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 TWO 
 
 COMMEMORATIVE ADDRESSES 
 
 ON 
 
 GENERAL GRANT. 
 
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TWO ADDRESSES 
 
 COMMEMORATIVE OF 
 
 GENERAL GRANT 
 
 DELIVERED AT 
 
 BOSTON, JULY 26, 1885, 
 
 AND 
 
 WORCESTEK, AUGUST 8, 1885. 
 
 BY 
 
 BR.-MAJOR-GENERAL CHARLES DEVENS. 
 
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 ' [i;Rt^<^TELY^PRKSr-XED,']^ 'o', J\' V 
 
 
 . O C ' ' J 
 
 PRESS OF CHARLES HAMILTON 
 311 Main Street. 
 
 1885, 
 
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ADDRESS. 
 
 PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 On July 26, 1885, a meeting of the citizens of Boston was 
 called at Faneuil Hall, at 12 M., to express their feeling on 
 receiving the sad intelligence of the decease of General Grant 
 on July 23. The meeting was opened by impressive remarks 
 from the Mayor, Hon. Hugh O'Brien, who concluded by inviting 
 His Excellency Governor Robinson to preside. After prayer 
 I>y Rt. Rev. Bishop Mallalieu, of New Orleans, and an eloquent 
 address by his Excellency, appropriate resolutions were presented 
 by Ex-Mayor F. 0. Prince. 
 
 General Devens said — 
 
 Your Excellency, Fellow-citizens: — 
 
 A NATION has watched by the djdng couch of its greatest 
 citizen. The leader of its armies in battle, the head of its 
 civil government in peace, anxiety, hope and fear have 
 contended, until at last it l)ecame certain that human eftbrts 
 were in vain, and that he who had been its tower of strength 
 in the hour of a people's agony was to pass from among 
 living men. Well may a nation swell the funeral cry for 
 him whose strong hand and daring heart secured and 
 protected its life. 
 
 As he has waited in the august majesty of impending 
 death there have seemed to gather round him the tender 
 memories of all who offered their lives for country in our 
 great civil strife. The crowds that collected about his 
 house in the great city, when some two or three months 
 ago his death seemed immediate, were not mere curiosity- 
 seekers — there were fathers and brothers ; there were 
 
mothers tli:it had uiven their .sons; there were girls 
 (elderly women now) who had given uj) their lovers. To 
 me these groups seem iiitinit(^ly ati'ecting, for they were 
 those who ill that struajrlc had parted forever from their 
 best and nohlest. To the jjreat chieftain who had led their 
 brave through so many a hot and bloody day they brought 
 the nuite ottering of their reverence and love, for it was 
 to liim they owed that those noble lives had not been 
 sacritiied in vain. As he was the chieftain, so he was the 
 representative of the Federal army ; that army which 
 springing from the people itself vindicated the integrity of 
 the American Union, swejjt from its States the curse of 
 slavery, and Hfted a nation to a higher and nobler life. 
 Long since that great army has passed away, yet it shall 
 not l)e forijotten that in its day and "cneration and in its 
 time and place it did for this country deeds worthy of 
 innnortal honor. It is twenty-four years since the great 
 l)attle-summer of 18B1. To each of us they have brought 
 joy and sorrow in their mingled web, but we turn back to 
 that time freshly still as the tolling bell and the muitled 
 drum announce that Grant has sunk to his tinal repose. 
 
 " Ne'er to the chambers where the mighty rest 
 Since their foimdation came a nobler guest." 
 
 To-da}^ is not one for criticism even if it l)e candid and 
 not unkindly. Our sense of loss is too acute, our emotions 
 are too keen. Nor perhaps at any time could those of us 
 who have followed him, who have known what it was to 
 lean upon that determined will, who have seen him with 
 the light of battle on his cheek, assume to speak of 
 him with the cold neutrality of impartial history. If to 
 that great tril)unal all must come we are not competent to 
 sit thereon as judges. Some future historian, some Park- 
 man, some Bancroft, shall compare iiim with the great 
 Captains of anticjuity or of modern history, shall weigh in 
 nice scales his successes or his failures, the means at his 
 command, the purposes he had in view, the results he 
 
finally accomplished, and shall then assign him his api)r()- 
 priate place. High although it must he, for this I shall 
 care little, for his name is written indelibly upon a nobler 
 list. His place is not with the Ca-sars and the Hannihals, 
 the Fredericks or Najjoleons and the conquerors of earth 
 who have waded to fame or empire through hh)od and 
 carnage, l>ut with those who in the hour of danger and 
 distress have borne upon their shoulders the weight of 
 mighty States, who have preferred patriotism, duty and 
 honor to any selfish aggrandizement, who have drawn the 
 sword reluctantly, who have sheathed it willingly when 
 the time for reconciliation had c(mie, and at the head of 
 whom stands peerless and immortal our own Washington. 
 His fame like that of Washington shall form forever one of 
 the brightest jewels in the radiant crown of the lve})ublic. 
 It shall broaden and widen as her domains shall spread, as 
 her vast and fertile wastes shall be peopled, and as great 
 cities shall rise where to-day only the hum of the wild bee 
 breaks the stillness of the fragrant air. Yet to no s^enera- 
 tion of men can he l)e all that he has been to us. Already 
 to many almost approaching middle life his achievements 
 are but historical. But with us, who were of his time, there 
 is a personal love and veneration toward him which cannot 
 be comnmnicated to others. All around him throughout 
 the broad land there stretches the wide circle of those who 
 perhaps never looked upon his bodily presence that feel 
 his loss as a personal grief. He has so inwrought himself 
 with their just and patriotic feeling in the years that are 
 past that to them the earth itself seems less fair, this 
 oforireous, irlowinir summer less bright, now that he is gone. 
 Willingly would I speak some words that shall tell the 
 love we have borne him, the honor in which we hold his 
 sreat deeds, the gratitude we have for all he has so 
 splendidly done, but I realize how poor my utterance is. 
 
 The mean and sordid pecuniary cares that vexed his 
 closing years of life but showed how truly resolute and 
 
6 
 
 uprit^'ht he was. In selecting men in military life in whom 
 to repose confidence, his view was singularly correct and 
 just : it might he said to be perfect. He was a soldier to 
 the inmost core ; he knew everything that he needed then 
 and made no mistakes. His education and studies had not 
 fitted him with the same iud<>ment in civil life. It was an 
 error of a trustful, generous nature that led him to stand 
 by those in whom he had once reposed confidence, even 
 after there was legitimate reason for distrust. He gave 
 generously and w^ithdrew reluctantly, and thus as a civilian 
 he was more than once grievously abused in official life. 
 That he should show the same disposition in dealing with 
 his private and personal affairs might have been anticipated. 
 But it was an error which most cruelly he was compelled 
 to answer. Betrayed by cunning, intriguing knaves, when 
 financial ruin came he met it with the old calm resolution. 
 He was ready at once to strip himself of all he possessed, 
 even of the very gifts which were the just memorials of his 
 fame, that he might satisfy those who had trusted in him. 
 Financial and commercial honor were as dear to him as 
 any other honor. Calmly and resolutely he devoted him- 
 self to those unaccustomed labors by which he hoped to 
 l)rovide for those he was to leave behind him, and although 
 racking pains always assailed him, although the weary 
 brain and the once strong hand from time to time refused 
 their office, he had the satisfaction of knowing that what he 
 had undertaken he had accomplished. Recognition of his 
 great services, even if somewhat tardily, came in his 
 restoration to that position in the army which he had 
 resigned in obedience to the call of the country, and it was 
 a profound gratification to him to feel, ere he passed 
 away, that the pecuniary future of his family would be 
 provided for. Let them believe that the tenderest love of 
 a grateful people will encompass them always. 
 
 It is twenty years since the only name worthy to be 
 mentioned with that of General Grant has passed into 
 
history. It seems like a caprice of fortune that while the 
 great soldier of the war of the Rebellion went almost 
 unscathed through an hundred lights, its great statesman 
 should die by the assassin's hand. As to the great Hebrew 
 chieftain who had led Israel through the Red Sea and the 
 desert, it was ordained that he should but look on the 
 promised land, so to Abraham Lincoln it was mven but to 
 know that the Union was restored, that his life's work was 
 done, and to die in the hour of final triumph. Between 
 these great men, from the day they met (and they had 
 never seen each other's faces until after nearly three years 
 of war) until the day Mr. Lincoln died, there had been the 
 most generous confidence, the most trustful regard, the 
 most firm faith that each had done in the past and would 
 do in the future the utmost possible to sustain the other. 
 How like a wonderful romance it reads, that in that time 
 of less than three years from a simple captain, whose ofier 
 of his services to the War Department was thought of so 
 little consequence that the letter, although since carefully 
 searched for, cannot be found, Grant had risen from rank 
 to rank until he b(!came the Lieutenant-General who was 
 to unite all the military springs of action in a single hand, 
 to govern them by a single will, to see (to use his own 
 expression) that the armies of the LTnion pulled no longer 
 "like a balky team," but were moved and animated l)y a 
 single purpose. Yet his way had not been one of uninter- 
 rui)ted success, and there had been no success that had not 
 been won by his own wisdom and courage. He had seized 
 and controlled the Ohio and held Kentucky in the Union, 
 he had opened the Tennessee and the Cumberland l)y the 
 victories of Forts Henry and Donelson, but the much- 
 misunderstood battle of Shiloh had reduced him, uncom- 
 })laining always, to a subordinate command under General 
 Halleck, whose own failure at Corinth finally gave to him 
 at last the command of all forces operating to open the 
 Mississippi. Again and again during the often repeated 
 
8 
 
 repulses from Vicks])urg there had been attempts to 
 remove him, mainly at the instance of those who did not 
 comprehend the vastness of the pro.blem with which he had 
 to deal. Mr. Lincoln had stood by him, saying in his 
 peculiar way, "I rather like that man, I guess I will try 
 him a little longer," until at last Vicksburg was taken by a 
 movement marked with the audacity of a master in the art 
 of war who dares to violate established rules and make 
 excei)tions when great emergencies demand that great risks 
 shall be run. The Fourth of July, 1863, was the proudest 
 day the armies of the Union up to that time had ever 
 known, for the thunders of the cannon that announced in 
 the East the great victory of Gettysburg were answered 
 from the West by those that told that the Mississippi in all 
 its mighty length ran unvexed to the sea. 
 
 His victory at Chattanooga followed the placing of the 
 armies of the West under his sole control, and the time 
 had come when he was to direct the armies of the whole 
 Union. His place was thereafter with the Army of the 
 Potomac, as the most decisive point of struggle, although 
 its immediate command remained with General Meade. 
 It was only thus and through its vicinity to the Capital 
 that he could direct every military operation. As he 
 entered upon the great campaign of 1864, Mr. Lincoln 
 said, "If there is anything wanting which is within my 
 power to give, do not fail to let me know it. And now 
 with a l)rave army and a just cause may God sustain you." 
 And General Grant had answered, "Should my success be 
 less than I desire or expect, the least I can say is the fault 
 is not with you." Side by side they stood together thus 
 through all the desperate days that ensued, until in April, 
 1865, the terrific and protracted struggle was ended 
 l)etween the two great armies of the East ; the long tried, 
 always faithful Army of the Potomac held its great rival, 
 the Army of North Virginia, in the iron embrace of its 
 gleaming wall of bayonets, and the sword of Lee was laid 
 
in the conquering hand of Grant. Side by side Lincohi 
 and Grant will stand forever in the Pantheon of history, 
 and somewhere in the eternal plan we would willingly 
 believe those great spirits shall yet guard and shield the 
 land they loved and served so well. 
 
 Whatever General Grant's errors or his weaknesses — 
 and he was mortal — like the spots on the sun they but 
 show the brightness of the surroundino; surface, and we 
 readily forget them as we remember the vast debt we owe. 
 Whether without him we could have achieved success, it 
 is certain that onlv through him we did achieve success. 
 He was thoroughly patriotic, and his patriotism sprang 
 from his faith in the American Union. He had been 
 educated to the service of the Government ; he had looked 
 to this rather than to the parties that exist under it, whose 
 zeal sometimes leads men to forget that there can be no 
 I)arty success worth having that is not for the benefit of all. 
 His political affiliations were slight enough, perhaps, but 
 they had not been with the party that elected Mr. Lincoln. 
 He knew well, however, that this frame of government 
 once destroyed could never be reconstructed. He had no 
 faith in any theory which made the United States powerless 
 to protect itself. He comprehended fully the real reason 
 why the Slave States, dissatisfied with just and necessary 
 restraint, sought to extricate themselves from the Union, 
 and he knew that a war commencing for its integrity would 
 broaden and widen until it became one for the liberty of 
 all men, and there was neither master nor slave in the land. 
 His letter to his brother-in-law, lately published, although 
 written during the first week of the war, his written 
 remark to General Buckner, in their interesting interview 
 just before he died, "that the war had been worth all that 
 it had cost," show how strongly he felt that, purified by the 
 fires of the Rebellion, the Union had risen grand and more 
 august among nations. Who shall say he was not right? 
 Who shall say that if all the noble lives so freely offered 
 2 
 
10 
 
 could he restored, hut with them must return the once 
 disrordMHi Union with its system of shivery, they who gave 
 would consent to have them purchased at such a price? 
 
 General (Jrant was not of those who supposed that the 
 conflict with the South was to he any summer's day 
 campaign ; he knew the position of the South, its resources, 
 its military capacity, and the fact that acting on the defen- 
 sive it would move its armies on interior lines. He 
 recognized the difficulty in dealing with so vast an extent 
 of territory, and he knew that in a war with a hostile people 
 rather than a hostile army only w^e could often hold but the 
 tracts of territory immediately under our camp tires. Yet 
 he never doubted of ultimate success. He never believed 
 that this country was to l)e rent assunder by faction 
 or dragged to its doom by traitors. He said to General 
 Badeau once, who had asked him if the prospect never 
 a})palled him, that he had always felt perfectly certain 
 of success. Thus though to him many days were dark 
 and disastrous, none were despondent. "The sim})le faith 
 in success you have always manifested," said Sherman 
 to him, "I can liken to nothing else than the faith a 
 Christian has in the Saviour." His remarkable persistence 
 has caused him sometimes to be looked on as a mere 
 dogged tighter. No suggestion could be more preposter- 
 ous. He felt sure of his plan l)efore he commenced, then 
 temporary obstructions and difficulties did not dismay him, 
 and whatever were the checks he went on with resolution 
 to the end. 
 
 If stern and unyielding in the hour of contlict, in the 
 hour of victory no man was ever more generous and 
 magnanimous. He felt always that those with whom we 
 warred were our erring countrymen, and that when they 
 submitted to the inevitable changes that war had made, 
 strife was at an end. But he never proposed to yield or 
 tamper with what had been won for liberty and humanity 
 in that strife. 
 
11 
 
 He has passed beyond our mortal sight — sustained and 
 soothed by the devotion of friends and comrades, by the 
 love of a people, by the affectionate respect and regard of 
 many once in arms against him. In that home where he 
 was almost worshipped, "he has wrapped the drapery of 
 his couch about him" as one that lies down to pleasant 
 dreams. Front to front on many a field he had met the 
 grim destroyer where the death-dealing missiles rained 
 thick and fast from the rattling rifies and the crashing 
 cannon. He neither quailed nor blenched, although death 
 came at last with a summons that could not l)e" denied, 
 when all that makes life dear was around him. He could 
 not but know he was to live still in memory as long as the 
 great flag around which his fighting legions rallied should 
 wave above a united people. To most men the call of 
 death is terrible ; 
 
 r 
 
 " But to the hero wheu his sword has wou 
 
 The battle of the free 
 That voice sounds iiice a prophet's word, 
 And in its hollow tones are heard 
 
 The thanks of millions yet to be." 
 
 i.ofO. 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 On August 8, 1885, the day of the funeral ceremonies of 
 General Grant, a meeting of the citizens of Worcester called by 
 the City Council, was held on the Common. Business in the 
 city was suspended and a vast multitude assembled. His 
 Honor Mayor Charles G. Reed presided, and after prayer by 
 Rev. D. O. Mears, D.D., aud introductory remarks, presented 
 U. 8. Senator Hoar. Mr. Hoar's address w^as followed by that 
 of General Devens, and the exercises were concluded by an 
 eloquent address from the Rev. Fr. Conaty. 
 
 General Devens said — 
 
 Mr. Mayor, F ellow -citizens : — 
 
 When we who were soldiers of the Army of the Potomac 
 first saw General Grant he was already illustrious. The 
 great battles on the Cumberland and Tennessee had been 
 fought. Already the Mississippi rolled proudly to the 
 sea ; no rebel fortresses frowned from its banks, no rel)el 
 squadrons cruised upon its waters. His great victory at 
 Chattanooga had repaired the disaster of Chickamauga, 
 and the West seemed to be coming firmly within our grasp. 
 Yet the war was pressing heavily, enormous del)ts were 
 being contracted, thousands of brave men had fallen, and 
 it was seen that thousands must yet fall ])efore we could 
 achieve the task we had undertaken. No wiser act was 
 ever done by Congress than that which created for him the 
 oflice of Lieutenant-General, whoso station might be with 
 either army as he might select, but whose control and 
 dire(;tion was to be over all. His command over all the 
 
14 
 
 armies operating west of the Alleghanies had fully demon- 
 strated his vast powers of combination, his capacity for the 
 widest fields of strategy, as well as his terrific energy in 
 battle when, this great responsibility was placed upon him. 
 "If I succeed," he said solemnly, as he received his 
 commission from the hands of the President, "it will be 
 due to our brave armies, and above all to the favor of that 
 Providence which leads both nations and men." 
 
 He had been urged in accepting this high command to 
 remain with the armies of the West. "Stay with us," 
 said Sherman, "let us make it dead sure," but in the hands 
 of Sherman himself and Thomas the West was "dead 
 sure" ah-eady, and Grant knew that the time had come 
 when he must more immediately measure himself " with 
 the foremost army of the Confederacy led by its foremost 
 man." He knew that to the great struo:g:le between the 
 armies of the Potomac and of Northern Viroinia other 
 operations, vast although they were, were subsidiary only. 
 Two more tried, determined, better armies the world had 
 never seen. Battle, disease, defeat had wasted both, 
 victory had rewarded both, l)ut for either to rout the 
 other had been impossible. Each when it won, had gained 
 ))ut a few miles or it might be rods of territory. Each as 
 it drew oiF from a day of disaster drew off sternly in 
 perfect order, and hke "slow Ajax fighting still" retired. 
 
 How complete General Grant's control was over every 
 organization of the United States Army from the day he 
 took supreme command, the records of the War Depart- 
 ment ])car witness ; as complete in general direction over 
 that with which Sherman marched to the sea or that which 
 Thomas directed to its splendid victory at Nashville as 
 over that of the Army of the Potomac. Neither could 
 falter or hesitate for advice or direction that he was not 
 ready to afford it ; neither needed encourag-ement or ursrino: 
 that he was not ready to speak the words which the 
 occasion demanded. Over the vast realm where the 
 
15 
 
 gigantic conflict was raging that eagle eye ranged with 
 far-seeing watchful gaze, anxious that nothing, however 
 s>nall, should escape his care in that one determined [)ur- 
 pose of crushing the rebellion. While the great l)attle of 
 the Wilderness was being fought around him he was send- 
 ing despatches to Sherman, more than a thousand miles 
 away, as to his campaign. 
 
 That his military genius was vast and comprehensive no 
 one can question or deny. As a general he was thoroughly 
 aggressive, alike from natural character and from the 
 military position in Avhich he was always placed. He felt 
 deeply the suggestions sometimes made that he was hard 
 and stern, or that he ever risked the life of a man need- 
 lessly. He knew well that from his constant attacks his 
 losses must of necessity be greater than that of the army he 
 opposed, but he believed that (the advantage of position in 
 standing on the defensive being always with the rebel 
 army) the true way to close the war was to strike reso- 
 lutely and hard, and that this was not in the long run to 
 sacrifice, but to save life, although the immediate loss 
 might be severe. No man ever felt more fully that the 
 life of every soldier was his in solemn trust, and that it 
 must not be wantonly imperilled. "I can not do that," 
 he said once to General Halleck, who had recommended a 
 particular attack, "it might succeed, but it would cost the 
 lives of more men than I have a right to risk for such an 
 advantage." 
 
 He is often spoken of as if there were something myste- 
 rious about his character, as if there were some riddle to 
 unravel. This is evidently an error; no man had less 
 desire to deceive others or less capacity to do it. He kept 
 his own counsel it is true. He worked out his plans care- 
 fully, but he was ready always to hear those who had any 
 thing worth hearing. He carefully watched the plans of 
 those opposed to him, using every available means to 
 enlighten himself. He thoughtfully sought to learn what 
 
16 
 
 was the best thing for an opi)onent to do, and assumed that 
 he would do it. If his opponent did any thing less than 
 this so much the worse for him. He had measured himself 
 in his career with every great general of the Confederacy ; 
 he respected their abilities, l)ut he had seen no reason to 
 distrust his own. He had confidence in his own judgment, 
 not from any silly or inflated vanity, but because he 
 believed he had mastered the prol)lems submitted to it. 
 Nothing was ever done l)y him in any half-hearted way 
 or as if he felt that something better might have been 
 attempted. 
 
 No general ever lived more calmly resolute. He by no 
 means despised the wisdom of thase who have written upon 
 the art of war, or the soundness of the more general princi- 
 ples which experience has prescribed. But he was no 
 soldier of the book or the school, and he dared to violate 
 them when great occasion demanded. Alone in that army 
 that beleaguered Vicksburg, surrounded by chiefs who 
 shrank from no danger through which courage could con- 
 duct them, he matured his final plan for its capture, know- 
 ing that any council of war would condemn it as too 
 hazardous. Silent and self-contained, alone he determined 
 upon it, never flinching, never doubting from the time his 
 plan had its first conception until its triumphant close, he 
 achieved the grand result by taking counsel of his own 
 calm reflection, his own indomitable will, his own daring 
 heart. 
 
 He was a thoroughly generous and just man in relation 
 to the officers with whom he was associated, to the armies 
 he led, to the armies to which he was opposed. It is hard 
 for a soldier to he generous in matters which concern his 
 own glory and renown, yet in regard to Fort Donelson and 
 Shiloh he was so generous to his subordinates that his 
 cordial words were used most unjustly to depreciate his 
 ow^n reputation and to detract from his own merits. He 
 could not leave the armies of the West without thanking 
 
17 
 
 them and their leaders for their devotion and expressing to 
 them how strongly he felt, that all he had won for the 
 country or gained for himself was due to them ; yet he was 
 not less just to the brave array to which he more immedi- 
 ately came. When the preparations for the last struggle 
 in the spring of 1865 were being completed, there was a 
 profound anxiety on his part that the war should he ended 
 at once, and that Lee and Johnston should neither unite nor 
 escape. Yet, when it was proposed to l)ring troops from 
 the Western armies to add to the strength of the Army of 
 the Potomac he opposed it. He felt it to be unwise, that 
 jealousies would arise with the troops of the army of the 
 West, each claiming that the victory was its own. He 
 felt that it would not be generous to the Army of the 
 Potomac. He had full confidence in its strenoth and 
 courage to finish its work, and it would not l)e just that 
 any other army should divide with it its final triumph. 
 How well and thoroughly that great army struck its final 
 blow, Appomattox testifies, and the surrender shows how 
 generously he dealt with those who then laid down their 
 arms. It was but in the line of the course he had pursued 
 at Fort Donelson and Vicksburg. While he meant that 
 the full fruits of the victory should be secured, while he 
 never faltered in his determination that the permanency of 
 the government siiould be clearly vindicated, while he 
 never questioned that the States lately in rebellion could 
 only be restored with every guaranty that the freedom of 
 the race once enslaved should be protected, he would 
 prescribe no conditions of surrender that could in any sense 
 be deemed to be humiliating. 
 
 We can not to-day undertake to fix with accuracy the 
 character of our heroic leader by comparison with others 
 whom history has rendered immortal, yet there is one 
 historical sketch that bears so many points of resemblance 
 that I shall venture to quote it. It was with much interest 
 a few months since that we celebrated the founding of this 
 3 
 
18 
 
 town 200 years ago by three soldiers [one an officer of 
 rank], who had served under Cromwell, and who, perhaps, 
 had seen him that morning when in the pouring rain in 
 which the battle of Worcester began, he rode down the 
 line and bade his soldiers to "Trust in the Lord and keep 
 their powder dry." The description which Macaulay gives 
 of the great Puritan leader, whom our fathers loved and 
 honored, finds almost its perfect parallel in General Grant. 
 It is in an altogether imaginary dialogue, assumed to have 
 been between the royalist poet Cowley and John Milton. 
 I read the words as Milton is supposed to utter them, 
 omitting but an unimportant fragment: "Because he was 
 an ungraceful orator, and never said either in public or 
 private anything memorable, you will have it that he was 
 of mean capacity. Sure this is unjust. Many men have 
 there been ignorant of letters, without wit, without 
 eloquence, who yet had the wisdom to devise and the 
 courage to perform tliat which they lacked language to 
 explain. Such men often have worked out the deliverance 
 of nations and their own greatness, not by logic, not l)y 
 rhetoric, but by wariness in success, by calmness in danger, 
 by firm and stubborn resolution in all adversity. The 
 hearts of men are their books ; events are their tutors ; 
 great actions are their eloquence ; and such a one in my 
 judgment was his late Highness. * * * His own deeds 
 shall avouch him for a great statesman, a great soldier, 
 a true lover of his country, a merciful and generous 
 conqueror." 
 
 Fellow-citizens, it is a solemn day on which we part 
 from ail that was mortal in this illustrious man. If it be a 
 day of mourning it is one of thankfulness and gratitude 
 also. If much is taken from us it is because much was 
 given to us. I contrast the not^le and beautiful death of 
 this patriot soldier with that of the mightiest conqueror 
 Europe ever knew, and bow in reverence before the great 
 
19 
 
 Controller of events who has ordained that even in this 
 world men are rewarded ac(;ording to their works. 
 
 There is in the Corcoran Gallery at Washino-ton the 
 l>eautiful statue by Vela of Napoleon as he is dying at 
 St. Helena. It is the saddest thing upon whi(;h my eyes 
 have ever looked. The Emperor is sitting with his morn- 
 ing gown half wrapped around his naked breast and on his 
 lap lies outspread the map of Europe. The face, of 
 wondrous beauty, is of unutterable grief. Wasted oppor- 
 tunities, disappointed ambition, remorse — have set upon it 
 their ineffaceable seal. His wife is far away, his only son 
 a prisoner at the Austrian Court. Upon the throne of 
 France, trampled as she is under the feet of the armies of 
 Europe, sits again a Bourbon King, held there by foreign 
 bayonets. He seems to recall the brave who have died by 
 thousands, not that man might be nobler and better, but 
 to minister to his thirst for dominion, his insatiate passion 
 for power. He seems to remember that by his own acts 
 he has brought ruin upon the people who had loved him 
 devotedly and upon himself. In those last days, says his 
 biographer, M. Thiers, he talked much of his old compan- 
 ions. "Shall I see them again, Desaix and Lannes, Murat 
 and Ney." Ah, what comfort could there be in that — 
 Lannes, who on the field of Essling, dying, had said to 
 him, "Sire, you will ruin everything by these constant 
 wars," or Murat and Ney who for him had died deaths not 
 altogether honorable to themselves, even if disgraceful to 
 those who inflicted them. Or what comfort to him to see 
 again that splendid youth of France who had followed him 
 from the sands of Egypt to the snows of Eussia, the only 
 reward of whose valor had been the destruction of their 
 own liberty and country. 
 
 As we turn in sorrow from this scene which the cunning 
 hand of the artist has made so life-like, we behold that 
 which has been enacted almost before our own bodily eyes. 
 It is sixty-five years later and another sits in his chair to die. 
 
20 
 
 Upon him is the same mortal disease although in a far 
 more agonizing form. His face had never the Olympian 
 beauty of the great emperor ; it is marked now with the 
 heavy lines that princely care and rugged war have 
 impressed deep upon it, but it is grave and majestic still. 
 The broad brow and heavy jaw tell alike of the calm 
 thought and resolute will which show him fit to be among 
 the kings of men. He has led great armies on fields as 
 fiercelj^ contested as Wagram or Austerlitz, or Waterloo 
 itself, and a million of men have sprung at his trumpet-call. 
 He too has ruled as constitutional magistrate over a realm 
 broader and fairer than France itself. Life has to him 
 been labor and duty, and until tongue and hand and brain 
 refuse their oflice he labors still. Around him gathers 
 every thing that makes life beautiful, and parting from it 
 so hard, but there is no remorse, no thought of duties left 
 undone to the country which in its sore need called to him, 
 no obligations unfulfilled to those who had followed him to 
 danger and to death. The only woman he has ever loved 
 is there with tender hand to moisten the parched lips or 
 wipe the gathering death damp from his brow. Their 
 children and grandchildren are at their feet. From a 
 grateful country there has come up in a thousand forms the 
 utterances of love and reverence. Those lately in arms 
 against the cause he served have generously and tenderly 
 united in each expression of feeling. He looks abroad 
 over the country whose union he fought to preserve ; 
 everywhere there is peace and prosperity ; no hostile 
 armies trample the soil, no hostile l)ayonets flash back the 
 sun, the war drums long since are silent. The fields are 
 already white with the harvest, the great gateways on the 
 Atlantic and Pacific seas are open, and through them com- 
 merce pours its generous tide. Master and slave are 
 known no longer in the land where labor is honored and 
 manhood is revered. To him, too, in those dreaming and 
 waiting hours came the memories of those who have fallen 
 
21 
 
 in battle by his side, or yielding since to the remorseless 
 artillery of time, have gone before him. Even if he does 
 not utter them how well we may imagine the thoughts that 
 pass through his mind as he feels that he draws near to 
 them— "Shall I see them again, McPherson, Reynolds 
 and Sedgwick, as they died at the head of their army 
 corps, Rawlins, whom I loved as a brother. Hooker, as 
 when his cannon rang down from among the clouds on 
 Lookout's crest, Thomas, as he triumphed at Nashville, 
 Meade, as he dashed back the fierce charge at Gettysburg 
 or urged to the last dread struggle the ever faithful Army 
 of the Potomac? If it be so, I know they will meet me as 
 comrades and brothers. Nor those alone, not alone the 
 great chiefs who urged forward the fiery onset of mighty 
 battalions. Shall I see again the splendid youth of 1861 as 
 they came in all the ardor of their generous patriotism, in 
 all the fire of their splendid courage, to fill the ranks of our 
 arnn'es? Shall I see them as when through the valleys the 
 l)attle poured its awful tide, or as when the hills were made 
 red by their glorious sacrifice ? I am very near them now. 
 Almost I can behold them, although the light on their fiices 
 is that which never was on sea or land. Almost I can 
 hear their bugles call to me as the notes softly rise and fall 
 across the dark valley through which I must pass. I go to 
 them ; and I know there is not one that will not meet me 
 as a father and a friend." 
 
 Farewell, pure and noble citizen, wise and generous 
 statesman, illustrious soldier, farewell. By these solemn 
 rites which stretch from ocean to ocean, tenderly and tear- 
 fully and yet gratefully still, a nation surrenders back to 
 God the great gift which He gave in her hour of utmost 
 need. 
 
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