"Honor no order for a sight or copy of the Memoirs while I am absent, even though it be signed by Mr.Clemens himself."I gave my permission.There were weighty reasons why I should not only give my permission, but hold it a matter of honor to not dissolve the order or modify it at any time.So I did all of that--said the order should stand undisturbed to the end.If a principal could dissolve his promise as innocently as he can dissolve his written order unguarded by his promise, I would send you a copy of the Memoirs instantly.I did not foresee you, or I would have made an exception.
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My idea gained from army men, is that the drunkenness (and sometimes pretty reckless spreeing, nights,) ceased before he came East to be Lt.
General.(Refer especially to Gen.Wm.B.Franklin--[If you could see Franklin and talk with him--then he would unbosom,]) It was while Grant was still in the West that Mr.Lincoln said he wished he could find out what brand of whisky that fellow used, so he could furnish it to some of the other generals.Franklin saw Grant tumble from his horse drunk, while reviewing troops in New Orleans.The fall gave him a good deal of a hurt.He was then on the point of leaving for the Chattanooga region.
I naturally put "that and that together" when I read Gen.O.O.Howards's article in the Christian Union, three or four weeks ago--where he mentions that the new General arrived lame from a recent accident.
(See that article.) And why not write Howard?
Franklin spoke positively of the frequent spreeing.In camp--in time of war.
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Captain Grant was frequently threatened by the Commandant of his Oregon post with a report to the War Department of his conduct unless he modified his intemperance.The report would mean dismissal from the service.At last the report had to be made out; and then, so greatly was the captain beloved, that he was privately informed, and was thus enabled to rush his resignation to Washington ahead of the report.Did the report go, nevertheless? I don't know.If it did, it is in the War Department now, possibly, and seeable.I got all this from a regular army man, but I can't name him to save me.
The only time General Grant ever mentioned liquor to me was about last April or possibly May.He said:
"If I could only build up my strength! The doctors urge whisky and champagne; but I can't take them; I can't abide the taste of any kind of liquor."Had he made a conquest so complete that even the taste of liquor was become an offense? Or was he so sore over what had been said about his habit that he wanted to persuade others and likewise himself that he hadn't even ever had any taste for it? It sounded like the latter, but that's no evidence.
He told me in the fall of '84 that there was something the matter with his throat, and that at the suggestion of his physicians he had reduced his smoking to one cigar a day.Then he added, in a casual fashion, that he didn't care for that one, and seldom smoked it.
I could understand that feeling.He had set out to conquer not the habit but the inclination--the desire.He had gone at the root, not the trunk.
It's the perfect way and the only true way (I speak from experience.)How I do hate those enemies of the human race who go around enslaving God's free people with pledges--to quit drinking instead of to quit wanting to drink.
But Sherman and Van Vliet know everything concerning Grant; and if you tell them how you want to use the facts, both of them will testify.
Regular army men have no concealments about each other; and yet they make their awful statements without shade or color or malice with a frankness and a child-like *****ty, indeed, which is enchanting-and stupefying.
West Point seems to teach them that, among other priceless things not to be got in any other college in this world.If we talked about our guild-mates as I have heard Sherman, Grant, Van Vliet and others talk about theirs--mates with whom they were on the best possible terms--we could never expect them to speak to us again.
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I am reminded, now, of another matter.The day of the funeral I sat an hour over a single drink and several cigars with Van Vliet and Sherman and Senator Sherman.; and among other things Gen.Sherman said, with impatient scorn:
"The idea of all this nonsense about Grant not being able to stand rude language and indelicate stories! Why Grant was full of humor, and full of the appreciation of it.I have sat with him by the hour listening to Jim Nye's yarns, and I reckon you know the style of Jim Nye's histories, Clemens.It makes me sick--that newspaper nonsense.Grant was no namby-pamby fool, he was a man--all over--rounded and complete."I wish I had thought of it! I would have said to General Grant: " Put the drunkenness in the Memoirs--and the repentance and reform.Trust the people."But I will wager there is not a hint in the book.He was sore, there.
As much of the book as I have read gives no hint, as far as I recollect.
The sick-room brought out the points of Gen.Grant's character--some of them particularly, to wit: