Halleck was a cautious man, and in no danger of exaggerating the merits of Grant's deeds, so that the non-military public may receive his opinion without any grains of allowance. In the theory of warfare, in his complete knowledge and appreciation of the principles of strategy, however he may have failed in the practical application of the science in the field, the general-in-chief had no superior. He was a writer of no little celebrity, before the war, on military subjects, and is amply competent to pronounce a safe opinion. When a man of his calibre, therefore, steps out of the sphere of the Rebellion for a comparison, and pronounces the battle of Chattanooga "one of the most remarkable in history," the general public, unlearned in the mysteries of military science, may justifiably deduce from his statement the belief that General Grant is one of the most remarkable soldiers the world has ever seen. History is but little more than a record of wars, battles, and sieges. The characters who figure the most extensively in its chronicles are the warriors of all ages. How stands Grant among them? He has captured more guns and more prisoners than any general in the whole history of the world! The campaign and siege of Vicksburg is without a parallel in the annals of any nation under the sun! Until the American Rebellion Napoleon was the greatest general the world had ever seen. Grant has paled even his star; for Grant has no Waterloo, no disastrous retreat, like that from Russia, in his record. Not alone in the grandeur of his position as a military genius is Grant great. In his sterling goodness, in his modesty, in his magnanimity, in his perception of character, in his quiet winning way, in his sublime confidence in himself, in his Christian forbearance, in his absolute self-negation, and in his unselfish love of country, he is a great man, even without the laurel of victory upon his brow. When I see him, crippled in body, weakened and physically broken down by long confinement to his bed, hastening on his crutches to the most desperate scene which the annals of this terrible war present; hurrying with the laurel of Vicksburg and Donelson on his brow, without a thought that he was imperilling his splendid reputation in an almost hopeless venture; speeding through tempest and desolation, not at the head of his war-worn and victorious veterans, but alone, to a stricken, half-starved, beleaguered position, from whose overlooking environments the cunning foe was gazing down, while they waited for famine and death to do their certain work; when I see him thus staking his all,--for his all, in a worldly sense, was his brilliant fame,--sacrificing ease, comfort, health, exposing his very life, to save the army, to save Chattanooga, to save the cause,--I cannot but ask, What other man has done so much? What other man could, or would?