“Is It Safe to Let Mrs. Grant Hear Us?”
In the winter of 1864–65, with Ulysses S. Grant well-settled into headquarters at City Point, Virginia, his family came to visit for an extended period. Grant was always at his happiest with his wife, Julia, around. Several interactions, as recounted by staff and by themselves, also demonstrate the implicit trust Grant had in his wife. He conducted “business as usual” when she was around headquarters.
Julia’s recollection of a winter visit by Grant’s top lieutenant, William T. Sherman, captures the dynamic of their relationship. Grant and Sherman huddled over a table, discussing Sherman’s plans for what became his Carolina campaign. Suddenly, Grant looked up at his wife and remarked: “Sherman, do you think it is safe to let Mrs. Grant hear us?”
“Well, I don’t know,” Sherman replied. “Let me see.” He turned to her. “Mrs. Grant, can you tell me where the Tombigbee River is?”
Julia answered “wide of the mark, of course,” as she later retold it.
Sherman then inquired, looking much puzzled himself, “Can you tell me where the Chattahoochee River is? That was what I wanted, not the Tombigbee.”
Julia admitted she had forgotten where that was, as well.
Sherman turned back to Grant. “Oh, yes, Grant. I think we may trust her.”[1]
Everyone was joking and everyone knew it: Grant’s sarcastic question to initiate the exchange and the feigned interrogation that followed. “I was throwing dust in Sherman’s eyes all the time,” Julia later explained.[2]
That sense of playfulness was a hallmark of Julia’s time with the army. Horace Porter, one of Grant’s closest aides, told of how “Mrs. Grant would at times put on an air of mock earnestness, and insist upon the general telling her all of the details of the next movement he intended to make.”
Grant would respond with a straight face, according to Porter:
He would then proceed to give her a fanciful description of an imaginary campaign, in which he would name impossible figures as to the number of the troops, inextricably, confused the geography of the country, and trace out a plan of marvelously complicated movements in a manner that was often exceedingly droll.[3]
In truth, Grant wasn’t shy about sharing his plans with his wife at all. Shortly after Sherman’s departure, she asked him one day, “Ulys, why do you not tell me something of your plans?”
“Would you like to know of my plans?” he asked.
“Of course I would.”
Grant turned to a map spread across his table. “I will show you with pleasure,” he said. Sweeping his hand over the Southern states, he indicated, “There is the entire field. Here to the right rest the Army of the Potomac and the Army of the James.” From there, he pointed out troop locations and commanders in West Virginia, Tennessee, the Gulf states, and Georgia. “Now you have the position of all the armies. You observe that it is a perfect cordon from sea to sea again.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yes,” Julia said. “What next?”
“Do you want to know more?”
“Yes, of course; everything I ought to.”
“Well, he said, “I am going to tighten that cordon until the rebellion is crushed or strangled.”
Knowing the full picture, Julia admitted she felt sorrowful. It was a vast canvas, and it suggested widespread trouble and tragedy.
“Yes,” Grant replied, “war is always sorrowful. But only think how dreadful it would be if a cordon like that I have just point out to you encircled our Union.”[4]
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[1] Julia Dent Grant, The Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant (Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant) (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988), 135–6.
[2] Ibid, 136.
[3] Porter, 285.
[4] Julia Grant, 136.
