The evening times. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1895-1902, 1901-07-15
GENERAL GRANTS OLD DESK.
An Ante-Wnr-Time Relic Packed
Avn. In n AttEc.


CLEVELAND. July I5.-Packed away in
the attic Of a big Office building here is a
heavy old cherry desk at which Capt
Ulysses 5. Grant. afterward Commander
of the Union armies and President Of the
United States. once sat and made not
very fat living in the real estate bust
ness in st. Louis.
The desk is big and oId-fashioEed nov
for modern Office use, and it Is covered
with dust and almost forgotten 1t be
longs to y T. Brewer. Cleveland law
yer. who got it IN part payment for rent.
and he told reporter a few days ago how
It Travelled from Grants Office 70 this
Cleveland attic
IN IS70,'- he said, I was a young law
yer Just starting, and I rented part of
my Office to life insurance man named
Avery. who came from St Louis He
brought with him this old desk, and when
he left my Office he owed me some rent
and he left the desk in payment. with the
understanding that he was to have the
right to redeem it at any time. That was
thirty years ago, and 1 guess he's dead
now.
He told me ali about the desk Captain
Grant when he dabbled IN real estate in
St Louis before the war had desk room
in Avery's Office, and this was his desk
Avery got 1t when Grant went TO the
war in part payment for rent. as / did
later from Avery. He told me great
deal that was interesting about Grant
When he was IN the real estate bust
ness the Crimean war was on and Grant
was much more interested in that than
he was in real estate. He made large
maps of the battlefieIds in the Crimea,
with the positions Of the fighting ar
mics marked on them, and he used to
spend hours over these maps which he
spread out on the top Of this desk The
blunders in the allies campaign annoyed
him greatly and ne used to tell his
friends what the commanders should
have done
e Here is the English position. he
would say. according TO Avery planting
his finger on his map. and here the
French. The Turks are here over here
are the Russians The allies should not
have attacked here: that was mistake
1t was Just what the Russians wanted
them to dc. for it gave them an open
ing What the allies should have done
was to feint here to distract the atten-
ton Of the Russians to their flank, and
then concentrate their forces and attack
here IN that way they would have been
able to break through the Russian lines
and crimDIe them back
The groups of Grants fellow-citizens
who listened to these criticisms, Avery
said, used TO laugh at the captains criti-
cisns of the European generals Proba-
bly, they remembered that later Inc
more in earnest Grant grew the more
amused they were Then Grant Wou.d
see that they weren't following him and
he would stop
He was neither silent nor taciturn in
those days though. and he paid a lot
more attention to his war maps than he
did to the real estate business. He SEEM
ed wholly absorbed in the problems IN
generalShip the Crimean war offered
For. many years Mr. Brewer says, he
used the old desk himself and he stli
keeps II for the sake Of its associations
but ne has no room for II in the off1ce ne
now occupies and that's why 1t Is Teie-
gated 70 the attic among the discarded
and useless furniture pied under the
roof.