Twain, the evening’s final speaker, didn’t take the floor until well after midnight. After the meal, a series of speakers rained endless praise on Grant well into the night. In November 1879, Twain was invited to a dinner in Grant’s honor in Chicago. Grant Earned the Nickname "Unconditional Surrender Grant" They grew closer after Twain roasted Grant at a celebratory dinnerįollowing that inauspicious White House meeting, their paths didn’t cross again for almost a decade. So I merely looked into the General’s grim, immovable countenance a moment or two, in silence, and then I said: ‘Mr. His first book had recently been published, but he was not yet a household name, and when his former boss brought him to the White House to meet now-President Grant, Twain recognized the power imbalance between the two, later writing to his wife about the encounter: “I shook hands and then there was a pause and silence. to lobby for the passage of a bill in 1870. After leaving his position, Twain returned to D.C. In December of that year, he briefly met Grant, then still in the U.S. In 1867, Twain, still an unknown journalist, traveled to Washington D.C., to act as private secretary to a Nevada senator. Grant’s success as a general during the American Civil War had captured the North’s attention, and Twain reportedly carried a copy of Grant’s infamous letter to Confederate General Simon Buckner during the Battle of Fort Donelson in his wallet as a keepsake.īut their first meetings hardly portended the friendship that was to follow. And both had endured difficult early careers (Grant had once named a soon-to-fail farm “Hardscrabble”). They were both from the Midwest – Grant from Ohio and Twain from Missouri. Like many other Americans, Twain had long admired Grant. The two first met years before Twain was famous
On paper, the outgoing, personable author and the quiet, reserved general-turned-president couldn’t be more different, but their close bond led to the publication of a landmark work of autobiography - with both men racing against the clock as Grant neared death. Two of the most famous Americans of the 19 century, Mark Twain and Ulysses S.
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