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

Immediately afterward Grant received his staff for the last time, and announced the disposition to be made of them. Three were nominally placed on the staff of Sherman, who succeeded Grant as General-in-Chief, but they were in reality to be on duty at the Executive Mansion. Horace Porter was to act as private secretary, with Babcock to assist him; Comstock had some nominal duties from which he soon requested to be relieved, and ordered to duty as engineer; Dent remained as aide-de-camp with ceremonial functions, and Parker was shortly afterward appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs. I was assigned a room at the Executive Mansion, where I was to finish my Military History and to have some charge of Grant's unofficial letters for a while; but when I saw the President alone he informed me that he meant to give me the mission to Belgium. He did not wish, however, to appoint me at once, lest it should provoke a charge of favoritism.

A few weeks before the 4th of March, as nothing was said by Grant to either Rawlins or Washburne of their future, both became ill. Rawlins went off to Connecticut, and from there it was reported to Grant that he was dying. Grant sent for him and told him he was to be Secretary of War, whereupon Rawlins at once got very much better. But Washburne was ill of the same disease, and to him Grant now offered the position of Secretary of the Interior. Rawlins, of course, was satisfied with his promised dignity, but Washburne would have preferred to be Secretary of the Treasury. This position, however, Grant designed for Alexander T. Stewart, the well-known merchant of New York. He thought that a man who had managed his own affairs so well must be successful with the finances of the Nation. Stewart was, indeed, the first of those designed for Cabinet positions whom Grant informed of his intention. It was