March 8, 1865
Yesterday, as I hinted in my last, we had a toot, of much duration.
At ten A. M. the General got a telegraph (one of those charming City Point surprises) saying that a train was just then starting, holding a dozen of womenkind and a certain force of the male sex; that they would arrive in an hour or so, and that we would please rather to entertain them pretty well!
We telegraphed to the 5th Corps to turn out some troops, and to General Wright, to say we were coming that way, and ordered out ambulances to go to the station, and turned out officers to go over also.
Your hub, not without growls of a private sort, girded his-self with a sash and ordered the charger saddled.
In due time they kim: Colonels Badeau and Babcock to guide them.
As sort of chief of the honorable committee of reception, I took off my cap and was solemnly introduced to twelve distinct ladies, whose names I instantly forgot (ditto those of distinguished gentlemen accompanying), all except Mrs. General Grant, who was, of course, too well known to slip from memory.
However, at the end of the day, I began to have a flickering and vague idea who some of them were. . . . Then Miss Stanton — of course I was brilliant about her. After I had more or less helped her over puddles and into ambulances.
for an hour or two, it occurred to me that the name of the Secretary of War was also Stanton.
Then, after a period of rest, my mind roused itself to the brilliant hypothesis that this young lady might be the daughter of the Stanton who was Secretary of War.
Once on this track, it did not take me over thirty minutes to satisfy myself that I actually had been rendering civilities to the offspring of him who holds the leash of the dogs of war!
She is not a roarer, like her paternal, but very subdued and modest, and reminded me of the ci-devant Newport This text is part of:
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