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

[319] midst of a battle. Whether the instinct of fight was aroused in him, whether he felt after prolonged rest a willingness for new labors, or whether after so wide and varied an experience, abroad as well as at home, he was conscious of a greater fitness than ever for high place—it is hard to say. All these considerations may have influenced him; the advice and persuasion of most of those who had been closest either as political or personal friends may have told; the pressure of his own family, naturally eager to regain the position they had once enjoyed, was incessant; and Grant allowed every step to be taken to present his name to the country and the convention without one sign of disapproval. Delegates were chosen pledged to vote for him; important statesmen known to have always been in his confidence openly advocated his nomination; yet with that singular reticence which he sometimes displayed, he made neither public nor private utterance on the subject, and men like Conkling, Cameron, and Logan declared in intimate conferences that Grant had never said to either that he would be a candidate. He always had a superstitious feeling, which he describes in his memoirs, that he would fail in any effort made by himself to secure his own advancement. He had done nothing whatever to promote his first nomination, and nothing directly for his second; and he determined now to follow the same course in regard to a third.

He finally, however, became extremely anxious to receive the nomination. In May I went out to visit him at Galena; but before I reached that place he had arrived at Chicago, at the home of his son, Colonel Grant. At Chicago, I saw him constantly, either at Colonel Grant's house, or more frequently at General Sheridan's headquarters; for his son was on Sheridan's staff. I accompanied him on a visit to Elihu B. Washburne, and dined with him at the house of Russell Jones, his former Minister to Belgium. Both these gentlemen were avowed supporters of General Grant, and in their