So the time passed until March 4, 1869, when Grant was inaugurated as President. Sherman was then made General, and Sheridan Lieutenant-General. Under this arrangement Sherman of course had to return to Washington, and there he renewed his old association with George H. Thomas, whom, however, he presently assigned, at Thomas's request, to the command at San Francisco. There the hero of Chickamauga and Nashville soon died, and Sherman thought his end was hastened by supposed ingratitude. Congress ought, in Sherman's opinion, to have made Meade, Sheridan and Thomas all Lieutenant-Generals, dating their commissions respectively with "Gettysburg," "Winchester," and "Nashville." On the death of General Rawlins, in the fall of 1869, Sherman was called upon to act for a time as Secretary of War. The experience did not please him. There was too much red tape, and too much division of authority, and he was glad to be relieved by General Belknap. In August, 1871, Rear-Admiral Alden asked him to go to Europe with him, in the frigate Wabash, and Sherman joyously accepted the invitation, as he had long wished to go abroad but had never yet done so. They sailed on November 11, and Sherman did not return until September 22 of the next year. He visited almost every part of Europe and Egypt, and had an opportunity of observing European methods in the great German army which had just been overrunning France. Life at Washington, with Belknap's assumptions, was now increasingly distasteful to him, and he obtained permission from the President to remove the army headquarters to St. Louis. Thither he went in the fall of 1874, and once more was contented and happy. In the spring of 1876, however, he was recalled to Washington, on account of the Belknap scandal. General Belknap, Secretary of War, was charged with corrupt practices, and resigned, to avoid impeachment. Sherman was much shocked, for he had always esteemed Belknap highly. Referring to the case in a speech at a public banquet at St. Louis, before returning to Washington, he said: