August 11 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Richard S. Tuthill, at this time District Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois (Chicago). Tuthill had sent an invitation for Sam to come and break bread with some of his old Midwest friends.

“I would give anything in the world if I could go; for that is true which you have said: the boys are growing old & passing away—did not we deliver to the rest & peace of the grave the greatest, noblest, the chiefest of them all, three days ago?”

Sam pled he was: “overwhelmed with engagements & business for months to come” [MTP].

Sam also replied to an unidentified person regarding Grant’s burial place in New York. Sam argued that the City would still be there:

“…20 centuries hence…[like] London, Constantinople, & one or two others, whose commercial situation will always insure their being rebuilt as fast as the earthquakes can shake them down” [MTP].