Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 October 1885 — Hancock, Lee, and Grant. [ARTICLE]

Hancock, Lee, and Grant.

During a visit at the house of my friend, Doctor Swift, of Northville, Michigan, the genial doctor, who is an intelligent physician of large practice and a prominent citizen of that State, gave me the following brace of opinions concerning Gen. Grant, from two representative men. Two or three years since Doctor Swift happened to be a passenger in the same car with Gen. Hancock and the mayor of Atlanta, on c one of the southern railroads. Gen. Hancock and the mayor, who was a German, were sitting together, and, in a conversation relating to public men, the latter remarked: “General Hancock, isn’t it strange that the great Republican party should make a President of such a man as Grant?” Hancock waited a moment and then deliberately answered: “Gen. Grant was a very superior officer. He won his position by merit, and hard and successful fighting, and was worthy of it. If you think strange of the Republicans for making a President of him, what do you think of the Democrats who nominated me?” Several weeks later the doctor was in South Carolina, and had occasion to relate the foregoing incident to a prominent State official, who was a member of Gen. Lee’s staff. The official responded:, • “Doctor, that reminds me of Gen. Lee’s opinion of your great Union General, uttered in my presence in reply to a disparaging remark on the part of a person vho referred to Grant as a ‘military accident, who had no distinguishing merit, but had achieved success through a combination of fortunate circumstances.’ Gen. Lee looked into the critic’s eye steadily and said: ‘Sir, your opinion is a very poor compliment to me. We all thought Richmond, protected as it was by our splendid fortifications and defended by our army of veterans, could not be taken. Yet Grant turned his face to our capital, and never turned it away until we had surrendered. Now, I have carefully searched the military records of both ancient and modern history, and have never found Grant’s superior as a General. Idoult if his superior can bo found in all history.’”— James G. Clarke, in &i. Paul Pioneer Press.