the first under John Adams, in consequence of our dissensions with the French republic a provisional army was authorized, and the grade of lieutenant general was for the first time in our history created for its commander and conferred upon General Washington. It was accepted by him upon the express stipulation that he should not be called into service until the exigency for which the office was made, an invasion of the United States by France, should actually occur. During the recess which followed the adjournment it was understood that General Washington was not entirely pleased with his new rank, because in his opinion it was inferior to that which he had held in the revolutionary war as General and Commander-in-Chief. In deference to these scruples, when the same Congress held its third session, it authorized the President to appoint and commission an officer who should be styled "General of the armies of the United States." I have not been able || to discover that the appointment under this power was ever made, and a presumption is raised that it was not by a return from the War Department in 1800, where General Washington is still registered as Lieutenant General, with the mournful affix "dead," a mere formal entry, but vividly suggesting, in connection with a name so illustrious, that-

"The paths of glory lead but to the grave." I had rested on this conviction until this morning, when happening to take up the Annals of Congress for 1801, I found in the resolves passed by Congress on the death of Washington, which occurred on the 10th of December, subsequent to the last act to which I have alluded, he is hailed by the resolutions 66 General of the armies of the United States," the precise language of the statute creating the grade of general. Whether this title was ever conferred upon him or not, it is unquestionably true that unless the apprehension of a war with France had subsided or his own death had intervened, he would doubtless have been General of the armies of the United States.

as

The theory of the organization of the higher grades of our Army evidently demands a general to complete and round off symmetrically the ascending scale of rank and authority. The appropriate command of a brigadier general is a brigade, of a major general a division, of a lieutenant general an Army corps, while to complete the system an officer of higher rank and of more comprehensive power and ability is required, who, unchallenged, may direct and supervise and impart unity and concert of plan and purpose to the operations of all the armies in the field.

And this theory is confirmed, without an exception, by the practice of the master nations of Europe, who, in the severe school of gigantic and protracted war, have learned military wisdom. It may be safely said that there is not a prominent nation in the world whose army organization does not culminate either in a general or a marshal. Prussia, with a peace establishment in 1863 of 210,675 men, had, in the same year, 63 major generals, 61 lieutenant generals, 34 generals, and two field marshals. Austria, with a peace establishment in 1863 of 263,825 men, had 303 major generals, 209 lieutenant generals, 42 generals, and three field marshals. England, with a total active regular force in 1863 of 192,583 men, had in 1864 186 major generals, 109 lieutenant generals, 68 generals, and five field marshals, the last grade being conferred only on royal personages, or general officers most distinguished for services in the field. France, with an army in 1862 of 467,357 men, had in 1861 292 generals of brigade, 175 generals of division, and 11 marshals of France.

But, Mr. Speaker, while this bill creating the grade of general commends itself to your favorable consideration by the symmetry and completeness it will impart to the graduated scale of rank in our Army, and while, too, it is vindicated by the example of those nations most distinguished for military ability and success, I

cannot claim that in our present circumstances, when the Army has just triumphantly emerged from the most terrible contest which can ever assail the integrity of our flag without a general to command, and when we are now engaged in reducing it to the peace establishment, that either the symmetry of grade or the practice and example of other nations constitute an adequate argument for the passage of this bill.

I must admit that the chief claim which it presents for your approval is as a recognition and reward of the extraordinary services of the Republic's most successful and most illustrious defender; and I am therefore constrained in placing the bill upon its merits to refreshen your remembrance of the obligations of the country to him in many desponding hours of its recent extremity and peril. I trust the House will do me the justice to believe that while I should have never volunteered to rehearse to it his exploits I am still less disposed to shrink from such a rehearsal when imposed upon me as a duty, and when it is essential to a full and just appreciation of a measure I am instructed to report. I should greatly have preferred that this duty should have been committed to some gentleman more capable of "gilding refined gold" or of celebrating that merit which is universally acknowledged than myself. If General Grant's claims upon his country were either doubted or impugned I should rejoice to appear in his defense; but unless I greatly mistake the temper of this House upon the question of his exalted deserts, no discordant opinions or conflicting sentiments are to be harmonized here.

Perhaps, however, before entering into a review of his claims upon the nation, it may be proper and pertinent to briefly advert to the rewards which other times and other nations have bestowed upon transcendent military service and ability. Far, far back, at the very dawn of history, indeed upon the very first page of man's tempestuous annals, writ in faded hieroglyphs on crumbling columns, we read that long anterior to these most ancient records, war had absorbed nearly all the attention and activities of the race, and that the victorious warrior, from the necessities of a constantly threatened and embroiled society, became of course the king and founder of dynasties. Sesostris, Ramases, Pharaoh, and the great military chieftains who gave to Babylon and Assyria their imperial ascendency, are the names of the Grants, the Shermans, and the Sheridans of that early day, promoted for martial service to an absolute sovereignty, transmissible by descent, over great empires. The war which for two lustrums raged round mighty Ilium was, you will remember, a war of kings who had acquired their scepters by previous prowess in the field. And to descend to later classic times, the names of Miltiades, Themistocles, Aristides, Epaminondas, will instantly occur to all as those of successful generals who were rewarded for military service by the chief civil position in their respective States; while the honors bestowed by Rome and Carthage on Cæsar and Hannibal illustrate the unbounded gratitude of those great martial nations to their defenders and deliverers.

Charlemagne won the iron crown with his sword. In the old régime of France the Luxembourgs, the Turennes, and the Condés, who reared and upheld the throne of the Bourbons, were invested with palaces, subsidies, and grants surpassing in splendor and magnificence the tales of enchantment or the dream of avarice. Even under the Empire dukedoms and royal titles and pomp were lavished by that large and warm imperial hand upon the successful general who pierced the enemy's center or bore the eagles triumphantly to the bristling crest of wavering battle, and gifts and estates were wrung from the nations they overran to maintain with more than oriental magnificence the dignity of the rank. England has always been prodigal of largesses to those who have vindicated her martial renown and extended her dominion. For the single victory of Blenheim, which dissolved the last coalition

and broke the colossal power of Louis XIV, Marlborough was created a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire with the principality Middlesheim attached, and upon his grand entrance into London was received with an ovation which reminded a classical spectator of those resplendent triumphs which swept over the Appian Way in the palmiest days of the mistress of the world. The extensive manor of Woodstock, once a royal palace-the scene of the loves of Henry II and the Fair Rosamond -was instantly conveyed to him in fee, and the royal comptroller was directed by the grateful Queen to rear for him the stately pile of Blenheim, which remains until to-day a splendid monument of the genius of the archi tect and the gratitude of a nation. For his subsequent victories an annuity of £5,000 a year charged upon the post office was settled upon him, and his dukedom, which was originally limited to his heirs male, was extended to his heirs female, "in order," as it was finely expressed, "that England might never be without a title which might recall the remembrance of so much glory." It has been estimated that the sum total of these grants exceeded five hundred thousand pounds.

Some of us can remember the Peninsular campaign; how with every packet we learned that the guns of the Tower were heralding some new triumphs of the English arms in Spain; how London was all ablaze with bonfires; how the Prince Regent at the opening of every Parliament announces some crowning victory of Wellington, and that he will raise him another step in the peerage, and solicits from his faithful Commons another hundred thousand pounds to sustain the style and dignity of the increased rank. Some of us remember that on the night when the news from Waterloo first reached Parliament £100,000 were instantly voted, and that the gratitude of the nation descended upon the Iron Duke in munificent grants and golden showers. Places, palaces, offices, and sinecures are fairly thrown at his feet. The aggregate of sums given to him, exclusive of salaries, exceeds £900,000, to say nothing of a snug little annuity of £2,000.

Our institutions it is said are popular, and that these regal benefactions are hostile to their genius and spirit, and yet the American people have not in the past been insensible to the claims of great military service to solid and substantial rewards, and have constantly solicited expressions of gratitude in harmony with the simplicity and frugality of our system. They rewarded General Washington for his military services in the Revolution by twice electing him to the Presidency. They rewarded General Jackson for his military services in the war of 1812 by twice electing him to the Presidency. It was his services in the same war which contributed vastly to the elevation of General Harrison to the same office, and but for his Mexican victories General Taylor never would have been President of the Uni ted States. The heroism of General Scott in two wars directed the attention of a great party to him as their candidate for the Presidency, and all parties united in conferring upon him the rank of lieutenant general as the only reward they could bestow upon his lifelong devotion to the defense and renown of our flag.

Now, I could safely challenge each one of this long line of heroes to come forth and present a claim upon national gratitude which cannot be met and overmatched by the claims upon us of that modest and reticent soldier who scattered the armies and destroyed the military power of a rebellion whose triumph would have buried the great republic of the world beyond the hope of resurrection. Tried by the crite rion of success, who of them can present a brighter, fairer, more unsullied record? Tried by the interests at stake, upon which of their swords did interests so momentous hang? Tried by the valor of the adversary, who of them ever encountered a foe so worthy of his steel? If in the sad and disheartening summer of 1863 it had been asked you, what rank will you con

fer

upon the general who silences the batteries at Vicksburg, that the Mississippi, through the bisected rebellion, might course unobstructed from the prairies to the Gulf; if it had been asked us at the close of the last session, what will you do for him who breaks the lines at Richmond and receives the sword of Lee, what soul in this House could have placed any limit or qualification upon its obligations?

Find a single martial enterprise in the whole history of mankind more serious in the obstacles to be overcome, more luminous as an example of heroism and endurance, more fatal to an enemy, more magnificent in its results, than the single enterprise of opening the Mississippi river; search the tide of time for a nation which was ever delivered from such depths and exalted to such a pinnacle of exultation by one single blow, as by that struck at Richmond in April last, which at the same time broke the head and paralyzed the extremities of the rebellion. War has been defined to be contention by force for the purpose of crippling or overwhelming an enemy; and in glancing at the history of our war it seems to me that we had made but little progress even in crippling our enemy until the inflexible will and martial energies of General Grant entered as an animating and directing soul into the armies of the Republic. Prior to his conspicuous appearance upon the grand arena we had met with many reverses and a few successes, but the reverses were most depressing to the national spirit and the successes had hardly penetrated the hide of the defiant monster which was confronting us. War had surged and resurged with alternate triumph and defeat over the devoted plains of Missouri. We had gained a lodgment on the coast of South Carolina; we held the sand spits of Hatteras, and we had dearly purchased a strategical position on Roanoke Island. But in neither of these affairs had we succeeded in actually debilitating the enemy, and from neither of these points had we been able to penetrate the enemy's country much beyond the range of our cannon. The first decided success which let in a glimpse of sunlight and lifted the cloud of despondency and exhilarated the national heart were the brilliant operations upon the Tennessee and the Cumberland. When, following hard upon the capture of Fort Henry, the country learned that Fort Donelson, strongly fortified by nature and art, had surrendered with its garrison of sixteen thousand prisoners, and that large sections of Kentucky and Tennessee were redeemed from rebel thralldom, we asked, with all the vehemence of kindling gratitude, to whom are we indebted for a vigor of operations and an earnestness of purpose which prove that military enterprise and heroism are not obsolete, and that there is still some hope for our drooping flag, and we were told that he who could say to a rebel general, "No other terms than an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted; I propose to move immediately upon your works,' was one of those worthy beneficiaries whom the nation had educated at its great military school; that he had won his spurs in the earliest battles of the Mexican war; that he had participated in that series of hardfought engagements which carried triumphantly the flag of the Republic from the shores of the Gulf to the lake-encircled citadel of the ancient Aztecs; that he had won his full grade of first lieutenant in those bloody hours when Molino del Rey succumbed to the impetuosity of our soldiery, and his brevet of captain on that day, ever memorable in our annals, when the steep and frowning heights of Chapultepec were carried, and the trembling city below implored the mercy of our artillery.

We were told that when the war was over, disgusted with the ennui which haunts a soldier on the peace establishment, he had resigned his commission as captain, but that when the rebellion struck the first tocsin he rushed to the defense of the flag under which he was trained and nurtured, and offered his services to Governor Yates, of Illinois; that he had organized the Illinois quota under the first call for troops; that, as colonel of the

twenty-first regiment of that State, he had quelled the guerrillas in north Missouri; that he had risen rapidly to the grade of brigadier general; that he had destroyed a rebel magazine at Paducah; that he had wiped out Jeff. Thompson at Fredricton; that he had severely chastised a superior force of the enemy at Belmont; that he was a general who seemed to understand what war meant and what it did not mean; that in his judgment it did not mean lying in camp and garrison, drilling and organizing for ever and ever, but seeking the enemy, moving on his works, pushing and pounding until he gave way; and that when he did that you were not to wait for weeks and months for horses, shoes, transportation, but that you were to push on with such resources as you had; hang on his flanks like grim death, and if one expedient failed, try another and another until he was utterly routed and dissolved. In short, we were told that he was a positive man, of pluck and purpose and selfreliance, who did not believe, as some did, that Robert E. Lee was endowed by the su pernal powers with supernatural resources and strategy and ubiquity, or who did not fear, as some did, that he, with the entire army of Northern Virginia, could suddenly throw a sommersault over intervening mountains and forests into our lines, but that, by butting and hammering away with mere human caution and skill and perseverance, the mightiest Paladin of treason could be outflanked or whipped.

Much criticism was expended at the time upon the battle of Shiloh; and that part of it which applies to the gaps and disconnections in our disjointed line of battle may be just. It was a vast mêlée between separate regiments, brigades, and divisions, each fighting on its own hook and for its own position, with but little concert of action and with but slight mutual support.

So far as the criticism applies to the violation of true principles of war by fighting that battle with his back to the Tennessee river, General Grant has broken his austere silence and condescended in characteristic strain to speak for himself. After the battle of Pittsburg Landing General Buell began criticising in a friendly way the impolicy of his having fought the battle with the Tennessee behind his men.

"Where,

if beaten, could you have retreated, General ?' asked Buell. I did not mean to be beaten,' was Grant's sententious reply. "But suppose

you had been defeated in spite of your exertions ?" "Well, there were all the transports to carry the remains of the army across the river."

But, General," urged Buell, "your whole transports could not contain even ten thousand men, and it would have been impossible for them to make more than one trip in the face of the enemy." "Well, if I had been beaten," said General Grant, quietly lighting a cigar as he spoke, "transportation for ten thousand men would have been abundant, for that would have been more than would have been left.'

And yet in one important respect it contributed more to the eventual success of our arms than any action in the war. It was the experimentum crucis which first tested the respective stamina and manliness of the two belligerents. It was the first hurling together of the two people upon a large scale in a hand-to-hand fight, and when the enemy retreated from that broken and gory field, he retreated with his arrogance tamed and his dream of invincibility dispelled forever. No southern soldier from that terrible day presumed to despise again the courage, the persistence, or the marksmanship of the adversary, for there was weeping and lamentation in every southern home.

I have already adverted to the vast importance to the national cause of the capture of Vicksburg. In those protracted operations, a war by itself, which culminated in the overthrow of that almost impregnable stronghold, it is difficult to discover what element or quality of a consummate commander General Grant failed to exhibit. Strategy? Why the conception of the new enterprise, after every con

ceivable plan had been tried and failed, was either an inspiration of strategical genius or the result of the most laborious strategical study. Labor, and perseverance? Why, the reconnoissances of the different bayous, creeks, passes, and rivers which he made in that amphibious region, the dredging which he executed, the canals which he dug to open a safe water passage below the city, are without parallel in resistance to natural obstacles, unless the parallel is found in the memorable expedition of Xerxes into the Peloponnesus, which channeled Mount Athos and bridged the Hellespont. Forethought? Why, every step of a seemingly desperate adventure was prearranged in his mind, and every contingency which could be anticipated provided for in advance. Presence of mind? Contingencies that could not be foreseen were upon the spur of the occasion as fully met as if they had originally been embraced within his plans. Courage? Did he not push his transports through an iron hail compared with which the full blast of Gibraltar or Cherbourg would be comparatively harmless? Persistence? Did he not again drive the same transports, riddled by their first ordeal, through the fortifications which spouted destruction from the bluffs of Grand Gulf; and did he not, after twenty consecutive days of fighting and five pitched battles, huddle the army of the Southwest into its lines and hold it there until it dropped into his arms as prey?

Let me here pause in this rapid sketch of General Grant's military career and permit him to recite the results of his operations at Chattanooga in the congratulatory order which he issued to his troops. I ask the Clerk to read the order.

The Clerk read as follows:

HEADQUARTERS

MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI, IN THE FIELD, CHATTANOOGA, TENNESSEE, December 10, 1863. The general commanding takes this opportunity of returning his sincere thanks and congratulations to the brave armies of the Cumberland, the Ohio, the Tennessee, and their comrades from the Potomac, for the recent splendid and decisive successes achieved over the enemy. In a short time you have recovered from him the control of the Tennessee river from Bridgeport to Knoxville. You dislodged him from his great stronghold upon Lookout Mountain, drove him from Chattanooga valley, wrested from his determined grasp the possession of Missionary Ridge, repelled with heavy loss to him his repeated assaults upon Knoxville, forcing him to raise the siege there, driving him at all points, utterly routed and discomfited, beyond the limits of the State. By your noble heroism and determined courage you have most effectually defeated the plans of the enemy for regaining possession of the States of Kentucky and Tennessee.

You have secured positions from which no rebellious power can drive or dislodge you. For all this the general commanding thanks you collectively and individually. The loyal people of the United States thank and bless you. Their hopes and prayers for your success against this unholy rebellion are with you daily. Their faith in you will not be in vain. Their hopes will not be blasted. Their prayers to Almighty God will be answered. You will go to other fields of strife; and with the invincible bravery and unflinching loyalty to justice and right which have characterized you in the past, you will prove that no enemy can withstand you, and that no defenses, howover formidable, can check your onward march. By order of U.S. GRANT,. Major General. Mr. DEMING. When General Grant first entered upon the general direction of affairs four new and controlling characteristics forthwith reformed, invigorated, and systematized our military administration-coöperation of purpose in our separated armies, energy in attack, rapidity in pursuit, and wisdom in the selection of the commanders of armies, corps, and divisions; the fit man for the fit place. I cannot, in this brief résumé of his services which I am attempting, but barely allude to the manner in which he combined the scattered and independent operations of our various armies in the field, concentrated upon a single point the entire military strength of the nation, and destroyed that damaging expedient by which the enemy in command of the interior lines of communication was enabled to reënforce any of his armies which were vigorously assailed. The campaign upon which the Lieutenant General first entered is admitted by the highest military critics to have been grand and perfect in

its conception, contemplating the simultaneous movement and the joint action of four armies -the army of the Potomac, the army of the Cumberland, the army of Western Virginia, and the army of the James-each with a different objective point, but all contributing to the great purpose of the campaign, the destruction of the chief army of the rebellion.

If the plan partially failed, and what was designed to have been finished in the field was at length completed by a protracted siege, it was not due to any want of genius or merit in the plan or of skill and vigor in executing that part of it under the immediate supervision of the commanding general. No man can contemplate, without admiration and wonder, that hand-to-hand fight in the blind thickets of the bloody Wilderness, that persistent and inflexible advance against overwhelming natural obstacles, against a determined enemy intrenched in front, acquainted with every path || and with every point of attack and resist ance, in possession, too, of interior lines over which he could rapidly hurry his troops, and throw them impetuously in any direction. No one can contemplate without astonishment and sympathy the burden of labor, anxiety, and solicitude which he cheerfully bore during the immense labors of that protracted siege, and at its final success our thanks to Grant unconsciously mingled with our thanks to God. For this crowning work alone, so important in its immediate results, and charged with ultimate consequences so momentous to liberty, civilization, and the human race, let gratitude unbounded. unmeasured, infinite, be freely tendered, and let substantial honor and reward be bestowed in some slight degree commensurate with the obligations of an emancipated and rescued nation.

story so well told; I do not rise to enforce by any additional argument the passage of the bill whose success has been already so thoroughly secured. That success was certain when the crowning reason for the presentation of the bill was stated by the gentleman who has just taken his seat. I seek to do nothing more than to express my own sense of the transcendent services for which this House thus seeks to reward that distinguished general, and add a word, if possibly I may, with the indulgence of the House to the estimate of those services.

Such honors as this bill proposes to create, or if not to create, to revive anew for a higher and still greater occasion than that on which they were created, become the man on whose head they are to cluster. And whether you consider his private worth, his patriotism, his distinguished services in the field, or the attitude in which he stands to this great nation to-day, and will stand through all time to come, those honors cannot be greater than his desert. He has carried this nation through the great rebellion which menaced its existence. He has reestablished the integrity of the Union and the supremacy of the Constitution, which were threatened and endangered by this rebellion. He has established through all time to come the right of the people to govern themselves, the destruction of which right was involved in the overthrow of the only Government in which it is now embodied.

But, sir, even more than this, he has rendered the highest service any man can render his country; he has led the nation through these transcendent trials by which alone any nation ever reaches the first rank among the military Powers of the earth; for until a new nation passes successfully through the great crisis of a civil war she cannot claim a place among the foremost nations of the world. History shows that without such a trial no such conquest has ever been achieved. No nation has ever yet won for herself that foremost rank to which all ambitious Powers aspire, except through the discipline of civil strife and bloodshed.

I think I may safely invoke the favor of the Representatives of the people to the humble testimonial proffered by this bill. Let us not in this day of our deliverance paralyze future heroism and reaffirm before the civilized world the ingratitude of republics by refusing this small tribute to the foremost soldier of this generation; to him who, entering the war as When we plunged into this great contest captain, won in its battles every successive it was without experience, without knowledge grade, and emerged from it with a rank unsur- of the means and resources that we could passed in our service; to him who at Fort Don-command to carry it through, without knowlelson first lightened the despondency of a trembling nation; to him who at Shiloh first demoralized the spirit of the haughtiest of foes; to him who at Vicksburg first released the loyal Father of Waters from forced complicity with treason; to him who at Chattanooga first opened the gates of Georgia that Sherman might sweep from Atlanta to the sea and from the Savannah to the Cape Fear; to him who received the swords of Buckner, Pemberton, and Lee, and the capitulation of three great armies of the rebellion; to him who successfully conducted two of the most memorable sieges in history; to him, finally, who dissolved the confederacy at Richmond, and struck every rebel rag from the Rappahannock to the Rio Grande.

Time, it is said, devours the proudest human memorial. The impress we have made as a nation may be obliterated; our grandest achievements, even those which we now fondly deem eternal, those which embellish the walls of that historic Rotunda, may all drop from the memory of man; our civilization, liberty, arts, agriculture, though sculptured in the pediments of this Capitol, may all be ingulfed in Lethe's dark waters; this massive structure, with its solid foundations, expanded wings, towering columns, and bubbling dome may all be buried with our Constitution, Government, laws, and polity, in a common grave, yet we shall not all perish. You may rest assured that three American names will survive oblivion, and soar together immortal: the name of him who founded, the name of him who disenthralled, with the name of him who saved the Republic. Mr. RAYMOND. Mr. Speaker, I obey a perilous but resistless impulse when I attempt to add a single word to the eulogy upon General Grant to which we have just listened with so much delight. I do not rise to rehearse the

edge of our own temper and courage to face the crisis, without compactness, or solidity, or any of the elements of strength so essential to success. General Grant, it is not too much to say, has shown us that we possessed them all. He has organized, disciplined, and welded them all, and carried the nation successfully through its great struggle. That, sir, is a service for which he will be remembered, not in this land alone, but in all lands where military prowess stands foremost, as it does in every civilized nation of the world.

For that we cannot give him too much of recognition or of honor. Nor will this nation ever forget that it owes to him, in all human probability, the perpetuity of the great system of government which this nation was ordained to establish among the nations of the earth and make perpetual and paramount over them all. And no words will sound his fitting eulogy; no words less gifted than those used by the distinguished gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. DEMING can properly and sufficiently describe the long career of his services, the long catalogue of victories he has won, and the honors he has heaped upon his native land.

I rejoice, sir, that this bill has been brought forward to do him honor. Would it were in our power to magnify, to increase, to augment to any extent the honors we would heap upon his name; for it is only by such recognitions from those they serve that the great men of any age ever meet their fitting reward.

I have listened, as I am sure we all have, with delight to the graphic recital by my honorable friend from Connecticut [Mr. DEMING] of the rewards heaped by foreign nations upon those who served them. What honors crowned the career of Marlborough! What rewards in palaces, and dotations, and in everything else

that a man or his family could prize, awaited the victorious Wellington when he returned from the Continent! What, in the face of such honors as these, can we present to those who have rescued this great nation of freemen from the peril with which their Government was threatened?

It is not, as has properly been said, the genius of our institutions to heap upon men undue material rewards, even for such distinguished services as these; but, certainly, this nation does not lack a grateful heart, even if its gratitude does not take the same form with that of other nations. We will give to General Grant, cheerfully, and with the heartiest acclamations of the nation he has served, everything that it is in our power to give. He shall walk from one end of the land to the other, so long as he shall walk the earth at all, honored and endeared to all as the savior of the nation, as the man who rescued from danger and destruction the priceless principle of self-government.

Ay, sir, unless gratitude shall fail, in coming generations nothing shall remind us of his name that does not remind us of his services; and when he shall die, and mingle his dust with the dust of our common earth, he shall descend to an honored grave covered with benedictions, covered with the glorious recollections of the ser vices he has rendered, covered with everything that a grateful people can accumulate around his memory so as to perpetuate it to successive generations. This is his reward, if there can be any reward of national gratitude. This would suit, certainly, the quiet, the self-depre ciating modesty of his noble and heroic character. And nothing more than this will be needed to satisfy him with what he has done, for he never sought anything but the consciousness that he was doing his duty, with all his energy and all his power.

Let this bill, then, sir, pass, as I am sure it will pass, by the unanimous and hearty vote of the House. And if there be anything else worthy of the nation's gratitude and of his acceptance let it be freely offered as the fitting testimonial of the service he has rendered the country and the honor he has heaped on the American name through all time to come.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. Speaker, as I offered an amendment to this bill, I must say a word upon it. It would be in very bad taste, sir, for me to attempt to light my taper in the midst of these blazing luminaries which surround us. I shall not try it. My amendment proposes to reduce the expense of this movement by preventing, in case General Grant shall be promoted, the appointment of a lieutenant general until the death of General Scott, and then that but one shall be appointed.

Now, Mr. Speaker, if that amendment shall be adopted-and possibly without it I shall support this bill as a cheap and honorable method of expressing the nation's gratitude to one of her most illustrious defenders-the expense will be but slightly increased. I do not know that I much regard expense when we are seeking to honor and reward the Army of the United States. I hope economical gentlemen will not be alarmed, but I believe that we ought largely to increase the pensions of our soldiers and their widows, and to increase their pay; and at the proper time it will give me pleasure to vote for such increase. But as has been well stated, how trifling is this present expense as compared with what has been bestowed by other nations upon their great commanders. I shall not attempt to recite what has been so eloquently and classically stated by the gentleman from Connecticut, [Mr. DEMING.]

We all know that upon her victorious consuls Rome bestowed the spoils of provinces. England has given her one, two, and three mil lion pounds sterling to her successful com manders-to Marlborough, to Nelson, to Wellington; and yet not one of them ever achieved results half as important to the nation or to the world as have been achieved by our great com. mander, through his calm, firm, determined, and able conduct..

I believe that the moral and physical cour age, the patience and skill, the operations in every way which we have witnessed, indicate General Grant as one of the fittest men to command a great army and lead it to great results. I agree with the gentleman from New York [Mr. RAYMOND] in being willing not only to promote him to this office, but as I understood him, and I hope I do not misunderstand him, to a higher office whenever the happy moment shall arrive. [Laughter and applause.] I hope I shall be excused if I have been led, in the light of this honor, so grand, to violate what I announced to be my purpose when I arose. I hope the amendment I have offered and this bill will be adopted.

Mr. DEMING. If no other gentleman desires to speak I will call the previous question. Mr. McKEE. I hope the gentleman will withdraw that call for a few moments.

Mr. DEMING. Certainly; I will do so. Mr. McKEE. Mr. Speaker, I am very loath to say anything on this question. But entertaining the opinions I do in regard to it, I feel inclined since this discussion has come up to make a few remarks.

I regret very much that I am compelled to differ with the gentleman who has charge of this bill, [Mr. DEMING,] and with those who have advocated its passage. I would not detract from in the least, nay, I would go further, if possible, and add to the honor and esteem which the people of our country entertain for this champion of our Army. There is no man in this country who holds him in higher regard than I do. But I must here enter my protest and raise my voice against what I conceive to be this following too much the precedents which have been set, not by Governments constituted like our own, but by Governments whose forms our forefathers threw off when they established our own.

For one, I do not desire at this day that my country should turn back and imitate ancient Grecce or Rome in conferring these great honors upon her heroes. I would not that my own country should imitate despotic France in her adoration for her successful chieftains. I would not that my country should imitate the example of monarchical England in conferring vast emoluments upon those who have led her armies to battle.

I regard this bill as antagonistic to the spirit of our institutions, as anti-republican, as contrary to the genius which our forefathers instilled into our Government when they founded it. I have seen enough in my short experience of life of what I may fitly denominate the aristocratic element of our Army. I have seen that spirit in the men who held positions in our Army at the beginning of the rebellion through which we have just passed. I have seen it in the great struggle which our people have waged against those who endeavored by force to destroy the institutions of our land.

And the country will bear witness to the truth of my statement when I say that it is not to that element which the nation has fostered and nourished that we to-day are indebted for the fact that we have crushed out the most mighty rebellion the world has ever seen. It is to the people that we owe it; to those who have not been educated in arms; to those who have not received the fostering care of the Republic, who have not been supported and feasted upon the public Treasury, but who in their might, at the call of their country, by their patriotism and valor succeeded in crushing out this great rebellion against the institutions of our fathers. To them we owe it, and we owe to the leaders who led them a debt of gratitude which the nation is not slow to acknowledge, and which the people are ready and willing and anxious to pay. But we owe them nothing by way of emoluments: we owe them nothing by way of rewards.

If we desire to reward the men who have saved our country, let us begin with the maimed and wounded and suffering, who have periled their all in its defense, and who at the end of

the war have no honor but their broken and dissevered limbs to carry to their graves.

I know this bill is but a small matter in the way of expenditure. It takes but about some twenty thousand dollars from the Treasury of the United States and confers it upon the leader of our armies; it is but a small affair. But the idea which weighs upon my mind is that this is contrary to the genius of our institutionsaping, if I may use the term, those old Governments of Europe whose whole theory is antirepublican, and whose example God forbid that my countrymen with my sanction should ever follow.

I am willing to reward our heroes. They have their reward in the gratitude which fills the heart of the nation. When the hero of this war travels, as the gentleman said, from one end of our country to the other, he is welcomed everywhere with the plaudits of a grateful people. They regard him as a man deserving great honor, and they give it to him. But I see no reason why we should establish this rank. It is not needed for the Army. || It is not needed for the honor of the nation. The brave soldiers who followed their leaders through the war will not consider themselves flattered if this rank should be conferred. They do not ask that this new rank shall be created. The hero for whom this honor is proposed, though he would doubtless feel flattered by it, is, I am quite sure, too modest a man to desire this at the hands of his country.

I am sorry, sir, that I have felt compelled to say thus much. What I desire-and I may as well make the declaration here-is that this Government shall extend its fostering care and protection to those brave men who periled their all for their country, who have no honors to wear, and for whom we as a great Government should provide by pouring out our treasure liberally to them. I, for one, shall be ready to vote any amount within reason, either by way of bounties or pensions, to those brave men who have fought for our nation during the great struggle through which we have passed. But, sir, I do desire that my country, through her national Legislature, shall set to the world no example which would imply that a republican Government wishes to worship men as heroes.

Mr. FINCK. Mr. Speaker. I had hoped that there would be no discordant voice in this House upon the passage of this bill. I had trusted that at least in reference to this testimonial of our regard to so distinguished a character as Lieutenant General Grant there would be but one voice here among the people's Representatives.

I do not rise for the purpose of detaining the House, or saying anything in regard to the history of General Grant; for this has been done fully and ably by those who have preceded me. I desire, however, to state that I shall vote for the passage of this bill, because I believe it due as a testimonial of the nation's gratitude to General Grant. I honor him, sir, not only for his brilliant services in the field, but because of his magnanimity in the hour of triumph, and his genuine modesty. He has conducted himself throughout this war independent of party considerations or party intrigues, devoting himself to the vindication of the true honor of the country in maintaining the Constitution and preserving the Union. I trust, sir, that when the vote shall be taken on the passage of the bill, it will be unanimous.

alluding to it-that period in 1861, when the Legislature of Kentucky was in session and when the whole southern border of that State was threatened by an armed force seeking to overthrow and destroy the government of the State as well as the Government of the United States. At that time our people were divided. And, sir, when General Polk took possession of Columbus, General Grant, without authority from the Government, but acting on the convictions of his own judgment and with characteristic energy and promptitude, took possession of Paducah, thus saving Kentucky from the destructive power and control of the rebellion.

I remember when, on the 4th of July, the news was telegraphed to us that General Grant had captured Vicksburg, and when the people, looking to this and all else that he had done, rejoiced we had such a man as General Grant. Yes, sir, the nation owes it to him, and no men would be more proud of it than the soldiers who served under him.

This is a republican Government. General Grant, by his influence at the head of a great and good army, has secured to us an independent republican Government. The nation owes him the honor and should give it to him. Where is the man in Europe or on this continent who has done so much for republican liberty as General Grant? Where is the man who has done so much for freedom as General Grant? Where is the man who has lifted our flag higher and brought it back unsullied than General Grant? Where is the man with so much endurance and so much devotion? Where is the man beside General Grant who fought through wildernesses, through swamps, and snatched victory even from the valley of death?

It does me good to yield my tribute to this great general. If I had never seen him and only known him through the reports of his own soldiers who weep with delight when they talk of him, I would be glad to vote for this bill to-day.

I regret, sir, that a sentiment in this House to-day should come from my own State which is unwilling to give him that high credit which he deserves.

Mr. McKEE. I do not want the impression to go out, which might be inferred from the remark just made, that I am indisposed to give General Grant the credit which he deserves.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, I presume this bill, introduced by the gentleman from Illinois, [Mr. WASHBURNE,] has no partisan purpose, but is merely the expression of the Representatives of the people of the United States of the fidelity which the people attach to a great general of the country. I have always made it a principle of my life that those who have shown heroism and bravery, without regard to party, are and ought to be entitled to the respect and high consideration of the people they have defended and sustained.

I remember, sir-and I may be excused for

sincerely believes, whether his views meet with the approbation of a majority of the whole people of this country or not.

In favoring this bill on my part I am moved by no consideration of party and with no object to advance in rank and eminence the Lieutenant General of this country above those who have participated with him in the many battles and victories which during the last four and a

I

half years have taken place in our midst. do not want to be understood in giving my vote for this bill that all our gratitude is to be centered in one man in the Army. I have not forgotten there are other able and illustrious generals in the Army entitled to the undying gratitude of the American people as well as those whose names appear in all that I have heard during this discussion. I suppose it will be the will of the President of the United States on the passage of this bill to give the commission contemplated in it to Lieutenant General Grant, as one who occupies the official position in the Army the highest of any, except it may be the President of the United States.

Sir, there is no man more willing than I to extend that gratitude to General Grant, because his heroism, his bravery, his patriotism, his fortitude, and his determination through this war have been unequaled in the history of the civilized world; but while he has shown this heroism and bravery, let us not forget the thousands and hundreds of thousands of men whom he led, of the men who faced the battlements of the enemy, of the men whose blood, whose valor, and whose patriotism equally consecrated the glorious victories which the American Army achieved during the bloody revolution through which we have just passed. It is a tribute which we owe, not only to General Graut, but to the men who followed him, to those whom he commanded, that while we extend to this brave and illustrious general the undying gratitude of the nation, we should at the same time extend to those brave and faithful soldiers the sentiment of respect and esteem which we cherish for every man who has engaged in this war for the suppression of the rebellion.

But, sir, General Grant has that which commends him to my respect much more than many others who were engaged in the war. I mean his Christian charity, his meekness, and his honorable manhood in granting to those whom he had subdued the rights which civilization demands shall be extended to an enemy that is at your feet.

When General Lee, whose ability I suppose will not be denied, as it never has been denied, by any gentleman on this floor, surrendered his sword to General Grant, it was handed back to him, as a manifestation of that Christian charity and goodness of heart which should characterize a true-hearted hero when his enemy is at his feet. General Grant was ready to extend to his conquered adversary those principles of civilized warfare which our fathers extended to their enemies in the bloody days of the Revolution.

But, sir, this is no new office that is proposed to be given, if I understand it. If my recollection serves me right, in reading the history of this country, General Washington occupied the same position that we now expect to be given to General Grant, or to such other gen

eral as the President of the United States in his wisdom may see fit. I believe that the mantle of the illustrious Washington may well fall upon the shoulders of General Grant. J believe that he has walked in the footsteps of the Father of his Country, and has shown an amiability of character and a tenderness of heart toward his foes that Washington did to those who had given aid and comfort to the followers and adherents of King George during the seven years of the revolutionary war.

Therefore it is with pleasure that I record my vote in favor of that hero, and I do it with a sentiment that it is not for him alone, but as a recommendation to the people of the country that they shall stand by those whose illustrious deeds of valor have been exhibited on the field of battle, whether as officers or soldiers, without distinction of rank or position.

Mr.SHELLABARGER. Irise, Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of making a single statement in regard to a matter alluded to in the remarks of my colleague, [Mr. FINCK.] With exact justice and propriety, my colleague stated that in the services of General Grant there had

appeared nothing of the partisan; that his public life was characterized by a devotion to his country without regard to partisan opinions or prejudices. The remark that I propose to make in connection with that is, that in no act in the life and service of General Grant, to my mind. is the sagacity and foresight of the distinguished Lieutenant General more plainly indicated than in the fact that nearly one month before the head of this nation had discovered that slavery must be stricken down before liberty could be saved, that great fact was announced by General Grant, and in terms fearless and distinct, the vigor of which startled the American mind at the time it was announced by this pioneer upon the great subject of emancipation. I undertake to say here, in the face of the nation, that the sagacity of the Lieutenant General as a military commander was nowhere more completely vindicated than it was in that foresight, that determined, and announced in advance, that policy which is contained in the letter which I send to the Clerk's desk, and ask to have read -a letter which bears date nearly a month before the proclamation of emancipation. The Clerk read as follows:

*

VICKSBURG, MISSISSIPPI, August 30, 1862. DEAR SIR: 1 The people of the North need not quarrel over the institution of slavery. What Vice President Stephens acknowledges the corner-stone of the confederacy is already knocked out. Slavery is already dead and cannot be resurrected. It would take a standing army to maintain slavery in the South, if we were to make peace today, guarantying to the South all their former constitutional privileges. I never was an abolitionist; not even what could be called anti-slavery; but I try to judge fairly and honestly, and it became patent to my mind early in the rebellion that the North and South could never live at peace with each other except as one nation, and that without slavery. As anxious as I am to see peace established, I would not, therefore, be willing to see any settlement until this question is forever settled.

Mr. UPSON. I wish to call the attention of the House to the recommendation of the committee in regard to striking out the third section of this bill. That section provides that this office shall terminate with the life of the first appointee. It strikes me that this testimonial will be more valuable if we make it special; and it is also in accordance with the precedent, for when General Washington died this office died with him. If we make this a permanent office, it will not be a special testimonial, and we shall lessen the honor we intend to confer. I hope that amendment will not prevail, but that the third section will be retained in the bill as it originally stood. The SPEAKER. The third section of the bill has been already stricken out.

Mr. DELANO. Mr. Speaker, I should not attempt to trouble the House with a moment's remarks were it not for the amendment which has been offered by the gentleman from Penn| sylvania, [Mr. STEVENS.]

The great struggle through which we have passed for the preservation of the nation's life has developed great virtues and merit in the American character; and among those virtues and that merit nothing stands out, in my estimation, more conspicuous than the merit of the common soldiers who have fought, under competent generals, the great battles that have secured our liberties. Sir, I should feel myself incompetent for a seat in this House if it were possible for me for a single moment to ignore the merit of those soldiers.

Mr. Speaker, there never was such an army before upon the face of the earth. The sun never shone upon such an army. I pray God that the necessity for its repetition may never occur in the world. It was an outpouring of the loyal people of the country; the giving up of sons, of fathers, of husbands, with all the comforts and endearments of pleasant and happy homes, all surrendered at the shrine of our country's honor and glory and existence. I subscribe, therefore, to all that has been said upon this subject so eloquently and so well by the gentleman from Kentucky, [Mr. McKEE;] and I strike hands with him here to-day, and

with other gentlemen upon this floor who think as he does, in a solemn, irreversible compact to render to these gallant men, who have come forward voluntarily to save the nation, every benefit, every reward, every compensation, which it is in our power to give them.

But, Mr. Speaker, I will not go on to speak of the great characteristics of the American Army. It is neither necessary nor fit. I know there is not a man here, nor within the extended borders of this Government, who does not respond to this sentiment, and is not willing at all times and on all occasions to acknowledge it.

But, sir, this is not the only development that this war has made. It has brought out the genius and ability of men in America for the highest command in the field, and for the most skillful operations in military service. And, sir, in these developments no single man stands higher, shines brighter, or is more distinctly before the world than General Grant.

Let the minds of members here to-day recur to the year 1864. Let them remember how then the fate of this nation quivered, as it were, in uncertainty and in doubt. Let them remember how this man of iron will, of modest deportment, and of lion heart, took these gallant soldiers, the volunteers of a free people, and marched through the Wilderness with them against the most compact and powerful army that the confederacy had. See him leading those brave men through the continuous battles of the Wilderness to Richmond, before it and round it, until, as he himself said, the shell of the rebellion was crushed and its hollowness exposed to the world. And then behold this man, when Richmond had surrendered, modestly refusing to go into the city with display, to be there first to take possession of the citadel that had so long resisted our conquest. Behold him, sir, allowing others to march in in triumph, because he saw that there was more work to be done, and that work he was deter mined to pursue to its final accomplishment.

Leaving, then, the empty show and the place of honor, you see him giving up to subalterns the taking possession of the city of Richmond, while he goes on steadfastly in pursuit of his high purpose of making his work successful, and compelling the leader of the armies of the rebellion to lay down his sword before him. That is one of the instances that evince the characteristics of the man, and that raised him so high in the world's estimation.

And now what do we offer him by this bill? We offer him, what I will not allude to, but what we have heard so well described, and what has been so happily depicted by the gentleman from Connecticut, [Mr. DEMING;] we offer him a small boon. Is it in imitation of aristocratic or monarchical Governments that it is proposed to do this? No; it is in imitation of the great Ruler of all who bestows blessings and rewards upon the just and righteous, and punishments upon the others. I am not here to-day to imitate what other nations have done for their high chieftains and great military men. But I desire to show my gratitude, with the gratitude of this nation, in behalf of a great and a good man. Let us do it in imitation of divine authority, and not in imitation of man. Because other nations who have preceded us may have acted in the right way, that affords no reason for refusing to pursue a just path.

One word more. I hope this House will not adopt the amendment of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. STEVENS.] There is another man-and I will say, Mr. Speaker, other menin the recent military history of this country who deserve to be remembered. Though I concede to General Grant an elevation in great deeds and in great achievements higher than any other man in this war, God so ordered, and he but fulfilled his mission. But there are other names connected with the history of America which, if they are not written so high upon the scroll of fame as that of General Grant, will be found but a little way below, and one of those names, I am proud to say, belongs to the State of Ohio.