lelliott19
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Speaking of General Grant, former Confederate General James Longstreet said: "He stood alone as the man for the time. When it was ended the war with him was over. His heavy blows were changed to pleasant salutations." Everyone here probably already knows this, but, like others who had once fought on opposing sides, Grant and Longstreet developed a cordial relationship after the war. Actually, it was more than cordial. The two men held each other in high esteem; they were friends. Eight month's after Grant's death, former Confederate General James Longstreet was invited to Boston, Massachusetts to provide the principal address for the Middlesex Club's Annual Grant Banquet.
Boston, April 28 --- Gen. Longstreet, of Georgia, Grant's greatest antagonist, is the guest of the Middlesex club, and on Monday night was the principal speaker at its annual Grant banquet.
Gen. Longstreet. upon rising to respond to the toast, was received with long-continued cheers, the audience standing and rapturously greeting him, and even during the first few sentences it was impossible for the general to be heard consecutively, owing to the interruption of applause. He said, among other things:
Of all the union commanders, he was the great leader who accurately surveyed the great field of war, the elements of strength, and points of error, and considered the vast means so necessary to solve the problem. He stood alone as the man for the time. When it was ended the war with him was over. His heavy blows were changed to pleasant salutations. Incapable of malice his generous heart offered all that his enemy could ask as terms for surrender with abundance of provisions for the hungry soldiers and transportation to their distant homes.
If he could have been in Chicago in May of last year and witnessed the unveiling of a monument over the dead confederate prisoners of war and could have been with us at the dedication of the national park at Chickamauga in September last, to witness the assembling of Gov. Morton, Gov. McKinley, Gen. Alger, Gen. Grosvenor, Gen. Bates, Gen. Gordon, and multitudes of those of the blue and the gray in cordial, fraternal greetings, he could have known that his prophecy of peace was not a delusive hope, but a happy fruition, mirrored in the expressions of all his countrymen.
The Diamond Drill. (Crystal Falls, Iron County, MI), May 02, 1896, page 6.