He was the foremost to deny liberty to the South, and he had his sensible doubts about the equality between the negro and the white man; but he actually treated everybody--the Southern rebel, the negro slave, the Northern deserter, the personal enemy--in a just and kindly spirit.

Neither was this kindliness merely an instance of ordinary American amiability and good nature.

It was the result, not of superficial feeling which could be easily ruffled, but of his personal, moral, and intellectual discipline.

He had made for himself a second nature, compact of insight and loving-kindness.
It must be remembered, also, that this higher humanity resided in a man who was the human instrument partly responsible for an awful amount of slaughter and human anguish.

He was not only the commander-in-chief of a great army which fought a long and bloody war, but he was the statesman who had insisted that, if necessary, the war should be fought.