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

[73] most ardent of the President's opponents. It was at one time proposed by some too-zealous Congressmen to make him almost a Dictator over the Southern States and entirely independent of the President, but against this he advised in the strongest possible manner, as subversive of the principles of the Government, and his counsels prevailed. He not only had no ambition for additional power, he even yet shrank from assuming an attitude of avowed or public antagonism to the President. He disliked both the appearance of this before the people, and the reality, however disguised; but he submitted to what seemed under the circumstances unavoidable. If I had any power of reading his feelings, the position into which he was thrust was not only unacceptable to him, but positively painful; yet he would not shirk it. He wrote to Sherman at this time:

In this particular there is little difference between parties. No matter how close I keep my tongue each tries to interpret from the little I let drop that I am with them. I wish our political troubles were ended on any basis. I want to turn over the command of the Army to you for a year or so, and go abroad myself. But to leave now would look like throwing up a command in the face of the enemy.

What he did with the Republicans at this time was not for them as a political party, but because he believed that the acts of the President had made their course the only one practicable. Nevertheless, he was dragged by circumstances into political relations which those about him began to perceive must soon become defined. He was too shrewd and clear-headed not to understand this himself, but I certainly believe that he disliked the prospect. He still disclaimed any partisan bias, and was unwilling to be called either Republican or Democrat. I saw nothing in him, I heard no word from him, in all this crisis that betrayed any political aspiration or indicated the faintest ambition to