I gave my permission.  There were weighty reasons why I should not only give my permission, but hold it a matter of honor to not dissolve the order or modify it at any time.  So I did all of that—­said the order should stand undisturbed to the end.  If a principal could dissolve his promise as innocently as he can dissolve his written order unguarded by his promise, I would send you a copy of the Memoirs instantly.  I did not foresee you, or I would have made an exception.

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My idea gained from army men, is that the drunkenness (and sometimes pretty reckless spreeing, nights,) ceased before he came East to be Lt.  General. (Refer especially to Gen. Wm. B. Franklin—­[If you could see Franklin and talk with him—­then he would unbosom,]) It was while Grant was still in the West that Mr. Lincoln said he wished he could find out what brand of whisky that fellow used, so he could furnish it to some of the other generals.  Franklin saw Grant tumble from his horse drunk, while reviewing troops in New Orleans.  The fall gave him a good deal of a hurt.  He was then on the point of leaving for the Chattanooga region.  I naturally put “that and that together” when I read Gen. O. O. Howards’s article in the Christian Union, three or four weeks ago—­where he mentions that the new General arrived lame from a recent accident.  (See that article.) And why not write Howard?

Franklin spoke positively of the frequent spreeing.  In camp—­in time of war.

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Captain Grant was frequently threatened by the Commandant of his Oregon post with a report to the War Department of his conduct unless he modified his intemperance.  The report would mean dismissal from the service.  At last the report had to be made out; and then, so greatly was the captain beloved, that he was privately informed, and was thus enabled to rush his resignation to Washington ahead of the report.  Did the report go, nevertheless?  I don’t know.  If it did, it is in the War Department now, possibly, and seeable.  I got all this from a regular army man, but I can’t name him to save me.

The only time General Grant ever mentioned liquor to me was about last April or possibly May.  He said: 

“If I could only build up my strength!  The doctors urge whisky and champagne; but I can’t take them; I can’t abide the taste of any kind of liquor.”

Had he made a conquest so complete that even the taste of liquor was become an offense?  Or was he so sore over what had been said about his habit that he wanted to persuade others and likewise himself that he hadn’t even ever had any taste for it?  It sounded like the latter, but that’s no evidence.

He told me in the fall of ’84 that there was something the matter with his throat, and that at the suggestion of his physicians he had reduced his smoking to one cigar a day.  Then he added, in a casual fashion, that he didn’t care for that one, and seldom smoked it.