“He had, too, a merry face; at times a merry eye. He was full of sly humor. The twinkling of his eye and his quiet laugh promptly rewarded an amusing story. In his own home his face was always kind and responsive. There he was not the silent man the world thought it knew, but a fluent and well-informed talker on all that was of interest to him. Undoubtedly, however, he had the gift of silence, and when he saw fit to exercise it his face became a mask, conversation ceased to be among the possibilities, and a chat with a graven image would have been a relief at such a time. He became then, and designedly, a silence-compeller. When there was nothing to be said, he said nothing.” General Grant, on the occasion of the surrender of General Lee at Appomattox Court House, was thus described by General Horace Porter, his aide-de-camp: “He was then nearly forty-three years of age, five feet eight inches in height, with shoulders slightly stooped. His hair and full beard were a nut-brown, without a trace of gray. He had on a single-breasted blouse, made of dark-blue flannel, unbuttoned in front, and showing a waistcoat underneath. He wore an ordinary pair of top-boots, with his trousers inside and without spurs. The boots and portions of his clothes were spattered with mud. He had had on a pair of thread gloves of a dark yellow color, which he had taken off on entering the room. His felt ‘sugar-loaf,’ stiff-brimmed hat was thrown on the table beside him. He had no sword, and a pair of shoulder straps was all there was about him to designate his rank. In fact, aside from these, his uniform was that of a private soldier.” This was thoroughly characteristic of the simplicity and modesty of the man. He came, in the face of the whole admiring world, to make his lasting mark upon one of the most important pages of his country’s history, the General of his country’s armies, perhaps the greatest soldier of his time, without a spur and without a sword, in the well-worn uniform of a private of Volunteers. He died as bravely and as quietly as he had lived, like one who had even studied in his death to throw away the dearest thing he owned, as ’twere a careless trifle. He sleeps now on the banks of the Hudson, in that enduring, honorable peace for which he had fought so long, and which he had won so gloriously. His body was greatly wasted by lingering disease, but those who saw him immediately after death say that his face looked ten years younger than it had looked during the previous trying months. The cast of Grant here presented is still in the possession of his family in New York; and it is the only copy ever made with their consent, and to their knowledge. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: WILLIAM T. SHERMAN] ------------------------------------------------------------------------