Let us not
then try to compare and to measure him with others, and let us not
quarrel as to whether he was greater or less than Washington, as to
whether either of them, set to perform the other's task, would have
succeeded with it, or, perchance, would have failed. Not only is the
competition itself an ungracious one, but to make Lincoln a competitor
is foolish and useless. He was the most individual man who ever lived;
let us be content with this fact. Let us take him simply as Abraham
Lincoln, singular and solitary, as we all see that he was; let us be
thankful if we can make a niche big enough for him among the world's
heroes, without worrying ourselves about the proportion which it may
bear to other niches; and there let him remain forever, lonely, as in
his strange lifetime, impressive, mysterious, unmeasured, and unsolved.
FOOTNOTES:
[79] See _ante_, pp. 237-241 (chapter on Reconstruction).
[80] Grant, _Memoirs_, ii. 460.
[81] Grant, _Memoirs_, ii. 459. This differs from the statement of N.
and H. x. 216, that "amid the wildest enthusiasm, the President again
reviewed the victorious regiments of Grant, marching through Petersburg
in pursuit of Lee." Either picture is good; perhaps that of the silent,
deserted city is not the less effective.
[82] Between March 29 and the date of surrender, 19,132 Confederates had
been captured, a fate to which it was shrewdly suspected that many were
not averse.
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