and with supreme success.

Adjutant-General Townsend, a thoughtful and faithful Christian and a competent and experienced militarist, writes:

I consider the insinuation conveyed in the sentence "the enemy would not have been in danger if Mr. Stanton had been in the field," as a gratuitous and base attempt to throw contumely on the memory of a great man. It means either that Mr. Stanton was a coward or had not the talent to conduct a military campaign.

In the first place, emphatically, Mr. Stanton was no coward. In the second place, if he had made military science an active business, there is every reason to believe that his habit of going to the bottom of whatever subject he had to deal with would have enabled him to arrange all details so as to make him a power in directing military movements. The most successful general is the one who skilfully and carefully prepares his army with food, ammunition, etc., ascertains the topography of his field of operations; knows the enemy's strength, quality, and position and, in short, himself attends to all essential details and then strikes with vigor, and strikes again with more vigor.

This Mr. Stanton would have done. This he always did.

The flings at Mr. Stanton found in the second volume of Grant's "Memoirs," I must say do not sound like Grant. As I read them they excited keen regrets that so remarkable a book should be scarred in so painful

a manner.

Thus, considerable space is taken to refute scriatim certain misstatements appearing in the so-called "Personal Memoirs of Ulysses Simpson Grant." Grant's great name and the faith of the people in the absolute purity of his motives and the reliability of his utterances render such a course unavoidable. The fact is, however, that Grant never wrote, saw, or inspired those falsehoods.

On Thursday, July 2, 1885, three weeks before his death, he handed to Dr. Douglas, one of his physicians, a very remarkable paper in which he stated that, in his condition, "life was not worth living," adding: "I am thankful to have been spared this long, because it has enabled me to practically complete the work [less than one volume] in which I take so much interest. I cannot stir up strength enough to review it and make the additions and substitutions that would suggest themselves to me but not to any one else." On this point the testimony of Colonel N. E. Dawson of Washington, for years Grant's confidential secretary, is very important. He says:

Some weeks before the General's death, seeing that he could not long survive, we set about finishing his "Memoirs" and adding notes and dates which had been omitted, consulting and relying on such books and documents as he had indicated.

On completing this work I announced my readiness to read the draft to him for his correction and approval. He seemed very much pleased to know that the work was done, but said he was weak and would not begin reading until morning.

The following day found him weaker instead of stronger, and suffering deeply; and so did each succeeding day thereafter till the end came, and the reading never took place.

After his death the publishers were in a rush for the manuscript, and it was sent off in an irresponsible sort of way without any one in authority realizing that it contained statements which I know the General would not have permitted to go to the public and which reflect no sentiments that he ever entertained.

Thus we see that Grant not only never wrote the untruths that appear in his "Memoirs" concerning Stanton, and never saw them, but that they "reflect no sentiment he ever entertained"!

When the minds of the people are poisoned by the circulation of slanders in the name of one so great as Grant, who can refrain from expressing disgust at the general rottenness of much that is extant as "history"?

CHAPTER LXVI.

HEROIC POLITICS - GREAT SPEECHES FOR GRANT.

In Buchanan's cabinet, although a Democrat, Stanton constantly advised with the Republican leaders because he had found too many of his own party embroiled in secession; and when Lincoln succeeded to the presidency, he denounced the partisan trend which the new administration was giving to the management of the war. His letters to Judge Barlow emphatically opposed making General McClellan, just taking the field, the leader of the Democratic party, and, while the insurrection continued, he demanded that loyal men only, regardless of political belief, be appointed or elected to office.

Generals Grant, Sheridan, and Butler-all war Democratstestify that Stanton more than once urged upon them the necessity of military success in order to favorably influence on-coming elections, and he never failed to contribute to the defeat of candidates not known to be in sympathy with the war. In 1863 he wanted the Union forces of Pennsylvania to nominate General W. S. Hancock for governor, but Governor A. G. Curtin was not only renominated but secured such thorough control of the convention that a resolution endorsing Stanton was rejected with a roar of hostility.

Later the Democrats met and nominated Judge G. W. Woodward (who had declared from the bench that the draft was unconstitutional) to oppose Curtin. Thereupon, the cry being that “a vote for Woodward is a vote for McClellan," McClellan being already in the field for the presidency and supporting Woodward, Stanton rallied the enormous influence of his Department in favor of Curtin and helped to give him a great majority.

In June, 1864, the administration forces renominated Lincoln at Baltimore, but defeat at the polls was for some time anticipated by Lincoln and nearly everybody else except Stanton.

The convention adopted a platform demanding the retirement of any cabinet officer not in accord with the ruling elements of the administration-a direct blow, it was alleged, at Postmaster-Gen

eral Blair. But as Lincoln did not act on that demand; as the entire influence of the South, through disunionists in the North, was exerted in behalf of McClellan (who had, in the meantime, been nominated for the presidency by the Democrats) and as the radical party of the North had nominated General John C. Fremont for president and General John Cochrane for vice-president, the administration ticket seemed to be in danger of defeat. At this moment the following letter was sent to seventeen loyal governors:

Private and Confidential.
Your Excellency:

New York, September 2, 1864.

The undersigned have been requested by an influential body of Unionists to communicate with the loyal governors for the purpose of eliciting replies to the following queries:

1. In your judgment is the election of Mr. Lincoln a probability? 2. In your judgment can your State be carried for Mr. Lincoln?

3. In your judgment do the interests of the Union party and of the country require the substitution of another candidate in place of Mr. Lincoln?

In making these inquiries we express no opinion of our own and request yours only for the most private and confidential use.

Yours truly,

Horace Greeley, Editor of the Tribune.

Park Godwin, Editor of the Evening Post.
Theodore Tilton, Editor of the Independent.

Several, probably a majority, of the war governors thus addressed, communicated with Stanton before replying. His advice. was prompt and decisive, as his letter to Governor J. Gregory Smith of Vermont, attests:

In replying to yours of the 6th enclosing the circular of Messrs. Greeley, Godwin, and Tilton asking my opinion thereon, I have no hesitation in declaring that the only promise of success in November lies in a clear field and an undivided North for President Lincoln. This is no time to discuss his mistakes, and whatever they may be thought to have been, any other person as president probably would have made as many or more. The Union cannot be saved by dividing its support, a fact which ought to be as patent to Greeley, et al, as it is to our enemies.

A majority of the governors replied to the Greeley-GodwinTilton letter along the line indicated in Stanton's communication; Lincoln (on September 23) called on Blair to resign and Fremont and Cochrane withdrew, the latter taking the hustings with great effect against McClellan.