Ulysses Grant’s well-known heavy drinking led to his resignation in 1854 after a superior officer found him intoxicated while on duty out West. Ironically, Grant’s resignation was approved by then-Secretary of War Jefferson Davis.
Grant’s Reputation
Grant’s chief of staff, John Rawlins, was a self-appointed guardian of Grant’s reputation and morals. In Dana’s words, Rawlins watched over Grant “day and night, and whenever he commits the folly of tasting liquor hastens to remind him that the beginning of the war he gave him [Rawlins] his word of honor not to touch a drop as long as it lasted.”
On June 6 [1863], Rawlins handed Grant a note that began: “The great solicitude which I feel for the safety of this army leads me to mention, what I had hoped never again to do, the subject of your drinking.” Rawlins then said he might possibly be “doing you an injustice by unfounded suspicion.” Still, he had heard that the general recently had a glass of wine at Sherman’s headquarters, and he had seen a box of wine in Grant’s tent; the wine was supposedly being saved to celebrate the capture of Vicksburg.
And now, Rawlins wrote, “I find you where the wine bottle has just been emptied, in company with those who drink and urge you to do likewise . . . If my suspicions are unfounded, let my friendship for you and my zeal for my country be my excuse for this letter.”
According to reporter Sylvanus Cadwallader, Grant went on a fearful binge during [a visit up the Yazoo River to Satartia], riding wildly cross-country while roaring drunk, falling off his horse, and finally being led to safety [and saved from disgrace] by Cadwallader, the hero of the tale. Charles A. Dana, aide to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, was also with the group.
Despite [later Grant-defenders dismissing the story], Grant had one or more drinks the evening before. If he continued drinking, and heavily, Dana’s word “sick” might have been a euphemism for “intoxicated.” However, Dana’s reports to [Stanton] said nothing about [Grant’s] drinking. If they had, it could have been the end of Grant’s career; this silence – if indeed silence was necessary – was yet another way in which Dana rescued that career.
(The General and the Journalists: Grant, Greeley and Dana. Harry Maihafer. Brassey’s Inc., 1998, pp. 161-163)