gorgeous uniform, but his dislike of all military parade soon came to be widely known. His hosts at one village, however, were not well informed of this, for they urged him to prolong his stay with them in order that he might see and review the local troops which were to assemble in his honor, but he quickly begged to be excused, remarking that he wished he might never see a uniform again. Certainly there was nothing of the conquering hero or even of the soldier about him when a little later in the course of his duty, he made a tour of the South in order to report on its general condition, and in many places he came and went entirely unnoticed. But though the mass of the people did not know of his presence, he formed an unusually accurate estimate of their views on public questions. "The citizens of the Southern States,..." he reported, "are in earnest in wishing to do what is required by the Government, not humiliating them as citizens, and if such a course was pointed out they would pursue it in good faith." Happy would it have been for the South and for the whole country if this advice had been followed, but the President and Congress were soon engaged in a violent struggle over the reconstruction of the seceded states, and anger, rather than wisdom, ruled the day. In the course of this quarrel Stanton, the Secretary of War, was removed and Grant, temporarily appointed in his place (Aug. 12, 1867), held the office for about five months, thus taking the first step in the long political career which lay before him. Ten months later he was elected President of the United States and at the end of his term (1872) he was reëlected by an overwhelming vote. Those eight years were years of stress and strain, and his judgment in surrounding himself with men unworthy of his confidence made bitter enemies of many of those who had once supported him. He was, however, intensely loyal by nature and having once made a friend he stuck to him through thick and thin, making his cause his own and defending him, even in the face of the facts, against any and all attack. He, accordingly, assumed a heavy burden of blame that did not rightly rest upon his shoulders, but in spite of this many people desired to see him again elected to the presidency and they were sorely disappointed when he refused to become a candidate. On the whole, he had deserved well of the country and the people recognized that he had done much to uphold their honor and dignity, even though he had been too often imposed upon by unreliable and even dangerous friends.