Former POTUS Ulysses Grant Arrives In Constantinople After the San Stefano Treaty On This Date 1878

This surviving autographed letter shown from former President Ulysses S. Grant describing his 1879 stop in Constantinople offers a vivid entry point into one of the most revealing episodes of his post‑presidential world tour. After leaving office in 1877, Grant spent more than two years traveling across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, where he was consistently received as an unofficial ambassador of a rising United States. By the time he reached the Ottoman capital in early 1879, he had already met with emperors, kings, and prime ministers, and his reputation as a global statesman preceded him.

From 1877-1879 New York Herald correspondent John Russell Young traveled with the Grants, making notes that included recordings of sightseeing, high-level diplomatic meetings, and candid, intimate conversations with Grant about politics and the Civil War.  What emerged is a fascinating account published in a two volume tome titled "Around the World With General Grant" in 1879.

Young includes a recorded and poignant observation from Grant on his arrival in the great city only a few days after the signing of the San Stepano Treaty ending the Russo-Turkey [Ottoman Empire] War:

"I found the authorities in Constantinople looking and feeling very gloomy, but the appearance of a successful foe immediately outside the gates of the city did not seem to effect the population generally. In a small portion of the city is stowed away in the Mosques and public buildings, probably more than a hundred thousand refugees, men women and children who have fled to the capital before a conquering army. They are fed entirely by charity and mostly by foreigners. What is to become of them is sad to think of. Beside these many tens of thousands have been shipped to places in Asia Minor and turned loose upon the inhabitants.

The San Stephano treaty created a large, autonomous Bulgarian principality and recognized the independence of Serbia, Romania, and Montenegro, significantly reducing Ottoman influence in the Balkans. 

Grant arrived in Constantinople at a moment of profound strain for the Ottoman Empire. The Russo‑Turkish War of 1877–78 had ended only months earlier with the Treaty of San Stefano, which redrew borders and left the empire politically weakened and socially destabilized. In his letter, Grant notes the overwhelming presence of refugees—Muslims, Jews, and other displaced groups—who had fled advancing Russian forces. He toured crowded mosques and public buildings converted into makeshift shelters, observing firsthand the hunger, illness, and dependence on foreign charitable aid that defined the city’s humanitarian crisis.

Despite the turmoil, Grant received a ceremonial welcome befitting a head of state. Ottoman officials arranged receptions, military honors, and a formal audience with Sultan Abdul Hamid II, who viewed Grant’s visit as an opportunity to signal goodwill toward the United States. The Sultan presented him with an Arabian horse, a traditional diplomatic gift Grant accepted with modest reluctance. Newspapers across Europe and America covered the visit extensively, portraying Grant as a figure whose presence carried symbolic weight far beyond official diplomacy.

The letter captures Grant’s mixture of curiosity, compassion, and strategic insight, offering a rare personal window into how he understood an empire in transition and America’s expanding place in the world.

American History By The Day: March 9th

1781 — Siege of Pensacola Begins

Spanish forces under Bernardo de Gálvez launch their assault on British‑held Pensacola, a crucial Gulf Coast stronghold. The campaign weakens British influence in the region, supports the American Revolution’s southern strategy, and demonstrates how international alliances—especially Spanish intervention—shaped the war’s broader geopolitical landscape.

1841 — Supreme Court Issues the Amistad Decision

In a landmark ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court declares that the Africans aboard the Amistad were illegally enslaved and had acted in self‑defense. The decision affirms their freedom, energizes the abolitionist movement, and becomes an early test of American legal principles regarding slavery and human rights.

1862 — The Monitor and Virginia Clash in Naval History’s First Ironclad Battle

The USS Monitor and CSS Virginia meet at Hampton Roads in the first combat between ironclad warships. Although the battle ends without a clear victor, it revolutionizes naval warfare worldwide and signals the rapid decline of traditional wooden fleets during the Civil War.

1933 — Roosevelt’s Hundred Days Begin with Emergency Legislation

As the Great Depression deepens, Franklin D. Roosevelt summons Congress into special session, launching the famous Hundred Days. The administration rapidly enacts banking reforms, relief programs, and economic recovery measures, reshaping federal authority and establishing the foundation of the modern American welfare and regulatory state.

American History By The Day: March 8th

1817 — New York Stock Exchange Formally Founded
The New York Stock Exchange adopts its first formal constitution, transforming a loose association of brokers into an organized financial institution. This step helps standardize trading practices, strengthens investor confidence, and lays the foundation for the NYSE’s emergence as a central force in American economic life.
1862 — McClellan Begins the Peninsula Campaign
Union General George B. McClellan launches the Peninsula Campaign, moving the Army of the Potomac toward Richmond by water and land. Intended as a swift strike to end the Civil War, the campaign instead becomes a prolonged struggle that exposes leadership challenges and Confederate resilience.
 1917 — U.S. Senate Votes to Arm Merchant Ships
As German submarine attacks escalate during World War I, the Senate authorizes President Woodrow Wilson to arm American merchant vessels. The decision marks a significant shift toward open confrontation with Germany and accelerates the nation’s path toward entering the global conflict the following month.
1965 — First U.S. Combat Troops Arrive in Vietnam
The 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade lands at Da Nang, becoming the first official U.S. combat troops deployed to Vietnam. Their arrival signals a major escalation of American involvement, transforming the conflict from an advisory mission into a full-scale military commitment with far‑reaching consequences.

Born On This Date: March 8th, 1841

Oliver Wendell Holmes
(1841 - 1935)

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. was one of the most influential justices in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court, renowned for his sharp intellect, concise writing, and foundational contributions to American constitutional law. Born in Boston to the celebrated writer and physician Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., he grew up in an elite New England intellectual environment that shaped his disciplined, skeptical, and historically minded approach to law.

Holmes served with distinction in the Union Army during the Civil War, where he was wounded three times — experiences that profoundly influenced his later views on human conflict, humility, and the limits of certainty. After the war, he graduated from Harvard Law School and became a leading legal scholar, publishing The Common Law in 1881, a landmark work emphasizing that law evolves through experience rather than logic alone.

He served on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, eventually becoming its chief justice, before President Theodore Roosevelt appointed him to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1902. Over 29 years on the Court, Holmes became known as “The Great Dissenter,” championing judicial restraint and articulating the modern doctrine of free speech, including the famous “clear and present danger” test. He retired in 1932 at age 90 and remains a towering figure in American jurisprudence.

“Certitude leads to violence.”
— Holmes, judicial commentary

American History By The Day: March 19th

The American Revolution: Naval: On this day in 1776 the Continental Congress authorizes privateering raids on British Shipping.

The New American Nation - National:  On this day in 1824 in the case of Osborn v. Bank of the United States Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall holds that the state of Ohio cannot tax the Bank of the United States. Ohio state auditor Ralph Osborn and other state officials who had seized bank assets had been assessed damages and had appealed this earlier decision.  Marshall finds that if a agent of a state executes an unconstitutional statue, he will be personally liable for damages resulting from his enforcement of the act.  In this opinion, Marshall denies the state the protection of the 11th Amendment in such cases. 

Testing a Union - Regional:  On this day in 1860 Elizabeth Cady Stanton appears befor the New York legislature to promote the cause of women's suffrage. 

Spanish-American War - Approach:  The battleship Oregon leaves San Francisco for Key West.  The ship will play an important part in the Gulf of Mexico during the war, and the fact it will take 67 days to round Cape Horn brings to urgent attention the need for a Central American canal. 

Expanding Resourses - National:  Congress reorganizes its Committee on Rules in a successful attempt to liberate it from the firm hand of the archconservative Speaker "Uncle" Joe Cannon.  Henceforth the committee members will be elected by the House rather than apppointment by the Speaker.  The move has been untertaken by "insurgent" Republicans and Democrats after Cannon has rammed the Payne-Aldrige Tariff Bill through Congress, allowing 847 amendments which raised tariffs while withstanding the extreme pressure from the Progressives to liberalize them.  Now Cannon is bypassed since he may no longer appoint, and the Speaker is ruled ineligible for membership on this committee. 

On This Day In American History: Alice "Alse" Young Is First Person Hanged As A Witch In 1647 In The American Colonies

On this day on May 26th, 1647 in Hartford, Connecticut was the first recorded hanging of a person convicted of being a witch.  Alice "Alse"Young won't be identified as the victim until December 3rd 1904 through an article in the Hartford Courant.  In 1642 a law was passed in the Connecticut Colony making a conviction of practicing witchcraft a capital offense punishable by death.  The historical record of the colony seems to suggest the law was based on references to the King James version of the Bible: Exodus (22:18) and Leviticus (20:27) which stated, "...a man or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them." 

Alse Young had a daughter who would also be accused of being a witch in Springfield, Massachusetts three decades latter.  Though there is a record of an influenza outbreak in early 1647, especially in the town of Windsor, Connecticut there is no evidence it was related to Ms. Young or that her trial and subsequent conviction was based on any such evidence.  Not until 1750 will the offense of witchcraft disappear from the list of capital  laws in the colony.  

Anecdote: John Adams & Daniel Webster On Health

The imminent statesman Daniel Webster described in this way his last interview with our 2nd President, John Adams:  "When I was with him and conversing on the common topics of the day, someone...a friend of his, came in and made particular inquiry of his health.  The former President answered, "I inhabit a weak, frail, decayed tenement, battered by the winds and broken in upon by the storms, and, from all I can learn, the landlord does not intend to repair." 

#1711 

On This Day In American History: Lawrence Kansas Is Sacked In Prelude to Civil War

As a prelude to what was to come and the violence that would follow on this day, May 21^st, 1856 Lawrence Kansas in Douglas County is ransacked by pro-slavery forces led by its county Sheriff.  Anti-Slavery forces were counting on Kansas to be admitted as a free state as it was founded by anti-slavery settlers.  Though only one death vas recorded in the incident from the pro-slavery side and was accidental it would be a precursor to what would be historically called “Bleeding Kansas.”  The following year on September 7^th, 1857 the first of three attempts as a constitution for the state required for admittance to the Union began:  (1) the Lecompton Constitution; (2) the Leavenworth Constitution; and finally (3) the Wyandotte Constitution.  It would not be until January 21, 1861 when the despised President James Buchanan by free-state settlers would sign the bill making Kansas the 34^th state as the prospects of a Civil War hovered over the horizon. 

Truman's Conscience American History Blogmanac Mission Statement

Welcome to Truman’s Conscience American History Blogmanac.  As a public school teacher that has taught World & American history for the past 14 years I have been an off and on again custodian of this small humble effort to share my all consuming love for the historical arc of the United States.  I am forever drawn to its promise and call for every citizen to contribute to the American community to further the ideals called for in it’s Declaration of Independence and Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.  This coming academic year I will be starting my 15^th year and that drive to consume myself in passing of that love to my students will take on a fresh effort as it does every year with the promise of  young minds open to learning just what the promise of the United States of America is historically, politically, social, and economically.

The most admired American historical figure for me is the brother of our 35^th President, Senator Robert F. Kennedy.  I was a 13 year old high school student the year he was assassinated.  I remember to this day how the news affected my mother as she awakened me shortly after midnight of June 5^th, 1968.  She was visibly upset and crying telling me to go watch the news coverage of the assassination attempt as it was a point in our history I should never forget.  She talked to me later that morning about the loss she felt after the loss first of his brother, John F. Kennedy in 1963 and now Senator Robert Kennedy who she felt was so full of promise and hope.  My father, who was away on an overseas cruise in the navy, related to me the very same feelings of disappointment and a feeling that our country was so much less without him.  My father passed on his sense of love for his country and the promise its arc of history gave us.

 

I read a speech by RFK in my college years where he once talked of that promise and the light our nation’s ideals, though woefully unrealized, offered to not only its citizens but to the rest of the world as well.  He felt it was his duty to be one of the many custodians to that promise and light our country offered and gave his life for that belief.  My blog of American History is a reflection of that custodianship, though a small and humble one.  This is an invitation to join me as we explore where we have been, our mistakes, and the things we have done right to further what Jefferson called for to guarantee every citizen no matter what their station in life an, “….unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  Come join in us.

 

American History Blogmanac will be here.

Ulysses S. Grant 3 Day Mini-Series Event History.com

Just saw an ad on MSNBC for a History.com three night special event on Ulysses S. Grant our 18^th President and General of the Union Army that literally saved the country.  Over the past few years there seems to be a shift in the perspective of Grant in the academic community.  This ‘revisionist’ look is taking him in as more of a heavyweight than he was essentially given credit for.  I’m really looking forward to it as I am just two years past my reading of William S. McFeely’s Pulitzer Prize winning biography on Ulysses S. Grant. McFeely passed away late last year and I understand that Leonardo DiCaprio is the executive producer of the mini-series.  I’ll review the series as it runs each night here at Truman’s Conscience American History Blogmanac.  More updates on the series as I run across it as so far all I know is it starts on Memorial Day evening, Monday, May 25^th.