[vetvetdoug]

The Whitfield Plantation was razed along with the rest of the town to outfit the whims of Grant's wife. There is ample documentation of her taking the furniture to Memphis and shipping it back to Galena. The Confederate Cavalry stopped her and commented and thought she was running from the Union taking her treasures and that she was the ugliest woman many of them had ever seen. The Cavalry later found out that the woman had been Grant's wife. The Whitfields petitioned after the war to have their possessions returned to no avail. Looks like the effort to free the slaves also was to free we Southerners of our furniture.

[Non-Sequitur]

There is ample documentation of her taking the furniture to Memphis and shipping it back to Galena.

And where does this ample documentation reside? Grant's memoirs don't mention it. Mrs. Grant's memoirs don't mention being captured by Rebel soldiers. There are letters Grant wrote to Julia during the Corinth campaign, so she seems to have been back home in St. Louis during the period in question. So I'm interested in learning more on this one incident which seems to have been overlooked by every historian I'm aware of.