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

[322] between Young and the General were usually carried on in her absence. This was only a few days before the convention was to meet at Chicago. General Grant had even yet made no outspoken declaration of his intention, though, of course, having allowed his friends to use his name without objection, he could not in honor withdraw it without their consent. But Young induced him to write a letter, addressed to Senator Cameron, authorizing his friends, if they saw fit, to withdraw his name from the convention. This was a most extraordinary influence for any one man to exert with Grant, and I have known few parallel instances. Young, however, doubtless appeared as the spokesman of others whose opinions backed his own, though his fidelity and friendship gave weight to what he said. But the letter was sent, in opposition to the views of Mrs. Grant and without her knowledge, and was calculated, of course, to dampen the enthusiasm and bewilder the counsels of Grant's most devoted adherents. I can conceive of no step more unlike General Grant's ordinary character or behavior than this half-way reversal of what he had previously countenanced. But it was too late to recede; his friends had committed both him and themselves, and they were not influenced by this phase of irresolution which had passed over him. They made no use of the letter, General Grant kept no copy of it, nor did Young, and those to whom it was submitted have never made it public. Grant never censured them for the fidelity that disregarded his suggestion of withdrawal, and all the remainder of his life he remained more than grateful to the men who supported him so faithfully at Chicago, just as he never forgave any who he thought betrayed him at that time. He never afterward spoke except with bitterness of his lifetime friend Washburne, who, he believed, I know not how rightly, had played him false; and he remembered the violence of some who supported Mr. Blaine with an acrimony that was not confined to them, but was extended to his great rival. Even former