Following the procession, which he describes, came the grand
ceremonies of welcome at Haverley's Theatre. The next letter is
written the following morning, or at least soiree time the following
day, after a night of ratification.
*****
To Mrs. Clemens, in Hartford:
CHICAGO, Nov. 12, '79.
Livy darling, it was a great time. There were perhaps thirty people on
the stage of the theatre, and I think I never sat elbow-to-elbow with so
many historic names before. Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Schofield, Pope,
Logan, Augur, and so on. What an iron man Grant is! He sat facing the
house, with his right leg crossed over his left and his right boot-sole
tilted up at an angle, and his left hand and arm reposing on the arm of
his chair--you note that position? Well, when glowing references were
made to other grandees on the stage, those grandees always showed
a trifle of nervous consciousness--and as these references came
frequently, the nervous change of position and attitude were also
frequent. But Grant!--he was under a tremendous and ceaseless
bombardment of praise and gratulation, but as true as I'm sitting here
he never moved a muscle of his body for a single instant, during 30
minutes! You could have played him on a stranger for an effigy.
Perhaps he never would have moved, but at last a speaker made such
a particularly ripping and blood-stirring remark about him that the
audience rose and roared and yelled and stamped and clapped an entire
minute--Grant sitting as serene as ever--when Gen. Sherman stepped to
him, laid his hand affectionately on his shoulder, bent respectfully
down and whispered in his ear. Gen. Grant got up and bowed, and the
storm of applause swelled into a hurricane. He sat down, took about the
same position and froze to it till by and by there was another of those
deafening and protracted roars, when Sherman made him get up and bow
again. He broke up his attitude once more--the extent of something more
than a hair's breadth--to indicate me to Sherman when the house was
keeping up a determined and persistent call for me, and poor bewildered
Sherman, (who did not know me), was peering abroad over the packed
audience for me, not knowing I was only three feet from him and most
conspicuously located, (Gen. Sherman was Chairman.)
One of the most illustrious individuals on that stage was “Ole Abe,”
the historic war eagle. He stood on his perch--the old savage-eyed
rascal--three or four feet behind Gen. Sherman, and as he had been
in nearly every battle that was mentioned by the orators his soul was
probably stirred pretty often, though he was too proud to let on.
Read Logan's bosh, and try to imagine a burly and magnificent Indian, in
General's uniform, striking a heroic attitude and getting that stuff off
in the style of a declaiming school-boy.
Please put the enclosed scraps in the drawer and I will scrap-book them.
I only staid at the Owl Club till 3 this morning and drank little or
nothing. Went to sleep without whisky. Ich liebe dish.