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

[437] at this time first realized what were the fears of the family. Her disappointment was sharp, coming after the elation of the last few hours, and General Grant himself, it was evident, felt the shock profoundly. No one spoke to him on the subject, nor did he mention it to any one, but he acted like a condemned man. He had no thought before, I believe, that he might not live years, although ill, and with a terrible shadow hanging over him. That his days were numbered was an intimation for which he was not prepared.

He was, I am sure, unwilling to die covered with the cloud of misfortune. On this subject also he was silent to every human being, but the thought added bitterness to his agony. I knew it, as well as if he had told me. It could not indeed but be hard for him who had led the armies of his country to repeated victory, who had received more surrenders than any other conqueror in history, who for eight years had sat in the chair of Washington, and whose greatness had been sealed by the verdict of the world, to leave his children bankrupt, their faith questioned, their name, which was his, tarnished—that name which must live forever. The blur on his reputation, even with the taint of dishonor entirely removed, the wreck of his fortune, the neglect of the Government, the humiliations of his poverty, —these stern images hovered around his couch by night and day, and goaded and galled him till the moment when physical torture crowded out even mental pain.

The country received the news of his condition with grief and consternation. Whatever had been said or thought injurious to him was instantly ignored, revoked, stamped out of mind; under the black shadow of Death the memory of his great services became vivid once more, like writing in sympathetic ink before a fire. All the admiration and love of the days immediately after the war returned. The house was thronged with visitors, old friends, army comrades, former cabinet ministers, senators, generals, diplomatists, on