General Sherman in 1884 requested to be put on the retired list of the army, in order that Sheridan might be promoted to the full rank of General; and this was done on February 8 of that year. A couple of years later he removed to New York and for the remainder of his life made his home in that city. He was one of the most conspicuous figures in society there, a welcome and honored guest everywhere. After living for a couple of years in a hotel, he bought a house, at No. 75 West 71st St., and there gathered his family about him. In the basement he fitted up a room which he called his office, and here he received visitors and answered correspondence. In the hours which he devoted to these duties he presented a picture which strikingly impressed itself on the memories of all who saw it. His desk was in the middle of the room, and there he sat, amid piles of books, records and papers, and surrounded by old war maps and mementoes. He wore an easy office coat or a dressing gown, and for aids to his eyesight he had a huge pair of round-glassed, tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles. Wielding his paper knife and taking up his pen occasionally, he would keep busy and at the same time would sustain conversation with a caller, on whom every now and then, as he addressed him, he would bend his keen, direct gaze, raising his brows and looking over the tops of his spectacles. The walls of this room, too, have often rung with laughter, responsive to the kindly joke, the ready jest, the queer reminiscence of old times, inimitably told, with which he made the time pleasant for groups of his intimate friends, especially his old comrades of the Army. When a reporter visited him he would get a cordial enough welcome to the General's nook, but presently old "Tecumseh" would look up and say something like this: "Oh, what's the use of bothering with an old fellow like me? Haven't I had enough publicity? Umph! More than I wanted. Now, my dear fellow, I like you and your paper, but you mustn't print anything about me; you really mustn't." He soon acquired a reputation as a ready and brilliant after-dinner speaker, and in that capacity figured at many public banquets. His first New York speech, after he made that city his home, was delivered at the dinner of the New England Society, on December 22, 1886. At this dinner Henry W. Grady made his memorable address on "The New South." General Sherman directly preceded Mr. Grady in the order of speech-making, and when he arose he got a tremendously enthusiastic greeting, which visibly affected him.