Explore "Our Standard-Bearer" by Oliver Optic on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I am continually prompted to pause in my narrative, and dilate upon the splendid conceptions of Grant, as I see him marching triumphantly over the strongholds of the Rebellion; but the grand facts themselves are enough to overwhelm the imagination. Never was so bold a scheme conceived on a scale so grand; never was one more brilliantly executed. Behold the conqueror issuing his mandates from the State House of the rebel capital of Mississippi! Sternly and resolutely he cuts away the veins and arteries of the Rebellion itself, as he tears up railroads and demolishes mills and public buildings. He is in the very midst of the powers of treason, but he is not dismayed. Far away from his supplies, the rebel stores feed the loyal troops. Dismay and demoralization radiated from his headquarters; and, astounded as the leaders of the Rebellion were, they failed to realize the full extent of the disaster which had befallen them.
Grant had struck the heavy blow in this direction, and, gathering up his forces, he retraced his steps, leaving ruin and desolation behind him. He did not carry on the war on peace principles. Months before he had solved the problem of subjugation. He had gone into the conflict as others did, with an inadequate idea of the work to be accomplished, believing that a few national victories would settle all the questions at issue. But the war was to be a death-struggle. The rebels manifested their hate and spite to a degree never before exhibited by any people. They declared that they never would submit, and their deeds did not belie their words. The question was not to be considered as settled when the national government had demonstrated that it was the stronger party of the two. The "last ditch," and a grave in the Gulf of Mexico, was the howl of the Confederacy. The contest was to be continued not only while large armies could be held together and subsisted, but by guerrillas and partisans burrowing in the mountains after all hope and all other resources had failed.