I have spoken much of Grant. There is reason that I should. No campaign of the war is so insolubly linked with the personality of the commanding general as the Vicksburg campaign. For three weeks he was the Army of the Tennessee. He dominated it absolutely. His personality, with its vigor and its action, was in all, through all, over all. His corps and divisions were commanded by great men, but, with a single exception, they were loyal and devoted and reflected his will, and sought the achievement of his purpose in every act and movement. During these days Sherman was his right arm, McPherson his left, and neither ever failed him. The whole army, officers and men, caught his spirit and shared his indomitable purpose. Nothing could daunt it or turn it aside. There was no service it did not perform, no need it did not meet. It had capacity for everything. Grant justly said: “There is nothing which men are called upon to do, mechanical or professional, that accomplished adepts can not be found for the duty required in almost every regiment. Volunteers can be found in the ranks and among the commanding officers to meet any call.” Every obstacle was overcome; every difficulty surmounted. When bridges were burned, new ones were built in a night, or the streams forded. In every event the light of the morning found his soldiers on the same side of the river with the enemy. If rains descended and floods came, they marched on though the roads were afloat with water. They fought and marched, endured and toiled, but they did not complain or even murmur. They, as well as their officers, understood the value of the stake for which they struggled. They knew they were marching and fighting and toiling under the eye of a great commander, one who knew where he was going and how to go; that there was no hardship which he did not share, no task from which he shrunk. Weary from much marching, they marched on; worn from frequent fighting, they fought on; all but exhausted from incessant toil, they toiled on, in a hot climate, exposed to all sorts of weather, through trying and terrible ordeals, watching by night and by day, until they stood in front of the rifle pits and of the batteries of the city, and even here they would not be content until they were led in assault upon the enemy’s works and had stood upon their parapets in a vain but glorious struggle for their possession. What a story it is! How it stirs the blood! How it inspires to love of country! How it impels to high endeavor! And what a valorous foe they met! They were, and are, thank God, our countrymen—besiegers and besieged. In their veins flowed kindred blood—blood that leaps and burns in ours to-day. They differed. Differed until at last the parliament of debate was closed, and then, like men, they fought their differences out, in open war—on the field of battle—sealing the settlement with their blood and giving the world a new concept of human valor.