While such a letter, composed in Cincinnati about Grant’s behavior in Mississippi, is suspect, one notes in these nasty letters a recurring consistency in their portrait of an intoxicated Grant. He was always described as being foolishly or idiotically drunk, childish and even jolly in behavior, never angry or abusive. This makes one suspect that the letters contained a germ of truth, since the various authors described the drinking episodes in remarkably similar terms, even though they could not have coordinated their messages with one another.
