Grant and Lincoln's invitation

[RJNorton]

Just to add another opinion on this. Professor Brooks Simpson, author of Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, was interviewed by Brian Lamb on C-SPAN Booknotes (July 16, 2000). Here is a small part of the interview. Scroll to 54:20 of interview.

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LAMB: Now we're leaving a lot out because time is slipping through, but Mary Todd Lincoln...

SIMPSON: Mm-hmm.

LAMB: ...and Abraham Lincoln come to City Point how many times?

SIMPSON: The couple comes only once, and that's in March 1865 and that's actually at Julia's suggestion. She supposedly saw an--an--an image of the president and said, `He looks tired.' And--and Lincoln's son, Robert Todd Lincoln, had been assigned as a volunteer aide on Grant's staff, so the Lincolns come down for an interestingly timed vacation because it's just as Grant is getting ready for his last big push against Richmond and Petersburg. And so even as Grant's worried about action at the battlefront, there's also con--some concern among Grant's staff officers about making sure that Julia Grant and Mary Todd Lincoln don't come to blows.

LAMB: OK. What, again, the date?

SIMPSON: This is in late March...

LAMB: Of 1865.

SIMPSON: ...1865. That's right.

LAMB: Abraham Lincoln is killed on...

SIMPSON: A--April--he--he's shot on April 14th, 1865, and dies on April 15th.

LAMB: So what is the relationship between Mary Todd Lincoln and Julia Grant?

SIMPSON: Well, it seems to have been pretty rough--that Mary Todd Lincoln was known to--to voice her dissatisfaction about certain things and also could be terribly jealous and--and protective of her husband. The two women did not seem to get along very well, and Mary Todd saw in Julia Dent a potential rival for the position of first lady of the land down the road. They--also, Mary Todd Lincoln had her own run-in with General Grant on April 13th. Grant had come to Washington right after Appomattox and start--shut down the war effort. There's no parade through Richmond or anything else. He goes right back to Washington. And he rides around in a carriage that night for a grand lumination in Washington. And Ma--it's the presidential carriage and there's Mary Todd Lincoln in it, and Mary Todd Lincoln becomes furious when people begin to cheer Grant instead of the presidential carriage, symbolizing the president, or Mary Todd. And...

LAMB: And you say they were invited to go to the theater.

SIMPSON: They were invited to go to Ford Theater the next day, and neither Grant wants to go out in public with Mrs. Lincoln around, and so they devise an answer, `No, we've got to go. We've got to go see the kids up in New Jersey.' And so they're not in the box at Ford's Theater that night.