'I Knew His Goodness of Heart'

On April 9, 1865, the Army of Northern Virginia surrendered in the village of Appomattox Court House, Va., ending four years of civil war. In his Personal Memoirs (1885), Ulysses Grant writes:

“I had known General Lee in the old army, and had served with him in the Mexican War; but did not suppose, owing to the difference in our age and rank, that he would remember me, while I would more naturally remember him distinctly, because he was the chief of staff of General Scott in the Mexican War.”

It’s typical of Grant to minimize his importance and the impression he has made on others. If not exactly humility, this quality might be thought of as laconic American frontier pragmatism. Grant had a job to do (win a war, write a book), and bragging about it would only get in the way. Roughhewn, not know for elegant manners, he was an American gentleman:

“What General Lee’s feelings were I do not know. As he was a man of much dignity, with an impassible face, it was impossible to say whether he felt inwardly glad that the end had finally come, or felt sad over the result, and was too manly to show it. Whatever his feelings, they were entirely concealed from my observation; but my own feelings, which had been quite jubilant on the receipt of his letter, were sad and depressed. I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse. I do not question, however, the sincerity of the great mass of those who were opposed to us.”

Grant’s respectful, conciliatory words recall the greatest of Civil War poems, Melville’s “Lee in the Capitol (April, 1866).” In the prose “Supplement” appended to Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866), in which the poem was published, Melville urged the Radical Republicans to practice “prudence, not unaligned with entire magnanimity,” and wrote: “Benevolence and policy—Christianity and Machiavelli—dissuade from penal severities toward the subdued . . .”

Grant was not a gifted politician, as his presidency (1869-77) proved. He was among the most adept of our generals and writers. After the surrender, Grant returns to the capital:

“While in Washington I was very busy for a time in preparing the necessary orders for the new state of affairs; communicating with my different commanders of separate departments, bodies of troops, etc. But by the 14th I was pretty well through with this work, so as to be able to visit my children, who were then in Burlington, New Jersey, attending school.”

On April 14, Lincoln invites Grant and his wife to accompany them to the theater that evening. Grant replies that they would like to do so but he is occupied with work and anxious to see his children. He learns of Lincoln’s assassination in Philadelphia:  

“It would be impossible for me to describe the feeling that overcame me at the news of these assassinations, more especially the assassination of the President. I knew his goodness of heart, his generosity, his yielding disposition, his desire to have everybody happy, and above all his desire to see all the people of the United States enter again upon the full privileges of citizenship with equality among all.”

Grant reacts as a man and a citizen. He thinks not of vengeance but of the impact the murder may have on the country and its future:

“I knew also the feeling that Mr. [Andrew] Johnson had expressed in speeches and conversation against the Southern people, and I feared that his course towards them would be such as to repel, and make them unwilling citizens; and if they became such they would remain so for a long while. I felt that reconstruction had been set back, no telling how far.”