Grant and Lincoln's invitation

[RJNorton]

Here is what George S. Bryan writes in The Great American Myth (1940):

"Endeavors have been made to invest Grant's action with a semblance of mystery and to convey unjustifiable inferences re-garding others. Here we must consult the old precept of cherchez
la femme. Mrs. Lincoln had accompanied the President to City
Point in March. She remained there for a week, arrived back in
Washington on April 1st, and was a second time at City Point from
the 6th to the 8th. On March 26th and 27th, during visits to the
Army of the Potomac and the Army of the James, Mrs. Lincoln
(according to Badeau, Grant's secretary) caused highly unpleasant
scenes; on the second day, in the presence of officers, she insulted
both her hostess Mrs. Grant and Mrs. Grant's friend Mrs. Ord,
wife of Gen. E. O. C. Ord. "I suppose," she raged at Mrs. Grant, "you think you'll get to the White House yourself, don't you?"
It was not the first time she had been offensive to Mrs. Grant, of
whom she once had demanded, "How dare you be seated until I
invite you?"

No doubt, too, the General's lady, facing the ordeal of a box
party with Mrs. Lincoln, was understandably piqued at the fact
that Mrs. Lincoln had only the day before invited the General to
drive about the city and view the lights but somehow had altogether omitted Mrs. Grant. To Mrs. Grant, balanced thus between
pride and social duty, entered Mrs. Stanton— "as white and cold
and motionless as marble," Hay wrote of her, "whose rare smiles
seemed to pain her." On this day she must have been roused. She
disclosed that the Secretary and herself had likewise been invited,
and wished to know what Mrs. Grant intended to do. "For unless
you accept the invitation," she declared, "I shall refuse. I will not
sit without you in the box with Mrs. Lincoln!" The First Lady
was not popular in official society, and Mrs. Stanton had told
Badeau flatly, "I do not visit Mrs. Lincoln."

It seems that Mrs. Grant then and there determined not to at-
tend the play. She sent a note to the General, who, prompt for an
excuse, made up his mind not to go without her. About three
o'clock Mrs. Stanton was at the War Department, conferring with
the Secretary, who instructed her to send regrets. He had often
been asked to the theater by Lincoln, he said, but had consistently
refused because he thought Mr. Lincoln himself should not go.
David Bates asserts that Stanton had personally requested Grant
not to attend— thinking, perhaps, that Lincoln might thus be dis-
suaded from going. This, so far as we may know it now, is the
real story of why Grant was not in the box that night. There were
no mysterious entanglements as sensational writers have hinted;
but Grant (who, Badeau says, "regarded the feelings of others
carefully") quite naturally did not unfold to Lincoln the whole
truth."