assumed the offensive and swept the field, thus gaining the battle
decisively. Nevertheless, the controversy was started and kept up,
mostly to the personal prejudice of General Grant, who as usual
maintained an imperturbable silence.

After the battle, a constant stream of civilian surgeons, and
sanitary commission agents, men and women, came up the Tennessee to
bring relief to the thousands of maimed and wounded soldiers for
whom we had imperfect means of shelter and care. These people
caught up the camp-stories, which on their return home they
retailed through their local papers, usually elevating their own
neighbors into heroes, but decrying all others: Among them was
Lieutenant-Governor Stanton, of Ohio, who published in Belfontaine,
Ohio, a most abusive article about General Grant and his
subordinate generals. As General Grant did not and would not take
up the cudgels, I did so. My letter in reply to Stanton, dated
June 10, 1862, was published in the Cincinnati Commercial soon
after its date. To this Lieutenant-Governor Stanton replied, and I
further rejoined in a letter dated July 12, 1862. These letters
are too personal to be revived. By this time the good people of
the North had begun to have their eyes opened, and to give us in
the field more faith and support. Stanton was never again elected
to any public office, and was commonly spoken of as "the late Mr.
Stanton." He is now dead, and I doubt not in life he often
regretted his mistake in attempting to gain popular fame by abusing
the army-leaders, then as now an easy and favorite mode of gaining
notoriety, if not popularity. Of course, subsequent events gave
General Grant and most of the other actors in that battle their
appropriate place in history, but the danger of sudden popular
clamors is well illustrated by this case.