It is sometimes awkward and unpleasant for a man in public life to be unable to make a speech, but experience has demonstrated that it is often ten times more awkward and unpleasant to be able to make one; and better than any other gift can we spare in an American president that of off-hand-speech making. Grant is a thinking man, and his thought is the father of his mighty deeds. His most expressive speech was made to Sheridan: "Go in!" In the army it was the common remark of the soldiers that Grant did not say much, but he kept up a tremendous thinking. In his capacious brain there was room for all the multiplied details of a vast army. His mind contained a map of the theatre of operations, and he knew where everything and everybody was. He understood how the battle was going miles away from his position. At The Wilderness he stood under a tree with General Meade, whittling, as he was wont to do when brooding in deep thought, smoking, of course, at the same time. An aid dashed furiously up to the spot, and announced that one of the corps holding an important position in the line had broken, and been driven from the field. Meade was intensely agitated, for the event indicated nothing but disaster. Grant smoked and whittled as coolly as though there had been no hostile armies on the continent. "Good God!" exclaimed Meade, as the details were enlarged upon by the messenger. Still Grant whittled and thought. A minute elapsed before he spoke, in which he seemed to be consulting his mental map. "I don't believe it," said he, at last, while the messenger of disaster was still in his presence. The sequel proved that Grant was right, and the messenger direct from the scene was wrong. The battle had surged in upon the national line for a moment, but there was no break, no defeat, no disaster. It has been observed that Grant whittles two ways--from and towards his body. When he is maturing a plan, solving a problem involved in his operations, he whittles _towards_ himself, as if to concentrate within him some invisible magnetism floating in the air around him. But when his mind grasps the solution of the problem, when the plan is formed, he instantly reverses the stick, and whittles _from_ himself. Perhaps to the nation it does not make much difference which way he whittles, while it is patent to the world that he whittled down the Rebellion. In 1866 Grant was made a full general, the office having been created especially for him. He was not a merely ornamental appendage of the government, but used a laboring oar in his lofty position. He was tender of the people's pockets, heavily drawn upon by the needs of the war. He introduced reforms into the army, largely curtailing the public expense, and exhibiting a spirit of economy which was very hopeful in the people's candidate for the presidency.