In four years he had risen, without political favor, from the bottom to the very highest command, - not second to any living commander in all the world! His plans were large, his undiscouraged will was patient to obduracy... In all this career he never lost courage or equanimity. With a million men, for whose movements he was responsible, he yet carried a tranquil mind, neither depressed by disasters nor elated by success. Gentle of heart, familiar with all, never boasting, always modest, Grant came of the old, self-contained sock, men of a sublime force of being, which allied his genius to the great elemental forces of nature, - silent, invisible, irresistible. When his work was done, and the defeat of Confederate armies was final, this dreadful man of blood was tender toward his late adversaries as a woman toward her son. He imposed no humiliating conditions, spared the feelings of his antagonists, sent home the disbanded Southern men with food and with horses for working their crops.