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the President, and both Houses of Congress. Mr. Colfax, since Speaker, asked leave to read the telegram. Amid cheers on every side rose the cry: "To the Clerk's desk! To the Clerk's desk!" Mr. Colfax obeyed; and, in a moment, all was still as the chamber of death. Full and clear the glad news floated through the halls of the Capitol. When the last word echoed on the air, the breathless silence of an instant was broken by the most enthusiastic demonstrations of delight. A salute of one hundred guns was fired; and the only faces shaded with gloom, were those of the mourners for "the unreturning brave," and of the disloyal parasites of the imperilled Government. The War Department, in behalf of the Government, thanked the hero.

But the poisoned arrows of jealousy and hate-in some instances, perhaps, misapprehension-were aimed afresh, and with more determined opposition, at the idol of the loyal people. The governors of several of the Western States waited on General Halleck, and asked for Grant's removal, urging the loss of life at Shiloh, and declaring him wanting in capacity and sobriety. General Halleck knew the hero too well to part with him, and placed him second in command to himself.

Hon. E. B. Washburne, of Illinois, defended General Grant from the detraction of his enemies, in an eloquent speech on the floor of Congress. My youthful reader will enjoy its perusal, and desire to preserve it. The following are its most striking passages:

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"I come before the House to do a great act of justice to a soldier in the field, and to vindicate him from the obloquy and misrepresentation so persistently and cruelly thrust before the country. I refer to a distinguished General, who has recently fought the bloodiest and hardest battle ever fought on this continent, and won one of the most brilliant victories. I mean the battle of Pittsburg Landing, and Major-General Ulysses S. Grant. Though but forty years old, he has been oftener under fire, and been in more battles, than any other man living on this continent, excepting that great chieftain now reposing on his laurels and on the affections of his countrymen, Lieutenant-General Scott. He was in every battle in Mexico that was possible for any one man to be in. He has received the baptismal of fire. No young officer came out of the Mexican war with more distinction than Grant, and the records of the War Department bear official testimony to his gallant and noble deeds. He resigned in 1855, and afterward settled in Galena, in the district I have the honor to represent on this floor.

"I came here to speak as an Illinoisian, proud of his noble and patriotic State; proud of its great history now being made up; proud, above all earthly things, of her brave soldiers, who are shedding their blood upon all the battle fields of the Republic. If the laurels of Grant shall ever be withered, it will not be done by the Illinois soldiers who have followed his victorious banner.

"But to the victory at Pittsburg Landing, which has

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called forth such a flood of denunciation upon General Grant. When we consider the charges of bad generalship, incompetency, and surprise, do we not feel that even the joy of the people is cruel'? As to the question whether there was, or not, what might be called a surprise, I will not argue it; but even if there had been, General Grant is nowise responsible for it, for he was not surprised. He was at his headquarters at Savannah when the fight commenced. Those headquarters were established there, as being the most convenient point for all parts of his command. Some of the troops were at Crump's Landing, between Savannah and Pittsburg, and all the new arrivals were coming to Savannah., That was the proper place for the headquarters of the Commanding General at that time. The General visited Pittsburg Landing and all the important points every day. The attack was made Sunday morning by a vastly superior' force. In five minutes after the first firing was heard, General Grant and staff were on the way to the battle field; and, instead of not reaching the field till ten o'clock, or, as has been still more falsely represented, till noon, I have a letter before me from one of his aids who was with him, and who says he arrived there at eight o'clock in the morning, and immediately assumed command. There he directed the movements, and was always on that part of the field where his presence was most required, exposing his life, and evincing, in his dispositions, the genius of the greatest commanders

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