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NEW YORK TIMES
April 7, 1885

ULYSSES S. GRANT PASSING A WAKEFUL DAY. STILL DESPONDENT, BUT PHYSICALLY COMFORTABLE

Easter broke on a happy family at General Grant's. The patient had again passed the dawn hours in perfect sleep. He awoke at 5:30 a.m. when his attendants went to his side. After greetings he closed his eyes again for a few minutes. Then, fully awake, he asked that the daylight be let into the sleeping room, so the blinds were opened. When Dr. Douglas asked him how he was, he said that his throat pained him. It was gargled and dressed with cocaine. Then the General settled back in his chair without a word. The members of the family visited him during the next hour with cheery greetings, to which he made brief responses, but he wanted to be left alone and indicated as much to his attendants.

After breakfast, the General sipped his coffee with his gruel and the family gathered in the sick room with the morning papers. For an hour the second floor was full of gay talk and laughter. During part of the time the entire family was in the General's sick room. The exhilaration induced by the presence of his family was not a lasting one on the patient. After an hour it was succeeded by weariness. His strength was not equal even to the demands of domestic intercourse. When this appeared, the family withdrew, leaving the sick room to its usual attendants. The General tried to sleep but it was a useless effort. He closed his eyes for awhile, but he was perfectly awake. Then he abandoned the effort and stared moodily at the fire in the grate. General Badeau told reporters: "He is utterly broken down. No one knows it better than he. While he may live a week, he may be dead in 30 minutes. His mind is still morbid. He seems to have no earthly wish except that the end might not be long delayed."

All through the afternoon the General sat quiet but wakeful in his chair. He preferred to be left undisturbed. The attendants moved but little and then on tip-toe. The General was very taciturn and fully exhausted. When the doctors asked him at 2 o'clock how he was feeling, he answered indifferently that he was feeling about as usual. They asked if they might examine his throat as he sat. He offered no objections, but acted as though the proceeding was quite needless. he had no regrets when the doctors left him to himself again as he was then sleepy and wanted to be left alone. Dr. Sands left the house and was questioned in regards to reports that the General's troubles might not be cancerous. "There is not a word of truth in it," was his emphatic response.

After napping a little bit, the General seated himself by the window so he look outdoors. A stream of people on the other side of the street saw him. The General was silent for a few minutes and then began to talk with interest about his case and the many expressions of sympathy that have reached him. It was a subject he had touched don before, but never so feelingly. Dr. Shrady was preparing the daily bulletin at that moment and said, "General, this is hard work. You are getting along so well that there's really nothing to say unless you can suggest something. Why not send out the substance of what you have just been saying?" The General answered, "I have no objection. Say that I am comfortable." "Don't you think," the Doctor continued, "that a little message from you in the first person would be a nice thing to send out to the people?" The General answered, "Tell them I desire the good-will of all, whether heretofore friends or not."

Because the General seemed moody, the family thought wise to have the two physicians stay again all night at the house. A banker, a close friend of the family, who until late has been a regular Sunday visitor to the house, told reporters: "I saw the General during the early part of his sickness, when he was wasting rapidly. It was not the cancer that did it. His physicians are right when they say that cancer could not have brought on such debility. He was brought to his present physical emaciation by mental trouble. The failure of grant and ward was the hardest blow of his life. No complaint has ever reached the public from him. Only his closest friends know how much he has suffered. I have seen him buried in the most profound grief, sitting by the hour with his head dropped on his breast, oblivious to what was going on around him. He said to General Fry last summer that he had not slept for a month after the failure. From what I saw of him then, I could readily believe it. That misfortune made a different man out of him, and following it, in a bout a month, came this awful disease. The public reads about his throat and think of him only as a sufferer from cancer. In one sense it is true that cancer will kill him, but those who know him best know that Ferdinand Ward is morally responsible for his chief sufferings.

General Grant passed the hour or so before bedtime much as he has passed the greater part of the week, with only his attendants consistently near him. He was not especially moody or restless, but preferred to be left to his own reflections. At the retiring hour, he was ready for his usual treatment.

 

 

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