The Indianapolis sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1880-1904, 1885-05-18
GRANTS FAREWELL MESSAGE.
The Words He Leaves for the Boys In Blue
An Interesting Iaterview.

BosroN, May IAN interesting interview
with General Grant. in the course of which
the old commander dictated his farewell
message to the brave soldiers who fought un.
der him to crush the rsoellion, was had last
Thursday by Lieutenant A. T. Holbrook, of
G. A. f Post 6S Dorchester, Mass. Lieu.
tenant Holbrook called at the Grant mansion
in company with Mr.. A. Howard Walker,
of Cincinnati, who wished to present the
General an album containing the au.
tographs of the frat fifty subscrib.
to be issued for the West. The names in.
cluded the leading citizens Of Cincinnati,
among them the Governor of Ohio add four
ex-Governors and the album formed SOU
venir birthday gift, the signatures having
been made on General Grants sixty.tht
birthday. Lieutenant Holbrook is dele
gaze to the National Eacampment of the G.
a. r. 70 be held in Portland next June, and
it is his wish to take from his old command
er a message to the Grand Army men there
gathered. Although the General was very
weak at the time, he directed that his visit
ors be at once admitted. Lieutenant Hol.
brook Gays: I'VE found him sitting
oeived us cordially. He expressed
himself ss greatly pleased at the tri-
butte from his friends in Cincinnati, and
the tears OF Joy that stood in his eyes
when he said it left no room for doubt that
he spoke from bis heart. The souvenir is so
beautifully conceived, he said. that can
not sufficiently express my pleasure st
ceiving it, When l told him of my wish to
tske me sssge to the Boys in Blue to oa de
ivered to them at the encampment in Port
lsnd. Me-, in June. he arose, took me by the
hand and said: Tell the boys that they will
probably never look into my face again, nor
hear my voice, but they are engraved uDon
What the good Lord has spared me for is
more than l can tell. but it is perhaps to
finish up my book which I shall
leave to the Boys in Blue, and in which theh
can not only zee me, bu. follow
me In the acts in which they helped me-
Holding NY hand thus warmly he walked
across the room several times with me asd
ssked me where was in the army. TOLD
him l was on the staff of Isaac Ingalls,
Stevens. General Grant smiled very cour-
teouslv and said: Why. General Stevens
was q chum of mine at West Point, and we
used to call him the two-eyed Stevens, on
account of the reiteration of his Initials.
General Stevens was full OF bis stories when
he was q young man, as well as considerable
of politician. / remember his saying that
be went to colored church and heard the
minister give out his text as the two-eyed
chapter of the one eyed Johs, and that it so
convulsed him that he was obliged to leave
the building General Grant also said that
General Stevens and other West Pointers,
and also officials connected with the Mex
ican War, would be specially treated in his
forthcoming volume
LAS we were about to leave General Grant
took Us into the library and showed rs the
manuscript Of his book. Colonel Fred turned
over the leaves of the first volume TO show us
that it was in the Generals OWL handwrit
irg The second volume was partly in his
and partly not. OF course all his writing nov
is done by an amanuenis Just before we
left him, he spoke OF his illness. He ga d
that if the doctors had not lived there in the
room-if they had been block sway, or
been house away, he was satisfied ne would
never have spoken again. He was convinced
that there was IN overruling Providencs in
the whole of his sickness. He said that he
asked the doctors why they did not let him
alone and allow him to die then, rather than
to bring him again to the consciousness of
pain and suffering. But still, he ssid, i be-
lieve that an overruling Providencs hes
something more for me to do in this world,
If il Is only to finish nv book"