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Chapter 18:
President-Elect.
A few days after the election
Grant returned from
Galena to
Washington.
He was accompanied by his family and three staff officers, of whom I was one.
There had been threats of assassination, and I had opened several letters that contained warnings of this danger, but
Grant took no precautions and made no change in his plans, though his route was known in advance.
The
aides-de-camp were armed, but this was without his knowledge.
Twice when I had been traveling with
Grant attempts were made to take his life.
In
North Carolina, on his return from the surrender of
Johnston to
Sherman, the train on which he was journeying was thrown from the rails under circumstances that left little doubt of the design.
There was no one in the single car but the
Union General-in-Chief and his party of two or three officers, and if some bitter and disappointed spirit out of all the millions at the
South had taken this method to avenge the lost cause, it would hardly have been extraordinary, and certainly not unprecedented.
At another time, soon after the war,
Grant was passing through
Southern Indiana, a region where the rancor during the rebellion had been almost fiercer than in the field, and as those who indulged in it did not fight, but only talked, they cherished their hatred when the war was ended—unlike most of the men who spilt their blood for the cause they preferred.
It was night, and we were on a special train, again in a single car. Again there was no one in the party but
Grant 
