Excerpt from Life of Walter Quintin Gresham, Vol. 2 of 2: 1832-1895 The distillers and rectifiers of whiskey and high wines at Cincinnati, Evansville, St. Louis, Chicago, Pekin, and Milwaukee had for several years been defrauding the govern ment of much revenue by a systematic system of bribing revenue officers, many of whom were active associates in the wide-spread conspiracy. General Bristow and Major Wilson laid the matter be fore General Grant, who later, in a personal letter to Bris tow, wrote his famous epigram, Let no guilty man escape. Aside from doing their duty, Secretary Bristow and Solici tor Wilson were General Grant's loyal friends, but when they discovered the connection of the President's private secretary, Orville Babcock, with the conspiracy, through a telegram in Babcock's own handwriting, General Grant became first cold, then enraged, and afterwards said they were trying to smirch him. Nothing was further from their thoughts. General Grant claimed to believe in Babcock's innocence. He was incensed when Babcock was indicted at St. Louis, and finally the breach thus occasioned led Bristow to retire from the cabinet. Early in the investi gations my husband was summoned to Washington to use his good Offices with General Grant. It was a delicate mission and for many reasons he did not want to go, but he felt it was his duty to do so. He found General Grant ob durate, and so reported to Bristow. But he told Grant that Bristow had his sympathy, was loyal, honest, and capable. On this visit to Washington, after my husband's call on General Grant and report to Bristow, he conferred with Judge David Davis, and the two called on Bristow and advised him to resign, which he did not do. Babcock's acquittal by a jury before United States Cir cuit Judge Dillon in the United States District Court at St. Louis, aided by the charge of the judge and by every influence the press, the Chief Executive, and the soldier element could bring to bear in his behalf, confirmed General Grant in his Opinion. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.