Grant and Lincoln's invitation

[loetar44]

(10-07-2014 03:48 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  I am curious about what the Grants said when they first checked into the Willard Hotel. Would it be common practice to disclose how many nights they were intending to stay at check-in? Did they originally tell the hotel they were staying the night of the 14th?

The Grants arrived April 13 and would stay (according to the NYT) "several days" at Willard's.
The New York Times writes:

"WASHINGTON, Thursday, April 13.
The dispatch-boat Mary Martin arrived up from City Point about 3 o'clock this afternoon, with Lieut.-Gen. GRANT and wife. The General was accompanied by the following members of his staff: Brevet Major-Gen. John A. Rawlins, Brig.-Gens. Dent. Ingalls and Williams. Cols. Babcock and Potter, Lieut.-Col. Parker, Major Leet, Capt. Boudinot and Lieut Dunn. The other members of the party were Assistant-Secretary Dana, Major-Gen. Meigs, Col. Hillyer, of New-York, and Cols. Pride and Barnard, of St. Louis.

Gen. GRANT is stopping at Willard's, and the office of the hotel has been thronged all the evening with persons who hoped to catch sight of him. He has, however, been at the White House most of the evening, and was not at any time visible at the hotel. He will not return to the front for several days."

Nothing about that the Grants planned to leave the town soon and hasty on the 14th ....

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(10-07-2014 03:48 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Although many books say both Mr. and Mrs. Grant stayed late at the Stantons' reception Linda Anderson discovered this is wrong. Ulysses left the Stantons' reception early to see the Grand Illumination with Mary Lincoln.

Linda is right.

This is what Julia Grant wrote about the illuimination of the city and the fact that Gen. Grant was with Mary Lincoln in “The Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant":

   

BTW: the New York Times is lyric about the illumination:

"The illumination of the city this evening [April 13] is general and brilliant, utterly beyond anything ever before attempted here, and has drawn thousands upon thousands of persons upon the streets. Pennsylvania-avenue is a line of light from First-street to Twenty-second-street, a distance of nearly two miles, there being but very few houses on either side in that whole extent which are not illuminated. Several other streets, for distances of half a mile each, also present an almost continuous line of illumination. All the public buildings are of course illuminated and decorated with flags, lanterns, &c., that of the Navy Department being unquestionably the finest. Hundreds and hundreds of private houses are illuminated and decorated in the most brilliant and elegant manner, and mottoes and transparencies and flags everywhere abound."