Just Days After the Assassination of President Lincoln, Mrs. Ulysses S Grant Is Terrified That Her Husband Is in Danger

"I feel so anxious to know all about the Genl's departure. Who went with him? I fear his staff is all absent…Please write me fully. I am terribly disappointed he is not getting home."

Even after his assumption of command of the Army of the Potomac in early 1864, the Grant family continued to live in St. Louis. By the fall of 1864, with the comparatively militarily inactive winter coming up, Grant and his wife Julia wanted the family to be closer. So Julia and the children moved east, first trying to find a suitable home in Philadelphia. When nothing was available that suited her, Mrs. Grant went across the Delaware River to the little town of Burlington, New Jersey, where she found a nice home at 309 Wood Street, and put the children in school.

As the war wound to a close, Mrs. Grant came to Washington to be near her husband. On March 26, 1865, the Lincolns and Grants set out to review General Ord's army. Mrs. Lincoln happened to get sight of Mrs. Ord riding a horse alongside the President, and she became infuriated. She let loose a tirade against Mrs. Ord, and Mrs. Grant was mortified; thereafter she found excuses not to be in the company of Mrs. Lincoln. This incident may have saved General Grant's life.

On April 14, 1865, Grant attended a cabinet meeting. As the cabinet members left the meeting, President Lincoln spoke to Grant, inviting the Grants to attend a play with the Lincolns at Ford's Theater that evening. When told of this invitation, Julia quickly found an excuse to decline it, saying the Grants must return to Burlington to be with their children there. Grant says he sent word to Lincoln "that I would not be at the theatre." Soon after, Mrs. Grant, while dining with Mrs. Rawlins (the wife of her husband's aide), observed four strange acting men watching her intently as she had her luncheon. One of those men followed the Grants later that day as they were bound for the train to Philadelphia in a carriage.  

That night, when they crossed over from Philadelphia to New Jersey, Grant states that he received "despatches informing me of the assassination of the President and Mr. Seward, and of the probable assassination of the Vice-President, Mr. Johnson, and requesting my immediate return." Grant dropped his wife off at home and then took the train immediately back to Washington. Seeing pictures of the assassin plastered in the newspapers over the next few days, Mrs. Grant realized immediately that one of the men stalking her at lunch and in their carriage was John Wilkes Booth. Clearly her husband was a target, and his life in danger.

On April 23, Booth and other assassins were still at large, and President Lincoln's body was en route to lie in state in New York. Mrs. Grant starts out by referring to a rumor, unfounded as it turned out, but printed widely in the newspapers, that her husband was traveling south to take command of Gen. William T Sherman's army. Autograph Letter Signed, Burlington, N.J., April 23, 1865, to Maj. William Babcock, expressing her extreme anxiety for her husband's safety in the wake of Lincoln's assassination. "Dear Major, I see by this evening's papers that Genl. Grant has gone to take command of Sherman's Army. I suppose I will get letters from Genl. G tomorrow, but I feel so anxious to know all about the Genl's departure. Who went with him? I fear his staff is all absent. Please send to General G. by the first messager any of my letters to the Genl. You will know them I suppose, postmarked Burlington. Please write me fully. I am terribly disappointed he is not getting home. Where is Rawlins, Babcock and Bowers? I hope they are all with him. Don't neglect to write by return mail & much oblige, Your friend, Mrs. U.S. Grant." Although the year is not written on the letter, the context is clear, and the only April which Mrs. Grant spent at Burlington was that of 1865. William Babcock was the only major on Grant's staff at this time. We have never seen another letter signed as "Mrs. U.S. Grant".

Ulysses and Julia Grant married in 1848; their marriage was marked by love, trust, and respect, and lasted 37 years until his death. Here we can feel the terror that was barely contained within Mrs. Grant as she contemplated the possibility that her husband would be murdered, as had his friend Abraham Lincoln, knowing well that he had been on the watch list of the assassins, who remained at large. We have never seen a letter of Julia Grant on this topic, nor one remotely like it in terms of power and importance.