Just then there was an important errand to be done. Many complaints had been made against General Grant. Certain temperance people had told Lincoln that Grant was drinking heavily, and although Lincoln jested--“Can you tell me where Grant buys his liquor? I would like to distribute a few barrels of the same brand among my other major-generals”--he really wished to have all doubts settled. The President and Mr. Stanton chose Dana for the mission. It was an open secret. If Grant did not know that Dana was coming to make a report on his conduct, all the general’s staff knew it. General James Harrison Wilson, biographer of Dana--and, with Dana, biographer of Grant--wrote of this situation: It was believed by many that if he [Dana] did not bring plenary authority to actually displace Grant, the fate of that general would certainly depend upon the character of the reports which the special commissioner might send to Washington in regard to him. Wilson was at this time the inspector-general of Grant’s army. He consulted with John A. Rawlins, Grant’s austere young adjutant-general and actual chief of staff, and the two officers agreed that Dana must be taken into complete confidence. Wilson wrote: We sincerely believed that Grant, whatever might be his faults and weaknesses, was a far safer man to command the army than any other general in it, or than any that might be sent to it from another field. Dana and Wilson and Rawlins made the best of a delicate, difficult situation. Dana was taken into headquarters “on the footing of an officer of the highest rank.” His commission was that of a major of volunteers, but his functions were so important that he was called “Mr. Dana” rather than “Major Dana.” Dana himself never used the military title. Dana sent his first official despatches to Stanton in March, 1863, from before Vicksburg. Grant’s staff made clear to him the plan of the turning movement by which the gunboats and transports were to be run past the Vicksburg batteries while the army marched across the country, and Dana made most favourable reports to Washington on the general’s strategy. Dana saw not only real warfare, but a country that was new to him. After a trip into Louisiana he wrote to his friend, William Henry Huntington: During the eight days that I have been here, I have got new insight into slavery, which has made me no more a friend of that institution than I was before.... It was not till I saw these plantations, with their apparatus for living and working, that I really felt the aristocratic nature of it. Under a flag of truce Dana went close to Vicksburg, where he was met by a Confederate major of artillery: