Received to-day the first despatches from Grant.
The President thinks very highly of what Grant has done. He
was talking about it to-day with me, and said: — “How near we have been to this
thing before, and failed! I believe if any other General had been at the head
of that army, it would have now been on this side of the Rapidan. It is the dogged
pertinacity of Grant that wins.” It is said that Meade observed to Grant that
the enemy seemed inclined to make a Kilkenny cat fight of the affair; and
answered “Our cat has the longest tail.”
SOURCES: Clara B. Hay, Letters of John Hay and
Extracts from Diary, Volume 1, p. 191-2; See Michael Burlingame and John R.
Turner Ettlinger, Editors, Inside Lincoln’s White House,: the complete
Civil War Diary of John Hay, p. 195.
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