Yet, in spite of his deep-rooted determination to crush the rebellion, Grant could show a consideration for the feelings of his vanquished foes that with a man of smaller calibre would have been impossible. ‘After the surrender of General Lee,’ Mr Thayer tells us, ‘the Union army began to salute Grant by firing cannon. He directed the firing to cease at once, saying: “It will wound the feelings of our prisoners, who have become our countrymen again.”’ It was this spirit of consideration and conciliation that, in no small degree, served to make union possible again between North and South. Of course, Grant did not escape calumny—what great man ever did?—but he bore the unfounded charges brought against him without a murmur, silencing not a few by the contempt with which he treated them. ‘When I have done the best I can,’ he said once, ‘I leave it.’ But the calumnies brought against him were as nothing to the tide of honours that burst upon him as soon as the value of his services became apparent. Even before the war was ended, he was, or might have been, the best fêted man in the Union. But his whole nature revolted at the idea. When he was appointed Lieutenant-general, he was ordered to repair to Washington to receive his commission from the President. Mrs Lincoln proposed to give a grand military dinner in his honour. But Grant pleaded that his presence was needed on the field, and begged to be excused. ‘I do not see how we _can_ excuse you,’ Mrs Lincoln urged; ‘it would be Hamlet with the Prince left out.’ The reply shows the man in all the rugged simplicity of his grand nature: ‘I appreciate fully all the honour Mrs Lincoln would do me; but time is precious; and really, Mr President, I have had enough of the show business!’ But the ‘show business’ was only beginning; and no sooner was the war at an end, than honours fell thick and fast on the hero of the long struggle. Office, wealth, and power were all within his grasp, and at the nation’s call he took them up, and right wisely did he use them. Twice he served in the highest and proudest office an American citizen can hold; and at the expiration of his second term of office in 1876, he set out on a long-desired trip round the world. How he was received with more than kingly honour the wide-world over, is within the memory of all. His entry to a city was the signal for a burst of enthusiastic welcome, and everywhere he was fêted to the utmost of the people’s power. On every hand he was met by the call for speeches, and speech-making he thoroughly detested; yet the few clear, concise sentences, bristling with shrewd common-sense, and overflowing with genuine feeling, to which he confined his remarks, will long be remembered by those who heard them.