Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 October 1885 — GEN. GRANTS LAST WORDS. [ARTICLE]

GEN. GRANTS LAST WORDS.

Counseling Peace and Harmony Between the Federals and Confederates. A reunion of the veterans of General Grant’s old regiment—the Twenty-first Illinois Volunteers—was recently held at Neoga, 111. Colonel Fred Grant was present and in response to requests for a speech said: “I do not intend to make you a speech, for I have not been trained as a public talker. I have here a document that I would like to read to you. It is the last line written by my father upon matters pertaining to the war, and has never before been made public. As he entered into the war with you for his first companions, and as he always spoke of your regiment with affectionate interest, it is fitting that you should be the first to hear his parting words. This is what he wrote upon the pages I hold here: “I feel that we are on the eve of a new era, when there is to be great harmony between the Federals and the Confederates. I cannot stay to be a living witness to the correctness of this prophecy, but I feel it within me that it is to be so. The universally kind feeling expressed for me at a time when it was supposed that each day would prove my last seems to me the beginning of the answer to ‘Let us have peace.’ The expressions of these kindly feelings are not restricted to a section of the country nor to a division of the people. They came from individ-ual-citizens of all nationalities, from all denominations —the Protestant, the Catholic, and the Jew—and from the various societies of the land, scientific, educational, religious, or otherwise. Politics did not enter into the matter at all. lam not egotist enough to suppose all this significance should be given this matter because I was the object of it. But the war between the States was a very bloody and a very costly war. One side or the other had to yield principles they deemed dearer than life before it could be brought to an end. I commanded the whole of the mighty host engaged on the victorious side; I was, no matter whether deservedly so or not, a representer of that side of the controversy. It is a significant and gratifying fact that Confederates should have joined heartily in this spontaneous move. I hope the good feeling inaugurated may continue to the end.” * A general amen went up from the audience, and then the meeting quietly adjourned.