The Southern Army was composed of brave men and its officers were qualified by training and experience to command any army and to contest for supremacy on any field. My readers should not assume that I have avoided a discussion of the characteristics of General Grant in his personality and as a civil magistrate. The voice of those who in 1872 denied his ability and questioned his integrity is no longer heard; but there are those at home and abroad who either teach or accept the notion that General Grant has become great historically by having been the favorite of fortune. [* From the New York _Independent_.] XL BLAINE AND CONKLING AND THE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION OF 1880 The controversy between Mr. Blaine and Mr. Conkling on the floor of the House of Representatives in the Thirty-ninth Congress was fraught with serious consequences to the contestants, and it may have changed the fortunes of the Republican Party. Mr. Conkling was a member of the Thirty-seventh Congress, but he was defeated as a candidate for the Thirty-eighth. He was returned for the Thirty-ninth Congress. During the term of the Thirty-eighth Congress he was commissioned by the Department of War as judge-advocate, and assigned for duty to the prosecution of Major Haddock and the trial of certain soldiers known as "bounty jumpers." That duty he performed. When the army bill was before the House in April, 1866, Mr. Conkling moved to strike out the section which made an appropriation for the support of the provost-marshal general. General Grant, then in command of the army, had given an opinion, in a letter dated March 19, 1866, that that office in the War Department was an unnecessary office. Mr. Conkling supported his motion in a speech in which he said: "My objection to this section is that is creates an unnecessary office for an undeserving public servant; it fastens, as an incubus upon the country, a hateful instrument of war, which deserves no place in a free government in a time of peace." Thus Mr. Conkling not only assailed the office, he assailed the officer, and in a manner calculated to kindle resentment, especially in an officer of high rank. General James B. Fry was provost-marshal-general. He was able to command the friendship of Mr. Blaine, and on the thirtieth day of April, Mr. Blaine read from his seat in the House a letter from General Fry addressed to himself. Thus Mr. Blaine endorsed the contents of the letter. In that letter General Fry made three specific charges against Mr. Conkling, but he made no answer to the arraignment that Mr. Conkling had made of him and his office. Thus he avoided the issue that Mr. Conkling had raised. His charges were these: 1. That Mr. Conkling had received a fee for the prosecution of Major Haddock, and that the same had been received improperly, if not illegally.