Lincoln dubbed Grant his “fighting general” and told Eaton of a congressional delegation that had lobbied for his ouster. “I asked why, and they said he sometimes drank too much and was unfit for such a position. I then began to ask them if they knew what he drank, what brand of whiskey he used, telling them most seriously that I wished they would find out . . . for if it made fighting generals like Grant, I should like to get some of it for distribution.”23 (Lincoln himself questioned the authenticity of this famous statement. “That would have been very good if I had said it,” he told a
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