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

[53] send him to Mexico. A Minister had already been appointed to that republic, and Grant was to be given neither ‘powers’ nor authority. No special purpose for the mission was announced; he was simply ‘to give the Minister the benefit of his advice in carrying out the instructions of the Secretary of State.’ It was doubtless supposed that Grant with his profound anxiety for Mexican independence would bite at the bait. But the device was too transparent; and Grant, if ordinarily unadroit, was yet far-seeing. He usually went to the core of a thing, when immediate judgment was required. He promptly declined the mission. This was in conversation with the President.

A day or two afterward Johnson returned to the subject and announced that he had sent for Sherman to take Grant's place in his absence. Congress was about to assemble, a Congress hostile to Johnson, and the air was full of rumors that the President would refuse to recognize the Legislature, and might even attempt to disperse it by arms. Mr. Johnson had recently seemed to have designs to use the military force in Maryland illegally, or at least improperly. Grant remembered this, and again declined to leave the country; this time in writing. Nevertheless, in a day or two he was summoned to a full Cabinet meeting, when his detailed instructions were read to him by the Secretary of State, exactly as if objections and refusal had not been offered. But Grant was now aroused; and before the whole Cabinet he declared his unwillingness to accept the mission. The President also became angered. Turning to the Attorney-General he inquired: ‘Mr. Attorney-General, is there any reason why General Grant should not obey my orders? Is he in any way ineligible to this position?’ Grant started to his feet at once, and exclaimed: ‘I can answer that question, Mr. President, without referring to the Attorney-General. I am an American citizen, and eligible to any office to which any American is eligible. I am an officer of the army, and ’