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His end was very sad. About a month ago he ordered his horse and rode off, intending to visit Fort Garry. At the turn of the road, just above Grant's house, the horse suddenly swerved, and its rider was thrown to the ground. He did not live more than half-an-hour after it. O Charley, how little we know what is before us!
General Grant's detachment was seen by Washington from the camp at Valley Forge about the time it was discovered by the troops at Barren Hill, alarm guns were fired by his order to warn Lafayette of his danger, and the whole army was drawn out to be in readiness to act as circumstances might require.
Grant's army was the flower of Northern manhood and with its three hundred and eighteen great field guns the best equipped body of fighting men ever brought together on our continent. His baggage train was over sixty miles long and would have stretched the entire distance to Richmond.
I doubt very much whether such, results could have been achieved without the presence of an American army on the Rio Grande, which, be it remembered, was sent there because, in General Grant's words, the French invasion of Mexico was so closely related to the rebellion as to be essentially a part of it.
Early on the following morning, George started homeward with his cattle, and as they rode slowly through the barley-grass that fringed the trail, Edgar looked at him with a smile. "You spent some time in Miss Grant's company," he remarked. "How did she strike you?" "I like her. She's interesting I think that's the right word for it. Seems to understand things; talks to you like a man."
Meanwhile, I had opened Miss Grant's, and could not withhold an exclamation. "Catriona," I cried, forgetting, the first time since her father was arrived, to address her by a handle, "I am come into my kingdom fairly, I am the laird of Shaws indeed my uncle is dead at last." She clapped her hands together leaping from her seat.
"Well, my stars!" she declared loudly, her needle flying in and out in time to her words, "I would rather get down on my marrow bones and scrub for my living if I was the Grant Girls than keep a young man at home. Gavin Grant's duty ain't at home any more than Trooper's is. The Grant Girls'll never want. Hughie Reid is just a brother to them, and he's to work the farm.
The well of the close was all in clear shadow where a man could see distinctly, the walls very black and dingy; and there from the barred loophole I saw two faces smiling across at me Miss Grant's and Catriona's. "There!" says Miss Grant, "I wanted her to see you in your braws, like the lass of Limekilns. I wanted her to see what I could make of you, when I buckled to the job in earnest!"
For two days Grant's army invested the fort, and kept up a constant cannonade; then the defenders, despairing of escape, and seeing no use of further prolonging the defence, surrendered. The capture of Fort Donelson was an important success for the Union arms.
On this, the thirtieth day of Grant's campaign of stern attrition and would-be-smashing hammerstrokes at Lee, these were his orders for attack: "The moment it becomes certain that an assault cannot succeed, suspend the offensive. But when one does succeed, push it vigorously, and, if necessary, pile in troops at the successful point from wherever they can be taken."
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