The Indianapolis journal., 1885-07-24

z and his wrinkled face was fairly radiant as he
4 said I'm just astonished how that boy Ulysses
went up And yet he had been the one man in
j the world who saw greatness in Grant from the
4 time he was in the cradle Congressman Hamer
& thought there was the making of man in Cadet
& Grant.
1 Grant, when a young man, was addicted to
I etter-writing and was very agreeable CORE
spondent-with vein of humor too. When sta
4 toned IN Texas a short time before the Mexican
! war ne wrote number of letters to friends in
! CIermont county. MY sister, Mrs. Lowe has
s one of these in which he describes his location
/ as somewhere between hell and Texas
When the war for the Union broke out,
! Grant did not get the appointment he wanted
s ana stopped here as he came through on his way
i TO cincinnati He told my brother John Fish
back tfat he was on his way to Ohio to see if he
/ could not get a position on General McClean's
statt, TOR service IN western Virginia That
was probably in May, 1861. He was called back
to Illinois, and after serving in the mastering
I department, made colonel of the Twenty
first Illinois In conversation with my brother
! no said he had been educated at the expense of
the government and felt, if given the opportun-
ity. that ne could be of some service, and as he
was better known in Ohio than any place else.
! he would be more likely to get an appointment
there.
George Fishback and Mckee, of the ST. Louis
1 Democrat told me that they had tried, some
! time before the war; to have Captain Grant
appointed surveyor of St Louis county, but
failed 1t was after this that he went to Galena
gentleman in Chicago whose name has eS-
capped me, told me that during the warm polit-
lcal campaign of 1860 Lincoln Wide awake
company was organized at Galena. The compa-
ny was drilling somewhere and Grant happened
to be looking oh. The men were awkward; the
officers knew nothing about tactics and CAPTAIN
Grant was requested to drill them. which he did.
This would seem to indicate that he was IN syln-
pathy with the Republican party at that time
have seen it stated that he voted for Buchanan,
Z IL. ~ l>.=Ia
but have never heard that he voted for Lincoln
in 1860 1t may have been that he merely
drilled the Wide awakers ont of good nature.
Grants loyalty to his friends is proverbaL
Governor Morton told me that at the time that
charges were pending against Leet and Stocking.
apparently duplicating President Grants secro-
taries. that he (Senator Morton) and Senator
Conkling and others called upon him, and
besought him for the good of the party to
discharee tbem that it would be better to sacri-
flee the young men than go into election
with the party clouded by scandal To this Grant
said Gentlemen, these young men were mem
bers of my military family for several years. L
have seen them subjected to all kinds of tempta-
ton, under circumstances where, if they had
been corrupt, they could have made much
money. have never yet known them to be in
any wrong doing. | would rather sacrifice my
office give it up altogether, than to desert them
while they are under fire. The committee re-
tired.
There was time in the negotiations which
led up to the appointment of the Geneva arhitra-
tion when the people of the United States gen
orally thought that England, from the slowness
with which she moving, had no intention of
doing us justice by allowing claims to be
heard by the proposed Geneva congress. |
at the time in St Louis Senator Morton wrote
to NE that the probabilities were, unless Eng
land acted soon in the matter, that President
Grant would make demand on her for certain
amount, and that he wanted the country,
through the newspapers. prepared to rally to the
support OF the administration if tho demand
should result in war. Senator Morton was then
on the committee on foreign relations, and spoke
by authority. There is doubt that the Presi-
dents views were voiced by the Senator. Per
haps All intimation of Grants views on the sub
ject reached England, and brought about the
arbitration, which seemed for time as hardly
likely to take place"