"Fresh from these splendid achievements, he received the nomination for President over the names of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and General Scott. It was a spontaneous expression of the people's confidence, unheralded and unsought. And when he was triumphantly elected over the Democratic and Free-soil candidates--General Cass, Martin Van Buren, and Charles Francis Adams--he accepted the high office in a spirit of humility and simple compliance with duty." In the sketch of General U. S. Grant's life, our author has written with a masterly hand the outlines of the grand career of his favorite general, the salient points of which are given with a soldierly energy and dash befitting the theme. Thus the chapter commences: "The occasion often creates the man, but the man who _masters_ the occasion is born, not made. Many are pushed to the surface, momentarily, by the pressure of events, and then subside into common levels; but he is the true commander during a crisis, who can wield the waves of difficulty to advantage, and be a sure pilot amid the on-rush of events when they thicken and deepen into a prolonged struggle. "When, during the late war, our country needed a leader to face and quell the threatened danger of disunion, and conduct her armies to successful issues; and when Government entrusted those momentous issues to Ulysses S. Grant, 'the man and the moment had met,'--the occasion had found its master. "Napoleon said that the most desirable quality of a good general was that his judgment should be in equilibrium with his courage. To no commander of modern times could this rule apply with more force than to Grant. A man of no outward clamor of character, no hint of bluster or dash, quiet-voiced, self-controlled, but not self-asserting, he yet displayed vast power as an organizer, as a tactician, and in masterly combinations of large forces so as to produce the most telling effects. It has been truly said of him that no general ever stamped his own peculiar character upon an army more emphatically than did Grant upon the Army of the Tennessee. It was the only large organization which, as a whole, never suffered a defeat during the war. It was noted for its marvelous persistence--its determined fighting qualities--and had the reputation of being sure to win any battle that lasted over a day, no matter what the odds against it. It was at Grant's recommendation that a united command was concentrated in the Mississippi Valley--which concentration has since been acknowledged to have been the basis of all our subsequent victories. "Generosity, mildness and kind-heartedness, shone as conspicuously in Grant's character as his firmness and great generalship. Simplicity of manner and kindness of heart are always characteristic of the true hero. 'The bravest are the tenderest, The loving are the daring.'