Among the most admirable qualities of Grant's mind and character, and in which he is most like Thomas, is his practicability. Grant, like Thomas, is not a learned scholar, but has grown wise from worldly experience. His wisdom is that which results from a combination of common sense trained to logical reflection with practical observation. He deals with all questions in a plain, business-like manner, and with all absence of ostentation or display, and in a systematic style, which enables him to dispatch a great deal of business in a very short time. His practicability renders him remorseless in the execution of his plans. When he has decided it to be necessary, he pushes his massed columns upon the enemy, and orders the desolation and depopulation of a country with the same coolness, not to say indifference, with which he would announce a common event of little importance. His administration of the affairs of the Army of the Potomac, now universally acknowledged to have been of the highest ability, fully displayed this characteristic of practicability. A fine illustration of his practicability is found in a story related of him when operating before Fort Donelson. On the night before the surrender, the preparations of a portion of the rebels to evacuate the fort led General McClernand to believe they were meditating an attack, and he communicated his suspicions to Grant, at the same time sending him a prisoner who had been captured but a short time before. On reading McClernand's dispatch, Grant ordered the prisoner's haversack to be searched. It was found that it was filled with rations. "If the rebels intend to hold the fort, they would not encumber their men with rations. They are preparing to leave," was the very sage and practical reasoning of the general; and he immediately ordered McClernand to assume the offensive. The result was that a commanding ridge near Dover, south of the fort, was carried, and only a portion of the garrison escaped; the remainder capitulated. During the battles of the Wilderness a rebel shell dropped within a few feet of Grant and Meade, making a furrow in the ground and bursting some distance beyond. Grant, without a word, drew from his pocket a small compass with which he calculated the course of the shell. In five minutes afterward he had a piece or two of artillery posted near by, and opening upon, soon silenced the rebel battery, whose location had been betrayed by the course of the projectile. As soon as this had been done, he asked the elevation of the guns which had done such good work. On being told, he soon established, by a calculation well known to every artillerist, the important fact of the exact distance of the enemy's line from his own.