[pg. 13] GENERAL GRANT AT THE “CAREY VESPERS” *** Those who knew Grant well often spoke of him as a gifted conversationalist, thus mystifying those who knew only his brief public speeches and laconic official communications. It was apparently true, Nonetheless, that when Grant was with a congenial group he did most of the talking, by mutual consent. One such congenial group gathered in Philadelphia on June 25, 1865, to meet Grant at the home of the respected economist, Henry C. Carey. Those in attendance were social and business leaders of Philadelphia, and Grant could feel certain that his remarks would not be made public. Henry Carey Baird’s notes on the conversation, made shortly after it took place, were put aside for nearly a quarter century before he revised them into a narrative. By that time, 1889, Grant had been dead for four years, and the historical importance of what he had said justified their publication. Baird had a title page for his account printed but for some unknown reason decided against publication.
Henry Carey Baird was the son of Captain Thomas J. Baird, a West Point graduate who commanded the arsenal at Bridesburg, Pennsylvania. At sixteen, he entered the Philadelphia publishing firm of Carey & Hart, managed by his uncle, Henry C. Carey. Although Baird later had his own publishing house, his chief interest was the study of economics. He became a prolific pamphleteer in support of his own theories and those of his uncle. His fervent support of a high protective tariff brought him into the Republican Party, [pg. 14] but his belief that currency should be based upon real wealth and business needs rather than precious metals later took him temporarily to the Greenback Party.
So far as can be determined, Baird had no purpose in transcribing Grant’s conversation other than making an accurate historical record. Those statements which can be checked against other records hold up well, and the tone is similar to the Grant interviews by John Russell Young, as well as Grant’s own Memoirs. Baird’s own feelings, which appear in “Recollections of General Meade,” are not apparent in his account of Grant’s conversation. The original Baird manuscript is in the Edward Carey Gardiner collection of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. We are grateful to Henry Cadwalader, director of the society, for permission to use it.
TO WHICH IS ADDED A BRIEF NOTE OF RECOLLECTIONS OF GENERAL MEADE.
BY HENRY CAREY BAIRD.PREFATORY
The “Vespers” of my late kinsman Henry C. Carey as he facetiously called them, were the Sunday afternoon gatherings at his house, 1102 Walnut Street, which took place during nine or ten months during each year, for nearly, if not quite, twenty five of the latter years of his life, which closed October 13th. 1879.He was always at home after five or half past five O’clock, every Sunday, except during the summer months; and his friends to the number of half a dozen or more, called and sat about the large round table in his back parlor, where hock wine was served, and finally about 8 0’clock, coffee, when the company usually broke up.
When any distinguished stranger was known to be in town, he was likely to be invited to come to the “Vespers”, by Mr. Carey or was brought [pg. 15] by some friend, and thus many men of eminence during the last quarter of a century of Mr. Carey’s life met at his festive board. There he used to say, “We discuss everything and settle nothing”. And so it was, all prominent questions of the day being there earnestly discussed.
The following notes of the Vespers at which General Grant took part, are now written out, almost verbatim, from lead-pencil notes made by me within forty eight hours after the event and still preserved.
Philada. July 4, 1889. H. C. B.
On Sunday afternoon June 25, 1865, I received from Mr. Carey a note inviting me to come to his “Vespers” to meet General Grant and “listen to his silence”. A few minutes after 7 P. M. I arrived there and immediately on entering the room was introduced to General Grant, who had been there about 15 minutes, and who, at once on shaking hands with me, introduced me to Col. [Adam] Badeau his aide de Camp.
There were present besides General Grant and Col. Badeau [,] Col. Horace Porter, Henry C. Carey, Morton McMichael, John Tucker, George H. Boker, Judge John C. Knox and Daniel Smith, Jr.
I found General Grant very pleasant and most communicative, indeed very talkative, and I shall endeavor to record his conversation with as much accuracy as possible. This conversation was desultory and the result of questions asked him by various gentlemen present and I cannot pretend to give it in the order in which it took place.
Some reference having been made, by some one to General [Gouvernour K.] Warren, General Grant gave the following account of his having been relieved by General Sheridan, on the field of battle in the recent operations;–
General Sheridan having in his earlier operations against Lee’s right flank, been unsuccessful, most officers would have fallen back and left the field, coming to me and telling me how and why it was that they had been defeated; hut Sheridan, he added, did no such thing. Instead of this, he fell back before the enemy, slowly contesting the ground, inch by inch, in such a manner that the ground was given up only at the rate of half a mile an hour–he sending me word what the actual position of things was. I then sent the 5th Corps to his aid and wrote him that if Gen. Warren failed him, to relieve him without a moments hesitation, and to order him to report to me–that the present was no time to consider the feelings or our regard for any man, that the public good alone must be consulted.1
General Warren did not move his command as soon as he should have done or as General Grant had expected, and in fact had still not yet set out when really he should have been up with and ready to co-operate with Sheridan. Col. Porter suggested that a bridge had been destroyed which cost some delay to which Gen. Grant said “Yes, that was properly the cause of some delay.”
After being relieved, General Warren reported, as ordered, to General Grant, saying “General, a very unpleasant circumstance has taken place. General Sheridan has relieved me of my command and ordered me to report to you”–evidently as General Grant observed, not knowing that he had anything to do with it.
[pg. 16] “Yes”, replied General Grant “I had anticipated that you would fail General Sheridan, and in view of such an event, I had given him orders to relieve you, and but for General Meade, who saved you, I would have relieved you a few days after crossing the Rapidan”, going on to say “General Warren, you seem to think, there is no other general in the Army but yourself. You never receive an order that you do not send back and say how you think the thing should be done, and that others should do so and so, and the consequence is that you never move in time. You have no confidence in your superiors, nor have you any in your subordinates. You have three as fine division commanders as any man could desire, and you never allow them to execute a movement themselves, but must always yourself see to it. The consequence is, while you are attending to the one division and get into a fight with it, you get licked–the other two divisions looking on all the while. No man can command more than one division at a time unless he has confidence in some one else”.2
The conversation was continued by General Grant in regard to General Sheridan, and it being suggested by Judge Knox that Sheridan was simply good to execute a movement previously determined upon and planned, General Grant said; “No, he is equal to anything–even to the chief command of the Armies of the United States, and had he once been placed in that position, he would never had been relieved of it”. He then stated that when Sheridan was in the Valley and before he had moved, he went there to talk with him and see about his moving and tell him how to do it. Sheridan on being asked what his plans were, at once brought out his maps and showed Grant how he could move and what would be the result of it, and the entire movement, as subsequently made was in accordance with his, Sheridan’s plans. He asked whether he could bring up his trains in 48 hours. “Yes sir” said he “in twenty four”; and they were brought up the next day.
He stated that Sheridan had never been placed in any position that he did not fulfill its duties and requirements well–until he was Quarter Master of General Curtis’s Army, that Army had never been able to keep itself supplied. On being asked, why Curtis had relieved Sheridan, he said he did not know unless it was owing to the fact that Sheridan would not let the teams be used for transporting cotton.3 He said that at Chattanooga, Sheridan had command of a division in Gordon Granger’s Corps, but that he would have preferred having Sheridan in command of the Corps.
He told me that he did not relieve [Alfred] Pleasanton from the command of the Cavalry because he considered him a failure, but because he regarded Sheridan as an abler officer.
Being asked, how many men he had under him when he crossed the Rapidan, he replied 123,000 of all arms, including officers, and said that though he outnumbered Lee, the latter had the advantage of being in his own country, generally on the defensive, and had no communications to keep up, while he, Grant, was under the necessity of doing so. He said that when be went into a fight he considered that Lee could actually bring as many men into it as he could. He said that never after the battle of Spottsylvania, had the rebel army the courage to show fight in the open field–that there he had given them a fair chance, but they had not embraced it. At Cold Harbor, the rebels knew that he had withdrawn [pg. 17] three of his corps from the front and yet they did not then dare to attack the two remaining corps in their works.
Judge Knox remarked, that he had heard the President say that any other General would have fallen back over the Rapidan after the first battle. General Grant replied that he started out with the intention of riot coming back without first taking Richmond and that he never contemplated doing otherwise, adding “When I saw that Butler had shut himself up in a bottle (Bermuda) I thought it would take a good while but I felt satisfied it could be done.* I knew that all that was necessary was to stick at them.”
Mr. Carey having said, that it was a pity, for Butler that he was so anxious to make a military reputation and was not content to be and enjoy the reputation of a military governor, Grant replied, he might have enjoyed such a reputation among persons at a distance but would not have done so among those near to him; that he had done a great many things for which no justification could be found, and then called attention to the case of Chaplain Hudson, who had been imprisoned by Butler in a bull-pen for 65 days, for what he had written in regard to him.4 “Never punish a man for writing against you.”
Mr. Boker said on the contrary, send him pens ink and paper and invite him to go ahead. General Grant acquiesced in this view. He added that Butler even while under his command and eye, was doing things which were only by accident being found out by some newspaper paragraphs.
In regard to Butler’s failure at Fort Fisher, General Grant said no instructions were given to make an assault. On the contrary, it was said, if it is found too strong to assault, let the position be fortified, and let the operations go on for a siege, just as Richmond is besieged. It will be a victory even to have made a landing.
In regard to the final operations which led to the surrender of Lee’s Army he said that it had been his idea, when Warren was sent to reenforce Sheridan that the former should be thrown round in such a manner as to strike the rebels who had advanced against Sheridan and cut them off from the main body of the rebel army.
When he found that Sheridan had been, with the aid of the 5th. Corps, successful in crushing the rebel right, and taking, as he did so large a number of prisoners, he felt satisfied that Lee’s Army would, to a great extent, fall into his hands and he knew that all was over with Lee, though he did not then expect to be able to capture the entire Army.
When he first wrote Lee demanding the surrender of his Army, he had riot at that time the rebel Army in such a position as to make certain of [pg. 18] capturing it entire if Lee did not surrender it. Subsequently, however, and at the time that Lee did agree to the surrender he had him in such a position that escape was impossible. In regard to his conference with Lee and the surrender he said that Lee agreed to his terms so promptly, and he behaved so well, that he felt no desire even strictly to force him to comply with the exact conditions agreed upon. So when he sat down to write out the formal agreement he–Grant–added the provision allowing the rebel officers to retain their side arms, horses, and private property. Gen. Lee took up this paper and on reading it and finding these additional and generous provisions, seemed very much pleased and remarked “This will have a very good effect on our Army”.
Subsequently Lee remarked “There are a great many men in our Army who own their own horses, do the conditions of surrender include these in such a manner that the men will be able to retain these?” To this Grant replied “No” and Lee in again looking over the paper said “Yes it is so”. General Grant remarked however that the horses would be of no consequence to the Government and would be of great advantage to the men, especially to those who were farmers, and he would arrange it by giving directions to his officers superintending the surrender to allow all men who owned their horses to retain them. Either General Grant or Col. Badeau stated that when these, conditions were subsequently known in the rebel army the men gave three cheers–in fact as all three officers present agreed, there was more enthusiasm manifested in the rebel army than in our own. On the following day, as General Grant stated, numerous rebel officers came to his Headquarters to pay their respects to him and to thank him for the very magnanimous terms he had granted them and he added that some of the officers, Generals among the rest, stated that no circumstances could ever again induce them to take up arms against the United States after such treatment. Cal. Badeau stated that Fairfax of, I think, Longstreet’s staff, came to Headquarters on that or the following day and complimented Grant upon his extraordinary master-stroke in giving such terms, for, added he, “You have laid our army out” or words to that effect.5 I asked Gen. Grant whether the effect of these terms was not very great upon General Johnston’s army, and he said it certainly was.
General Grant stated that in one of his conferences with Lee the latter had told him that had he consented to meet him–Lee–some weeks before for a conference that there need not have been one more drop of blood shed. To this General Grant replied, that it was impossible by the very terms of his–Lee’s–invitation for that conference to take place as he did not propose anything but a “settlement of all questions between the two Governments” and that it would have been an actual acknowledgment of their Government, and in treating with them, as a separate Government, we should have rendered ourselves actually liable for their debts.6 In this acknowledgment we would be doing exactly what we had always before refused to do.
In regard to General Sherman he explained some points in Sherman’s agreement with Johnston which placed that agreement in a somewhat different light from that generally regarded by the public. He said that Sherman was led in a great measure to grant the terms which he did on account of the publication made in the Richmond papers, apparently by authority, inviting the late rebel legislature to assemble in that city and reorganize the Government of the State; that he knew the President [pg. 19] had been in Richmond and he presumed that affairs were to be reorganized in all the states by the State Governments. That Sherman did not at the time of granting these terms, know that that invitation had been withdrawn and disavowed. He also stated that Sherman had said to him, that the agreement was drawn up very hastily, and he admitted in going over it with him that it would have been well if certain expressions–pointing them out–had been otherwise worded. Grant said that it was a great oversight of his, and he regretted it very much, that when he saw the publication, as I understood of the dispatches of Halleck and possibly Stanton, that he did not send word to Sherman to keep quiet and all would be right in a few days. He considered that it was a great mistake for Sherman to get into the squabbles he had gotten into with the Secretary of War and General Halleck; but hoped that the effect on the public mind would pass away. He said: “Sherman is very impulsive” and he added that he was a very pure man.
I asked him if he had ever seen a letter of General [James B.] McPherson’s written just before McPherson’s death, giving his estimate of the characters of Grant and Sherman. He said that it had been sent to him. I remarked that he seemed to have hit Sherman’s character very well. The question was then asked whether Sherman and McPherson were friends, and he replied that they were.
Mr. Boker remarked: “Well just to think of Jack Magruder “surrendering”! “Oh!” said General Grant “there is nothing in him”. He then gave with great spirit, the following characteristic anecdote of Gen. John B. Magruder. When the latter was in the army of the United States he was a Captain of Artillery, with two brevets, Major and Lieut. Col. which he had received during the Mexican War. The law then was that an officer performing the duties of his brevet rank was entitled to pay in accordance with that rank. Magruder was stationed for two or three years in California at a “double rationed post”, and thus having the command of a Major he drew Major’s pay. Subsequently thinking it would be a good thing to draw the difference between the pay of Major and that of Lieut. Col. he forwarded his claim to the War Department and it was disallowed. Jeff. Davis was at that time Secretary of War. He and Magruder had been class-mates at West Point and were old friends. Magruder subsequently visiting Washington, called at the War Department and seeing Davis said: “Mr. Secretary I have called in regard to that account of back pay” Davis replied that the account had been examined and disallowed. Magruder said: “I think Sir I can throw such light upon it as will cause you to reconsider the decision”. Davis now became very angry and insisted that the case would not again be opened. Magruder replied: “Mr. Secretary, No man is considered infallible except the Pope and even we Protestants do not believe him to be”. This put Davis in a great rage, and Magruder said: “Well Mr. Secretary I shall resign”. Davis at once changed his tone and said: “Colonel what are you going to resign for?” “Why sir because, I may then some day become Secretary of War, I see that a damn sight greater fools than I are made Secretary”
Some remark having been made that the officers in Fort Sumter had all been very fortunate I remarked that Hall a lieut. of Artillery had not been promoted7and that Seymour–General Truman–had not been fortunate. General Grant at once said Seymour is a very intelligent, [pg. 20] accomplished officer, but he is a failure, and is such for the reason, that he is such a thorough theorist, adding; “If I saw that Seymour took ground in favor of any particular view, that would be with me evidence conclusive that it could not be done”. He then went on to speak of Seymour having written a letter in which he said, that Fort Fisher could not be taken; and that some delay having taken place in the publication of the letter, it did not appear until the time, or even after, the taking of Fort Fisher.
I remarked to General Grant that I had been a reader of Army Registers for nearly 20 years, my father having been a graduate of West Point, and that it was very curious to look at the Register of 1846 now and see his name down as second lieutenant. “Yes” said he “I believe there were but two below me at that time”. He was then in the 4th. Infantry and informed me that, in the early part of the Mexican War, he was in Capt. Geo. A. McCall’s Co.
Mr. Carey having remarked that recent letters from Montreal indicate that public sentiment in Canada was fast ripening for annexation to the United States and that it would be almost impossible for the English Government to keep Canada from coming in, Gen. Grant asked: “What good it could possibly do us to have her?” Mr. Carey replied, none that he could see. General Grant then said: “An attempt of Canada to come into the Union I would consider a cause for war with England, and I would fight her until she agreed to keep 100,000 men in Canada to keep her from coming in”. He then told a story of Captain Charles H. Larnard 4th. Infantry when at Monterey, Mexico, illustrative of his own position in regard to England and Canada. He said that at that time they had in the army a number of Texan troops which were the most unmanageable of soldiers and were always giving trouble. Captain Larnard said to Grant one day: “People think this a very cruel war. For my part I would carry on this war against Mexico until she agreed to take these Texans and keep them and make the Rio Colorado the boundary between the United States and Mexico”.
Colonel Badeau it was I think who remarked: “Gentlemen, none of you who have not been in the South, can form any idea how completely they are whipped”. To this General Grant assented and conversed further on the subject. Mr. McMichael told General Grant that he had seen somewhere in the newspapers the statement that he had written a letter or made a speech in which he announced himself as in favor of negro suffrage; and desired to know if he had done so. His reply was: “Any one, any one, who states that such is the case tells a lie.”
Conversation turning upon the President–Johnson–General Grant expressed a high opinion of him, and said that it was impossible that a man, without being possessed of great ability, could while unable to read or write at the age of 20 rise to such a position, especially having as he had, all the disadvantages of living in a slave state.
General Grant was asked how he explained the apparent fact that Jeff Davis had made no effort to escape during the truce which followed Sherman’s and Johnson’s negotiations. His reply was that he thought it arose from Davis’s obstinacy–that he really would not believe then, that it was possible, for his power to be crushed. He said that we were actually telegraphing, in cipher to General [James H.] Wilson, over Davis’s head, about him and using their operators, before he was taken.
[pg. 21] General Grant’s idea was, that the regular army should consist of 120,000 men, and he considered that regiments of two battalions, like our old Infantry regiments, were the proper form of organization for such a country as ours.8 He thought that the three battalion regiments were a good organization for European countries.
The great feature of Mr. Carey’s “Vespers”, was the German hock wine which he gave his guests, he having been a member of The Hock Club, originally formed in Philadelphia probably 30 years before the time of which I make this record. This club imported its wine from Germany, as Mr. Carey did up to the close of his life. In the midst of all of us, who were drinking wine, General Grant drank nothing whatever, until, at the end of the evening, as was usual, coffee was brought on the table, and of which he drank a cup.
BRIEF NOTE OF RECOLLECTIONS OF GENERAL MEADE.
After the close of the war, I repeatedly met General Meade, and held quite friendly, almost familiar relations with him, materially increased by the fact that my brother Edward had been his Assistant Adjutant General during the whole of Meade’s career as a Brigadier General; and the further fact of my deep interest in the Army, its history and its personnel, extending back to the opening of the Mexican War in 1846.
My brother had the most intense, indeed enthusiastic, admiration of General Meade, and regarded him, in every sense, the peer of any general of the late war–Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas, or any one else. Of the soldierly qualities of my brother General Meade had a very high opinion, and on one occasion said to me: “I have never known a man who had greater capacity for handling troops in action than your brother; and if he had been in the line instead of the staff he would have come out of the war a Major General”.9 These were, I believe, precisely and exactly his words; which naturally made a deep impression on my mind, although the statement but went to confirm the universal testimony I had had from men who had served with Edward. This of course, coming from so high a source, was the greatest compliment I had ever heard paid to him as a soldier. That he fully deserved it, there can be no question.
General Meade once told me that he was obliged to spend half his time in defending his own reputation, and I believe that there was no general of the war who had performed great and important services and did such work as he did to whom so great injustice has been done.
Having heard from some one that Generals Meade, Hancock, and others had protested against the murderous character of General Grant’s operations in the campaign of 1864, I once asked General Meade if there was any foundation for this statement, and he denied that there was. He said that there had never but once been any disagreement between General Grant and himself, and that was before the Army of the Potomac, in 1864, crossed the Rapidan. “I wanted” as General Meade said “to move by the right flank, while General Grant wished to move by the left.” “He said ‘General Meade, I wish you to understand that this Army is not to manoeuvre for position’.”
To this General Meade replied: “General Grant, you will find that you have a consummate general to fight, and that you will have to [pg. 22] manoeuvre for position.” Then, as General Meade added to me: “The Army never did anything but manoeuvre for position; and it never got it”–which was a fact. But the American people having been convinced that General Grant was, as a soldier, well nigh infallible, the man who would vindicate the judgment or the fame, or both, of any other General, at the slightest suspicion of expense to the judgment or the fame of General Grant or even of General Sheridan could never get a public hearing. Such is the justice, the injustice, or the stupidity of so called public opinion, afraid of the overthrow of its idols by the presentation of the truth. When before an audience in Brooklyn, N. Y. I myself, suggested that the ways of resumption by contraction, as practiced by [Hugh] McCulloch, [John] Sherman and [James A.] Garfield were selfish, I was hissed because I had ventured to question the infallibility, the perfection of their idol, Garfield.
My friend, Col. James C. Biddle, who was long, during the war, a member of General Meade’s Staff, has assured me that General Grant never came into the presence of General Meade, without an apparent feeling of awe–induced, as he believed, by Meade’s superior dignity and refinement.10 He also told me that General Grant was never quite satisfied and free from anxiety when General Meade was absent from the Army of the Potomac, and that on one occasion he had recalled Meade, when “on leave” on a visit to his family in Philadelphia, before his leave had expired. Col. Biddle has also stated to me that the people labored under the impression that General Meade did not want to fight; which was not so. On the contrary, while he wanted to fight, and while he had command of the Army of the Potomac, before General Grant took chief direction in Virginia, Meade was hampered and controlled by General Halleck–that he himself, Col. Biddle, had once gone to Washington with the request from General Meade to General Halleck, that he be allowed to move against Lee, but that the request had been refused.
General Hartman Bache, a brother-in-law of Meade, and an older officer than the latter, expressed to me the opinion, during the war, that no other officer of the Army, had by study and industry, since his first entrance into the military service of the United States, improved himself more than General Meade.
1. Grant’s authorization to Sheridan to relieve Warren was a verbal message delivered by staff officer Orville E. Babcock. Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant (N. Y., 1885-6), II, 445; Personal Memoirs of P. H. Sheridan (N. Y., 1888), II, 160; Adam Badeau, Military History of U. S. Grant (N. Y., 1881), III, 498.
2. Cf. Emerson Gifford Taylor, Gouverneur Kemble Warren (Boston and N. Y., 1932), 228.
3. Sheridan attributed his removal to the intrigues of an assistant quartermaster and his own refusal to purchase horses stolen in the area. Sheridan, Memoirs, I, 133-5.
* [from pg. 17] Col. Horace Porter of General Grant’s staff told my friend Capt. S. V. Benet, U. S. Ord. that General Grant called his staff together just before crossing the Rapidan and told them he thought it no more than right, to tell them he intended to move in a few days and that he proposed to reach Petersburg. On being asked how he would go, whether by the right flank or the left he could not say, that would remain for the daily movements and events to develop. He did not pretend to say that if he found a weak spot, he would not strike for Richmond, but that he had determined that Lee’s communications with the South should no longer remain open. [note by Baird. Cf. Horace Porter, Campaigning With Grant (N. Y., l997), 36-8.]
4. See Henry Newman Hudson, A Chaplain’s Campaign with Gen. Butler (N. Y., 1865).
[pg. 23] 5. John W. Fairfax served as assistant adjutant and inspector general on Longstreet’s staff.
6. Lee’s offer of March 2, 1865, and Grant’s reply of March 4 are in Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, I, xlvi, 2, 824-5.
7. Second Lt. Norman Jonathan Hall was promoted to first lieutenant after Sumter and served as colonel of the Seventh Michigan Infantry from 1862 to 1864. He returned to the regular artillery as captain and resigned with that rank in February, 1865.
8. The regular army in December, 1860, consisted of 16,367 men. In April, 1865, it was 22,310. It never reached even half the size Grant speaks of until the Spanish-American War.
9. Edward Carey Baird enlisted as a sergeant in 1861 and resigned as a major in 1865.
10. Baird sent a copy of his paper to Morton McMichael, a Philadelphia newspaperman who had been present at the “Carey Vespers.” McMichael replied that he had heard Grant say something in Philadelphia which clearly indicated that Grant was not awed by Meade. Letter in Edward Carey Gardiner Collection, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
NEWS NOTES *** General Grant by Matthew Arnold with a Rejoinder by Mark Twain, edited with an introduction by John Y. Simon, is an April publication of Southern Illinois University Press. Arnold, the most influential English critic of the day, published a long essay on Grant in order to bring the Memoirs to the attention of English readers. Although Arnold admired Grant’s character and style, he included some reflections on his grammar which angered many Americans. “When we think of General Grant,” said Twain, “our pulses quicken and his grammar vanishes: we only remember that this is the simple soldier who, all untaught of the silken phrase-makers, linked words together with an art surpassing the art of the schools, and put into them a something which will still bring to American ears, as long as America shall last, the roll of his vanished drums and the tread of his marching hosts.” *** The Grant house in Georgetown, Ohio, was recently purchased by Judge and [pg. 24] Mrs. George T. Campbell of Georgetown. Here Ulysses Grant lived for more than fifteen years before his enrollment at West Point. Judge Campbell regretted the unavailability of “funds to do anything about the home in spite of its importance in the life of this great American soldier and United States President.” He acquired the property as a first step toward establishing a “Grant Homestead Museum.” *** Thomas H. Pitkin’s Grant the Soldier is a recent publication of Acropolis Books (Colortone Building, 2400 17th St. N. W., Washington, D. C., 20009). Pitkin recently retired from the National Park Service where, as Supervisory Historian in the New York City area, he was responsible for Grant’s Tomb. The book has been published for the Eastern National Park & Monument Association which augments the services of the National Park Service. In eighty-eight pages of rather large print (and more than thirty black and white illustrations), the story of Grant is told through selected passages from various eyewitnesses. Some selections are taken from such familiar sources as Grant’s own Memoirs and Horace Porter’s Campaigning with Grant; others which come from obscure books and manuscripts will repay examination by specialists.