OPINIONS FOR WHAT THEY ARE WORTH.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 17, 15 August 1884, Page 23

OPINIONS FOR WHAT THEY ARE WORTH.

' What do you think of Grant ?" Mr. Davis was asked. •' Giant," he said, " was largely a creation of circumstances. I remember that the first time I met Grant was when he was stationed on the Pacific coast as a lieutenant. I was then Secretary of War. He was charged with drunkenness and neglect of duty. I gave him his choice between standing trial and resigning. Be resigned. I knew that he would. General Grant wasa great military commander. He was -very tenacious. He fought a battle as a matter of business. Men were mere cogs in the wheel. All the men and means he wanted were placed at his command, and he had every advantage. He would have been discharged from the Army of the Potomac if it bad not been that too many changes had already taken place in the army." . " What is your estimate of General Sherman ?" was asked. " Sherman," Mr. Davis said, " was looked upon in the south as Alaric was by the Komans. He was their ' scourge of God.' He was cruel, yet be was a great strategist." " Yes," interrupted Mißs Davis, "he was an inhuman monster. What he did not use he destroyed." " Sherman hesitated," Mr. Davis continued, "for a longtime between joining the Confederate army and the Union army. We were uncertain what he would do. He finally joined the Union army, thinking, I suppose, that more could oe gained by it." <' My idea," remarked Mr. Davis, "is that Meade was the most skilful (ieneral in the Federal army. General Lee once said to me SMat he could understand the movements of all the Generals in the •Federal army easier than thoee of General Meade." " How did you regard McClellan ?" 11 He was the best trained soldier in the war. While Secretary of War I sent him on three important missions— one to Europe to study miliiaty methods. He returned with a better knowledge of military discipline and methods than was possessed by any man in this country." "Whom do you regard as the greatest of * the Confederate Generals ?" 41 1 consider General Sidney Johnston as the greate&t General of the late war. General Lee stands next in my estimation, and as we move away from the war his desperate struggle against overwhelming numbers will be a marvel in the war annals," " Mr. Lincoln was a vulgar joker," Mr. Davis said, "but withal he was a great man. He could have been of great good to the South if he had lived, and his untimely death was a great loss to us." — Indianapolis Journal.