Characteristics of the Lady of the White House.

Washington, December 13, 1879.

Wading through a mass of newspaper correspondence concerning life at the White House during the administration of General Grant, it is invariably found that language most vivid and eloquent is used alike by friend and foe. The admirers find everything to order for highest praise, whilst the enemy finds nothing too dark and threatening with which to paint the pen pictures. By figures taken from authentic sources, it is shown that the expenses incurred for supporting the White House, irrespective of the President’s salary, was increased $27,550 per year on the average under General Grant in excess of the amount consumed under Abraham Lincoln. This vast yearly sum was not used for decorative purposes, unless the military staff with its brass buttons may be considered that way. General Badeau was the historian whose duty it was to save the sands of history, act as chief custodian of the Presidential literary preserves, and at the same time keep all poachers away. Military rule was as rigidly enforced as in the tented field. It not only surrounded the President, but wrapped the whole household in its starry fold.

It seems but yesterday since the writer stormed this peculiar citadel to gain an audience with “the first lady of the land.” After passing the skirmish line of messengers and doorkeepers, the first real lion encountered was General Dent. This gentleman has often been described as made of “fuss and feathers,” a “military martinet,” but the writer found only a genial, pleasant gentleman. Most of his military life had been spent on the frontier, and what seemed “fuss” was only the embarrassment which came from being transplanted from almost obscurity to one of the most trying subordinate positions at the White House. He was not only high chamberlain, head usher, but also brother-in-law to the President, and this last position made him the target for more witty newspaper paragraphs than any other member of the Presidential household.

“Want to see Mrs. Grant, do you? What for, just to pay your respects?”

“Not altogether for that, though the respects will be included.”

“Newspaper woman! eh?”

“Sometimes.”

“I don’t think Mrs. Grant wants to be written up in the newspapers. She ain’t that kind of a woman.”

“I beg your pardon, General! I shall take no advantages of Mrs. Grant’s courtesy or kindness, but the people will wish to know something of the ‘lady of the White House,’ and how can I make up one of the ‘pictures’ unless I am permitted to dip my pen at the fountain head?”

“Can’t you see her at her receptions? I think she sees ladies Saturday afternoons.”

“I never describe dress. I want to tell the people something about the woman inside the clothes.”

“I shall have to turn you over to General Badeau!”

At this moment a bell was touched and a lackey, minus the military buttons, appeared.

“Show this lady to General Badeau’s room.”

Over the tufted carpet, through vestibule and broad hall, until the right door was reached. A smart knock, which was answered by “Come in!”

The man with the military buttons looked up from the mass of papers at which he appeared to be at work, and the servant at my side simply said:

“I am requested by General Dent to show this lady to your room.” The servant immediately disappeared through the open door. General Badeau glanced at the writer from head to foot, his eyes instantly reverted to the papers, and his mouth, which had never opened, seemed fastened like those of the sphinx. The situation to the writer became extremely painful, not knowing whether to retreat or advance; but in an instant it was decided to stand firm without flinching a muscle, and await the enemy’s fire. At this moment General Badeau’s assistant kindly inquired if the lady would “have a seat?” The seat was occupied and the foreign sphinx kept at work on his papers. In the meantime the photograph of this foreigner was burned into the writer’s brain. Short and thick set, with the animal neck of a gladiator squatted upon his square shoulders, every visible point about the man indicating his peasant origin, the grim, gray complexion, the small, dead, steel-blue eye and neutral color of hair, a nose which had just escaped a hook, and a mouth which nature denied lips, but left it an ugly slit in the face, like a wound which could not be made to heal.

The embarrassment became almost unendurable, the silence horrible, but the writer sat with folded hands “determined to fight it out on that line if it took all summer.” As a cannon swings on the gun-carriage, the bore of this military arrangement was brought to bear upon the countenance of the writer.

“Did you wish to speak to me?”

“No, sir; I came to the White House to see Mrs. Grant. General Dent has consigned me to your care. What are you going to do with me?”

“You wish to see Mrs. Grant? That is not so easy a matter. Would you allow me to know the nature of your business? We do not allow Mrs. Grant to be subjected to annoyance.”

“I have not the slightest intention to annoy Mrs. Grant. I have no favors to ask, or axes to grind. I should never have ventured over the threshold of the White House had I understood military law. I was accustomed to meet Andy Johnson as though he were still an unpretending citizen of the Republic; and Mrs. Patterson allows the intimacy of a personal friend.”

“What shall I call your name?”

A card was handed the General and he read aloud “Mrs. Emily Briggs.”

“Allow me to say a word,” said General Badeau’s assistant. “If I am not mistaken, I think this is ‘Olivia,’ correspondent of the Philadelphia Press and other prominent newspapers.”

The writer bowed in simple recognition. The General raised his eyebrows with another supercilious glance at the writer’s person, and without the slightest notice of the interruption simply answered, “In that case I shall have to turn you over to General Porter.”

Some more footfalls over the tufted floors and the office of General Porter was reached, but the change was like that of the living skeleton into the fat woman and mud into polished marble; of charcoal into diamonds.

General Porter was standing in the council chamber which leads to the room where the immortal eye sees the invisible throne. It is the executive headquarters; where may be found during business hours the American citizen who sways the sceptre over all that is superbly important on the Western Continent. General Porter stood, the central figure of a group of young officers, all handsome enough for a tableau scene in a church charitable performance, with a grace of manner which seemed meant purposely to obliterate the remembrance of the ferocity of former experience. General Porter inquired how could he serve the lady “who had honored him with a call?” The business made known, “Certainly,” said General Porter, “I feel at liberty to say that Mrs. Grant will be pleased to see you. Possibly she may not be engaged at present.” A messenger was despatched and soon returned with an answer. “I must show you the way myself,” said General Porter, “and if you have not met Mrs. Grant I must introduce you myself.”

And this “open sesame” was never changed during the eight years that General Grant occupied the White House. Owing to some difficulty with her eyes, Mrs. Grant was obliged to have a private secretary attend to her letters and assist her in any work which would be impaired by defective vision, and having married into the army a soldier secretary was preferred to one of her own sex, who might in the beginning prove to be a perfectly seaworthy vessel, but after all, without any warning, spring a leak.

During these days a gentleman in New York made up his mind that he would publish a book with the high-sounding title, “The Ladies of the White House from Washington to Grant.” The writer was sent a communication, asking for a paper on these subjects to contain personal reminiscences, etc. Under this stimulant the author of the forthcoming papers called upon General Dent to make inquiry about the early life of his sister. On his recollections the incidents were put together, but before they were mailed Mrs. Grant’s presence was sought, the manuscript spread out for reading and correction. Mrs. Grant listened with a most amused expression on her face. At the conclusion she remarked, “Did brother Fred tell you all that?”

“He did, Mrs. Grant?”

“Then brother Fred does not know me! Let me tell you about Fred. You know I am a Southern woman, was born and brought up on a plantation. Our brothers were much older than we three sisters, and as soon as they were old enough father sent them away to school. We had a governess at home. Our mother directed our education, took a deep interest in everything we learned, just as I believe every mother should who has daughters. When the boys used to come home at vacations we used to hide our dolls and playthings, for the boys would break them up. Brother Fred finished his education at a military school, and was sent away to the frontier on duty, and has had such a hard life that I prevailed on Mr. Grant to let him come and be near father and the rest of us for a little time. Father will not be with us but a few days longer. Now, don’t send that manuscript away, because it is not my true life. This brother knew nothing about me the years when he was away.”

The book was never published, possibly because some of the papers never reached New York.

After Eugenie was deposed from the throne of fashion as well as that of the empire of France, The Press requested that the writer should ascertain where the ladies of the capital would look for future models. The subject was one of interest, because Madame Demorest was trying to set up the golden calf in the great emporium of New York.

“I think,” said Mrs. Grant, “that the American ladies are capable of inventing their own fashions. How this is to be brought about I don’t exactly know, but I am quite sure I shall never set the fashions. Mr. Grant is a poor man. Ask the ladies of the Cabinet. Mrs. Fish has remarkable good sense.”

Another time the writer had heard Mrs. Grant lament her inability to use the eight sewing machines which had been sent from different sources to the White House; what to do with all the patchwork quilts wrought by humble hands.

“I do not feel it is right to give them away, but where can they be stored? Only last week Mr. Grant had a leather picture sent all the way from Oregon. Senator Williams presented it in person. There is no place for it on the walls. I am sure I never saw a leather picture before. To keep it from being harmed I have had to put it under the bed.”

A very warm friendship existed between Mrs. Grant and Mrs. Wilson, the wife of the Senator of that name from Massachusetts. Mrs. Wilson was one of the noblest and most angelic of characters. A soldier who had been one of the staff officers of General Banks had excited her deepest sympathy. He had been dangerously wounded in five different battles and his case was on record in the surgeon-general’s office as a marvel that under the circumstances the man could exist. Mrs. Wilson took his case in hand for advancement in some direction and reported the case to Mrs. Grant.

“There is nothing I would not do to help the soldier,” said the President’s wife, “if it lay within my power, if my word or my efforts would effect it, but I made a resolution that no circumstance should arise which would induce me to ask Mr. Grant for an office. Isn’t Mr. Wilson one of the pillars of the Senate? Mr. Grant is worried all day. There must be one place where he can have quiet.”

This last incident the writer relates as written down from the lips of the late Mrs. Wilson. Mrs. Wilson said at the time: “Mrs. Grant is right, and I mean to let Henry alone after this.”

When the only daughter (Miss Nellie) attended school like other young girls of a dozen years of age, the afternoon came and her lesson was unlearned. The carriage came to the door for the incipient young lady, but the teacher dismissed it with the request that it should return at the end of a half hour. The half hour came and glided away with the lesson still unlearned. The carriage came again and was dismissed. At the end of the second half hour the lesson was committed, and Miss Nellie was permitted to go. The next day at the usual hour the young lady arrived, accompanied by her mother. The teacher began to fear she had lost her most cherished pupil, but Mrs. Grant came to thank her for performing her duty.

“Teach her,” said Mrs. Grant, “that she is only plain, simple Nellie Grant, subject to the same rules which govern all the scholars. This course will have my sincere approbation.”

Through the wife of Rev. J. P. Newman, the pastor of the church which the General and Mrs. Grant loved so well, the writer learned of the unostentatious charity, the benevolent deeds which this pure-minded woman has kept from the world. Mrs. Newman said: “This material should be used after Mrs. Grant has gone, when loving friends can speak of these truths without wounding her delicacy.” But how can a paper be made up for publication of Mrs. Grant’s life in the White House and leave out the key to one of the most perfect and lovely of womanly characters. From the historic days of Martha Washington no woman called to this highest social position has wielded the sceptre with more dignity, good sense and grace. Amidst the clashings of the female cabinet, which in every sense of the word has as much significance as its counterpart, as the result is often the loss of an official head, Mrs. Grant was as serene as Victoria on her throne—not sustained by birth and traditionary precedent, but upheld by the noble qualities which makes the American woman in her highest perfection the peer and often the superior of every reigning queen on the earth’s surface.

Olivia.