With Grant at Fort Donelson, Shiloh and Vicksburg / and an appreciation of General U. S. Grant

by Wilbur F. Crummer

Upon his return from his trip ’round the world, the General and family took up their abode in Galena. The city again welcomed its hero to his old home amid the plaudits of thousands that came from near and far to tread its stony streets and pay their tribute of respect and honor to the modest, silent man known the world over. I think the General was more stirred to the heart with the kind tokens of love and friendship and honor which his old neighbors and citizens of Galena showered upon him than he was from all the attentions of nobility the world ’round.

General Grant’s home life and his life among the people of Galena, even after the world had acclaimed him the greatest General of the ages, and honors had been showered upon him by the crowned heads of the world, was that of a quiet, unobtrusive, simple life like his neighbors and citizens.

We loved him as a neighbor and citizen. We said among ourselves: “Grant’s head is the same size it was before the war.”

He has been called the “silent man.” Yes, he was rather guarded in his talks among men generally, but I want to say (for I have listened to him), that when among his friends and neighbors, if you could get him started, he was one of the most entertaining talkers I ever listened to.

During the month of June, 1880, while the Republican Convention was in session in Chicago, General Grant and family were living in Galena. He had held the Presidency two terms; he had also been ’round the world, feted and honored everywhere by kings and emperors, and now he had returned to the hills of old Galena to spend his days in rest and quiet; but his friends, who believed in him, urged him to again stand for the nomination for the Presidency. His friends of Galena, Ill., knew what his personal wishes were; he did not wish to again resume the burdens of office. However, according to the request of his family, especially his wife, and also to his political friends, he finally consented to make the run. You will remember what a fight there was in the convention—how the immortal 300, led by Roscoe Conkling, clung to the silent hero to the last.

While the Convention was in progress, each day the General came down town about 10 o’clock and spent an hour or two with his old friend and comrade, Colonel W. R. Rowley. Rowley was then Judge of the County Court, and I was clerk of the same court. Some of the friends were privileged to be there. I remember distinctly that all of us were intensely interested in every telegram that came to the office, but the General paid very little attention to them. He kept us entertained with most vivid recitals of what he had seen and heard in his travels ’round the world.

There was one man’s name before the Convention who had a few votes as nominee for President. This man had been a trusted friend of General Grant in former years, but his actions had caused many of the General’s friends to doubt his friendship. One afternoon, while we were in General Rowley’s office, a telegram came that convinced Rowley and the friends that this man, while pretending undying friendship for the General, was playing him false. Rowley and others were outspoken in their denunciation of the course of this man who had helped Grant in former years and who Grant had helped so much in the past. The General was as calm and placid as though everything was lovely, his only remark being: “He was my friend when I needed friends, if I can’t trust him, I can’t trust anybody.” The friend referred to was Hon. E. B. Washburne.

Hon. Roscoe Conkling said of General Grant: “Standing on the highest eminence of human distinction, modest, firm, self poised, having filled all lands with his renown, he has seen not only the high born and the titled, but the poor and lowly in the uttermost parts of the earth rise and uncover before him. The name of Grant shall glitter a bright and imperishable star in the diadem of the Republic when those who have tried to tarnish it are moldering in forgotten graves and when their names and epitaphs have tarnished utterly.”

This is a noble tribute of one great man for another; but we, his humble neighbors of Galena, Ill., who knew the General so well, love to think of the home life of this great man. One characteristic of his life is not generally known, and I make bold to set it down in type that all the world may know it. General Grant was a lover of his wife all through his married life. A little secret of the home life of this devoted man was known among the women of Galena, for they would tell their husbands what a lover General Grant was, and to prove it they would tell us that the General laced his wife’s shoes for her.

While General Grant and Mrs. Grant were in Europe they paid a visit to the tomb of Ferdinand and Isabella. The thought of the ashes of the royal couple sleeping side by side through the centuries appealed to the devoted husband, and, turning to his wife, he said: “Julia, that is the way we should lie in death.” So, when the Great General died they found a memorandum left by him as to his last resting place. First, he preferred West Point above others, but for the fact that his wife could not be placed beside him there. Second, Galena, or some place in Illinois. Third, New York; hence it is that in the beautiful tomb at Riverside, the resting place of the General, there is room for the ashes of Mrs. Grant.