"When the boys came in (sons of the entertainer) they said: 'Senator, we hear that you are an expert on livestock, horses, cattle, etc. Won't you come out in the barn so we can show you some we regard as very fine specimens?' The boys took him out to the barn, shut the door, locked it, and whispered: 'Senator, we have no live stock, but we have a bottle here in the hay mow which we think will do you good.' And the senator wound up his narrative by saying: 'The wettest place that I know of is a dry town in Connecticut.'"
The next day General Grant went to Mount McGregor and, as we all know, a few days afterwards he lost his voice completely.
V. ROSCOE CONKLING
For a number of years, instead of taking my usual vacation in travel or at some resort, I spent a few weeks in the fall in the political canvass as a speaker. In the canvass of 1868 I was associated with Senator Roscoe Conkling, who desired an assistant, as the mass meetings usually wanted at least two and probably three hours of speaking, and he limited himself to an hour. General Grant was at the height of his popularity and the audiences were enormous. As we had to speak every day and sometimes several times a day, Mr. Conkling notified the committees that he would not speak out of doors, and that they must in all cases provide a hall.
When we arrived at Lockport, N. Y., the chairman of the committee, Burt Van Horn, who was the congressman from the district, told the senator that at least twenty thousand people from the town, and others coming from the country on excursion trains, had filled the Fair Grounds. Conkling became very angry and told the congressman that he knew perfectly well the conditions under which he came to Lockport, and that he would not speak at the Fair Grounds. A compromise was finally effected by which the senator was to appear upon the platform, the audience be informed that he would speak in the Opera House, and I was to be left to take care of the crowd. The departure of the senator from the grounds was very dramatic. He was enthusiastically applauded and a band preceded his carriage.
For some reason I never had such a success as in addressing that audience. Commencing with a story, which was new and effective, I continued for two hours without apparently losing an auditor.
Upon my return to the hotel I found the senator very indignant. He said that he had gone to the Opera House with the committee; that, of course, no meeting had been advertised there, but a band had been placed on the balcony to play, as if it were a dime museum attraction inside; that a few farmers' wives had straggled in to have an opportunity to partake from their baskets their luncheons, and that he had left the Opera House and returned to the hotel. The committee coming in and narrating what had occurred at the Fair Grounds, did not help his imperious temper. The committee begged for a large meeting, which was to be held in the evening, but Conkling refused and ordered me to do the same, and we left on the first train. The cordial relations which had existed up to that time were somehow severed and he became very hostile.
General Grant, as president, of course, never had had experience or opportunity to know anything of practical politics. It was said that prior to his election he had never voted but once, and that was before the war, when he voted the Democratic ticket for James Buchanan.
All the senators, representatives, and public men who began to press around him, seeking the appointment to office of their friends, were unknown to him personally. He decided rapidly whom among them he could trust, and once having arrived at that conclusion, his decision was irrevocable. He would stand by a friend, without regard to its effect upon himself, to the last ditch.