I had frequently met General Grant before his nomination and election to the Presidency, but only in the most casual way on social occasions, and never had any conversation with him, either on politics generally or on his candidacy for the Presidency. I was earnestly in favor of his nomination and election, because I believed that calling him to the Presidency would do more to reconcile the South and give better assurance of sectional tranquillity than the election of any of the leading Republican statesmen of that day. I had just changed my residence to Philadelphia, having suffered serious financial disaster in the burning of Chambersburg by McCausland, and it was my settled purpose after Grant’s election to cease active participation in politics and devote my efforts wholly to my profession. My first and only meeting with Grant before his retirement from the Presidency, at which we had any protracted conversation, was a short time before his inauguration. Chief Justice Read, of Pennsylvania, handed me a letter, addressed to the President-elect, and asked me to deliver it in person when I next visited Washington. I did not know its contents, but inferred that it related to the appointment of Curtin to a Cabinet office. A few days thereafter when in Washington I called upon General Grant at his headquarters and delivered the letter, and after a very brief conversation, rose to take my leave. He had opened the letter in the meantime, and as I reached the door he called me back, saying that Judge Read’s letter strongly urged the appointment of Curtin to the Cabinet, and that he desired to tell me frankly as a close friend of Curtin why he could not meet the wishes of the many friends of Curtin by giving him a Cabinet portfolio. He spoke very highly of Curtin, and showed his appreciation of Curtin’s position by nominating him as Minister to Russia at an early day after his inauguration, and against the protest of Senator Cameron. In the course of the conversation I saw Grant’s crude theory of conducting a national administration. He said that his Cabinet officers would be his official confidential family, and he desired to appoint them entirely in accordance with his personal preferences. I said to him that it was certainly his right to have only men in his Cabinet who were entirely agreeable to himself, but that it was very important for him to have the ablest politicians of the country largely represented in it, to save his administration from the many political complications which would otherwise confront him.