fact, from a
social point of view, proved to be an ideal locality until its
tranquillity was disturbed by the advent of Mr. ---- and family, the
former of whom was the Washington representative of a prominent New York
daily paper whose columns had been strongly denunciatory of Grant and
antagonistic to his election, while they abounded in praises of Greeley.
Both Mr. and Mrs. ----were persons of much culture, but they were
unfortunate in their selection of a home, as the personal and political
sentiment of the neighborhood was friendly to Grant, while his family
connections, the Dents and Sharps, residing in that part of the city,
were deservedly popular. My own position was one of much delicacy.
Although I was especially fond of Mrs. Dent and Mrs. Sharp, I could not,
in view of Mr. Gouverneur's active interest in the Greeley campaign, be
quite so enthusiastic over the Grant administration as were most of my
neighbors, and, therefore, when I was invited by a mutual friend to call
upon Mrs. ----I had no hesitation in doing so. I was taken to task for
my act, however, by some of my friends, but I survived the rebuke and am
still alive to tell the tale. I was told that, several months after the
family just referred to was established in its Corcoran Street home,
Mrs. ----was returning unaccompanied to her residence one evening, when
a colored man, carrying a bucket of mud in one hand and a brush in the
other, ran after her and besmeared her clothing; but the Dents and
Grants were not of the class of people to approve of such a ruffianly
act, nor were any of the other decent residents in the community. If
Mrs. Sharp ever had any feeling in connection with my calling upon Mrs.
----, I never knew of it. Our relations were of the most cordial
character from the first, and when her niece, Nellie Grant, was married
to Algernon Sartoris she brought me a box of wedding cake, coupling with
it the remark that she knew of no one more entitled to it than
I--referring, I presume, to the associations connecting the Gouverneur
family with the White House. After the close of the Grant
administration, Dr. Sharp was appointed a paymaster in the Army and for
many years resided with his family in Yankton, Dakota. I remained in
touch with Mrs. Sharp, however, and for a long period we kept up an
active correspondence.

At this period Vice-Presidents were not so much _en evidence_ as later,
and Vice-President and Mrs. Schuyler Colfax lived quiet