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

Six weeks before the passage of the reconstruction measures he wrote to General Howard, at that time in command of the Freedmen's Bureau:

[Confidential.]

headquarters armies of the United States, Washington, January 18, 1867.

dear General,—Will you be kind enough to send me a list of authenticated cases of murder and other violence upon freedmen, Northern or other Union men, refugees, etc., in the Southern States for the last six months or a year. My object in this is to make a report showing that the courts in the States excluded from Congress afford no security to life or property of the classes here referred to, and to recommend that martial law be declared over such districts as do not afford the proper protection.

Yours truly,

U. S. Grant, General. To General O. O. Howard, Comg. Freedmen's Bureau, etc.

On the 4th of March, two days after the passage of the Reconstruction bill, he wrote to his intimate friend Washburne, who was then abroad:

. . . Reconstruction measures have passed both houses of Congress over one of the most ridiculous veto messages that ever emanated from any President. Jerry Black is supposed to be the author of it. He has been about Washington for some time, and I am told has been a great deal about the White House. It is a fitting end to all our controversy (I believe this last measure to be a solution, unless the President proves an obstruction), that the man who tried to prove at the beginning of our domestic difficulties that the nation had no constitutional power to save itself, is now trying to prove that the nation has not now the power, after a victory, to demand security for the future. . .

Do not show what I have said on political matters to any