Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 September 1898 — Grant’s Cabin Is Decaying. [ARTICLE]

Grant’s Cabin Is Decaying.

Grant’s famous “Log-Cabin Headquarters” is falling to decay in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, where It was placed at the time of the Centennial. The old building in which the great soldier spent the last months of the war is actually rotting down. On one side a full half-dozen logs are in a state of total collapse. The building is not owned by the city of Philadelphia, but by George H. Stewart Jr., whose father received it as a gift from Grant himself. It was first set up In St. Louis, but was removed from there to its present location in the spring of 1876. It has two rooms and several rough windows, now covered with a wire netting. The Inside has been sheathed with pine boards in o<rder to strengthen it for moving. Otherwise, except for the work of time, It is unchanged. The little building has a remarkable history. When it became too cold to sleep in tents at City Point cabins were built for Grant and his staff. This one was in no way better than the others save that It had two rooms, one of which the general used for a sleeping room and the other for an offiee. In this cabin Grant wrote the orders for Sherman’s march north through the Carolines; there he summoned Sheridan to join the Army of the Potomac for the last great struggle; there he removed Butler after the failure at Fort Fisher; there he wrote the dispatches to Thomas which have caused so much controversy, and there he received the commissioners from Richmond, in March, 1805. Lincoln visited him there.