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History of the Collection[From Index to the Ulysses S. Grant Papers (Washington, D.C.: 1965), pp. v-x] Ulysses the Silent and the American Sphinx were affectionate sobriquets which a devoted public bestowed upon Ulysses S. Grant. If the phrases imply that Grant was taciturn, a man of deeds but not of words, they are belied by Grant's own estimate of himself, by the testimony of his associates, and by the accumulation of his personal papers in spite of numerous obstacles, including Grant's own studied neglect. Grant once commented that for 24 years, as soldier and President, "I have been very much employed in writing . . . . I wrote my own orders, plans of battle, instructions and reports . . . . As President I wrote every official document . . . usual for a President to write." [1] His claims of facility have been supported by such contemporaries as Provost Marshall General James B. Fry, William T. Sherman, and Horace Porter. Sherman predicted that biographers would find their subject's "public and private letters . . . far more wordy and voluminous than the world supposes," [2] and Porter, who served Grant as aide-de-camp and secretary, recalled that Grant seldom dictated but wrote most of his documents in his own hand. The chief characteristics of Grant's style, according to Porter, were correctness and clarity. "No one ever has the slightest doubt as to their meaning," he wrote of them, "or ever has to read them over a second time." [3] The most convincing evidence that Grant was a facile and productive writer is the accumulation of his personal papers by the Library of Congress, the Chicago Historical Society, the Henry E. Huntington Library, the Missouri Historical Society, and private collectors. Of the collections the largest is in the Library of Congress, but its Grant Papers have been assembled only recently. As late as 1933 the authoritative Dictionary of American Biography contained the opinions that "Grant . . . wrote as little as possible" and that "there is no considerable collection of his manuscripts." [4] Grant, who admitted that he was "no clerk," doubtless contributed to the difficulty and delay in collecting his papers. "The only place I ever found in my life to put a paper so as to find it again," he wrote, "was either a side coat-pocket or the hands of a clerk . . . more careful than myself." [5] Grant is known to have misplaced a chapter of Adam Badeau's Military History, the entire manuscript of John Russell Young's Around the World with General Grant, and a magnificent personal letter from Abraham Lincoln. [6] The efforts by the Library of Congress to assemble Grant Papers began early in this century. In 1904 Worthington C. Ford, Chief of its Manuscript Division, reported "some letter books of General Grant" in the White House, which he believed to be "the sole relic of any Presidential papers." [7] In 1910 his successor, Gaillard Hunt, described the books more particularly: "The books of General Grant's correspondence . . . are in two volumes, and contain letters to members of the cabinet, commissioners of public grounds, etc. . . . We would like these letters . . . placed here . . . . One reason why I am anxious to get them is that they may form the beginning of a collection of Grant papers. We now have the papers of nine of the Presidents, and thus far have been unable to establish a Grant collection." [8] Hunt's appeal to the reception clerk at the White House and another made the following year, however, were to no avail. The letterbooks could not be found. [9] Ten years later the letterbooks—numbering four, not two—were discovered and placed in the Library of Congress "at the request of Major U. S. Grant, 3d," Grant's grandson and namesake. [10] Major Grant had written to President Harding in June 1921 citing the customary privilege of a retiring President to remove "all letters and papers relating to his administration." In accordance with the custom he and his mother requested Harding to authorize the transfer of Grant's letterbooks to the Library, an action which would "ensure the safety and preservation of these two volumes and make them accessible to all authorized persons." [11] The four letterbooks which emerged from the search, with a press copybook purchased by the Library in 1939, now comprise series 2 of the Grant Papers. Major Grant and his mother, Ida Honore‚ (Mrs. Frederick D.) Grant, had already begun a Grant collection 1 year earlier when they deposited in the Manuscript Division the original manuscript of the Personal Memoirs, now series 4 of the papers, accompanied by a drawing made by Grant when a West Point cadet. [12] The drawing is now in series 6B with photographs of two other drawings by Cadet Grant presented by the owner, his granddaughter, Mrs. William Pigott Cronan of La Jolla, Calif. [13] In 1922, Mrs. Grant and her son deposited the drafts of Grant's first inaugural address and his reports on the Vicksburg and Chattanooga campaigns, now series 3. [14] In 1925, through the generous permission of the Huntington Library and Ulysses G. Smith, important additions (now in series 1B and D) were made by photocopying Grant manuscripts in their possession. The largest additions of original material came in 1953 and 1957 when Ulysses S. Grant III presented the "headquarters records" in 2 installments of 75 and 36 volumes respectively. [15] These records constitute series 5. In 1960 he gave the Library more than 300 of Grant's letters to his wife, now series 1A. Through additional gifts by members of the Grant family and by others, through purchase and photocopying, the Grant Papers have grown to 47,236 manuscripts reproduced on 32 reels of microfilm. [16] Thus a quest which began unpromisingly in 1904 has resulted in an accumulation which effectively documents the career of Grant the soldier, the President, and the writer of a great memoir of military history. The headquarters records form the largest and richest series in the papers. There are 111 volumes of correspondence, orders, reports, registers, dispatches, and accounts providing a magnificently detailed picture of the Civil War and the career of its dominant military figure from his first post in Missouri through his command of the Armies of the United States. There are, however, confusions in chronology and apparent duplication of documents in these records sufficient to create a justifiable impression of chaos. For some letters there are as many as nine copies; typically there are three. Material dated in 1861 appears after that dated 1864. Volume 17 is an index to volume 82. It is necessary, therefore, that the user of this portion of the Grant Papers have some understanding of their compilation. Part of the confusion and duplication may be accounted for by Grant's apparent practice of maintaining both a "headquarters set" and a "traveling set" of records and by his system for arranging documents within both sets. The first 75 volumes, mostly large folio ledgers, apparently constituted an elaborate set of records maintained at his permanent headquarters. Volumes 77-112, smaller for the most part and obviously more portable, probably accompanied Grant on his campaigns. The flyleaf on volume 101, for example, is inscribed "Travelling Head Quarters Dept. of the Tennessee January to August 1863." There is virtually no duplication within the traveling set. The confusing multiplicity of documents is limited to the headquarters set. Apparent confusion in chronology may also be resolved by observing distinctions which Grant maintained: between correspondence sent and received; between superior and subordinate headquarters; and between general and special orders. Separate volumes were kept for each category. Moreover, the headquarters records are those of the 6 commands Grant held in the Civil War, and the arrangement of the volumes has been largely determined by the dates of his commands, although the same volume was sometimes used for successive commands. Volumes 18-33, 87-101, 103, and 105 pertain to the Department of the Tennessee, October 25, 1862-October 17, 1863. Volumes 34-40, 94-102, 104, and 106 to the Military Division of the Mississippi, October 18, 1863-March 17, 1864. Volumes 41-76 and 107-109 to Headquarters Armies of the United States, March 18, 1864-March 3, 1869. Volumes 1-17 and 77-89 are the records of Grant's service from August 9, 1861, to October 24, 1862, when he commanded successively the military districts of Southeast Missouri, Cairo, and West Tennessee. In these volumes is to be found a preponderance of confusion and duplication. Volumes 110-112 are contemporary indexes. Some of the volumes were obviously compiled long after the events to which they relate, a fact which accounts for some mistakes in dating. [17] Volume 8, for example, could not have been prepared before September 1863 although it contains correspondence beginning in August 1861. [18] As a particular example, the Battle of Belmont was fought on November 7, 1861; Grant's original report, prepared 3 days later, appears in Volume 78. Nearly 2½ years later, however, John A. Rawlins reported that he and Theodore S. Bowers were "fixing up Gen. Grant's . . . report of the battle of Belmont." [19] The revised report appears in volumes 4, 5, 7 and 8. The revision of the report on the Battle of Belmont also indicates the influence on the Grant Papers exercised by subordinates responsible for maintaining the records. By inserting relevant correspondence and orders, Bowers and Rawlins expanded Grant's original report from three to eight pages. As commanding general Grant was, of course, ultimately responsible for the records, but their maintenance was the immediate charge of the assistant adjutant general on his staff. For the first weeks of Grant's command in Missouri, this officer was Lt. Montague S. Hasie, a Missourian. [20] He was succeeded by Rawlins, lawyer and townsman of Grant's from Galena, Ill. Rawlins reported at Cairo in mid-September 1861 where he found that "Grant's office was substantially in his hat or his pockets . . . and the camp story was but slightly exaggerated which asserted that half his general orders were blowing about in the sand and dirt of the streets of Cairo." [21] When Rawlins was promoted to chief of staff in August 1863, he was succeeded by Bowers, a young Illinois editor who had first joined Grant's staff, early in 1862, as an enlisted clerk. Bowers brought with him to his new position the memory of the capture of the base at Holly Springs, Miss., by Confederate cavalry under Gen. Earl Van Dorn on December 20, 1862. There with "but a few minutes warning" Bowers had been obliged to make "a bonfire of all the department records, and when the raiders burst into his quarters everything of value to them was destroyed." [22] Grant also had reason to emphasize the keeping of records. Ironically enough, he had suffered a reprimand from his superior, Henry W. Halleck, for failure to report promptly after the fall of Fort Donelson. Grant insisted that he "was writing daily and sometimes two or three times a day." [23] In March 1862 Grant devoted a general order on the subject of record-keeping: "The necessity of order and regularity about headquarters, especially in keeping the records, makes it necessary to assign particular duties to each member of the staff . . . . Capt. J. A. Rawlins, Assistant Adjutant General . . . will have special charge of the books of records, consolidating returns, and forwarding all documents to their proper destination." [24] The maintenance of different sets of records and the duplication resulting therefrom may be traced in part, then, to Grant's expressed determination that proper records should survive the normal depredations of warfare. Not all the duplication in series 5 may be accounted for by the activities of Rawlins, Bowers, and other subordinates or the elaborate systems devised to insure completeness. Volumes 1, 2, and 3 for example are duplicates, and may of the documents in them appear also in volumes 77 and 85. Volumes 34 and 35 are identical, and much duplication appears also in volumes 12-16. Volume 5 and its continuation, volume 6, duplicate volumes 4, 7, and 8 with additional copies in volume 78. However, among these volumes there would seem to be for many documents a "draft" or "edited" version, a "corrected copy," and an additional copy for Grant's personal use. [25] Although not every copy can be accounted for, the confusion in series 5 is, upon examination, more apparent than real. Theodore Bowers died in a railroad accident in March 1866. Adam Badeau, who had come to Grant's staff as military secretary on April 8, 1864, probably conducted the search for additional papers carried out in 1866. The search disclosed miscellaneous, unbound military documents, now in series 6A, which also includes fair copies of Grant's correspondence with John C. Frémont in 1861, the copies dating from 1866. A professional journalist and novelist, Badeau came to Grant with the ambition to write a "Military History" of U. S. Grant. The first volume of his history appeared in 1868 and was thus written while Badeau was on Grant's staff. The concluding volumes, published in 1881, were prepared while Badeau served in diplomatic posts in Europe, where he took at least some of the records with him. [26] Badeau's autograph notations appear, particularly in volume 45. Other volumes besides those of Badeau have been based on the headquarters records compiled by Grant. In the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion are printed letters and dispatches from Grant in 1861 which are in the headquarters records but not in the files of the Department of the West in the National Archives. The most creative use was that made by Grant himself in preparing the work that has been called the greatest military writing since Caesar's Commentaries—the Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant. [27] The Memoirs, undertaken reluctantly but completed courageously despite an illness which claimed the author's life shortly after their completion, were perhaps Grant's greatest achievement. Grant's initial reluctance to write for publication was overcome in 1884 by financial hardship brought about by the failure of the investment firm of Ward and Grant. Grant thereupon was glad to accept an invitation to write pressed upon him by Roswell Smith of The Century Magazine. On June 30, 1884, Grant submitted his article on the Battle of Shiloh, accompanying it with the offer to "prepare one on the siege and capture of Vicksburg." [28] Successive commitments followed for articles on the Wilderness and Lee's surrender. [29] He found the work "congenial" and suggested to Sherman and Philip Sheridan that they contribute articles to the Century series. [30] About this time Grant must have decided to write his memoirs. According to Badeau, Grant invited him to Long Branch, N.J., on July 26 to assist Grant in preparing such a work. [31] Grant quickly established a routine for his writing, estimating that the memoirs would require about 1 year to complete. [32] He wrote for 4 hours a day, 6 days a week. At this pace he estimated that he was one-third through his task by mid-October. Even then, however, he was aware that he had underestimated the scope of the work. Whereas he had originally envisioned a single volume of 400 to 500 pages, he realized that the completed work would run to approximately twice that many pages. [33]. On October 22, 1884, Grant consulted Dr. James H. Douglas, a specialist, concerning a persistent pain in his throat. Grant's only question was, "Is it cancer?" Neither Dr. Douglas nor other specialists consulted could give a negative answer. [34] To finish the memoirs, it was clear, required a contest with pain and weakness and a race with death, a contest and a race which Grant won with a display of almost unparalleled heroism and courage. He wrote the first volume and part of the second in pen and ink. When his strength failed, he dictated. When he could no longer talk at length, he wrote laboriously in pencil. The illness which accompanied the writing of the memoirs ran an uneven course between days of marked decline and rarer days of apparent recovery. On June 16, 1885, he was removed to a cottage in Mount MacGregor, N.Y., where, sitting bundled in a chair, he completed the memoirs only days before he died on July 23. The greatness of the Memoirs as history is due to the author. Their greatness as a human document is due to the courage he displayed in writing them. The fact that they became a publishing and financial triumph as well is due to the intercession of Mark Twain and his successful publication and promotion of Grant's work, which led to a sale of over 600,000 copies within 4 years of publication. Only two considerations had disturbed Mark Twain during the production of the Memoirs: piracy and the charge that Adam Badeau was the real author. [35] He repeatedly warned his partner Charles Webster to take special precautions with the manuscript and proofs. When the New York World on April 29, 1885, attributed authorship to Badeau, Grant, to Mark Twain's elation, emphatically denied the report and claimed full responsibility for the writing. [36] Badeau himself delivered an even crueler blow to his dying friend. He had lived in the Grant house since October 1884 rendering, in his own words, "assistance . . . in suggestion, revision or verification." [37] He was to be compensated but demanded more money and departed after giving Grant an ultimatum. Grant rejected Badeau's demands, particularly because they implied a more responsible role in the writing than Grant thought Badeau had played. The Memoirs, he maintained, were "the product of my own brain and hand." [38] For several years after Grant's death Badeau threatened litigation. His claim was settled out of court in 1888. [39] The story of the composition and publication of the Memoirs may be reconstructed through a study of the manuscript. Confident that the texts he needed were to be found in the voluminous headquarters records, Grant left blanks in the manuscript as he wrote. His eldest son, Frederick D. Grant, filled in the blanks with citations to the records. [40] Grant composed; his son verified, Marginalia include comments by both father and son. For example, in volume V, page 701, Grant wrote: "Crocker however was dying of consumption when he volunteered, and did die before the war closed." In the margin is the penciled comment, "Wrong C died after the War FDG." [41] In volume VI, page 770, Grant wrote: "This was the first engagement of the war in which colored troops were used." Beside the sentence is the note: "Wrong colored troops had been engaged before FDG." Grant then inserted "important" before "engagement" to qualify the sentence. Frederick Grant also supplied names and figures. In addition to those available from the headquarters records, some were derived through correspondence with the War Department or with surviving officers of the war. Some use was made of secondary sources. Volume VIII contains half a page of Grant's handwritten notes headed "Green" taken from The Mississippi, a volume by Francis V. Greene in Scribner's series on campaigns of the Civil War. Grant began the work at Long Branch and completed it at Mount MacGregor but composed it in large part in New York City in a second floor apartment. The manuscript remained always in his custody. His son or a stenographer copied each page and transmitted it to the publisher. When Grant was forced to dictate, Noble E. Dawson, a congressional reporter from Washington, "copied his shorthand notes on large white sheets with a type-writer." These were given to Grant who "ran his eye over them, changing a word here and there, and now and then adding wholly new matters. This was copied once again, and sent to the publishers." [42] Following the publication of the first volume, Mrs. Grant proposed the publication of Grant's letters to her. Mark Twain viewed the prospect with enthusiasm. He thought the letters would be "enormously valuable," not the least, he wrote his partner, because they could "be edited in such a way that whoever possesses them will have to go out & buy the Memoirs, too." He advised Webster to "sign & seal a contract for those letters before you sleep." [43] Within a few weeks, however, his ardor cooled perceptibly, partly because he feared that an arrangement to publish the letters would require the admission of Grant's son Jesse to a partnership in his firm. [44] The letters, which remain unpublished, comprise series 1A. [45] These then are the Grant Papers: family letters, historical manuscripts, military records and correspondence, and a wide variety of additional material essential to the understanding of the great national ordeal and one of its commanding figures. 1. Grant to Adam Badeau, May 5, 1885, in New York Herald, March 17, 1888. 2. Sherman to William C. Church, February 21, 1868, in Army and Navy Journal, XXII (July 25, 1885), 1057. See also James B. Fry, "An Acquaintance with Grant," North American Review, CXLI (November 1885), 545. 3. Campaigning With Grant, edited by Wayne C. Temple (Bloomington, Ind., 1961), p. 7, 242. 4. Bibliographical note by Frederick L. Paxson, VII, 501. 5. Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant (New York, 1885), I, 233. 6. Grant to O. E. Babcock, n. d., and Grant to Badeau, August 22, 1878, in Adam Badeau, Grant in Peace (Hartford, 1887), p. 404, 504. 7. Memorandum to Librarian of Congress, February 29, 1904, Manuscript Division. 8. To Maurice C. Latta, June 7, 1910, Grant Papers case file, Manuscript Division. 9. Hunt to Warren S. Young, July 18, 1911, Grant Papers case file. 10. George B. Christian, Jr., to Librarian of Congress, July 15, 1921, Grant Papers case file. 11. Grant to Harding, June 28, 1921, Grant Papers case file. 12. Grant to Charles Moore, July 19, 1920, Grant Papers case file. 13. Army and Navy Journal, XXIII (December 12, 1885), 391, in a paragraph headed "General Grant as an Artist" refers to paintings by Grant. 14. Moore to Mrs. Grant, June 6, 1922, Grant Papers case file. These documents were given to Frederick Grant at the White House in 1876. 15. The volumes in the larger gift are numbered 1-60 and 62-76 in series 5 with an overall numbering of 35-109 in the Grant Papers. A volume once thought to be 61 is designated Fair Copy Volume III, series 3B Andrew Johnson Papers. The latter volume contains material of Grant interest on pages 38-263: copies of communications between Gen. George C. Meade and officers of his command, May 3-June 25, 1864. The volume appears on reel 43 of the microfilm reproduction of the Andrew Johnson Papers and is indexed in the Index to the Andrew Johnson Papers (Washington 1963). 16. Series 5 accounts for 43,041 of the total, of which 14,965 are separate manuscripts and 28,076 are duplicates of the former. The other series amount to 4,195 manuscripts, with or no duplication. 17. See vol. 16, p. 422, 427. 18. The fact is established by a reference on the flyleaf to Pvt. John A. Williams, Co. "A," 7th Iowa Volunteers, who was detailed as a clerk in Grant's headquarters from July 4, 1863, to August 9, 1864. The inscription is signed by Bowers who did not become assistant adjutant general until August 30, 1863. It reads: "If this book is large enough it will be used to make a duplicate of the book to and from Superior Head Qtrs, now being copied by Williams. This copy is for Gen. Grant's private use." 19. Rawlins to wife, April 16, 1864, in James H. Wilson, Life of John A. Rawlins (New York, 1916), p. 418. 20. St. Louis Daily Democrat, August 16, 1861. 21. Sylvanus Cadwallader to St. Louis Globe-Democrat, February 10, 1884, as quoted by Wilson, Rawlins, p. 428-429. Cadwallader was the correspondent for the Chicago Times who accompanied Grant on his campaigns. 22. Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography (New York, 1898), I, 337. 23. To Julia D. Grant, March 23, 1862, series 1A. 24. General Orders No. 21, Headquarters, District of West Tennessee, Ft. Henry, March 15, 1862, Series 5, vol. 12, p. 53. 25. The inscription "For General Grant" appears in the flyleaves to volumes 14, 16, and 103, and elsewhere. A reporter in the Albany Evening Journal, June 10, 1885, described Grant's personal volumes as "big, heavily-bound black books, much as are used as ledgers in mercantile houses. As soon as one was filled it was sent to the general's house and a new one was taken up. Thus 30 of these great books were filled, and they contain a complete history of the general's military doings in that war." 26. Grant to Badeau, May 5, 1885, in New York Herald, March 17, 1888. 27. Such was the estimate of at least three admirers of Grant—Mark Twain, William T. Sherman, and Lloyd Lewis. See Lewis to C. Raymond Everitt, June 6, 1946, and to Angus Cameron, January 26, 1949 in Letters from Lloyd Lewis (Boston, 1950), p. 26, 80. 28. To editor of Century, series 1B. 29. Grant to Badeau, July 3, 1884, in Badeau, Grant in Peace, p. 560. Grant to Sherman, August 9, 1884, William T. Sherman Papers, Manuscript Division. "The Battle of Shiloh" was published in Century, XXIX (September 1885), 752-765, reprinted from the Personal Memoirs. 30. To Sherman, August 9, 1884, Sherman Papers. 31. Badeau, Grant in Peace, p. 562. 32. To Sherman, September 8, 1884, Sherman Papers. 33. To Sherman, October 19, 1884, Sherman Papers. 34. Douglas diary, Douglas Papers, Manuscript Division. 35. Samuel C. Webster, Mark Twain, Business Man (Boston, 1946), p. 312-329. 36. Grant to Charles L. Webster & Co., May 2, 1885, in Webster, Mark Twain, p. 320. 37. Badeau to Grant, May 4, 1885, in New York Herald, March 17, 1888. 38. Badeau to Grant, May 2 and 4, Grant to Badeau, May 5, 1885, in New York Herald, March 17, 1888. 39. New York Tribune, October 31, 1888 (clipping, series 7, vol. 14, Grant Papers). 40. For example, "416LBB" referred to letter book B (now vol. 19), p. 416, where Pemberton's letter to Grant was copied. The letter is printed in the Memoirs, I, 561. 41. Brig. Gen. Marcellus W. Crocker, a colonel in Iowa Volunteers before promotion, died August 21, 1865. 42. Albany Evening Journal, June 10, 1885. 43. December 18, 1885, in Webster, Mark Twain, p. 346. 44. December 20, 1885, and February 1, 1886, in Webster, Mark Twain, p. 347, 351. 45. The letters were used and extensively quoted by Lloyd Lewis in Captain Sam Grant and to a lesser extent by Ishbel Ross in The General's Wife, the Life of Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant (New York, 1959). Three other letters, apparently estrays from the series, were published in part in facsimile in the menu for Grant Birthday Association Banquet, April 27th, 1901 (New York? 1901), copy in the McCook Family Papers, Manuscript Division. These letters are dated February 24, 26, and March 29, 1862. Wilson in Rawlins, p. 77, quotes part of the letter of February 24. E. B. Long in an article "Dear Julia: Two Grant Letters," Civil War History, I (March 1955), 61-64, printed the letters of February 24 and March 29 in full and in facsimile. Scope and Content Note for Additions to the CollectionThe four additions described below comprise materials acquired subsequent to the arranging, indexing, and microfilming of the Grant Papers in 1965. Each addition has been arranged in a separate series numbered sequentially and organized in accordance with the original collection. Series 8, Addition I, consists of items appraised as peripheral and thus omitted from the microfilm edition prepared as part of the presidential papers microfilming project. Also included are miscellaneous items acquired through 1973. A portion of Series 8 was subsequently microfilmed as a separate project. Series 9, Addition II, also includes items appraised as peripheral and thus omitted from the original collection as well as additions received between 1974 and 1978. Series 10, Addition III, consists of papers given to the Library by the Grant family in 1989. Series 11 contains papers acquired after Series 10 was arranged and material formerly found in other collections. Future additions will be placed in this series. Series 8, Addition I, spans the years 1846-1893. It consists chiefly of correspondence, newspaper clippings, financial records, and souvenirs and includes letters from Grant to family members, military officers, public officials, and friends. A bound volume of autographs contains many of Grant's letters to his friend and business confidante, Charles W. Ford. Letters to Ford from Grant's wife, Julia Dent Grant, and her brother, Frederick T. Dent, as well as numerous engravings of Grant complete the volume. Newspaper clippings, most of which were removed from the John Russell Young Papers, pertain to Grant's travels around the world in 1877-1879 and his dispute with Adam Badeau over the writing of Grant's memoirs. A bound volume of financial records and other miscellaneous material comprise the rest of the series. Of special note are souvenirs from an 1893 banquet commemorating Grant's birth. The souvenirs are reproductions of correspondence between Grant and Robert E. Lee concerning Lee's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse and a printed narrative about Lee's surrender by Ely Samuel Parker. Series 9, Addition II, spans the years 1848-1974 and primarily contains correspondence. Included are letters from Grant to George W. Childs, H. W. Halleck, George H. Thomas, and correspondence of Grant's grandson, Chapman Grant. Also contained in Series 9 is a headquarters record book, containing entries in Grant's handwriting, kept by the Fourth U.S. Infantry during the Mexican War. Series 10, Addition III, spans the years 1840-1969, with the bulk of the items concentrated in the period 1864-1885. The addition comprises family letters, personal and official correspondence, military records, writings, and miscellaneous material pertaining to Grant's military and political career supplementing the original corpus of Grant's papers in the Library of Congress. The Family Correspondence file of Series 10, 1862-1965, consists of letters and notes from Grant to his wife and sons and letters between other family members and their correspondents. Notes written by Grant to his son, Frederick Dent Grant, while completing his memoirs at Mount McGregor and letters to Julia Dent Grant, including an affectionate note written days before his death, reflect Grant's devotion to his family. Correspondence of Frederick Dent Grant pertains mostly to assisting his father with his memoirs. Letters from veterans and former military officers containing detailed accounts of Grant's actions during the Civil War were used to verify facts and provide source material. Correspondence belonging to Julia Dent Grant in the file includes letters of condolence on Grant's death, several personal letters from Varina Davis, and correspondence with Chinese and Japanese diplomats whom the Grants had met during their travels in 1877-1879. Also included is correspondence of Ulysses S. Grant III pertaining to his efforts in gathering documents and other material for his book, Ulysses S. Grant: Warrior and Statesman. The greatest concentration of material in Series 10 is found in the Personal and Professional Correspondence file, 1840-1885, consisting chiefly of incoming letters, often with enclosures, addressed either to Grant or to members of his staff. Correspondence during the Civil War and Grant's presidential administration is primarily official in nature, though many letters from friends, colleagues, and private citizens are found interspersed throughout the file. Correspondence during the Civil War period is quite extensive. Included are letters of both a personal and official nature between Grant and many of the officers under his command. Letters and telegraphs from William S. Rosecrans, Philip Henry Sheridan, and William T. Sherman provide glimpses into the progress of the war on its many different fronts. The file also includes letters to Grant from members of Congress containing comments and advice regarding his military decisions. Of note is a letter dated January 8, 1863, from Congressman Elihu B. Washburne in which he explains Lincoln's retraction of Grant's order ousting Jewish settlers from Union camps in the Mississippi Valley. Also included are letters from private citizens congratulating Grant on his victories at Vicksburg and the Battle of the Wilderness and his promotion to lieutenant general. Grant's military service after the war as commanding general of the army and as interim secretary of war under President Andrew Johnson is also represented in the file. Letters exchanged between Grant and military and public officials concern such topics as the implementation of Reconstruction policies, the situation in Mexico involving nationalists and the French, and the formation of exconfederate militias in Maryland. Highlighting this period is correspondence relating to Johnson's removal of Philip H. Sheridan as district commander of Louisiana and Texas because of his forceful implementation of the Reconstruction Acts. Included are several letters from Sheridan in which he defends his actions to Grant and Grant's letter of protest to the president along with Johnson's response. Also in the file are letters from members of the Union Republican National Committee regarding Grant's 1868 presidential campaign and numerous letters of congratulations from friends and private citizens for winning the election. A congratulatory letter dated December 8, 1868, from Mary Todd Lincoln includes her comment, "It requires no assurance, but that you will use your powerful influence and succeed in having Congress give me at least a pension of $3,000 a year so that I may be enabled to obey the command of my physicians." The Personal and Professional Correspondence also contains correspondence documenting Grant's presidential administration. Grant and his staff received letters from a variety of correspondents, including commanders of military departments, members of Congress, governors and other state officials, college and university professors, businessmen, and private citizens. The letters relate to the annexation of Santo Domingo, Reconstruction policies, civil rights, and foreign affairs. Some commend Grant's political decisions and declarations, entreat him to run for a third term, or solicit personal and political favors. There are also a number of threats on Grant's life over such issues as the Civil Rights Act of 1875 and the use of federal troops in New Orleans to protect the lives of black Republicans. Correspondence during this period also documents the scandals that occurred during Grant's administration. Included are letters relating to Grant's failure to get his nominees confirmed for the Supreme Court, letters of resignation from many of his cabinet members, and correspondence pertaining to the whiskey frauds involving the Treasury Department and his longtime friend and fellow Civil War veteran, Orville E. Babcock. Completing the file is correspondence documenting Grant's life after he left the White House. Letters pertaining to his family's worldwide travels in 1877-1879 are included. Letters between Grant and Li Hung Chang, viceroy of Tientsin, and other Chinese and Japanese officials concern a dispute over Japan's annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. Grant served as an arbitrator in the dispute and eventually helped negotiate a peaceful solution. Grant, Li Hung Chang, and the Japanese officials maintained a friendly correspondence until his death. The file also contains letters regarding Grant's unsuccessful bid for the presidential nomination on the Republican ticket in 1880, the collapse of Grant & Ward and his subsequent financial ruin, and messages of sympathy from friends and private citizens after the public disclosure of his fatal illness. Of special interest are letters from Civil War veterans containing personal accounts of battles, copies of contemporary letters and newspaper clippings, and miscellaneous facts and figures sent to assist Grant in the writing of his memoirs. Frequent and notable correspondents include Adam Badeau, Orville E. Babcock, John A. Bingham, Benjamin Helm Bristow, Frederick Douglass, Hamilton Fish (1808-1893), Charles W. Ford, Andrew Johnson, Abraham Lincoln, Mary Todd Lincoln, John Singleton Mosby, Edwards Pierrepont, John A. Rawlins, Matias Romero, William S. Rosecrans, Philip Henry Sheridan, William T. Sherman, Edwin M. Stanton, Elihu B. Washburne, J. H. Wilson, and John Russell Young. The Military File, 1846-1868, in Series 10 consists chiefly of copies of orders, reports, and official dispatches during the Civil War that mostly duplicate items found in the main body of the Grant Papers. The file also contains material pertaining to Grant's service as commanding general of the army after the war. Included are transcripts of congressional testimony given by Grant and memoranda pertaining to Reconstruction policies, copies of reports from the Mexican War, documents relating to a minor legal case during the Civil War, and other miscellaneous items, such as Grant's commission as lieutenant general in the United States Army signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1864. The Writings file, 1847-1969, contains writings by Grant and his wife. Material pertaining to his autobiography, Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, includes drafts, galley proof fragments, and correspondence documenting the dispute between the Grant family and Adam Badeau over the authorship of the memoirs. The file also includes the galley and printer's proof of Grant's article, "The Siege of Vicksburg" (1884), some of his published letters to editors, a copy of a speech he gave in 1875 at the reunion of the Army of the Tennessee, and other miscellaneous writings. The largest segment of the file includes the original manuscript of Julia Dent Grant's memoirs. Consisting of twelve volumes, the memoir is written in several different hands, including her own. Most of the writing was done by her eldest son, Frederick Dent Grant, and her longtime secretary, Mary Coffey. In 1975, the memoir was edited and published in its entirety by John Y. Simon. The Writings file also contains writings by others. Included are an unpublished narrative and the galley proof of Ulysses S. Grant: Warrior and Statesman by Ulysses S. Grant III, notes made from Grant's papers by John Russell Young in 1875, memoranda written by Hamilton Fish and Felix Brunot during Grant's presidential administration, and other miscellaneous writings. The final file of Series 10, Miscellany, 1819-1933, contains financial records, printed matter, souvenirs and other items from Grant's travels, maps of various properties, family passports, and drafts of Grant's will. His last signature before his death, as attested to by his son Frederick, a copy of the deposition he gave regarding the Grant & Ward scandal, and other miscellaneous items complete the series. Series 11, Addition IV, 1865-1932, consists of correspondence, including a letter from Frederick T. Dent to his daughter Madgie commenting on the impeachment proceedings of Andrew Johnson and a visit he made to Ulysses S. and Julia Dent Grant in Washington, D.C., letters from Julia Dent Grant to Charles Furlong, and a letter from Ulysses S. Grant to Benjamin Helm Bristow. An item from 1865 consists of a letter from Grant to I. N. Morris giving J. M. A. Drake permission to pass through federal lines during the Civil War. Included is a Confederate twenty-dollar bill. Organization of the PapersThe collection is arranged in eleven series:
Description of Series
Container ListMicrofilm shelf no. 12,980 (Series 1-8)
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