is to be my fate to-night, doctor? Will I have to lie awake, making it a study how to get a breath? It is about as much as I could stand to go through another night.

To indicate how hope and fear alternated with General Grant we append two tablets. July 4 at 7 P. M. he wrote:

I have been getting along very well to-day. There is a growing weakness, however.

July 5, at 10:30 A. M., he wrote:

I think I am not so weak as I was at this time yesterday.

July 6, at 11 o'clock at night, he wrote this question to the doctor: Is the hotel pretty full now?

The following was written July 7:

AtII P. M. he wrote to the doctor about the use of cocaine and said: I may have to use cocaine. If I do I will take the liberty of waking you up to administer it.

The thoughtfulness of the General in expressing himself in making his wants known, is disclosed by this last tablet. He was very anxious at all times not to disturb the physician more than was necessary.

July 8, at 11 o'clock in the morning, the General wrote:

I feel pretty well, but get sleepy sitting in the air. I took a half an hour's nap. Do you want me to go in the house? I am as bright and well now, for the time at least, as I ever will be.

Soon after this he wrote:

I believe I will go in, after all.

The visit of the Mexican editors, July 8, tired him very much, and at 7 P. M. he wrote:

I must avoid such afternoons as this. All that fatigued me very much. I will take dinner and get to bed while you are at your dinner. Cocaine afforded him much relief. July 9 he wrote:

I got a very considerable amount of rest. That last cocaine did me a power of good. The water I wanted very much, and it gave me an easy relief, with free breath and brief rest.

The same day, at 1 o'clock in the afternoon:

Until just now

I have been sitting up ever since about 9 o'clock. I have not been drowsy all that time. I feel very much better than for some time. I walked about this morning with ease and pleasure At 3 P. M.:

I have rested finely and slept a little since you were here. Now is the time when my mouth begins to fill up, and I don't feel quite as pleasant. It had commenced just as you came in a few minutes.

Half an hour later:

For about three times after I had used the cocaine, to-day, I would lay back in the delightful absence from pain, and even slept some. At 11 o'clock, the last tablet of the day:

I have had a very fine rest to-day, without so much sleep as to interfere with a good night's rest from now on. I may not get it, but hope I will. My swallowing is growing more difficult.

The 10th of July, one day less than a fortnight before General Grant died, he wrote:

"Buck" has brought up the last of the first volume in print. In two weeks if they work hard they can have the second volume copied ready to go to the printer. I will then feel that my work is done.

Alas! before the two weeks had expired the old soldier's work was done.

About this time General Grant began to experience greater difficulty in swallowing. The 10th of July, at 11:50 A. M., he wrote:

I shall have to reduce my food very materially in order to be able to do anything much longer. It is quite hard to swallow anything after the first half tumbler.

The same day, at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, he wrote as follows: Doctor, I am glad to see you. I didn't know that you had come in. I don't see how I am to avoid the use of cocaine. It would relieve me very much.

As early as 7:45 o'clock the morning of July 11 General Grant was writing to his doctor:

I woke up feeling perfectly fresh, as if I had had a good night's natural sleep. My breath is less obstructed than usual at the same time of the day, and the head less filled up. In fact, my breath is not obstructed in the least. I have used no cocaine during the night, nor do I require any yet,

It was a peculiarity of General Grant always to be considerate of those about him. This is made clear by the following tablet, which he wrote at 1 o'clock in the morning of the 12th of July:

Not sleeping does not disturb me, because I have had so much sleep; and then I have been comparatively free from pain. I know a sick person cannot feel just as he would like all the time, but I think it a duty to let the physician know from time to time just my feelings, as it may benefit some other fellow-sufferer hereafter.

On the same night the General's nurse, Henry, gave Dr. Douglass a tablet which directed him to wake the Doctor, and advise with him whether anything should be done. The tablet adds:

I feel very well, but have nearly a constant hiccough. Whether this indicates anything or not I do not know, but it is inconvenient.

The patient may not have known that this symptom signified the commencement of his last decline.

General Grant wrote at all hours of the day and night. For instance, at 4 o'clock on the morning of July 12:

I notice that your little girls and Julia (his granddaughter) get along very happily together with their swing, lawn-tennis and nice shade. They seem very happy.

About the same hour he wrote:

I have not slept probably two hours since 4 o'clock yesterday. Lying down as I do all the time I get all the sleep in the aggregate that is necessary.

For the last twenty-four hours I have suffered less pain on the whole than usual. I have felt more pain than is real, because I have not been able to go out. Just now I feel quite strong, waiting until I get drowsy. I would probably feel weak if I had to make any great exertion. It is a question of avoiding nervousness and restlessness. These I have been free from. The trouble has been more from pain and the accumulation of mucus in the mouth and throat.

At 8 o'clock the morning of the same day he wrote:

My not eating so much has helped me very much. As you say, the difficulty about articulation comes from the sore upon inside of

the cheek.

July 16 Gen. Grant wrote a tablet, in which he said:

I feel sore of the prospect of living through the summer and fall in the condition I am in. I don't think I can, but I may. Except that I don't gather strength, I feel quite as well as I have been heretofore, but I am satisfied that I am losing strength. I feel it more in the inability to move about than in any other way, or rather in the lack of desire to try to move.

About July 16 a weakness of the stomach was indicated, and the 18th he wrote:

If I could recover the tone of my stomach I think I would pick up. At this time a looseness of the bowels became apparent. At 10 o'clock in the morning he wrote:

I have been very wide awake, but comparatively free from pain. I was just about getting up to walk about the room. Did any one go for you? I didn't send.

At 10 o'clock at night he wrote the following:

Not feeling sleepy. Have been thinking of the propriety of taking food. If I could recover the tone of my stomach I would like it.

The 19th the General felt very tired, and at 2 o'clock in the morn. ing began to be restless. The doctor suggested a change of position, and the General wrote:

Do you not think it advisable for me to rest as a tailor does when he is standing up?

With the loss of vitality the malignant pains about the seat of the disease appeared to diminish, and the General was deceived as to his condition, for he wrote the 19th of July:

I think I am better this evening than for some time back. The sore places in my mouth do not seem to be spreading. On the other hand, I don't see that any of them are particularly on the road to recovery.

At 9:45 P. M., the same day, he wrote:

What time have you, doctor? I have been resting so easily, I would not have been surprised to hear it was 11 o'clock. Henry tells me it is only a little after 9.

July 20 at 7 A. M. he thought he was better, and wrote:

My rest for the night was better than the average. I am satisfied I shall have to give up coffee. It is distasteful, too, and harder to take than anything that goes into my mouth. I feel weak and feverish after my coffee for a long time, and have an insatiable desire to drink water. It has been a half-hour since drinking coffee, and I have an immoderate desire to drink cold water yet.

At 2 o'clock A. M. he had written:

In making a summary of the progress of the disease the 19th of July I said that the sores in the mouth were still there. This was hardly correct. The palate is about well and along the tongue considerably improved.

The General's mind did not weaken until almost the last hour. The day before he died he wrote:

I don't think I slept the last time because of the medicine which put me to sleep the first and second tires.

He had taken the medicine but once.

The following remarkable document was handed Dr. Douglass on Thursday, July 2:

I ask you not to show this to any one, unless the physicians you consult with, until the end. Particularly I want it kept from my family. If known to one man the papers will get it, and they (the family) will get it. It would only distress them almost beyond endurance to know it, and, by reflex, would distress me. I have not changed my mind materially since I wrote you before in the same strain; now, however, I know that I gain strength some days, but when I do go back, it is beyond where I started to improve. I think the chances are very decidedly in favor of your being able to keep me alive until

the change of weather, toward winter. Of course there are contingencies that might arise at any time that might carry me off very suddenly. The most probable of these is choking. Under the circumstances, life is not worth the living. I am very thankful [for thankful, glad was written, but scratched out and thankful substituted] to have been spared this long, because it has enabled me to practically complete the work in which I take so much interest. I cannot stir up strength enough to review it and make additions and substitutions that would suggest themselves to me, and are not likely to suggest themselves to any one else. Under the above circumstances, I will be the happiest the most pain I can avoid. If there is to be any extraordinary cure, such as some people believe there is to be, it will develop itself. I would say, therefore, to you and your colleagues, to make me as comfortable as you can. If it is within God's providence that I should go now I am ready to obey His call without a murmur. I should prefer to go now to enduring my present suffering for a single day without hope of recovery. As I have stated, I am thankful for the Providential extension of my time to enable me to continue my work. I am further thankful, and in a much greater degree thankful, because it has enabled me to see for myself the happy harmony which so suddenly sprung up between those engaged but a few short years ago in deadly conflict. It has been an inestimable blessing to me to hear the kind expressions toward me in person from all points of our country, from people of all nationalities, of all religions; of Confederates and of National troops alike; of soldiers' organizations; of mechanical, scientific, religious, and other societies, embracing almost every citizen in the land. They have brought joy to my heart, if they have not effected a cure, so to you and your colleagues I acknowledge my indebtedness for having brought me through the valley of the shadow of death to enable me to witness, these things.

MOUNT MACGREGOR, N. Y., July 2. 1385.

U. S. GRANT.