www.Chatham County Line.0rg jUNE, 20154

of canaries and Julia Boggs dent grant

Canaries not only warned coal miners of poisonous gases but were kept in shops to lure customers and trained, like dogs, bears, and roosters, to fight

as men bet. An old saw ran, “My neighborhood was so tough, its canary birds all sang bass!” Paprika and cayenne were added to their diets to alter their coloring from all-yellow. They were crossed “hard feather to soft feather” and mated with other finches to become “mule canaries” exhibited at shows for their singing ability. The Canary Islands were not named for them but for a breed of dog (canis) the Romans found there.

Canaries were a favorite of Julia Dent. Her brother Frederick, a classmate of Ulysses S. Grant at West Point, took him home for a visit. Although Julia liked him instantly, she was content to be friends. The change came when her pet canary died. “Ulys,” as she called him, built a coffin, painted it yellow, arranged a funeral, and made seven of his fellow soldiers attend. She was won then—though the rela-tionship lingered at engagement for some four years, during which they saw each other once. She accepted his West Point ring when he was leaving for the Mexican War but was not ready for the nuptials.

Julia was considered odd. She thought her-self a favorite of the spirit world, including fair-ies (who visited her) and sprites. They blessed her children and grandchildren. She described her dreams and premonitions to anyone who would witness to their truth.

Julia’s mother had “second sight,” too. It told her that Grant would rise to the greatest heights. She knew her daughter’s “drooping

eye” (for which deriders described her as being “wall-eyed” and “crossed-eyed”) to be the special mark of inner sight. A doctor would have corrected its ugliness in keeping with her husband’s rising status, but Grant found out and told her never to think of amending herself again. Over the years, as her eyesight worsened, he read her hundreds of books. She made no claim of being a seer but knew that she possessed something beyond the ordinary. When possible, her pictures were always in profile and showed her “better side.” “Aunt Mehitable,” in Godey’s Lady’s Book, accused her of demanding dim lighting to assuage her poor looks.

Canaries were prophetic for others, too. President Lincoln appointed Zebina Eastman United States Consul in Bristol, England, where he tried to influence “John Bull’s” views of the Civil War. In English cities, canaries were displayed to amuse children. Initially, the Greater Canary, “General Lee,” rode in a miniature coach driven by the “Lesser Canar-ies.” Eventually, the topmost canary became “General Grant,” who condemned “General Lee” to be shot and shot him. The “rabble” cheered the successful canary. Although The Times of London at first held back, Eastman read the canaries as evidence of the change of attitude.

Not all of Julia’s dreams involved canaries,

but many were Grant- and Civil War-focused. Before they were married, in keeping with a superstition that what is dreamed in a new bed comes true, Julia named a bedpost for Grant and found him returned to her “wearing bor-rowed plumage” after nearly drowning. Her dream that he was commissioned Colonel of the 21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry proved true. Although he never wanted her to talk of her abilities, he became a believer when she “saw” him in danger at the battle of Belmont. He was also pleased with her prediction about the fall of Richmond. She knew that the messen-ger from Mrs. Lincoln urging their presence at Ford’s Theater was from the conspirators and that he and three others, including John Wilkes Booth, had sat opposite her party that day spying and indulging in raucous insults.

Grant’s second inauguration, 4 March 1873, was held during the coldest weather on record for such an event. A temporary building had been erected in Judiciary Square especially for the occasion, but workers had neglected to heat it. Guests, bundled for protection from the cold, knocked against one another, and tem-pers flared. Sleet, snow, and terrible wind plummeted the temperature to four degrees below zero. The Marine Band, “the President’s Own,” tried to play during the parade, but the valves of the brasses froze. At the event itself, the food froze. The champagne, if not all ice, was iced over and had to be pierced to “bring it to cup.” The hot chocolate and coffee were quickly depleted. When the Grants and his cabinet arrived at 11:30, he was announced with the Navy Band’s “Hail to the Chief,” or as much of it as could be summoned from frozen

instruments played by half-frozen men. The Grants and their party were taken almost immediately to a nearby heated area to have supper, and Mrs. Grant was thus spared seeing the true horror. As a surprise, her husband had arranged for a hundred canaries to be brought in at the proper moment to sing for the guests and her. They had frozen in their cages.

Following that second term, the Grants traveled around the world for two years. Ulys again witnessed the unusual powers of his wife. She was seized with a violent shivering before the unidentified tree under which Christ knelt. In India, he saw amazement on the faces of those whose sacred cows nibbled on the wreath of marigolds they gave her. He watched as she started and trembled when they were asked to plant trees at Nagasaki. Her memoirs say that the Japanese ladies reminded her of “so many singing, chirping canary birds.”

Julia Grant believed that, had she and her sister-in-law Virginia been allowed to testify at the Congressional Investigation, they could have cleared her husband of involvement in the James Fiske and Jay Gould manipulations of the gold market that resulted in the infamous 24 September 1869 Black Friday of the “Era of Good Stealings.” Perhaps she found some comfort in imagining a flock of canaries pursu-ing and pelting Grant’s political enemies with their droppings.

Dr. Lynn Veach Sadler, of Galloway Ridge, a former college president, is widely published in academics and creative writing and works as a writer and an editor. As Central Region Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet 2013-2015, she mentors student and adult poets.

Historical Perspectives

by Dr. Lynn Veach Sadler

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