of the South. It was the era of the carpet-bagger. Northern regiments
dwelt in Southern cities. Men were talking about hanging Jefferson
Davis, and trying to decide whether or not the Confederate soldiers and
officers should receive again the suffrage. Designing whites and
ignorant coloured men gained control of legislatures. Corruption was
rife. The whole South was prostrated. Ten thousand questions arose in
Congress, bewildering, intricate, and the whole land was divided in
opinion as to the proper courses. Finally, all the Confederate officers,
saving perhaps Jefferson Davis alone, and some who refused to accept,
received again their political rights at the hands of the magnanimous
North. Slowly chaos became cosmos.

Scarcely less heavy were the financial troubles of Grant's
administration. An era of war is an era of extravagance. When hard times
came, men were tempted by the dreams of cheap money, and the greenback
craze was abroad. But Grant stood for honest money, and attacked lying
measures with the zeal of a Hebrew prophet.

After two presidential terms came two years of foreign travel (1877-79),
and wherever the great soldier went he exhibited his confidence in
democracy, his interest in the working people and the poor. He returned
home to receive such an ovation as no American citizen has ever had. Six
years of private life were followed by a financial disaster that
threatened to destroy his good name itself. Grant was one who made
ill-advised haste to become rich. Scandalized by the deceit and
impoverished by the failure of men he had trusted as partners, the great
soldier was now assaulted by worry and fear. Our best physicians believe
that fear, whether related to property or the loss of name, or grievous
disappointment, is in some way related to cancer. And within a few
months after that awful wreckage, Grant knew that his life was coming to
an end.

The soldier became an author. Stricken with death, in the hope of
safeguarding his family against poverty Grant decided to write his
memoirs. It was an astonishing literary achievement. His style is simple
as sunshine. Grant knew what he wanted to say, said it, and had done.
Yet all the time a shadow was falling upon the page,--the shadow made by
the messenger of death, who stood by Grant's shoulder, ready to claim
his own. Slowly the soldier wrote the story of his youth, his campaigns
in the West, his battles in the Wilderness, while every day the hand
gr