The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-08-11
GENERAL GRANTS OLD DESK.
An Ante-Wartime Relic Packed Away
in an Attic.
Washington Times.

~ 8'+AAAs NblA I4lAAES.
facked away in the attic Of n big office
building here is a heavy old cherry desk. at
Whlcn Captain Ulysses S. Grant. afterward
SoInhlander OF the Union armies and Presi-
dent OF the United States, once sat and
made a not very fat living in the real estate
business in St. Louis.
The desk is big and old-fashioned now for
modern ONCE use, and is covered with dust
and almost forgotten. 1t belongs to A r
Brewer, a Cleveland lawyer. who got it in
part yme Tor rent. and he told a re-
porter a few days ago how it traveled from
Grants office to this Cleveland attic.
IN 1870, ne said, Il was a young lawyer
just starting. and L rented u pary or my
office TO a life insurance man named Avery.
who came from St. Louis. He brought with
MIN ln1s old desk, and when he Ier ny
Office he OWED me some rent, and he left the
ueSk IN Wit the understanding
that he was to have the right TO redeem it
at any time. That was thirty wears ago.
and l guess he's dead now.
lie told me all about the desk. Captain
Grant, when he dabbled in real estate in
St. Louis before the war. had desk room In
AVerys Office, and this was his desk. Avery
got ii when Grant went to the war in part
payment for rent, as [ did later from Avery.
he told me a great deal that was interest
ing about Grant.
"When he was in the real estate business
the Crlmean war was on, and Grant was
much more interested in that than he was
III real estate. He made large maps of the
battletelds in the Crimea, with the posi-
tons OF the fighting armies marked on
them, and he used to spend hours over
these maps, which he spread out on the top
OF this desk. The blunders of the allies
campaign annoyed him greatly, and he used
TO tell his friends what the commanders
should have done.
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 Rus
slams. The allies should not have attacked
here; that was u mistake. 1t was just what
the Russians wanted them to do, for ii gave
them an opening What the allies should
have done was TO feint here, to distract the
attention 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 crimple them back
The groups OF Grants fellow-citfzens
who listened to these criticisms, Avery said.
used to laugh at the captains criticism OF
bered that later. The more in earnest Grant
grew the more amused they We're. Then
Grant would see that they weren't follow
ing him and he would stop.
He was neither silent nor t%aciturn in
those days, though, and he paid a lot more
attention 10 his war maps than ne did to
the real estate business. He seemed wholly
absorbed in the problems in generaIship
the Crimean war offered"
For many years, MIR. Brewer SAYS, he
used the old desk himself, and he still
keeps it for the sake of its associations,
but ne has no room for it in the office he
now occupies and that's why it is rele-
gated TO the attic among the discarded and
useless furniture piled under the roof.