but a small number here; the greater number sleep in distant states, thousands and tens of thousands of them of whom there is no record. We only know that fighting for freedom and union they fell, and that the place where they fell was their sepulchre. The Omniscient One alone knows who they are and whence they came. But when their immortal names are called from their silent muster, when their names are spoken, the answer will come back, as it was the custom for many years in one of the French regiments when the name of De la Tour d'Auvergne was called, the answer came back, 'Died on the field of honor.' America has volumes of muster-rolls containing just such a record. "Mr. President and comrades of the Grand Army of the Republic, our circle is narrowing with the passing years. Every annual roll-call discloses one and another not present, but accounted for. There is a muster-roll over yonder as well as a muster-roll here. The majority of that vast army are fast joining the old commanders who have preceded them on that other shore. 'They are gone who seemed so great Gone! but nothing can bereave them Of the force they made their own And that they wear a truer crown Than any wreath that man can weave them. Speak no more of their renown, And in the vast cathedral leave them. God accept them; Christ receive them.' Metropolitan Opera House, New York, May 30, 1889. ULYSSES S. GRANT. "Mr. President, Citizens of Galena, Ladies and Gentlemen:-I cannot forbear at the outset to express to you the very great honor that I feel in being permitted to share with you, at the city of Galena, in the observance of the seventy-first anniversary of the birth of that great soldier who once belonged to you, but now, as Stanton said to Lincoln, 'belongs to the ages.' No history of the war could be written without mentioning the state of Illinois and city of Galena. They contributed the two most conspicuous names in the great civil conflict, the civil and military rulers-Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant. No history of Ulysses S. Grant can be written without there coming unbidden from every lip the name Galena, and no faithful biography of the great soldier will ever omit the name of his cherished friend, General John A. Rawlins, also a resident of your city. You have a proud history; Grant gave his sword and his services to his country at Galena, and gave the country back to the people at Appomattox. He presided over the first Union meeting ever held in Galena, and he presided over the greatest Union meeting ever held beneath the flag at Appomattox. He was little known at the first meeting; the whole world knew him at the last. "We are not a nation of hero-worshipers. Our popular favorites are soon counted. With more than a hundred years of national life, crowded with great events and marked by mighty struggles, few of the great actors have more than survived the generation in which they lived. Nor has the nation or its people been ungenerous to its great leaders, whether as statesmen or soldiers. The republic has dealt justly, and I believe liberally, with its public men. Yet less than a score of them are remembered by the multitude, and the student of history only can call many of the most distinguished but now forgotten names. How few can recall the names of the presidents of the United States in the order of their administrations; fewer still can name the governors of Illinois, and the United States senators who have represented this state in that great legislative body. "This distinguished citizen, whose life we commemorate, and the anniversary of whose birth we pause to celebrate to-day, was born at Point Pleasant, Clermont county, Ohio, on April 27, 1822. His early life was not eventful. It did not differ from that of most of the boys of his time, and gave no more promise than that of the multitude of youth of his age and station, either of the past or present. Of Scottish descent, he sprang from humble but industrious parents, and with faith and courage, with a will and mind for work, he confronted the problem of life. "At the age of seventeen he was sent as a cadet to the West Point Military Academy; his predecessor having failed to pass the necessary examination, the vacancy was filled by the appointment of young Grant. At the academy he was marked as a painstaking, studious, plodding, persistent pupil, who neither graduated at the head nor the foot of his class, but stood number twenty-one in a class of thirty-nine. His rank at graduation placed him in the infantry arm of the service, and in 1843 he was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the Fourth United States Regulars. No qualities of an exceptional nature showed themselves up to this point in the character of the young officer. "His first actual experience in war was in Mexico. Here he distinguished himself, and was twice mentioned in general orders for his conspicuous gallantry. He was twice brevetted by the President of the United States for heroic conduct at the battles of Monterey, Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Chapultepec, and Molino del Rey. After the war with Mexico he was stationed with his regiment on the northern frontier, and subsequently on the Pacific coast in Oregon and California, in which latter station he saw much trying service with the Indians. On July 31, 1854, he resigned his commission in the army, after eleven years' service therein-a service creditable to him in every particular, but in not sense so marked as to distinguish him from a score of others of equal rank and opportunity. "He was successful from the very beginning of his military command. His earliest, like his later blows, were tellingly disastrous to the enemy. First at Paducah, then defeating Polk and Pillow at Belmont; again at Fort Henry, which he captured. Then he determined to destroy Fort Donelson, and with rare coolness and deliberation he settled himself down to the task, which he successfully accomplished on February 16, 1862. After two days of severe battle, 12,000 prisoners and their belongings fell into his hands, and the victory was sweeping and complete. He was immediately commissioned major-general of volunteers, in recognition of his brilliant triumph, and at once secured the confidence of the president and trusting faith of the loyal North, while the men at the front turned their eyes hopefully to their coming commander. His famous dispatch to General Buckner, who had proposed commissioners to negotiate for capitulation-No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted; I propose to move immediately upon your works'-electrified the country, and sent cheer to every loyal heart at home and to the brave defenders in the field. It sounded the note of confidence and victory, and gave to the Union cause and lovers of the Union new and fervent hope. It breathed conscious strength, disclosed immeasurable reserve power, and quickened the whole North to grander efforts and loftier patriotism for the preservation of the Union. "On March 17, 1864, a little more than three years from his departure from Galena, where he was drilling your local company as a simple captain, Grant assumed the control of all the Federal forces, wherever located, and in less than fourteen months Lee's army, the pride and glory of the Confederate government, surrendered to the victorious soldier. It was not a surrender without resistance-skillful, dogged resistance. It was secured after many battles and fierce assaults, accompanied by indescribable toil and suffering, and the loss of thousands of precious lives. The battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, North Anna and Cold Harbor, and the siege of Petersburg, witnessed the hardest fighting and the severest sacrifices of the war, while the loss of brave men in the trenches was simply appalling. The historian has wearied in detailing them, and the painter's hand has palsied with reproducing the scenes of blood and carnage there enacted. General Grant not only directed the forces in front of Richmond, but the entire line of operation of all our armies was under his skillful hand and was moved by his masterful mind. The entire field was the theater of his thought, and to his command all moved as a symmetrical whole, harmonious to one purpose, centering upon one grand design. In obedience to his orders, Sherman was marching, fighting, and winning victories with his splendid army in Georgia, extending our victorious banners farther and deeper into the heart of the Confederacy; and all the while the immortal Thomas was engaging the enemy in another part of the far-stretching field, diverting and defeating the only army which might successfully impede the triumphant march of Sherman to the sea. Sheridan, of whom General Grant said the only instruction he ever required was 'to go in,' was going into the Shenandoah Valley, that disputed field, the scene of Stonewall Jackson's fame. Here his dashing army, driving by storm and strategy the determined forces of Early, sent them whirling back, stripped of laurels previously won, without either their artillery or battle-flags. Scofield had done grand work at Franklin, and later occupied Wilmington and Goldsboro, on the distant seacoast, with a view to final connection with SherThese movements, and more, absorbed the mind of the great man. commander. "The liberal terms given to Lee at Appomattox revealed in the breast of the hard fighter a soft and generous heart. He wanted no vengeance; he had no bitterness in his soul; he had no hates to avenge. He believed in war only as a means of peace. His large, brave, gentle nature made the surrender as easy to his illustrious foe as was possible. He said, with the broadest humanity: Take your horses and side-arms, all of your personal property and belongings, and go home, not to be disturbed, not to be punished for treason, not to be outcasts; but go, cultivate the fields whereon you fought and lost. Yield faithful allegiance to the old flag and the restored Union, and obey the laws of peace.' Was ever such magnanimity before shown by victor to vanquished? Here closed the great war, and with it the active military career of the great commander. "His civil administration covered eight years-two full terms as president of the United States. This new exaltation was not of his own asking. He preferred to remain general of the army with which he had been so long associated and in which he had acquired his great fame. The country, however, was determined that the successful soldier should be its civil ruler. The loyal people felt that they owed him the highest honors which the nation could bestow, and they called him from the military to the civil head of the government. His term commenced in March, 1869, and ended in March, 1877. It constituted one of the important periods of our national life. If the period of Washington's administration involved the formation of the Union, that of Grant's was confronted with its reconstruction, after the bitter, relentless, internal struggle to destroy it. It was a most delicate era in which to rule. It would have been difficult, embarrassing and hazardous to any man, no matter how gifted, or what his previous preparation or equipment might have been. Could any one have done better than he? We will not pause to discuss. Different opinions prevail, and on this occasion we do not enter the field of controversy; but, speaking for myself, I believe he was exactly the man for the place, and that he filled to its full measure the trust to which his fellow citizens called him. He committed errors. Who could have escaped them, at such a time and in such a place? He stood in his civil station battling for the legitimate fruits of the war, that they might be firmly secured to the living and to their posterity forever. His arm was never lifted against the right; his soul abhorred the wrong. His veto of the inflation bill, his organization of the Geneva Arbitration Commission to settle the claims of the United States against England, his strong but conciliatory foreign policy, his constant care to have no policy against the will of the people, his enforcement of the constitution and its amendments in every part of the Republic, his maintenance of the credit of the government and its good faith at home and abroad, marked his administration as strong, wise, and patriotic. Great and wise as his civil administration was, however, the achievements which made him 'one of the immortal few whose names will never die' are found in his military career. Carping critics have sought to mar it, strategists have found flaws in it, but in the presence of his successive, uninterrupted, and unrivaled victories, it is the idlest chatter which none should heed. He was always ready to fight. If beaten to-day, he resumed battle on the morrow, and his pathway was all along crowned with victories and surrenders, which silence criticism, and place him side by side with the mighty soldiers of the world. "With no disparagement to others, two names rise above all the rest in American history since George Washington-transcendently above them. They are Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant. Each will be remembered for what he did and accomplished for his race and for mankind. Lincoln proclaimed liberty to four million slaves, and upon his act invited 'the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God.' He has received the warm approval of the one, and I am sure he is enjoying the generous benediction of the other. His was the greatest, mightiest stroke of the war. Grand on its humanity side, masterly in its military aspect, it has given to his name an imperishable place among men, Grant gave irresistible power and efficacy to the Proclama |