Grant’s personal tragedy was simultaneously an American tragedy. Tormented by his decision, steeped in a meditative mood, Grant reflected on the deep changes wrought in northern Republican circles. He predicted to John Roy Lynch that the northern retreat from Reconstruction would lead to Democrats recapturing power in the South as well as “future mischief of a very serious nature . . . It requires no prophet to foresee that the national government will soon be at a great disadvantage and that the results of the war of the rebellion will have been in a large measure lost
