GREAT MEN'S BODIES
not only emergency but responsibility to bring out this quality; but when these were combined he seldom failed."
"He always did the best he could with such men as he had. In small affairs he was an ordinary man. In momentous affairs he attacked as a giant."—General Horace Porter, at the Inauguration of the Brooklyn Statue, April 25, 1896.
Garland says: "At Shiloh, he did not shout, vituperate, or rush aimlessly to and fro; he had no vindictiveness. His anxiety and intensity of mental action never passed beyond his perfect control. He fought best and thought best when pushed hard. No noise of confusion of line, no delay or mistake of commanders, no physical pain could weaken or affright him. His coolness, his alertness, his perfect parity of vision, under the appalling strain evidenced the great commander of men."
His son, Colonel Fred. Grant, said of him: "He always did his best. He did as much his best when he was a farmer as when he was Lieutenant-General, and he never saw that doing your best in one position in life was any different from doing it in another. For instance, he would never look upon one particular achievement and say: 'That was my brilliant deed.' He never looked at things that way. He used to say that he had done all that he could, taken all the pains he could about everything, and if one thing turned out better than another it was because he had more and better information to act upon. No, he never felt one responsibility more than another. He felt it his duty to do his best under all circumstances, and after that he did not care. So he never thought that he did one thing better than another. It was the duty-idea that ruled him."
And thus wrote General Sherman to him: "Dear General,—You do yourself injustice and us too much honor in assigning to us too large a share of the merits which have led to your high advancement. You are Washington's legitimate successor, and occupy a place of almost dangerous elevation; but if you can continue, as heretofore, to be yourself, simple, honest, and unpretending, you will enjoy through life the respect and love of friends and the homage of millions of human beings that will award you a large share in securing them and their descendants a government of law and stability.… I knew wherever I was that you thought of me, and if I got in a tight place you would come if alive."
General Horace Porter tells us how he looked while
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