he showed unmistakable evidence of
gratification when any error into which he might have fallen was
corrected. The fact that he had made a mistake and that it was
plainly pointed out to him did not produce the slightest unpleasant
impression; while the further fact, that no harm had resulted from
his mistake, gave him real pleasure. In Grant's judgment, no case in
which any wrong had been done could possibly be regarded as finally
settled until that wrong was righted, and if he himself had been, in
any sense, a party to that wrong, he was the more earnest in his
desire to see justice done. While he thus showed a total absence of
any false pride of opinion or of knowledge, no man could be firmer
than he in adherence to his mature judgment, nor more earnest in his
determination, on proper occasions, to make it understood that his
opinion was his own and not borrowed from anybody else. His pride in
his own mature opinion was very great; in that he was as far as
possible from being a modest man. This absolute confidence in his own
judgment upon any subject which he had mastered, and the moral
courage to take upon himself alone the highest responsibility, and to
demand full authority and freedom to act according to his own
judgment, without interference from anybody, added to his accurate
estimate of his own ability and clear perception of the necessity for
undivided authority and responsibility in the conduct of military
operations, and in all that concerns the efficiency of armies in time
of war, constituted the foundation of that very great character.

"When summoned to Washington to take command of all the armies, with
the rank of lieutenant-general, he determined, before he reached the
capital, that he would not accept the command under any conditions
than those above stated. His sense of honor and of loyalty to the
country would not permit him to consent to be placed in a false
position, one in which he could not perform the service which the
country had been led to expect from him, and he had the courage to
say so in unqualified terms.

"These traits of Grant's character must now be perfectly familiar to
all who have studied his history, as well as to those who enjoyed
familiar intercourse with him during his life. They are the traits of
character which made him, as it seems to me, a very great man, the
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