nd supply an army. Another calls Grant a great drillmaster, exhibiting
him as the teacher of his own generals. Another terms Grant a natural
engineer, with great gifts, but without detailed training. Another
speaks of him as the greatest soldier in history in the way of attack.
But when all these statements are combined, they tell us that Grant is
the great, all-round soldier of the war, who by natural gifts and long
experience could do many things, and all equally well. It is this that
explains the tributes to his military genius by foreign soldiers, and
the great masters of war in every land.

Grant's last campaign was against the capital of the Southern
Confederacy, as the key to the Atlantic coast, for until Richmond should
be taken and the Confederate government put to flight, the war would not
be broken. Therefore Grant concentrated all his forces upon that:--"I
will fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." In those awful
campaigns Grant came to be called "the butcher," for he was as pitiless
as fate, as unyielding as death. One outpost after another fell; one
Southern regiment after another surrendered. Battles became mere
slaughter-pits. Men went down like forest leaves; the army surgeons, at
the spectacle, grew sick; it seemed more like murder than war. The
Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Chickahominy, Petersburg, were names to make
one shudder. But Lee would not yield, and Grant had one watchword,
"Unconditional surrender."

At last, without food, without equipment, without arms, Southern
soldiers began to desert by thousands. Lee's army was reduced, his
supplies were cut off, his retreat to the mountains and any chance of
joining with Johnston from the Carolinas were blocked. Grant demanded
surrender to save further bloodshed.

On the morning of April 9, 1865, Grant and Lee met in peace conference.
Grant had on an old suit splashed with mud, and was without his sword;
Lee wore a splendid new uniform that had just been sent by admirers in
Baltimore. Lee asked upon what terms Grant would receive the surrender.
Grant answered that officers and men "Shall not hereafter serve in the
armies of the Confederate States or in any military capacity against the
United States of America, or render aid to the enemies of the latter,
until properly exchanged,"--all being then freed on parole. The horses
of the cavalry were the property of the men. And Grant said: "I know
that men--and indeed the whole South--are impov