AFTER a long period of great suffering, General Grant peacefully breathed his last at 8 o'clock in the morning of July 23, at Mt. McGregor, N. Y. In his death our country has lost one of the most remarkable men that it ever produced. Too unassuming to seek a position of prominence, he would probably have lived and died known only to his circle of friends, had not the emergency induced him to offer his services to his country. His patriotism, his determination, and untiring perseverance very soon placed him in the front rank of our officers. By many other officers he was, for a time, considered lacking in strategic skill because he displayed a fertility of expedients which was hard for them to appreciate, sacrificing accepted rules of warfare for methods which his judgment told him were the most direct paths to victory; and the event always proved that his judgment was right. Unknown to the country when he received his commission, he literally fought his way to the hearts of the people, until he was trusted, respected, and beloved as fully and earnestly as any American citizen.
Passing from his triumphs on the field directly to the Presidency, he presented the rare spectacle of a man holding but one civil office in his life time, and that the highest in the nation. In this office he served two full terms, and if ever errors were attributed to him, they were on account of his simple-hearted trust in his friends, of which trait some men took advantage to his injury.
General Grant received more honor from the nations of all the earth than was ever accorded to any other man. Passing entirely around the world, his journey was an ovation from beginning to end. No man seemed more worthy of such honors, and no man could have borne them more meekly.
We copy the following from notices in London papers as expressive of our own feelings, and to show how he was regarded in other lands. The Standard said:—
"Although the death of General Grant was long expected, it is not the less deplored. We can only share with his mourning countrymen in the sense of the loss of one whose career was so notable, so honorable to himself and so useful to his native land. If it were possible, he even rose in popularity when the nation saw the way he faced poverty and ruin. Simple and modest, he was never cast down by reverses nor elated by prosperity."
And the Telegraph said:—
"Yesterday the greatest and most successful soldier that the United States has produced breathed his last. In no portion of the United States have the financial disasters marking the close of General Grant's career been regarded with more sympathy and regret than in England. Beyond all others he was best fitted to cope with the tremendous crisis which made him; and when the grave closes over all that is mortal of Ulysses Simpson Grant, it will be felt that he leaves behind him no man cast in a simpler, sincerer, or more heroic mold."