Adam Badeau, Grant in peace: from Appomattox to Mount McGregor, a personal memoir

[152] his brother-in-law, wrote out an inaugural address for him in full, and brought it to him in my presence. As soon as Corbyn left the room Grant handed the paper to me and told me to seal it up, and be sure it was not read by any human being till after the 4th of March. He never knew the contents, and I never read more than the first line: ‘Fellow-citizens, I appear before you at this time.’

There were more than six hundred letters waiting for him in Washington, all of which I opened. A newspaper correspondent came in and saw me at this task, and the next week there was a caricature of ‘The man that opens the letters’ sitting behind a heap of rejected applications as high as the table; this part of the representation was not exaggerated. Grant directed me to show him no letters that asked for office. He always had an idea that the man who sought a place was unfit for it; that the place should seek the man; a notion that in his case might have been correct, for he lacked ordinary ambition, and yet possessed great faculties; but most people will consider that he was exceptional in this peculiarity as in so many others.

Some of the applications, however, came from people of so much consequence, or from friends of such a degree of intimacy, personal or political, that notwithstanding his injunction I did not always feel at liberty to withhold them, and he tacitly admitted that I was right. Among the aspirants was Henry Wilson, then Senator from Massachusetts, and afterward Vice-President, who set forth his desires and qualifications for the position of Secretary of War. Grant did not answer the letter, and the subject was never broached in conversation between them. Those who wanted foreign missions were numerous, and collectorships and other lucrative posts were in great demand. But no applicant received an answer.

While he was at Galena, Grant had said to me, that he thought Motley, the historian, would make a good Secretary