Crucible of Command

by William C. Davis

  Moreover, virtually all of the recollections of Grant’s drinking in California were set down years after the growth of popular mythology about Grant and the bottle, and can hardly have been unaffected. Even those by men of kindly sentiments toward him had a motive in confronting the allegations head on, accepting them in order to follow up by praising him for overcoming his weakness. Hence, they almost make presumed alcoholism a virtue by the fact that it gave Grant a vehicle by which to demonstrate his superior willpower and character.

  Corollary to Grant’s reputed excess is the story that he fell afoul of Lieutenant Colonel Buchanan, who supposedly entertained some prejudice against Grant from the first. As commander of the 4th Infantry, Buchanan allegedly had Grant arrested more than once for his drinking, and demanded from him an undated letter of resignation that Buchanan could use to force Grant out of the army if his behavior became intolerable. The origin of this story lies in comments Buchanan supposedly made to Thomas Anderson in 1862 and afterward, but not written down until 1896, so it is secondhand and forty-four years after the fact (Ellington, Trial, pp. 171–72). It is worth noting that in 1862 Buchanan was a brigadier general of volunteers, whereas Grant had risen to major general, and when the war ended Buchanan was a lowly colonel of the 1st Infantry, whereas Grant was commander of all Union armies. An aged veteran’s resentment of a one-time subaltern who had far surpassed him to the top of the ladder could certainly account for some overzealous invention in a recollection.

  The story about the signed and undated resignation is clearly and completely gainsaid by Grant’s actual resignation letter dated April 11, 1854, since if it had been written earlier, there would be no way at the time of its writing for Grant or Buchanan to know when or even if it might be used, making the internal requested effective date of July 31 a serious anachronism (PUSG, 1, p. 329). Moreover, nothing in Grant’s personal correspondence or Buchanan’s official correspondence gives any evidence of ill feeling between the two, though Grant’s friend and fellow officer Lewis Cass Hunt did not care for Buchanan. In fact, they shared a house together at Fort Humboldt, while Hunt lived alone. Logically, if Grant shared Hunt’s distaste for Buchanan, he would have roomed with Hunt instead. (USG to Julia, June 15, 1853, PUSG, 1, p. 302, February 6, 1854, p. 322).

  Finally, Buchanan would have been the officer to approve Grant trading positions with Captain Henry M. Judah at Fort Jones, yet Judah was notorious for his drinking habits. It hardly seems probable that Buchanan would want to force Grant out of the army over drink, while bringing Judah to Fort Humboldt.

  Local lore in Humboldt County, especially from 1900 onward, often retold the stories of Grant’s drinking, now considerably exaggerated, even though local historians exploded them as erroneous, one declaring that “most of the stories are absolute fiction” (Ellington, Trial, p. 174). Indeed they are.

  148USG to Julia, February 6, 1854, PUSG, 1, p. 322.

  149USG to Julia, February 15, 1853, ibid., p. 289.

  150USG to Julia, March 25, 1854, ibid., p. 327.

  151USG to E. D. Townsend, October 12, 1853, ibid., p. 313.

  152Edward Coffman, The Old Army: A Portrait of the American Army in Peacetime 1784–1898 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 49.

  153USG to Samuel Cooper, April 11, 1854, and resignation of same date, PUSG, 1, pp. 328–29.

  154USG to Julia, March 6, 1854, ibid., p. 323.

  155PMJDG, p. 75.

  156PMUSG, 1, p. 210.

  157PUSG, 1, p. 328 n2.

  158USG to Julia, March 31, 1853, ibid., 1, p. 297.

  159USG to Charles Thomas, September 4, 1851, ibid., p. 229, USG to Jesup, April 14, 1851, p. 198, April 17, 1858, p. 199.

  160USG to Julia, March 4, 1853, ibid., p. 291.

  161USG to Julia, June 15, 1853, ibid., p. 302, June 28, 1853, p. 303.

  162Jesup to USG, December 2, 1853, ibid., pp. 311–12n.

  163USG to Osborn Cross, July 25, 1853, ibid., pp. 308–309.

  164USG to Jesup, November 26, 1853, ibid., p. 314, February 3, 1854, pp. 318–19, November 13, 1853, PUSG, 32, p. 12. See also PUSG, 32, pp. 14–15n.

  165USG to Board of Survey, September 2, 1852, PUSG, 1, pp. 261–62.

  166Panama, Herald, August 17, 1852, in Schenectady, NY, Cabinet, September 7, 1852; St. Louis, Daily Missouri Republican, December 5, 1852.

  167USG to Julia, October 26, 1852, PUSG, 1, pp. 270–71.

  168USG to Julia, June 15, 1853, ibid., p. 301,

  169USG to Cooper, April 11, 1854, ibid., p. 329.

  170USG to Julia, May 2, 1854, ibid., p. 332.

  171Jesse Grant to Jefferson Davis, June 21, 1854, ibid., pp. 330–31, to Jonathan D. Morris, February 21, 1848, p. 375.

  172USG to Jesse R. Grant, December 28, 1856, ibid., p. 334.

  173USG to Jesse R. Grant, February 7, 1857, ibid., p. 336–37.

  174Pawn Ticket, December 23, 1857, ibid., p. 339.

  175Grant must have redeemed it, or Freligh’s son Louis H. Freligh, who had taken over as pawn broker by 1860 census, would not have had the ticket in 1910.

  176USG to Mary Grant, March 21, 1858, ibid., pp. 340–41.

  177USG to Mary Grant, September 7, 1858, ibid., p. 343. PMJDG, p. 80, says that Grant’s illness was malarial.

  178USG to Jesse R. Grant, October 1, 1858, PUSG, 1, p. 344.

  179Hartford, CT, Connecticut Courant, November 26, 1864.

  180Augusta, GA, Chronicle, December 28, 1879.

  181USG to Jesse R. Grant, March 12, 1859, PUSG, 1, pp. 345–46.

  182George A. Townsend, in 1879, alleged that at this time Grant had “about three slaves,” probably confusing the two hired from Dent as being Grant’s. Augusta, Chronicle, December 28, 1879.

  183In her memoirs Julia Grant refers more than once to “servants my father had given me.” See for instance PMJDG, pp. 81–83. However, she never explicitly defined what was meant by “given.”

  184PMJDG, p. 80; USG to Mary Grant, March 21, 1858, PUSG, 1, p. 341.

  185USG to Jesse R. Grant, March 12, 1859, PUSG, 1, pp. 345–46.

  186Manumission of slave, March 29, 1859, ibid., p. 347. It is faintly possible, though hardly likely, that Jones purchased his freedom from Grant, but in that case the appropriate document would have been a bill of sale from Grant to Jones, and not Grant’s manumission. Allowing slaves to earn their own money was illegal in Missouri, though often done nevertheless, but considering what an adult slave might be able to learn in any spare time left after doing the owner’s work, it would have taken Jones more years to earn something like $1,000 than Grant had been in Missouri. On the other hand, Grant left nothing behind explicitly explaining the emancipation of Jones. He might have decided to divest himself of Jones the previous fall when he briefly intended to go to Covington, knowing that his father surely would not allow a slave to be brought into his business, and just delayed getting around to it. Jones’s manumission may have been a condition of Dent’s transfer of title to the slave, though that seems unlikely given Dent’s apparently whole-hearted belief in slavery.

  187USG to Jesse R. Grant, March 12, 1859, ibid., p. 345.

  188USG to Mary Grant, September 7, 1858, ibid., p. 343; St. Louis, Daily Missouri Republican, July 8, 1858. Grant merely says he went to St. Louis “to hear a political speech.” The internal evidence in his letter indicates that the occasion was at least three weeks prior to the letter cited, and probably longer. The election in St. Louis was August 3, so the speech must have been prior to that. While the July 7 speeches at Carondelet seem perhaps too early, they are the only ones that seem to fit, and in any case would be virtually the same in substance as any other stump meetings of the candidates.

  189PMUSG, 1, pp. 235, 573.

  190Ibid., p. 212.

  191USG to Julia, July 4, 1852, PUSG, 1, pp. 245–46.

  192PMUSG, 1, pp. 212–13.

  193In 1850 the percentage of foreign born citizens in St. Louis was 49.3 with only Chicago having a higher proportion. By 1
860 foreigners in St. Louis totaled 50.4 percent, and in Chicago it had receded to exactly 50 percent. United States Census Bureau, Nativity of the Population for the 25 Largest Urban Places and for Selected Counties: 1850, Table 21 (Internet release March 9, 1999); United States Census Bureau, Nativity of the Population for the 25 Largest Urban Places and for Selected Counties: 1860, Table 20 (Internet release March 9, 1999).

  194USG to Jesse R. Grant, August 20, 1859, PUSG, 1, p. 350, September 23, 1859, p. 351. There is still a hint of this feeling in PMUSG, 1, p. 213.

  195PMJDG, pp. 34–35, says this anyhow, writing many years later. Julia Grant’s comments on the family slaves are all glowing.

  196Julia was emphatic in PMJDG (pp. 82–83) that Grant never attempted to sell “her” slaves, erroneously maintaining that they remained hers until freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, whereas in fact they were not legally free until Missouri abolished slavery in January 1865.

  197Hartford, CT, Connecticut Courant, November 26, 1864.

  198REL to Samuel Cooper, December 24, 1859, Adams, Letters, pp. 556–57.

  199REL to MCL, December 1, 1859, ibid., pp. 550–51.

  200James M. Mason to John B. Floyd, December 13, 1859, File L60, AG.

  201REL to T. P. August, December 20, 1859, Adams, Letters, pp. 554–55.

  202REL to MCL, August 26, 1855, ibid., p. 57, REL to Custis Lee, March 13, 1860, p. 585.

  203REL to MCL, November 8, 1856, ibid., p. 202, December 20, 1856, p. 239.

  204REL to MCL, September 3, 1855, ibid., p. 63.

  205REL to MCL, March 28, 1856, ibid., p. 104.

  206REL to Martha Williams, December 5, 1857, ibid., p. 451, December 27, 1857, p. 453.

  207REL to Anna Fitzhugh, September 13, 1858, ibid., pp. 498–99, REL to MCL, August 12, 1857, p. 398.

  208REL to Charlotte Wickham, October 10, 1857, ibid., p. 432, REL to MCL, March 20, 1857, p. 307.

  209REL to GWCL, May 30, 1859, ibid., p. 531, REL to MCL, April 25, 1860, p. 621.

  210REL to MCL, May 2, 1860, ibid., p. 626.

  211REL to MCL, November 8, 1856, ibid., p. 207.

  212REL to MCL, November 19, 1856, ibid., p. 212.

  213REL to MCL, December 12, 1856, ibid., pp. 232–33.

  214REL to MCL, July 27, 1857, ibid., p. 384, August 12, 1857, pp. 397–98, REL to Annie Lee, August 8, 1857, p. 393.

  215REL to MCL, April 25, 1860, ibid., pp. 621–22.

  216REL to MCL, June 18, 1860, ibid., p. 653.

  217REL to Annie Lee, August 27, 1860, ibid., pp. 686–87.

  218REL to GWCL, May 30, 1859, ibid., p. 529.

  219REL to Anna Fitzhugh, February 9, 1860, ibid., p. 565.

  220REL to MCL, July 15, 1860, ibid., p. 677.

  221REL to Annie Lee, August 27, 1860, ibid., pp. 686–87.

  222REL to Mildred Lee, October 22, 1860, ibid., pp. 691–92.

  223REL to MCL, June 22, 1857, ibid., p. 370.

  224REL to MCL, November 19, 1856, ibid., pp. 212–13.

  225REL to MCL, March 13, 1857, ibid., p. 302.

  226REL to MCL, August 11, 1856, ibid., p. 145, September 13, 1856, p. 171, October 3, 1856, p. 173, July 5, 1857, p. 377, REL to GWCL, January 30, 1861, pp. 737–38.

  227REL to MCL, March 17, 1856, ibid., p. 91, March 3, 1860, p. 579.

  228deButts, ed., Growing Up in the 1850s, p. 118.

  229March 11, 1855, ibid., p. 47.

  230REL to MCL, November 5, 1855, Adams, Letters, p. 73.

  231Ibid.

  232REL to MCL, January 7, 1857, ibid., pp. 257–58.

  233REL to MCL, June 3, 1860, ibid., p. 630.

  234Lee wrote almost weekly in 1855, weekly in 1856, and weekly in 1860, until the period July 15 1860 to January 21 1861, for which most of his letters must have been lost.

  235REL to MCL, March 3, 1860, Adams, Letters, p. 578.

  236REL to GWCL, May 30, 1859, ibid., p. 530.

  237REL to MCL, January 31, 1857, ibid., p. 283.

  238REL to MCL, January 31, 1857, ibid., p. 284.

  239REL to GWCL, May 30, 1858, ibid., p. 487.

  240REL to GWCL, August 3, 1851, Gilder Lehrman Collection.

  241REL to GWCL, February 1, 1852, Washington, Evening Union, April 1, 1864. The letter was found at Arlington in 1864 by occupying Union soldiers.

  242REL to MCL, May 18, 1857, Adams, Letters, p. 343.

  243REL to WHFL, June 2, 1853, Gilder Lehrman Collection.

  244REL to MCL, August 4, 1856, Adams, Letters, p. 140, August 11, 1856, p. 146.

  245REL to MCL, January 9, 1857, ibid., p. 268.

  246REL to Nathan G. Evans, August 3, 1857, ibid., pp. 387–88, September 15, 1857, p. 388. Lee asked Mary to send him a small cask of wine and one of brandy not long after they were married. REL to MCL, June 6, 1832, deButts, “Lee in Love,” p. 265.

  247REL to WHFL, January 1, 1859, Lee, Lee of Virginia, p. 437.

  248REL to WHFL, May 30, 1858, Adams, Letters, p. 488.

  249REL to MCL, August 18, 1856, ibid., pp. 156–57.

  250REL to MCL, September 9, 1857, ibid., p. 418.

  251REL to R. Jacqueline Ambler, February 4, 1860, ibid., p. 563.

  252REL to MCL, July 27, 1857, ibid., pp. 383–84.

  253REL to MCL, June 18, 1860, ibid., pp. 653–54, REL to Mildred Lee, October 22, 1860, pp. 689–90.

  254REL to Mildred Lee, January 9, 1857, ibid., p. 265.

  255REL to Mildred Lee, October 22, 1860, ibid., pp. 689–90.

  256REL to MCL, June 15, 1857, ibid., pp. 365–66, August 18, 1856, pp. 156–57.

  257REL to Mildred Childe Lee, January 9, 1857, ibid., pp. 263–64.

  258Agnes Lee to REL, April 9, 1857, deButts, Growing Up in the 1850s, p. 138.

  259REL to MCL, August 12, 1857, Adams, Letters, p. 397.

  260REL to GWCL, May 30, 1858, ibid., pp. 487–88.

  261REL to Anne Lee, February 22, 1860, ibid., p. 571.

  262Ibid., p. 572.

  263REL to MCL, April 25, 1860, ibid., p. 621.

  264REL to MCL, March 7, 1857, ibid., p. 295.

  265REL to Anna Fitzhugh, June 6, 1860, ibid., p. 638.

  266REL to MCL, August 12, 1857, ibid., p. 397.

  267REL to MCL, December 13, 1856, ibid., pp. 233–34, REL to Mrs. Stiles, August 14, 1856, p. 152.

  268REL to MCL, October 24, 1856, ibid., p. 186.

  269REL to MCL, August 4, 1856, ibid., pp. 140–41.

  270REL to GWCL, December 5, 1860, ibid., p. 702.

  271REL to GWCL or WHFL, August 22, 1860, ibid., p. 682.

  272USG to Board of County Commissioners, August 15, 1859, PUSG, 1, p. 348.

  273USG to Jesse R. Grant, August 20, 1859, ibid., pp. 350–51.

  274USG to Jesse R. Grant, September 23, 1859, ibid., p. 351.

  275USG to Jesse R. Grant, September 23, 1859, ibid., p. 351–52, USG to Simpson Grant, October 24, 1859, pp. 353–45.

  276Augusta, GA, Chronicle, December 28, 1879; William W. Averell speech, ca. 1887, Alexander Autographs Catalog, October 14, 2006, sale, #item 57; USG to J. H. Lightner, February 13, 1860, PUSG, 1, pp. 354–55. Grant did not mention applying for work moving cattle or supplies for the army in PMUSG. Averell in his speech dated it to the winter of 1857, when he recalled seeing Grant at the time in St. Louis. The correspondent George A. Townsend, quoted in the Augusta Chronicle dated the episode in the winter of 1859, which seems the better fit in Grant’s chronology.

  277USG to Jesse R. Grant, August 20, 1859, PUSG, 1, pp. 350–51.

  CHAPTER 5: A CRISIS MADE FOR THEM

  1PMJDG, p. 82.

  2USG to Julia, March 14, 1860, PUSG, 1, pp. 355–56.

  3PMJDG, pp. 81, 82–83. The June 13, 1860 Census for Galena, Jo Davies County, IL, shows the Grant family living there. Julia’s memoir accounts of these slaves are somewhat confused, written many years after the fact. She lists her four servants’ names as Eliza, Don, Julia, and John, and their ages in 1859 as ranging from twelve to eighteen, meaning they would have been born be
tween 1841 and 1847 (p. 83). She usually refers to having four, but in her account of the Civil War years it is usually just one, Julia, who is intermittently with her.

  4Providence, RI, Evening Press, August 23, 1865.

  5Newark, NJ, Centinel of Freedom, December 15, 1874; Providence, RI, Evening Press, August 23, 1865. Almost no letters from Grant survive from his Galena period, thus this narrative of his time there relies heavily on early newspaper accounts from the 1860s and 1870s by men who knew him there, due allowance being made for hindsight on their part, and supplemented by PMUSG, which in general is accurate though occasionally confused as to chronology.