The next day Grant met, under a flag of truce, an old classmate from West Point, then serving on General Polk's staff. He related his personal experience at Belmont, stating that he had encountered the rebel line when alone. The rebel officer expressed his surprise. "Was that you?" exclaimed he. "We saw you. General Polk pointed you out as a Yankee, and called upon the men to test their aim upon you; but they were too busy in trying their skill upon the transports to heed the suggestion." I point with admiration to the conduct of General Grant during that entire day. As an example of coolness and courage, he stands unsurpassed, and even unrivalled. It was thrilling to behold him, in the midst of the trials and discouragements of that hard-fought field, the life and the soul of the whole affair. He was the only trained soldier on the field, for even General McClernand, who was daring enough to have had three horses shot under him, had no actual experience of battle. His men, and especially his officers, were undisciplined, and the whole affair rested upon his shoulders. But the brave fellows followed his example, and the victory was made sure. The material results of the battle were one hundred and seventy-five prisoners, two guns carried off and four spiked on the field, and the total destruction of the enemy's camp. Of the force engaged, Grant had thirty-one hundred and fourteen men, according to his official report. General Polk declared that, at the beginning of the battle, Pillow had five regiments, a battery, and a squadron of cavalry; and that five more regiments were sent across the river during the fight. The rebel force, therefore, must have been double that of the Unionists; and probably the disparity was still greater. My friend Mr. Pollard, with his usual cheerful assumption, called the battle of Belmont a Confederate victory! Or, stating it a little more mildly, a defeat in the beginning changed in the end to an overwhelming victory! Did this amiable rebel ever hear of an army defeated by an "overwhelming victory," carrying off their captured guns and prisoners, embarking leisurely in their steamers, and retiring while the victors were being mowed down in swaths? Grant lost four hundred and eighty-five men in killed, wounded, and missing; while Mr. Pollard demolishes his own "overwhelming victory" by acknowledging a rebel loss of six hundred and forty-two, which was probably below the actual number. The moral results of the battle, which cannot be estimated in captured guns and prisoners, were even more satisfactory. Belmont, as settling a question of _prestige_, was the Bunker Hill of the Western soldiers. It gave them confidence in themselves, and prepared the way for Donelson and Shiloh. It prevented the forces of Jeff Thompson and Price from being augmented.