GRANT, ULYSSES S. (His LAST YEARS.) 



437 



relating to the departments* He held the 

 head of a department to his full responsibility, 

 and waited, consequently, until his opinion 

 was sought or his instructions were solicited. 

 In his conferences with the members of his 

 Cabinet he expressed his opinions with the 

 greatest freedom, and, upon discussion, he often 

 yielded to the suggestions or arguments of 

 others. His daily intercourse with them was 



1 free, confiding, and generous. He was so great 

 that it was not a humiliation to acknowledge 

 a change in opinion, or to admit an error in 

 policy or purpose. In his intercourse with 



f members of Congress upon the business of 

 Government, he gave his opinions without re- 

 serve vjhen he had reached definite conclusions, 

 but he often remained a silent listener to the 

 discussion of topics which he had not consid- 

 ered maturely. 



His politics were not narrow nor exclusive. 

 He believed in the growth of the country, and 

 in the power of republican ideas. He was free 

 from race prejudice, and free from national 

 jealousy, but he believed in the enlargement of 

 our territory by peaceful means, in the spread 

 of republican institutions, and in the predomi- 

 nance of the English-speaking race in the af- 

 fairs of the world. The spirit of philanthropy 

 animated his politics, and the doctrines of peace 



j controlled his public policy. 



His Last Years. After retiring from the presi- 

 dency in March, 1877, Gen. Grant, with his 

 wife and one son, sailed from Philadelphia, 

 May 17, for a tour around the world. When 



, the steamer arrived in the Mersey, the vessels 

 of all nations there hung out their colors in 

 greeting and welcome, a fitting prelude to the 

 reception that was everywhere accorded him 

 in his progress round the globe. He visited 

 the places of greatest interest in Great Britain 

 and on the Continent, was entertained by all 

 of the crowned heads, made a cruise in the 

 Mediterranean on the man-of-war " Vandalia," 

 visited Egypt, and in January, 1879, sailed for In- 

 dia by way of the Red Sea. After visiting Bom- 

 bay and Calcutta, he went to Hong-Kong, Can- 

 ton, Pekin, and lastly to Japan. In September 

 he crossed the Pacific, and on the 20th of that 

 month landed in San Francisco. In February, 



1880, he visited Mexico and Cuba. In the Re- 

 publican National Convention held in Chicago 

 in June, 1880, Gen. Grant's name was pre- 

 sented for the presidential nomination, and 



'for 36 ballots he received a steady vote that 

 only varied between 302 and 313. In August, 



1881, he bought a house in New York city, 

 which was thenceforth his residence. He also 



had a cottage at Long Branch, where he spent 

 'his summers. On Christmas- eve, 1883, he 



slipped upon the icy sidewalk in front of his 

 ! house, and was so injured as to be laid up for 

 'some time. Meanwhile he had become a part- 

 jner in a banking firm that failed through the 

 dishonesty of the junior partner, and in May, 

 '84, he suddenly found himself bankrupt. Up 



to this time, the general had refused all solici- 



tations to write the story of his military career 

 for publication, intending to leave it to the of- 

 ficial records and the future historian. Almost 

 his only contribution to literature was an arti- 

 cle entitled a An Undeserved Stigma," in the 

 "North American Review" for December, 

 1882, in which he announced a change in his 

 former opinion on the Fitz John Porter case, 

 and gave the reasons that seemed to him to 

 establish that general's innocence. But now 

 he was approached by the conductors of 

 the "Century" magazine, with an invitation 

 to write on his principal campaigns, which he 

 accepted for the sake of earning the money ; 

 and he accordingly produced four articles for 

 that periodical. Finding this a pleasant task, 

 and receiving offers from various book-publish- 

 ers, he produced two volumes, in which he 

 tells the whole story of his career, and shows 

 himself to be a natural and charming writer, 

 as well as a valuable contributor to history. 

 The first volume was published in December, 

 1885, the second will appear in May, 1886, 

 and the work has met with an enormous sale, 

 reaching 325,000 copies in four months. The 

 contract was signed on Feb. 27, 1885, and on 

 Feb. 27, 1886, the publishers, Messrs. Charles 

 L. Webster & Co., gave Mrs. Grant a check 

 for $200,000, as a partial payment on sales 

 already made. The largest amount that had 

 heretofore passed from publisher to author in 

 a single payment was the celebrated check 

 for 20,000 (about $100,000) given by the 

 Messrs. Longman to Macaulay, on sales of his 

 "History of England." The Grant contract 

 gives Mrs. Grant seventy per cent, of the prof- 

 its on the American edition, and eighty-five 

 per cent, of the profits on foreign editions. 



A soreness in the roof of the mouth, for 

 which the general consulted a physician in Au- 

 gust, 1884, developed into cancer at the root 

 of the tongue, which caused his death. There 

 was nothing more heroic in his whole life than 

 the diligence and determination with which he 



Eursued his task under pain and disease, and 

 i the midst of appalling difficulties, till he had 

 completed his "Memoirs," conquered bank- 

 ruptcy for those who were dear to him, and 

 dropped the pen but four days before he 

 passed away. June 16, 1885. he was taken to 

 a cottage on Mount McGregor, near Saratoga, 

 where he passed the remaining five weeks of 

 his life. A public funeral was held in the city 

 of New York on Saturday, Aug. 8, which was 

 the most imposing spectacle of the kind ever 

 seen in America. The body was deposited in 

 a temporary tomb in Riverside Park, over- 

 looking the Hudson, near 125th Street. 



See Badeau's u Military History of Ulysses 

 S. Grant" (3 vols., 1867-'81), and Young's 

 " Around the World with General Grant " (2 

 vols., 1879). The portrait that forms the front- 

 ispiece of this volume has been engraved from 

 the photograph that the general himself pre- 

 ferred one that was taken in the first year 

 of his presidency. (See pages 225-228.) 



