Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 53, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 March 1913 — WAR REMINISCENCES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WAR REMINISCENCES

FIRST SIGHT OF GENL GRANT Streets of Culpepper Lined With Men Eager to Catch Glimpse of Famous Commander. “General Grant is on the next train. Better take a position on the sidewalk where you can get a good look at him.” j I took the advice of the natty lieutenant of the “Red Legs,” as the Fourteenth Brooklyn a position a block from the pudgy little station at Culpepper court house, Va. Word seemed to have passed around a good many corners that “Grant is on the next train,” for the walks on either side of the street were lined with men eager to catch a glimpse of the great general, the Moses who had been sent from the west to lead the army of the Potomac through the wilderness and end the war. General Grant’s headquarters were in a brick house eight or ten blocks from the station. Himself and a number of the staff had gone to Washington the Saturday before to meet President Lincoln, General Halleck and Secretary Stanton. Hbw vividly the scenes of the Culpepper street on that balmy March forenoon of forty-seven years ago. the first time I saw General Grant, come back to me. I can hear the shrill whistle of the engine, see the two weather-beaten passenger coaches and a freight car as they stopped. Pretty soon ,a dozen or more trim-built, finely uniformed staff officers alighted, writes Lieut. Col. J. A. Watrous, U. S. A., in the Milwaukee Sentinel. Among these I recall Grant’s strong right arm, General Rawlins, Colonel Bareau, Colonel Parker, the Indian, Majors Rowley and Bowers. The driver of the ambulance was apparently told that the general would walk to headquarters, for he drove away without a passenger. Half of the staff was on either side of the street, about ten feet from the sidewalk. I looked Sharply for the lieutenant general in this party, but none of them resembled the pictures of the new man. “There he comes!” passed along the spectator brigade. Surely our necks were craned and heels raised that our eyes might behold the mighty man from the west who was to command in the next campaign. ‘Go along! That isn’t him.” “Bet you my canteen —I know it’s Grant.” ‘That little, sandy-bearded, stoop- " shouldered, slow-walking fellow —that one —you say that’s General Grant?” "That’s who it is.” And it was. This conversation was carried on by a New Yorker and a Vermonter at my right, while General Grant was slowly, very slowly, walking from the left to the right of his respectfully posted staff. When he reached the right, the staff right and left faced, caught step with the general—a very hard one to keep because it was so without uttering a word the small lsut distinguished procession passed along the street to headquarters, the most- of us moving along the sidewalk closely watching the general. If I had not kept Informed touching the great deeds of our new commander, that first sight of him would have made an unfavorable impression, but as it was, his personal appearance —there was not a member of the staff who was not better looking, better dressed and more soldierly in his bearing—his dusty slouch hat, unbuttoned undercoat and overcoat, unpolished boots, cigar, hands folded behind him and the slow step, were sized, weighed and measured and called just right. Greater joy never came to the army of the Potomac than accompanied the report that Grant—Grant of Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, Mission Ridge—was coming to help us run down Bobby Lee and hia fighters. All of the army wanted to grasp his hand and bld him welcome. Much as a thousand of us, on that short, silent march of the “Old Commander," wanted to greet him, I can not Imagine what would have Induced us to attempt it. Such was the welcome extended to this giant of the west by every man in that army, which for nearly three years had pounded .and been pounded from Manassas to the peninsula, from Cedar mountain to Antietam, from Fredrlcksburg to Chancelorsville, from Gettysburg to Mine Run; and still there we sat oq the banks of the Rapidan and looked across into the faces of Lee’s dauntless army ot ndrthern Virginia, leader and men who were as ready for battle as ever; as hopeful, seemingly, as If they had not left 100,000 of their brave brethren on fields where the two armies clashed.